Information Society Strategies in the European Context: The Case of Greece

This article sets out to analyze the policies adopted by the Greek government in its effort to accelerate the pace of reform towards a knowledge-based economy. These policies have to take into account the position that the country occupies within the emerging information society and, of course, the opportunities created by EU initiatives that aim to promote economic competitiveness and reduce regional disparities. Within this framework Greek policy makers have recognized the need for a coordinated, coherent and integrated approach, which attempts to diminish inequalities both within the country and with respect to other European Union economies. What emerges as a distinctive feature of the Greek information society strategy is the emphasis placed on the pivotal role of the state and the adoption of active interventionist policies

Sustainable rural development with emphasis on agriculture and food security within the climate change setting : SARD-climate final report

Sustainable Agricultural and Rural Development (SARD) is considered an essential step toward achieving the first Millenium Development Goal (MDG) of eradicating extreme hunger and poverty. In order to achieve this important goal, first it is important to find ways of increasing the incomes of the rural poor, who mostly depend on upon agriculture for their livelihoods. This means improving development, cooperation, trade and agricultural policy to improve agriculture's contribution to economic development and poverty reduction. Current projects estimate that 1.02 billion people will go hungry in 2009 alone; an indication that if efforts are not directed at reversing this trend it would most likely continue. The research on climate change effect on productivity and rural development is scarce. The high uncertainty of climate change effects and the implications on agriculture is based on extrapolations and scenarios. Our knowledge on local environmental issues and agriculture is insufficient and local agricultural research data do mostly not exist. The agricultural sector requires investments and incentives that can guarantee sustainable development. Farmers need credit possibilities in order to buy input, to make investments and to finance adaptation measures. Fair Trade certification offers one way to guarantee minimum prices for farmers

Regional development platform analysis as a tool for regional innovation policy

European regions have to direct their innovation and technology policies in the world of ever increasing competition. Right kinds of policy decisions aiming towards sustainable futures are essential in achieving competitive advantage for a region. The strategic choices are especially important because of the often very scarce resources in a region. The evolutionary economic theory has indicated the great difference of the development paths of the regions in seemingly similar circumstances, which manifests the unique character of each region, and the need of understanding the importance of path dependency in regional development. Helpful tools for supporting regional strategy building and decision-making in extremely different regions are needed. In this study, 'Regional Development Platform Analysis' is presented as a method of finding the regional potential for future development strategies. The method is under construction at Helsinki University of Technology Lahti Center. It needs a lot of further development in order to fulfil the demands of a real instrument for regional development. However, this paper presents a pilot case conducted in Lahti Region, where the method has been used as a tool for building the regional science park concept. A regional development platform is a concept understood as an industry or expertise based 'platform' presenting the business potential of the actors working for the platform. The actors of a regional development platform are the firms technology centers, expertise centers, research centers, education organisations etc. contributing to the defined development platform. A regional development platform has to be defined separately each time. A development platform is often based on an industry, including the development organisations and the regional innovation system supporting the development of the industry/platform. The analysis method consists of four phases: -Background study of the region, -expert analysis, -study of possible technological scenarios in the future, -development platform analysis. In the background study, all the available statistical data was gathered pertaining to regional economics, industries and expertises in Lahti region. And if possible, the regional data was compared with the data of the national level. In the second phase, an expert analysis panel was organised. The 30 respondents working for regional development organisations were asked to give marks to 15 industries using 10 given criteria. The same was asked of 13 expertises using five given criteria. The grade of importance of the connection between industries and expertises was asked as well. The material prepared in the first phase was given to the respondents. In the third phase, a brief look was taken at possible technological scenarios affecting the region in the future. Technological changes might change radically the potential of a development platform in the future. The regional development analysis of Lahti Region itself was conducted by using the material produced in the first three phases. The most potential development platforms were outlined for the future development strategies. The development platform analysis was also used as substantial basis in defining the science park concept of Lahti Region.

