From One to Many Business Models: Uncovering Characteristics of Business Model Portfolios

As business model (BM) innovation has become one of management’s top priorities, anecdotal evidence suggests that firms do not have one single BM but run multiple BMs in parallel. From an academic perspective, only few attempts have been made until today, to broaden the scope of research from one to many BMs within firm boundaries. To close this gap, we systematically review the emerging literature on “multiple” BMs, based on a theoretical framework that links the BM concept with general mechanisms of corporate portfolio management. Our results show that firms develop BM portfolios as a direct result of challenges in today’s technology-driven environment, such as disruptive industry BMs and the need to commercialize technologies with innovative BMs. More specifically, our findings challenge the general assumption that firms should (or can) be described based on a single BM. Segmentation, configuration and coordination of multiple BMs can complement a customer-centric perspective in the BM development and management process, not only for large organizations. We provide initial characteristics of these mechanisms and outline areas for future research

Business Model Management: Current Practices, Required Activities and IT Support

This paper explores the concept of business model management, defined as a generic process covering all phases of the business model lifecycle. In contrast to previous business model literature, which is mainly focused on the design of business models, we argue that the successful exploitation of the business model concept requires a dedicated management approach. Due to the lack of extant research in the domain, we build on multiple, exploratory case studies of large organizations, based on 20 expert interviews. This paper contributes to a better understanding of the current practices and needs in business model management and the multifaceted role of the business model concept in each of its phases. Moreover, we suggest roles of IT in the business model management process

ARPES study of Pb doped Bi_2Sr_2CaCu_2O_8 - a new Fermi surface picture

High resolution angle resolved photoemission data from Pb doped Bi_2Sr_2CaCu_2O_8 (Bi2212) with suppressed superstructure is presented. Improved resolution and very high momentum space sampling at various photon energies reveal the presence of two Fermi surface pieces. One has the hole-like topology, while the other one has its van Hove singularity very close to (pi,0), its topology at some photon energies resembles the electron-like piece. This result provides a unifying picture of the Fermi surface in the Bi2212 compound and reconciles the conflicting reports.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

A characteristics framework for Semantic Information Systems Standards

Semantic Information Systems (IS) Standards play a critical role in the development of the networked economy. While their importance is undoubted by all stakeholders—such as businesses, policy makers, researchers, developers—the current state of research leaves a number of questions unaddressed. Terminological confusion exists around the notions of “business semantics”, “business-to-business interoperability”, and “interoperability standards” amongst others. And, moreover, a comprehensive understanding about the characteristics of Semantic IS Standards is missing. The paper addresses this gap in literature by developing a characteristics framework for Semantic IS Standards. Two case studies are used to check the applicability of the framework in a “real-life” context. The framework lays the foundation for future research in an important field of the IS discipline and supports practitioners in their efforts to analyze, compare, and evaluate Semantic IS Standard

Angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy of Sr_2CuO_2Cl_2 - a revisit

We have investigated the lowest binding-energy electronic structure of the model cuprate Sr_2CuO_2Cl_2 using angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES). Our data from about 80 cleavages of Sr_2CuO_2Cl_2 single crystals give a comprehensive, self-consistent picture of the nature of the first electron-removal state in this model undoped CuO_2-plane cuprate. Firstly, we show a strong dependence on the polarization of the excitation light which is understandable in the context of the matrix element governing the photoemission process, which gives a state with the symmetry of a Zhang-Rice singlet. Secondly, the strong, oscillatory dependence of the intensity of the Zhang-Rice singlet on the exciting photon-energy is shown to be consistent with interference effects connected with the periodicity of the crystal structure in the crystallographic c-direction. Thirdly, we measured the dispersion of the first electron-removal states along G->(pi,pi) and G->(pi,0), the latter being controversial in the literature, and have shown that the data are best fitted using an extended t-J-model, and extract the relevant model parameters. An analysis of the spectral weight of the first ionization states for different excitation energies within the approach used by Leung et al. (Phys. Rev. B56, 6320 (1997)) results in a strongly photon-energy dependent ratio between the coherent and incoherent spectral weight. The possible reasons for this observation and its physical implications are discussed.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figure

