ENTERprise Information Systems, Part I: International Conference, CENTERIS 2010, Viana do Castelo, Portugal, October 20-22, 2010, Proceedings, Part I ... in Computer and Information Science, 109) 3642164013, 9783642164019

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Communications in Computer and Information Science

109

João Eduardo Quintela Varajão Maria Manuela Cruz-Cunha Goran D. Putnik António Trigo (Eds.)

ENTERprise Information Systems International Conference, CENTERIS 2010 Viana do Castelo, Portugal, October 20-22, 2010 Proceedings, Part I

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Volume Editors João Eduardo Quintela Varajão University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Dept. de Engenharias Quinta de Prados, Apartado 1013, 5001-801 Vila Real, Portugal E-mail: [email protected] Maria Manuela Cruz-Cunha Polytechnic Institute of Cávado and Ave, Campus do IPCA Lugar do Aldão, 4750-810 Vila Frescaínha - Barcelos, Portugal E-mail: [email protected] Goran D. Putnik University of Minho Campus de Azurém, 4800-058 Guimaraes, Portugal E-mail: [email protected] António Trigo Polytechnic Institute of Coimbra Quinta Agricola - Bencanta, 3040-316, Coimbra, Portugal E-mail: [email protected]

Library of Congress Control Number: 2010936186 CR Subject Classification (1998): H.3, H.4, H.2, J.1, D.2, K.4.4 ISSN ISBN-10 ISBN-13

1865-0929 3-642-16401-3 Springer Berlin Heidelberg New York 978-3-642-16401-9 Springer Berlin Heidelberg New York

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, re-use of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other way, and storage in data banks. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the German Copyright Law of September 9, 1965, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer. Violations are liable to prosecution under the German Copyright Law. springer.com © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010 Printed in Germany Typesetting: Camera-ready by author, data conversion by Scientific Publishing Services, Chennai, India Printed on acid-free paper SPIN: 06/3180 543210

Proceedings of the CENTERIS 2010 –– Conference on ENTERprise Information Systems

Preface CENTERIS––Conference on ENTERprise Information Systems––is an international conference addressing the largely multidisciplinary field embraced by enterprise information systems (EIS) from its social, organizational and technological perspectives. Focused on aligning technology, organizations and people, the CENTERIS 2010 edition, was held in Viana do Castelo, Portugal. This was the place where, from October 20 to 22, 2010, under the leitmotiv of Enterprise Information Systems, academics, scientists, information technologies/information systems professionals, managers and solution providers from all over the world had the opportunity to share experiences, bring new ideas, debate issues, and introduce the latest developments from the social, organizational and technological perspectives of this domain. More than 150 manuscripts were submitted to CENTERIS 2010, coming from the five continents. There were 92 selected papers for presentation and inclusion in the conference proceedings, representing 221 authors from academia, research institutions and industry. This book of proceedings is organized in eleven sections, distributed by two volumes. Volume I includes the following five sections: Knowledge Society; EIS Design, Implementation and Impact; EIS Adoption; EIS Applications and IT/IS Management. The second volume comprises six sections: EIS Architectures; Business Aspects; Collaboration, Networked and Virtual Organizations; Social Aspects; IS in Education and Technical Aspects and Emerging Technologies. These proceedings are intended for use by academics and practitioners that want to be aware of what is currently in the EIS agenda, from research to everyday business practice. We believe that the high quality and interest of the contributions received in CENTERIS 2010 makes this an important publication in the EIS field. It is expected that this conference proceedings will effectively transmit to the readers the enriching and exciting communication, exchange of views and debate promoted within this truly global group of recognized individuals, as experienced by all who attended CENTERIS 2010. Finally, on behalf of the organization, we would like to express our gratitude to all the authors for their visions and excellent contributions to the conference, as well as to the scientific committee members, who acceded to share their insights, prompt collaboration and constructive comments in the review process. We are also grateful

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Preface

to all who acceded to contribute to CENTERIS, some of them with high-quality manuscripts that unfortunately, due to several constraints could not see their work accepted for presentation and publication. Please enjoy your reading!

October 2010

João Varajão Maria Manuela Cruz-Cunha Goran D. Putnik António Trigo

Organization

CENTERIS 2010 was organized by the University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro and the Polytechnic Institute of Cávado and Ave, Portugal.

