Information Systems in University Learning

The authors of this article are going to bring into light the significance, the place and the role of information systems in the university education process. At the same time they define the objectives and the target group of the subject named Economic Information Systems and state the competence gained by students by studying this subject. Special attention is given to the curriculum to be taught to students and to a suggestive enumeration of a series of economic applications that can be themes for laboratory practice and for students’ dissertation (graduation thesis).Information System, Academic Partnership, Curriculum, General Competence, Specific Competence, Open Systems

Supply chain management: An opportunity for metaheuristics

In today’s highly competitive and global marketplace the pressure on organizations to find new ways to create and deliver value to customers grows ever stronger. In the last two decades, logistics and supply chain has moved to the center stage. There has been a growing recognition that it is through an effective management of the logistics function and the supply chain that the goal of cost reduction and service enhancement can be achieved. The key to success in Supply Chain Management (SCM) require heavy emphasis on integration of activities, cooperation, coordination and information sharing throughout the entire supply chain, from suppliers to customers. To be able to respond to the challenge of integration there is the need of sophisticated decision support systems based on powerful mathematical models and solution techniques, together with the advances in information and communication technologies. The industry and the academia have become increasingly interested in SCM to be able to respond to the problems and issues posed by the changes in the logistics and supply chain. We present a brief discussion on the important issues in SCM. We then argue that metaheuristics can play an important role in solving complex supply chain related problems derived by the importance of designing and managing the entire supply chain as a single entity. We will focus specially on the Iterated Local Search, Tabu Search and Scatter Search as the ones, but not limited to, with great potential to be used on solving the SCM related problems. We will present briefly some successful applications.Supply chain management, metaheuristics, iterated local search, tabu search and scatter search

An overview on the development of internal control in public sector entities : evidence from Kosovo

Purpose: The development and implementation of Public Internal Financial Control (PIFC) in the management processes plays an important role in providing sound financial management, transparency, efficiency and effectiveness in the public sector entities. Design/Methodology/Approach: In this paper we have analysed the annual reports on the functioning of the PIFC system in the public sector of Kosovo for the 2014 – 2017 period. The analysis has been completed even more, based on the annual reports of National Audit Office, progress reports published by the European Commission, showing the progress achieved under the EU directives as well as the data from the monitoring reports of SIGMA (Support for Improvement in Governance and Management). Findings: The findings show that the implementation of rules and procedures for internal control in budget organizations lags behind the development of the overall framework. Practical Implications: Continuous improvements in the field of Public Internal Financial Control are important steps in the process of European integration, while Kosovo has made considerable efforts to develop the control environment and implement the PIFC principles, particularly by establishing the appropriate legal, and institutional framework to support the PIFC system. Originality/Value: PIFC development is a continuous process and is part of the public administration reform, hence this paper contributes in identifying possible gaps and weaknesses in the system of internal control in Kosovo and provides recommendations for their improvement.peer-reviewe

Tasks, cognitive agents, and KB-DSS in workflow and process management

The purpose of this paper is to propose a nonparametric interest rate term structure model and investigate its implications on term structure dynamics and prices of interest rate derivative securities. The nonparametric spot interest rate process is estimated from the observed short-term interest rates following a robust estimation procedure and the market price of interest rate risk is estimated as implied from the historical term structure data. That is, instead of imposing a priori restrictions on the model, data are allowed to speak for themselves, and at the same time the model retains a parsimonious structure and the computational tractability. The model is implemented using historical Canadian interest rate term structure data. The parametric models with closed form solutions for bond and bond option prices, namely the Vasicek (1977) and CIR (1985) models, are also estimated for comparison purpose. The empirical results not only provide strong evidence that the traditional spot interest rate models and market prices of interest rate risk are severely misspecified but also suggest that different model specifications have significant impact on term structure dynamics and prices of interest rate derivative securities.

Business Process Innovation using the Process Innovation Laboratory

Most organizations today are required not only to establish effective business processes but they are required to accommodate for changing business conditions at an increasing rate. Many business processes extend beyond the boundary of the enterprise into the supply chain and the information infrastructure therefore is critical. Today nearly every business relies on their Enterprise System (ES) for process integration and the future generations of enterprise systems will increasingly be driven by business process models. Consequently process modeling and improvement will become vital for business process innovation (BPI) in future organizations. There is a significant body of knowledge on various aspect of process innovation, e.g. on conceptual modeling, business processes, supply chains and enterprise systems. Still an overall comprehensive and consistent theoretical framework with guidelines for practical applications has not been identified. The aim of this paper is to establish a conceptual framework for business process innovation in the supply chain based on advanced enterprise systems. The main approach to business process innovation in this context is to create a new methodology for exploring process models and patterns of applications. The paper thus presents a new concept for business process innovation called the process innovation laboratory a.k.a. the Ð-Lab. The Ð-Lab is a comprehensive framework for BPI using advanced enterprise systems. The Ð-Lab is a collaborative workspace for experimenting with process models and an explorative approach to study integrated modeling in a controlled environment. The Ð-Lab facilitates innovation by using an integrated action learning approach to process modeling including contemporary technological, organizational and business perspectivesNo; keywords

Intelligent approaches to performance support

Electronic performance support systems provide an important method of meeting on‐demand educational and training requirements. They also provide efficient and effective ways of enabling the knowledge and expertise within an organization to be shared. This paper discusses the design of a distributed electronic performance support system and the ways in which ‘intelligent agents’ based on expert systems and neural networks can be used to locate and share distributed expertise. A case study illustrating our approach to the implementation and use of intelligent agents is presented