Geospatial Data Approach for Demand-Oriented Policies of Land Administration

To develop the land administration sector, it is important to examine the difficulties faced and requests made by citizens. Accordingly, this study analyzes the Voice of Citizens data relating to land administration in an attempt to identify characteristics of civil complaints in the spatial sector that are unique to land administration. This research builds geospatial Database by combining civil complaint data and spatial information to the analysis of interest of the civil complaint area in order to identify the major keywords on the map. The analysis reveals that civil complaints relating to land administration pertain mostly to the operational methods and services of institutions in charge of the civil complaints, rather than to the ownership and results of land administration. These results indicate that response and operational methods must be determined prior to the administrative process relating to land ownership. This study further confirms that the civil complaints relating to ownership generally arose out of the mountainous and coastal regions, rather than cities. Going forward, this study could be used as reference material for determining policy priorities focusing, in particular, on the policy consumers’ utilizing data on civil complaints in terms of government policy

Knowledge and best practice management through benchmarking: A global survey

Developing best practice through benchmarking features as a critical activity in the business world as it is a vital approach for sharing and transferring knowledge.Companies across the globe have embraced these concepts but have done so with a varied level of success.Some have managed to create huge market place advantages whilst others have fared less favourably.The purpose of this research is to establish the level of benchmarking activity and application globally.The information gathered included both the hard and soft issues associated with benchmarking and following analysis,attempted to evaluate the level of benchmarking maturity reached across different industry fields and size of operation.This global survey helps understand what leads to effective benchmarking and development of best practices

Knowledge Management and The SECI Model: A Study of Innovation in The Egyptian Banking Sector

The emergence of knowledge management (KM) as a practical business discipline is connected to the growing realisation that knowledge is an essential resource for organisations to retain sustainable competitive advantages. The SECI model, proposed by Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) best embraces the nature of KM and of knowledge conversion. This model uses four processes of knowledge conversion: socialisation, externalisation, combination and internalisation to create knowledge in organisations. A review of the relevant literature, however, suggests that the application of the SECI model is suffering from a lack of research in banking, even though this is a knowledge-intensive industry. Since the model was driven from Japanese values, the applicability of the model in different cultural contexts is also arguable. This study aims to examine the use of the SECI model in Egyptian banks and its effect on the innovation process. To examine the model in a different cultural context, Egypt as the biggest Arab country was a suitable research site. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were employed to achieve the research aims. The qualitative data were used to triangulate the quantitative data by detailing the SECI conversion process, and its relation to innovation. Two hundred and ten self-administered questionnaires were used to investigate to what extent Egyptian banks perform the SECI and innovation activities, and 26 semi-structured face-to-face interviews provided details about how the Egyptian banks perform these activities. The survey data were analysed by using Predictive Analytic SoftWare (PASW). Different types of statistical applications were used, namely factor analysis, Cronbach’ alpha, descriptive analysis, multiple regression, t-test and one-way ANOVA. Content analysis was used to analyse the interview data were by looking for noticeable patterns to be connected to the research framework. The findings indicate that the SECI processes were used for knowledge creation in Egyptian banks. However, some self-imposed limitations minimised the benefits of the socialisation and externalisation processes in creating and sharing knowledge. In contrast, internalisation and combination faced fewer limitations, revealing that Egyptian banks focus more on formal rather than informal knowledge. Therefore, the study supports the view of the model as being universal, but the use of each process is subject to the cultural context, leadership support, and types of task. The findings also suggest that the SECI processes - whether separate or as a whole - positively influence the innovation process by increasing the generation of ideas for banking services, products and processes. The internalisation process had the most positive influence on innovation, followed by the combination, externalisation and socialisation processes respectively. Many of the product and process innovations in the last few years were due to the introduction of new technologies

Gestão estratégica de relacionamento com o cliente: lançando alicerces para a implementação de CRM em contexto PME

