This book examines the factors that shape the adoption and continuous usage of new technology by employees in organizations. While within an organization new technology adoption has evolved from its traditional role to a more strategic one, the appropriate adoption of new technology can only add value to organizations. Identifying the factors that influence this adoption process is crucial for successful adoption of new technology in organizations. The study presented in this book focuses on individual, organizational, social, and industrial factors and uses those to offer a comprehensive model of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) application adoption. It contributes towards understanding employees' acceptance and adoption of enterprise-level technological innovation, allowing organizations to create a work environment conducive to individual implementation and acceptance of new technology. It appeals to researchers interested in studying the adoption of ERP and other innovative technologies in organizations.

This book studies mathematical theories of machine learning. The first part of the book explores the optimality and adaptivity of choosing step sizes of gradient descent for escaping strict saddle points in non-convex optimization problems. In the second part, the authors propose algorithms to find local minima in nonconvex optimization and to obtain global minima in some degree from the Newton Second Law without friction. In the third part, the authors study the problem of subspace clustering with noisy and missing data, which is a problem well-motivated by practical applications data subject to stochastic Gaussian noise and/or incomplete data with uniformly missing entries. In the last part, the authors introduce an novel VAR model with Elastic-Net regularization and its equivalent Bayesian model allowing for both a stable sparsity and a group selection.

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.

Provides answers to key questions affecting the future of electronic data interchange (EDI) and its impact on the business community as a whole. This evolving technology is cheaper than fax, easier to use than electronic bulletin boards and faster than the postal services. It contains practical information and alerts the reader to the level and types of controls necessary to protect data handled through the EDI system interface.

This textbook grew out of notes for the ECE143 Programming for Data Analysis class that the author has been teaching at University of California, San Diego, which is a requirement for both graduate and undergraduate degrees in Machine Learning and Data Science. This book is ideal for readers with some Python programming experience. The book covers key language concepts that must be understood to program effectively, especially for data analysis applications. Certain low-level language features are discussed in detail, especially Python memory management and data structures. Using Python effectively means taking advantage of its vast ecosystem. The book discusses Python package management and how to use third-party modules as well as how to structure your own Python modules. The section on object-oriented programming explains features of the language that facilitate common programming patterns. After developing the key Python language features, the book moves on to third-party modules that are foundational for effective data analysis, starting with Numpy. The book develops key Numpy concepts and discusses internal Numpy array data structures and memory usage. Then, the author moves onto Pandas and details its many features for data processing and alignment. Because strong visualizations are important for communicating data analysis, key modules such as Matplotlib are developed in detail, along with web-based options such as Bokeh, Holoviews, Altair, and Plotly. The text is sprinkled with many tricks-of-the-trade that help avoid common pitfalls. The author explains the internal logic embodied in the Python language so that readers can get into the Python mindset and make better design choices in their codes, which is especially helpful for newcomers to both Python and data analysis. To get the most out of this book, open a Python interpreter and type along with the many code samples.

The Internet is already more widely deployed than any other computing system in history and continues to grow rapidly. New technologies, including high speed wide area network and improved software support for distribution, promise to make the Internet much more useful for general purpose distributed computing in the future. Web Information Systems is dedicated to the new era of information systems on web environments, due to not only the growing popularity of the web technology but also the roles that web technology play in modern information systems. The major elements of web information systems include web semantics, XML technologies, web mining and querying, web-based information systems, information extraction, and web semantics.

This volume discusses digital diplomacy and artificial intelligence within the context of global governance and international security. Rapid digitalization has changed the way international actors interact, offering new opportunities for international and bilateral cooperation and reinforcing the role of the emergent actors within global governance. New phenomena linked to digitalization and artificial intelligence are emerging and this volume brings a multidisciplinary, mixed-methods approach to studying them. Written by globally recognized experts, each chapter presents a case study covering an emerging topic such as: international regulation of the web and digital diplomacy, the interplay of artificial intelligence and cyber diplomacy, social media and artificial intelligence as tools for digital diplomacy, the malicious use of artificial intelligence, cyber security, and data sovereignty. Incorporating both theory and practice, quantitative and qualitative analysis, this volume will be of interest to graduate students and researchers in international relations, diplomacy, security studies, and artificial intelligence, as well as diplomats and policymakers looking to understand the implications of digitalization and artificial intelligence in their fields.

