An Overview and Summary

Author(s):  
Bill Karakostas ◽  
Yannis Zorgios

This book has introduced a model-driven approach for identifying, designing, deploying, and managing business services in software. The concept of e-service is an extension of conventional business services, made possible thanks to the rapid explosion in popularity of the Internet and the World Wide Web (Rust & Kannan, 2003). The first generation of e-commerce was based largely on retailing commodity goods, such as books and CDs, and used mass media advertising to contact consumers. The premise of first generation e-commerce was that operational efficiencies (i.e., minimizing the need and therefore the expense to keep physical stores) would reduce the costs of selling. Unfortunately, selling commodities has low profit margins due to competition. An alternative is required, that allows companies to built sustainable competitive advantage, based on their capability to deliver more individualized and hence more profitable e-services.

Author(s):  
Paul B. Cragg ◽  
Theekshana Suraweera

Computer based information systems have grown in importance to small firms and are now being used increasingly to help them compete. For example, many small firms have turned to the World Wide Web to support their endeavours. Although the technology that is being used is relatively well understood, its effective management is not so well understood. A good understanding is important as the management of IT is an attribute that has the potential to deliver a sustainable competitive advantage to a firm (Mata, Fuerst, & Barney, 1995). This chapter shows that there is no one accepted view of the term “IT management” for either large or small firms. However, the term “management” is often considered to include the four functions of planning, organising, leading, and controlling. This framework can be applied to small firms and specifically to their IT management practices.


2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-103
Author(s):  
Carole Cusack ◽  
David Pecotic

The occult and the internet intersect in four ways: as a static medium for information; as a space where contested information or ideological conflict may occur; as a facilitator of communication; and as a medium for esoteric practice. The last type of activity is rare, but it is intriguing, in that technology can shape and inform beliefs and practices in unanticipated ways. Online engagement with the ‘Work’, the movement produced by the Greek Armenian spiritual teacher and esotericist G. I. Gurdjieff (c. 1866-1949) and his immediate followers, is an under-researched instance of online esoteric practice. This article addresses this scholarly desideratum, bringing the theoretical approaches of online religion and digital ethnography to bear on the Gurdjieff Internet Guide (GIG) website, founded by Reijo Oksanen (b. 1942) and later maintained by Kristina Turner, who created an accompanying Facebook page. The GIG manifests a shift away from the sectarian secrecy of the ‘Foundation’ groups, founded by Jeanne de Salzmann (1889-1990) after Gurdjieff’s death to formalise and protect the content of the Work, and the limited web presence that the Foundation permits. The GIG moves towards an ecumenical ‘open source’ approach to the dissemination of Gurdjieff’s teachings rooted in independent groups founded by other first generation followers of Gurdjieff who remained outside of the Foundation. It is argued that the deregulation of the religious and spiritual marketplace of the contemporary West, coupled with the dominant role played by the Internet in disseminating information, has radically transformed the Gurdjieff tradition, collapsing hierarchies and esoteric strategies, democratizing access for seekers, and creating new ritual and teaching modes.


1999 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-104
Author(s):  
Susan Brady

Over the past decade academic and research libraries throughout the world have taken advantage of the enormous developments in communication technology to improve services to their users. Through the Internet and the World Wide Web researchers now have convenient electronic access to library catalogs, indexes, subject bibliographies, descriptions of manuscript and archival collections, and other resources. This brief overview illustrates how libraries are facilitating performing arts research in new ways.


2009 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 81 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Carlo Bertot

<span>Public libraries were early adopters of Internet-based technologies and have provided public access to the Internet and computers since the early 1990s. The landscape of public-access Internet and computing was substantially different in the 1990s as the World Wide Web was only in its initial development. At that time, public libraries essentially experimented with publicaccess Internet and computer services, largely absorbing this service into existing service and resource provision without substantial consideration of the management, facilities, staffing, and other implications of public-access technology (PAT) services and resources. This article explores the implications for public libraries of the provision of PAT and seeks to look further to review issues and practices associated with PAT provision resources. While much research focuses on the amount of public access that </span><span>public libraries provide, little offers a view of the effect of public access on libraries. This article provides insights into some of the costs, issues, and challenges associated with public access and concludes with recommendations that require continued exploration.</span>