Interviews for the assessment of long-term incapacity for work: a study on adherence to protocols and principles

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Assessments for long-term incapacity for work are performed by Social Insurance Physicians (SIPs) who rely on interviews with claimants as an important part of the process. These interviews are susceptible to bias. In the Netherlands three protocols have been developed to conduct these interviews. These protocols are expert- and practice-based. We studied to what extent these protocols are adhered to by practitioners.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We compared the protocols with one another and with the ICF and the biopsychosocial approach. The protocols describe semi-structured interviews with comparable but not identical topics. All protocols prescribe that the client's opinion on his capacity for work, and his arguments, need to be determined and assessed. We developed a questionnaire to elicit the adherence SIPs have to the protocols, their underlying principles and topics. We conducted a survey among one hundred fifty-five experienced SIPs in the Netherlands.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Ninety-eight SIPs responded (64%). All respondents used some form of protocol, either one of the published protocols or their own mix. We found no significant relation between training and the use of a particular protocol. Ninety percent use a semi-structured interview. Ninety-five percent recognise having to verify what the claimant says and eighty-three percent feel the need to establish a good relation (p = 0.019). Twelve topics are basically always addressed by over eighty percent of the respondents. The claimant's opinion of being fit for his own work or other work, and his claim of incapacity and his health arguments for that claim, reach a hundred percent. Description of claimants' previous work reaches ninety-nine percent.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our study shows professional consensus among experienced Dutch SIPs about the principle of assessment on arguments, the principle of conducting a semi-structured interview and the most crucial interview topics. This consensus can be used to further develop a protocol for interviewing in the assessment of incapacity for work in social insurance. Such a protocol can improve the quality of the assessments in terms of transparency and reproducibility, as well as by enabling clients to better prepare themselves for the assessments.</p

Performance Assessment of Fragmentation Mechanisms for Vehicular Delay-Tolerant Networks

