How internal processes benefit from IT investments and therefore enhance company's competitiveness - A case study of Slovenian small and medium sized companies

In the paper we presented a case of how IT impacts business process change and how can this enhance competitiveness. The case deals with implementation of internal server for use of documentation exchange in Slovenian small and medium sized companies and provides a framework of key factors of followed changes in inter processes that enabled better competitive position of the organizations taking part of the study.publishersversionpublishe

Competitive Intelligence Empirical Construct Validation Using Expert In-Depth Interviews Study

Madureira, L., Popovic, A., & Castelli, M. (2021). Competitive Intelligence Empirical Construct Validation Using Expert In-Depth Interviews Study. In 2021 IEEE International Conference on Technology Management, Operations and Decisions (ICTMOD) (pp. 1-6) (ICTMOD 2021. IEEE International Conference on Technology Management, Operations and Decisions, 24-26 Nov. 2021, Marrakech, Morocco). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICTMOD52902.2021.9739422For a discipline to prosper in business and science, it must be thoroughly defined, characterized, and measured. Notably, the definition must reflect its praxis. This study aims to fill this void by empirically validating the Competitive Intelligence unified view and modular definition proposed by Madureira, Popovic, and Castelli (2021). The choice for this specific definition relies on its recency, comprehensiveness, completeness, and universality. The study uses a mixed-methods approach to derive meta-inferences from the sequential integration of qualitative and quantitative methods. We tested content, external, discriminant validities, reliability, and applicability using an in-depth interview study with twenty global CI subject matter experts. The results empirically validate the unified view, the modular definition, the five core defining dimensions, and their respective descriptors. This study unfolds the impact of CI in management research across five key areas - practical, theoretical, educational, society, policy. The critical lever for this impact is the effectuation of the Body of Knowledge which subsequently effectuates the CI practice, education, and discipline, serving as the foundation for its future development in business and academia.authorsversionpublishe

Foundations for knowledge advancement and relevance to practice

Madureira, L., Popovic, A., & Castelli, M. (2023). Competitive Intelligence Empirical Validation and Application: Foundations for Knowledge Advancement and Relevance to Practice. Journal of Information Science. https://doi.org/10.1177/01655515231191221--- The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by national funds through FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia), under the project - IDB/04152/2020 - Centro de Investigação em Gestão de Informação (MagIC)/NOVA IMSThe competitive intelligence (CI) construct must be scientifically defined, characterised, empirically validated and accurately measured to grow in science and business. This study aims at elevating the accuracy of the empirical validation of the CI construct suggested and confirmed by Madureira, Popovic and Castelli to serve as the scientific foundation for CI praxis. This construct is selected due to its unmatched recency, thoroughness, universality identified limitations of its empirical validation. We relied on a multistrand design of fully sequential with equivalent status qualitative and quantitative mix-methods followed by the triangulation of the findings and the development of the meta-inferences. Validity, reliability and applicability were tested using computer-aided text analysis and artificial intelligence methods based on 61 in-depth interviews with CI subject matter experts. Contributions to knowledge advancement and relevance to practice derive from the scientific-grade empirical construct validation, providing undisputed levels of accuracy, consistency, applicability, and triangulation of results. This study highlights three critical implications. First, the delimitation of the body of knowledge and recognition of the CI domain serve as the baseline for theory development. Second, the validated construct guarantees reproducibility, replicability and generalisability, laying the foundations for establishing CI science, practice and education. Third, creating a common language and shared understanding will drive the much-claimed definitional consensus. This study thus stands as a foundational pillar in supporting CI praxis in improving decision-making quality and the performance of organisations.publishersversionepub_ahead_of_prin

Systematic Review, Unified Model and Implementation Frameworks

Madureira, L., Popovic, A., & Castelli, M. (2023). Competitive Intelligence Maturity Models: Systematic Review, Unified Model and Implementation Frameworks. Journal of Intelligence Studies in Business, 13(1), 6-29. https://doi.org/10.37380/jisib.v13i1.988---The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Slovenian Research Agency (research core funding) [P5–0410]. This work was supported by national funds through FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia), under the project UIDB/04152/2020 - Centro de Investigação em Gestão de Informação (MagIC)/NOVA IMS.Competitive Intelligence (CI) is vital for sustaining the performance of organisations in an increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world. However, the impact of CI on performance is proportional to its maturity level. The article aims to review and integrate the existing literature on Competitive Intelligence Maturity Models (CIMMs) to provide a go-to framework for setting up, assessing, and developing CI. The CIMMs were sourced from scholarly databases, registers, the social web, and using backwards and forward searches. All the CIMMs respecting the characterisation criteria were included in the study. A scientific and empirically validated definition of CI guided the integration and synthesis of the fourteen selected CIMMs. The primary outcome is a proposed unified CIMM (UCIMM) covering all the CI dimensions and aspects in tandem with the respective implementation guidance frameworks. The proposed UCIMM and implementation frameworks effectuate the guidance needed to set up, assess, and develop the CI practice and theory and, ultimately, the performance of organisations.publishersversionpublishe

The influence of population size in geometric semantic GP

In this work, we study the influence of the population size on the learning ability of Geometric Semantic Genetic Programming for the task of symbolic regression. A large set of experiments, considering different population size values on different regression problems, has been performed. Results show that, on real-life problems, having small populations results in a better training fitness with respect to the use of large populations after the same number of fitness evaluations. However, performance on the test instances varies among the different problems: in datasets with a high number of features, models obtained with large populations present a better performance on unseen data, while in datasets characterized by a relative small number of variables a better generalization ability is achieved by using small population size values. When synthetic problems are taken into account, large population size values represent the best option for achieving good quality solutions on both training and test instances

