This book examines the recent evolution of the concept of data as an economic and managerial phenomenon. The author first describes and discusses open data and then introduces the concept of linked data, with a focus on assets for reuse. Furthermore, he addresses the main challenges of big data. Value is identified as the main incentive for the adoption of linked data; accordingly, the next two chapters study sources of data value from a macroeconomic and micro economic perspective, respectively. This contributes to the systematization of important issues at the crossroads of enterprise data and data sharing: data ownership, personal data, and data privacy. In turn, the book reveals the role of innovation as a main vehicle for creating value by unifying big, open, and linked data. It studies the ways in which value can be created, transferred, and captured in the form of business models, before the closing chapter verifies the data unification model by combining open and linked geographical data with big data from a major telecom company.

The authors of this book alert that professional services like law, accountancy, and consultancy firms are set to face major disruption. The most important driver and enabler are the new technologies that help and in part substitute the work done by professionals. The second important disruptor is the new generation of professionals - "NewGen" - who are less interested in building their careers in a hierarchical organization and more interested in entrepreneurial challenges in small teams, with more rapid returns. In the meanwhile, major service conglomerates - the "big four" accounting firms, the "big three" consulting firms to name a few examples - build their network using their brand and substantial resources. All along, the relentless pressure from clients to receive more services at lower cost continues. Medium-sized professional firms as well as one-person independents appear to suffer most from these disruptions and are most anxious to find new ways to conduct their business. But the leaders of large firms also feel that they are increasingly unable to support the innovative entrepreneurship of their most promising professionals while their organizations institutionalize and their overheads continue to grow. This book proposes a new orientation and model of a professional service firm as an answer to these challenges, by creating a Professional Service Community. It is a synergistic team of organizations that share a vision of their role in society and main lines of their mission as well as the quality of their deliverables and their key clients. At the same time, they are independent in designing their internal business models - like recruitment, training, knowledge management, and economics. The Professional Service Community provides a unique and highly attractive level of entrepreneurship, flexibility, and efficiency to the benefit of its clients, partners, staff, and other stakeholders. It is the way of the future.

Design Science Research is a powerful paradigm enabling researchers to make important contributions to society and industry. Simply stated, the goal of DSR is to generate knowledge on how to find innovative solutions to important problems in the form of models, methods, constructs and instantiations. Over the past 20 years, the design science research (DSR) paradigm has developed into an established paradigm in Information Systems Research and it is of strong uptake in many other disciplines, including Management Science and Computer Science. This book provides a collection of twelve DSR cases, presented by experienced researchers in the field. It offers readers access to real-world DSR studies, together with the authors' reflections on their research processes. These cases will support researchers who want to engage in DSR, and represent a valuable addition to existing introductions to DSR methods and processes. Readers will learn from the hands-on experiences of respected experts who have conducted extensive DSR in a range of application contexts.

This edited book provides a platform to bring together researchers, academia and industry collaborators to exchange their knowledge and work to develop better understanding about the scope of blockchain technology in business management applications of different sectors such as retail sector, supply chain and logistics, healthcare sector, manufacturing sector, judiciary, finance and government sector in terms of data quality and timeliness. The book presents original unpublished research papers on blockchain technology and business management on novel architectures, prototypes and case studies.

This book discusses understand cybersecurity management in decentralized finance (DeFi). It commences with introducing fundamentals of DeFi and cybersecurity to readers. It emphasizes on the importance of cybersecurity for decentralized finance by illustrating recent cyber breaches, attacks, and financial losses. The book delves into understanding cyber threats and adversaries who can exploit those threats. It advances with cybersecurity threat, vulnerability, and risk management in DeFi. The book helps readers understand cyber threat landscape comprising different threat categories for that can exploit different types of vulnerabilities identified in DeFi. It puts forward prominent threat modelling strategies by focusing on attackers, assets, and software. The book includes the popular blockchains that support DeFi include Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, Solana, Cardano, Avalanche, Polygon, among others. With so much monetary value associated with all these technologies, the perpetrators are always lured to breach security by exploiting the vulnerabilities that exist in these technologies. For simplicity and clarity, all vulnerabilities are classified into different categories: arithmetic bugs, re-Entrancy attack, race conditions, exception handling, using a weak random generator, timestamp dependency, transaction-ordering dependence and front running, vulnerable libraries, wrong initial assumptions, denial of service, flash loan attacks, and vampire Since decentralized finance infrastructures are the worst affected by cyber-attacks, it is imperative to understand various security issues in different components of DeFi infrastructures and proposes measures to secure all components of DeFi infrastructures. It brings the detailed cybersecurity policies and strategies that can be used to secure financial institutions. Finally, the book provides recommendations to secure DeFi infrastructures from cyber-attacks.

