Incentives for the adoption of e-government by Greek municipalities

Purpose: The research aims to identify the incentives that play an important role in the evolution of e-government in Greece at local scale and its actual development level. It also investigates the factors and the perceived barriers that affect the development of local egovernment in Greek Municipalities, as well as the benefits they derive from it. Design/Methodology/Approach: The research is based on a survey that was conducted through a questionnaire to all 325 Municipalities of the country and includes data from 109 Municipalities that participated in the quantitative approach. Findings: While e-government is spread at a relatively satisfactory level, it appears that only a few Municipalities are performing well. Results highlight also the two main incentives that motivate Municipalities to adopt e-government: The first is the improvement of the efficiency of information exchange with the external environment and the second is managing internal issues-relationships in conjunction with the existence of prominent IT departments. Amongst the main factors that affect e-government adoption by Local authorities, budgetary constraints stand out, while the lack of personnel specialized in Information Technologies is identified as common obstacle. Practical Implications: Findings suggest that an integrated approach to e-government is needed in order to enable organizations to minimize failures and to overcome barriers and counter risks. The capacity to align e-government applications with the increasing and evolving needs and requirements of the citizens is the key to optimizing the benefits of eGovernment at local scale. Originality/Value: There is no similar empirical research in the context of Greece; hence, it seems important to increase the knowledge about the drivers of e-government adoption, especially in the public sector at the local scale.peer-reviewe

Analisis Faktor-faktor Yang Mempengaruhi Minat Nasabah Untuk Menggunakan Atm Pada PT. Bank Negara Indonesia (Bni) 46 Tbk Kantor Kas Muara Bulian

The purpose of this research is to analyze the factors that influence the interest of customers to use ATM at PT. Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI) 46 tbk Cashier Office of Muara Bulian. The technique used to analyze the research data is descriptive analysis method that is reveal the condition of findings on the object of research both in the form of qualitative and quantitative data. The result of the research is obtained that the factors that influence the interest of customers to use ATM at PT. Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI) 46 tbk Cash Office Muara Bulian consists of several factors, namely technology factor, area factor, facility factor, account factor, location factor, ATM number factor and tariff factor. Of the factors that exist there are 3 (three) factors that have significant influence is the technological factor of 4.78, facilities factor of 4.68, and the location factor of 4.66

Syamsul Anwar dan Pemikirannya dalam Bidang Hisab-rukyat

Tulisan ini membahas pemikiran Syamsul Anwar dalam bidang ilmu falak, terutamadalam bidang hisab-rukyat. Di tengah minimnya ahli falak di Indonesia, terlebih di lingkungan Muhammadiyah, nama Syamsul Anwar terasa masih sangat asing di telinga kebanyakan orang. Akan tetapi jika kita melihat lebih saksama sesungguhnya dari tangan Syamsul Anwar-lah banyak pemikiran-pemikiran cemerlang tentang hisab- rukyat lahir dan sangat terasa kontribusinya bagi Muhammadiyah khususnya dan masyarakat Indonesia pada umumnya. Tulisan ini memokuskan pada beberapa pemikiran Syamsul Anwar dalam bidang hisab-rukyat, yaitu mengenai kontekstualisasi pemahaman hadis-hadis tentang rukyat, hisab hakiki sebagai metode penentuan awal bulan dan interkoneksi studi hadis dan astronomi

Designing a knowledge co-production operating space for urban environmental governance lessons from Rotterdam, Netherlands and Berlin, Germany

