Complete Business Research Articles

Decoding Digital Transformational Outsourcing: Role of Service Providers’ Capabilities

The shift in value creation activities from the client to the service provider and pervasive digital penetration is disrupting the Information Technology enabled Services (ITeS) outsourcing industry. In comparison to the extant traditional model, which primarily focused on operational effectiveness driven through labor arbitrage benefits, the outsourcing service providers (OSPs) now play significantly larger roles in the new Digital Transformation Outsourcing (DTO) scenario. OSPs now need a uniquely different set of capabilities to deliver the new value propositions, as they adapt to handle complete business functions on behalf of their clients and become partners in delivering integrated digital solutions with strategic business outcomes. We study twenty-six of the largest global ITeS providers taking the dynamic capability view, and we theoretically identify the important capabilities in the DTO scenario. Using fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA), we explore recipes for OSP success and failure in the DTO context by analysing a novel firm capability dataset that we created using firm-level information from industry analyst reports and databases. We find the capability recipes to vary by the narrow/broad scope of OSPs.

Design and Development of Digital Twins: a Case Study in Supply Chains

Digital twin technology consists of creating virtual replicas of objects or processes that simulate the behavior of their real counterparts. The objective is to analyze its effectiveness or behavior in certain cases to improve its effectiveness. Applied to products, machines and even complete business ecosystems, the digital twin model can reveal information from the past, optimize the present and even predict the future performance of the different areas analyzed. In the context of supply chains, digital twins are changing the way they do business, providing a range of options to facilitate collaborative environments and data-based decision making and making business processes more robust. This paper proposes the design and development of a digital twin for a case study of a pharmaceutical company. The technology used is based on simulators, solvers and data analytic tools that allow these functions to be connected in an integral interface for the company.

Toward Reconfiguration of BPaaS Based on SaaS Services using Clustering and Boolean Satisfiability

Business Process as a Service (BPaaS) met a considerable proliferation and an exponential emergence as a new Cloud service for delivering complex and complete business applications. To better position themselves in the harshly competitive Cloud services market, BPaaS providers should offer to their clients, flexible services responding both to their functional and non-functional requirements. This article proposes a Reconfigurable BPaaS-based SaaS services Federation system (RBPF) allowing flexible support of user requirements changes. RBPF proposes to end-users minimal on the fly compositions whenever a reconfiguration is required. To do so, Boolean Satisfiability Problem-based algorithms are adopted to select the minimal reconfiguration. To reduce composition candidates research space, we propose new algorithms to group BPaaS services that are likely to compose within the same cluster. The clustering process leverages semantic Linked Open Data similarity measures to match service capabilities and identify composable ones.

Business Steward: Definition, Mode and Influence

This thesis firstly puts forward the concept and definition of business steward, who is professional service staff to help employers and customers manage business. Similar to the “intelligent +” transformation of traditional retail, catering and manufacturing industries and so on by AI technology, AI technology will eventually transform the steward industry in business management - traditional business staff. Business stewards serve employers and customers to complete business stewardship business such as business management, wealth appreciation, asset management, happy life and so on mainly through artificial intelligence, intelligent machine, search engine, cloud computing, o2o, big data evaluation, LBS, social network, mobile Internet and other comprehensive tools. From the perspective of practical activities of business steward mode innovation, its main modes are classified into four types: independent professional business steward company, business steward in subdivided industries, generalized business steward crowdsourcing organization, and intelligent AI business steward. The industry influence of business steward consists in sharing outsourcing service-oriented business services, excellent loyal and stable business stewards, and business stewards of “buyer type interest representatives”, which can solve the problem of skill training for managers, reduce the cost of employment management and tax, and meet the business requirements of public business management. In the future, the intelligent business steward will make huge impact on the business economy of China and the world in terms of business management, improving work efficiency and promoting the development of science, technology and culture.

"Nomen Omen": Exploring Connected Healthcare through the Perspective of Name Omen.