Inquiring Organizations: Moving from Knowledge Management to Wisdom' assembles into one volume a comprehensive collection of the key current thinking regarding the use of C. West Churchman's Design of Inquiring Systems as a basis for computer-based inquiring systems design and implementation. Inquiring systems are systems that go beyond knowledge management to actively inquire about their environment. While self-adaptive is an appropriate adjective for inquiring systems, they are critically different from self-adapting systems as they have evolved in the fields of computer science or artificial intelligence. Inquiring systems draw on epistemology to guide knowledge creation and organizational learning. As such, we can for the first time ever, begin to entertain the notion of support for wise"" decision-making. Readers of ""Inquiring Organizations: Moving from Knowledge Management to Wisdom"" will gain an appreciation for the role that epistemology can play in the design of the next generation of knowledge management systems, systems that focus on supporting wise decision-making processes.

The overall mission of this book is to provide a comprehensive understanding and coverage of the various theories and models used in IS research. Specifically, it aims to focus on the following key objectives: To describe the various theories and models applicable to studying IS/IT management issues. To outline and describe, for each of the various theories and models, independent and dependent constructs, reference discipline/originating area, originating author(s), seminal articles, level of analysis (i.e. firm, individual, industry) and links with other theories. To provide a critical review/meta-analysis of IS/IT management articles that have used a particular theory/model.To discuss how a theory can be used to better understand how information systems can be effectively deployed in today's digital world.

This book contributes to our understanding of a number of theories and models. The theoretical contribution of this book is that it analyzes and synthesizes the relevant literature in order to enhance knowledge of IS theories and models from various perspectives. To cater to the information needs of a diverse spectrum of readers, this book is structured into two volumes, with each volume further broken down into two sections.

The first section of Volume 1 presents detailed descriptions of a set of theories centered around the IS lifecycle, including the Success Model, Technology Acceptance Model, User Resistance Theories, and four others. The second section of Volume 1 contains strategic and economic theories, including a Resource-Based View, Theory of Slack Resources, Portfolio Theory, Discrepancy Theory Models, and eleven others.

The first section of Volume 2 concerns socio-psychological theories. These include Personal Construct Theory, Psychological Ownership, Transactive Memory, Language-Action Approach, and nine others. The second section of Volume 2 deals with methodological theories, including Critical Realism, Grounded Theory, Narrative Inquiry, Work System Method, and four others.

Together, these theories provide a rich tapestry of knowledge around the use of theory in IS research. Since most of these theories are from contributing disciplines, they provide a window into the world of external thought leadership."

Mapping Motivation for Leadership, co-written with Jane Thomas, is the fourth of a series of seven books that are all linked to the author's Motivational Map toolkit. Each book builds on a different aspect of personal, team and organisational development. This is a practical guide to leadership in the 21st century and builds on the '4+1' model outlined in the author's original book Mapping Motivation: Unlocking the Key to Employee Energy and Engagement. There is an increasing body of evidence, that the single most important aspect of being a leader relates to managing emotions effectively, and this management goes way beyond simply 'understanding' emotional intelligence; it is in fact a practice and one that is intimately connected with personal development and growth, and with energy. Energy, as Mapping Motivation made clear, is synonymous with motivation. The effective leaders of tomorrow will be those who understand their motivators, who regularly measure their motivators, sustain and replenish and maximise their motivators, and who do the same for their employees. Clearly, there is a link here with the book on engagement, for leaders who do so will engage their employees. However, this book not only covers the motivational side of leadership, but also explores in detail the skill sets necessary in the '4+1' model: thinking skills, action skills, team skills and motivational skills plus that indefinable 'something' that is a commitment to personal development, so that we as leaders are not trying to solve today's problems with yesterday's training as our only internal resource.

This book presents high-quality papers from the Third International Conference on Smart Computing and Informatics (SCI 2018 19), organized by the School of Computer Engineering and School of Computer Application, Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology Deemed to be University, Bhubaneswar, from 21 to 22 December 2018. It includes advanced and multi-disciplinary research on the design of smart computing and informatics, focusing on innovation paradigms in system knowledge, intelligence and sustainability that have the potential to provide realistic solutions to various problems in society, the environment and industry. The papers featured provide a valuable contribution to the deployment of emerging computational and knowledge transfer approaches, optimizing solutions in varied disciplines of science, technology and health care.