In the current competitive market scenario, the need for companies to stand out from each other is ever growing. Therefore, strategic management is increasing their focus on customer relationships as a competitive advantage, understanding that nowadays customers look for much more than just a product or service, but rather a full personalised experience that meets (or hopefully exceeds) both their needs and expectations. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) comes up as the best solution to organisations that decide to adopt these relationship marketing focused strategies. Unlike big multinationals, the high investment in technological systems and complexity of internal procedures always kept Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) in a more traditional circuit regarding CRM. However, the competition increase, market globalisation, technological development and frailty of customer preferences have led many SME to rethink their business strategy and include CRM as one of the main competitive advantages when dealing with customers. Which leads to the research question raised by this Project: how to lay the ground for CRM implementation in SME context? – More specifically applied to the small company KontaGion Hub, Ltd. Following this question, the aim of the current Project is to propose a specific CRM implementation strategy tailored to the needs of the observed case company. To achieve this, the present investigation followed the method of unique case study in a British start-up, and as data sources there were made interviews, secondary documents were analysed, and a series of activities and physical observations were made during the Project length, for a period of approximately 6 months. The main contribution of this Project is the proposal of a CRM implementation strategy adapted to the SME company KontaGion Hub specific needs. Considering this type of companies hold a significant weight in any business market across Europe, and due the lack of further investigations carried out in this field, this work can represent a step further in the implementation of strategic CRM projects in other SME context.No atual cenário competitivo empresarial, é cada vez maior a necessidade das empresas se destacarem da concorrência. Daí que a gestão estratégica tenha vindo a direcionar o seu foco para o relacionamento com o cliente enquanto vantagem competitiva, uma vez que atualmente os clientes procuram muito mais do que apenas um produto ou serviço, mas uma completa experiência personalizada que atenda (ou preferencialmente exceda) as suas necessidades e expectativas. Neste sentido, o Customer Relationship Management (CRM) surge como a solução mais adequada para as organizações que decidem adotar esta estratégia focadas no marketing de relacionamento. Ao contrário das grandes multinacionais, o alto investimento em sistemas tecnológicos e a complexidade dos procedimentos internos sempre condicionaram as Pequenas e Médias Empresas (PME) a uma abordagem mais tradicional em relação ao CRM. No entanto, o aumento da concorrência, a globalização dos mercados, o desenvolvimento tecnológico e a fragilidade da fidelização dos clientes levaram muitas PME a repensar a sua estratégia de negócio e incluir o CRM como uma vantagem competitiva essencial. Este desafio esteve na origem da questão de pesquisa levantada por este Projeto: como estabelecer alicerces para a implementação de CRM no contexto PME? – Mais especificamente aplicado à pequena empresa KontaGion Hub, Ltd. Partindo desta questão, o objetivo do Projeto é propor uma estratégia específica de implementação de CRM adaptada às necessidades da empresa observada. Para alcançar tal objetivo, a presente investigação seguiu o método de estudo de caso único numa empresa britânica, tendo como fontes de dados a realização de entrevistas, análise de documentos secundários, e uma série de atividades e observações diretas realizadas durante a duração do Projeto, por um período de aproximadamente 6 meses. A principal contribuição deste Projeto é a proposta de uma estratégia de implementação de CRM adaptada às necessidades específicas da empresa KontaGion Hub. Considerando o peso significativo que este tipo de empresas detém em qualquer mercado empresarial Europeu, e devido à falta de outras investigações semelhantes realizadas nesta área, este trabalho pode representar um avanço na implementação de projetos estratégicos de CRM para outras PME num contexto semelhante.Mestrado em Marketin

Using the dynamic capabilities perspective to analyse CRM adoption: a multiple case study in portuguese organisations

