A survey of agent-oriented methodologies

This article introduces the current agent-oriented methodologies. It discusses what approaches have been followed (mainly extending existing object oriented and knowledge engineering methodologies), the suitability of these approaches for agent modelling, and some conclusions drawn from the survey

Strategies for sustainable socio-economic development and mechanisms their implementation in the global dimension

The authors of the book have come to the conclusion that it is necessary to effectively use modern approaches to developing and implementation strategies of sustainable socio-economic development in order to increase efficiency and competitiveness of economic entities. Basic research focuses on economic diagnostics of socio-economic potential and financial results of economic entities, transition period in the economy of individual countries and ensuring their competitiveness, assessment of educational processes and knowledge management. The research results have been implemented in the different models and strategies of supply and logistics management, development of non-profit organizations, competitiveness of tourism and transport, financing strategies for small and medium-sized enterprises, cross-border cooperation. The results of the study can be used in decision-making at the level the economic entities in different areas of activity and organizational-legal forms of ownership, ministries and departments that promote of development the economic entities on the basis of models and strategies for sustainable socio-economic development. The results can also be used by students and young scientists in modern concepts and mechanisms for management of sustainable socio-economic development of economic entities in the condition of global economic transformations and challenges

The embeddedness of global production networks: The impact of crisis on Fiji's garment export sector

In this paper the author explores how changing geopolitical conditions reconfigure network embeddedness and theorises the conditions of network disconnection and transformation. Through a case study of the changes in interfirm relationships within the Fiji – Australia garment-production network after Fiji’s 2000 political coup d’état, the author develops a relational and dynamic view of embeddedness, highlighting its multifaceted and multiscalar character and emphasising the interrelationships between embeddedness, trust, and power

Go west for fame and fortune? The role of internationalization in the growth of Chinese telecom firms

This paper focuses on the role played by internationalization in the growth of Chinese telecom firms by comparing the three cases from China’s telecom sector – Huawei Technologies (Huawei), Zhongxing Telecom Equipment Corporation (ZTE), Datang Telecom Technology (Datang). Faced with a global market that was strongly oligopolistic and dominated by Western firms, we show that internationalization strategies triggered by resource seeking played different roles in the growth strategies of these three firms. The contrasting fortunes of these firms also underscores the fact that the success of internationalization strategies of firms from emerging markets cannot be understood without reference to the global competitive environment faced by firms

Autonomous Agents for Business Process Management

Traditional approaches to managing business processes are often inadequate for large-scale organisation-wide, dynamic settings. However, since Internet and Intranet technologies have become widespread, an increasing number of business processes exhibit these properties. Therefore, a new approach is needed. To this end, we describe the motivation, conceptualization, design, and implementation of a novel agent-based business process management system. The key advance of our system is that responsibility for enacting various components of the business process is delegated to a number of autonomous problem solving agents. To enact their role, these agents typically interact and negotiate with other agents in order to coordinate their actions and to buy in the services they require. This approach leads to a system that is significantly more agile and robust than its traditional counterparts. To help demonstrate these benefits, a companion paper describes the application of our system to a real-world problem faced by British Telecom

Europeana communication bug: which intervention strategy for a better cooperation with creative industry?

Although Europeana as well as many GLAMs are very engaged - beside the main mission, i.e. spreading cultural heritage knowledge- in developing new strategies in order to make digital contents reusable for creative industry, these efforts have been successful just only in sporadic cases. A significant know how deficits in communication often compromises expected outcomes and impact. Indeed, what prevails is an idea of communication like an enhancement “instrument” intended on the one hand in purely economic (development) sense, on the other hand as a way for increasing and spreading knowledge. The main reference model is more or less as follows: digital objects are to be captured and/or transformed by digital technologies into sellable goods to put into circulation. Nevertheless, this approach risks neglecting the real nature of communication, and more in detail the one of digital heritage where it is strategic not so much producing objects and goods as taking part into sharing environments creation (media) by engaged communities, small or large they may be. The environments act as meeting and interchange point, and consequently as driving force of enhancing. Only in a complex context of network interaction on line accessible digital heritage contents become a strategic resource for creating environments in which their re/mediation can occur – provided that credible strategies exist, shared by stakeholders and users. This paper particularly describes a case study including proposals for an effective connection among Europeana, GLAMs and Creative Industry in the framework of Food and Drink digital heritage enhancement and promotion. Experimental experiences as the one described in this paper anyway confirm the relevance of up-to-date policies based on an adequate communication concept, on solid partnerships with enterprise and association networks, on collaborative on line environments, on effective availability at least for most of contents by increasing free licensing, and finally on grassroots content implementation involving prosumers audience, even if filtered by GLAMs

Value-driven Security Agreements in Extended Enterprises

Today organizations are highly interconnected in business networks called extended enterprises. This is mostly facilitated by outsourcing and by new economic models based on pay-as-you-go billing; all supported by IT-as-a-service. Although outsourcing has been around for some time, what is now new is the fact that organizations are increasingly outsourcing critical business processes, engaging on complex service bundles, and moving infrastructure and their management to the custody of third parties. Although this gives competitive advantage by reducing cost and increasing flexibility, it increases security risks by eroding security perimeters that used to separate insiders with security privileges from outsiders without security privileges. The classical security distinction between insiders and outsiders is supplemented with a third category of threat agents, namely external insiders, who are not subject to the internal control of an organization but yet have some access privileges to its resources that normal outsiders do not have. Protection against external insiders requires security agreements between organizations in an extended enterprise. Currently, there is no practical method that allows security officers to specify such requirements. In this paper we provide a method for modeling an extended enterprise architecture, identifying external insider roles, and for specifying security requirements that mitigate security threats posed by these roles. We illustrate our method with a realistic example

The business model: Theoretical roots, recent developments, and future research

The paper provides a broad and multifaceted review of the received literature on business models, in which we attempt to explore the origin of the construct and to examine the business model concept through multiple disciplinary and subject-matter lenses. The review reveals that scholars do not agree on what a business model is, and that the literature is developing largely in silos, according to the phenomena of interest to the respective researchers. However, we also found some emerging common ground among students of business models. Specifically, i) the business model is emerging as a new unit of analysis; ii) business models emphasize a system-level, holistic approach towards explaining how firms do business; iii) organizational activities play an important role in the various conceptualizations of business models that have been proposed, and iv) business models seek not only to explain the ways in which value is captured but also how it is created. These emerging themes could serve as important catalysts towards a more unified study of business models.Business model; strategy; technology management; innovation; literature review;