Assurance for Change Management With COBIT 2019 and CMMC Maturity Frameworks

As technology plays an ever-increasing role in carrying out structured tasks in today's society, people are given more time to focus their attention on higher levels of service and personal development. However, technology is in a constant state of change and assurance services are needed to help ensure that technology changes are accomplished properly. The Institute of Internal Auditors has identified 10 steps that can be used to effectively implement changes in technology. This process and its accompanying internal controls can be assessed through an internal audit function that considers issues of both functionality and security. In addition, continuous improvement of the change management process for technology can be evaluated though capability/maturity models to see if organizations are achieving higher levels of accomplishment over time. Such models include the COBIT 2019-supported capability maturity model integration (CMMI) model and the cybersecurity maturity model certification (CMMC) framework used by defense industrial base organizations.

Assessing Participation and Position of Vietnam in Global Value Chains

Vietnam’s policy of openness to trade and investment has made it integrated very quickly with the global production networks, also known as global value chains, which has brought many visible fortunes to it in terms of socio-economic achievements. To have a deeper insight into the prospects and constraints of its integration into global value chains, and also to assess its degree of integration, this paper has employed Koopman et al. (2010) approach to measure the participation index, and position index. The analysis shows that the participation of Vietnam in global value chains has increased significantly in the last two decades based on strengthening FDI-led exports of Vietnam. It also shows that most of the exporting industries are located in the middle-stream in the value curve and are net buyers of intermediate products for exports, which infers the presence of predominant I2E practices in Vietnam. The paper also identifies and assesses the risk I2E practices are prone to. Scenario analysis suggests that Vietnam shall focus on upskilling of its labour force and developing indigenous industrial base. In the meantime, domestic firms shall be encouraged to collaborate with foreign firms and densify into global value chains.

Prelude to America’s Downfall: The Stagflation of the 1970s

Since the end of the Bretton Woods system and the stagflation of the 1970s, the transatlantic core, under the leadership of the United States of America, has been trying to expand its model of free market capitalism embracing every part of the globe, while addressing its domestic overaccumulation crisis. This article follows a historical methodological perspective and draws from the concept of Uneven and Combined Development (UCD), which helps us consider the structural reasons behind the long and protracted decline of the American economic power. In this respect, according to the UCD concept, there is no global power that can enjoy the privilege for being at the top of the global capitalist system forever in a world which develops unevenly and in a combined way. Power shifts across the world and new powers come to challenge the current hegemonic power and its alliance systems. The novelty of the article is that it locates this decline in the 1970s and considers it as being consubstantial with the state economic policy of neo-liberalism and financialisation (supply-side economics). However the financialised capitalism of the transatlantic assemblage lack industrial base producing, reproducing and recycling real commodity values. Further, the article shows that this attempt to remain at the top of the global capitalist system forever has not been successful, not least because the regime which the recovery of the core had rested upon, that of neo-liberal financialisation represents a major vulnerability of the transatlantic assemblage eroding the primacy of the United States of America in it.

Política europea de seguridad y defensa y sus efectos en la industria de defensa

Defence has traditionally not been a priority within Community policies. However, in recent years it had become aware of the need to promote it, with special attention to the development of the industrial base. The most significant milestone for change comes in December 2013 when the Council discusses the future of security and defence. Until then, the Council took precedence over national optics and the Commission acted in the face of industry as a regulator to promote the implementation of single market rules in the defence market. The Libyan crisis of 2011 highlighted the need for strategic autonomy. This abstract concept implies the capability to act. It highlights the need for greater autonomy in industrial matters to support military capabilities without external dependencies. The crisis also occurs at a time of widespread decline in defence budgets that makes it difficult for nations to tackle large programs individually. The need for a competitive industrial base to support autonomous operations is of value. It is in this context that the EU Global Strategy in 2016 is enacted, resulting in the implementation in defence of the CFSP initiative aimed at streamlining demand, and the European Defence Plan, which includes the creation of a specific fund, the EDF, aimed at incentivising industrial cooperation to act on the supply side. The initiatives launched over the past four years to promote security and defence cooperation, with particular attention to the industrial component, are underway and will be difficult to go back even if European countries are in the dilemma between protectionism and cooperation. The COVID 19 crisis has diverted that attention. The future presents a scenario of greater strategic instability, which is faced with different national perspectives, greater competition between great powers in which Europe does not present a single voice, and a European society that seems far from its defence. Under these conditions, Europe faces the need to decide between having military and industrial capabilities appropriate to its political objectives or maintaining formulas for cooperation with third parties following current models. If the strategic objective is to have sufficient autonomy to address actions independently, the development of an industrial defence policy will be a basic element and will be conditioned by member states' visions, budgetary effort, and level of coordination of operational demand and industrial supply.