Background: The evolution of names, from “medical informatics” to “connected health”, implies that the evolvement of technology in health care has been shifted from technology-oriented to healthcare-oriented implementation. Connected healthcare, a healthcare platform of remote monitoring and self-management through technological measures, is suggested to contribute to the efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and satisfaction of healthcare recipient enhancement. However, limited understanding of related connected health (CH) terminology may constrain its implementation. Whether CH is a buzzword only or a practice that can contribute to an aging society is controversial. Objective: This study aims to distinguish CH-related terminology and to identify the trend of CH through reviewing its definition, initiation, development, and evolvement, in order to offer management insights and implications. The objective is to understand what is connected and who is cared about in the connected health model so that better applications can be addressed for the benefit of society. Method: This study reviews the evolution of names, from “medical informatics” in the 1970s to “connected health” after 2000, as well as relevant literature of CH, including e-health, telemedicine, telehealth, telecare, and m-health, to discover the trend of technology-related healthcare innovations. Results: The current status and issues facing accessibility, quality, and cost were presented. Its future trends will be explored through reviewing how changes in healthcare are managed, in addition to its operation and practice. Pre-conditions and requirements for implementing CH are identified to select a typical case to study. Findings suggest that areas with a complete business ecosystem—isolated locations, advanced information technology, aging in population, integrated health, and social care system—are prevalent for designing friendly CH environments. Conclusion: The evidence and tendency of technological convergence create a demand for innovation and partnering with start-up companies that offer a competitive advantage in innovation.

Transaction Obstacle and Its Governance: A Case Study on the “Stumbling Blocks” of Entrepreneurship

Through case study, this essay focuses on “transaction obstacle” which blocks entrepreneurship, and finds that entrepreneurs may establish complete business system by detecting and governing those key transaction obstacles. Therefore, the essay hypothesizes that transaction obstacle is a key construct in entrepreneurial process and the excellence of transaction obstacle governance is positively correlated with entrepreneurial success. The research initially presents both the concept of transaction obstacle and the concept of transaction obstacle governance, and thus adds new knowledge to the entrepreneurial process theory.

Pemberdayaan Usaha Mikro Kecil dan Menengah (UMKM) Ikatan Makanan Olahan (IMO) dalam upaya legalitas usaha

Usaha Mikro Kecil dan Menengah (UMKM) merupakan salah satu entitas pelaku ekonomi yang eksistensinya mendominasi terhadap perekonomian bangsa, baik diperkotaan maupun pedesaan, termasuk usaha yang bergerak di sektor kuliner. Dalam pengabdian masyarakat ini akan memberdayakan UMKM Ikatan Makanan Olahan (IMO). Pelaku usaha kecil disarankan untuk bergabung dengan Ikatan Makanan/Minuman Olahan (IMO), dengan tujuan semua pelaku usaha makanan/minuman dapat teridentifikasi, yang kemudian akan mudah berkoordinasi untuk menampung aspirasi pelaku UKM seperti mengetahui sumber daya manusia, peralatan, kualitas produk atau pemasaran sesuai dengan kriteria standarisasi. Memenuhi standarisasi termasuk untuk melengkapi legalitas usaha. Pelaku usaha kecil yang tergabung didalam IMO menghadapi berbagai permasalahan dalam hal perijinan dan legalisasi usaha. Memiliki izin usaha bagi masyarakat sangat penting, namun terkadang tidak sedikiti masyarakat yang tidak mau untuk mengurus izin usahanya dikarenakan kurangnya pengetahuan, keterbatasan data, dan lain-lain. Melalui kegiatan pengabdian ini, tujuan dan target yang ingin dicapai dalam kegiatan pengabdian adalah adanya legalisasi usaha bagi para pelaku usaha di dalam Ikatan Makanan Olahan (IMO). Dengan memiliki legalitas usaha, para pelaku usaha yang tergabung dalam IMO diharapkan mampu bersaing dalam era pasar bebas. Metode yang digunakan dalam kegiatan pengabdian ini, dilakukan dalam bentuk penyuluhan, pelatihan dan pendampingan dalam pengurusan legalitas usaha.

Fiscal Surprises at the FOMC

We examine a new set of U.S. fiscal forecasts from the FOMC briefing books. These forecasts are precisely those that were presented to monetary policymakers, and include frequently-updated estimates covering six complete business cycles and several fiscal-policy regimes. We detail the performances of forecast federal expenditures, revenues, surpluses, and structural surpluses in terms of their accuracy, bias, and efficiency. We find that forecast errors can be large economically, even at relatively short forecast horizons. While economic activity became less volatile after 1990, fiscal policy became harder to forecast. Finally, cyclically-adjusted deficit forecasts appear to be over-optimistic around both peaks and troughs of the business cycle, suggesting that fiscal policy is counter-cyclical in downturns and pro-cyclical in the early stages of recoveries.