Doutoramento em GestãoCustomer Relationship Management (CRM) adoption is both a relevant research topic in academia and a challenge for practitioners. We understand CRM as a complex concept that includes technology, strategy and philosophy. In this research, we propose an analysis of CRM organisational competences and capabilities. The main goals are: to observe organisational competences and capabilities in order to find ways in which companies obtain success with their CRM initiatives; and to apply a dynamic capabilities perspective as the main theoretical point to analyse how companies can improve their competences related to customer relationship management. In order to achieve the purpose of this study a qualitative, interpretative, case-based research strategy was implemented. We first conducted an exploratory case study in a Brazilian Telecommunications company in order to define the focus of the research and research questions. Afterwards, we conducted a main case study in a Portuguese Telecommunications company for one year, and finally, we conducted four more case studies in Portuguese organisations to develop the research findings. These multiple case studies were based on semi-structured interviews and document analysis. We used qualitative techniques to analyse the collected data and ground our interpretation in two theoretical approaches: value focus thinking and dynamic capabilities. We propose a theoretical framework related to CRM dynamic capability that is corroborated with empirical evidence. We believe that because organisations which adopt a CRM strategy are in a competitive environment, a dynamic model needs to be used to analyse and explain how they can improve their CRM strategy in order to achieve success. As a second contribution we identify a set of competences that need to be developed in order to manage customer relationships effectively.A adopção de Customer Relationship Management (CRM) é um tema considerado relevante para as investigações académicas e um desafio para os praticantes. CRM neste trabalho é entendido como um conceito complexo que envolve tecnologia, estratégia e filosofia. Esta investigação propõe uma análise sobre as competências e as capacidades organizacionais relacionadas ao CRM. As principais motivações deste estudo referem-se às problemáticas observadas nas adopções de CRM, sendo que as lentes da teoria das Capacidades Dinâmicas mostram-se relevante na análise das capacidades e competências organizacionais necessárias ao sucesso da iniciativa de CRM. A fim de alcançar o propósito deste estudo, foi realizada uma investigação qualitativa, interpretativa e baseada em estudos de caso. Primeiramente foi conduzido um estudo de caso exploratório numa empresa Brasileira de telecomunicações com o intuito de melhor definir o foco da investigação e das questões de investigação. Após foi conduzido o estudo de caso principal em uma empresa de telecomunicações Portuguesa ao longo de um ano. Finalmente foram conduzidos outros quatro estudos de caso em organizações Portuguesas com o intuito de aprofundar a discussão dos resultados da investigação. Foram realizadas entrevistas semi-estruturadas e análise de dados secundários. Para a análise dos dados foram utilizadas técnicas qualitativas e duas teorias ajudaram a suportar as interpretações realizadas: value focus thinking e dynamic capabilities. Como contribuições desta investigação tem-se a proposição de um framework teórico sobre a capacidade dinâmica CRM que foi corroborado com evidências empíricas. As organizações que adoptam CRM estão inseridas em ambientes de grande competitividade e um modelo dinâmico precisa ser utilizado para analisar e explicar como elas aprimoram suas estratégias de CRM para ter sucesso. Como segunda contribuição foi identificado um conjunto de competências organizacionais que são necessárias para a gestão do relacionamento com o cliente

A methodology for the design of quality assurance functional model and information system

In spite of all advances in computer, technologies, information processing, automation technologies, manufacturing processes, and the push for integration across all functional areas toward a totally integrated and automated manufacturing system, the suggestion is that quality assurance which covers all quality-based functions in the product-life cycle is often overlooked. In spite of the important role of quality information systems in achieving high quality processes little published research in this area is found in the literature. Study of the available relevant literature and the collection of data from manufacturing industries confirm that different manufacturing situations require different quality assurance systems, and this is evident from the proliferation of differing QA systems found in industry. There are however some common features both universal/or within different classes of industries. Accordingly an 'ISO-9000 based generic structural model incorporating these common quality based functions and their associated information requirements has been developed. This research further investigates and verifies those factors which may affect the design of a QAIS as a guide for designing Quality Assurance Information Systems for manufacturing business organisations. Realising that knowledge-based systems can provide a support environment for designing QAIS, this research also considers and, develops a KB Decision System for Designing Quality Information Systems (DSDQAIS). The DSDQAIS recommends the structure of a QAIS, in the form of an IDEFO model, appropriate to specific company profiles input by the user. Since the available software' applications and development tools which support the sub-systems run on a personal computer, the prototype of this system has also been developed and tested on PC. Recommendations for the further development of the system are given

Knowledge reuse in quality systems: An explorative study

Master'sMASTER OF ENGINEERIN

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse