An inquiry beyond the technology acceptance model

Liu, Y., Henseler, J., & Liu, Y. (2022). What makes tourists adopt smart hospitality? An inquiry beyond the technology acceptance model. Digital Business, 2(2), 1-10. [100042]. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.digbus.2022.100042.----- Funding: Jorg ¨ Henseler acknowledges a financial interest in the composite based SEM software ADANCO and its distributor, Composite Modeling. Moreover, he gratefully acknowledges financial support from FCT Fundaçãopara a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Portugal), national funding through a research grant from the Information Management Research Center – MagIC/NOVA IMS (UIDB/04152/2020). This research was supported by iFRG fund (FRG-22-004-INT) at Macau University of Science and Technology. Ms. Wenting FU provided support for data collection.Smart hospitality has become an attractive project in tourism. Extant research has studied smart technology as a contingency but has neglected to conceptualize smartness and investigate its consequences. This study conceptualizes and operationalizes smart hospitality and explores the relationships among smartness, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, overall image of a hotel and tourists' behavioral intention to stay in a smart hotel. The proposed model incorporated technology acceptance model (TAM) and image theory. With a sample of 348 respondents in Macau, this study tested the model using partial least squares path modeling (PLS-PM), which indicates that the proposed model fits the data. In spite of a high inter-construct correlation, the results showed that smartness does not have a direct effect on behavioral intention. According to mediation analysis, indirect effects made up of significant direct effects and assigned them to TAM, image theory, and a combination of both. This paper contributes to hospitality management theory by providing additional insight into smart hospitality, it demonstrates the applicability of PLS-PM with composite and common factor models in technological change research, and it suggests smartness as a business strategy that can change tourists' choices in practice.publishersversionpublishe

Digital Towns

This open access book explores the digital transformation of small and rural towns, in particular, how to measure the evolution and development of digital towns. In addition to access to resources, competition from urban and global markets, and population trends, rural communities present lesser access and use of digital technologies and have lower digital competencies and skills than their urban counterparts. Consequently, they experience less beneficial outcomes from increased digitalisation than urban areas. This book defines what a digital town is and explores digitalisation from the perspective of the four basic economic sectors in towns - individuals and households, businesses, the public sector, and civil society - and three types of enabling infrastructure - digital connectivity, education, and governance. Particular attention is paid to how digitalisation efforts are measured by intergovernmental and international organisations for each sector and enabling infrastructure. The book concludes with a Digital Town Readiness Framework that offers local communities, policymakers, and scholars an initial set of indicators upon which to develop digital town initiatives, and measure progress. For those ready to embrace the opportunity, this book is a pathfinder on the road to a more equitable and impactful digital society and digital economy

Digital Towns

This open access book explores the digital transformation of small and rural towns, in particular, how to measure the evolution and development of digital towns. In addition to access to resources, competition from urban and global markets, and population trends, rural communities present lesser access and use of digital technologies and have lower digital competencies and skills than their urban counterparts. Consequently, they experience less beneficial outcomes from increased digitalisation than urban areas. This book defines what a digital town is and explores digitalisation from the perspective of the four basic economic sectors in towns - individuals and households, businesses, the public sector, and civil society - and three types of enabling infrastructure - digital connectivity, education, and governance. Particular attention is paid to how digitalisation efforts are measured by intergovernmental and international organisations for each sector and enabling infrastructure. The book concludes with a Digital Town Readiness Framework that offers local communities, policymakers, and scholars an initial set of indicators upon which to develop digital town initiatives, and measure progress. For those ready to embrace the opportunity, this book is a pathfinder on the road to a more equitable and impactful digital society and digital economy

Framework and Methodology for Establishing Port-City Policies Based on Real-Time Composite Indicators and IoT: A Practical Use-Case

