R. Katzy, Bernhard

English

Organization - Journal of Management, Informatics and Human Resources / Organizacija - Revija za management, informatiko in kadre (University of Maribor)

Organizacija, Volume 39 Reflections Number 3, March 2006203sity of Maribor, and hostedby the Training CenterSRC.SI, Grimsce-Bled, Slo-venia on October 21, 2004,h t t p : / / e c e n t e r . f o v. u n i -mb.si/dogodki/innovation-seminar.htm.The 2nd International Work-shop on LivingLabs in eRe-gion, November 10, 2005,http://ecenter.fov.uni-mb.si/elivinglabworkshop, spon-sored and hosted by the Fa-culty of OrganizationalSciences, University of Ma-ribor. The Workshop on Safe and Se-cure eRegion LivingLab, spon-sored by eCenter, Faculty of Or-ganizational Sciences, Univer-sity of Maribor and Directoratefor Information Society, Mini-stry of Higher Education, Scien-ce, and Technology, Republic ofSlovenia in the University Medi-cal Centre, Ljubljana, Sloveniaon April 22, 2005, http://ecen-ter.fov.uni-mb.si/safesecurere-gion/index.htm. Cooperation in the EU fundedresearch projects, for examplemGBL – Mobile Game BasedLearning, Coordinator: Karl-Franzens University, Graz, Au-stria, http://mg-bl.com. Cooperation in the Finland andSlovenia eInvoicing LivingLabInitiative: http://www.elivinglab.org/invoicing. Cooperation in CEI - CentralEuropean Initiative: http://www.ceinet.org/index.php. Cooperation in the Oracle Men-toring Consortium, http://www.elivinglab.org/markets.The Ministerial Conference To-wards a Knowledge Society - theNordic Experience (Gothenburg,November 14-15, 2005, Sweden),http://europa.eu.int/comm/re-gional_policy/sources/docconf/got-henburg/index.cfm,had important messages aboutrelevance of cross-border coopera-tion between regions of the Euro-pean Union.The success of the Nordic coun-tries in developing a Knowledge So-ciety has been based on sustainedand long-term investments into ba-sic ICT infrastructure, research, andtechnology dissemination. It showsthe importance of and substantialbenefits from a well- organized ef-fective public private partnership,set up in a triple-helix of co-opera-tion between enterprises, academia,and public authorities.The conferen-ce presented this experience to  dif-ferent participating regions and dis-cussed ways and means of transfer-ring this experience to other regions.It focused on three basic elements:ICT development, eGovernment,and innovation clusters. The Nordicexample, in promoting infrastructu-re and education, and especially thetriple-helix approach can be consi-dered a good practical example.Several measures are being pro-posed as objectives to best transferthe Nordic experience and dissemi-nate this prospective strategy. Theseobjectives aim at integrating the re-gions into a European Network, atthe facilitation of the transfer of ex-pertise, and at disseminating infor-mation about the opportunities offe-red by the EU in the ICT and the re-gional development fields to promo-te sustained regional growth via ICT.The European Commission promo-tes these approaches via the fruitfulco-operation between the Informa-tion Society Policies and StructuralFund interventions. An idea of theICT-Powered eRegion, http://ecen-ter.fov.uni-mb.si/ict-powered_ere-gion.pdf is a visible example of thatin which the ALADIN Networkmay be very valuable.From a larger research perspec-tive, it is expected that the Living-Labs will be important vehicles foran accelerated cooperation betweenresearchers, developers, and users.See for example the following re-ports: ISTAG - Information SocietyTechnologies Advisory BoardReports, Information SocietyDirectorate-General, Septem-ber 2004, http://www.cordis.lu/ist/istag.htm European Policy Framework forICT and New Working Environ-ments. Collaboration@Work.The 2005 report on new workingenvironments and practices. In-formation Society and Media,European Commission, October2005, http://www.mosaic-net-work.org/amiatwork. Barrett, Craig R. & Brody, Wil-liam R. (editors): Where In TheWorld Will The Next Big IdeaCome From? Council on Com-petitiveness and the NationalInnovation Initiative, Washing-ton DC, Wall Street Journal, Fe-bruary 8, 2006, http://www.inno-vateamerica.org.ALADIN as a cross-border re-gional university network is verywell-positioned in that direction.Based on our very positive ex-perience in collaborating with col-leagues at the universities of theALADIN Network, we are lookingforward to