bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Performance Analysis and Models of Web Traffic
Authors: Pouzols Federico Montesino , Barros Angel Barriga , Lopez Diego R. , Sánchez-Solano Santiago
Published: May 2010

The Internet and, more specifically, Web-based applications now provide the first-ever global, easy-to-use, ubiquitous and economical communications channel. Most companies have already automated their operations to some extent, which enhances their ability to interact with other companies electronically. With the advent of Web services, the interaction between companies becomes easier and more transparent (Khalaf, Curbera, Nagy, Tai, Mukhi, & Duftler, 2005). Web-based technologies are extensively employed and support core components of virtual and networked organizations. Many of them, including for instance Web-based communities, heavily rely on Web traffic. Additionally, Web technologies play a central role in the technologies for supporting industrial virtual enterprises (VE) being developed by the National Industrial Information Infrastructure Protocols Consortium (NIIIP). Thus, modelling and analysis techniques for Web traffic become important tools for performance analysis of virtual organizations (Malhotra, 2000; Foster, Kesselman, & Tuecke, 2001). This article overviews current models of Web traffic as well as performance analysis of Web-based systems.
Performance Analysis of Peer-to-Peer Traffic
Authors: Pouzols Federico Montesino , Barros Angel Barriga , Lopez Diego R. , Sánchez-Solano Santiago
Published: May 2010

Peer-to-peer (P2P) networks have recently emerged as an attractive solution to enable large-scale content distribution without requiring major infrastructure investments. Recent developments have led to a significant maturity increase of peer-to-peer technologies, which are currently available as tools for performing core tasks in virtual and networked organizations.
Pervasive and Grid Computing Merging
Authors: Oliveira Loreno , Loureiro Emerson , Almeida Hyggo , Perkusich Angelo
Published: May 2010

Nowadays, we are experiencing an increasing use of mobile and embedded devices. These devices, aided by the emergence of new wireless technologies and software paradigms, among other technological conquests, are providing means to accomplish the vision of a new era in computer science. In this vision, the way we create and use computational systems changes drastically for a model where computers loose their “computer appearance.” Their sizes were reduced, cables were substituted by wireless connections, and they are becoming part of everyday objects, such as clothes, automobiles, and domestic equipments.
Process Management Methodology
Authors: Martins Paula Ventura , da Silva Alberto Rodrigues
Published: May 2010

As organizations (involved or not in virtual organizations [VOs]) try to define their processes, they also recognize the need for continuous software process improvement (SPI) in order to improve the quality and productivity of products and to keep up their competitiveness. Although efforts have been made, organizations continue without success in achieving the intended goals. Recognizing that the most critical problems occurs during project activities, we strongly believe that both development process and project alignment can be the best practice to get better project results and improve organizations’ development processes.
Public Grid Computing Projects Survey and Analysis
Authors: Taylor Nolan J.
Published: May 2010

Personal computer performance has increased dramatically over the past decade. So powerful are these machines that they complete most required tasks with time to spare. This spare time is spent in an idle loop, waiting for the next task. A number of organizations have launched public grid computing projects (i.e., using Internet-enabled personal computers) to capture these “lost” CPU cycles via specialized software that effectively aggregates the power of separate systems into a virtual computer. In many respects, computing grids are analogous to electrical power grids (Robb, 2002). Plugging in an electrical power-consuming device taps into the unused capacity of an entire system of power stations and not necessarily the one closest generation station. In computing grids, the individual computers make up a “grid” of processing power stations and the PC owners the associated virtual community.
Purchasing as an Integrated Competence
Authors: Morales Erla M. , García Francisco J. , Barrón Ángela
Published: May 2010

Nowadays, firms face a complex and changing business environment. Under the pressure to increase competitiveness, many firms have realised that purchasing decisions affect more than the material flow along the value chain. The increasing emphasis on reduced cost and improved quality, on faster product development through cross-functional teams, and on closer buyersupplier relationship, are changing their perception of purchasing.
QoS Provisioning Framework in IP-Based VPN
Authors: Stojanovic Mirjana D. , Acimovic-Raspopovic Vladanka S.
Published: May 2010

A virtual private network (VPN) can be broadly defined as a “restricted communication between a set of sites, making use of a backbone that is shared with other traffic not belonging to that communication” (Carugi & De Clercq, 2004, p.116). Since the late nineties, with pervasive deployment of the Internet protocol (IP) technology in corporate networks, IP-based VPNs, in several forms and based on different network technologies, have become a promising solution for a wide range of corporate network services.
Quality Learning Objective in Instructional Design
Authors: Morales Erla M. , García Francisco J. , Barrón Ángela
Published: May 2010