Environmental Management Systems and Balanced Scorecard: An Integrated Analysis of the Marine Transport

Critical aspects of the environment can reduce the efficiency of Environmental Management Systems (EMS) when applied to Marine Transport. Accordingly, this paper focuses on the improvement of the traditional EMS approach through the usage of Balanced Scorecard (BSC). The BSC represents a managing tool able to measure and increase organizational performance, taking into consideration environmental aspects. The proposed method, based on the ISO 14001 standard, allows management of environmental metrics through conventional BSC systems and it is applied to the biggest organization for marine transport in Montenegro as a case study methodology. In this qualitative investigation, particular attention was paid to creating EMS criteria able to orient the complete business operation of the organization but also to test their potential linkage to the conventional BSC approach. Four models of the BSC were created, each one including to a different extent the issue of environmental protection. Finally, an expert’s evaluation of model efficiency, based on the ISO 9126, was carried out. As a result, the best ranked model is recommended for the selection of an approach toward environmental protection based on the use of the EMS metric in a conventional BSC system. This method—in short ECO-BSC—was developed for the specific benefit of those organizations operating on the marine transport market.

The role of spillovers in Okun’s law: Empirical evidence from Spain

The Great Recession of the late 2000s has brought to the fore, once again, the relevance of the relationship between output performance and labour market developments all over the world. This paper analyses the validity of Okun?s law in Spain by using regional data from 2000 to 2014, which roughly encompasses a complete business cycle. By estimating a Spatial Panel Durbin Model, the results not only show that a robust, inverse relationship between unemployment and output holds for Spain but also the existence of regional spillovers (indirect effects). In addition, they reveal that there are no time asymmetries between the expansion and recession phases of the business cycle and that human capital, the share of the construction sector, and the share of temporary workers are key factors in explaining unemployment changes. From a policy perspective, our findings support the idea of implementing region-specific policies, since indirect effects are less relevant than direct ones. In any case, national policies would also be effective. These policies, whatever their scope, should be mainly supply-side oriented in expansions (largely labour market policies) and demand-side focused in contractions.

Research on Entrepreneurship Education Practical Activities in the Background of the Transformation and Development of Local Universities

Starting from the transformation of development under the background of local undergraduate colleges and universities entrepreneurship education practice, from building the system of entrepreneurial guidance service system, create a strong entrepreneurial culture atmosphere, to build a solid platform for the entrepreneurial practice, establish a complete business incubators and so on several aspects in this paper, the systematic model, how to effectively build college students entrepreneurial practice to carry out targeted and effectiveness of the students' entrepreneurship practice activities, improve the effect of practical education to provide the reference.

Model Consistency as a Tool for Digital Business Architecture Verification

Digitalization of enterprises and introduction of digital products has become in recent years inevitable. In the global competition enterprises have to use all means available in order to be able to respond to competitors’ innovations or even to be able to implement innovations which would take them ahead of the competition. With the rising complexity of the business and the information technologies used, there is inevitable that there have to be methods applied, which make possible for the digitalization projects to formulate the consistent and complete business requirements in form of business model (architecture) increasing so the chance that the following implementation will be successful. In this paper we describe the consistency rules and the necessary minimum of business architecture which should be modeled so that the business requirements can be clearly defined, and their completeness and correctness verified. The method is illustrated on the generally accepted EA standards TOGAF/ArchiMate, UML and BPMN and its benefits are discussed. We also provide the reader with a metamodel which specifies how these standards in the discussed topics match together.