future areas of coopera-tion and further innovative actions.Contributions ofALADIN to eRegionDevelopment: Research and Inno-vation in a Regional“Living Laboratory”CeTIM is a research centre atthe University Bw Munich and hascreated the Virtual Enterprise-Lab(VE-Lab) which in its core is a re-search environment that allows7 CeTIM GmbH - Center for Technology and Innovation Management, University BW München, Bernard.Katzy@CeTIM.orgBernhard R. Katzy7Organizacija, Volume 39 Reflections Number 3, March 2006204combining real-life (the “living”)people and organizations in innova-tive business scenarios and work en-vironment one the one side, with ri-gorous experimentation methodolo-gies (the “laboratory”) for new tech-nologies, work methods and organi-zational designs.VE-Lab is not windowless cleanroom in the basement of a universitybut extends across researchers andindustrial partners across theALADIN region, with the aim tostudy and research on how to fastconfigure and coordinate networksof resources be it for business oppor-tunities, collaborative research pro-jects, or for disaster relief. As part ofthis initiative, CeTIM @ UniBWand eCenter @UniMaribor are  clo-sely collaborating on several Euro-pean level research and networkcommunity building activities. Forexample, VE-Forum is a Europeaninitiative to establish an open scien-ce platform and community of ex-perts in the domain of virtual andnetwork organisation. Through thisactivity, the ALADIN region has thepotential to exchange and share itsexperiences with EU experts. Con-crete examples of activities areworkshops on “Managing Collabo-rative and Distributed Team & Pro-ject Works“ to address the collabo-ration challenges and role of ICTwhen a project team is assembledfrom network of organizations torespond to occurring instance.VE-Lab was initially set up in1998 in order to support ongoing re-search in virtual organisations andenterprise networks. It obviously of-fers a critical mass of emerging tech-nologies, especially real-time com-munication and collaboration sup-port that could have positive impacton the innovativeness and producti-vity in networked organisationalforms. More important however isthe accumulated experience in de-signing research studies and coordi-nating the cooperation multiplepartners like universities, technologysuppliers from industry, industrialuser companies. So far the CeTIMVE-Lab has been extended to fourEuropean countries, and has contri-buted its methodological experienceto several EU and industry fundedresearch programs like the CastleProject (EU Innova Funded) on en-trepreneurial innovation in satellitenavigation clusters, Foundation Pro-ductive Schweiz (Industry Funded)on productivity of knowledge wor-kers, Ecospace Project (EU Fun-ded) on new collaboration environ-ments for knowledge workers, andCPIM (Industry funded) on collabo-rative product innovation manage-ment.VE-Lab is part of a new initiati-ve of creating a regional cluster on“Security” where it contributes itsreal-time collaboration experience.Already after the Cuba crisis in theearly 1960ies the USA and USSRFigure 1: Example of  Virtual Collaboration Scenario developed in the Living-LabOrganizacija, Volume 39 Reflections Number 3, March 2006205trusted the security enhancing im-pact of collaboration when they in-stalled the red telephone betweentheir governments. This rudimentaryinstrument of crisis and emergencymanagement had to be fast, flexible,and reliable, requirements that stillguide the design of much extendedcontemporary eSecurity processesand systems: “Fast” because terroristattacks, natural disasters and othercrisis need immediate response.“Flexible” because every crisis is dif-ferent, thus, different agencies, com-panies, and organizations need to beintegrated in the management pro-cess quickly. “Reliable” becausecross-national and flexible manage-ment processes involving differenthierarchical levels in different orga-nizations where people do not knoweach other have to work properly.Together with regional partnerslike IABG in Munich, DLR inOberpfaffenhofen, Siemens Securityin Munich, and the University BWthe Security Cluster is proposed tothe Bavarian prime minister for inc-lusion in the overall Bavarian clusterinitiative, which is a future focus ofthe Bavarian Innovation policy –and a complement to the ALADINeSecurity initiative.Contributions ofALADIN to eRegionDevelopment: TheNovi Sad