External Clients Research Articles

The social and business dimensions of a networked business incubator: the case of H-Farm

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide insights on the relational dimension of a networked business incubator (NBI), by investigating the intermediary role of incubator management in fostering social and business ties linking tenants among each other, with the incubator management and external actors.Design/methodology/approachThe paper offers a literature review on the NBIs and advances a comprehensive analytical framework of the networked incubation model. This framework is empirically illustrated through a case study research on a leading Italian private NBI, namely, H-Farm. The collection of primary data was conducted by means of face-to-face in-depth interviews and a survey. Data were processed through social network analysis (SNA) tools.FindingsThe results highlight the co-presence and interaction of social and business ties, which build up a vital environment nurturing an entrepreneurial ecosystem. Community-based relationships and the intermediation of incubator management are crucial for supporting tenants in product and business development activities.Research limitations/implicationsThese results pave the way to further research, oriented to the conceptualization of a NBI as a (small) cluster. Moreover, the application of the SNA tools adopted invites further research on networked incubators, applying the same methodology in new directions.Originality/valueThis paper adds to previous literature on NBIs by providing evidence of the intermediary role of incubator management in promoting and facilitating social and business relationships occurring among tenants, between tenants and the incubator management, as well as with external advisors, clients and suppliers.

Assessment of Satisfaction of Local Government as a Client of the Federal Government: Case Study of the Priority Zone Development Program

ABSTRACTThis paper reports the design of a model that broadens focus of the national government index of customer satisfaction from external clients to internal clients between local and federal governmental institutions. The model for a case study of a national Mexican welfare program includes (i) generic variables, as adapted from the American Customer Satisfaction Index model for government and the variable of institutional image by findings in Mexico; (ii) specific variables, as identified through a qualitative study. The estimation technique is partial least squares. The result is a valid and reliable model that moderately explains satisfaction (R2 = 0.67), perceived quality (R2 = 0.60), and trust (R2 = 0.41). The moderating role of institutional image is not rejected. Future research must test the resulting model in other cases to obtain an appropriate model for the Mexican User Satisfaction Index (MUSI). The Council for Science and Technology of Mexico funds this project.

Trx, Inc.: The Offshoring Decision

This case examines a pending offshoring decision by TRX, Inc., a transaction-services provider to the global travel industry. The COO is considering shifting all nonmanagerial workers to a facility to be operated by Siemens Shared Services. Although many of the costs can be quantified, the COO worries about the unquantifiable challenges and the impact on the company's fundamental business strategy. Excerpt UVA-OM-1296 Rev. Mar. 11, 2013 TRX, Inc.: The Offshoring Decision Vic Pynn, COO of TRX, Inc., relaxed as the wheels of the 747 touched down at Hartsfield International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia, on March 23, 2006. Pynn had just returned from another successful trip to Bangalore, India, where he had met with the management of Siemens Shared Services, a subsidiary of Siemens AG, which provided call center, transaction processing, and data mining operations for Siemens and other, external clients. TRX was three months into the process of evaluating the feasibility of shifting a significant portion of its transaction-processing labor force from U.S.- and U.K.-based locations to Bangalore. The shift would be part of a lease-to-own agreement with Siemens, in which TRX would pay Siemens on a per-employee basis for services rendered on its behalf. At the end of the lease agreement, TRX would have the option to purchase the assets of the Siemens Shared Services facility and operate the center independently. As the analysis and process unfolded, Pynn was continuously challenging his managers to capture and quantify the costs and benefits associated with the transition in order to ensure that TRX was making the best decision. While many of the costs and benefits (e.g., cost savings on labor and overhead) were clear to Pynn, others were less explicit and thus difficult to quantify. Pynn wondered how the company would be affected by the challenge of managing a labor force that stretched across three continents and several time zones, operated in distinctly different cultures and economies, and communicated in three languages. Pynn was confident that he and his team could identify the traditional costs and benefits, but would they be creative enough to consider and analyze the more abstract costs and benefits? Company History . . .

