Standardisation of Provenance Systems in Service Oriented Architectures --- White Paper

This White Paper presents provenance in computer systems as a mechanism by which business and e-science can undertake compliance validation and analysis of their past processes. We discuss an open approach that can bring benefits to application owners, IT providers, auditors and reviewers. In order to capitalise on such benefits, we make specific recommendations to move forward a standardisation activity in this domain

Electronic Commerce Benefits, Challenges and Success Factors in the Australian Banking and Finance Industry

This paper reports on part of a wider study into electronic commerce (e-commerce) benefits, challenges and success factors in Australian businesses, with particular reference to the banking and finance industry. The findings indicate that the major benefits to this industry sector from adoption of e-commerce are increased sales, business efficiency, competitive advantage, increased automation of processes and retained and increased customer base. The key challenges identified for the sector include the costs of the technology, lack of e-commerce knowledge, budgeting, acquiring IT skilled people and customer service. Secure transactions were not considered a major challenge by this sector; rather they were regarded as one of the success factors, along with support from top management, a functional and user-friendly web site, partnerships with technology providers and an effective project leader. Participating companies correctly estimated the majority of challenges posed by the adoption of e-commerce, however they did not anticipate the difficulties of acquiring skilled staff to design, implement and manage the IT aspects of the transition

A Model of IT-enabled Organizational Integration and Sustained Competitive Advantage

Organizational integration is a phenomenon occurring inexorably in recent years due to rapid advances in IT and intense competition. Past research has found organizational integration, between and within firms, to be positively-related to performance, with IT resources playing a pivotal role in facilitating this trend. In this paper, we argue that IT resources, comprising of IT assets and capabilities, are critical antecedents to organizational integration. We examine the role of service-oriented architecture (SOA) as an IT asset in enabling the integration of organizational resources. As an IT-dependent strategic initiative, IT-enabled organizational integration provides significant barriers to competition and gives rise to sustained competitive advantage. Drawing upon the resource-based theory, we develop a model by conceptualizing both IT assets and IT capabilities as higher-order constructs comprising of IT infrastructure and IT architecture, and IT technical skills and managerial skills respectively. Next, we explore the mediating effects of causal ambiguity to further elucidate the relationship between organizational integration and sustained competitive advantage. Our proposed model provides managers with invaluable insights regarding the nature and application of IT to achieve organizational integration and to sustain their competitive edge in the global marketplace

Electronic Commerce Issues in the Australian Manufacturing Industry

This paper reports on findings into the benefits, challenges and success factors of electronic commerce in the Australian manufacturing industry among the top 500 Australian publicly listed companies. The paper investigates anticipated and identified challenges, benefits and success factors of electronic commerce, and possible relationships between them. The results showed that manufacturing industry encountered similar challenges, identified similar success factors and achieved similar benefits as the other sectors of Australian economy. Although this research addresses well-established business enterprises in Australia, the nature of electronic commerce is such that it is global and the findings should be applicable to large organizations over a much wider scope. Some of the findings could as well be applicable to small and medium size businesses/organizations

Monitoring Multi-Party Contracts for E-Business.

"Monitoring Multi-party Contracts for E-business" investigates the issues involved in the performance of econtract monitoring of business automations in business to business e-commerce environment. A pro-active monitoring contract model and monitoring mechanism have been designed and developed. A new architecture and framework is proposed for pro-active monitorable contracts. This pro-active monitoring contract model is supported by a prototype

The history of legal theories in e-contract

This paper is the study of how individuals and businesses develop and construct legal agreements through electronic means.E-contract works faster in order to promote certain outcomes, but can also contain a level of legal and moral hiatus stemming from the nature of the contract and the distance of the parties.This paper describes the history of legal theories apply to the formation phase of e-contract, and not contract per se. It begins with e-contracting and follows with legal theories that recognize legal enforce ability.It then discusses essential legal requirements for e-contract formation resulted from these legal theories

Anforderungen an die Anwendungsprotokollierung mittels XML

Anwendungen setzen zunehmend auf Protokollierung ihrer Aktivitaten, sei es aus Gründen der Nachverfolgbarkeit, zu Abrechnungszwecken oder zur Fehleranalyse. Die entstehenden Dokumente sind geschäftskritisch und müssen daher sicher gespeichert werden. Aufgrund seiner Flexibilität hat sich XML in vielen Anwendungsbereichen als bevorzugtes Protokollformat durchgesetzt. In diesem Artikel werden wir zeigen, woher der wachsende Bedarf an Protokollierung stammt, und welche Anforderungen an eine Infrastruktur zur Verarbeitung dieser Protokolle bestehen. Wir werden die Bedeutung von XML für diesen Kontext beschreiben und die Vorteile des Formats erläutern. Ein exemplarisches Szenario wird eine einfache Infrastruktur aufzeigen, die sich zur anschaulichen Erläuterung der prinzipiellen Anforderungen nutzen lässt. Abschließend werden einige neue Anforderungen angesprochen, die bislang von Standardsoftware noch nicht hinreichend unterstützt werden und bei denen noch Verbesserungsbedarf besteht

Can Convergence of Innovation Catalyse Economic Growth?

Big ideas offer big dividends but have stormy beginnings. Even worse is when people cannot visualise the future because their imagination is bent out of focus by short-term ROI or resistance to change status quo! Systemic vision requires individuals who can visualize future issues with dynamic and analytical convergence which balances the odds of probabilistic decision making in a generally uncertain world. It is such ‘inclusive' and out-of-the-box thinking that is uncommon because institutions still offer prizes for depth of expertise, almost exclusively. Erudite scholars such as Murray Gell-Mann and Nicholas Negroponte, continue to comment on the need for individuals with ‘horizontal’ understanding. But, academic status quo and paucity of such enlightened views are discouraging individuals to pursue a broad spectrum of ‘horizontal’ understanding. In "Darwin's Middle Road" that Stephen Jay Gould wrote for his monthly column in the Natural History magazine, Gould once said, "if genius has any common denominator, I would propose breadth of interest and the ability to construct fruitful analogies between fields."This article is about convergence and why not. How about a ride to space in an elevator? Why not? A single nanotube could stretch from earth to the stratosphere and be able to support its own weight. This fact spurred NASA to review ideas proposed by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1895) a Russian visionary and Arthur C. Clarke in The Fountains of Paradise (1978). The idea is to build an elevator (lift) that will travel 60,000 miles from the earth’s surface into space carrying cargo and humans. It is predicted that the ‘space elevator’ will lower the cost of positioning a satellite in space from $10,000 to$100 per pound. NASA provided $570,000 to Bradley Edwards to provide details. Bradley Edwards’ proposal calls for a single nanotube about 75 cm wide and thinner than a piece of paper that will stretch 60,000 miles from the surface of the earth or the ocean floor (The Space Elevator by Bradley Edwards, 2002). A 3-day NASA conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico (September 2003) drew 60 scientists and engineers working on the concept. The outcome of the meeting: “it is plausible.” (Gentry Lee, Chief Engineer, JPL, Cal Tech). The ‘space elevator’ apparatus would lift up to 13 tons of cargo in a week to reach the geosynchronous orbit (22,300 miles). The necessary underlying technologies exist except the carbon nanotube material (ribbon). The estimated cost to build the first space elevator may be$6 to $12 billion. Subsequent elevators may cost$2 billion. The estimated cost of building and operating the international Space Station is expected to exceed $100 billion. Those who are teenagers today, may wish to book a suite in that elevator to space, to celebrate their 50th marriage anniversary!MIT Forum for Supply Chain Innovation http://supplychain.mit.edu/shoume