General Chairs João Eduardo Quintela Varajão Maria Manuela Cruz Cunha

University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Portugal Polytechnic Institute of Cávado and Ave, Portugal

Program Chair Goran D. Putnik

University of Minho, Portugal

Organization Chair António Trigo

Polytechnic Institute of Coimbra, Portugal

Organization Committee António Cunha António Tavares António Trigo Joăo Varajão Maria Manuela Cruz-Cunha Miguel Alves Ricardo Colomo Palacios Ricardo Martinho Rui Gomes

University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Portugal Polytechnic Institute of Cavado and Ave, Portugal Polytechnic Institute of Coimbra, Portugal University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Portugal Polytechnic Institute of Cávado and Ave, Portugal Polytechnic Institute of Viana do Castelo, Portugal University Carlos III of Madrid, Spain Polytechnic Institute of Leiria, Portugal Polytechnic Institute of Viana do Castelo, Portugal

VIII

Organization

Scientific Committee Adamantios Koumpis Adrián Hernández López Ahmed Elragal Albert Boonstra Alberto Arroyo Alexandra Klen Américo Azevedo Ana Maria Fermoso Garcia Anca Draghici Andrew Targowski Angappa Gunasekaran Arthur Tatnall António Gonçalves Antonio José Balloni Bart H.M. Gerritsen Bernard Grabot Carmen de Pablos Carola Jones Carrillo Verdún Diane Poulin Dimitrios Koufopoulos Dirk Schaefer Dirk Werth Dulce Domingos Duminda Wijesekera Efrem Mallach Emad Abu-Shanab Ercan Oztemel Esra Tekez Ethel Mokotoff Fahd Alizai Fernando Moreira George Leal Jamil George Ioannou Gerald Goh Guan Gan Gilliean Lee Giorgio Bruno Hans-Henrik Hvolby Heiko Duin Henrique O’Neill Hugo Paredes

ALTEC S.A, Greece Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain German University in Cairo, Egypt University of Groningen, The Netherlands Orienta, Spain Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brazil University of Porto, Portugal Pontifical University of Salamanca, Spain Polytechnic University of Timisoara, Romania Western Michigan University, USA University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, USA Victoria University, Australia Polytechnic Institute of Setúbal, Portugal CTI, Brazil TNO, The Netherlands École Nationale d'Ingénieurs de Tarbes (ENIT), France Rey Juan Carlos University, Spain Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Argentina Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain Université Laval, Canada Brunel University, UK Georgia Institute of Technology Savannah, USA Institut für Wirtschaftsinformatik, Germany University of Lisbon, Portugal George Mason University, USA University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, USA Yarmouk University, Jordan Marmara University, Turkey Sakarya University, Turkey Alcalá University, Spain Victoria University Australia, Australia Universidade Portucalense, Portugal FUMEC/BH, Brazil Athens Faculty of Economics and Business, Greece Multimedia University, Malaysia Lander University, USA Politecnico di Torino, Italy Aalborg University, Denmark BIBA Bremer Institut für Produktion und Logistik GmbH, Germany ISCTE, Portugal University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Portugal

Organization

Igor Perko Jaideep Motwani Jens Eschenbächer Jonatan Jelen Jorge Marx Gómez José L. Leiva Olivenca José Sousa Kam Hou Vat Klara Antlova Laura Ripamonti Liane Haak Ljubo Vlacic Lorna Uden Luis Amaral Mahesh S. Raisinghani Malihe Tabatabaie Manuel Pérez Cota Marco Khrmann Mário Caldeira Masakazu Ohashi Matjaz Mulej Mayumi Hori Meira Levy Michal Žemlicka Miguel Mira da Silva Narciso Cerpa Nicolaos Protogeros Nuno Rodrigues Nuno Lopes Özalp Vayvay Ozden Ustun Paulo Garrido Patrícia Gonçalves Paulo Tomé Pedro Anunciaçăo Pedro Castro Philip Powell Pedro Campos Pedro Quelhas de Brito Pedro Soto Acosta Ricardo Colomo Palacios

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University of Maribor, Slovenia Grand Valley State University, USA BIBA Bremer Institut für Produktion und Logistik, Germany Parsons The New School for Design, USA Oldenburg University, Germany University of Malaga, Spain University of Porto, Portugal University of Macau, Macau Technical University of Liberec, Czech Republic Universitè degli Studi di Milano, Italy Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Germany Griffith University, Australia Staffordshire University, UK University of Minho, Portugal Texas Woman's University, USA University of York, UK Universidad de Vigo, Spain Brunel University, UK Technical University of Lisboa, Portugal Chuo University, Japan University of Maribor, Slovenia Hakuoh University, Japan Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel Charles University, Czech Republic Instituto Superior Técnico, Portugal University of Talca, Chile University of Macedonia, Greece Polytechnic Institute of Cávado and Ave, Portugal Polytechnic Institute of Cávado and Ave, Portugal Marmara University, Turkey Dumlupinar University, Turkey University of Minho, Portugal Polytechnic Institute of Cávado and Ave, Portugal Polytechnic Institute of Viseu, Portugal Polytechnic Institute of Setúbal, Portugal Instituto Politécnico de Viana do Castelo, Portugal University of Bath, UK University of Porto, Portugal University of Porto, Portugal Universidad de Murcia, Spain University Carlos III of Madrid, Spain