This book responds to the increasing speed with which the domain of electronic procurement has been evolving, as well to the significant advances predicted to take place in the near future. Covering the fundamentals of electronic procurement as well as advanced applications, the main focus is on the critical importance of information technology for modern supply management professionals. Tracing the evolution of electronic procurement over the last 20 years, the book illustrates how the concept has evolved from a novel idea into a standard approach that cannot be neglected, fundamentally transforming business as usual. The transformation is highlighted by the evolution of online reverse auctions, as well as the ensuing expansion of technology to virtually all aspects of strategic sourcing in the form of integrated electronic sourcing suites. Several advances and new applications of electronic procurement are presented, with an emphasis on how social media can be leveraged for supply management and its associated significant potential.

Trail-blazing social entrepreneurs are tackling the world's most pressing problems that government, business, or charity have failed to solve. They are creating businesses with a primary mission of social change. Scott Boyer is one such social entrepreneur. This 28-year veteran of Big Pharma left a six-figure salary to start OWP Pharmaceuticals and the ROW Foundation. This commercial business and non-profit organization exist in a symbiotic relationship we call a "tandem hybrid social enterprise." This model combines a multimillion dollar business with a foundation that's on track to become the largest funder of projects serving people with epilepsy and associated psychiatric disorders in the world. The tandem hybrid incorporates the principles learned by Scott and others for building a truly unique social enterprise from the ground up; one that is: Driven by a compelling social mission Financed by commercial success Structured to retain control Scalable and sustainable for the long haul Powering Social Enterprises With Profit And Purpose offers a detailed blueprint that has proven commercially and philanthropically successful and that can be replicated in most business sectors.

This book presents the many facets, concepts and theories that have influenced knowledge management and the state of practice concerning strategy, organization, systems and economics. The second edition updates the material to cover the most recent developments in ICT-supported knowledge management. It also provides a more coverage of its theoretical foundation including a new account of knowledge work, discusses the potentials and challenges of process-oriented knowledge management, adds a new chapter on modelling that plays an important role in knowledge management initiatives and contrasts architectures for centralized and distributed or peer-to-peer knowledge management systems.

E-government faces huge challenges in achieving interoperability and integration, taking into account differences in laws, regulations, services, administrative processes and languages across regions and countries. On the other hand, issues like service, data and process integration have been researched by the Semantic Web community for several years now, and in the last two to three years we have witnessed the first applications of semantic technologies in real, operational e-government systems in both Europe and the US which address exactly these challenges.

With this book, the editors present the latest research results on how to use semantic technologies in order to improve or even revolutionize the use of ICT in public administration systems. The contributions are organized into three parts: architectures and process integration, ontologies and interoperability, and portals and user interactions. They give a broad overview of how semantic technologies have been applied in different e-government projects funded from the European program for ICT Research and Development, and they cover a wide spectrum of semantic technologies such as development of domain and service ontologies, semantic enhancements of business process models, semantic Service-Oriented Architectures (SOAs) based on Semantic Web Services (SWS) frameworks, and ontology-based knowledge management.

In this volume, researchers of Semantic Web technologies will find a wealth of challenging real-world scenarios to stimulate new fields of research, while developers of e-government systems as well as other stakeholders in public administration will appreciate the detailed presentations and discussions of numerous applications in areas such as e-government portals, personalization of Web-based public services, or integration and orchestration of public administration processes.

This concise yet comprehensive one-volume guide, the first to encompass the interrelated functions of information and records management, is designed to meet the needs of office records and information decision-makers, planners, and administrators. Focusing equally on theory and practice, it offers complete instruction on how to assess an organization's systeM's requirements, plan and develop an information and records management system, select vendors and equipment, set the system in motion, and use it effectively. Emphasizing the importance of the systeM's long-term effectiveness, the author provides guidelines on monitoring procedures, keeping abreast on industry and information-processing trends, and avoiding obsolescence. He includes many useful examples, forms, and other illustrative materials reflecting current business practice.

