Search results for: business networking
Commenced in January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Edition: International
Paper Count: 1181

Search results for: business networking

791 Creating Shared Value: A Paradigm Shift from Corporate Social Responsibility to Creating Shared Value

Authors: Bolanle Deborah Motilewa, E.K. Rowland Worlu, Gbenga Mayowa Agboola, Marvellous Aghogho Chidinma Gberevbie

Abstract:

Businesses operating in the modern business world are faced with varying challenges; amongst which is the need to ensure that they are performing their societal function of being responsible in the society in which they operate. This responsibility to society is generally termed as corporate social responsibility. For many years, the practice of corporate social responsibility (CSR) was solely philanthropic, where organizations gave ‘charity’ or ‘alms’ to society, without any link to the organization’s mission and objectives. However, there has arisen a shift in the application of CSR from an act of philanthropy to a strategy with a business model engaged in by organizations to create a win-win situation of performing their societal obligation, whilst simultaneously performing their economic obligation. In more recent times, the term has moved from CSR to creating shared value, which is simply corporate policies and practices that enhance the competitiveness of a business organization while simultaneously advancing social and economic conditions in the communities in which the company operates. Creating shared value has in more recent light found more meaning in underdeveloped countries, faced with deep societal challenges that businesses can solve whilst creating economic value. This study thus reviews literature on CSR, conceptualizing the shift to creating shared value and finally viewing its potential significance in Africa’s development.

Keywords: Corporate social responsibility, shared value, Africapitalism.

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790 Challenges of e-Service Adoption and Implementation in Nigeria: Lessons from Asia

Authors: Kazeem Oluwakemi Oseni, Kate Dingley

Abstract:

e-Service has moved from the usual manual and traditional way of rendering services to electronic service provision for the public and there are several reasons for implementing these services, Airline ticketing have gone from its manual traditional way to an intelligent web-driven service of purchasing. Many companies have seen their profits doubled through the use of online services in their operation and a typical example is Hewlett Packard (HP) which is rapidly transforming their after sales business into a profit generating e-service business unit. This paper will examine the various challenges confronting e- Service adoption and implementation in Nigeria and also analyse lessons learnt from e-Service adoption and implementation in Asia to see how it could be useful in Nigeria which is a lower middle income country. From the analysis of the online survey data, it has been identified that the public in Nigeria are much aware of e-Services but successful adoption and implementation have been the problems faced.

Keywords: Adoption, Asia, e-Government Service, Implementation, Nigeria.

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789 Anti-Social Media: Implications of Social Media in the Form of Stressors on Our Daily Lives

Authors: Aimen Batool Bint-E-Rashid, Huma Irfan

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This research aims to investigate the role of social media (Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) in our daily lives and its implication on our everyday routine in the form of stressors. The study has been validated by a social media survey with 150 social media users belonging to various age groups. The study explores how social media can make an individual anti-social in his or her life offline. To explain the phenomenon, we have proposed and evaluated a model based on social media usage and stressors including burnout and social overload. Results, through correlation and regression tests, have revealed that with increase in social media usage, social overload and burnout also increases. Evidence for the fact that excessive social media usage causes social overload and burnout has been provided in the study.

Keywords: Burnout, emotional exhaustion, fatigue, stressors, social networking, social media, social overload.

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788 Minimizing the Broadcast Traffic in the Jordanian Discovery Schools Network using PPPoE

Authors: Sameh H. Ghwanmeh

Abstract:

Discovery schools in Jordan are connected in one flat ATM bridge network. All Schools connected to the network will hear broadcast traffic. High percentage of unwanted traffic such as broadcast, consumes the bandwidth between schools and QRC. Routers in QRC have high CPU utilization. The number of connections on the router is very high, and may exceed recommend manufacturing specifications. One way to minimize number of connections to the routers in QRC, and minimize broadcast traffic is to use PPPoE. In this study, a PPPoE solution has been presented which shows high performance for the clients when accessing the school server resources. Despite the large number of the discovery schools at MoE, the experimental results show that the PPPoE solution is able to yield a satisfactory performance for each client at the school and noticeably reduce the traffic broadcast to the QRC.