Due to continuous technological advancements, the Web offers diverse applications for e-learning. However, in practice, many times technological development is considered synonymous with improved education. It is very important to take into account the appropriate use of Web development in order to promote knowledge acquisition with a proper selection, delivery and construction of information.
Service-Oriented Architecture for Business Management
Authors: Leyking Katrina , Ziemann Jörg
Published: May 2010

During the last two decades, many enterprises have put business processes in the focus of their organizational strategies both for internal and collaborative business activities. Business process models provide the IT department with a semiformal, business-driven requirements basis for implementing business strategy into information systems (Scheer, 1999). However, despite notable progress in integration technologies such as workflow management systems (WMS) and enterprise application integration (EAI) systems, executing enterprise applications along a business process has remained the challenge of any universal business process management (BPM) approach. The most recent technology paradigm of service-oriented architecture (SOA) is expected to accomplish seamless and flexible business process automation (Krafzig, Banke, & Slama, 2005). The vision of loosely coupled services, that execute business activities across heterogeneous, distributed software systems via the Internet, captivates by the extent of flexibility and responsiveness given to business management. Thus, service-oriented computing represents more than a concept of software engineering. It is rather considered to be the ultimate driver for a complete business reformation, finally bridging the gap between business strategy and technological infrastructure. Beyond these visionary perspectives, the effects of service-orientation on BPM methods and techniques will be manifold and challenging both for research and practice.
Towards a Systematic Method for Solutions Architecting
Authors: Shan Tony C. , Hua Winnie W.
Published: May 2010

Solutions architecting method (SAM) is defined as a methodical approach to dealing with the architecture complexity of enterprise information systems in IT solution designs. This comprehensive method consists of eight interconnected modules: framework for e-business architecture and technology, prescriptive artineering procedure, technology architecture planning, architecture stack and perspectives, rapid architecting process, architecture readiness maturity, generic application platform, and Tao of IT development & engineering. Collectively, these modules form a holistic discipline guiding the process of developing architected solutions in an enterprise computing environment. Several unconventional concepts and thinking styles are introduced in this overarching structure. This systematic method has been customized and adapted to be extensively applied in one form or another to develop various IT solutions across a broad range of industrial sectors. Reference solutions are presented and articulated to illustrate the exemplary implementations of some key elements in SAM. Best practice and lessons learned as well as future trends are discussed in the context.
Design and Analysis of Decision Support Systems
Authors: Wang John , Yao James , Chen Qiyang , Xing Ruben
Published: May 2010

Since their creation in the early 1960’s, decision support systems (DSSs) have evolved over the past 4 decades and continue to do so today. Although DSSs have grown substantially since its inception, improvements still need to be made. New technology has emerged and will continue to do so and, consequently, DSSs need to keep pace with it. Also, knowledge needs to play a bigger role in the form of decision making. We first discuss design and analysis methods/techniques/issues related to DSSs. Then, the three possible waysto enhance DSSs will be explored.
Access Security in UMTS and IMS
Authors: Zhang Yan , Chen Yifan , Yu Rong , Leng Supeng , Ning Huansheng , Jiang Tao
Published: May 2010

Motivated by the requirements for higher data rate, richer multimedia services, and broader radio range wireless mobile networks are currently in the stage evolving from the second-generation (2G), for example, global system for mobile communications (GSM), into the era of third-generation (3G) or beyond 3G or fourth-generation (4G). Universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS) is the natural successor of the current popular GSM (http://www.3gpp.org) code division multiple access 2000 (CDMA2000) is the next generation version for the CDMA-95, which is predominantly deployed in North America and North Korea. Time division-sychrononous CDMA (TD-SCDMA) is in the framework of 3rd generation partnership project 2 (3GPP2) and is expected to be one of the principle wireless technologies employed in China in the future (http://www.3gpp.org; 3G TS 35.206). It is envisioned that each of three standards in the framework of international mobile telecommunications- 2000 (IMT-2000) will play a significant role in the future due to the backward compatibility, investment, maintenance cost, and even politics.
A Novel Secure Video Surveillance System Over Wireless Ad Hoc Networks
Authors: Yin Hao , Lin Chuang , Chen Zhijia , Min Geyong
Published: May 2010