Service climate in knowledge-intensive, internal service settings

Purpose This study aims to extend service climate research from its existing focus on routine service for external clients into a knowledge-intensive, internal (KII) service setting. This extension was important because internal knowledge workers may operate from a monopolistic perspective and not view themselves as service providers because of the technical/professional nature of their work. Design/methodology/approach Two surveys were distributed in participating organizations. One survey, completed by employees in information technology (IT) service units, contains measures of service climate, climate antecedents and technical competence. The second survey, filled out by members of their corporate customer units, taps their evaluations of service quality. Findings Service climate in IT service units significantly predicted service evaluations by their respective customer units. Importantly, service climate was more predictive than IT service employees’ technical competency. Role ambiguity, empowerment and work facilitation were also found to be significant service climate antecedents. Research limitations/implications These results provided strong empirical evidence supporting an extension of the existing service climate research to KII service settings. To the extent that front-line service employees rely on internal support to deliver quality service to external customers, managers should work to enhance the service climate in internal support units, which ultimately improves external service quality. Originality/value This is the first study that establishes the robustness of the service climate construct in KII service settings. It makes service climate a useful managerial tool for improving both internal and external service quality.

Supply Chain Improvement in Construction Industry

In a very competitive and complex industry like the construction industry with demands for the delivery of top quality projects at very competitive prices, a significant need for an effective management of the construction supply chain has arose. Construction Supply Chain Management (CSCM) is a very promising approach to successfully achieve integration between the several disciplines of the chain (i.e. internal and external suppliers, designers, vendors, contractors, subcontractors and internal and external clients). Big international construction companies have carried out extensive research and developed computer based platforms to experiment the recent Supply Chain Management (SCM) concepts. Even though SCM in the manufacturing industry has been widely researched and developed, the application of the same concepts to the construction industry shows problems in construction supply chains are extensively present and persistent. Analysis of these problems has shown that a major part of them originate at the interfaces between the various disciplines or functions and the complex nature of the construction environment. The aim of this research study report is to provide a set of propositions for improving construction supply chain management such as benchmarking, improvement of suppliers/subcontractors performance, elimination of waste, training and information sharing between parts of the supply chain. The study includes the literature review regarding the trends of the supply chain management in construction industry, the specific characteristics and problems in coordinating construction supply chain and finally it suggests improvements in supply and demand management based on integration, collaboration, information sharing and trust.

Allocating human resources in organizations operating under crisis conditions: A fuzzy input-output optimization modeling framework

Ensuring the resilience of industrial systems to perturbations is a vital strategy for climate change adaptation to maintain sustainable consumption and production. Business decision-making models are essential in providing rational support for choices made by managers and industry practitioners under crisis conditions that may result from climatic disruptions. To date, most of the techniques proposed in the literature focus on the disruptions of physical resources that propagate through supply chain linkages; nonetheless, a significant research gap remains on mitigating impacts caused by disruptions in workforce availability. In this work, a fuzzy input-output optimization model is developed for allocating scarce labor resources within a business enterprise or organization. This model uses the input-output framework to take into account organizational interdependencies that exist among workers or departmental units, to ensure minimal loss of vital services delivered to external clients. The model is demonstrated using two illustrative case studies. The first case study involves medical staff deployment in a hospital during a pandemic event; while the second case study involves allocation of personnel in a business process outsourcing firm during an adverse weather event. The examples illustrate how the proposed fuzzy input-output optimization model can provide decision support for practitioners in industry, in order to mitigate the impacts of human resource shortage on business continuity during a crisis.

