Towards responsive workplaces – identifying service paths for time- and place-independent work

2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 144-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vitalija Petrulaitiene ◽  
Eelis Rytkönen ◽  
Suvi Nenonen ◽  
Tuuli Jylhä

Purpose The need to understand work processes and end-users has become an issue in corporate real estate and workplace management. Flexible work practices and technological advancement allow end-users to move outside the building boundaries. This influences workplace management to become more service-oriented and demand-driven, and better serve the needs of end-users. For that, this paper aims to investigate the ways in which new workplace services support the knowledge creation processes of mobile workers. Design/methodology/approach This study is exploratory and follows a multiple-case study strategy. Literature is reviewed on workplace and knowledge theories, and the market analysis consists of data from 57 firms that offer services to support the mobile knowledge worker. Findings Workplace services were categorized into three new groups that support knowledge creation processes for the mobile knowledge worker in various work environments. The analysis indicated that new services are driven by technological development and community formation around the physical or virtual place. Practical implications The proposed service groups can be examined as new business opportunities by workplace service providers, and the results suggest that the CRE managers should re-think their service portfolios, boost their collaboration with the service providers and invest in building a community. Originality/value This paper categorizes workplace services from a mobile knowledge worker perspective and follows a service-oriented approach to workplace management.

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Selberherr

Purpose – Sustainable buildings bear enormous potential benefits for clients, service providers, and our society. To release this potential a change in business models is required. The purpose of this paper is to develop a new business model with the objective of proactively contributing to sustainable development on the societal level and thereby improving the economic position of the service providers in the construction sector. Design/methodology/approach – The modeling process comprises two steps, the formal structuring and the contextual configuration. In the formal structuring systems theory is used and two levels are analytically separated. The outside view concerns the business model’s interaction with the environment and its impact on sustainability. The inside view focusses on efficient value creation for securing sustainability. The logically deductively developed business model is subsequently theory-led substantiated with Giddens’ structuration theory. Findings – The relevant mechanisms for the development of a new service offer, which creates a perceivable surplus value to the client and contributes to sustainable development on the societal level, are identified. The requirements for an efficient value creation process with the objective of optimizing the service providers’ competitive position are outlined. Research limitations/implications – The model is developed logically deductively based on literature and embedded in a theoretical framework. It has not yet been empirically tested. Practical implications – Guidelines for the practical implementation of more sustainable business models for the provision of life cycle service offers are developed. Social implications – The construction industry’s impact requires it to contribute proactively to a more sustainable development of the society. Originality/value – This paper analyzes the role for the players in the construction sector in proactively contributing to sustainable development on the societal level. One feasible strategy is proposed with a new business model, which aims at cooperatively optimizing buildings and infrastructures and taking the responsibility for the operating phase via guarantees.


2018 ◽  
Vol 36 (6) ◽  
pp. 1114-1134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiufeng Cheng ◽  
Jinqing Yang ◽  
Lixin Xia

PurposeThis paper aims to propose an extensible, service-oriented framework for context-aware data acquisition, description, interpretation and reasoning, which facilitates the development of mobile applications that provide a context-awareness service.Design/methodology/approachFirst, the authors propose the context data reasoning framework (CDRFM) for generating service-oriented contextual information. Then they used this framework to composite mobile sensor data into low-level contextual information. Finally, the authors exploited some high-level contextual information that can be inferred from the formatted low-level contextual information using particular inference rules.FindingsThe authors take “user behavior patterns” as an exemplary context information generation schema in their experimental study. The results reveal that the optimization of service can be guided by the implicit, high-level context information inside user behavior logs. They also prove the validity of the authors’ framework.Research limitations/implicationsFurther research will add more variety of sensor data. Furthermore, to validate the effectiveness of our framework, more reasoning rules need to be performed. Therefore, the authors may implement more algorithms in the framework to acquire more comprehensive context information.Practical implicationsCDRFM expands the context-awareness framework of previous research and unifies the procedures of acquiring, describing, modeling, reasoning and discovering implicit context information for mobile service providers.Social implicationsSupport the service-oriented context-awareness function in application design and related development in commercial mobile software industry.Originality/valueExtant researches on context awareness rarely considered the generation contextual information for service providers. The CDRFM can be used to generate valuable contextual information by implementing more reasoning rules.