Hotellialan kilpailulliset vastatoimet Airbnb:n markkinoille tulon jälkeen: Tapaustutkimus hotelleista ja Airbnb:stä Helsingissä

Airbnb is widely regarded as one of the most successful sharing economy innovations in the accommodation services industry. The online home-sharing platform has registered over 300 million guest arrivals since it started in 2008. With presence in over 191 countries worldwide, the nearly 5 million listings on the platform eclipse the room capacity of the top five hotel brands in the world combined. The exponential growth of Airbnb has surprised many market spectators including hotel executives that have largely dismissed the new competitor. The emergent academic research on Airbnb has established that Airbnb poses a disruptive threat to the hotel industry, given that it substitutes more low to mid-market stays than previously believed. Hotel competitive responses against Airbnb have remained largely obscured, with lobbying and moderating peak pricing as the most evident competitive responses. The research aim of this thesis was to create new understanding on how hotels compete against Airbnb. A theoretical framework explaining factors influencing competitive response was adopted from the competitive dynamics field and supplemented with other research streams from strategic management literature. This study employed a single case study method focused on the hotel market in Helsinki, Finland. Research data was drawn using semi-structured interviews with 13 hotel industry executives from 11 hotel organizations operating in the area. The interviews were recorded, transcribed and analyzed using qualitative content analysis. This thesis also relied on secondary online data sources for general hotel and Airbnb market data in the area. The findings of this thesis show that hotel organizations in Helsinki have mainly responded to Airbnb by adapting to changing lifestyle and online trends. Executives from leading hotel chains were found to be in a key role in influencing the anti-Airbnb agenda at the national industry association. The booming hotel market in Helsinki was identified as one of the reasons behind executives’ optimism and reduced threat perception on Airbnb. Furthermore, internal orientation and focus on most immediate competitors explained why hotel organizations neglected monitoring Airbnb supply and thus underestimated its scale

The Role of Information Technology in Mediating External Information to the Rural Micro Enterprises : Regional Literature Reviews of Northern Ostrobothnia and Central Finland : Rural Business Information Exchange System (RuBIES) Project

Regional literature reviews present an overview of the use of ICT in rural small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in Nothern Ostrobothnia and Central Finland. These two regions provide excellent examples of regions consisting mainly of rural areas, but having also well-developed urban areas. The region of Central Finland is situated according to it’s name in central part of Finland. The main city of the Central Finland region is Jyväskylä, which is influencing strongly also to the surrounding municipalities (Jyväskylä region). The population of Central Finland is very strongly concentrated to the Jyväskylä region. In 2003 over a half of the inhabitants of the Central Finland lived in this sub-region. Even though the population has been increasing in Jyväskylä region, it has decreased in every other sub-region. Northern Ostrobothnia, on the other hand, is the second northernmost province in Finland, extending across the country from the Gulf of Bothnia coast to the border with Russia. It can be regarded mostly as core or peripheral countryside. However, the principal city, Oulu, is the second most important population centre in the country after Helsinki area. The population is strongly concentrated to the Oulu region. In 2004 approx. 54 % of the total population of Northern Ostrobothnia was living in Oulu region. Both of the most important cities of these two regions have created some of their growth by concentrating on information technology and high technology relating to that. Even though there can be estimated to be some kind of lack of small business tradition in both of the regions due to their historical development, especially in rural areas the most of the companies in both regions can be defined as small or even micro enterprises. Also in both regions the there were a lot of regional variations in occupational as well as entrepreneurial structure. When reviewing the regions of Northern Ostrobothnia and Central Finland more in details concerning the utilisation of ICT in rural enterprises, they seemed to follow quite well the national trends. In Northern Ostrobothnia approx 85–90 % of the enterprices used Internet in their businesses and the figure can be estimated to be at least the same in Central Finland (national percentages being over 90). The most used Internet services seem to be e-mail (communication), online banking and information search services. The most significant benefits for SMEs of the use of Internet are: saving time (possibility to manage operations easier and faster, flexibility, on-line possibilities, accessibility to updated information), saving money (related to saving the time, savings in labour and logistic operations etc.) and relating to benefits mentioned above, indifference to business location. Improving utilisation of ICT in rural areas and SMEs is in big a role in the regional development plans in both regions. Also in both regions the expertise on ICT development is at high level. In Northern Ostrobothnia, it was estimated that already by the year 2005 almost 100 % of the inhabitants are going to have a possibility to broadband connections. In Central Finland, this process is a bit slower. As well, when studying the penetration of Internet connections or amount of computers, Northern Ostrobothnia seemed to be a bit above the national average, when in Central Finland as a region the figures were a bit below the national average. However, the variations within the regions were also significant. Despite the fact, that in both regions there are a lot of business and sector specific advisory services available for SMEs provided by national actors as well as regional development organisations, according to regional surveys, it seems that entrepreneurs do not really know of them and some of them never use these services. This effects also to the use of e-services. The majority of regional expert/advisory services are not yet, however, in e-form. According to the surveys, in both regions there seems to be a need for improving ICT skills especially among small rural SMEs. Though in both regions there are various short term courses and trainings available, somehow the supply does not seem to meet the demand and e.g. the courses have been cancelled due to the lack of participants. As anticipated the entrepreneurs in remote rural areas seem to be a bit slower integrate ICT to their business actions in general. However, the preconditions to extend the utilisation of ICT in the future also in rural areas are good. The Internet connections are getting gradually better as well as there are constantly a lot of on-going development activities in improving services and education, even though there has been some critic towards them in both regions. However, it can be stated that at the moment in both regions (as in other parts of Finland), the rural SMEs have not yet realised all the potential benefits offered by Internet services and the use of Internet is not yet seen as a part of business culture. At the moment SMEs use mainly more or less obligatory public external expert services (e.g. tax authorities). However, utilising widely external expert services might benefit especially the small rural SMEs, since they do not have possibilities to hire new skilled full-time staff for different business operations. Offering expert services in e-form may promote the use of external experts in remote rural SMEs (easy access to the external information), though the SMEs see that the accessibility of the services is not sufficient at the moment, products are not customer orientated enough and a support system is needed. However, before e-expert services can be fully utilised, there are more than just technical problems to be solved. The main problems seem to be in utilisation of the external knowledge in business actions and knowledge management. This necessitates new way of thinking also from the entrepreneurs and highlights the importance of entrepreneurs capability to apply the information to his/hers own business actions. The development of new ICT tools has been very rapid and sometimes the business culture has not been able to keep track of technological development

