A soft knowledge modeling approach for geographically dispersed financial organizations

Fund management is a major function for most financial sector enterprises with geographically dispersed activities. The risk associated to such managerial decisions affects directly the continuity, profitability and reputation of the enterprise. This paper presents a knowledge modeling methodology tool to act as a decision support mechanism for geographically dispersed financial enterprises. The underlying research addresses the problem of financial information capture and representation by utilizing the soft computing characteristics of Fuzzy Cognitive Maps (FCMs). By using FCMs, the proposed mechanism generates a hierarchical and dynamic network of interconnected financial knowledge concepts, simulates the operational efficiency of distributed organizational models with imprecise relationships and quantifies the impact of geographically dispersed activities to the overall business performance. Generic adaptive maps offer an alternative approach to financial management based on strategic level knowledge modeling and integrate hierarchical FCMs into the decision making model of typical financial sector enterprises. Finally, this paper discusses experiments with the proposed mechanism and comments on its usability.     

Do e-business strategies matter? The antecedents and relationship with firm performance

Previous studies in e-business strategy focus on the issues of strategic positioning and its impact on firm performance. However, these studies do not address the antecedents to business strategies formulation and their impact on business performance or the role of business models in explaining e-business firm performance. This study applies Porter’s generic strategies to the e-business context. It also identifies business models that are applied to the e-business environment and environmental factors and then examines these factors influence on firm performance with survey data. This study finds that uncertainty has a negative impact on the choice of strategic position of e-business firms, whereas market turbulence positively affects the level of adoption of all the strategies. Among the strategic positions, marketing differentiation positively influences firm performance. The research methodology, test results, and implications are further discussed.     

Assessing the benefits from e-business transformation through effective enterprise management

This paper reports on research carried out in 1999–2001 on the use of e-business applications in enterprise resource planning (ERP)-based organisations. Multiple structured interviews were used to collect data on 11 established organisations from a diverse range of industries. The findings are analysed according to the level of sophistication of e-business models and their transformational impact on the organisation. Early adopters of e-business show a trend towards cost reductions and administrative efficiencies from e-procurement and self-service applications used by customers and employees. More mature users focus on strategic advantage and generate this through an evolutionary model of organisational change. Two complex case studies of e-business integration with global suppliers and their corporate customers are analysed to identify specific stages of benefits accrual through the e-business transformation process. Collectively, the set of case studies is used to demonstrate the increased benefits derived from an e-business architecture based on a network of ERP-enabled organisations.     

Information technology and e-business marketing strategy

The advancement of information technology and its benefits for organizations have made the field of e-business marketing competitive and successful although there have been failures as well. Failure happens due to the use of constant strategies while the e-business environment is dynamic and in such a context, strategy formulation and implementation is a challenge for e-business organization. In this research a questionnaire was designed by reviewing the literature and interviewing experts. Analyzing the collected data, the e-business key strategy factors such as technology, information systems, risk management and compliance were extracted. In the next stage, these key factors were presented as the e-business marketing strategy model. The results suggested that dissimilar dimensions of e-business strategy factors may not be equally conducive to different marketing strategies. In particular, risk management has an insignificant relationship with any of the marketing strategies; while high level of compliance is positively associated only with a focus strategy. IT governance is positively associated with price leadership and differentiation strategies but linked negatively with focus strategy.     

Soft computing for crisis management and political decision making: the use of genetically evolved fuzzy cognitive maps