In a world where we are constantly being asked to make decisions based on incomplete information, facility with basic probability is an essential skill. This book provides a solid foundation in basic probability theory designed for intellectually curious readers and those new to the subject. Through its conversational tone and careful pacing of mathematical development, the book balances a charming style with informative discussion. This text will immerse the reader in a mathematical view of the world, giving them a glimpse into what attracts mathematicians to the subject in the first place. Rather than simply writing out and memorizing formulas, the reader will come out with an understanding of what those formulas mean, and how and when to use them. Readers will also encounter settings where probabilistic reasoning does not apply or where intuition can be misleading. This book establishes simple principles of counting collections and sequences of alternatives, and elaborates on these techniques to solve real world problems both inside and outside the casino. Pair this book with the HarvardX online course for great videos and interactive learning: https://harvardx.link/fat-chance.

The fundamental reason for the existence of any manufacturing organization is to generate wealth by adding value to the products and services it offers. In this new global industrial environment, value is generated from many sources, such as rapid and flexible fulfillment of orders, developing new innovative products and services, providing rapid and responsive product and service support, delivering innovative turn-key solutions to customers, and so on. In the 21st century most manufacturing organizations will have to respond to these challenges through innovative partnerships, by creating virtual enterprises, by operating in agile networks to generate value by exploiting their existing competencies in design, manufacturing, distribution and customer service, whilst building new competencies in information systems, communications and knowledge management. Just as no man is an island, so no business can operate without being part of a network of businesses, which we call the manufacturing value chain. This book brings together the works of leading researchers to present state-of-the-art research and development on the strategic management of the manufacturing value chain' in the broadest sense. The objectives of Strategic Management of the Manufacturing Value Chain are: To provide insights into potential strategies, methods, tools and techniques which could facilitate competitiveness through innovation agility and partnership. To explore the use of enabling technologies, such as IT, in meeting the challenges of the 21st century. To provide practical case studies which demonstrate the use of new approaches to the generation and management of value in manufacturing. Strategic Managementof the Manufacturing Value Chain is suitable as a secondary text for graduate-level courses of management and manufacturing, and as a reference for researchers and practitioners in industry, commerce and government.

This book offers a comprehensive and readable introduction to modern business and data analytics. It is based on the use of Excel, a tool that virtually all students and professionals have access to. The explanations are focused on understanding the techniques and their proper application, and are supplemented by a wealth of in-chapter and end-of-chapter exercises. In addition to the general statistical methods, the book also includes Monte Carlo simulation and optimization. The second edition has been thoroughly revised: new topics, exercises and examples have been added, and the readability has been further improved. The book is primarily intended for students in business, economics and government, as well as professionals, who need a more rigorous introduction to business and data analytics - yet also need to learn the topic quickly and without overly academic explanations.

Faced with a depleted planet and a series of connected crises, socially-minded agents and entities within the world of culture and the arts are reacting from within. With insights from sociology, economics, and cultural management and policy, this book aims to chronicle the journey of SMart - a cultural and artistic social enterprise now present in eight European countries - in order to illustrate such organisation's efforts to achieve its potential for social innovation and transformation. Tackling the endemic precariousness and intermittency of work through innovative arrangements for cultural workers and artists has been central to these efforts. In many cases, however, this activism not only had a direct impact at the level of individual and collective labor, but has transformed the ways culture is 'governed'. Readers of this book will better understand the connection between social innovation and culture and the arts; gain awareness of the trends and transformations within the field of culture and cultural work and their connection with institutional arrangements: and critically engage with the processes, challenges and benefits of scaling up and diffusing social innovation. The debates presented will be of relevance to scholars and students across disciplines, policy makers at both EU and national levels, practitioners and social activists.

Organisational Semiotics occupies an important niche in the research community of human communication and information systems. It opens up new ways of understanding the functioning of information and information resources in organised behavior.