[EN] Vehicular Delay-Tolerant Networks (VDTNs) are a new approach for vehicular communications where vehicles cooperate with each other, acting as the communication infrastructure, to provide low-cost asynchronous opportunistic communications. These communication technologies assume variable delays and bandwidth constraints characterized by a non-transmission control protocol/internet protocol architecture but interacting with it at the edge of the network. VDTNs are based on the principle of asynchronous communications, bundle-oriented communication from the DTN architecture, employing a store-carry-and-forward routing paradigm. In this sense, VDTNs should use the tight network resources optimizing each opportunistic contact among nodes. Given the limited contact times among nodes, fragmentation appears as a possible solution to improve the overall network performance, increasing the bundle delivery probability. This article proposes the use of several fragmentation approaches (proactive, source, reactive, and toilet paper) for VDTNs. They are discussed and evaluated through a laboratory testbed. Reactive and toilet paper approaches present the best results. It was also shown that only the source fragmentation approach presents worst results when compared with non-fragmentation approaches.This study was partially supported by the Instituto de Telecomunicacoes, Next Generation Networks and Applications Group (NetGNA), Portugal, by the Euro-NF Network of Excellence of the Seventh Framework Programme of EU, in the framework of the Specific Joint Research Project VDTN, and by the INESC-ID multiannual funding through the PIDDAC program funds and National Funding from the FCT - Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia through the PEst-OE/EEI/LA0008/2011 and PTDC/EEA-TEL/099074/2008 (MPSat) Projects.Dias, JAFF.; Rodrigues, JJPC.; Isento, JN.; Pereira, PRBA.; Lloret, J. (2011). Performance Assessment of Fragmentation Mechanisms for Vehicular Delay-Tolerant Networks. EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking. 2011(195):1-14. https://doi.org/10.1186/1687-1499-2011-195S1142011195Tatchikou R, Biswas S, Dion F: Cooperative vehicle collision avoidance using inter-vehicle packet forwarding. In Presented at the IEEE Global Telecommunications Conference (IEEE GLOBECOM 2005). St. Louis, MO, USA; 2005.Park JS, Lee U, Oh SY, Gerla M, Lun DS: Emergency related video streaming in VANET using network coding. In The Third ACM International Workshop on Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks. (VANET 2006), Los Angeles, CA, USA; 2006:102-103.Buchenscheit A, Schaub F, Kargl F, Weber M: A VANET-based emergency vehicle warning system. Presented at the First IEEE Vehicular Networking Conference (IEEE VNC 2009), Tokyo, Japan 2009.Nekovee M: Sensor networks on the road: the promises and challenges of vehicular ad hoc networks and vehicular grids. In Proceedings of the Workshop on Ubiquitous Computing and e-Research. Edinburgh, UK; 2005.Blum J, Eskandarian A, Hoffmman L: Challenges of intervehicle ad hoc networks. IEEE Trans. Intell. Transport. Syst 2004, 5(4):347-351. 10.1109/TITS.2004.838218Yousefi S, Mousavi MS, Fathy M: Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs): challenges and perspectives. 6th International Conference on ITS Telecommunications (ITST 2006) 2006, 761-766.Füßler H, Torrent-Moreno M, Transier M, Festag A, Hartenstein H: Thoughts on a protocol architecture for vehicular ad-hoc networks. In Presented at the 2nd International Workshop on Intelligent Transportation (WIT 2005). Hamburg, Germany; 2005.Cerf V, Burleigh S, Hooke A, Torgerson L, Durst R, Scott K, Fall K, Weiss H: Delay-tolerant networking architecture. RFC 4838 2007. [Online] [ http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc4838.txt ]Soares VNGJ, Farahmand F, Rodrigues JJPC: A layered architecture for vehicular delay-tolerant networks. In The Fourteenth IEEE Symposium on Computers and Communications (ISCC 2009). Sousse, Tunisia; 2009:122-127.Rodrigues JJPC, Soares VNGJ, Farahmand F: Stationary relay nodes deployment on vehicular opportunistic networks. In Mobile Opportunistic Networks: Architectures, Protocols and Applications. Edited by: Denko M. CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group (hardcover); 2011:227-243.Postel J: Internet Protocol. RFC 791 1981. [Online] [ http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc791.txt ]Kent CA, Moguk JC: Fragmentation considered harmful. SIGCOMM Comput Commun Rev 1995, 25(1):75-87. 10.1145/205447.205456Kim B-S, Fang Y, Wong TF, Kwon Y: Throughput enhancement through dynamic fragmentation in wireless LANs. IEEE Trans Veh Technol 2005, 54(4):1415-1425. 10.1109/TVT.2005.851361Ginzboorg P, Niemi V, Ott J: Message Fragmentation in Disruptive Networks. Nokia Research Center, Technical Report; 2009.Legner M: Map-Based Geographic Forwarding in Vehicular Networks. Department of Informatic, University of Stuttgart; 2002.Li Q, Rus D: Sending messages to mobile users in disconnected ad-hoc wireless networks. 6th Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking, New York, USA 2000, 44-55.Vahdat A, Becker B: Epidemic Routing for Partially-Connected Ad-Hoc Networks. Duke University, Technical Report; 2000.Briesemeister L, Hommel G: Overcoming fragmentation in mobile ad-hoc networks. J Commun Netw 2000, 2(3):182-187.Liu H, Sheng H, Lv Z, Li L, Ma C: A cross layer design of fragmentation and priority scheduling in vehicular ad hoc networks. 7th World Congress on Intelligent Control and Automation (WCICA 2008) 2008, 6157-6160.Joshi HP: Distributed robust geocast: a multicast protocol for inter-vehicle communication. Master Thesis, North Carolina State University; 2006.Bachir A, Benslimane A: A multicast protocol in ad hoc networks: Inter-vehicles geocast. Proceedings of the 57th IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference, Korea 2003, 2456-2460.Mikko P, Ari K, Ott J: Message fragmentation in opportunistic DTNs. In 9th IEEE International Symposium on a World of Wireless, Mobile and Multimedia Networks (WOWMOM 2008). Newport Beach, CA, USA; 2008.Farrell S, Symington S, Weiss H: Delay-tolerant networking security overview. Internet Draft 2009. [Online] [ http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-irtf-dtnrg-sec-overview-06 ]Magaia N, Pereira PR, Casaca A, Rodrigues J, Dias JA, Isento JN, Cervelló-Pastor C, Gallego J: Bundles fragmentation in vehicular delay-tolerant networks. 7th Euro-nf conference on next generation internet, Kaiserslautern, Germany 2011.Soares V, Rodrigues J, Farahmand F, Denko M: Exploiting node localization for performance improvement of vehicular delay-tolerant networks. In IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC 2010). 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Mobile Business Application for Service and Maintenance Processes: Using Ex Post Evaluation by End-Users as Input for Iterative Design