Exploring intellectual capital management in SMEs: an in-depth Italian case study

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to analyse intellectual capital (IC) in SMEs. In particular two research questions are posed: how SMEs acquire or develop knowledge and intangible resources; and how they manage and exploit IC.Design/methodology/approach– An in-depth case study of an Italian SME operating in the automobile industry is carried out in order to answer the two research questions.Findings– The case study evidences the impossibility to sharply divide all of the knowledge-related elements of a firm into the three generally accepted categories of human, organisational (structural) and relational capital. The analysis of IC as a set of stock of resources is important but really partial due to the fact that IC and knowledge continuously change. In this light, the focus on activities and processes help in understating how the firm manages IC. In the studied SME, formal and informal knowledge coexist but in different areas of the firm. Again, the relationships with external stakeholders, suppliers and clients especially, are the source for improving IC. The case study also supports the important role that dialogue and familiarity play in knowledge management. However the focus of management is not knowledgeper se, but the solution to problems the firm must deal with, IC and knowledge being just one of the issues to be considered in order to solve problems.Research limitations/implications– The paper is useful since it addresses the management of IC in SMEs which is a topic under-researched with respect to the economic importance of SMEs. The conclusions of the work, emerging from an individual case study analysis, cannot be generalised. However, they offer support for other studies findings and highlight some specificities of the way SMEs manage IC.Practical implications– The paper explores the characteristics of IC management in SME in order to contribute towards the differentiation of the view of IC in relation to the “size” of the firm. Approaches originally developed for larger firms fail to consider SMEs characteristics, which indeed are not smaller large firms; therefore, it is in general impossible to think of SME management systems as simpler or smaller than those adopted by large firms. The key point is in fact that SMEs (at least the one here analysed) have management systems which are ontologically different.Originality/value– Besides the relevant role of SMEs in economy, very few papers have been published on the way IC is developed and managed in SMEs. A gap therefore exists between the economic importance of SME and the attention IC research has given to them, which calls for more research on this area. The paper is a step forward on the way of reducing that gap, since it provides a case study on knowledge and IC management within an Italian SME. Finally, the analysis reinforces similar results of other studies adopting a dynamic perspective for the analysis of IC, which found IC management in SMEs to be more based on informal systems.

Big data’s role in expanding access to financial services in China

General consumer and business finance companies have had limited success in serving the needs of economically active low-income families and micro-enterprises cost-effectively and sustainably in emerging economies such as China. Recent advances in computing and telecommunications technology are dramatically transforming this landscape by changing the way the financial industry operates. A key mechanism underlying this transformation concerns the use of big data in assessing, evaluating and refining the creditworthiness of potential borrowers and reducing the transaction costs. While China’s internet-only banking industry is currently small and some activities of players in this industry are akin to those in the shadow banking, this industry has potential to cause a major disruption in the Chinese financial market. A main objective of this paper is to examine the role of big data in facilitating the access to financial products for economically active low-income families and micro-enterprises in China. A second objective is to investigate how formal and informal institutions facilitate and constrain the use of big data in the Chinese financial industry and market. The paper also investigates how various inherent characteristics of big data – volume, velocity, variety, variability and complexity – are related to the assessment of the creditworthiness of low-income families and micro-enterprises. Case studies of big data deployment in the Chinese financial industry and market are discussed. The paper also looks at various categories of personal financial and non-financial information that are being used as proxy measures for a potential borrower’s identity, ability to repay and willingness to repay. Various business models involving the sources of data (internal vs. external to the big data organization) and providers of credits (big data organization vs. external partners or clients of the big data organization) are investigated. The analysis of the paper indicates that the main reason why low-income families and micro-enterprises in China and other emerging economies lack access to financial services is not because they lack creditworthiness but merely because banks and financial institutions lack data, information and capabilities to access the creditworthiness of and effectively provide financial services to this financial disadvantaged group.

Formal Learning Sequences and Progression in the Studio: A Framework for Digital Design Education

This paper examines how to leverage the design studio learning environment throughout long-term Digital Design education in order to support students to progress from tactical, well-defined, device-centric routine design, to confidently design sustainable solutions for strategic, complex, problems for a wide range of devices and platforms in the digital space. We present a framework derived from literature on design, creativity, and theories on learning that: (a) implements a theory of formal learning sequences as a user-centered design process in the studio; and (b) describes design challenge progressions in the design studio environment modeled in seven dimensions. The framework can be used as a tool for designing, evaluating, and communicating course progressions within – and between series of – design studio courses. This approach is evaluated by implementing a formal learning sequence framework in a series of design studio courses that progress in an undergraduate design-oriented Informatics program. Reflections from students, teachers, and external clients indicate high student motivation and learning goal achievement, high teacher satisfaction and skill development, and high satisfaction among external clients.