BusinessSchool Perspective, Department for InformaticsWhen observing ALADIN mem-bers, one can find that there are se-ven universities from Central Euro-pe and one business school. That bu-siness school is, of course, the NoviSad Business School (NBS), locatedon the university campus in NoviSad (the capital city of the Vojvodi-na region). Although it is not a partof that university, there is a good willon both sides to integrate the schoolinto the university in this year, du-ring the reform process of Serbia'shigher education. NBS is in the ne-west member of the ALADIN fa-mily, but with the prospect of fastgrowth, as a part of University inNovi Sad.When you put a frog in the wa-ter and slowly raise the temperatureto boiling, the frog can not feel it andit does not jump out. When contem-plating writing about ALADIN, werealised how we are living with 'frogeffect' and does not see how thingsare changing all the time. The firstauthor of this text counted 115emails received in last year that areconnected with ALADIN. Amongthe activities of ALADIN, the mostinteresting are: Workshop on Ensu-ring a Safe and Secure eRegion, e-Region Development, eInvoicingLivingLab Initiative, eCommerceConference, Undergraduate andGraduate Students eConference,Association for InformationSystems, EU-Wide Study on Trustand Confidence, Oracle iLearningSystem, eSilk & eAmber Road Re-gions Meeting, e-Tourism in the Ala-din Area, Academic Electronic Mar-ketplace Workshop and eInovationPh.D. Study. At this moment, we willtry to analyze the state of our regionfor the first of the mentioned activi-ties, as a small contribution of thoseexcellent ALADIN ideas.Vojvodina has been involved incross border and regional coopera-tion since 2001. Before that, the de-velopment of some important sec-tors, especially environment protec-tion and environmental manage-ment was disregarded. However, inrecent years some progress has beenmade in these fields.The Strategy fordevelopment of Vojvodina was crea-ted in 2002. Different economic, po-litical and social subjects took part inthis process and NBS gave its effortand support. We made the asses-sment of the level of sustainabilityfor Vojvodina and compared it withother counties in region. Followingthat, we assessed the sustainabilitylevel in the economy and environ-ment in the main municipalities inVojvodina. The main problem in thiswork was a lack of systematic andstandardized data. The developmentstrategy of Vojvodina defines twomain goals: agricultural development andorganic food production (agri-culture represent 82% of landuse in Vojvodina) and the development of the smalland medium enterprises sector.Intensive agricultural develop-ment has already had significant en-vironmental impact including re-striction of renewable water resour-ces and access to safe drinking wa-ter. Among other environmentalproblems (environmental problemsin urban area, energy uses, cross-border environment impact, low le-vel of environmental risk manage-ment, etc.) the development of smalland medium enterprises may be oneof the new risks for the environmentin Vojvodina, because they have sig-nificant environmental impact. Thenominal impact of enterprise is notnecessary a risk for the environ-ment, but increasing number of en-terprises in one area can determineterritorial consequences. At this le-vel of development, enterprise re-quests for sustainability were notimplemented in creation of businessstrategies. That is why we pay atten-tion to the importance of environ-mental management and standardimplementation in this sector. Envi-ronmental management becomes acore business issue for small and me-dium enterprises. However, there isa lack of environmental knowledgeamong the experts included in deci-sion-making processes in the private8 Professor, Novi Sad Business School, danicam@nspoint.net9 Assistant Professor & Head, Novi Sad Business School, borjos@uns.ns.ac.yuDanica Ba~anovi}8, Borislav Jošanov9

Contributions of ALADIN to eRegion Development: Research and Innovation in a Regional “Living Laboratory”

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Contributions of ALADIN to eRegion Development: Research and Innovation in a Regional “Living Laboratory”

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Organization - Journal of Management, Informatics and Human Resources / Organizacija - Revija za management, informatiko in kadre (University of Maribor)