Keywords: Education, networking, performance, e-content.

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787 A Review: Comparative Study of Enhanced Hierarchical Clustering Protocols in WSN

Authors: M. Sangeetha, A. Sabari, T. Shanthi Priya

Abstract:

Recent advances in wireless networking technologies introduce several energy aware routing protocols in sensor networks. Such protocols aim to extend the lifetime of network by reducing the energy consumption of nodes. Many researchers are looking for certain challenges that are predominant in the grounds of energy consumption. One such protocol that addresses this energy consumption issue is ‘Cluster based hierarchical routing protocol’. In this paper, we intend to discuss some of the major hierarchical routing protocols adhering towards sensor networks. Furthermore, we examine and compare several aspects and characteristics of few widely explored hierarchical clustering protocols, and its operations in wireless sensor networks (WSN). This paper also presents a discussion on the future research topics and the challenges of hierarchical clustering in WSNs.

Keywords: Clustering, Energy Efficiency, Hierarchical routing, Wireless sensor networks.

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786 Corporate Governance of Enterprise IT: Research Study on IT Governance Maturity

Authors: Mario Spremić

Abstract:

Despite the financial crisis and ongoing need for cost cutting, companies all around the world heavily invest in Information Systems (IS) and underlying Information Technology (IT). Proliferation of governance of enterprise IT helps companies manage, or rather, governs IS as a primary business function with executive management involved in making decision about IS and IT. The business value of IT is raising with the involvement of the executive management in IT decision making process and quality IT governance mechanisms in place. In this paper the practice of governing the enterprise IT will be investigated on a sample of the largest 100 Croatian companies. Research questions posed here will reveal if there are some formal IT governance mechanisms, are there any differences in perceived role of IS and IT between CIOs (Chief Information Officers) and CEOs (Chief Executive Officers) of the sampled companies and what are the mechanisms to govern massive investment in enterprise IT.

Keywords: IT governance, governance of enterprise IT, information system auditing, IT maturity.

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785 The Impact of ERP Systems on Accounting Processes

Authors: Despina Galani, Efthymios Gravas, Antonios Stavropoulos

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Advances in information technology, recent changes in business environment, globalization, deregulation, privatization have made running a successful business more difficult than ever before. To remain successful and to be competitive have forced companies to react to the new changes in order to survive and succeed. The implementation of an Enterprise Resource planning (ERP) system improves information flow, reduce costs, establish linkage with suppliers and reduce response time to customer needs. This paper focuses on a sample of Greek companies, investigates the ERP market in Greece, the reasons why the Greek companies are investing in ERP systems, the benefits that users have achieved and the influence of ERP systems on the use of new accounting practices. The results indicate a greater level on information integration, flexibility in information access and greater functionality provided by ERP systems but little influence on the use of new accounting practices.

Keywords: Advanced Accounting Practices, EnterpriseResource Planning, Management Accounting.

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784 Universities Strategic Evaluation Using Balanced Scorecard

Authors: M. D. Nayeri, M. M. Mashhadi, K. Mohajeri

Abstract:

Defining strategic position of the organizations within the industry environment is one of the basic and most important phases of strategic planning to which extent that one of the fundamental schools of strategic planning is the strategic positioning school. In today-s knowledge-based economy and dynamic environment, it is essential for universities as the centers of education, knowledge creation and knowledge worker evolvement. Till now, variant models with different approaches to strategic positioning are deployed in defining the strategic position within the various industries. Balanced Scorecard as one of the powerful models for strategic positioning, analyzes all aspects of the organization evenly. In this paper with the consideration of BSC strength in strategic evaluation, it is used for analyzing the environmental position of the best-s Iranian Business Schools. The results could be used in developing strategic plans for these schools as well as other Iranian Management and Business Schools.

