TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE QUALITY OF SERVICE IN INTERCONNECTION

This paper analyses the structure of the Internet marketplace and the business relationships of key players involved in network services provision. A brief overview of existing pricing policies and research work in this area is presented and some new issues are introduced. We believe that the role of information asymmetry is critical when considering agreements for Internet access and interconnection. In negotiation and contract preparation, information asymmetry gives rise to adverse selection. The current structure of connectivity agreements does not address information asymmetries thus allowing the possibility of opportunistic behaviour in the form of moral hazard. Inasmuch as interconnection agreements involve sharing and/or exchanging network resources, either party will tend to exploit the agreement to its own advantage (i.e. conserving its own resources) and, possibly, to the detriment of the other (i.e. overutilising the other’s resources). The discussion focuses on interconnection agreements between Internet Service Providers, namely peering and transit. The paper concludes with an outline of an incentive compatible mechanism that can sustain quality of service requirements in interconnection agreements.interconnection information asymmetry

Bundle Pricing for Location Based Mobile Services

Locations-based services are a promising revenue source for the market players in mobile business. A critical parameter for accruing revenue is the applied pricing strategy. This paper proposes the introduction of bundle pricing in the market of location-based services and describes a research model that will be used to test its applicability and indicate its robustness. To motivate the proposed research, the key players of location-based services’ market are identified and the main theoretical results on bundle pricing are briefly presented. Then, the proposed research model is discussed to indicate how economic theory’s results may be applied in a real market case

Big data revisited: a rejoinder

We elaborate on key issues of our paper New games, new rules: big data and the changing context of strategy as a means of addressing some of the concerns raised by the paper’s commentators. We initially deal with the issue of social data and the role it plays in the current data revolution. The massive involvement of lay publics as instrumented by social media breaks with the strong expert cultures that have underlain the production and use of data in modern organizations. It also sets apart the interactive and communicative processes by which social data is produced from sensor data and the technological recording of facts. We further discuss the significance of the very mechanisms by which big data is produced as distinct from the very attributes of big data, often discussed in the literature. In the final section of the paper, we qualify the alleged importance of algorithms and claim that the structures of data capture and the architectures in which data generation is embedded are fundamental to the phenomenon of big data

A European study of e-business maturity and ICT-benefits: Is there a conditional relationship?

The present study explores the relationship between the e-business maturity and the perceived benefits from (Information and Communication Technologies) ICT at the firm level. We aim to debunk this relationship in terms of its strength and stability, and to explore the conditions which may influence it. Taking an economic approach, we hypothesise that the relation between e-business maturity and perceived benefits from ICT adoption will be influenced the costs of intra-organisational adaptations due to ICT. Using data from an European survey on ICT adoption and e-business maturity of the firms (N=7,072) we show that the correlation between the e-business maturity and the perceived benefits from ICT adoption is indeed positive, significant and stable over countries, industries, firm size and age. Further, the findings confirm the hypothesis that intra-organisational adaptations due to ICT moderate the positive correlation between a firms’ e-business maturity and perceived benefits from ICT

New games, new rules: big data and the changing context of strategy

Big data and the mechanisms by which it is produced and disseminated introduce important changes in the ways information is generated and made relevant for organizations. Big data often represents miscellaneous records of the whereabouts of large and shifting online crowds. It is frequently agnostic, in the sense of being produced for generic purposes or purposes different from those sought by big data crunching. It is based on varying formats and modes of communication (e.g., texts, image and sound), raising severe problems of semiotic translation and meaning compatibility. Crucially, the usefulness of big data rests on their steady updatability, a condition that reduces the time span within which this data is useful or relevant. Jointly, these attributes challenge established rules of strategy making as these are manifested in the canons of procuring structured information of lasting value that addresses specific and long-term organizational objectives. The developments underlying big data thus seem to carry important implications for strategy making, and the data and information practices with which strategy has been associated. We conclude by placing the understanding of these changes within the wider social and institutional context of longstanding data practices and the significance they carry for management and organizations

Beware of Dane-geld: Even if Paid, M-Service Adoption Can be Slow

Despite the 83% mobile phone penetration rate, the Danish mobile telecommunications market has witnessed slow uptake of advanced mobile services available over GPRS and 3G. In this paper we report results from a survey of 1,103 respondents. We delineate four categories of mobile users in the Danish market based on the technology in use and explore their differences or similarities in terms of technology experience, service use, innovativeness, and technology-service requirements. We argue that when congruencies across the categories are present, these can be areas of exceptional importance for catalyzing the behavioral changes necessary to make the more advanced service use reach the masses of users. In particular, to limit current Dane-geld problems, mobile e-mail and compatibility between mobile communications, computers and the Internet appear as important factors to direct development efforts for users

Human-AI Collaboration – Coordinating Automation and Augmentation Tasks in a Digital Service Company

Organizations are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence (AI) to support service development and delivery. Both AI and human action need to be organized and coordinated. Recently, the automation-augmentation paradox has been discussed in literature. Automation implies that machines take over a human task, whereas with augmentation humans and machines collaborate closely to perform different tasks. In this paper, we investigate how the collaboration between humans and AI unfolds in different organizational coordination mechanisms. Using Mintzberg’s coordination mechanism (1989), we analyzed the division of labor between human and AI in a case company offering personalized recipes of vegetarian dishes. Our findings suggest that certain primary coordination mechanisms (direct supervision and standardization of norms) need to be in place for the AI to perform properly. We find that AI can take control over service scaling and service personalization (augmentation), whereas humans are in control of service improvement (automation)

Consumer behaviour and mobile TV services: Do men differ from women in their adoption intentions

ABSTRACT The mobile communications" industry experiences moderate diffusion rates of innovative data services in many countries of the Western world. Mobile TV has been depicted as the "killer application" by both market analysts and mobile service providers. However, these optimistic forecasts have yet to come true. The present article presents the results of a quantitative study conducted in order to explore the relationship between the individual"s perceptions of value elements and the adoption intentions, in the case of mobile TV. Building on the theory of reason-based choice, we investigate how gender differences influence the relationship between value perceptions and adoption intentions and how gender influences the individual"s preferences for mobile TV services. The research findings highlight the importance of gender as a differentiating factor both for the value perceptions and the individual"s preferences. The study underlines the existence of different diffusion patterns between men and women, in the case of mobile TV