Management of supply chains has been evolving rapidly over the last few years due to the inception of Industry 4.0, where businesses adopt automation technologies and data exchanges leading to dynamic and interconnected supply chain systems. Emphasizing on analytical approaches such as predictive and prescriptive modeling, this book presents state-of-the-art original research work dealing with advanced analytical models for the design, planning, and operation of the supply chain to provide faster and smarter decisions in the era of digitization. In particular, the book integrates machine learning and operations research models for faster and smarter decisions, presents prescriptive analytics models for strategic, tactical, and operational decision making in the supply chain, and addresses recent challenges such as sustainability in the supply chain, supply chain visibility, and supply chain digitalization. Key concepts are illustrated using real-life case studies, making the book a valuable reference for researchers, technical professionals, and students.

The overall mission of this book is to provide a comprehensive understanding and coverage of the various theories and models used in IS research. Specifically, it aims to focus on the following key objectives: To describe the various theories and models applicable to studying IS/IT management issues. To outline and describe, for each of the various theories and models, independent and dependent constructs, reference discipline/originating area, originating author(s), seminal articles, level of analysis (i.e. firm, individual, industry) and links with other theories. To provide a critical review/meta-analysis of IS/IT management articles that have used a particular theory/model.To discuss how a theory can be used to better understand how information systems can be effectively deployed in today's digital world.

This book contributes to our understanding of a number of theories and models. The theoretical contribution of this book is that it analyzes and synthesizes the relevant literature in order to enhance knowledge of IS theories and models from various perspectives. To cater to the information needs of a diverse spectrum of readers, this book is structured into two volumes, with each volume further broken down into two sections.

The first section of Volume 1 presents detailed descriptions of a set of theories centered around the IS lifecycle, including the Success Model, Technology Acceptance Model, User Resistance Theories, and four others. The second section of Volume 1 contains strategic and economic theories, including a Resource-Based View, Theory of Slack Resources, Portfolio Theory, Discrepancy Theory Models, and eleven others.

The first section of Volume 2 concerns socio-psychological theories. These include Personal Construct Theory, Psychological Ownership, Transactive Memory, Language-Action Approach, and nine others. The second section of Volume 2 deals with methodological theories, including Critical Realism, Grounded Theory, Narrative Inquiry, Work System Method, and four others.

Together, these theories provide a rich tapestry of knowledge around the use of theory in IS research. Since most of these theories are from contributing disciplines, they provide a window into the world of external thought leadership."

This book discusses the impact of advanced information technologies, such as data processing, machine learning, and artificial intelligence, on organizational decision-making processes and practices. One of the book's central themes is the interplay between human reasoning and machine logic in the context of organizational functioning, specifically, the fairly common situations in which subjective beliefs are pitted against objective evidence giving rise to conflict rather than enhancing the quality of organizational sensemaking. Aiming to not only raise the awareness of the potential challenges but also to offer solutions, the book delineates and discusses the core impediments to effective human-information technology interactions, and outlines strategies for overcoming those obstacles on the way to enhancing the efficacy of organizational decision-making.

This book focuses on several issues in the essence of information systems and their development as well as advanced utilization of new information technology. This book includes both theoretical foundations and practical approaches for each topic and should prove useful both to scientists in the field of information system science and to practitioners in information systems development and use. Many of the topics treated here have not appeared in the literature, although they are becoming increasingly important in the development of information systems. Topics covered include: contingencies in IT decision making; intelligent executive information systems; dynamic performance evaluation of information systems; exception handling in information systems, metamethodology of information system development and mobile computing. The outstanding feature of the book is its specific mixture of subjects under one framework of thinking about information systems. The book offers new perspectives on topics which are important today and in the future due to the rapidly changing nature of information systems and information technology. A useful book to researchers and systems developers, the book can also form the basis of an advanced course in information systems development.

Cognition-driven decision support system (DSS) has been recognized as a paradigm in the research and development of business intelligence (BI). Cognitive decision support aims to help managers in their decision making from human cognitive aspects, such as thinking, sensing, understanding and predicting, and fully reuse their experience. Among these cognitive aspects, decision makers situation awareness (SA) and mental models are considered to be two important prerequisites for decision making, particularly in ill-structured and dynamic decision situations with uncertainties, time pressure and high personal stake. In today s business domain, decision making is becoming increasingly complex. To make a successful decision, managers SA about their business environments becomes a critical factor.