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Organization

Ricardo Gonçalves Ricardo Simões Rinaldo Michelini Roberto Razzoli Rossi Setchi Rui Gomes Rui Rijo Salvador Lima Samo Bobek Sanja Vranes Snezana Pantelic Subhasish Dasgupta Tomasz Ochinowski Thomas Schlegel Tor Guimaraes Valentina Janev Vitor Basto Fernandes Vladimír Modrák Vojko Potocan Vitor Carvalho Vitor Filipe Wai Ming Cheung

University Nova de Lisboa, Portugal Polytechnic Institute of Cávado and Ave, Portugal University of Genova, Italy University of Genova, Italy Cardiff University, UK Polytechnic Institute of Viana do Castelo, Portugal Polytechnic Institute of Leiria, Portugal Polytechnic Institute of Viana do Castelo, Portugal University of Maribor, Slovenia The Mihajlo Pupin Institute, Serbia The Mihajlo Pupin Institute, Serbia George Washington University, USA University of Warsaw, Poland University of Stuttgart, Germany Tennessee Tech University, USA The Mihajlo Pupin Institute, Serbia Polytechnic Institute of Leiria, Portugal Technical University of Kosice, Slovakia University of Maribor, Slovenia Polytechnic Institute of Cávado and Ave, Portugal University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro, Portugal Northumbria University, UK

Sponsoring Institutions UTAD - University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro IPCA - Polytechnic Institute of Cávado and Ave GESITI

Table of Contents – Part I

Knowledge Society The Mankind Growth Consistency: Outlook on Extant Political Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rinaldo C. Michelini and Roberto P. Razzoli

1

The Mankind Growth Consistency: Outlook on Yet-to-Be Political Sceneries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rinaldo C. Michelini and Roberto P. Razzoli

11

From Data to Wisdom in the Global and Civilizational Context the Cognitive Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Andrew Targowski

21

A New Role for Design and Design Managers in the ‘Organizational Design’ of High Social Value-Creative Business Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jonatan Jelen, Kaleem Kamboj, and Marko Kolakovi´c

31

Governance, Sociotechnical Systems and Knowledge Society: Challenges and Reflections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Antonio Jos´e Balloni and Paulo Henrique de Souza Bermejo

42

EIS Design, Implementation and Impact Management Model for Mobile Applications Assisted by Events . . . . . . . . Rui Rijo and S´ılvio Bernardes Evaluating Goal-Oriented Analysis in the Domain of Enterprise Information Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Malihe Tabatabaie, Fiona A.C. Polack, and Richard F. Paige Empowering the Web User with a Browserver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Miguel Raposo and Jos´e Delgado

52

62 71

Definition of the Model of Automatic Calculation of Flight Time Cost of the Portuguese Air Force Weapon Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Carlos P´ ascoa, Jo˜ ao Soares, and Jos´e Tribolet

81

EX-ANTE and EX-POST Model Development and Monitoring of the Portuguese Air Force Effort Regime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Carlos P´ ascoa, Ant´ onio Alves, and Jos´e Tribolet

91

MAPA: Monitoring and Annotation of Processes and Activities . . . . . . . . Nuno Castela, Paulo Dias, Marielba Zacarias, and Jos´e Tribolet

101

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Table of Contents – Part I

Towards a Systematic Service-oriented Requirements Engineering Process (S-SoRE) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ´ Fernando Flores, Manuel Mora, Francisco Alvarez, Laura Garza, and H´ector Dur´ an

111

EIS Adoption Analysing a Segmentation Pricing Strategy for ERP Systems under Diffusion Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Andr´ee-Anne Lemieux, Robert Pellerin, Adn`ene Hajji, Pierre-Majorique L´eger, and Gilbert Babin Customer Relationship Management Systems – Reasons Why Many Municipalities Do Not Have Them . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jorge Duque, Jo˜ ao Varaj˜ ao, Vitor Filipe, and Maria Manuela Cruz-Cunha The Adoption of Open Source Systems in Public Administrations . . . . . . Carmen de Pablos and David L´ opez The Determinants of ERP, SCM and CRM Systems in European Firms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Elsa Fontainha Critical Success Factors for the Implementation of ICT Projects . . . . . . . Klara Antlova The Small Business Web Presence: Use of Third Party Portals in Australia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stephen Burgess Electronic Procurement: Dealing with Supplier Adoption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Paulo Andrade, Br´ aulio Alturas, and Tiago Oliveira