Keywords: Strategic planning, Strategic position, Balancedscorecard, Higher education institutions.

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783 Foreign Languages and Employability in the EU

Authors: Paulina Pietrzyk-Kowalec

Abstract:

This paper presents the phenomenon of multilingualism becoming the norm rather than the exception in the European Union. It also seeks to describe the correlation between the command of foreign languages and employability. It is evident that the challenges of today's societies when it comes to employability are more and more complex. Thus, it is one of the crucial tasks of higher education to prepare its students to face this kind of complexity, understand its nuances, and have the capacity to adapt effectively to situations that are common in corporations based in the countries belonging to the EU. From this point of view, the assessment of the impact that the command of foreign languages of European university students could have on the numerous business sectors becomes vital. It also involves raising awareness of future professionals to make them understand the importance of mastering communicative skills in foreign languages that will meet the requirements of students' prospective employers. The direct connection between higher education institutions and the world of business also allows companies to realize that they should rethink their recruitment and human resources procedures in order to take into account the importance of foreign languages. This article focuses on the objective of the multilingualism policy developed by the European Commission, which is to enable young people to master at least two foreign languages, which is crucial in their future careers. The article puts emphasis on the existence of a crucial connection between the research conducted in higher education institutions and the business sector in order to reduce current qualification gaps.

Keywords: Cross-cultural communication, employability, human resources, language attitudes, multilingualism.

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782 A New History Based Method to Handle the Recurring Concept Shifts in Data Streams

Authors: Hossein Morshedlou, Ahmad Abdollahzade Barforoush

Abstract:

Recent developments in storage technology and networking architectures have made it possible for broad areas of applications to rely on data streams for quick response and accurate decision making. Data streams are generated from events of real world so existence of associations, which are among the occurrence of these events in real world, among concepts of data streams is logical. Extraction of these hidden associations can be useful for prediction of subsequent concepts in concept shifting data streams. In this paper we present a new method for learning association among concepts of data stream and prediction of what the next concept will be. Knowing the next concept, an informed update of data model will be possible. The results of conducted experiments show that the proposed method is proper for classification of concept shifting data streams.

Keywords: Data Stream, Classification, Concept Shift, History.

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781 The Announcer Trainee Satisfaction by National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission of Thailand

Authors: Nareenad Panbun

Abstract:

The objective is to study the knowledge utilization from the participants of the announcer training program by National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC). This study is a quantitative research based on surveys and self-answering questionnaires. The population of this study is 100 participants randomly chosen by non-probability sampling method. The results have shown that most of the participants were satisfied with the topics of general knowledge about the broadcasting and television business for 37 people representing 37%, followed by the topics of broadcasting techniques. The legal issues, consumer rights, television business ethics, and credibility of the media are, in addition to the media's role and responsibilities in society, the use of language for successful communication. Therefore, the communication language skills are the most important for all of the trainees and will also build up the image of the broadcasting center.

Keywords: Announcer training program, participant, requirements announced, theory of utilization.

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780 Knowledge Acquisition as Determinant of Outputs of Innovative Business in Regions of the Czech Republic

Authors: P. Hajek, J. Stejskal

Abstract:

The aim of this paper is to analyze the ability to identify and acquire knowledge from external sources at the regional level in the Czech Republic. The results show that the most important sources of knowledge for innovative activities are sources within the businesses themselves, followed by customers and suppliers. Furthermore, the analysis of relationships between the objective of the innovative activity and the ability to identify and acquire knowledge implies that knowledge obtained from (1) customers aims at replacing outdated products and increasing product quality; (2) suppliers aims at increasing capacity and flexibility of production; and (3) competing businesses aims at growing market share and increasing the flexibility of production and services. Regions should therefore direct their support especially into development and strengthening of networks within the value chain.

Keywords: Knowledge, acquisition, innovative business, Czech republic, region.