The integration of wireless communication and embedded video systems is a demanding and interesting topic which has attracted significant research efforts from the community of telecommunication. This chapter discusses the challenging issues in wireless video surveillance and presents the detailed design for a novel highly-secure video surveillance system over ad hoc wireless networks. To this end, we explore the state-of-the-art cross domains of wireless communication, video processing, embedded systems, and security. Moreover, a new media-dependent video encryption scheme, including a reliable data embedding technique and real-time video encryption algorithm, is proposed and implemented to enable the system to work properly and efficiently in an open and insecure wireless environment. Extensive experiments are conducted to demonstrate the advantages of the new systems, including high security guarantee and robustness. The chapter would serve as a good reference for solving the challenging issues in wireless multimedia and bring new insights on the interaction of different technologies within the cross application domain.
Innovations from Business Process Models
Authors: Perotti James
Published: May 2010

This chapter asserts that process models are an excellent platform for a continuous stream of innovations. Such models can illuminate opportunities for new products and services and for new ways of distributing products and services. These dynamic models make it possible to coordinate the efforts of multiple business partners in order to better serve customers with quality, speed, and responsiveness to their needs. There is increasing evidence that businesses using these models to discover opportunities have achieved a sustainable advantage over their competitors.
A Multi-Agent System for Handling Adaptive E-Services
Authors: De Meo Pasquale , Quattrone Giovanni , Terracina Giorgio , Ursino Domenico
Published: May 2010

An Electronic-Service (E-Service) can be defined as a collection of network-resident software programs that collaborate for supporting users in both accessing and selecting data and services of their interest present in a provider site. Examples of e-services are e-commerce, e-learning, e-government, e-recruitment and e-health applications. E-Services are undoubtely one of the engines presently supporting the Internet Revolution. Indeed, nowadays, a large number and a great variety of providers offer their services also or exclusively via the Internet.
Intellectual Property Protection in Software Enterprises
Authors: Kettunen Juha
Published: May 2010

Enterprises are facing challenges in protecting their intellectual property (IP) due to the rapid technological changes, shortened lifecycles, and the intangibility of products. The IP protection granted by the national intellectual property rights (IPRs) legislation does not correspond very well with the needs of enterprises operating in a rapidly changing business environment (Andersen & Striukova, 2001; Bechina, 2006). The most valuable assets of knowledge intensive enterprises are the knowledge and skills embodied in human capital, which cannot be protected using the traditional and formal IP protection (Coleman & Fishlock, 1999; Kitching & Blackburn, 1998; Miles, Andersen, Boden, & Howells, 2000). The challenges for IP protection in the context of knowledge intensive small enterprises lie in creating business environments that support the knowledge sharing and creation, innovativeness, and IP protection. In particular, the challenges are related to the identification of such formal and informal protection methods which improve the business process. The aim of knowledge management is to stimulate innovation and create knowledge. Knowledge management allows knowledge with critical and strategic characteristics in an enterprise to be located, formalised, shared, enhanced, and developed. The purpose of this study on information security management is to explore how small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) protect their IP in software business. This study investigates how strategic IP protection supports the knowledge sharing and innovation creation and explores the critical phases of IP protection in small software enterprises. This study also describes and develops management, using the approach of knowledge management and applying the spiral of knowledge creation in software development. The article is organised as follows. The IP protection of enterprises operating in software development is introduced in the background section. The main attention of the article concentrates on IP protection, which is analysed using the framework of knowledge management. IP protection is investigated in the various phases of knowledge creation in software development. Thereafter some future trends are described. Finally, the results of the study are summarised and discussed in the concluding section.
Critical Trends, Tools, and Issues in Telecommunications
Authors: Nugent John H. , Gordon David
Published: May 2010

As in all industries, in order to win in a market and set an appropriate strategy, it is important to know as much as possible about that market and have at one’s disposal tools that will provide insight and competitive advantage when properly, collectively, consistently, and timely applied. This paper presents a series of powerful, but easy to use and understand, analytical and operational tools that deliver insight and competitive advantage to the telecommunications professional. Moreover, it should be stated that as with all good tools, the tools and models as presented herein transition across industry lines and are not limited to the telecommunications industry alone.
Customer Relationship Management and Knowledge Discovery in Database
Authors: Bang Jounghae , Dholakiam Nikhilesh , Hamel Lutz , Shin Seung-Kyoon
Published: May 2010

