Exploring the effects of cyber-bullying on student's attitude in online learning: A case study of UUM

Nowadays, the massive use of information technology services in different learning fields has led to more cyber-bullying in return. There are few studies conducted to measure or examine the effects of cyber-bullying activities on individual‘s behavioral aspects within the university context. Therefore, this study aimed at determining the types of cyber-bullying exist in online learning environment in UUM and its effect on student‘s attitude to use online tools. Questionnaire was administrated among 280 respondents, only 207 questions were found to be valid for data analysis. An exploratory factor analysis was used to determine the key factors contributing to UUM students‘ cyber-bullying. A total of three factors were resulted 1) Receiving emails and instant messages with different identities, 2) Asking for access without permission, and 3) Use of webcam images. The result also showed that there were a significant correlation between these factors and students‘ attitude. The regression analysis result showed that students‘ attitude were affected by two factors which believed to favor their intention to use learningzone as an online learning tool. Recommendation and future studies are discussed in this research

Bidding Markets

The existence of a ‘bidding market’ is commonly cited as a reason to tolerate the creation or maintenance of highly concentrated markets. We discuss three erroneous arguments to that effect: the ‘consultants’ fallacy’ that ‘market power is impossible’, the ‘academics’ fallacy’ that (often) ‘market power does not matter’, and the ‘regulators’ fallacy’ that ‘intervention against pernicious market power is unnecessary’, in markets characterized by auctions or bidding processes. Furthermore we argue that the term ‘bidding market’ as it is widely used in antitrust is unhelpful or misleading. Auctions and bidding processes do have some special features—including their price formation processes, common-values behaviour, and bid-taker power—but the significance of these features has been overemphasized, and they often imply a need for stricter rather than more lenient competition policy.Bidding Markets, Auctions, Antitrust, Competition Policy, Bidding, Market Power, Private Values, Common Values, Anti-trust

Coordination in Service Value Networks - A Mechanism Design Approach

The fundamental paradigm shift from traditional value chains to agile service value networks (SVN) implies new economic and organizational challenges. This work provides an auction-based coordination mechanism that enables the allocation and pricing of service compositions in SVNs. The mechanism is multidimensional incentive compatible and implements an ex-post service level enforcement. Further extensions of the mechanism are evaluated following analytical and numerical research methods

DYNAMOD – A dynamic agent based modelling framework for digital businesses

Digital Businesses have become a major driver for economic growth and have seen an explosion of new startups. At the same time, it also includes mature enterprises that have become global giants in a relatively short period of time. Digital Businesses have unique characteristics that make the running and management of a Digital Business much different from traditional offline businesses. Digital businesses respond to online users who are highly interconnected and networked. This enables a rapid flow of word of mouth, at a pace far greater than ever envisioned when dealing with traditional products and services. The relatively low cost of incremental user addition has led to a variety of innovation in pricing of digital products, including various forms of free and freemium pricing models. This thesis explores the unique characteristics and complexities of Digital Businesses and its implications on the design of Digital Business Models and Revenue Models. The thesis proposes an Agent Based Modeling Framework that can be used to develop Simulation Models that simulate the complex dynamics of Digital Businesses and the user interactions between users of a digital product. Such Simulation models can be used for a variety of purposes such as simple forecasting, analysing the impact of market disturbances, analysing the impact of changes in pricing models and optimising the pricing for maximum revenue generation or a balance between growth in usage and revenue generation. These models can be developed for a mature enterprise with a large historical record of user growth rate as well as for early stage enterprises without much historical data. Through three case studies, the thesis demonstrates the applicability of the Framework and its potential applications.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) - SFRH/BD/87286/201

Coordination in Service Value Networks : A Mechanism Design Approach

The fundamental paradigm shift from traditional value chains to agile service value networks (SVN) implies new economic and organizational challenges. This work provides an auction-based coordination mechanism that enables the allocation and pricing of service compositions in SVNs. The mechanism is multidimensional incentive compatible and implements an ex-post service level enforcement. Further extensions of the mechanism are evaluated following analytical and numerical research methods

Bundling Strategies in Global Supply Chains

The development of logistics has offered a wide range of new business opportunities for transport operators. Shipping lines have been taking advantage of these opportunities and have expanded their business scope beyond the movement of cargo, to include, for example, coordination among transport modes, route rationalisation and even value added logistics services. Carriers offer today transportation as part of integrated global supply chain solutions in an attempt to provide a better service to their customers as well as improve their bottom lines. This appears to be a winning strategy since an increasing number of industry players are investing in logistics operations and infrastructure. The offering of products and services jointly as a package or bundle is a common marketing strategy in a variety of industries and also appears to be a successful strategy for enhancing shipping lines’ competitiveness and profitability. Only limited research is available though to better understand under what conditions such bundled sales are possible; what attitude shippers show towards this industry trend; how bundling strategies could be developed optimally; and how they could be priced. This thesis is a contribution to research in this area and provides an analysis of the viability and the benefits of bundling strategies in the container industry, and specifically with reference to the joint provision of ocean transportation and other logistics services

Digital piracy: An assessment of consumer piracy risk and optimal supply chain coordination strategies.