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779 Social Software Approach to E-Learning 3.0

Authors: Anna Nedyalkova, KrassimirNedyalkov, TeodoraBakardjieva

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In the present paper, we-ll explore how social media tools provide an opportunity for new developments of the e-Learning in the context of managing personal knowledge. There will be a discussion how social media tools provide a possibility for helping knowledge workersand students to gather, organize and manage their personal information as a part of the e-learning process. At the centre of this social software driven approach to e-learning environments are the challenges of personalization and collaboration. We-ll share concepts of how organizations are using social media for e-Learning and believe that integration of these tools into traditional e-Learning is probably not a choice, but inevitability. Students- Survey of use of web technologies and social networking tools is presented. Newly developed framework for semantic blogging capable of organizing results relevant to user requirements is implemented at Varna Free University (VFU) to provide more effective navigation and search.

Keywords: Semantic blogging, social media tools, e-Learning, web 2.0, web 3.0.

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778 Modeling Exponential Growth Activity Using Technology: A Research with Bachelor of Business Administration Students

Authors: V. Vargas-Alejo, L. E. Montero-Moguel

Abstract:

Understanding the concept of function has been important in mathematics education for many years. In this study, the models built by a group of five business administration and accounting undergraduate students when carrying out a population growth activity are analyzed. The theoretical framework is the Models and Modeling Perspective. The results show how the students included tables, graphics, and algebraic representations in their models. Using technology was useful to interpret, describe, and predict the situation. The first model, the students built to describe the situation, was linear. After that, they modified and refined their ways of thinking; finally, they created exponential growth. Modeling the activity was useful to deep on mathematical concepts such as covariation, rate of change, and exponential function also to differentiate between linear and exponential growth.

Keywords: Covariation reasoning, exponential function, modeling, representations.

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777 Advertisement Effectiveness: A Review and Research Agenda

Authors: Prateek Maheshwari, Nitin Seth, Anoop Kumar Gupta

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In today’s highly competitive, dynamic and technology driven business circumstances, marketers are under steady pressure to deliver the best. Organizations are continuously improving and upgrading themselves to meet customer expectations and demands. Technology has not only changed the way in which business is done in modern times but has also transformed the way to reach out to target audience. Marketers have identified most recent media options to communicate and convince potential customers. Numerous scholars have studied the research domain of advertising and have tried to recognize different measures of advertisement effectiveness in context of various media. The objective of this paper is to critically review accessible literature on advertisement effectiveness in context of varied advertising media, recognize major gaps in the literature and identify future research prospects on the basis of critical analysis of literature.

Keywords: Advertising, Advertising Media, Competition, Effectiveness Measurement.

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776 The Strategy of the Innovation Alliance in Higher Education

Authors: Juha Kettunen

Abstract:

The purpose of this study is to visualize the strategic network of higher education institutions and its strategic directions. The strategy map of the balanced scorecard approach is developed to describe the strategic objectives and their causal relationships in higher education. The empirical part of the study presents the survey results of the desired strategic directions of the network obtained from the teachers and other staff of the member institutions. Research and development projects are the most important form of activity in the network, but education and many other forms also turn out to be important. The results of this study support the argument that a strategic innovation alliance is a suitable and useful way to promote collaboration among European higher education institutions. The results of the study can be used by those who wish to promote such international collaboration among higher education institutions.

Keywords: Balanced scorecard, higher education, social networking, strategic planning.

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775 Omani Community in Digital Age: A Study of Omani Women Using Back Channel Media to Empower Themselves for Frontline Entrepreneurship

Authors: Sangeeta Tripathi, Muna Al Shahri

Abstract:

This research article presents the changing role and status of women in Oman. Transformation of women’s status started with the regime of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos Bin Said in 1970. It is always desired by the Sultan to enable women in all the ways for the balance growth of the country. Forbidding full face veil for women in public offices is one of the best efforts for their empowerment. Women education is also increasing rapidly. They are getting friendly with new information communication technology and using different social media applications such as WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook for interaction and economic growth. Though there are some traditional and tribal boundaries, women are infused with courage and enjoying fair treatment and equal opportunities in different career positions. The study will try to explore changing mindset of young Omani women towards these traditional tribal boundaries, cultural heritage, business and career: ‘How are young Omani women making balance between work and social prestige?’, ‘How are they preserving their cultural values, embracing new technologies and approaching social network to enhance their economic power.’ This paper will discover their hurdles while using internet for their new entrepreneur. It will also examine the prospects of online business in Oman. The mixed research methodology is applied to find out the result.