Customer relationships are increasingly central to business success (Kotler, 1997; Reichheld & Sasser, 1990). Acquiring new customers is five to seven times costlier than retaining existing customers (Kotler, 1997). Simply by reducing customer defections by 5%, a company can improve profits by 25% to 85% (Reichheld & Sasser, 1990). Relationship marketing—getting to know customers intimately by understanding their preferences—has emerged as a key business strategy for customer retention (Dyche, 2002). Internet and related technologies offer amazing possibilities for creating and sustaining ideal customer relationships (Goodhue, Wixom, & Watson, 2002; Ives, 1990; Moorman, Zaltman, & Deshpande, 1992). Internet is not only an important and convenient new channel for promotion, transactions, and business process coordination; it is also a source of customer data (Shaw, Subramaniam, Tan, & Welge, 2001). Huge customer data warehouses are being created using advanced database technologies (Fayyad, Piatetsky- Shapiro, & Smyth, 1996). Customer data warehouses by themselves offer no competitive advantages: insightful customer knowledge must be extracted from such data (Kim, Kim, & Lee, 2002). Valuable marketing insights about customer characteristics and their purchase patterns, however, are often hidden and untapped (Shaw et al., 2001). Data mining and knowledge discovery in databases (KDD) facilitate extraction of valuable knowledge from rapidly growing volumes of data (Mackinnon, 1999; Fayyad et al., 1996). This article provides a brief review of customer relationship issues. The article focuses on: (1) customer relationship management (CRM) technologies, (2) KDD techniques, and (3) Key CRM-KDD linkages in terms of relationship marketing. The article concludes with the observations about the state-of-the-art and future directions.
Effectiveness of Web Services
Authors: Karoui Kamel , Ftima Fakher Ben
Published: May 2010

With the development of the Internet, the number of people buying, selling, and performing transactions is expected to increase at a phenomenal rate. The emergence of e-commerce applications has resulted in new net-centric business models. This has created a need for new ways of structuring applications to provide cost-effective and scalable models. Mobile Agents (MA) systems are seen as a promising paradigm for the design and implementation of distributed applications, including e-commerce. MA are also useful in applications requiring distributed information retrieval because they move the location of execution closer to the data to be processed. While MA have generated considerable excitement among the research community, they have not been applied into a significant number of real applications. Web services (WS) are emerging as a dominant paradigm for constructing distributed business applications and enabling enterprise-wide interoperability. A critical factor to the overall utility of WS is a scalable, flexible and robust discovery mechanism; an application can be built by integrating multiple services together to make a more efficient service. WS represent a major development in the e-commerce sector. They enable companies to capitalize on their existing architecture by making their application services accessible via the Internet. The application of MA and WS technologies to e-commerce will provide a new way to conduct business-to-business (B2B), business-to-consumer (B2C), and consumer-to-consumer transactions (C2C) and facilitate the communication between heterogeneous environments. In this article, we first focus on these two technologies of actuality and show their integration in an e-commerce system. Second, we present different kinds of interaction between MA and WS and study their effect on application performance. We also study an example that illustrates an e-commerce system including three categories of transactions: -Shopping transactions: a customer delegates one MA for research and purchase of articles online. The MA will interact with available WS to find the article and its best price. -Salesman transactions: to valorize their products, WS will invoke MA to make publicity for the customers. -Auction transactions: for this type of transaction, a MA (respectively a WS) can sell and buy a product from/to others MA (WS) by auction. Finally, we conclude with a discussion on our inferences and their implications. This work is structured as follows: Section “background” reviews the notions of e-commerce system, WS and MA paradigms. Section “Web services and mobile agents’ technologies on e-commerce system” presents the integration of these two paradigms on the e-commerce system. In section “performance evaluation,” we evaluate the performances of our approach and we study an illustrated example in the section “a case study.” The section “future trends” presents our future perspectives and we end this work with the “conclusion” in the last section.
Enterprise Resource Planning and Integration
Authors: Kurbel Karl
Published: May 2010

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is a state-of-the-art approach to running organizations with the help of comprehensive information systems, providing support for key business processes and more general, for electronic business (e-business). ERP has evolved from earlier approaches, in particular, materials requirement planning (MRP) and manufacturing resource planning (called MRP II) in the 1980s. The focus of MRP and MRP II was on manufacturing firms. The essential problem that MRP attacked was to determine suitable quantities of all parts and materials needed to produce a given master production schedule (also called a “production program”), plus the dates and times when those quantities had to be available. Application packages for MRP have been available from the 1960s on. In the beginning, they were mostly provided by hardware vendors like IBM, Honeywell Bull, Digital Equipment, Siemens, etc. MRP was later expanded to closed-loop MRP to include capacity planning, shop floor control, and purchasing, because as Oliver Wight (1884) puts it: “Knowing what material was needed was fine, but if the capacity wasn’t available, the proper material couldn’t be produced” (p. 48). The next step in the evolution was MRP II (manufacturing resource planning). According to the father of MRP II, Oliver Wight, top management involvement in the planning is indispensable. Therefore, MRP II expands closed-loop MRP “to include the financial numbers that management needs to run the business and a simulation capability” (Wight, 1984, p. 54). Enterprise resource planning (ERP) has its roots in the earlier MRP II concepts, but it extends those concepts substantially into two directions. ERP takes into account that other types of enterprises than those producing physical goods need comprehensive information system (IS) support as well, and even in the manufacturing industry, there are more areas than those directly related to the production of goods that are critical for the success of a business.
Implementation of ERP in Human Resource Management
Authors: Li Zhang , Dan Wang , Lei Chang
Published: May 2010