This paper examines the use of fuzzy cognitive maps (FCMs) as a technique for modeling political and strategic issues situations and supporting the decision-making process in view of an imminent crisis. Its object domain is soft computing using as its basic elements different methods from the areas of fuzzy logic, cognitive maps, neural networks and genetic algorithms. FCMs, more specifically, use notions borrowed from artificial intelligence and combine characteristics of both fuzzy logic and neural networks, in the form of dynamic models that describe a given political setting. The present work proposes the use of the genetically evolved certainty neuron fuzzy cognitive map (GECNFCM) as an extension of certainty neuron fuzzy cognitive maps (CNFCMs) aiming at overcoming the main weaknesses of the latter, namely the recalculation of the weights corresponding to each concept every time a new strategy is adopted. This novel technique combines CNFCMs with genetic algorithms (GAs), the advantage of which lies with their ability to offer the optimal solution without a problem-solving strategy, once the requirements are defined. Using a multiple scenario analysis we demonstrate the value of such a hybrid technique in the context of a model that reflects the political and strategic complexity of the Cyprus issue, as well as the uncertainties involved in it. The issue has been treated on a purely technical level, with distances carefully kept concerning all sides involved in it.     

The role of artificial intelligence in understanding the strategicdecision-making process

A survey is given which focuses on research issues involving strategic planning and artificial intelligence (AI), including the nature of the formulation task, cognitive studies of strategic planners and computer-based support for strategic planning. The author reviews the research to date, and argues that, like traditional decision support systems (DSS) research, much of the potential for future research in this area lies in modeling the ill-structured, early stages of the strategic decision making process namely, the strategic intelligence analysis and the issue diagnosis. Therefore, he discusses a specific model-based approach to the study of these early stages. Research in artificial intelligence-including investigations into diagnosis and situation assessment, analogical reasoning, plan recognition, nonmonotonic reasoning and distributed intelligence, among others-can be used to build models of strategic decision making that help researchers in better understanding this traditionally unstructured activity     

Supporting process design for e-business via an integrated process repository

Business process design is an integral part of e-business engineering. Given that e-business models usually involve a wide range of business processes across different business functions with complex activities, events, and documents, process design for e-business is a very challenging task. Although various process reference models (PRMs) have been developed to provide guidelines for process design, research on leveraging multiple PRMs to support process design for e-business has been scant. In this paper, we demonstrate that the diverse process design requirements in e-business are best satisfied by utilizing multiple PRMs via a case study. Then, we propose a collaborative approach grounded in knowledge management theory to integrating multiple process reference models to better support process design in e-business. We equip the integrated process repository with a set of novel features based on Web 2.0 technologies to enhance its utility, efficiency, and quality for process design support. A prototype system is developed and user experiments are conducted to evaluate the system.     

Measuring dimensions of perceived e-business risks

The risks to e-business from breaches of security and privacy are well known. However, research has given very little attention to other important e-business risks. Using a socio-technical approach, in this study we survey a diverse sample of almost 200 participants to rate their perception of 16 e-business risks, compiled from the research and practitioner literature. Strategic risks, organizational risks and e-business policy risks emerged as the three underlying dimensions of e-business risk. In terms of the socio-technical model, strategic risks focus on the actor-structure component, and policy risks focus on the task-structure component. Organizational risks cover a wide spectrum of socio-technical components such as technology, actor-technology, technology structure and task-actor. The main contribution of this study is a multi dimensional scale of e-business risk perception. Practitioners can benefit by focusing their risk management efforts on the three dimensions of e-business risk, which are easier to manage than a long checklist of unrelated risks. Researchers benefit from a raised awareness on the importance of strategic and organizational risk factors in addition to policy risk factors for e-business risk management. A model that incorporates the three dimensions of e-business risks and shows theoretically based relationships with control mechanisms, trust, perceived uncertainty and profitability is proposed for testing in future research.     

Strategic reasoning about business models: a conceptual modeling approach

Strategic reasoning about business models is an integral part of service design. In fast moving markets, businesses must be able to recognize and respond strategically to disruptive change. They have to answer questions such as: what are the threats and opportunities in emerging technologies and innovations? How should they target customer groups? Who are their real competitors? How will competitive battles take shape? In this paper we define a strategic modeling framework to help understand and analyze the goals, intentions, roles, and the rationale behind the strategic actions in a business environment. This understanding is necessary in order to improve existing or design new services. The key component of the framework is a strategic business model ontology for representing and analyzing business models and strategies, using the i* agent and goal oriented methodology as a basis. The ontology introduces a strategy layer which reasons about alternative strategies that are realized in the operational layer. The framework is evaluated using a retroactive example of disruptive technology in the telecommunication services sector from the literature.     