This book presents theoretical models as well practical techniques of cognitiondriven DSS. It first introduces some important concepts of cognition orientation in decision making process and some techniques in related research areas including DSS, data warehouse and BI, offering readers a preliminary for moving forward in this book. It then proposes a cognition-driven decision process (CDDP) model which incorporates SA and experience (mental models) as its central components. The goal of the CDDP model is to facilitate cognitive decision support to managers on the basis of BI systems. It also presents relevant techniques developed to support the implementation of the CDDP model in a BI environment. Key issues addressed of a typical business decision cycle in the CDDP model include: natural language interface for a manager s SA input, extraction of SA semantics, construction of data warehouse queries based on the manger s SA and experience, situation information retrieval from data warehouse, how the manager perceives situation information and update SA, how the manager s SA leads to a final decision. Finally, a cognition-driven DSS, FACETS, and two illustrative applications of this system are discussed."

This volume discusses recent advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications in smart, internet-connected societies, highlighting three key focus areas. The first focus is on intelligent sensing applications. This section details the integration of Wireless Sensing Networks (WSN) and the use of intelligent platforms for WSN applications in urban infrastructures, and discusses AI techniques on hardware and software systems such as machine learning, pattern recognition, expert systems, neural networks, genetic algorithms, and intelligent control in transportation and communications systems. The second focus is on AI-based Internet of Things (IoT) systems, which addresses applications in traffic management, medical health, smart homes and energy. Readers will also learn about how AI can extract useful information from Big Data in IoT systems. The third focus is on crowdsourcing (CS) and computing for smart cities. this section discusses how CS via GPS devices, GIS tools, traffic cameras, smart cards, smart phones and road deceleration devices enables citizens to collect and share data to make cities smart, and how these data can be applied to address urban issues including pollution, traffic congestion, public safety and increased energy consumption. This book will of interest to academics, researchers and students studying AI, cloud computing, IoT and crowdsourcing in urban applications.

This book provides readers with a thorough understanding of various research areas within the field of data science. The book introduces readers to various techniques for data acquisition, extraction, and cleaning, data summarizing and modeling, data analysis and communication techniques, data science tools, deep learning, and various data science applications. Researchers can extract and conclude various future ideas and topics that could result in potential publications or thesis. Furthermore, this book contributes to Data Scientists' preparation and to enhancing their knowledge of the field. The book provides a rich collection of manuscripts in highly regarded data science topics, edited by professors with long experience in the field of data science. Introduces various techniques, methods, and algorithms adopted by Data Science experts Provides a detailed explanation of data science perceptions, reinforced by practical examples Presents a road map of future trends suitable for innovative data science research and practice

There is no shortage of strategic reasons for taking partnering seriously in today’s converging and colliding marketplace. However, there certainly is a lack of credible explanations as to why so many fail.

This book provides the ingredients for successful business partnerships. It identifies the value that effective partnerships can generate, the reasons why so many run into difficulties, and the imperatives for leaders who want to make partnering work in a globalized, digital world.

A powerful series of insights into one of the major issues of our time: how to create a partnership that generates innovation and other key advantages. Original, perceptive, wise and easy to read. –Dr Charles Hampden-Turner, Cambridge University, Judge Institute of Management Studies

Deering and Murphy have written with great clarity and insight on a difficult subject. Partnering will continue to grow in importance as firms shrink in size and look outside their boundaries for some of their critical resources. This book offers clear and practical guidelines for the manager who has to grapple with the multilevel and multicultural complexities of the partnering process. I highly recommend it. –Max Boisot, Snider Center for Entrepreneurial Research, Wharton Business School

This book explores nonparametric statistical process control. It provides an up-to-date overview of nonparametric Shewhart-type univariate control charts, and reviews the recent literature on nonparametric charts, particularly multivariate schemes. Further, it discusses observations tied to the monitored population quantile, focusing on the Shewhart Sign chart. The book also addresses the issue of practically assuming the normality and the independence when a process is statistically monitored, and examines in detail change-point analysis-based distribution-free control charts designed for Phase I applications. Moreover, it introduces six distribution-free EWMA schemes for simultaneously monitoring the location and scale parameters of a univariate continuous process, and establishes two nonparametric Shewhart-type control charts based on order statistics with signaling runs-type rules. Lastly, the book proposes novel and effective method for early disease detection.