Author(s):  
Ryota Egashira ◽  
Akihiro Enomoto ◽  
Tatsuya Suda

In Service-Oriented Computing, service providers publish their services by deploying service components which implement those services into a network. Since such services are distributed around the network, Service-Oriented Computing requires the functionality to discover the services that meet certain criteria specified by an end user. In order to overcome the scalability issue that the current centralized discovery mechanism inherently has, distributed discovery mechanisms that the P2P research community has developed may be promising alternatives. This chapter outlines existing distributed mechanisms and proposes a novel discovery mechanism that utilizes end users’ preferences. The proposed mechanism allows end users to return their feedback that describes the degree of the preference for discovered services. The returned preference information is stored at nodes and utilized to decide where to forward subsequent queries. The extensive simulation demonstrates that the proposed mechanism meets key requirements such as selectivity, efficiency and adaptability.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ji Yu ◽  
David J. Pauleen ◽  
Nazim Taskin ◽  
Hamed Jafarzadeh

Purpose The outbreak of COVID-19 is one of the most serious health events in recent times. In the business landscape, its effects may be more detrimental to micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) because they tend to have limited financial and human resources to manage the challenges caused by COVID-19. To help MSMEs enhance their resilience, this paper aims to discuss how they can leverage mass collaboration to build social media-based knowledge ecosystems to manage interactions among internal and external stakeholders for knowledge creation and innovation. Design/methodology/approach The paper proposes a model for MSMEs to build an online knowledge ecosystem and a standalone text analytics tool to use the advanced data analytics, e.g. topic modeling, to analyze and aggregate collective insights. Design science research methodology is used to develop the model and the tool. Findings Through mass collaboration using social media and advanced data analytics technology, MSMEs can generate new business ideas, leading to enhanced resilience to meet the challenges caused by COVID-19 or other unexpected or extraordinary circumstances, such as natural disasters and financial crises. Originality/value To the best of authors’ knowledge, this paper is one of the first papers in social media adoption for knowledge creation and innovation research, providing detailed approaches for MSMEs to build a knowledge ecosystem on social media and to use advanced data analytics to mine the meaning of the generated data.


2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (5) ◽  
pp. 7-10
Author(s):  
Benedict Ifeanyichukwu Okike ◽  
Esther W. Oyeniyi

Purpose Information resources and services are considered tangible assets which are valuable in decision making. Information can fulfill this function only if it is delivered via effective marketing at the end users’ doorsteps. The evolution of ICT, social media in particular, has created changes in all productive sectors and service-oriented organizations such as libraries. As well as discussing the need and use of social media by libraries for marketing efforts, this paper focuses on understanding the myriad of security implications that may exist.


2015 ◽  
Vol 64 (8/9) ◽  
pp. 567-582 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mayank Yuvaraj

Purpose – The paper aims to examine the characteristic elements of various organizational factors to identify whether a favourable climate for implementing and sustaining cloud computing in Banaras Hindu University library system (BHULS) existed. Design/methodology/approach – After reviewing relevant literature on the topic, a list of 20 factors that affected an organization’s adoption to innovation was prepared. A questionnaire was personally administered to the library professionals engaged in BHULS. Respondents were asked to nominate the level of importance of each factor for validation of cloud computing adoption. Findings – Findings of the paper validate the fact that opportune time for the implementation of cloud computing existed in BHULS. Library staff showed high willingness toward the adoption of the cloud computing and were well prepared to grasp the challenges. Practical implications – The paper establishes the fact that the benefits of cloud computing are inadequate to convince organizations to migrate from the traditional computing paradigm to the cloud. Technological advancement may not transform the cloud into a mainstream technology. To motivate the expansion of cloud computing adoption, emphasis has to be laid upon collaboration between the cloud service providers supplemented by solid cloud legislations which need to be worked out. Originality/value – Because no empirical study on the cloud computing in conjunction with academic libraries of India has been carried out before, this paper closes this gap and provides guidelines to migrate to cloud environment. Also, it provides the perceptions of library professionals in response to its adoption.


2016 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 186-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ying-Yu Kerri Chen ◽  
Yi-Long Jaw ◽  
Bing-Li Wu