Coordination And Communication Using Signs: Studies in Organisational Semiotics is a cutting-edge volume that bridges the gap between the technical and social aspects of information systems and information technology. The chapters in the book are divided into two major sections. The first section deals with Communication and Pragmatics, and Organisational Systems. In this section the following topics are examined:

• the semiotic framework and natural language;
• coordination and communication using natural language and other artifacts in a real-life setting;
• substantive-level issues of information systems and business processes from several theoretical perspectives;
• language as action;
• communication quality in the context of systems and business processes;
• organisational action and Greimas' semiotics.

Section Two concentrates on organisational systems, which may or may not include a computer system as a component and examines the following topics:

• semiotic strategies and semiotic models of organisational structures;
• the impact of information technology with instructive case studies;
• the impact of information technology with a particular focus on sense-making in the work floor context;
• the design of computer information systems;
• improving the design quality of agent-based information systems;
• the design ofinformation systems, in terms of capacity, and data scheme.

All the chapters in the volume have been submitted to a review process of discussants and peer reviews.

Extensive research conducted by the Hasso Plattner Design Thinking Research Program at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, USA, and the Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam, Germany, has yielded valuable insights on why and how design thinking works. Researchers have identified metrics, developed models, and conducted studies, which are featured in this book, and in the previous volumes of this series. Offering readers a closer look at design thinking, and its innovation processes and methods, this volume covers topics ranging from understanding success factors of design thinking to exploring the potential that lies in the use of digital technologies. Furthermore, readers learn how special-purpose design thinking can be used to solve thorny problems in complex fields, such as the health sector or software development. Thinking and devising innovations are inherently human activities - so is design thinking. Accordingly, design thinking is not merely the result of special courses or of being gifted or trained: it is a way of dealing with our environment and improving techniques, technologies and life. As such, the research outcomes compiled in this book should increase knowledge and provide inspiration to all seeking to drive innovation - be they experienced design thinkers or newcomers.

Recent years have seen a radical upheaval in use of IT in the service and financial sectors. The turbulent conditions created by economic deregulation, political re-regulation and privatisation have produced considerable challenges to the effective and efficient management of IT. Managers Divided is concerned with the use and development of IT in commercial organisations. Its particular focus is on the major shifts that are taking place in the management and use of IT in organisations struggling to come to terms with a rapidly changing market and regulatory environments. It examines the deeply political nature of IT management, innovation and change. The authors analyse the shift from a technology-led to a strategic and marketing-led use of IT. They study the use and development of IT through detailed localised studies of management practice that are understood to be influenced by, and have consequences for, broader socio-political, economic, organisational, and technological conditions. Graduates and undergraduates studying corporate and strategic management, management information systems, work and employment gender research, organisation studies and finance will find this book an invaluable asset. Information Systems specialists and practitioners in financial services will find the book a useful source of information.

This book examines the extensive changes in markets, technologies and value chains that telecommunication companies are currently confronted with. It analyzes the crossroads they have reached and the choices that now need to be made - to be a bit pipe or a trendsetter of digitalization. Based on an analysis of the key challenges for telcos, the book derives future market scenarios and puts forward recommendations for how they can successfully position themselves. It proposes a framework based on seven "levers," which addresses concrete measures in each step of the value chain, ranging from technology, IT and processes, to innovation, marketing and sales issues. The book discusses the current challenges and provides both general recommendations and concrete solutions. Respected experts illustrate innovative strategic and technical trends and provide insights gained in real-life transformation projects. Recent developments in the areas of regulation, product development, competition between over-the-top (OTT) providers and telcos, as well as technical innovations like 5G, SDN/NFV, LEO satellites and MEC are discussed. Accordingly, practitioners, managers and researchers alike will benefit from the book's wealth of examples and up-to-date insights.