Keywords: Advertising, business, entrepreneurship, Social Media, tribal barrier, traditional barriers.

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774 Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises, Flash Flooding and Organisational Resilience Capacity: Qualitative Findings on Implications of the Catastrophic 2017 Flash Flood Event in Mandra, Greece

Authors: Antonis Skouloudis, Georgios Deligiannakis, Panagiotis Vouros, Konstantinos Evangelinos, Ioannis Nikolaou

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On November 15th, 2017, a catastrophic flash flood devastated the city of Mandra in Central Greece, resulting in 24 fatalities and extensive damages to the built environment and infrastructure. It was Greece’s deadliest and most destructive flood event for the past 40 years. In this paper, we examine the consequences of this event to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in Mandra during the flood event, which were affected by the floodwaters to varying extents. In this context, we conducted semi-structured interviews with business owners-managers of 45 SMEs located in flood inundated areas and are still active nowadays, based on an interview guide that spanned 27 topics. The topics pertained to the disaster experience of the business and business owners-managers, knowledge and attitudes towards climate change and extreme weather, aspects of disaster preparedness and related assistance needs. Our findings reveal that the vast majority of the affected businesses experienced heavy damages in equipment and infrastructure or total destruction, which resulted in business interruption from several weeks up to several months. Assistance from relatives or friends helped for the damage repairs and business recovery, while state compensations were deemed insufficient compared to the extent of the damages. Most interviewees pinpoint flooding as one of the most critical risks, and many connect it with the climate crisis. However, they are either not willing or unable to apply property-level prevention measures in their businesses due to cost considerations or complex and cumbersome bureaucratic processes. In all cases, the business owners are fully aware of the flood hazard implications, and since the recovery from the event, they have engaged in basic mitigation measures and contingency plans in case of future flood events. Such plans include insurance contracts whenever possible (as the vast majority of the affected SMEs were uninsured at the time of the 2017 event) as well as simple relocations of critical equipment within their property. The study offers fruitful insights on latent drivers and barriers of SMEs’ resilience capacity to flash flooding. In this respect, findings such as ours, highlighting tensions that underpin behavioural responses and experiences, can feed into: a) bottom-up approaches for devising actionable and practical guidelines, manuals and/or standards on business preparedness to flooding, and, ultimately, b) policy-making for an enabling environment towards a flood-resilient SME sector.

Keywords: Flash flood, small and medium-sized enterprises, organisational resilience capacity, disaster preparedness, qualitative study.

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773 Cognitive Radio Networks (CRN): Resource Allocation Techniques Based On DNA-inspired Computing

Authors: Santosh Kumar Singh, Krishna Chandra Roy, Vibhakar Pathak

Abstract:

Spectrum is a scarce commodity, and considering the spectrum scarcity faced by the wireless-based service providers led to high congestion levels. Technical inefficiencies from pooled, since all networks share a common pool of channels, exhausting the available channels will force networks to block the services. Researchers found that cognitive radio (CR) technology may resolve the spectrum scarcity. A CR is a self-configuring entity in a wireless networking that senses its environment, tracks changes, and frequently exchanges information with their networks. However, CRN facing challenges and condition become worst while tracks changes i.e. reallocation of another under-utilized channels while primary network user arrives. In this paper, channels or resource reallocation technique based on DNA-inspired computing algorithm for CRN has been proposed.

Keywords: Ad hoc networks, channels reallocation, cognitive radio, DNA local sequence alignment.