Cybersecurity Information Sharing

This chapter considers the impact on cyber security of a shift from voluntary coordination to mandatory incident reporting. It traces the efforts to organize collaboration for cyber security incident response back to its voluntary beginnings with the establishment of CERT/CC by DARPA in response to the Morris Worm in 1988, via the establishment of ISACs then ISAOs under successive US presidents, to the CiSP in the UK following the London 2012 Olympics. Recognizing efforts to standardize and automate information sharing, the discussion touches on how information sharing has come to form the basis of national cyber strategies, forming a foundational element of internationally recognized maturity models for those strategies, and it goes on to consider the increasing move towards more mandatory incident reporting, especially in Critical National Infrastructure sectors across the globe, from the Defence Industrial Base in the United States to the NISD throughout the European Union. It considers the impact of mandating reporting on levels of collaboration overall, concluding that regulators must be careful not to create sector-specific silos or undermine existing levels of voluntary sharing through their enforcement of such mandatory schemes.

Spatial Diffusion of E-Commerce in China’s Counties: Based on the Perspective of Regional Inequality

In recent decades, China has been on a new journey toward a digital economy of which e-commerce accounts for a substantial proportion. Despite some controversy, the innovation diffusion hypothesis and efficiency hypothesis of online shopping have been tested in research on the urban–rural dual structure. However, research on the spatial diffusion model of online business is sparse. Based on the online business and online shopping index released by the Ali Research Institute, this article compares the spatial diffusion model of online shopping and online business in the core–periphery structure based on the inequality between the eastern and western regions of China. Our study suggests that online business trends are in line only with the innovation diffusion hypothesis, with marginal counties having lower levels of online business. Online shopping, on the other hand, is in line with the innovation diffusion hypothesis and partially with the efficiency hypothesis, with a higher index of online shopping in the core regions and some peripheral counties. The discrepancy in the spatial diffusion mode is due to the differences in aims and supporting elements between online business and online shopping. Apart from infrastructure, the diffusion of online business is largely constrained by the regional industrial base, while online shopping is influenced by income and savings levels, which is the main reason for the differences in the spatial diffusion of online business and online shopping. We argue that the diffusion of online business has not led to the ability to balance regional inequalities at the national scale, while online shopping has the potential to bridge core and peripheral disparities better than online businesses, not in terms of the ability to bridge economic disparities, but in terms of the potential to reduce spatial consumption inequalities and welfare gains.

New Technology and the US MIC

This article considers what could be a fundamental development in the defence industrial base (DIB) in the US, namely the increased involvement of commercial technology companies in military-related business. After an outline of the dynamics and longer-term post-Cold War developments in the international arms industry, it investigates recent changes in the Pentagon's attitudes and policies to gain access to new technologies from the commercial and academic sectors. It also considers the military, technological and political drivers that have led to these technologies being sought from commercial companies for military use. It then considers the recent engagement of the major commercial technology companies in activities for the military sector and what is driving them to take up military contracts. Finally, it considers what these developments imply for the dynamics of the arms industry and the relationships within the DIB and the military industrial complex (MIC).

Universities as Centres of Attraction for Proactive Youth in the Ural Region

Universities, comprising a strategic resource in building up a region’s human capital, play a key role in ensuring sustainable economic growth. For proactive young people seeking opportunities to obtain higher education, develop professional trajectories and enhance their social connections, Russian regions lacking such facilities are seen as less attractive. This situation provokes an outflow of the most promising university candidates from the peripheral regions to the various centres of attraction. Thus, a relevant research question concerns the relationship between the quality of regional universities and the retention of young specialists, who may be expected to support the future development of industrial enterprises in the region. The assessment of interregional mobility carried out by the present study is based on an analysis of responses from applicant and graduate surveys supplemented with statistical data (Monitoring the Effectiveness of Russian Universities, Rosstat). In or der to process this information, classification and data comparison methods were used. The results of the study showed that the Sverdlovsk and Tyumen oblasts are the primary centres of attraction for university entrance candidates from other Russian regions to the Urals, with the inflow of such applicants to these oblasts comprising on average 4.1 % and 13.2 %, respectively, of 18 year olds enrolling in these institutions during the 2015– 2019 period. At the same time, the largest universities provide relevant training for the region’s industrial base (up to 87 % of employed Ural Federal University graduates work in the Ural Region). The research results can be used to enhance the activities of universities and employment services in terms of developing tools for attracting and retaining proactive youth, improving the mechanisms for studying postgraduate migration in order to increase the region’s attractiveness.

Aspects of The Evolution of Enterprises in Member States of The European Union

A solid industrial base positively influences society as a whole. Business development is favored by the degree to which companies are active in the market. The article presents an analysis of employment in companies active in the Member States of the European Union. The evolution of the establishment of active enterprises according to their branches of activity is also addressed. Openness to local markets can lead to successful business activities. Cooperation between different companies can also be facilitated by new technologies. From the point of view of mobility, employment in foreign affiliates of domestic enterprises is another subdomain analyzed in the article. The way in which companies approach the field of expenditure can influence their activity. Thus, by increasing technological capacities and promoting innovation, technological development measures lead to the development of enterprises. The article presents an analysis of the way in which expenditure is shared at the level of enterprises in the Member States of the European Union.