THE STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT FOR THE CATERING SERVICES DEVELOPMENT IN THE PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES

Ponte Academic JournalJul 2016, Volume 72, Issue 7 THE STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT FOR THE CATERING SERVICES DEVELOPMENT IN THE PUBLIC UNIVERSITIESAuthor(s): Vintila IulianaJ. Ponte - Jul 2016 - Volume 72 - Issue 7 doi: 10.21506/j.ponte.2016.7.27 Abstract:The article goal is to formulate a strategic management as a practical tool in order to determine the implication of the national administrative organisms in the development of complete catering services in the residential area of the public universities.\r\nIn the public university there is no specifically legal regulation for the creation or functioning of any type of catering services, in part, because of the university autonomy.\r\nThe proposed strategy involves the setting of the basic management functions-planning, organizing, staff motivating and controlling -in the Catering Department of all Public Universities.\r\nThe article propose the promotion of the Law Project entitled ” The development of Public Catering Services in the Higher Education Institutions” and present the procedure step-by -step for a successfully management implementation by the local authorities and Public Universities. The Law impose the imperative of providing catering services in the residential area of all public universities, at a unitary level of nutritional & hygiene quality, at a good quality/price rapport, in a standard quality environment of cafeteria or student restaurant. In addition, the author propose an additional Law regarding the lunch break in the public educational establishments between 12-13 p.m. or 12-13.30 p.m.\r\nThe University Catering Department will provide high quality catering services to its students, staff, internal clients and external clients. These services include the provision of on campus food outlets and the provision of on-site catering to events.\r\nThe catering services will have public character and the operation costs will be supported by the administrative authorities in variable proportion (25-60%), in correlation with the catering services standard (student’s cafeteria, academically staff restaurant, buffet for the auxiliary didactical staff, vending machines, convenience stores).\r\nAfter 10 years of catering management consolidation, a frame-strategy for privatization with specialized contractors in academically catering, under a 4- year of contract, were proposed.\r\nThe implication of politics from the national legislative rooms could introduce a unpredictable evolution of the strategy approval and implementation.\r\nThe present research study proposes a unitary management strategy which will determine the future development of the legal framework & implementation regulations regarding the providing of Healthy Catering Services in the Public Universities.\r\n Download full text:Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution Username Password

Software Engineering Project Courses with Industrial Clients

There is an acknowledged need for teaching realistic software development in project courses. The design space for such courses is wide, ranging from single-semester to two-semester courses, from single-client to multicustomer courses, from local to globally distributed courses, and from toy projects to projects with real clients. The challenge for a nontrivial project course is how to make the project complex enough to enrich students’ software engineering experience, yet realistic enough to have a teaching environment that does not unduly burden students or the instructor. We describe a methodology for project courses that is realizable for instructors, improves students’ skills, and leads to viable results for industry partners. In particular, recent advances in release management and collaboration workflows reduce the effort of students and instructors during delivery and increase the quality of the deliverables. To enable release and feedback management, we introduce Rugby, an agile process model based on Scrum that allows reacting to changing requirements. To improve early communication, we use Tornado, a scenario-based design approach that emphasizes the use of informal models for the interaction between clients and students. The combination of Rugby and Tornado allows students to deal with changing requirements, produce multiple releases, and obtain client feedback through the duration of the course. We describe our experience with more than 300 students working on 40 projects with external clients over a 4-year period. In the latest instance of our course, the students have produced more than 7000 builds with 600 releases for eleven clients. In an evaluation of the courses, we found that the introduction of Rugby and Tornado significantly increased students’ technical skills, especially with respect to software engineering, usability engineering, and configuration management, as well as their nontechnical skills such as communication with the client, teamwork, presentation, and demo management. Finally, we discuss how other instructors can adapt the course concept.