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772 I2Navi: An Indoor Interactive NFC Navigation System for Android Smartphones

Authors: Jing Hang Choo, Soon Nyean Cheong, Yee Lien Lee, Sze Hou Teh

Abstract:

The advancement of smartphones, wireless networking and Near Field Communication (NFC) technology have opened up a new approach to indoor navigation. Although NFC technology has been used to support electronic commerce, access control, and ticketing, there is a lack of research work on building NFC-based indoor navigation system for smartphone users. This paper presents an indoor interactive navigation system (named I2Navi) based on NFC technology for users to navigate within a building with ease using their smartphones. The I2Navi system has been implemented at the Faculty of Engineering (FOE), Multimedia University (MMU) to enable students, parents, visitors who own NFC-enabled Android smartphones to navigate themselves within the faculty. An evaluation is carried out and the results show positive response to the proposed indoor navigation system using NFC and smartphone technologies.

Keywords: Near Field Communication, indoor navigation system, smartphones.

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771 Effect of Shared Competences in Industrial Districts on Knowledge Creation and Absorptive Capacity

Authors: César Camisón-Zornoza, Beatriz Forés-Julián, Alba Puig-Denia

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The literature has argued that firms based in industrial districts enjoy advantages for creating internal knowledge and absorbing external knowledge as a consequence of to the knowledge flows and spillovers that exist in the district. However, empirical evidence to show how belonging to an industrial district affects the business processes of creation and absorption of knowledge is scarce and, moreover, empirical research has not taken into account the influence of variations in the flows of knowledge circulating in each cluster. This study aims to extend empirical evidence on the effect that the stock of shared competencies in industrial districts has on the business processes of creation and absorption of knowledge, through data from an initial study on 952 firms and 35 industrial districts in Spain.

Keywords: Absorptive capacity, industrial district, knowledge creation, organisational learning

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770 Critical Factors to Company Success in the Construction Industry

Authors: G. Arslan, S. Kivrak

Abstract:

Achieving success is a highly critical issue for the companies to survive in a competitive business environment. The construction industry is also an area where there is strong competition due to a large number of construction contractors. There have been many factors such as qualified employees, quality workmanship and financial management that can lead to company success in the construction industry. The aim of this study was to investigate the critical factors leading to construction company success. Within this context, a survey was carried out among 40 Turkish construction companies which are located in the Northwest region of Turkey. In this survey, top-level managers and owners of the companies were interviewed. The interviews took place over a five month period between January and May 2007. Finally, the ranking of the critical success factors has been determined by using the Simple Multi Attribute Rating Technique (SMART). Based on the results, business management, financial conditions and owner/manager characteristics were determined as the most important factors to company success.

Keywords: Company success, construction, organization, success factors.

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769 Management Challenges and Product Quality of Fish Farms in Greece

Authors: S. Anastasiou, C. Nathanailides, P. Logothetis, G. Kanlis

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The purpose of the present work is to review some data for the management challenges that the aquaculture industry in Greece is currently facing. The results indicate that Greek aquaculture fish farms apply Human Resources Management (HRM) practices which can increase motivation, commitment and job satisfaction of their personnel. In turn, these practices can increase the productivity of the business. The Greek fish farms appear to invest in research and technological innovation with a good record in research activities and the generation of patents. Interestingly, the results of the present work were carried out during the period of the recent economic crisis in Greece. Several sectors of the Greek economy were severely affected by the financial problems of the Greek government and the Greek banks. Under the adverse economical conditions created by the Greek economic crisis, even the Greek aquaculture industry, which historically is considered as a thriving national exporting business sector, experienced harsh economic and market conditions. As a result of the global, European and national economic crisis, consumption of fish dropped while companies had to hold most of their stocked fish in order to regulated the flow to the market and the price. This occurred at a time where Banks in Greece had their own financial crisis – banking crisis - which resulted in limited access to lending for the all business sectors of the national economy including the Greek aquaculture industry. In spite of these economic conditions, the Greek aquaculture industry, after a series of mergers and acquisitions, has now stabilized production and exhibits very good prospects for future growth. Evidently, the firms had to cut salaries and on some occasions even pay their staff in arrears. Nevertheless, the results presented in this paper indicate that during the economic crisis, the surveyed fish farms maintained their HRM practices, investing in their human capital and technological input. In fact, human capital and technological input are the ticket for future success of companies in any business sector.