The business model concept: theoretical underpinnings and empirical illustrations

The business model concept is becoming increasingly popular within IS, management and strategy literature. It is used within many fields of research, including both traditional strategy theory and in the emergent body of literature on e-business. However, the concept is often used independently from theory, meaning model components and their interrelations are relatively obscure. Nonetheless, we believe that the business model concept is useful in explaining the relation between IS and strategy. This paper offers an outline for a conceptual business model, and proposes that it should include customers and competitors, the offering, activities and organisation, resources and factor market interactions. The causal inter-relations and the longitudinal processes by which business models evolve should also be included. The model criticises yet draws on traditional strategy theory and on the literature that addresses business models directly. The business model is illustrated by an ERP implementation in a European multi-national company.     

基于信任度的合一系统社会任务分配

在多智体社会网络中,传统的任务分配模型一般采用直接面向任务执行者的分配机制.它们不考虑社会网络组织结构对任务分配性能的巨大影响,也很少透彻地研究不可靠社会中的任务分配.针对这些问题,本文开创性地研究了软硬件合一系统的任务分配,即按递阶、分层的思想设计了协作组织模型,并基于此提出了面向社区基于社会协调“软件人”的任务分配模型.模型研究过程中,提出了基于直接信任度和社区声誉的社区信任度评估机制、基于社区信任度和社区物理能力的节点选择机制、基于负载均衡的社区内任务分配机制和基于上下文资源的任务再分配策略.实验结果表明：与常见的直接面向任务执行者和基于资源的任务分配模型相比,所提出的模型具有更优的任务分配性能,且对社会任务环境变化具有更好的鲁棒性;社区内基于负载均衡的分配机制和基于上下文资源的再分配策略也有效提高了分配性能,降低了网络中的通信密度.     

Intelligent e-business: from technology to value

E-business is the point where economic value creation and information technology come together. The Internet and the World Wide Web in particular have emerged as major driving forces in changing our economy. Business executives are now aware that information technology is a key strategic factor in industry, not just a tool to increase business-as-usual efficiency. This has happened over just a few years, but most of Internet business's socioeconomic impact likely lies ahead. These developments have led to the quick growth of scientific interest and activities related to e-business. Given these developments' pace and depth, big challenges and opportunities exist for applying intelligent systems technology and methodology. In fact, e-business has several distinct characteristics that make investigating the deployment of intelligent systems technology highly attractive.     

基于层次空间推理模型的交通网络最优路径算法

在交通地理信息系统(GIS-T)和智能交通系统(ITS)中，单源最短路径问题是一个研究热点。该文总结了已有的层次空间推理过程，针对交通网络，运用了限制搜索区域策略和比较策略，提出了新的层次空间推理过程，寻找更为可靠的入口，以便搜索到更可靠的最优路径，保证层内最优路径搜索的高效率，进一步提高了最优路径算法的可靠性，并对算法的效率进行了必要的分析。     

Potential of critical e-applications for engaging SMEs in e-business: a provider perspective

Against a background of the low engagement of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in e-business, this paper investigates the emergence of, and potential for, critical e-applications defined as ‘an e-business application, promoted by a trusted third party, which engages a significant number of SMEs by addressing an important shared business concern within an aggregation.’ By a review of secondary data and empirical investigation with service providers and other intermediaries, the research shows that such applications can facilitate the engagement of SME aggregations. There are three key findings, namely: the emergence of aggregation-specific e-business applications; the emergence of collaboratively based ‘one to many’ business models; and the importance of trusted third parties in the adoption of higher-level complexity e-business applications by SMEs. Significantly, this work takes a deliberately provider perspective and complements the already considerable literature on SME IT adoption from a user and network perspective. In terms of future research, the importance of a better conceptual understanding of the impact of complexity on the adoption of information technologies by SMEs is highlighted.     