In 1999, Peter Drucker said: “A new Information Revolution is well under way. It is not a revolution in technology, machinery, techniques, software or speed. It is a revolution in concepts.” As a result of information technology (IT) innovation and reorganization, enterprise resource planning (ERP) was proposed by the Gartner Group in the early 1990s. It is a successor to manufacturing resource planning (MRP II) and attempts to unify all departmental systems together into a single, integrated software program that runs off a single database so that the various departments can more easily share information and communicate with each other (Koch, 2002). Over 60% of the U.S Fortune 500 had adopted ERP by 2000 (Kumar, & Hillegersberg, 2000; Siau, 2004), and it was projected that organizations’ total spending on ERP adoptions was an estimated $72.63 billion in 2002 (Al-Marshari, 2002). Many scholars have recognized the importance of people in organizations, and this viewpoint is the central focus of the human resource management (HRM) perspective (Pfeffer, 1995). In this perspective, HRM has the potential to be one of the key components of overall enterprise strategy. Additionally, HRM may provide significant competitive advantage opportunities when they are used to create a unique (i.e., difficult to imitate) organizational culture that institutionalizes organizational competencies throughout the organization (Bowen & Ostroff, 2004). Typically, an ERP system supports HRM, operation and logistics, finance, and sales and marketing functions (Davenport, 1998) (see Figure 1). But the early development stage of ERP in enterprises was all along with the center of production and sales course. Until recently, research has empirically supported the positive relationship between corporate financial performance and HRM function, and managers have also realized that HRM can deliver organizational excellence and competitive advantage for enterprises (Boudreau & Ramstad, 1997; Huselid, 1995; Wright, McMahan, Snell, & Gerhart, 2001). The HRM module was introduced into ERP, forming a highly integrated and efficient resource system with the other function modules of ERP. However, there are still many HRM-related problems that may result in the failure of ERP projects arising. So, there have been regular appeals to scholars for more research about the implementation of ERP systems in the HRM perspective in the last few years (Barrett & Mayson, 2006). This article introduces the functions of an HRM module in ERP systems from the fields of human resource planning, recruitment management, training management, time management, performance management, compensation management, and business trip arrangement. Then it analyzes five HRM-related problems that may block the enterprises from implementing ERP successfully, and it provides reasonable recommendations. Finally, the article discusses future trends and suggests emerging research opportunities within the domain of the topic.
Information Resources Development in China
Authors: Lai Maosheng , Fu Xin , Zhang Liyang , Wang Lin
Published: May 2010

In its several thousand years of social progress, China has put continuous effort into cultural development, which to a certain extent contributed to the exploitation and utilization of information resources. This article reviews the history and present situation of China’s information resources development (IRD), with the focus on some IRD projects launched since the mid-1990s. The specific projects that will be introduced include the China Academic Library and Information System, the China Digital Library Project, the construction of the China National Science and Technology Library, the China Online Government Project, and the construction of the National Institute for Information Resources Management. The goal of each project is described and its initial impact is discussed.
Issues in Using Web-Based Course Resources
Authors: Nantz Karen S. , Garrett Norman A.
Published: May 2010