Keywords: Aquaculture, Human Resources Management.

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768 The Comparison of Anchor and Star Schema from a Query Performance Perspective

Authors: Radek Němec

Abstract:

Today's business environment requires that companies have access to highly relevant information in a matter of seconds. Modern Business Intelligence tools rely on data structured mostly in traditional dimensional database schemas, typically represented by star schemas. Dimensional modeling is already recognized as a leading industry standard in the field of data warehousing although several drawbacks and pitfalls were reported. This paper focuses on the analysis of another data warehouse modeling technique - the anchor modeling, and its characteristics in context with the standardized dimensional modeling technique from a query performance perspective. The results of the analysis show information about performance of queries executed on database schemas structured according to principles of each database modeling technique.

Keywords: Data warehousing, anchor modeling, star schema, anchor schema, query performance.

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767 A Proposed Innovation Management System Framework – A Solution for Organizations Aimed for Obtaining Performance

Authors: Andreea Maier, Stelian Brad, Mircea Fulea, Diana Nicoară, Dorin Maier

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Today, any organization - regardless of the specific activity - must be prepared to face continuous radical changes, innovation thus becoming a condition of survival in a globalized market. Few managers have a wider vision that includes innovation, to enable better performance of the critical activities, namely the degree of novelty that it must submit an innovation to be considered as such. Companies need not only radical changes in the products or their services, but also to their business strategies. Not all managers have an overall view on the real size of necessary innovation potential. Unfortunately there is still no common understanding (and correct) of the term of innovation among managers. Moreover, not all managers are aware of the need for innovation. In these conditions, increasing the processes adaptability of firms (through innovation) to meet the needs and performance requirements is difficult without a systematic framework. To overcome this disadvantage, the authors propose a framework for designing an innovation management system,, to cover all the important aspects of a business system, to reach the actual performance of an organization.

Keywords: Innovation, innovation framework, innovation management system.

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766 Modeling Peer-to-Peer Networks with Interest-Based Clusters

Authors: Bertalan Forstner, Dr. Hassan Charaf

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In the world of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networking different protocols have been developed to make the resource sharing or information retrieval more efficient. The SemPeer protocol is a new layer on Gnutella that transforms the connections of the nodes based on semantic information to make information retrieval more efficient. However, this transformation causes high clustering in the network that decreases the number of nodes reached, therefore the probability of finding a document is also decreased. In this paper we describe a mathematical model for the Gnutella and SemPeer protocols that captures clustering-related issues, followed by a proposition to modify the SemPeer protocol to achieve moderate clustering. This modification is a sort of link management for the individual nodes that allows the SemPeer protocol to be more efficient, because the probability of a successful query in the P2P network is reasonably increased. For the validation of the models, we evaluated a series of simulations that supported our results.

Keywords: Peer-to-Peer, model, performance, networkmanagement.

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765 Middle East towards Incubator Benefits: Case Studies

Authors: Hanadi Mubarak AL-Mubaraki, Michael Busler

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In the context of business incubation (BI) as strategic enablers, this paper critically reviews the literature relating to the strategic benefits of BI in the Middle East. The taxonomy of BI benefits in the strategic elements on 1) type, 2) financial model, 3) services, 4) objectives, 5) number of clients, 6) number of graduates, and 7) jobs creation. Understanding the importance of BI benefits can be significant in the economic development although most incubators lead to diversify the economy. Thus, taxonomies of the benefits of BI are produced from both the academic literature and published case studies. In this way, a classification of strategic benefits elements as they relate to incubators has been developed to provide a greater understanding of the benefits needed to obtain a specific element. The result of this paper is Business incubators is aimed entrepreneurship, jobs creation, research commercialization and profitable enterprises in Middle Eastern countries.