Although mobile technologies are increasingly utilized for business purposes, many companies have found it difficult to successfully implement them. Not only do the rapid technological changes increase the risks of companies' investments into mobile technologies; many such applications have also failed to gain user acceptance. In contrast to the consumer domain, there are very few empirical studies of mobile applications' effectiveness from the perspectives of professional end-users. Furthermore, designing mobile business applications has become an increasingly iterative and incremental activity, and ex post evaluations by actual users can provide crucial feedback to an iterative design process. In this study, we seek to contribute to establishing a design cycle that closely links the building and the evaluation of mobile business applications. Our objectives are to (1) gain a better understanding of mobile business applications' success by means of ex post evaluations from end-users, and to (2) leverage these empirical insights to inform the design of mobile business applications. We carried out the study in collaboration with DEKRA Automotive, which offers expert services in the automotive sector with experience in mobile business applications. Our primary contribution is a systematic approach to using ex post evaluation as input for the iterative design of mobile business applications. We suggest an adapted version of the D&amp;M IS Success Model, which has process quality as additional construct, as a basis for ex post evaluations of a mobile business application by its end-users. Furthermore, we illustrate how a performance-based analysis of the empirical results enables one to derive priorities and recommendations for future design iterations. Our results reveal that system quality and process quality are the main determinants of individual benefits of using mobile business applications. Our findings thus contradict other studies that identify information quality as a significant motivator of (consumer-oriented) mobile data services. We conclude that a mobile business application's design should focus on process quality, emphasizing functional support for operational tasks in a specific work context while ensuring system quality, which is largely affected by technology platform choices

Evaluating Mobile Business Applications in Service and Maintenance Processes: Results of a Quantitative-Empirical Study

Mobile technologies offer major opportunities for improving the productivity of business users and running business processes with higher effectiveness and efficiency. This particularly applies for service and maintenance processes of complex technical systems which are highly dependent on high-quality information. However, the proliferation of mobile business applications is still limited and we are lacking a deeper understanding of how they can be utilized successfully. Thus, the objective of this study is to gain a better understanding of mobile business applications' effectiveness in the context of service and maintenance processes. For this purpose, we adapt the DeLone and McLean IS Success Model to this particular context. The model is validated with survey data from 374 mobile service users in periodical technical vehicle inspection. Our results indicate that, besides system quality, the quality of process support is the main determinant of individual benefits from using the mobile devices in service and maintenance processes. The study's findings support practitioners in understanding the levers with which to improve mobile business applications. By empirically validating a success model for such applications, the study's results advance theoretical development in the area of mobile service and maintenance systems and present a basis for further research in this field