Frequency and Prognostic Impact of ALK Amplifications and Mutations in the European Neuroblastoma Study Group (SIOPEN) High-Risk Neuroblastoma Trial (HR-NBL1)

Purpose: In neuroblastoma (NB), the ALK receptor tyrosine kinase can be constitutively activated through activating point mutations or genomic amplification. We studied ALK genetic alterations in high-risk (HR) patients on the HR-NBL1/SIOPEN trial to determine their frequency, correlation with clinical parameters, and prognostic impact. Materials and methods: Diagnostic tumor samples were available from 1,092 HR-NBL1/SIOPEN patients to determine ALK amplification status (n = 330), ALK mutational profile (n = 191), or both (n = 571). Results: Genomic ALK amplification (ALKa) was detected in 4.5% of cases (41 out of 901), all except one with MYCN amplification (MNA). ALKa was associated with a significantly poorer overall survival (OS) (5-year OS: ALKa [n = 41] 28% [95% CI, 15 to 42]; no-ALKa [n = 860] 51% [95% CI, 47 to 54], [P 20% mutated allele fraction) in 10% of cases (76 out of 762) and at a subclonal level (mutated allele fraction 0.1%-20%) in 3.9% of patients (30 out of 762), with a strong correlation between the presence of ALKm and MNA (P < .001). Among 571 cases with known ALKa and ALKm status, a statistically significant difference in OS was observed between cases with ALKa or clonal ALKm versus subclonal ALKm or no ALK alterations (5-year OS: ALKa [n = 19], 26% [95% CI, 10 to 47], clonal ALKm [n = 65] 33% [95% CI, 21 to 44], subclonal ALKm (n = 22) 48% [95% CI, 26 to 67], and no alteration [n = 465], 51% [95% CI, 46 to 55], respectively; P = .001). Importantly, in a multivariate model, involvement of more than one metastatic compartment (hazard ratio [HR], 2.87; P < .001), ALKa (HR, 2.38; P = .004), and clonal ALKm (HR, 1.77; P = .001) were independent predictors of poor outcome. Conclusion: Genetic alterations of ALK (clonal mutations and amplifications) in HR-NB are independent predictors of poorer survival. These data provide a rationale for integration of ALK inhibitors in upfront treatment of HR-NB with ALK alterations.Key Objective: High risk neuroblastoma (HR-NB) is one of the most difficult childhood cancers to cure. This study examined whether the presence of an ALK alteration (amplification or mutation) was associated with a poor prognosis in a large patient series treated on the prospective European high-risk neuroblastoma trial (HR-NBL1). Knowledge Generated: We found that ALK amplification or clonal mutation was associated with inferior prognosis in patients with HR-NB and both are independent prognostic variables on multivariate analysis. To our knowledge, this is the first study to report the highly prognostic significance of ALK amplification in HR-NB. Relevance: As ALK can be targeted therapeutically, this study convincingly argues for the introduction of ALK inhibitors for upfront management of patients with HR-NB with ALK aberrations. Importantly, the prognostic significance of ALK alterations included a subgroup of trial patients treated with the current standard of care for HR-NB including anti-GD2 immunotherapy.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Determinants of end-user acceptance of biometrics: Integrating the “Big 3” of technology acceptance with privacy context

International audienceThe information systems (IS) literature has long emphasized the importance of user acceptance of computer-based IS. Evaluating the determinants of acceptance of information technology (IT) is vital to address the problem of underutilization and leverage the benefits of IT investments, especially for more radical technologies. This study examines individual acceptance of biometric identification techniques in a voluntary environment, measuring the intention to accept and further recommend the technology resulting from a carefully selected set of variables. Drawing on elements of technology acceptance model (TAM), diffusion of innovations (DOI) and unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) along with the trust-privacy research field, we propose an integrated approach that is both theoretically and empirically grounded. By testing some of the most relevant and well-tested elements from previous models along with new antecedents to biometric system adoption, this study produces results which are both sturdy and innovative. We first confirm the influence of renowned technology acceptance variables such as compatibility, perceived usefulness, facilitating conditions on biometrics systems acceptance and further recommendation. Second, prior factors such as concern for privacy, trust in the technology, and innovativeness also prove to have an influence. Third, unless innovativeness, the most important drivers to explain biometrics acceptance and recommendation are not from the traditional adoption models (TAM, DOI, and UTAUT) but from the trust and privacy literature (trust in technology and perceived risk)

Semantic genetic programming for fast and accurate data knowledge discovery

Big data knowledge discovery emerged as an important factor contributing to advancements in society at large. Still, researchers continuously seek to advance existing methods and provide novel ones for analysing vast data sets to make sense of the data, extract useful information, and build knowledge to inform decision making. In the last few years, a very promising variant of genetic programming was proposed: geometric semantic genetic programming. Its difference with the standard version of genetic programming consists in the fact that it uses new genetic operators, called geometric semantic operators, that, acting directly on the semantics of the candidate solutions, induce by definition a unimodal error surface on any supervised learning problem, independently from the complexity and size of the underlying data set. This property should improve the evolvability of genetic programming in presence of big data and thus makes geometric semantic genetic programming an extremely promising method for mining vast amounts of data. Nevertheless, to the best of our knowledge, no contribution has appeared so far to employ this new technology to big data problems. This paper intends to fill this gap. For the first time, in fact, we show the effectiveness of geometric semantic genetic programming on several complex real-life problems, characterized by vast amounts of data, coming from several different application domains