A JEE RESTful service to access Conditions Data in ATLAS

Usage of condition data in ATLAS is extensive for offline reconstruction and analysis (e.g. alignment, calibration, data quality). The system is based on the LCG Conditions Database infrastructure, with read and write access via an ad hoc C++ API (COOL), a system which was developed before Run 1 data taking began. The infrastructure dictates that the data is organized into separate schemas (assigned to subsystems/groups storing distinct and independent sets of conditions), making it difficult to access information from several schemas at the same time. We have thus created PL/SQL functions containing queries to provide content extraction at multi-schema level. The PL/SQL API has been exposed to external clients by means of a Java application providing DB access via REST services, deployed inside an application server (JBoss WildFly). The services allow navigation over multiple schemas via simple URLs. The data can be retrieved either in XML or JSON formats, via simple clients (like curl or Web browsers).

ISO 9001 International Standard, a Tool to Enhance Data Quality in Durable Socio-Technical Systems

The quality of data is recognized to be a key issue for the assets management in enterprises as data is the foundation of any decision making process. Recent research work has established that the quality of data is highly dependent on the knowledge one has on the socio-technical system being considered. Three modes of knowledge have been identified: knowing what, knowing how and knowing why. In this paper we focus on how to manage these modes of knowledge in durable socio-technical systems to enhance the data quality face to technological progress and employees turnover. We believe that an organization based on ISO 9001 international standard can provide a valuable framework to provide the data quality needed to an efficient decision making process. This framework has been applied to design the data quality management system within a high education socio-technical system. The most important benefits that have been noticed are: 1) a shared vision on the external clients of the system with a positive impact on the definition of the strategy and the objectives of the system and 2) a deep understanding of the data client-supplier relationship inside the socio-technical system. A direct consequence of these achievements was the increasing knowledge on “know-what” data to collect, “know-why” to collect that data and “know-how” to collect it.

Governing the Public Sector E-Performance

Over the past several decades the demand for accountability in the field of public administration has been growing exponentially in Europe. The particular emphasis for this theme was the stimulus for the significant adoption and use of information technology systems in the public sector. Thus, the main focus of European countries has been e-government that provides process reform of the manner in which governments work, share information, and deliver services to external and internal clients. Therefore, accountability has become more critical for improving the economic, financial and organizational management of public matters. The need for accountability has pushed the Italian legislature to produce a sequence of legislative and regulatory interventions towards increased transparency in public administrations. This paper presents an account of the likely consequences that performance monitoring systems have, through e-government technology, on public service transparency and accountability. This research utilizes a study on the Brunetta reform (from the Ministry of Public Administration) to foster public sector productivity; that study's key principles are efficiency, meritocracy, accountability, and transparency.

La comunicación y satisfacción del cliente externo desde el sistema de gestión de calidad en la empresa de Acueducto y Alcantarillado de Villavicencio, E.S.P. por Lida Basallo – Greis Mosquera – Juan Carlos Leal

En el presente artículo se describe la relación entre el cliente externo de la Empresa de Acueducto y Alcantarillado de Villavicencio y la retroalimentación que ésta tiene con el cliente, teniendo en cuenta la norma técnica colombiana ISO 9001:2008 específicamente los numerales 7.2.3 Comunicación con el Cliente, 8.2.1 Satisfacción del cliente. En el desarrollo del trabajo se realizó un diagnóstico a la entidad, analizando la percepción del cliente a través de la encuesta de nivel de satisfacción del usuario y encuesta realizada a los clientes externos, lo cual permitió identificar situaciones que dificultan la comunicación con el cliente, determinar los medios de comunicación más utilizados entre el cliente y la empresa y proponer acciones de mejora a la entidad.