A Brief History of Mobile Telecommunication in Europe

Since the introduction of mobile telephony in the early fifties in Europe, US and Japan the demand for this service exploded. It seems that the latent demand for mobile telecommunication services for decade's continued to be very strong. Since the introduction of cellular technology the capacity of the services increasingly became able to meet the massive demand. Next and future generations of mobile telecommunication technologies bring increased transmission speed and more versatile services. This forces network operators to organise multi- sourced information flows supplied by service providers to increase the network effect of the system instead of providing the network infrastructure and leave the content to the users as in pure voice telephony. The drivers and inhibitors behind the emergence and recent developments of mobile telecommunications systems in Europe are highlighted in this paper. Liberalisation of the telecom markets in Europe drove new entrants to the market and curbed excessive pricing. However, in recent years the lack of challenging service is the main cause for the wavering development of newer generations of mobile telecommunication services.Telecommunications, Market Structure, Production, Pricing, Technological Change, Economic History, Europe

Adopting interoperability solutions for online tourism distribution

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of the following article: Sofia Reino, Aurkene Alzua-Sorzabal, Rodolfo Baggio, "Adopting interoperability solutions for online tourism distribution: An evaluation framework", Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology, Vol. 7(1): 2-15, January 2016. The final, published version is available online at https://doi.org/10.1108/JHTT-08-2014-0034. Published by Emerald Group Publishing Limited.Purpose – The purpose of this study is to identify the factors that make the adoption of interoperability solutions for online tourism distribution (OTD) more likely by small operators and to develop an evaluation framework for this solutions. Research identifying these determinants is missing. The resulting evaluation framework is then applied to evaluate a number of extant technological solutions focused on interoperability solutions for OTD. Design/methodology/approach – In an attempt to address this gap of research, this paper undertakes a series of interviews and focus groups of the European tourism industry. Findings – Findings partly aligned with the suggestion made by previous research about technology adoption by micro, small and medium tourism enterprises (SMTEs), they also highlighted some issues which are specific to the adoption of interoperability solutions for OTD. These related to the scarcity of information and communication technology (ICT) applications specifically designed for mini and micro enterprises, the very limited capabilities available for using efficiently ICTs in business-to-business (B2B) operations and the difficulty in collaborating with other companies due to the number of different solutions used in the industry, especially when dealing with large aggregators (global distribution systems (GDSs) or large online travel agencies) and lack of standardization for data. Research limitations/implications – The study has important theoretical implications. It provides a better understanding of issues affecting the adoption of interoperability solutions for OTD by SMTEs, such as the scarcity of ICT applications specifically designed for mini and micro enterprises, the very limited capabilities available for using ICTs efficiently in B2B operations and lack of standardization. Practical implications – It facilitates making decisions about adopting interoperability solutions for online distribution solutions, both by suppliers and destination managers. Originality/value – Limited work has focused on understanding issues affecting the adoption of interoperability solutions for OTD solutions among SMTEs.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Place branding of an innovation cluster : Case: Greater Helsinki region from a start-up’s perspective