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of the pilot implementation of an industry-specific web portal as an IT resource on textile SMEs organisational performance. Using a resource-based perspective, portal delivery functionalities, considered as non-physical IT resources, are analysed using the dimensions of portal usefulness, portal interface, and service-oriented portal functions on SMEs users’ perceived outcomes of organisational performance. Design/methodology/approach – Qualitative and quantitative approaches are used to explore the research hypotheses. Data were collected using field interviews and survey from senior executives of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Taiwanese textile industry. Findings – Results indicate that the service-oriented portal function dimension, consisting of portal maintenance service, B2B function, and cloud computing, significantly influences organisational performance. Unexpected findings, such as the negative impact of greater industry benchmark information on perceived SME performance, deserve further investigation. Research limitations/implications – The study extends the theory and knowledge on the resource-based view and its implications on e-business organisational performance of SMEs. The study also offers findings relevant to the design of portal sites for SME administrators and information service providers. Limitations of the research include a small size and the industry-specific data limiting the generalisability of the findings. Practical implications – Research results practically serve as informative indicators for policy makers, information service providers, and SMEs executives to evaluate feasible elements for web portal design in traditional industry. Findings from this study may help portal service providers in designing better web portal functionalities for SMEs. Originality/value – This study contributes to the IT business value literature by identifying the linkages between industry-specific portal delivery functionalities and perceived organisational performance through the examination of portal usefulness, portal interface, and service-oriented portal function for textile SMEs.


2016 ◽  
Vol 54 (8) ◽  
pp. 1846-1860 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ya-Ling Kao ◽  
Ching-Fu Chen

Purpose The demand for efficient and flexible workers is growing in the service industry, with the promise of enhanced revenue generation and customer retention. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the antecedents (i.e. intrinsic motivation (IM)) and consequences (i.e. service performance (SP)) of front line employees’ ambidextrous behaviours, as well as the moderating roles of a proactive personality (PP), emotional intelligence (EI) and extrinsic reward (ER) in the IM-individual ambidexterity (IA) relationship. Design/methodology/approach A self-administered questionnaire was designed to collect empirical data from 205 flight attendants working at a Taiwanese airline company. Hierarchical regression analysis is used to test the proposed relationships and estimate factor affecting employees’ SP. Findings The results confirm that IM is positively related to ambidextrous behaviour, which in turn improves SP. EI positively moderates the relationship between IM and IA, while a PP and ER negatively moderate it. Practical implications This paper entails useful implications for service providers to better understand front line employees’ ambidextrous behaviours and determine effective recruitment and reward management strategies that reflect the differing employee characteristic. Originality/value This study addresses the important issue of ambidextrous behaviours in a service-oriented context by examining whether and how PP, EI and ER moderate the relationships among IM, IA and SP.


2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
ChienHsing Wu ◽  
Shu-Chen Kao ◽  
Chia-Hung Shih

Purpose This paper aims to examine the role of the creation task–technology fit (CTTF) in the knowledge creation performance (KCP). The creation task features represented by goal-driven, goal-free and goal-frame modes (GDM, GFM and GRM) and information and communication technology (ICT) supportive features are considered. The moderation effect of cognitive style represented by analytical and intuitive styles is explored. Contributions and implications are addressed. Design/methodology/approach The literature review on creation task, ICT, cognitive behavior and fit theory, and the research gap with respect to the antecedents of KCP are presented. The research arguments are then hypothesized and the research model developed to describe that the proposed role is examined empirically. Findings Research findings are obtained on the basis of the data analysis of 258 valid subjects from research institutes as well as manufacturing and service industries. The effect of CTTF on creation outcomes is significantly confirmed. The ICT supportive functions are unlikely significantly related to CTTF for the analysis-styled group, but the intuition-styled group shows a likely significance because of the different means of dealing with information and knowledge processing. The analysis-styled group disagrees with the significant link of the GDM with CTTF, whereas the intuition-styled group presents the significant effects of GDM, GFM and GRM on CTTF. Originality/value The unique features of knowledge creation differentiate it from other tasks. With respect to whether the knowledge creation task presented by goal is defined or not, and how ICT better suits the creation task features to benefit the creation outcomes are yet to be discussed. The individual cognitive style is confirmed to alternate the effect of ICT and GDM on CTTF in the proposed model. The research findings are particularly obvious because a transition gap, less covered by the literature, might exist with regard to the perception connection of knowledge creation service providers, agencies, consultants and context creators.


2015 ◽  
Vol 24 (39) ◽  
pp. 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fernando Mendioroz-Cotelo ◽  
Álvaro Rendón-Gallón ◽  
Juan Carlos Corrales-Muñoz ◽  
Julián Andrés Rojas-Meléndez

<span>Telecommunication service providers such as Mobile Network Operators are currently under the vortex <span>arising from paradigm shifts imposed by the omnipresence of the Internet. The adoption of Service Oriented <span>Architecture and the shift to Next Generation Networks constitute some of the efforts of these organizations <span>at the conflence toward these new business models. This article introduces a review of the concepts behind <span>these proposals within Telco organizations, identifis gaps and discusses about the challenges that research <span>and development groups are facing in the Latin American context; obstacles to overcome for converging and <span>creating a synergic environment of common interests oriented to the innovation around the subject.</span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /></span>


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