Strategic alliances offer organisations an alternative to organic growth or acquisition when faced with the need to develop the business to a new level, innovate in terms of products or services or significantly reduce costs. The Strategic Alliance Handbook is a clear and complete guide to the nuts and bolts of the process behind successful collaborations. The book enables readers to understand the commercial, technical, strategic, cultural and operational logic behind any alliance and to establish an approach that is appropriate for the type of alliance they are seeking and the partner organisation(s) with whom they are working. Whether you are an alliance executive, responsible for the systems, strategy and performance of your organisation's alliancing programme or an alliance manager needing to ensure the success of a given partnership, The Strategic Alliance Handbook is an essential guide.

This volume presents techniques and theories drawn from mathematics, statistics, computer science, and information science to analyze problems in business, economics, finance, insurance, and related fields. The authors present proposals for solutions to common problems in related fields. To this end, they are showing the use of mathematical, statistical, and actuarial modeling, and concepts from data science to construct and apply appropriate models with real-life data, and employ the design and implementation of computer algorithms to evaluate decision-making processes. This book is unique as it associates data science - data-scientists coming from different backgrounds - with some basic and advanced concepts and tools used in econometrics, operational research, and actuarial sciences. It, therefore, is a must-read for scholars, students, and practitioners interested in a better understanding of the techniques and theories of these fields.

This book develops insights of digitalization and the future of financial services to originate an innovative approach to financial field, in order to underpin research and practice in the wide area of digital finance. The aim of this book is to extend our understandings on how digitalization and the future of financial services can be helpful in different business circumstances in many cross-functional financial areas, such as financial markets, financial risk management, financial technologies, investment finance, etc. Thus, the book aims at addressing the relevance of digital finance for different players, highlighting differences in tools and processes as well as identifying innovative practices in financial digitalization. This can result in some novel theoretical and practical insights that can foster financial players, in order to proactively explore and exploit opportunities in financial digitalization and offset financial risks and increase efficiency.

There are many definitions of eHealth and no consensus around the underlying idea. Most contributions on eHealth focus on informatic, public health, legal, social and anthropological implications. This book investigates eHealth through community-based private practices such as pharmacies, hearing centres, opticians, and private medical centres from a management perspective. It first presents a systematic review of the theoretical research models that have been developed on eHealth. It then identifies the many innovative managerial implications of eHealth, and finally, it analyses reasons why some eHealth tools are or are not adopted.

This book brings together valuable insights about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the business environment from an Asian perspective. While some businesses in Asia have been swift to embrace the new normal, others have found the disruption to the traditional way of doing business challenging. Businesses are striving to respond, adapt, and thrive under the shadow of the unprecedented upheaval to the business environment that has forced them to rethink their strategies, processes, and operating models. There seems to be a consensus among business scholars and stakeholders that the continuous embrace of change and transformation of business models will assist businesses to sustain a long-term competitive advantage. The chapters in this book explore shifts in business innovation and strategies linked to the "new normal" of doing business during the pandemic, bringing to light issues, challenges, and opportunities that firms can expect to face in their need to ensure sustainability post-pandemic and beyond.

Nearly everyone knows K-means algorithm in the fields of data mining and business intelligence. But the ever-emerging data with extremely complicated characteristics bring new challenges to this "old" algorithm. This book addresses these challenges and makes novel contributions in establishing theoretical frameworks for K-means distances and K-means based consensus clustering, identifying the "dangerous" uniform effect and zero-value dilemma of K-means, adapting right measures for cluster validity, and integrating K-means with SVMs for rare class analysis. This book not only enriches the clustering and optimization theories, but also provides good guidance for the practical use of K-means, especially for important tasks such as network intrusion detection and credit fraud prediction. The thesis on which this book is based has won the "2010 National Excellent Doctoral Dissertation Award", the highest honor for not more than 100 PhD theses per year in China.

This book is an outcome of the 34th International Conference EnviroInfo 2020, hosted virtually in Nicosia, Cyprus by the Research Centre on Interactive Media, Smart Systems and Emerging Technologies (RISE). It presents a selection of papers that describe innovative scientific approaches and ongoing research in environmental informatics and the emerging field of environmental sustainability, promoted and facilitated by the use of information and communication technologies (ICT). The respective articles cover a broad range of scientific aspects including advances in core environmental informatics-related technologies such as earth observation, environmental modelling, big data and machine learning, robotics, smart agriculture and food solutions, renewable energy-based solutions, optimization of infrastructures, sustainable industrial processes, and citizen science, as well as applications of ICT solutions intended to support societal transformation processes toward the more sustainable management of resource use, transportation and energy supplies. Given its scope, the book is essential reading for scientists, experts and students in these fields of research. Chapter "Developing a Configuration System for a Simulation Game in the Domain of Urban CO2 Emissions Reduction" is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.