Understanding Socio-Technical Impacts Arising from Software-as-a-Service Usage in Companies - A Mixed Method Analysis on Individual Level Data

Given the advantages of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), such as cost efficiency and flexibility gains, decision-makers increasingly deploy this technology for supporting business processes as well as core business processes. But the impact of SaaS integration on a company’s IT organization often does not become apparent until the implementation is completed. Therefore, this paper examines the perceptions of IT professionals in internal IT departments regarding the effects of SaaS. In order to analyze the changes in the daily work processes of internal IT professionals in companies using SaaS, we start with the design and test of a suitable quantitative research model. In a second step, we conduct triangulation by investigating four SaaS cases from the perspectives of internal IT professionals and end users. This step constitutes the qualitative part of the study. From the empirical results we can deduce that with an increasing SaaS usage level a socio-technical instability emerges in the perceived individual job outcome (e.g., job satisfaction, job acceptance, job significance). This is especially true for IT professionals. Our valuable findings help management to understand the need for balancing both their willingness for SaaS adoption and the socio-technical consequences

From Social Data Mining to Forecasting Socio-Economic Crisis

Socio-economic data mining has a great potential in terms of gaining a better understanding of problems that our economy and society are facing, such as financial instability, shortages of resources, or conflicts. Without large-scale data mining, progress in these areas seems hard or impossible. Therefore, a suitable, distributed data mining infrastructure and research centers should be built in Europe. It also appears appropriate to build a network of Crisis Observatories. They can be imagined as laboratories devoted to the gathering and processing of enormous volumes of data on both natural systems such as the Earth and its ecosystem, as well as on human techno-socio-economic systems, so as to gain early warnings of impending events. Reality mining provides the chance to adapt more quickly and more accurately to changing situations. Further opportunities arise by individually customized services, which however should be provided in a privacy-respecting way. This requires the development of novel ICT (such as a self- organizing Web), but most likely new legal regulations and suitable institutions as well. As long as such regulations are lacking on a world-wide scale, it is in the public interest that scientists explore what can be done with the huge data available. Big data do have the potential to change or even threaten democratic societies. The same applies to sudden and large-scale failures of ICT systems. Therefore, dealing with data must be done with a large degree of responsibility and care. Self-interests of individuals, companies or institutions have limits, where the public interest is affected, and public interest is not a sufficient justification to violate human rights of individuals. Privacy is a high good, as confidentiality is, and damaging it would have serious side effects for society.Comment: 65 pages, 1 figure, Visioneer White Paper, see http://www.visioneer.ethz.c

Sustainable consumption: towards action and impact. : International scientific conference November 6th-8th 2011, Hamburg - European Green Capital 2011, Germany: abstract volume

This volume contains the abstracts of all oral and poster presentations of the international scientific conference „Sustainable Consumption – Towards Action and Impact“ held in Hamburg (Germany) on November 6th-8th 2011. This unique conference aims to promote a comprehensive academic discourse on issues concerning sustainable consumption and brings together scholars from a wide range of academic disciplines. In modern societies, private consumption is a multifaceted and ambivalent phenomenon: it is a ubiquitous social practice and an economic driving force, yet at the same time, its consequences are in conflict with important social and environmental sustainability goals. Finding paths towards “sustainable consumption” has therefore become a major political issue. In order to properly understand the challenge of “sustainable consumption”, identify unsustainable patterns of consumption and bring forward the necessary innovations, a collaborative effort of researchers from different disciplines is needed

Bike-sharing: the good, the bad, and the future -an analysis of the public discussion on Twitter-

Due to the dilemma of bike-sharing concerning its benefits and drawbacks, and its unclear future, we focused on a mixed-methods approach to analyze this public discussion through posts or “tweets” from the social media channel Twitter. We collected around 12,000 tweets in English around the world related to bike-sharing for a period of about six months. We considered two approaches, including topic clustering and sentiment analysis in tweets including: a) bike-sharing related terms and b) “future” and bike-sharing related terms. Strongly positive tweets promote bike-sharing and its benefits such as being convenient, well-performing, and sustainable. Additionally, there is a tendency to write that public, electric, and dockless are better, together with scooters. In contrast, the complaints on bike-sharing focused on inequity, rentals and safety issues, critique on authorities and laws, and poor performance especially of dockless Asian bike-sharing start-ups with low-quality bikes. Around 50% of the tweets that included the terms “future” and “bike–sharing” stated that bike-sharing is going to be part of the future of mobility as an electric dockless version together with other shared modes. The hesitant statements towards bike-sharing being part of the future referred mainly to the systems with poor bikes’ quality. Politicians and stakeholders can use this information to enhance bike-sharing or consider the implementation of certain types of bike-sharing in their cities. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study would be one of the first that analysis the public discussion on social media about a transportation system and its future using a mixed-methods approach. Future studies should aim at identifying and comparing the public opinion of different emerging transportation technologies

Identifying immersive environments’ most relevant research topics: an instrument to query researchers and practitioners

This paper provides an instrument for ascertaining researchers’ perspectives on the relative relevance of technological challenges facing immersive environments in view of their adoption in learning contexts, along three dimensions: access, content production, and deployment. It described its theoretical grounding and expert-review process, from a set of previously-identified challenges and expert feedback cycles. The paper details the motivation, setup, and methods employed, as well as the issues detected in the cycles and how they were addressed while developing the instrument. As a research instrument, it aims to be employed across diverse communities of research and practice, helping direct research efforts and hence contribute to wider use of immersive environments in learning, and possibly contribute towards the development of news and more adequate systems.The work presented herein has been partially funded under the European H2020 program H2020-ICT-2015, BEACONING project, grant agreement nr. 687676.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Sustainability in design: now! Challenges and opportunities for design research, education and practice in the XXI century

Copyright @ 2010 Greenleaf PublicationsLeNS project funded by the Asia Link Programme, EuropeAid, European Commission