Challenges for a sustainable urban development are increasingly important in cities because urbanization and related land take come up with negative challenges for the environment and for city residents. Searching for successful solutions to environmental problems requires combined efforts of different scientific disciplines and an active dialogue between stakeholders from policy and society. In this paper, we present a comparative assessment of the way policy-science dialogues have achieved knowledge co-production about strategic urban environmental governance action using the cities of Berlin in Germany and Rotterdam in the Netherlands as case studies. The ecosystem services framework is applied as a lens for policy-science interaction and a 'knowledge co-production operating space' is introduced. We show how policy officers, urban planners, practitioners and scientists learned from each other, and highlight the impact of this knowledge co-production for governance practice. We found that the concerted collaboration and co-creation between researchers and policy officers have led to mutual learning and establishment of relationships and trust in both cities. Not only the policy-relevance of research and its policy uptake were achieved but also new insights for research blind spots were created. In our conclusions we reflect on co-production processes with two types of conditions that we introduced to be most influential in the way knowledge can be co-created. These are conditions that relate to the way knowledge co-production processes are set-up and, conditions that relate to the expected value or benefit that the co-produced knowledge will bring across society, policy and practice

ICT RESOURCES & CAPABILITIES, ECONOMIC CRISIS AND CRM ADOPTION

Firms are implementing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems not for reducing their operational costs and increasing their efficiency, as it happens with other kinds of information systems, but in order to offer better services to their customers and build better relationships with them. This fact stems from CRM’s customer facing nature, which is there to improve the relationship a firm has with its most valuable asset: the customers. However, there is limited research about the factors that lead firms to adopt CRM systems. This paper aims to contribute to filling this research gap, by investigating the effects of a wide range of factors on CRM adoption by firms; these factors include firm’s ICT resources and capabilities, and also the effects of a major disruption in the environment: economic crisis leading to recession. Our main theoretical foundation is the Technology, Organization, Environment (TOE) theory of technological innovation adoption. Based on data from 363 Greek firms CRM adoption models have been estimated, which indicate that the sophistication of firm’s ICT technological resources has a strong positive effect on CRM adoption, alongside two ICT capabilities: ICT strategic planning, and the rapid internal implementation of various interconnections/integrations of existing applications to achieve interoperability. Human capital, innovativeness and use of ‘organic’ forms of work organization (such as horizontal teamwork) are also important factors that affect positively CRM adoption. On the contrary, the effects of the economic crisis (decrease of domestic demand for products/services from businesses, individual customers and the public sector, reduction of credit limits by banks and non-payment or late payment by customers) do not have impact on CRM systems adoption

Pengaruh Corporate Governance terhadap Tax Avoidance: Studi Empiris pada Perusahaan Manufaktur

Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui pengaruh corporate governance pada penghindaran pajak. Data sekunder untuk penelitian ini dikumpulkan dari Perusahaan manufaktur yang terdaftar di Bursa Efek Indonesia pada periode 2011-2013 dengan menggunakan teknik purposive sampling. Untuk menguji hipotesis, penelitian ini dilakukan analisis regresi ganda. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa proporsi komisaris independen, kualitas audit, dan komite audit memiliki pengaruh negatif dan signifikan terhadap penghindaran pajak, sementara kepemilikan institusional tidak menganggap sebagai penentu penghindaran pajak di Perusahaan manufaktur Indonesia

Beyond arousal and valence: the importance of the biological versus social relevance of emotional stimuli

The present study addressed the hypothesis that emotional stimuli relevant to survival or reproduction (biologically emotional stimuli) automatically affect cognitive processing (e.g., attention, memory), while those relevant to social life (socially emotional stimuli) require elaborative processing to modulate attention and memory. Results of our behavioral studies showed that (1) biologically emotional images hold attention more strongly than do socially emotional images, (2) memory for biologically emotional images was enhanced even with limited cognitive resources, but (3) memory for socially emotional images was enhanced only when people had sufficient cognitive resources at encoding. Neither images’ subjective arousal nor their valence modulated these patterns. A subsequent functional magnetic resonance imaging study revealed that biologically emotional images induced stronger activity in the visual cortex and greater functional connectivity between the amygdala and visual cortex than did socially emotional images. These results suggest that the interconnection between the amygdala and visual cortex supports enhanced attention allocation to biological stimuli. In contrast, socially emotional images evoked greater activity in the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and yielded stronger functional connectivity between the amygdala and MPFC than did biological images. Thus, it appears that emotional processing of social stimuli involves elaborative processing requiring frontal lobe activity