Secure Mobile Support of Independent Sales Agencies

Sales agents depend on mobile support systems for their daily work. Independent sales agencies, however, are not able to facilitate this kind of mobile support on their own due to their small size and lack of the necessary funds. Since their processes correlate with confidential information and include the initiation and alteration of legally binding transactions they have a high need for security. In this contribution we first propose an IT-artifact consisting of a service platform that supports multi-vendor sales processes based on previous work. We then analyze use cases of sales representatives of independent sales agencies using this system and derive their security requirements. We then propose a security extension to the IT-artifact and evaluate this extension by comparing it to existing solutions. Our results show that the proposed artifact extension provides a more convenient and secure solution than already existing approaches

Agent-based Simulation for Evaluation of a Mobile Emergency Management System

Large public events such as sporting events, concerts, fairs and street festivals are quite common in metropolitan areas. Because of the high frequency of such events and the increasing number of involved parties, the stakeholders responsible for the organization and execution have to cope with increasing complexity and shortening time frames for planning and preparation. Especially in public transportation, unplanned incidents that occur during these events can have devastating effects because of the high concentration of passengers. Emergency management systems that utilize mobile communication infrastructures can provide prompt information delivery to save human lives. In this contribution we propose a system design for mobile emergency management. We also present an evaluating approach for this system design using a multi-agent based simulation, based on empirical data for a particular large event as well as for normal rush hour traffic. We also consider characteristics of the mobile communication infrastructure

Call for action: Designing for harmony in creative teams

Competitive markets force diverse organizations to intensively manage innovation. Many of them set up multifunctional teams responsible for generating novel and original ideas. Such teams often face higher risk of conflicts and tensions, being an inherent part of creative processes. Impact of this phenomena on creative performance of teams, even though extensively addressed in research, remains unclarified. We approach this issue while providing a novel interpretation framework inspired by the concept of harmony in jazz improvisation. We apply it to observations made with project teams in an organizational setting, and use it to inform design of a supporting collaborative solution. We postulate the need for further work on team harmony and creativity