Keywords: Economic Development, Incubators, Middle East, Strategic.

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764 Directors’ Duties, Civil Liability, and the Business Judgment Rule under the Portuguese Legal Framework

Authors: Marisa Catarina da Conceição Dinis

Abstract:

The commercial companies’ management has suffered an important material and legal transformation in the last years, mainly related to the changes in the Portuguese legal framework and because of the fact they were recently object of great expansion. In fact, next to the smaller family businesses, whose management is regularly assumed by partners, companies with social investment highly scattered, whose owners are completely out from administration, are now arising. In those particular cases, the business transactions are much more complex and require from the companies’ managers a highly technical knowledge and some specific professionals’ skills and abilities. This kind of administration carries a high-level risk that can both result in great success or in great losses. Knowing that the administration performance can result in important losses to the companies, the Portuguese legislator has created a legal structure to impute them some responsibilities and sanctions. The main goal of this study is to analyze the Portuguese law and some jurisprudence about companies’ management rules and about the conflicts between the directors and the company. In order to achieve these purposes we have to consider, on the one hand, the legal duties directly connected to the directors’ functions and on the other hand the disrespect for those same rules. The Portuguese law in this matter, influenced by the common law, determines that the directors’ attitude should be guided by loyalty and honesty. Consequently, we must reflect in which cases the administrators should respond to losses that they might cause to companies as a result of their duties’ disrespect. In this way is necessary to study the business judgment rule wich is a rule that refers to a liability exclusion rule. We intend, in the same way, to evaluate if the civil liability that results from the directors’ duties disrespect can extend itself to those who have elected them ignoring or even knowing that they don´t have the necessary skills or appropriate knowledge to the position they hold. To charge directors’, without ruining entrepreneurship, charging, in the same way, those who select them reinforces the need for more responsible and cautious attitudes which will lead consequently to more confidence in the markets.

Keywords: Duty of loyalty, duty of care, business judgment rule, civil liability of directors.

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763 The Effect of IT Service Quality Attributes on Supply Chain Management and Performance

Authors: Narasimhaiah Gorla, Annibal Scavarda

Abstract:

Nowadays, where most of the leading economies are service oriented and e-business is being widely used for their management, supply chain management has become one of the most studied and practiced fields. Quality has an important role on today-s business processes, so it is important to understand the impact of IT service quality on the performance of supply chains. This paper will start by analyzing the Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) model and each of its five activities: Plan, Source, Make, Delivery, and Return. This article proposes a framework for analyzing Effect of IT Service Quality on Supply Chain Performance. Using the proposed framework, hypotheses are framed for the direct effect of IT service quality on Supply Chain Performance and its indirect effect through effective Supply Chain Management. The framework will be validated empirically based on the surveys of executives of various organizations and statistical analyses of the data collected.

Keywords: IT service quality, SCOR model, Supply Chain Management, Supply Chain Performance

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762 Information Technology Application for Knowledge Management in Medium-Size Businesses

Authors: S. Thongchai

Abstract:

Result of the study on knowledge management systems in businesses was shown that the most of these businesses provide internet accessibility for their employees in order to study new knowledge via internet, corporate website, electronic mail, and electronic learning system. These business organizations use information technology application for knowledge management because of convenience, time saving, ease of use, accuracy of information and knowledge usefulness. The result indicated prominent improvements for corporate knowledge management systems as the following; 1) administrations must support corporate knowledge management system 2) the goal of corporate knowledge management must be clear 3) corporate culture should facilitate the exchange and sharing of knowledge within the organization 4) cooperation of personnel of all levels must be obtained 5) information technology infrastructure must be provided 6) they must develop the system regularly and constantly. 

Keywords: Business organizations, information technology application, knowledge management systems, and prominent improvements.

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