Measurement with minimal theory

Applied macroeconomists interested in identifying the sources of business cycle fluctuations typically have no more than 40 or 50 years of data at a quarterly frequency. With sample sizes that small, identifi cation may not be possible even with correctly specifi ed representations of the data. In this article, I investigate whether small samples are indeed a problem for some commonly used statistical representations. I compare three—a vector autoregressive moving average (VARMA), an unrestricted state space, and a restricted state space—that are all consistent with the same prototype business cycle model. The statistical representations that I consider differ in the amount of a priori theory that is imposed, but all are correctly specifi ed. I fi nd that the identifying assumptions of VARMAs and unrestricted state space representations are too minimal: the range of estimates for statistics of interest for business cycle researchers is so large as to be uninformative.

FORMATIVE EVALUATION OF BUSINESS MODEL REPRESENTATIONS - THE SERVICE BUSINESS MODEL CANVAS

Drivers like global competition, advances in technology, and new attractive market opportunities foster a process of servitization and thus the search for innovative service business models. To facilitate this process, different methods and tools for the development of new business models have emerged. Nevertheless, business model approaches are missing that enable the representation of co-creation as one of the most important service-characteristics. Rooted in a cumulative research design that seeks to advance extant business model representations, this goal is to be closed by the Service Business Model Canvas (SBMC). This contribution comprises the application of thinking-aloud protocols for the formative evaluation of the SBMC. With help of industry experts and academics with experience in the service sector and business models, the usability is tested and implications for its further development derived. Furthermore, this study provides empirically based insights for the design of service business model representation that can facilitate the development of future business models

Collaborative method to maintain business process models updated

Business process models are often forgotten after their creation and its representation is not usually updated. This appears to be negative as processes evolve over time. This paper discusses the issue of business process models maintenance through the definition of a collaborative method that creates interaction contexts enabling business actors to discuss about business processes, sharing business knowledge. The collaboration method extends the discussion about existing process representations to all stakeholders promoting their update. This collaborative method contributes to improve business process models, allowing updates based in change proposals and discussions, using a groupware tool that was developed. Four case studies were developed in real organizational environment. We came to the conclusion that the defined method and the developed tool can help organizations to maintain a business process model updated based on the inputs and consequent discussions taken by the organizational actors who participate in the processes.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Towards comparable business model concepts: resource description framework (RDF) schemas for semantic business model representations

Scholars have demonstrated that business model (BM) choices have a significant impact on the success of products, innovations and organizations. However, knowledge about key elements of BMs is disseminated across a large body of literature and builds on different conceptualizations. We take a step back and provide a new approach to formalize BM concepts and related BM knowledge, based on concepts from the semantic web. We introduce and evaluate the Resource Description Framework (RDF) as a data model for comparable and extensible BM descriptions. Moreover, we use this new perspective to analyze commonalities and differences between BM concepts, to reflect critically on the process of translating concepts to RDF and evaluate its relevance for BM design practice

From the Osterwalder canvas to an alternative business model representation

The Osterwalder business model canvas (BMC) is used by many entrepreneurs, managers, consultants and business schools. In our research we have investigated whether the canvas is a valid instrument for gaining an in-depth, accurate insight into business models. Therefore we have performed initial multiple case study research which concluded that the canvas does not generate valid business model (BM) representations. In our second multiple case study, we have constructed an alternative BM framework, on the basis of which we have finally built a BM tool to design, evaluate and re-design any business model

Enterprise Intelligence based on Ontology Metadata

Organizations define business models as part of its strategic thinking from which build performance evaluation structures focused on the effectiveness and efficiency of their goals. Usually the business model is captured in various organization representations with little interoperability between them. On the other hand, the performance are evaluated using business intelligence systems. Despite the usage of metadata in business intelligence and organization representation model system, metadata are normally not reused for the purpose of ensuring business concepts alignment. This article consolidates a vision of organizational metadata from various forms of representation of the business model, but implemented as ontology to support an organizational intelligence

Qualitative market research and product development: representations of food and marketing challenges

A new method for analysing social representations from sentences in natural language is presented. The basic nuclei of the social representation of "eating" are extracted from two corpuses, one coming from a large set of definitions from a dictionary, the other from free associations of 2000 French adult subjects. The method shows that "eating", as a mental model, is the connection of "libido", "intake", "foodstuffs", "meal", "filling up" and "living". Further analysis on free associations on "eating well" yields some pragmatic scripts, showing how consumers assemble the basic nuclei into action rules. Results uncover an archaeology of social knowledge, showing some psychological and cultural bases on which lie the contemporary representations of eating. As important marketing issues in the food business today are concerned with the psychological determinants of food behaviour, our method may bring some new tools for market research, and open new data fields to systematic investigation. A paper from an international symposium 'Enjeux actuels du marketing dans l'alimentation et la restauration' held in Montreal, Canada, May 24th to 27th, 1994

Toward the automation of business process ontology generation

Semantic Business Process Management (SBPM) utilises semantic technologies (e.g., ontology) to model and query process representations. There are times in which such models must be reconstructed from existing textual documentation. In this scenario the automated generation of ontological models would be preferable, however current methods and technology are still not capable of automatically generating accurate semantic process models from textual descriptions. This research attempts to automate the process as much as possible by proposing a method that drives the transformation through the joint use of a foundational ontology and lexico-semantic analysis. The method is presented, demonstrated and evaluated. The original dataset represents 150 business activities related to the procurement processes of a case study company. As the evaluation shows, the proposed method can accurately map the linguistic patterns of the process descriptions to semantic patterns of the foundational ontology to a high level of accuracy, however further research is required in order to reduce the level of human intervention, expand the method so as to recognise further patterns of the foundational ontology and develop a tool to assist the business process modeller in the semi-automated generation of process models

A unified strategic business and IT alignment model: A study in the public universities of Nicaragua

A number of attempts have been made to define the strategic business and IT alignment, several representations on what business and IT alignment are available in academic and practitioners field. The literature suggests that firms need to achieve the strategic alignment to be competitive firms. This article provides a prioritization of the components of a defined strategic business and IT alignment model. The strategic business and IT alignment model used in this study is termed the unified strategic business and IT alignment model and it is based on four well know strategic business and IT alignment models. The components of the unified strategic business and IT alignment model were ranked with a group of IT experts and business experts of four public universities in Nicaragua. The result can be used as a basis for improving strategic business and IT alignment