ОЦІНЮВАННЯ РІВНЯ РОЗВИТКУ КОРПОРАТИВНОЇ СОЦІАЛЬНОЇ ВІДПОВІДАЛЬНОСТІ НА ПРИКЛАДІ ПрАТ «КАРЛСБЕРГ УКРАЇНА»

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) includes not only a variety of theories but also a number of controversial and difficult approaches. It has become an essential element of the business world over the last two decades. As a result, cooperation between business and society has strengthened. Earlier, enterprises were mostly concerned with economic results of their activities; today, on the contrary, enterprises have to consider ethical, moral, ecological and social consequences of their work. CSR and maintaining high ethical standards are not optional but compulsory for all enterprises. There exists a certain influence of a private sector on workforce, consumers, society, environment, business opponents, investors, stockholders and other interest groups. This article is devoted to methodological approaches for determining the influence of stakeholders on the functioning of enterprises and ensuring the level of corporate social responsibility. Based on our research, key stakeholders groups were identified for corporate social responsibility for individual enterprises and organizations, as well as their impact on shaping various aspects of corporate social responsibility for these groups. The research was based on the use of a stakeholder the matrix, which is used to display and identify key stakeholders in corporate social responsibility and to determine the levels of corporate social responsibility for specific groups. The process of globalization has intensified, competition has grown all over the world. The tendency of companies to be socially responsible and gaining competitive advantage is becoming an important factor for corporate social responsibility practices. Today there is a strong link between strategic management and CSR. Consequently, the concept of CSR becomes a part of the strategy of each modern company. CSR acts as the main principle of the company's activities, which is applied on a permanent basis in relations with the interested parties. At the moment, it should be associated with the system of strategic and corporate governance, which includes nonfinancial risk management, social investment, and stakeholder relations. Without such a strategic management tool as CSR, it will be difficult for business to stay ahead of the business and form a complete business model that is fully responsive to challenges of time. The purpose of the article is to study the methodological approaches for assessing corporate social responsibility and provide recommendations for their improvement. In the field of the study was also the impact of the strategy of corporate social policy on the activities of enterprises, as well as determining the factors and ways to increase the efficiency of the enterprise through the introduction of an integrated management system, taking into account CSR. CSR may turn into one of the most efficient instruments for practical realization of the stakeholder theory. Stakeholders provide organizations with necessary resources for achieving their business goals, influence corporate activity and productivity of enterprises. As a result of their relationships with these organizations, the stakeholders win or lose.

An Ontological Model for Generating Complete, Form-based, Business Web Applications

This paper presents an ontological model for specifying and automatically generating complete business Web applications. First, a modular and expandable ontological model for specifying form-based, business Web applications is developed and presented. Next, the technology used for transforming the ontological specification to Java executable code is explained. Finally, the results of applying the proposed model for specifying and generating an order management application are presented. Results showed that the application of an ontological model in a generative programming approach increases the level of abstraction. This approach is especially suitable for development of software families, where similar features are reused in multiple products/applications.

Incorporación De La Sustentabilidad En El Modelo De Negocio De Las Empresas Más Grandes De La Industria Del Cemento En México A Través De La Gestión Estratégica

In order to operationalize the concept of sustainability in the business world, organizations have to transform their mission, align the design of the complete business system and innovate their business model (Markevich, 2009). In this sense, the purpose of the work is to study the way in which two companies in the cement industry in Mexico incorporate sustainability in the strategic management of their business model. The study was carried out through the content analysis of the sustainability reports of the companies between 2015 and 2017. The results show that sustainability is incorporated through the elements included in the four stages of the business model and in all the hierarchical levels of the companies. However, there is no balanced orientation towards the three dimensions of sustainability in both companies.

A MODEL FOR ASSESSING THE LEVEL OF AUTOMATION OF A MAINTENANCE DEPARTMENT USING ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORK

With regard to adapting enterprise to the Industry 4.0 concept, the first element should be the implementation and use of an information system within a manufacturing company. This article proposes a model, the use of which will allow the level of automation of a maintenance department to be forecast, depending on the effectivity of the use of the Manufacturing Executions System (MES) within a company. The model was built on the basis of the actual times of business processes completed which were supported by MES in the maintenance departments of two manufacturing enterprises using artificial neural network. As a result of research experiments, it was confirmed that the longer the time taken to complete business processes supported by MES, the higher is the degree of automation in a maintenance department.

