Trusted operational scenarios - Trust building mechanisms and strategies for electronic marketplaces.

This document presents and describes the trusted operational scenarios, resulting from the research and work carried out in Seamless project. The report presents identified collaboration habits of small and medium enterprises with low e-skills, trust building mechanisms and issues as main enablers of online business relationships on the electronic marketplace, a questionnaire analysis of the level of trust acceptance and necessity of trust building mechanisms, a proposal for the development of different strategies for the different types of trust mechanisms and recommended actions for the SEAMLESS project or other B2B marketplaces.trust building mechanisms, trust, B2B networks, e-marketplaces

Techniques for assessing the investment attractiveness of a commercial organization based on classical methods of strategic economic analysis

Purpose: The development of methodological support for assessing the investment attractiveness of a commercial organization, considering modern information requests of stakeholders. Design/Methodology/Approach: As part of the research, the authors have developed an algorithm for investment attractiveness assessment of a commercial organization by using the scenario method of economic analysis. Findings: It is proved that the main disadvantages of the existing methods of assessing investment attractiveness are: the lack of strategic orientation of the assessment; ignoring the influence of most external and internal factors of activity; the inability to assess the risk of investing in the analyzed object; the need to compare with the level of investment attractiveness of similar organizations for an objective interpretation of the results. Practical implications: To eliminate the significant shortcomings of modern methodological support in this area, the authors recommend the use of scenario method of strategic economic analysis in the process of assessing the investment attractiveness of the organization. Originality/Value: The scenario method of strategic economic analysis proposed by the authors complements the existing approaches with the ability to take into account potential risks when making a far-sighted decision to invest in an organization by combining the results of retrospective analysis and forecasting changes in the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of financial and economic activity.peer-reviewe

Ontology-Based Intelligent Agents in Workplace eLearning

Despite the ever increasing practices of e-learning, most workplace e-learning applications fail to meet the learners’ needs and ultimately fail to serve the organization’s quest for success. The dominance of technology-oriented approaches makes e-learning applications less goal-effective, and makes them perceived to be of poor quality and design. To solve this problem, a performance oriented approach is presented in this study. This approach aims to align the individual learning needs vis-à-vis the organizational goals and makes learning connected with work performance. Based on the approach, a prototype system has been developed that uses intelligent agent and ontology technology. A set of experiments have been conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach

Eliciting Expertise

Since the last edition of this book there have been rapid developments in the use and exploitation of formally elicited knowledge. Previously, (Shadbolt and Burton, 1995) the emphasis was on eliciting knowledge for the purpose of building expert or knowledge-based systems. These systems are computer programs intended to solve real-world problems, achieving the same level of accuracy as human experts. Knowledge engineering is the discipline that has evolved to support the whole process of specifying, developing and deploying knowledge-based systems (Schreiber et al., 2000) This chapter will discuss the problem of knowledge elicitation for knowledge intensive systems in general

"Can Banks Learn to Be Rational?"

Can banks learn to be rational in their lending activities? The answer depends on the institutionally bounded constraints to learning. From an evolutionary perspective the functionality (for survival) of "learning to be rational" creates strong incentives for such learning without, however, guaranteeing that each member of the particular economic species actually achieves increased fitness. I investigate this issue for a particular economic species, namely, commrercial banks. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the key issues related to learning in an economic model by proposing a new screening model for bank commercial loans that uses the neuro fuzzy technique. The technical modeling aspect is integrally connected in a rigorous way to the key conceptual and theoretical aspects of the capabilities for learning to be rational in a broad but precise sense. This paper also compares the relative predictability of loan default among three methods of prediction--- discriminant analysis, logit type regression, and neuro fuzzy--- based on the real data obtained from one of the banks in Taiwan.The neuro fuzzy model, in contrast with the other two, incorporates recursive learning in a real world, imprecise linguistic environment. The empirical results show that in addition to its better screening ability, the neuro fuzzy model is superior in explaining the relationship among the variables as well. With further modifications,this model could be used by bank regulatory agencies for loan examination and by bank loan officers for loan review. The main theoretical conclusion to draw from this demonstration is that non-linear learning in a vague semantic world is both possible and useful. Therefore the search for alternatives to the full neoclassical rationality and its equivalent under uncertainty---rational expectations--- is a plausible and desirable search, especially when the probability for convergence to a rational expectations equilibrium is low.