Education over the Internet is going to be so big it is going to make e-mail usage look like a rounding error. John Chambers, Cisco Systems, New York Times, November 17, 1990 Web-based courses (Mesher, 1999) are defined as those where the entire course is taken on the Internet. In some courses, there may be an initial meeting for orientation. Proctored exams may also be given, either from the source of the Web-based course or off-site at a testing facility. The Internet-based course becomes a virtual classroom with a syllabus, course materials, chat space, discussion list, and e-mail services (Resmer, 1999). Navarro (2000) provides a further definition: a fully interactive, multimedia approach. Current figures indicate that 12% of Internet users in the United States use the Internet to take an online course for credit toward a degree of some kind (Horrigan, 2006). That number is indicative of the rapid proliferation of online courses over the past several years. The Web-enhanced course is a blend with the components of the traditional class while making some course materials available on a Web site, such as course syllabi, assignments, data files, and test reviews. Additional elements of a Web-enhanced course can include online testing, a course listserver, instructor-student e-mail, collaborative activities using RSS feeds and related technologies, and other activities on the Internet. One of the biggest concerns about Web-based courses is that users will become socially isolated. The Pew Internet and America Life Project found that online communities provide a vibrant social community (Horrigan, Rainie, & Fox, 2001). Clearly, students are not concerned or feel that other benefits outweigh the potential drawbacks. According to government research (Waits and Lewis, 2003), during the 2000-2001 academic year alone, an estimated 118,100 different credit courses were offered via distance education (with the bulk of that using Internet-based methods) by 2- and 4-year institutions in the United States. Over 3 million students were registered in these courses. Navarro (2000) suggests that faculty members are far more likely to start by incorporating Internet components into a traditional course rather than directly offering Web-based courses. These Web-enhanced courses might be considered the transition phase to the new paradigm of Internet-based courses. Rich learning environments are being created, with a shift from single tools to the use of multiple online tools, both to enhance traditional courses and to better facilitate online courses (Teles, 2002).
Knowledge Sharing Tools for IT Project Management
Authors: Petter Stacie , Vaishnavi Vijay , Mathiassen Lars
Published: May 2010

Information technology (IT) project disasters make worldwide headlines, and billions of dollars have been lost due to poor project implementations. The Standish Group, a research advisory firm, reports that only one-third of the over 13,500 IT projects evaluated in 2003 were successful, and half of the reported IT projects were classified as challenged, meaning they experienced cost and budget overruns (Larkowski, 2003). While the state of IT project management is improving, organizations must explore ways to reduce unnecessary spending that occurs because of failures, cost and schedule overruns on IT projects. One possibility is to improve knowledge sharing to avoid repeating mistakes and to build on successes from the past.
The Role of E-Services in the Library Virtualization Process
Authors: Scupola Ada
Published: May 2010

The networked ICT technologies (such as the Internet) are having a dramatic effect on how services and especially knowledge services are innovated, designed, produced and distributed. In addition ICT-networks such as the Internet have created the basis for the development of new types of services. E-services are defined here as services that are produced, provided and/or consumed through the use of ICT-networks such as for example Internet-based systems and mobile solutions. E-services can be used by both consumers and businesses, and can be accessed via a wide range of information appliances (Hoffman, 2003, p.53). E-services include also selling of physical goods on the Internet as for example an airline ticket that is purchased online, but delivered by surface mail to the buyers or government services offered on the Internet or e-government. There are three main characteristics of e-services: • The service is accessible across the Internet or other electronic networks • The service is consumed by a person across the Internet or other electronic networks • There might be a fee that the consumer pays the provider for using the e-service, but that might not always be the case as for example in some e-services offered by the government. Normally the production, provision or consumption of a service requires the interaction between the service provider and the user of the service. Traditionally this has been based on personal interactions, most often face-to-face interactions. In e-services, the production, consumption and/or provision of services takes place through the intermediation of an ICT-network such as Internet-based systems or mobile solutions. Examples of e-services are e-banking, e-library services, e-publishing, airline tickets, e-government, information and location services. The advent of e-commerce and e-services has raised a number of challenges for knowledge intensive service organizations such as consulting companies, libraries and publishers, as well as for companies selling physical goods. The purpose of this study is to investigate the challenges that e-services are posing and will pose for research or academic libraries. The study has focused on the issues that Roskilde University Library (RUB) has had to deal with as a result of e-services adoption as well as the future challenges that e-services provide for RUB. The study is based on a number of interviews with RUB management, other secondary material provided by Roskilde University library and information provided on the Web page.
Quality Assessment of Digital Services in E-Government with a Case Study in an Italian Region
Authors: Corradini Flavio
Published: May 2010

The quality assessment of e-government services is more and more emerging as a key issue within public administrations. Ensuring a proper quality of digital services is mandatory to satisfy citizens and firms’ needs and to accept the use of ICT in our lives. We propose a methodology for quality assessment that takes e-government quality features into account. We also define a reference model to provide a single quality value starting from a set of service parameters. To validate our approach we assess the goodness of the ‘TecUt’ shared services management system.
Adaptive IT Architecture as a Catalyst for Network Capability in Government
Authors: Ramanathan Jay
Published: May 2010

Public institutions that are organized in hierarchies find it difficult to address crisis or other unique requirements that demand networked solutions. This chapter first provides a prescriptive transactionbased method for achieving such networking organizations with information technologies (IT) and then discusses how the organization becomes more effective in non-routine responses to citizen requests. We illustrate how the prescriptive transaction-based enterprise architecture1 framework2 was used for decision-making in a multi-year interdisciplinary industry-university collaboration resulting in a successful 311 system.
Can Virtual Networks Encourage Knowledge Absorptive Capacity?
Authors: Camison Cesar
Published: May 2010