Places compete with each other over many things these including businesses. For differentiating themselves from the others and appearing more attractive to different stakeholders, places have started to brand themselves. At the same time, to facilitate innovation, businesses have increasingly begun to cluster to certain places which Silicon Valley is a famous example of. Regions have recognized this and its value to the local economy, and are invested in providing the required setting to support this kind of development. This thesis intends to discover what kind of a place brand Greater Helsinki region has as an innovation cluster from start-ups’ perspective. The study examines which factors are valued by start-ups and what kind of a brand identity and value proposition the region is perceived to have. The study was conducted by applying the methods of case study and semi-structured theme interviews. In total, nine people representing eight different organizations were interviewed with six of these organizations being start-ups and the remaining two promoting the region and one of its clusters. Thematic analysis was applied to interpret the data. The results indicate that Greater Helsinki region’s core competence is in smart and clean innovation, health-based solutions, and in gaming. In these fields, the region is seen as an attractive and globally competitive location. Values that describe the region and also Finland are trust, open-minded, safety, and openness. Helsinki is an ideal place for piloting and testing, and serves as a gateway to European markets between East and West.Paikat kilpailevat keskenään monista asioista, kuten yrityksistä. Erottautuakseen muista ja esiintyäkseen houkuttelevampina vaihtoehtoina eri sidosryhmille, paikat ovat alkaneet brändätä itseään. Samaan aikaan, edistääkseen innovointia, yritykset ovat lisääntyvissä määrin alkaneet keskittyä tiettyihin paikkoihin, joista Piilaakso on kuuluisin esimerkki. Alueet ovat tunnistaneet tämän kehityssuunnan ja sen merkityksen paikalliselle taloudelle ja ovat ryhtyneet tarjoamaan vaadittuja puitteita tukeakseen tämän suuntaista kehitystä. Tämä tutkielma pyrkii selvittämään, millainen paikkabrändi pääkaupunkiseudulla innovaatioklusterina on startup-yritysten näkökulmasta. Tutkielma tarkastelee, mitä tekijöitä startup-yritykset arvostavat sekä millainen brändi-identiteetti ja arvolupaus alueella koetaan olevan. Tutkielma toteutettiin hyödyntämällä case-tutkimusta ja puolistrukturoituja teemahaastatteluja tutkimusmenetelminä. Tutkielmaa varten haastateltiin yhteensä yhdeksää henkilöä kahdeksasta eri organisaatiosta, joista kuusi oli startup-yrityksiä ja kaksi muuta aluetta sekä sen klustereita edustavia tahoja. Tulosten analysoinnissa hyödynnettiin temaattista analyysiä. Tulokset osoittavat pääkaupunkiseudun ydinosaamisen olevan ympäristön puhtautta edistävissä innovaatioissa, terveysratkaisuissa ja peliteollisuudessa. Aluetta pidetään näille aloille houkuttelevana ja kansainvälisesti kilpailukykyisenä sijaintina. Pääkaupunkiseutua ja samalla Suomea kuvaavia arvoja ovat luottamus, avarakatseisuus, turvallisuus ja avoimuus. Helsinki on ihanteellinen paikka pilotointiin ja testaamiseen, sekä toimii väylänä Euroopan markkinoille idän ja lännen välissä