A Sensemaking Approach to Europe\u27s Data Strategy

The use of data-driven tools provides a plethora of benefits and chal- lenges from a data policy-making perspective. This holds implications at organ- izational, national, and regional levels. At regional level the development of high- quality data-driven tools, among others, involve geo-political implications as they contribute to the region’s competitive advantage. In Europe, the European Commission has made attempts towards the formulation of a regional policy on data, aiming at fostering Europe’s global competitiveness and data sovereignty. Despite its geo-political impact, academic research on data strategy formulation at regional level remains scarce. While existing IS scholars have largely empha- sized on data strategies, the focus of these studies has been mainly at organiza- tional level. This paper motivates the need to go beyond data policies the organ- izational level and deepen our understanding on how data policies are formulated at regional level. Focusing on the case of the European regional area and the Eu- ropean Data Act formulation, the proposed research aims to shed light on how stakeholders make sense of the forthcoming data policy in Europe. The paper reflects on existing literature on data governance and availability and discusses its relevance to data policy formulation at regional level. It proposes sensemaking as a theoretical lens for this research and describes the methodology for the pro- posed research

TOWARDS EUROPE’S AI STRATEGY: DESIRES & REALITIES

Artificial Intelligence is possibly the most talked about topic among all emerging and disruptive technologies. Being under continuous development for the last 60 years or more, AI promises to provide benefits within a number of domains, including healthcare, finance security and energy, to name only a few. In this paper, we explore stakeholder perceptions with regards to the forthcoming European AI Strategy, as expressed during the European Commission’s formal consultation process. We follow a qualitative inquiry to analyse our data and identify emerging themes. Our findings reveal six dimensions that are considered crucial for a responsible and ethical AI strategy: ecosystems; education; liability & accountability; data availability, data sufficiency & protection; and governance. We elaborate on these dimensions and develop a desires-realities framework. Our work contributes to a better understanding of stakeholder expectations from the AI strategy and holds important implications for research on addressing grey areas and overcoming the realities in the AI domain

Metaverses and Business Transformation

Author's accepted manuscriptMetaverses refer to virtual worlds which enable the interaction between users and simulate people, places and things of the physical world. The wider use of metaverses can disrupt how we interact and bring a plethora of implications for businesses and society. While the term metaverse received increased attention recently due to the interest of tech giants, researchers have been exploring virtual world interactions for over a decade. In light of new exciting metaverse implementations, it is necessary to consolidate information via existing research on how the use of metaverses can transform businesses. As a first step, this paper outlines the methodology to be followed by future researchers aiming to shed light on metaverse and business transformation. It proposes a framework to assist authors in organizing existing literature on metaverses and guide them in identifying future research avenues.acceptedVersio

Chasing Metaverses: Reflecting on Existing Literature to Understand the Business Value of Metaverses

Metaverses refer to immersive virtual worlds in which people, places, and things of the physical world are represented by their digital representations. The wide adoption of metaverses is expected to widely disrupt the way we interact in the virtual world by elevating our online interactive experiences and bringing a plethora of implications for businesses. Following a structured literature review of related research published in the last decade, we shed light on our current understanding of metaverses and reflect on the potentially transformative value of metaverses for businesses in the near future. We draw on an established research framework to organize the insights of existing literature across different levels of analysis and activities’ purpose. Through this analysis, we reveal eight propositions on the changes brought by the use of metaverses and identify a number of open questions which could serve as future research avenues.publishedVersionPaid Open Acces

Thermoregulatory and cardiovascular responses to creatine, glycerol and alpha lipoic acid in trained cyclists