[EN] During the past few decades, the combination of flourishing maritime commerce and urban population increases has made port-cities face several challenges. Smart Port-Cities of the future will take advantage of the newest IoT technologies to tackle those challenges in a joint fashion from both the city and port side. A specific matter of interest in this work is how to obtain reliable, measurable indicators to establish port-city policies for mutual benefit. This paper proposes an IoTbased software framework, accompanied with a methodology for defining, calculating, and predicting composite indicators that represent real-world phenomena in the context of a Smart PortCity. This paper envisions, develops, and deploys the framework on a real use-case as a practice experiment. The experiment consists of deploying a composite index for monitoring traffic congestion at the port-city interface in Thessaloniki (Greece). Results were aligned with the expectations, validated through nine scenarios, concluding with delivery of a useful tool for interested actors at Smart Port-Cities to work over and build policies upon.This research was funded, by the European Commission, via the agency INEA, under the H2020-project PIXEL, grant number 769355, and, when applicable, by the H2020-project DataPorts, grant number 871493, via the DG-CONNECT agency.Lacalle, I.; Belsa, A.; Vaño, R.; Palau Salvador, CE. (2020). Framework and Methodology for Establishing Port-City Policies Based on Real-Time Composite Indicators and IoT: A Practical Use-Case. 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(2018). Internet of Things-enabled smart cities: State-of-the-art and future trends. Measurement, 129, 589-606. doi:10.1016/j.measurement.2018.07.067Samih, H. (2019). Smart cities and internet of things. Journal of Information Technology Case and Application Research, 21(1), 3-12. doi:10.1080/15228053.2019.1587572Lanza, J., Sánchez, L., Gutiérrez, V., Galache, J., Santana, J., Sotres, P., & Muñoz, L. (2016). Smart City Services over a Future Internet Platform Based on Internet of Things and Cloud: The Smart Parking Case. Energies, 9(9), 719. doi:10.3390/en9090719A Novel Architecture for Modelling, Virtualising and Managing the Energy Consumption of Household Appliances|AIM Project|FP7|CORDIS|European Commissionhttps://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/224621Intelligent Use of Buildings’ Energy Information|IntUBE Project|FP7|CORDIS|European Commissionhttps://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/224286Scuotto, V., Ferraris, A., & Bresciani, S. (2016). Internet of Things: applications and challenges in smart cities. A case study of IBM smart city projects. Business Process Management Journal, 22(2). doi:10.1108/bpmj-05-2015-0074Molavi, A., Lim, G. J., & Race, B. (2019). A framework for building a smart port and smart port index. International Journal of Sustainable Transportation, 14(9), 686-700. doi:10.1080/15568318.2019.1610919Moustaka, V., Vakali, A., & Anthopoulos, L. G. (2019). A Systematic Review for Smart City Data Analytics. ACM Computing Surveys, 51(5), 1-41. doi:10.1145/3239566Alam, M., Dupras, J., & Messier, C. (2016). A framework towards a composite indicator for urban ecosystem services. Ecological Indicators, 60, 38-44. doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2015.05.035PIXEL Project D5.1 Environmental Factors and Mapping to Pilotshttps://pixel-ports.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/D5.1-Environmental-aspects-and-mapping-to-pilots.pdfEconomic Sentiment Indicator—Eurostathttps://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-datasets/product?code=teibs010Human Development Index (HDI)|Human Development Reportshttp://hdr.undp.org/en/content/human-development-index-hdiCOIN|Competence Centre on Composite Indicators and Scoreboardshttps://composite-indicators.jrc.ec.europa.eu/CITYkeys Projecthttp://www.citykeys-project.eu/citykeys/homeCITYkeys D1-4 Indicators for Smart City Projects and Smart Citieshttp://nws.eurocities.eu/MediaShell/media/CITYkeysD14Indicatorsforsmartcityprojectsandsmartcities.pdfMake Healthy Choices Easier Options—Scientific Americanhttps://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/make-healthy-choices-easier-options-12-09-20/FIWARE E Interoperabilidad Para Smart Citieshttps://www.apegr.org/images/descargas/J7OctESMARTCITY/2PresentacionFIWARE.pdfChen, G., Govindan, K., & Yang, Z. (2013). Managing truck arrivals with time windows to alleviate gate congestion at container terminals. International Journal of Production Economics, 141(1), 179-188. doi:10.1016/j.ijpe.2012.03.033Patel, N., & Mukherjee, A. B. (2015). Assessment of network traffic congestion through Traffic Congestability Value (TCV): a new index. Bulletin of Geography. Socio-economic Series, 30(30), 123-134. doi:10.1515/bog-2015-0039Aimsun Live: Model Every Movement at Every Momenthttps://www.aimsun.com/aimsun-live/PTV Vissim: Traffic Simulation Softwarehttps://www.ptvgroup.com/en/solutions/products/ptv-vissim/IBM Traffic Prediction Toolhttps://researcher.watson.ibm.com/researcher/view_group_subpage.php?id=1248Veins: The Open Source Vehicular Network Simulation Frameworkhttps://veins.car2x.org/Mena-Yedra, R., Gavaldà, R., & Casas, J. (2017). Adarules: Learning rules for real-time road-traffic prediction. 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A holistic perspective