The Effect of Positive Psychological Capital on Emotional Labor

In modern age, positive psychological capital is as important as financial capital for organizational development and sustainability. Efficacy, hope, optimism, and resilience are the dimensions of positive psychological capital. Emotional labor is defined by Hochschild as control of self emotions at work by workers who have a high degree of contact with coworkers within the organization or with external clients, so as to create an expression, voice or body gesture which is acceptible to the clients. Emotional labor is analysized under three components: surface acting, deep acting and naturally felt emotions. This study is aimed to investigate the impact of positive psychological capital on emotional labor. So a research is conducted with the aim of exploring the relationship between the sub-dimensions of psychological capital and emotional labour.

Implementation of Business Intelligence in An IT Organization - The Concept of An Evaluation Model

Abstract This paper presents the issue of assessing the validity and effectiveness of implementing a Business Intelligence system in an IT Support Organization. This entity provides IT services to external clients involving, in particular, the storage and processing of large amounts of data. The vast amount of realized projects and also incidents reported in connection with those projects prevented effective decisions from being made without the support of dedicated technologies. The authors present the problems encountered by the studied entity and describe the tool that was selected to improve the situation. The aim of this study is to measure and describe the key processes in the organization on the basis of prepared aggregated measures, first prior to the implementation of the BI system and then a year after its implementation. The evaluation model developed by the authors allowed the assessment of the key aspects of the company’s operation over 2 years. It thus helped decision makers to establish whether the decision to implement the Business Intelligence system was correct or not.

An Analysis of Historical Transformation of an IT Giant Based on Sound Strategic Vision

INTRODUCTION Company Background and IT Industry IBM is short for International Business Machines. It is also known as Big Blue. IBM is considered one of the world's biggest Information Technology Company. In the 2009 Fortune 500 list, the company is ranked 14th best company in the world. It also ranks as the 28th best of global companies on the 2009 Forbes Global 400 list. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and offers infrastructure services, hosting services, and consulting services in areas ranging from mainframe computers to nanotechnology. It is difficult to find a company that deals in so many areas. IBM faces intense competition from other major players in the industry such as Microsoft for desktop productivity application, Oracle for database products, and Cisco for cloud computing (IBM at 100, 2010). Even though being the second most profitable company in the world in 1990, IBM began posting considerable losses between 1991 and 1993. IBM lost a staggering $16 billion. Mainframe computers were the cornerstone of IBM till the '90s, which was the source of almost half of IBM's revenues. But at the time other companies such as Compaq and Dell gave priorities to interconnect mainframe, midrange and increasingly mobile personal computers with distributed data sources and applications that led to fewer sales of IBM's mainframe computers. The company was originally founded as the Tabulating Machine Company by Herman Hollerith; it was renamed and incorporated by Thomas J. Watson as IBM when Tabulating Machine Company was merged with International Time Recording Company and the Computing Scale Corporation in 1911. Presently, it is known as International Business Machine Corporation. IBM has operations in more than 170 countries; it has customer /client relationships with more than 219 companies such as 3Com, VMware, NVidia, and the like. IBM develops and manufactures information technology related products and services that help its clients to deliver business values and be more innovative. The company maintains its operations through its five key segments: Global Technology Services (GTS) unit, Global Business Services (GBS) unit, Systems and Technology unit, Software unit and Global Financing unit. Through the Global Technology Services unit, IBM provides critical information technology infrastructure services and business process services that help clients to integrate resources for continuous innovation. The Global Business Services unit provides professional consulting services and application outsourcing services which is intended to deliver business value for its clients. The System and Technology unit provides solutions for business clients that need advanced computing power and storage management. The Software unit provides middleware such as Web Sphere, Tivoli and operating systems that can be used to enhance the capabilities of a business's IT infrastructure. Additionally, the company assists its internal and external clients with financing through its Global Financing unit. IBM encourages people from diverse background to work for the company. It has employed 399,409 employees worldwide and five of its researchers have received Nobel Prizes. IBM reported revenue of $95.757 billion and total asset of $109.0 billion for full-year 2009. Samuel J. Palmisano now serves as the current President and Chief Executive Officer of IBM. The company is trading in New York Stock Exchange under the name of IBM (Bryan, 1990). Motivating Factors Under the leadership of Thomas Watson Jr., IBM became the leading player in the growing field of Information technology. IBM products such as its mainframe computers were universally considered as the best solutions to a variety of problems. The Company became so successful that it became the target of US Government's antitrust suits by the mid 1960s. IBM's domination started to dwindle from the early 1990s. …