In the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis, corporate collapses, accounting scandals and concerns around competition and auditor choice, the European Commission (EC) promoted the preparation of various reports on audit policy to support a harmonisation process of European auditing regulation. Consequently, the European Union Audit Regulation and Directive was implemented from 2016. This book provides a timely picture of the audit sector and how it responds to regulatory and technological challenges. It analyses the impact of EU reforms on audit practices by comparing the U.K. and Italy, which, representing two very different regulatory and cultural contexts, will offer insight into how the efforts at standardising audit regulation may lead to very different organisational firm responses within Europe. It addresses issues relating to public policy work and the concerns faced by the market for audit and assurance services, in promoting audit quality, better communication about the role of the auditor, capital market stability and confidence, and auditor independence. Moreover, it highlights what the future of auditing might look like in the EU particularly after the U.K. has left, and how meeting public expectations will continue to be a struggle for the accounting profession given the many problems ahead. The book encourages a deeper awareness of the challenges faced by those that monitor and certify the financial statements of the world's largest public companies and contributes to the general understanding of this controversial industry. It will serve as a useful guide to the recent EU audit reforms, not only for academics, and research students but also to regulators, policymakers, standard setters, industry professionals, and business executives worldwide.

This contributed volume provides academic insights into the digital financial world. It illustrates the state-of-the-art research on financial technology and innovation with special focus on the impact in society. Technologies are not only door openers for the digital world, but they are also key drivers of change. These key drivers of digitalization, accelerating the pace, are literally forcing individuals to adapt. The authors discuss these dynamics and reflect on society's adaptability. The first part of the book focuses on cryptocurrencies as disruptive technology. It discusses the status quo, future trends and legal frameworks for virtual money. The second part of the book sheds light on value creation in a digitalized world. The authors discuss digital platforms and economic networks and the impact of digital dominance.

This book is a sequel and extension to the book "Business Process Management Cases", published in its first edition by Springer in 2018. It adds 22 new cases for practitioners and educators to showcase and study Business Process Management (BPM). The BPM cases collection is dedicated to providing a contemporary and comprehensive, industry-agnostic insight into the realities of BPM. In particular it focuses on the lessons that only authentic cases can provide. The experiences documented cover both, the positive impact of deploying BPM as well as the lessons learnt from failed attempts. Each case takes a holistic approach and by doing so, each chapter recognizes that BPM in practice is a multidimensional endeavor covering strategy to operations, systems and infrastructure, governance and culture, models and running processes. This volume also introduces a new device to plan and scope BPM initiatives: the BPM Billboard. The Billboard helps professionals to link BPM projects to the corporate strategy and to build the organizational capabilities to reach such strategic directive. Digital technologies do not just facilitate innovative process designs, but enable entire new strategic options. This book provides a contemporary and comprehensive overview of how to create process-enabled strategies in an opportunity-rich environment. Martin Petry, Hilti CIO This is the first book to present the BPM Billboard - A new management tool to plan and scope BPM initiatives. The Billboard together with the insightful real-world cases offers valuable guidance towards BPM success from a holistic perspective. Gero Decker, Signavio CEO

Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) has become one of the main statistical tools for the analysis of economic and financial data. This book is the first to provide an intuitive introduction to the method combined with a unified treatment of GMM statistical theory and a survey of recent important developments in the field. Providing a comprehensive treatment of GMM estimation and inference, it is designed as a resource for both the theory and practice of GMM: it discusses and proves formally all the main statistical results, and illustrates all inference techniques using empirical examples in macroeconomics and finance. Building from the instrumental variables estimator in static linear models, it presents the asymptotic statistical theory of GMM in nonlinear dynamic models. Within this framework it covers classical results on estimation and inference techniques, such as the overidentifying restrictions test and tests of structural stability, and reviews the finite sample performance of these inference methods. And it discusses in detail recent developments on covariance matrix estimation, the impact of model misspecification, moment selection, the use of the bootstrap, and weak instrument asymptotics.

This book provides a detailed theoretical background of Logistics 4.0 using real-world examples and case studies and proposes a methodological framework to understand the technological revolutions happening in the present day from the perspective of logistics management. With the fourth industrial revolution, new technologies, such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, 3D printers and the Internet of Things started to take greater prominence in the world of business. One of the sectors most affected by changes brought on by this Industry 4.0 is logistics, which has given rise to the concept of Logistics 4.0. Covering a wide range of topics on Logistics 4.0, such as warehousing, big data, 3D printing, robotics and cloud computing, this book would be a valuable read for those involved in logistics management, academics and students in the areas of supply chain management, logistics, industry 4, and big data. .