The phenomenon of globalization and the need to combat the harmful effects of the recent financial and economic crisis associated with rapid urban development and stagnant economic growth in countries/regions/cities seen in the last decade worldwide, has led to a paradigmatic change in the view of cities’ role in urban economic development. This profound change means that cites are faced with a complex and enormous challenge, set out in the European Union’s 2020 Strategy based on the premises of long-term intelligent, inclusive and sustainable economic growth. However, these premises imply that models of economic growth and their traditional determining factors are altered, and so development of the so-called new economy is in evidence. This means that the new economy proposed by the European Union, besides being based on traditional factors generating economic growth, has come to include a new own resource, the intangibility and soft and hard amenities of urban places, or cities, as factors associated with cities’ urban economic development. The changes in regional and public policies linked to repositioning cities have aroused great interest in the academic world and in other public and private agencies, leading to the emergence of countless constructs, concepts and models aiming to contribute to understanding of this global phenomenon. In this context, the concepts of creativity, intelligence and urban sustainability, as inseparable dimensions of cities, have gained relevance in studies on cities, particularly regarding their measurement. Consequently, a series of models and indices have been developed aiming to answer the question of how to assess cities’ performance around these dimensions. This proliferation of studies has not exhausted the topic, as gaps remain to be filled, particularly those involving great complexity by interlinking various constructs such as urban networks, besides creativity, intelligence and urban sustainability in cities. In this scenario, the general aim of the research presented here is to propose a holistic, multidimensional model for Current Creative Cities (CCCs) and its empirical validation through constructing a Composite Index for their holistic performance. The broad spectrum of this objective is clear, and so it was divided in six specific objectives, namely: 1) to map the most studied topics concerning networks and the performance of creative cities, through a bibliometric analysis; 2) to present a proposal of a multidimensional design for CCCs and the respective indicators to measure their performance; 3) to validate empirically the model proposed for each dimension proposed per se, and subsequently, for all the dimensions of the holistic model as a whole; 4) to demonstrate that networks are predictors of CCCs’ holistic performance; 5) to propose a taxonomy for the holistic performance of CCCs and 6) to analyse the effect of living labs on the economic growth of CCCs. 5) to propose a taxonomy for the holistic performance of CCCs; To respond to these aims a mixed research methodology was adopted, since quantitative and qualitative approaches complement each other, particularly concerning internal and external validity, using different research techniques of a deductive and inductive nature, as explained below. In Chapter 2, responding to the first objective, the bibliometrics revealed the most studied topics, besides exponential interest in studying creative cities and networks together. It was also clarified that creativity can be associated with intelligence and urban sustainability in CCCs, that there is still a need to construct a holistic, transversal model for these dimensions, and that this should allow measuring performance and the effect of networks on this. The result obtained in this study directed the research to Chapter 3, i.e., to the second aim established, and so a multidimensional, holistic model is presented to measure CCCs’ holistic performance. With the answers to the first objectives defined, Chapters 4, 5, 6 and 7 aim to provide the response to the third and fourth objectives, presenting individual Composite Indices and for the Holistic Performance of CCCs, obtained through multivariate statistical techniques – Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Principal Components Analysis (PCA). These indices were validated empirically in Portugal. The results obtained and their discussion revealed that strategies directed to implementing