This open access book explores the digital transformation of small and rural towns, in particular, how to measure the evolution and development of digital towns. In addition to access to resources, competition from urban and global markets, and population trends, rural communities present lesser access and use of digital technologies and have lower digital competencies and skills than their urban counterparts. Consequently, they experience less beneficial outcomes from increased digitalisation than urban areas. This book defines what a digital town is and explores digitalisation from the perspective of the four basic economic sectors in towns - individuals and households, businesses, the public sector, and civil society - and three types of enabling infrastructure - digital connectivity, education, and governance. Particular attention is paid to how digitalisation efforts are measured by intergovernmental and international organisations for each sector and enabling infrastructure. The book concludes with a Digital Town Readiness Framework that offers local communities, policymakers, and scholars an initial set of indicators upon which to develop digital town initiatives, and measure progress. For those ready to embrace the opportunity, this book is a pathfinder on the road to a more equitable and impactful digital society and digital economy.

The world’s extant building stock accounts for a significant portion of worldwide energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. In 2020, buildings and construction accounted for 36% of global final energy consumption and 37% of energy related CO2 emissions. The EU estimates that up to 75% of the EU’s existing building stock has poor energy performance, 85–95% of which will still be in use in 2050. To meet the goals of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change will require a transformation of construction processes and deep renovation of the extant building stock. It is widely recognized that ICTs can play an important role in construction, renovation and maintenance as well as supporting the financing of deep renovation. Technologies such as sensors, big data analytics and machine learning, BIM, digital twinning, simulation, robots, cobots and UAVs, and additive manufacturing are transforming the deep renovation process, improving sustainability performance, and developing new services and markets. This open access book defines a deep renovation digital ecosystem for the 21st century, providing a state-of-the art review of current literature, suggesting avenues for new research, and offering perspectives from business, technology and industry domains.This is an open access book.

The importance of demonstrating the value achieved from IT investments is long established in the Computer Science (CS) and Information Systems (IS) literature. However, emerging technologies such as the ever-changing complex area of cloud computing present new challenges and opportunities for demonstrating how IT investments lead to business value. Recent reviews of extant literature highlights the need for multi-disciplinary research. This research should explore and further develops the conceptualization of value in cloud computing research. In addition, there is a need for research which investigates how IT value manifests itself across the chain of service provision and in inter-organizational scenarios. This open access book will review the state of the art from an IS, Computer Science and Accounting perspective, will introduce and discuss the main techniques for measuring business value for cloud computing in a variety of scenarios, and illustrate these with mini-case studies.

This book highlights advances in Cyber Security, Cyber Situational Awareness (CyberSA), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Social Media. It brings together original discussions, ideas, concepts and outcomes from research and innovation from multidisciplinary experts. It offers topical, timely and emerging original innovations and research results in cyber situational awareness, security analytics, cyber physical systems, blockchain technologies, machine learning, social media and wearables, protection of online digital service, cyber incident response, containment, control, and countermeasures (CIRC3). The theme of Cyber Science 2022 is Ethical and Responsible use of AI. Includes original contributions advancing research in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Blockchain, Cyber Security, Social Media, Cyber Incident Response & Cyber Insurance. The Chapters "Municipal Cybersecurity - A Neglected Research Area? A Survey of Current Research, The Transnational Dimension of Cyber Security: The NIS Directive and its Jurisdictional Challenges, Refining the Mandatory Cybersecurity Incident Reporting under the NIS Directive 2.0: Event Types and Reporting Processes" are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the adoption of new forms of working and new working arrangements largely enabled by technology. The Future of Work is a projection of how work, working, workers and the workplace will evolve in the years ahead from the perspective of different actors in society, influenced by technological, socio-economic, political, and demographic changes. This open access Pivot is a timely exploration of some of the challenges and prospects for the future of work from two main perspectives: how work is changing and how to prepare for work in the future.  An evidence-based assessment of these topics offers some critical perspectives that challenge old assumptions and opens up emerging trends and possibilities for work in the future. As part of the Palgrave Studies in Digital Business & Enabling Technologies series, this book is an essential resource for academics of Business, Human Resource Management, Organisational Psychology and Industrial Relations, as well as practitioners and policy makers.

This open access book explores the digital transformation of small and rural towns, in particular, how to measure the evolution and development of digital towns. In addition to access to resources, competition from urban and global markets, and population trends, rural communities present lesser access and use of digital technologies and have lower digital competencies and skills than their urban counterparts. Consequently, they experience less beneficial outcomes from increased digitalisation than urban areas. This book defines what a digital town is and explores digitalisation from the perspective of the four basic economic sectors in towns - individuals and households, businesses, the public sector, and civil society - and three types of enabling infrastructure - digital connectivity, education, and governance. Particular attention is paid to how digitalisation efforts are measured by intergovernmental and international organisations for each sector and enabling infrastructure. The book concludes with a Digital Town Readiness Framework that offers local communities, policymakers, and scholars an initial set of indicators upon which to develop digital town initiatives, and measure progress. For those ready to embrace the opportunity, this book is a pathfinder on the road to a more equitable and impactful digital society and digital economy.

This open access Pivot demonstrates how a variety of technologies act as innovation catalysts within the banking and financial services sector. Traditional banks and financial services are under increasing competition from global IT companies such as Google, Apple, Amazon and PayPal whilst facing pressure from investors to reduce costs, increase agility and improve customer retention. Technologies such as blockchain, cloud computing, mobile technologies, big data analytics and social media therefore have perhaps more potential in this industry and area of business than any other. This book defines a fintech ecosystem for the 21st century, providing a state-of-the art review of current literature, suggesting avenues for new research and offering perspectives from business, technology and industry.