Barriers to e-commerce and competitive business models in developing countries: A case study

This paper integrates and extends research on e-commerce in the developing world. We use three categories of feedback systems–economic, sociopolitical and cognitive—to offer a simple model of e-commerce barriers in the developing world. We also examine characteristics of e-business models that can be successfully employed in developing countries. Then, we provide the case of an e-business model followed by a Nepal-based multiple international award winning online provider. This paper’s theoretical contribution is to explain the ‘hows’ and ‘whys’ of e-commerce in developing countries and to identify clear contexts and attendant mechanism.     

An Automated Fault Diagnosis System Using Hierarchical Reasoning and Alarm Correlation

The increasing importance of computer networks in this information age demands a high level of network availability and reliability. As we become more dependent on networks in our so-called cyber-world, network faults and downtime become very costly. Sometimes, a slight fault may cause critical disruptions or remediless damages to the network while the network manager is lost among a large amount of alarm messages. Therefore, the development of a practical and effective system for network fault diagnosis becomes an imperative and critical task. In this paper, we develop a hierarchical domain-oriented reasoning mechanism suitable for the delegated management architecture. It is based on the causality graph of a refined network fault propagation model as a result of our empirical study. An automated fault diagnosis system called Alarm Correlation View (or ACView) for isolating network faults in a multi-domain environment is proposed according to the hierarchical reasoning mechanism. This diagnosis system not only provides the process of automated alarm collection and correlation, but also serves the function of efficient fault localization and identification. Furthermore, an alarm-to-fault mapping strategy is used to enhance the fault reasoning capability for uncertain network fault propagation.     

Web Services and Business Transactions

Process oriented workflow systems and e-business applications require transactional support in order to orchestrate loosely coupled services into cohesive units of work and guarantee consistent and reliable execution. In this paper we introduce a multi-level transaction model that provides the necessary independence for the participating resource managers, e.g., local database and workflow servers, of organisations engaging in business transactions that are composed of interacting web services. We also present a taxonomy of e-business transaction features such as unconventional atomicity criteria, the need for support for business conversations and the need for distinguishing between three basic business transaction phases. In addition, we review current research and standard activities and outline the main ingredients of a business transaction framework necessary for building flexible e-business applications.     

A maturity assessment approach for conceiving context-specific roadmaps in the Industry 4.0 era

The digital transformation of the production sector is setting the scene for a major industrial change. The need for supporting companies in this transformation is currently covered by several maturity models, generally operationalized through standardized questionnaires, which provide, as an outcome, an assessment of the current maturity stage and a set of general improvement recommendations according to it. However, to provide companies with a more tangible support, there is a need for more individual approach. In order to deal with this need, this paper proposes, following a design science research framework, a novel approach based on Problem-Based Learning for structuring the assessment procedure as a dialectic process. This approach aims at facilitating the contextualization of the assessed company and, consequently, the identification of context-specific improvement recommendations. The proposed approach, supported by a maturity model used for framing information collected during the assessment process, is tested in three industrial cases. Although these have been assessed at the same maturity stage, different improvement recommendations have been proposed according to contextual factors such as strategic goals, core processes and key performance indicators.     

Risk assessment for a video surveillance system based on Fuzzy Cognitive Maps

For various IT systems security is considered a key quality factor. In particular, it might be crucial for video surveillance systems, as their goal is to provide continuous protection of critical infrastructure and other facilities. Risk assessment is an important activity in security management; it aims at identifying assets, threats and vulnerabilities, analysis of implemented countermeasures and their effectiveness in mitigating risks. This paper discusses an application of a new risk assessment method, in which risk calculation is based on Fuzzy Cognitive Maps (FCMs) to a complex automated video surveillance system. FCMs are used to capture dependencies between assets and FCM based reasoning is applied to aggregate risks assigned to lower-level assets (e.g. cameras, hardware, software modules, communications, people) to such high level assets as services, maintained data and processes. Lessons learned indicate, that the proposed method is an efficient and low-cost approach, giving instantaneous feedback and enabling reasoning on effectiveness of security system.