creative, intelligent and sustainable measures are visible in economic growth in Portugal, despite the need to continue to develop and spread the structural and conjunctural bases through public policies aiming to overcome persisting weaknesses. Therefore, the methodological tool presented here is a bonus for local authorities and their public policies. The demographical, spatial and territorial variations of Portuguese towns and cities led to developing a taxonomy of their holistic performance, to respond to the fifth objective defined by using Hierarchical Cluster Analysis, presented in Chapter 8. The results show that improved holistic performance is only achieved when taking all the axes/dimensions of CCCs as a synergetic whole and as a cyclical consequence rather than per se. Finally, these results were complemented in Chapter 9 (sixth objective) by the case study method applied to the town of Fundão, which demonstrated it is not enough to activate the means for citizens to be dynamic actors in improved holistic performance, as current public policies must be strategically managed and promoted by reducing the financial costs involved. The studies presented here allowed presentation of a Composite Index for the Holistic Performance of Portuguese towns and cities, which with the due adaptations to the context analysed can be applied generally. This instrument forms the main contribution of this research, which is of an innovative and relevant nature by being based on urban networks as inductors and catalysts of improved urban economic growth in cities/local authorities. It is also shown that when cities include networks in their public policies, the intangible returns obtained benefit their holistic performance indirectly. Finally, Chapter 10 describes the limitations of the studies presented and makes general conclusions and contributions with implications for theory and practice.O fenómeno da globalização e a emergência de se contornar os efeitos nefastos da recente crise financeira e económica associados ao rápido desenvolvimento urbano e à estagnação do crescimento económico dos países/regiões/cidades a que se assistiu na última década em todo o mundo, originou que a visão do papel das cidades no desenvolvimento económico urbano fosse alterada de modo paradigmático. Esta alteração profunda significa que atualmente as cidades estão perante um desafio complexo e enorme, o qual se consubstanciou na Estratégia 2020 da União Europeia que assenta nas premissas de um crescimento económico inteligente, inclusivo e sustentável a longo prazo. Contudo, estas premissas implicaram que os modelos de crescimento económico e que os seus fatores determinantes tradicionais fossem alterados, pelo que se tem assistido ao desenvolvimento da denominada nova economia. Isto significa que a nova economia preconizada pela União Europeia, para além de assentar nos fatores tradicionais geradores de crescimento económico, passou a incluir um novo recurso próprio, a intangibilidade e as amenidades soft e hard dos lugares urbanos, vulgo cidades, como fatores associados ao desenvolvimento económico urbano das cidades. As mudanças das políticas económicas regionais e públicas ligadas ao reposicionamento das cidades despertou um elevado interesse no meio académico e em outras agências públicas e privadas, pelo que surgiram inúmeros construtos, conceitos, modelos que visavam contribuir para a compreensão desse fenómeno global. Neste contexto, os conceitos de criatividade, de inteligência e de sustentabilidade urbana, enquanto dimensões indissociáveis das cidades, ganharam relevância nos estudos sobre cidades, particularmente no tocante à mensuração da sua performance. Por conseguinte, uma bateria de modelos e de índices têm sido desenvolvidos visando responder à questão de como avaliar a performance das cidades em torno destas dimensões. Esta proliferação de estudos não esgotou a fertilidade desta temática, pela que ainda persistem lacunas por colmatar, em particular aquelas que envolvem elevada complexidade ao interligarem vários construtos, como as redes urbanas, para além da criatividade, inteligência e sustentabilidade urbana nas cidades. Neste cenário, o objetivo geral da investigação aqui apresentada passa pela proposta de um modelo holístico e multidimensional para as Currents Creative Cities (CCCs) e a sua validação empírica através da construção de um Índice Compósito para a performance holística das mesmas. É clarividente o largo espectro deste