Integrating organizational, social, and individual perspectives in Web 2.0-based workplace e-learning

From the issue entitled 'Special Issue: Emerging Social and Legal Aspect'E-learning is emerging as a popular approach of education in the workplace by virtue of its flexibility to access, just-in-time delivery, and cost-effectiveness. To improve social interaction and knowledge sharing in e-learning, Web 2.0 is increasingly utilized and integrated with e-learning applications. However, existing social learning systems fail to align learning with organizational goals and individual needs in a systemic way. The dominance of technology-oriented approaches makes elearning applications less goal-effective and poor in quality and design. To solve the problem, we address the requirement of integrating organizational, social, and individual perspectives in the development of Web 2.0 elearning systems. To fulfill the requirement, a key performance indicator (KPI)-oriented approach is presented in this study. By integrating a KPI model with Web 2.0 technologies, our approach is able to: 1) set up organizational goals and link the goals with expertise required for individuals; 2) build a knowledge network by linking learning resources to a set of competences to be developed and a group of people who learn and contribute to the knowledge network through knowledge creation, sharing, and peer evaluation; and 3) improve social networking and knowledge sharing by identifying each individual's work context, expertise, learning need, performance, and contribution. The mechanism of the approach is explored and elaborated with conceptual frameworks and implementation technologies. A prototype system for Web 2.0 e-learning has been developed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach. © Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2009.postprin

Design of a performance-oriented workplace e-learning system using ontology

E-learning is emerging as a popular learning approach utilized by many organizations. Despite the ever increasing practices of e-learning in the workplace, most e-learning applications fail to meet learners' needs or serve organization's quests for success. Significant gaps exist between organizational interests and individual needs when they come to e-learning, which make e-learning applications less goal-effective. To solve this problem, a performance-oriented approach is presented in this study. Key performance indicators (KPIs) are set up to clarify organizational training needs, and help learners establish rational learning objectives. In addition, ontology is used for constructing formal and machine-understandable conceptualization of the performance-oriented learning environment. Using this approach, a KPI-oriented learning ontology and prototype system have been developed and evaluated to demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.postprin

Full Information Product Pricing: An Information Strategy for Harnessing Consumer Choice to Create a More Sustainable World

Research and practice in the information systems (IS) field have been evolving over time, nourishing and promoting the development of applications that transform the relationships of individuals, corporations, and governments. Building on this evolution, we push forward a vision of the potential influence of the IS field into one of the most important problems of our times, an increasingly unsustainable world, which is traditionally considered the product of imperfect markets or market externalities. We describe our work in Full Information Product Pricing (FIPP) and our vision of a FIPP global socio-technical system, I-Choose, as a way to connect consumer choice and values with environmental, social, and economic effects of production and distribution practices. FIPP and I-Choose represent a vision about how information systems research can contribute to interdisciplinary research in supply chains, governance, and market economies to provide consumers with information packages that help them better understand how, where, and by whom the products they buy are produced. We believe that such a system will have important implications for international trade and agreements, for public policy, and for making a more sustainable world

The relationship between corporate social responsibility and firm performance in emerging economies: evidence from pharmaceutical Chinese firms

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has received increasing concern from both companies and the public. Prior scholars began to develop the concept of CSR in the 1950s, and until now there have been various CSR studies focusing on its principles, frameworks, and developments in the mature economies. However, researchers point out that differences in social, cultural and economic systems yield various perceptions and implementations of CSR issues. Scholars have currently turned their attention to explore CSR in the context of emerging economies. Because of growing demands for safe and reliable medication for the public, pharmaceutical companies are highly expected to manufacture their products in socially responsible ways. However, the great expenditures spent on medical research and development (R&D) and promotional activities limit their resources for CSR practices. If engagement in CSR activities cannot generate the growth of financial performance, these activities may be regarded as wasting of resources. Recent researchers claim that the relationship between CSR and firm performance is still not fully understood in the emerging economies and needs to be further investigated.A responsabilidade social empresarial (RSE) tem recebido atenção crescente, tanto por parte das empresas quanto do público. Os académicos começaram a desenvolver o conceito de RSE na década 50, do século passado, e tem havido vários estudos com foco nos seus princípios, estruturas e desenvolvimentos em economias maduras. No entanto, os investigadores salientam que as diferenças nos sistemas sociais, culturais e económicos geram perceções e implementações distintas em torno de vários aspetos da RSE. Atualmente, os académicos voltaram a sua atenção para a RSE no contexto das economias emergentes. Devido à procura crescente de medicamentos seguros e confiáveis para o público, espera-se que as empresas farmacêuticas fabriquem os seus produtos de maneira socialmente responsável. No entanto, os gastos avultados em investigação e desenvolvimento (I&D) na área médica e atividades promocionais limitam os seus recursos para atividades de RSE. Se o envolvimento em atividades de RSE não pode gerar melhorias no desempenho financeiro, as mesmas podem ser consideradas desperdício de recursos. Recentemente, investigadores afirmam que a relação entre a RSE e o desempenho da empresa ainda não é totalmente compreendida nas economias emergentes e precisa de ser mais investigada

Knowledge society arguments revisited in the semantic technologies era

In the light of high profile governmental and international efforts to realise the knowledge society, I review the arguments made for and against it from a technology standpoint. I focus on advanced knowledge technologies with applications on a large scale and in open- ended environments like the World Wide Web and its ambitious extension, the Semantic Web. I argue for a greater role of social networks in a knowledge society and I explore the recent developments in mechanised trust, knowledge certification, and speculate on their blending with traditional societal institutions. These form the basis of a sketched roadmap for enabling technologies for a knowledge society