Organisations are finding it more difficult to keep abreast with the pace of change. The continuous rise of business opportunities and the increase in global competition demands a capability to acquire, assimilate, transform and apply external critical knowledge to renew and reconfigure existing capabilities and knowledge, and to innovate. Developing this dynamic capability requires, in turn, new proactive Knowledge Management tools and new organisational forms. This chapter presents a framework in which virtual networks constitute more flexible new organisational structures to absorb and create knowledge. It also describes how embeddedness in such a network can affect most of the factors identified as antecedents of absorptive capacity. In addition, it evidences the important role of the firm’s relational capabilities in taking advantage of the relevant business information, knowledge, resources, technologies and capabilities circulating in the virtual networks.
Visualizing Knowledge Networks and Flows to Enhance Organizational Metacognition in Virtual Organizations
Authors: Nissen Mark E.
Published: May 2010

In today’s increasingly networked world of organizational practice, information and computer technologies are enabling people and organizations to collaborate ever more virtually (i.e., even when distributed temporally and geographically). Despite the clear and many advantages enabled by the virtual organization, this increasingly common virtual organizational form is very demanding in terms of Knowledge Management. The key problem is that many otherwise knowledgeable people and organizations are not fully aware of their knowledge networks, and even more problematic, they are not aware that they are not aware. Thus organizational metacognition (e.g., an organization knowing what it knows) offers the potential to elucidate the key issues associated with knowledge networking in the virtual organization. The research described in this chapter builds upon a stream of work to understand and harness dynamic knowledge and organization for competitive advantage, with a particular emphasis upon knowledge networks and flows in the virtual organizational context.
Converged Networks and Seamless Mobility
Authors: Ioannidis Anthony , Kritsotakis Jiorgis
Published: May 2010

Convergence in the communication industry is a reality – networks are being integrated, digital devices are being unified, and organizations seeking to take advantage of the breadth of opportunities are moving into neighboring industries. These ground-shifting changes have precipitated the emergence of what has come to be known as the Next Generation Network (NGN). Bridging the fixed and mobile divide, that enables the “always connected lifestyle”, where all electronic equipment can be connected to each other in a seamless manner, and users access a wide range of services free of any time, location, and device constraints, stands out as the most notable manifestation of an NGN proposition. This is also known as the Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC). Given the general confusion and uncertainty that characterizes the rapidly integrated communications industry, this paper seeks to assess whether an integrated bundled network can itself become the gateway for the efficient delivery of multimedia applications and services. Applying the Resource Based View (RBV) theory, on the recent developments in the FMC space, this paper concurs with industry-wide skepticism and provides guidelines for the fulfillment of the NGN promise.
Service Innovation Management
Authors: Kitsios Fotis C.
Published: May 2010

Nowadays that the world depends more and more in services, there is no issue more fundamental for service organizations than understanding the factors that separate success from failure in new service development. The new service process is not so well studied and researched as new product development, and as a result the failure rate is high. However in order to survive in the market place, service organisations need to make the most of all of their resources in order to introduce new services to market ahead of the competition. The purpose of this exploratory study is to investigate the factors that have impact on success and failure in new service development (NSD) in the telecommunication (TLC) sector. The results of the exploratory study are summarized in a conceptual model for further research.
Making the Case for Critical Realism
Authors: Dobson Phillip
Published: May 2010

This chapter seeks to address the dearth of practical examples of research in the area by proposing that critical realism be adopted as the underlying research philosophy for enterprise systems evaluation. We address some of the implications of adopting such an approach by discussing the evaluation and implementation of a number of automated performance measurement systems (APMS). Such systems are a recent evolution within the context of enterprise information systems. They collect operational data from integrated systems to generate values for key performance indicators, which are delivered directly to senior management. The creation and delivery of these data are fully automated, precluding manual intervention by middle or line management. Whilst these systems appear to be a logical progression in the exploitation of the available rich, real-time data, the statistics for APMS projects are disappointing. An understanding of the reasons is elusive and little researched. We describe how critical realism can provide a useful “underlabourer” for such research, by “clearing the ground a little ... removing some of the rubbish that lies in the way of knowledge” (Locke, 1894, p. 14). The implications of such an underlabouring role are investigated. Whilst the research is still underway, the article indicates how a critical realist foundation is assisting the research process.
The Knowledge Sharing Model
Authors: Widén-Wulff Gunilla , Suomi Reima
Published: May 2010