objetivo, pelo subdividiu este em seis objetivos específicos a saber: 1) Mapear as temáticas mais investigadas sobre as redes e a performance das cidades criativas, através de uma análise bibliométrica; 2) Apresentar uma proposta de desenho multidimensional para as CCCs e respetivos indicadores para a mensuração da performance das mesmas; 3) Validar empiricamente o modelo proposto para cada uma das dimensões propostas per si e, posteriormente, para o conjunto da todas as dimensões de modo holístico; 4) Demonstrar que as redes são preditores da performance holística das CCCs; 5) Propor uma taxonomia para a performance holística das CCCs; e 6) Analisar o efeito que as living labs têm no crescimento económico das CCCs. Para dar resposta a estes objetivos seguiu-se uma metodologia de investigação mista, uma vez que a abordagem quantitativa e qualitativa são complementares uma da outra, nomeadamente no tocante à validade interna e externa, em que se utilizaram diferentes técnicas de investigação de natureza dedutiva e indutiva, como explicado a seguir. Assim, o capítulo 2 responde ao primeiro objetivo, a bibliometria revelou os tópicos mais estudados, para além de um interesse exponencial em estudar as cidades criativas e as redes em conjunto. Também se clarificou que a criatividade é passível de associação à inteligência e à sustentabilidade urbana nas CCCs, que persiste a urgência de se construir um modelo holístico e transversal a estas dimensões e que possibilitem que se mensure a performance e o efeito das redes nessa. Assim, a resposta obtida neste estudo direcionou a investigação para o capítulo 3, ou seja, para o segundo objetivo estabelecido, pelo que se apresenta um modelo multidimensional e holístico para a mensuração da performance holística nas CCCs. Ainda com a resposta aos primeiros objetivos definidos, os capítulos 4, 5, 6 e 7 visam ilustrar a resposta aos terceiro e quarto objetivos, em que se apresentaram Índices Compósitos individuais e para a Performance Holística das CCCs, obtidos pelo uso de técnicas estatísticas multivariadas – Análise Fatorial Exploratória (AFE) e Análise dos Componentes Principais (ACP). Estes índices foram validados empiricamente em Portugal. Os resultados obtidos e a sua discussão revelaram que as estratégias direcionadas para a implementação de medidas criativas, inteligentes e sustentáveis são visíveis no crescimento económico em Portugal, porém ainda urge que se continue a germinar e disseminar as bases estruturais e conjunturais através de políticas públicas que visem ultrapassar as fragilidades que ainda persistem. Deste modo, a ferramenta metodológica aqui apresentada é uma mais valia para os municípios e suas políticas públicas. A disparidade demográfica, espacial e territorial das cidades em Portugal induziu ao desenvolvimento de uma taxonomia de performance holística para as mesmas, dando resposta ao quinto objetivo definido pela utilização da Análise Hierárquica de Clusters (AHC), apresentado no capítulo 8. Os resultados mostram que as melhorias na performance holística só são conseguidas quando se encaram todos os eixos/dimensões das CCCs como um todo sinérgico e como uma consequência em ciclo e não per si. Por último, estes resultados foram complementados no capítulo 9 (sexto objetivo) pelo método de estudo de caso aplicado à cidade do Fundão, o que possibilitou que se demonstrasse que não basta acionar os meios para que os cidadãos sejam atores dinâmicos na melhoria da performance holística, pois é premente que as atuais politicas públicas sejam estrategicamente geridas e alavancadas pela redução dos encargos financeiros afetos a essas politicas. Os estudos aqui apresentados possibilitarem a apresentação de um Índice Compósito para a Performance Holística das cidades portuguesas, que com as devidas adaptações ao contexto em análise é passível de aplicação generalizada. Este instrumento constitui o principal contributo desta investigação e que assume um carácter inovador e pertinente ao ter como pedra basilar as redes urbanas como indutoras e catalisadoras da melhoria do crescimento económico urbano das cidades/municípios. Mostra-se ainda que as cidades que integram as redes nas suas políticas públicas obtêm retornos intangíveis que indiretamente beneficiam a sua performance holística. Finalmente, no capítulo 10 são explanadas as limitações dos estudos apresentados e tecidas as conclusões gerais e outros contributos com implicações para a teoria e para a prática