Elaborations on the role of project owner: introducing project owners type 1 and 2

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to study how the project owner role is described in the literature, and how the role is carried out in practice. In particular, the author studies the project owner role in relation to project execution and benefit realization.Design/methodology/approachBased on a literature review, the author proposes a model for the relationships between the project owner, project manager and the operation of project delivery. The author then uses the model to describe the empirical results derived from a mapping of project owner responsibilities in a set of Norwegian information technology projects.FindingsThe author defines a project owner type 1 as a project owner that is focused on the business case and has responsibility for both project delivery and benefit realization. This project owner is the type described in most of the literature. The author further defines a project owner type 2 as a project owner that is mainly concerned with supporting the project manager and enabling project delivery. This is the type of project owner found in the empirical study.Research limitations/implicationsThe author identified a mismatch between the project management literature and observed practice.Practical implicationsThere is a need to clarify the type of project owner role referred to in different contexts. Different project owners will have a different set of incentives and priorities. It is important to make sure that both investment costs and benefits (i.e., the complete business case), are seen in close relation to each other and not as separate undertakings.Originality/valueThere is a need for a distinction between two types of project owners. This study proposes a framework for the description, analysis and implementation of project governance, with a special focus on the project owner role.

Reusing process fragments for fast service composition: a clustering-based approach

ABSTRACTWith the proliferation of Web services over the Internet and due to the increasing complexity of users’ needs, Web service composition has emerged as a powerful method of software reuse, allowing to deliver complete business processes as a set of interacting services. To guarantee a rapid and secure service composition, fragments of available business processes at different granularities may be considered as a composition unit and recombined to deliver effective compositions. Despite the benefits of this method, most of the existing works do not take into consideration the reuse of service process fragments (SPF). Reusing SPFs allows, not only to minimize the composition time, but also to improve the reliability of the composition process. In this paper, we propose a Web service composition approach that aims to combine service process fragments rather that atomic services. We adopt a powerful mathematical model called Formal Concept Analysis (FCA) to define the relationships between services and fragments. Moreover, we exploit the regrouping capabilities of FCA by proposing algorithms for the extraction of candidate fragments’ combinations. A scoring function is also defined to determine the quality level of each SPF and its ability to participate in a composition. The experimental studies proved the effectiveness of our FCA-based approach compared to existing state-of-the-art solutions.

Guanxi: competitive advantage or necessary evil?

PurposeGuanxi, an invisible aspect of many levels of interaction in economic life, has increased in importance in recent years; however, this subject has been underappreciated in high-tech industries. High-tech firms can choose to use guanxi with their partners as a key component of their competitive advantage or to view guanxi as necessary evil that is required to complete business exchanges. This paper aims to evaluate how guanxi contributes to or impedes a high-tech firm’s innovation performance.Design/methodology/approachThis study proposes and tests a nonlinear model that explores the positive and negative impact of guanxi on the innovation performance using a sample of 184 high-tech firms located in Taiwan Science Park.FindingsIn contrast to the mainstream of findings in the previous literature, the authors find that guanxi is a competitive advantage in constructing new business networks; however, additional increase of guanxi may even decrease innovation performance. This view opens up new research avenues in the context of high-tech industries and suggests directions for future research and practice.Research limitations/implicationsAcademics and practitioners know little about the unfavorable aspects of this variable. Future studies might develop specific measurement scales that capture the negative side of strong guanxi. Beyond the positive side of variables that have been amply studied, such as affection and kindness, other interesting negative side of variables that may be considered in future studies are blood (Tsang, 1998), extortion (Dunfee and Warren, 2001) and favoritism (Hwang et al., 2009).Originality/valueThe authors contribute to the research on guanxi and innovation performance, in that this study extends guanxi literature beyond the intuitive conclusion that innovation performance can be significantly enhanced in Asian countries’ business networks by leveraging guanxi as competitive advantage, and further demonstrating when and how guanxi can be harmful for high-tech firms’ innovation performance.

System sequence of surface mining operation

The magnificent mining super cycle from 2002 to 2010 is gone. Presently the mining industry is struggling with productivity challenges. To understand the complete business and its sequence of process, this study specifically aims at exploring the main operational activities and sub-activities of surface mining industry. Surface mining systems are different for different type of deposits. The paper is concern for forming a sequential model of surface mining operation system prevalent in India. Four massively deposited surface mines were studied at north-eastern peninsular belt and central belt of India by observation method to arrive at a model of sequence. The system sequence will be helpful for both academic study and business purpose to garner knowledge of the operation system. The sub-activities of each function are reflected in the model sequence that gives a complete idea of the complete system of operation of surface mining.