The Relationships Among Generativity, Values, Individual Differences, and Commitment to an Ideal Vision

Kaufman (2006a, 2011) defines Ideal Visions as measurable statements of the kind of world an organization, as well as its associates and external stakeholders, commits to help create for the future. This study investigated the relationships among several research-supported variables regarding personality aspects and individual characteristics with indicators of individuals’ motivation to achieve goals aimed at adding value to external clients and society. Indicators of generative beliefs, values, individual differences, and commitment to an Ideal Vision were examined in this study. Generativity (the concern in establishing and guiding the next generation), membership and activity in a formal civic organization, and gender, each demonstrated a statistically significant relationship with commitment to an Ideal Vision. In addition, various values were ranked differentially by those with relatively high versus low commitment to an Ideal Vision. A discussion of how these variables warrant the ongoing investigation into these variables is provided.

Advances in Mobile Cloud Computing

Recently the cloud computing technology has emerged as a new information technology infrastructure for the fast developing IT industry. In cloud computing, information is permanently stored in large-scale data centers on the Internet all over the world and temporarily accessed and cached on clients including desktops and portable PCs, sensors, etc. With the “cloud” as a metaphor for the Internet, cloud computing promises to deliver massively scalable IT-enabled data, software, and hardware capabilities as a service to external clients with Internet accesses. And the highly scalable computation capability of the cloud data centers can further assist and accelerate most of our computation intensive services and works effectively. Therefore the cloud computing has been envisioned as the key technology to achieve economies of scale in the deployment and operation of IT solutions. Regarding recent advances in mobile communication technologies, a new wave of user demands for rich mobile service experience has been fueled. Mobile users always expect broadband Internet access wherever they go, interact with each other via social networks while moving; furthermore, they are seeking ubiquitous access to a wealth of media-based contents and services. Because mobile devices are resource limited inherently, it is essential for the cloud to provide computational support for many media-rich applications. The combination of mobile media and cloud computing highly arises many technical challenges, and the fundamental tension between resource-hungry multimedia streams and power-limitedmobile devices has to be resolved. The effort for providing a universal rich-media experience across any screen is typically hindered by the heterogeneity amongst ever-evolving mobile devices, as manifested in their different physical form factors, middleware platforms, and interactive functions. Furthermore the developments of innovative pervasive mobile services, e.g., mobile video streaming, rich media dissemination, surveillance, gaming, e-health care, etc., can be greatly facilitated by Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC) platform employing emerged and emerging technologies. This issue consists of five papers addressing the various aspects ofMCC, such as mobile cloud computing services and applications, mobile cloud gaming, integration of MCC with Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), as well as the relationship between cloud computing and big data. The issue opens with a comprehensive survey on diverse ways of combining cloud computing and mobile platforms towards a new computing/ communications paradigm. In “Mobile Cloud Computing: A Survey, State of Art and Future Directions”, M. R. Rahimi et al. provided a complete survey on the field of MCC on its state of art applications, research challenges, opportunities and future research directions. The typical MCC applications are discussed, such as mobile learning, commerce, healthcare and social networks. The authors further identify research gaps from three critical aspects from enhancing the efficiency of task offloading to improve the business model, and the research challenges and opportunities are made clear within the context of the existing schemes. In the paper “ACloudlet-AssistedMultiplayer Cloud Gaming System” by W. Cai et al., the authors proposed a novel cloudlet-assisted multiplayer cloud gaming system, in which the mobile devices are connected to the cloud server for realtime interactive game videos, while sharing the received video M. Chen (*) Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Room 410, Building Southern No. 1, 1037 Luoyu Road, Wuhan 430074, China e-mail: minchen@ieee.org