Digital piracy and the emergence of new distribution channels have changed the dynamics of supply chain coordination and created many interesting problems. There has been increased attention to understanding the phenomenon of consumer piracy behavior and its impact on supply chain profitability. The purpose of this dissertation is to better understand the impact of digital piracy on online music channel and optimal supply chain strategies which achieve high levels of coordination. A multi-method approach including survey, mathematical modeling, and simulation are used to a) analyze the impact of piracy on digital music channel coordination under different contract arrangements, b) develop theoretical and operational basis for conceptualizing a measurement model of consumer piracy risk, c) examine the effectiveness of piracy control strategies used to dissuade consumers from illegal music downloads. Findings from this dissertation contribute to the literature on digital piracy, consumer piracy behavior, online channel distribution, and supply chain coordination, and provide several important managerial implications

Regulating competition in the digital network industry: A proposal for progressive ecosystem regulation

The digital sector is a cornerstone of the modern economy, and regulating digital enterprises can be considered the new frontier for regulators and competition authorities. To capture and address the competitive dynamics of digital markets we need to rethink our (competition) laws and regulatory strategies. The thesis develops new approaches to regulating digital markets by viewing them as part of a network industry. By combining insights from our experiences with existing regulation in telecommunications with insights from economics literature and management theory, the thesis concludes by proposing a new regulatory framework called ‘progressive ecosystem regulation’. The thesis is divided in three parts and has three key findings or contributions. The first part explains why digital platforms such as Google’s search engine, Meta’s social media platforms and Amazon’s Marketplace are prone to monopolization. Here, the thesis develops a theory of ‘digital natural monopoly’, which explains why competition in digital platform markets is likely to lead to concentration by its very nature.The second part of the thesis puts forward that competition in digital markets persists, even if there is monopoly in a market. Here, the thesis develops a conceptual framework for competition between digital ecosystems, which consists of group of actors and products. Digital enterprises compete to carve out a part of the digital network industry where they can exert control, and their strong position in a platform market can be used offensively or defensively to steer competition between ecosystems. The thesis then sets out four phases of ecosystem competition, which helps to explain when competition in the digital network industry is healthy and when it is likely to become problematic.The third and final part of the thesis brings together these findings and draws lessons from our experiences of regulating the network industry for telecommunications. Based on the insights developed in the thesis it puts forward a proposal for ‘progressive ecosystem regulation’. The purpose of this regulation is to protect and empower entrants from large digital ecosystems so that they can develop new products and innovate disruptively. This regulatory framework would create three regulatory pools: a heavily regulated, lightly regulated and entrant pool. The layered regulatory framework allows regulators to adjust who receives protection under the regulation and who faces the burdens relatively quickly, so that the regulatory framework reflects the fast pace of innovation and changing nature of digital markets. With this proposal, the thesis challenges and enriches our existing notions on regulation and specifically how we should regulate digital markets

Regulating competition in the digital network industry: A proposal for progressive ecosystem regulation

The digital sector is a cornerstone of the modern economy, and regulating digital enterprises can be considered the new frontier for regulators and competition authorities. To capture and address the competitive dynamics of digital markets we need to rethink our (competition) laws and regulatory strategies. The thesis develops new approaches to regulating digital markets by viewing them as part of a network industry. By combining insights from our experiences with existing regulation in telecommunications with insights from economics literature and management theory, the thesis concludes by proposing a new regulatory framework called ‘progressive ecosystem regulation’. The thesis is divided in three parts and has three key findings or contributions. The first part explains why digital platforms such as Google’s search engine, Meta’s social media platforms and Amazon’s Marketplace are prone to monopolization. Here, the thesis develops a theory of ‘digital natural monopoly’, which explains why competition in digital platform markets is likely to lead to concentration by its very nature.The second part of the thesis puts forward that competition in digital markets persists, even if there is monopoly in a market. Here, the thesis develops a conceptual framework for competition between digital ecosystems, which consists of group of actors and products. Digital enterprises compete to carve out a part of the digital network industry where they can exert control, and their strong position in a platform market can be used offensively or defensively to steer competition between ecosystems. The thesis then sets out four phases of ecosystem competition, which helps to explain when competition in the digital network industry is healthy and when it is likely to become problematic.The third and final part of the thesis brings together these findings and draws lessons from our experiences of regulating the network industry for telecommunications. Based on the insights developed in the thesis it puts forward a proposal for ‘progressive ecosystem regulation’. The purpose of this regulation is to protect and empower entrants from large digital ecosystems so that they can develop new products and innovate disruptively. This regulatory framework would create three regulatory pools: a heavily regulated, lightly regulated and entrant pool. The layered regulatory framework allows regulators to adjust who receives protection under the regulation and who faces the burdens relatively quickly, so that the regulatory framework reflects the fast pace of innovation and changing nature of digital markets. With this proposal, the thesis challenges and enriches our existing notions on regulation and specifically how we should regulate digital markets

Regulation of oligopolies in the EU electronic communications markets: the current framework does not adequately address the oligopoly problem.

PhDThe present work has examined the thesis that the current framework for the regulation of SMP under EU law on electronic communications does not address the oligopoly problem in full. Under the SMP framework for electronic communications, joint dominance is considered a very rare occasion that may arise in symmetrical duopolies; there are strong doubts on whether the existing framework is capable in practice of addressing more complex issues associated with oligopolies in electronic communication markets. Wholesale international roaming is presented as a case study in support of this submission. Under the SMP framework for electronic communications, the Commission thinking has been too much dominated by the concept of single dominance. In view of the increasing number of oligopolistic markets in the post-liberalisation era, the framework needs to be revised to encompass wider market definitions, which will be able to catch oligopolistic situations also. The application of the collective dominance test of Annex II of the Framework Directive and the Guidelines on the assessment of market power will have to be updated in accordance with the Impala judgment. Also, the Guidelines should be revised to address also particulars of the application of remedies in oligopolistic markets and remedies of a quasi-contract type, like the imposition of penalties that may be used for the finance of the roll-out of new networks should be examined as an alternative to access obligations