Growth of AI faces stiff challenges in Latin America

Significance As AI systems become increasingly central to the global economy, this poor performance risks further damaging the economic prospects of a region that has long struggled to achieve sustainable growth rates. Impacts Falling behind in the digital and AI ‘revolutions’ will likely hamper LAC’s development efforts for decades. LAC governments will increasingly draft AI strategies -- of varying levels of quality and effectiveness. The inscrutability of many AI-generated decisions may slow technology adoption, especially in the public sector. Some businesses and public agencies will jump at this opportunity, but the extent of informal labour in particular will limit its scope.

Data Visualization in Local Accounting Firms: Is Slow Technology Adoption Rational?

We survey highly-experienced professionals from local accounting firms regarding the adoption of and perceived benefits from data visualization in audit practice. Although the majority of respondents have minimal experience with data visualization, local-firm partners have positive perceptions regarding the value that visualization can have on audit quality and client-related benefits. These perceptions are affected by visualization technology usage: perceived audit quality benefits increase with usage but client benefit perceptions decrease with usage. These results are consistent with competing models of technology adoption. In total, whether one labels a firm a ‘laggard’ or a ‘rational non-adopter’ of visualization technology appears to be driven by whether the firm seeks to adopt technology in order to improve audit quality or to add value for their clients.

A PRELIMINARY REVIEW ON TRANSACTION COST COMPONENTS WITHIN THE BIM ADOPTED PROCUREMENTS

The Malaysian construction industry although it plays a crucial function in stimulating the economy, is lagging behind other economic sectors. This is due to its unique characteristics such as fragmentation and slow technology adoption. These very characteristics make the industry susceptible to construction disputes. Construction disputes were found to incur high transaction costs (TCs), affect the parties involved, and subsequently increase overall project costs. Because TCs measure the costs that incur from transaction activities, they can be used to better understand the benefits within each transaction. Additionally, TCs are the best mechanism for analysing the ‘unseen’ costs of construction procurement. Previous studies on the traditional, design-and-build, and public private partnership (PPP) procurement methods have demonstrated TCs affect the organizational dynamics of construction and selection of procurement. The emerging Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology is said to be beneficial in addressing the problems associated with disputes and overall project costs. Consequently, many projects embark on BIM adoption in procurement. Hence, this preliminary study seeks to identify the TCs of BIM-adopted procurement by employing a structured literature review to determine the components and activities within the BIM procurement within the BIM implementation. The initial framework for the components of TCs of BIM procurement was drafted by referring to RIBA Plan of Work with BIM overlay. The components are categorised into pre-contract and post-contract components. These components can serve as the basis for developing a framework that can serve as a guideline for construction players involved in managing the TCs of BIM procurement.