Trust and Privacy Solutions Based on Holistic Service Requirements

The products and services designed for Smart Cities provide the necessary tools to improve the management of modern cities in a more efficient way. These tools need to gather citizens’ information about their activity, preferences, habits, etc. opening up the possibility of tracking them. Thus, privacy and security policies must be developed in order to satisfy and manage the legislative heterogeneity surrounding the services provided and comply with the laws of the country where they are provided. This paper presents one of the possible solutions to manage this heterogeneity, bearing in mind these types of networks, such as Wireless Sensor Networks, have important resource limitations. A knowledge and ontology management system is proposed to facilitate the collaboration between the business, legal and technological areas. This will ease the implementation of adequate specific security and privacy policies for a given service. All these security and privacy policies are based on the information provided by the deployed platforms and by expert system processing

Actions fostering the adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies in manufacturing companies in European regions

Industry 4.0, a concept comprising a range of promising innovations enabled by the recent advancements in digital technologies, has become a priority of industrial policy in many European countries and regions. In this paper, we present actions undertaken by regional organisations (including the so-called Digital Innovation Hubs), fostering the adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies in manufacturing companies. Using examples from Germany, Italy and Poland, we show actions that enable the creation of general conditions for such implementations and help companies develop an individual strategy for adopting Industry 4.0 innovations

Acciones de fomento de la adopción de tecnologías Industria 4.0 en empresas manufactureras de regiones europeas

Industry 4.0, a concept comprising a range of promising innovations enabled by the recent advancements in digital technologies, has become a priority of industrial policy in many European countries and regions. In this paper, we present actions undertaken by regional organisations (including the so-called Digital Innovation Hubs), fostering the adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies in manufacturing companies. Using examples from Germany, Italy and Poland, we show actions that enable the creation of general conditions for such implementations and help companies develop an individual strategy for adopting Industry 4.0 innovations.La Industria 4.0, un concepto que comprende una serie de prometedoras innovaciones posibilitadas por los recientes avances en las tecnologías digitales, se ha convertido en una prioridad de la política industrial de muchos países y regiones europeos. En este documento presentamos las acciones emprendidas por organizaciones regionales (incluidos los denominados Centros de Innovación Digital) para fomentar la adopción de las tecnologías de la Industria 4.0 en las empresas manufactureras. Utilizando ejemplos de Alemania, Italia y Polonia, mostramos acciones que permiten crear condiciones generales para tales implementaciones a nivel regional, pero también ayudan a las empresas individuales a crear una estrategia individual para la adopción de las innovaciones de la Industria 4.0

Sustainable Rural Development: Strategies, Good Practices and Opportunities

In 2020, a Special Issue titled “Sustainable Rural Development: Strategies, Good Practices and Opportunities” was launched, in which 16 papers were published. The aim of this monograph was to study a problem that is occurring on a global scale and, above all, in the most developed countries, which is the population emigration from rural areas to urban areas due to the labour and service opportunities offered by the latter. This is causing a demographic deterioration of rural areas, and those that remain show high rates of ageing, masculinisation, or low demographic growth. In addition, and interrelated with this demographic deterioration, there is economic and environmental degradation. Rural areas are territories with increasingly lower purchasing power, job opportunities, and services for the population, which are classified as “spaces in crisis”. The papers in this Special Issue evidence the many public and private strategies that are being pursued to achieve sustainable rural development in declining areas. The diversity of approaches offer a vision of the practical application and the obstacles or difficulties that many of them are having to achieve their objectives. All of these strategies are intended to achieve economic dynamism that is respectful of the environment and from there to be able to reduce the regressive demographic processes in rural areas. These are different approaches that allow us to contribute, from scientific, holistic, and multidisciplinary knowledge, and they can help decision making in public policy and planning strategies