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>It has been shown that supplementation with creatine (Cr) and glycerol (Gly), when combined with glucose (Glu) necessary for the enhancement of Cr uptake by skeletal muscle, induces significant improvements in thermoregulatory and cardiovascular responses during exercise in the heat.</p> <p>Purpose</p> <p>To determine whether Cr/Gly-induced thermoregulatory and cardiovascular responses are maintained when the majority (~75%) of the Glu in the Cr/Gly supplement is replaced with the insulintropic agent alpha lipoic acid (Ala).</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>22 healthy endurance trained cyclists were randomly assigned to receive either 20 g/day (4 × 5 g/day) of Cr, 2 g ^.kg^-1 BM per day (4 × 0.5 g ^.kg^-1 BM per day) of Gly and 150 g/day (4 × 37.5 g/day) of Glu or 20 g/day (4 × 5 g/day) of Cr monohydrate, 2 g ^.kg^-1 BM per day (4 × 0.5 g ^.kg^-1 BM per day) of Gly (100 g/day (4 × 25 g/day) of Glu and 1000 mg/day (4 × 250 mg/day) of Ala for 7 days for 7 days. Exercise trials were conducted pre- and post-supplementation and involved 40 min of constant-load cycling exercise at 70% O₂ max by a self-paced 16.1 km time trial at 30°C and 70% relative humidity.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Median and range values of TBW increased significantly by 2.1 (1.3-3.3) L and 1.8 (0.2-4.6) L in Cr/Gly/Glu and Cr/Gly/Glu/Ala groups respectively (<it>P</it> = 0.03) and of BM not significantly by 1.8 (0.2-3.0) kg and 1.2 (0.5-2.1) kg in Cr/Gly/Glu and in Cr/Gly/Glu/Ala, respectively (<it>P</it> = 0.75). During constant load exercise, heart rate (HR) and core temperature (Tcore) were significantly lower post-supplementation: HR was reduced on average by 3.3 ± 2.1 beats/min and by 4.8 ± 3.3 beats/min (mean ± SD) and Tcore by 0.2 ± 0.1 (mean ± SD) in the Cr/Gly/Glu and Cr/Gly/Glu/Ala, respectively The reduction in HR and Tcore was not significantly different between the supplementation groups.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>In comparison to the established hyper hydrating Cr/Gly/Glu supplement, supplement containing Cr/Gly/Ala and decreased amount of Glu provides equal improvements in thermoregulatory and cardiovascular responses during exercise in the heat.</p

CLOUD ADOPTION: RELATIVE ADVANTAGE OR IT FASHION?

Cloud computing is a recent trend that has transformed the IS resource provisioning industry. However, the hype that cloud computing has received lately in combination with the ˜must-deploy´ imperative usually used by its promoters, makes it easy for decision makers to lose track of the reasons that make cloud computing valuable to business. At the same time, the IS research community has focused on addressing the factors that affect cloud adoption, paying little attention to the impact of external factors. Reviewing earlier work on diffusion of innovation theory and based on a preliminary qualitative research, we note that a main driver for cloud adoption is a set of factors that mark its relative advantage compared to earlier provisioning service models. Taking into account our interview data and fashion management theory, we extend earlier research work by introducing the tendency of organizations to follow IT fashion as a reason that also influnces cloud computing adoption. We therefore propose a research model that takes into account both relative advantage and fashion drivers for cloud adoption and we discuss further steps and control dimensions for empirically testing this model in future work

Rationality VS Fashion In Cloud Adoption Decisions: The Case of Cloud-Enabled Payroll Systems

Cloud computing is an innovation said to be bringing radical changes in the way organisations interact with information systems. Decision makers seek for reasons that make the adoption of cloud computing meaningful (or not) for their organisation. At the same time, several stakeholders strive to promote cloud as a ‘must-do’ innovation. Given the hype that currently surrounds cloud computing, it is worth investigating whether the rationale behind the decision to adopt cloud is partly muddled by an apparent simplicity of choice for decision makers: ‘to adopt or fail’. Based on indications in the existing literature and recent empirical findings, weargue that in addition to the factors grouped under cloud’s relative advantage, IT- Fashion also influences the intention to adopt cloud which is currently overlooked. By using the example of cloud-enabled payroll systems, we demonstrate that IT-Fashion has also a significant impact on the intention to adopt cloud services

Cloud Adoption Factors in a Specific Business Area: Challenging the Findings of Organisation-Wide Cloud Computing Research

Existing literature investigates cloud adoption factors and their impact on the decision to adopt cloud services in organizations. These studies consider the decision to adopt cloud services as a horizontal organization-wide decision. In this paper we argue that most of cloud decisions in practice do not regard cloud adoption horizontally across the organization. Rather, they consider cloud adoption with respect to the particular business area in which the cloud service will be introduced. These are the types of decisions we investigate in this paper. Drawing on the cloud adoption literature and Diffusion of Innovation and Organizational Capability theories, we formulate our research model involving factors related to cloud’s relative advantage and to organizational innovativeness. Our findings show that cloud’s cost-reduction and remote access benefits tradeoff security concerns as the context of cloud adoption becomes specific and demonstrate the relevance of personnel innovativeness in cloud adoption decisions