This chapter works out a method on how information resources in organizations can be turned into a knowledge sharing (KS) information culture, which can further feed business success. This process is complicated, and the value chain can be broken in many places. In this study this process is viewed in the light of resource-based theory. A KS-model is developed where the hard information resources of time, people and computers are defined. When wisely used, these make communication a core competence for the company. As the soft information resources are added, that is the intellectual capital, KS, and willingness to learn, a knowledge sharing culture is developed, which feeds business success. This model is empirically discussed through a case study of fifteen Finnish insurance companies. The overall KS capability of a company corresponds positively to the different dimensions applied in the model. KS is an interactive process where organizations must work on both hard information resources, the basic cornerstones of any knowledge sharing, and makes constant investment into soft information resources, learning, intellectual capital and process design in order to manage their information resources effectively.
The Effects of System Features, Perceived Risk and Benefit, and Customer Characteristics on Online Bill Paying
Authors: He Fang
Published: May 2010

Along with the exponential increase in online business transactions, the online payment system has gained in popularity because vendors and creditors realize its growing importance as a foundation to improve their information infrastructure and to achieve “paperless” operating efficiency.However, due to per se different characteristics among customers and Web-systems, both sides’ perspectives and technology factors could cause a significant level of variation in customers’ acceptance of online payment methods. Our research involving 148 subjects who participated in a field survey, examined the impact of a series of possible decision factors, including perceived risk, perceived benefits, vendor’s system features, and customers’ characteristics, on the intention to use an online payment system by customers. The results suggest that vendors/creditors should:one, pay particular attention to improving the security and the ease-of-use of their transaction network; and two, focus on adding necessary option features, such as recurring automatic deductions, so that they can speed up the transformation process and encourage customers to switch to using online payment methods.
Balancing Business, Technology, and Global Expertise
Authors: Rao N. Raghavendra
Published: May 2010

Recent changes in global economy have been focusing on the need for a proactive approach in the International Financial Services sector. Integrating business, the knowledge of experts, and emerging technologies are the basic components for proactive approach. The activities related to financial services are generally a complex process. The requirements for a global market need to be analyzed from various risks in business. Now organizations have to understand the value of sharing resources such as human centered assets, physical assets and the components of Information communication technology, to gain competitive advantage in virtual environment. The concept of virtual organization plays an important role in the present globalization scenario. All the virtual organizations will share the common resources for computing power and data across the globe. Grid and mobile computing concepts will be required to be integrated in the present global market.
Convergence of the Internet and Telecommunications
Authors: Meisel John B. , Sullivan Timothy S.
Published: May 2010

The local exchange telephone market is no longer considered to be a natural monopoly as a result of technological advancements. In particular, the power, versatility, and adaptability of digital technology has enabled traditional telecommunications companies to transition their network architecture from one based on copper wires and circuit switches dedicated to the provision of high quality transmission of point-to-point voice signals to a multi-faceted, general network based on fiber optic cables and packet switches capable of providing an array of voice, data, and video services. A network layers model is introduced to conceptualize the process of convergence to the Internet model. Convergence is fundamentally changing the nature of what it means to be a telecommunications company and promises to alter the market structure of many voice, data, and video markets. Convergence has pitted wireline telecommunications companies in a fierce rivalry with cable companies for voice, data, and, increasingly, video services. More generally, this research provides a framework to explain the convergence of communications networks and identifies and analyzes key issues that confront public policymakers. One key competition issue, termed network neutrality, addresses the concern that the evolving broadband network architecture will enable network providers to favor the provider’s services or affiliated services at the expense of independent rivals.
Mixing and Matching Organizational Network Legitimacy Practices to China's Telecommunication Market
Authors: Low Brian , Johnston Wesley J.
Published: May 2010

Despite massive investment, few foreign firms doing business in China’s telecommunication sector can claim success. Such failures can be explained by their inability to acquire organizational legitimacy. Legitimacy is garnered when firms successfully market their competencies to key stakeholders, by conforming to regulative processes, institutional norms and cognitive meanings within the environment. But which competencies should a firm push to develop its legitimacy and to whom should they be targeted? While firms can push its in a variety of different ways, there is no guarantee of success in a network of embedded, interdependent stakeholders. Drawing on institutional theory, this chapter presents a case research based framework to describe an iterative and incremental process to help firms manage their network legitimacy. Using this framework, the chapter examines the complementary assets and legitimacy orientations of these firms with network stakeholders, and the resulting inter-partner initiatives and alliances.