2002 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moses Boudourides ◽  
Gerasimos Antypas

In this paper we are presenting a simple simulation of the Internet World-Wide Web, where one observes the appearance of web pages belonging to different web sites, covering a number of different thematic topics and possessing links to other web pages. The goal of our simulation is to reproduce the form of the observed World-Wide Web and of its growth, using a small number of simple assumptions. In our simulation, existing web pages may generate new ones as follows: First, each web page is equipped with a topic concerning its contents. Second, links between web pages are established according to common topics. Next, new web pages may be randomly generated and subsequently they might be equipped with a topic and be assigned to web sites. By repeated iterations of these rules, our simulation appears to exhibit the observed structure of the World-Wide Web and, in particular, a power law type of growth. In order to visualise the network of web pages, we have followed N. Gilbert's (1997) methodology of scientometric simulation, assuming that web pages can be represented by points in the plane. Furthermore, the simulated graph is found to possess the property of small worlds, as it is the case with a large number of other complex networks.


1998 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 12-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. S. Slack

This paper argues that the World Wide Web provides a unique opportunity for sociological explication. It contends that sociological uses of the Internet for publication purposes have not as yet taken full advantage of the technology available, producing web facsimiles of printed pages. It highlights the potential for undertaking inquiries which employ the multimedia aspects of WWW technology and extends some of the insights from ethnomethodology and conversation analysis regarding retrievable data.


2018 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. 04006
Author(s):  
Louis Lim Vui Han ◽  
Vijayesvaran Arumugam ◽  
Lawrence Arokiasamy

This study will be a bit different than others in the sense that it pierces directly into the human hearts. The world current economy is full of mysterious and uncertainty. There are plenty of different perspectives, but who can guarantee that they are right? The root of the problems of all issues generally come from the human heart or action. If we able to deal with human issues, it sorts out almost all the problems. The purpose of this study is to determine the contributing factors towards the sustainable competitive advantage (SCA) of small and medium-sized accounting firms (SMPs) in Malaysia. It aims to have a long-term impact on the prospects for the practitioners and the accounting professions. It becomes an attention to the world when numerous accounting scandals being published, and they jeopardized the accounting professions’ reputations. There are a few undisclosed cases especially it dealt with compliance, corporate tax, GST, money laundering and other issues, not only in Malaysia but in other countries as well. As such, the study focuses on creating better humans. Key findings from the literature highlighted the deficiencies in the core competencies of the firms. They are related to human capital and most of the researchers pinpointed the importance of knowledge, skills, capabilities in which it links to competencies in the corporate environment. The resource-based view of the firm is a common theory used by researchers as a mean of explaining competitive advantage and superior performance amongst the firms. And most of them stress the necessity to meet customer needs and expectation to create a sustainable competitive advantage.


2021 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 1853-1858
Author(s):  
Lesko Natalia Vladimirovna Et al.

The features of the Internet as a leading institution of information law in the XXI century have been studied in the article. It has been determined that a characteristic feature of the Internet is that geographical boundaries do not play any role here. The Internet space is an electronic information space of communications for which there are no borders. That is why it is difficult to ensure effective legal regulation of the Internet, as there is no systematic legislation regulating the relevant types of relations on the World Wide Web, besides, there are objective features of the Internet functioning. It has been stated that an important point of solving the problems of using the Internet is the adoption of the Laws: "On the protection of freedom on the Internet", "On e-democracy", "On distance learning on the Internet". It has been noted that in modern society, the Internet has made it possible to influence greatly the life of every person. As a result of globalization processes, the World Wide Web performs the function of forming a person's world-view. Unfortunately, standards that do not conform to the ideas of humanism are often promoted on the Internet. New forms of communication on the Internet have led to the separation of the culture function of this means of mass communication, as a result of which a specific information culture is being formed. Thus, an important factor in building a global information society is the formation of the individual new information culture on the Internet network.


BMJ ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 311 (7019) ◽  
pp. 1552-1556 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Pallen

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