121

131

138

147

151

158

168

Evaluating the Success of ERP Systems’ Implementation: A Study about Portugal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ricardo Almeida and Miguel Teixeira

180

Enterprise Management and ERP Development: Case Study of Zoomlion Using the Dynamic Enterprise Reference Grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Yi Wan and Ben Clegg

191

EIS Applications Adoption of RFID Technology in Warehouse Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . Vladimir Modrak, Peter Knuth, and Peter Sebej

199

Table of Contents – Part I

Tools for Email Based Recommendation in Enterprise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ˇ ˇ Michal Laclav´ık, Martin Seleng, Stefan Dlugolinsky, Emil Gatial, and Ladislav Hluch´ y Simulation in Information Systems: Potential of the Vulnerability Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pedro S´ a Silva, Jorge Pinto, Jo˜ ao Varaj˜ ao, Ant´ onio Trigo, Maria Manuela Cruz-Cunha, Isabel Bentes, Humberto Varum, and Jitendra Agarwal

XIII

209

219

Disclosing the Tourism Dynamic Packages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lu´ıs Ferreira, Goran D. Putnik, and Maria Manuela Cruz-Cunha

230

Multicriteria Decision Making on Natural Resources Planning . . . . . . . . . Ethel Mokotoff, Estefan´ıa Garc´ıa, and Joaqu´ın P´erez

241

What to Do with Rejected Loads in the Agri-Food Chain . . . . . . . . . . . . . M a Victoria de-la-Fuente and Lorenzo Ros

251

On-Line Synchronization of Shop Floor Documentation Using RFID Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pavol Semanco and Vladimir Modrak A Simulation Study of Workload Accounting Methods for WLC. . . . . . . . N.O. Fernandes and S. Carmo-Silva Improving Inventory Management Performance Using a Process-Oriented Measurement Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Guido van Heck, Jan van den Berg, Mohsen Davarynejad, Ron van Duin, and Bj¨ orn Roskott An Approach to Decentralizing Search, Using Stigmergic Hyperlinks . . . . Artur Marques and Jos´e Figueiredo A Framework for Innovation: Application in a Business Development Software Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Olga Fedotova, Paulo Cruz, Helena Alvelos, and Leonor Teixeira Identifying Clones in Functional Programs for Refactoring . . . . . . . . . . . . Nuno Rodrigues and Jo˜ ao L. Vila¸ca Management System Integration Supported on Virtual Reality Technology: The Building Lighting Devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Alc´ınia Z. Sampaio, Miguel M. Ferreira, and Daniel P. Ros´ ario Automation of the Approval and Control Process of Documents . . . . . . . . Rui Pedro Marques, Carlos Santos, and Henrique Santos

261 270

279

289

299 309

318 328

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Table of Contents – Part I

IT/IS Management A Framework for the Analysis of the Potential Performance of Chief Information Officers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jo˜ ao Varaj˜ ao, Lu´ıs Amaral, Ricardo Colomo Palacios, and Jorge Gouveia

338

IT Governance in Family Owned Enterprises: A Spanish Approach . . . . . Jos´e Domingo Carrillo Verd´ un and Alberto J. Arroyo J´ avega

346

A Postmodern Resolution to Leadership Conceptual Ambiguities . . . . . . . Bill R. Brocato, Jonatan Jelen, Thomas Schmidt, and Stuart Gold

356

The Complementary Roles of Information Systems and Knowledge Management Systems: A Framework Based on Popper’s Three Worlds Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sana Guetat and Salem Ben Dhaou Dakhli

374

Recovering Traceability Links between Business Activities and Software Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lerina Aversano, Fiammetta Marulli, and Maria Tortorella

385

Using Emergent Information Flow Patterns of Organization Ecosystem for Information System Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jos´e Sousa

395

Using Electronic Services Quality Metrics as an Enabler of Business-IT Strategy Alignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mahmoud Amer and Jorge Marx G´ omez

403

Interface Life Cycle Management for Legacy System Landscape . . . . . . . . Lama Balloul and Jorge Marx G´ omez

413

Influence of Incentive Policy in Strategic Alignment of Information Technology and Business . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fernando Belfo

421

IT Governance State of Art at Enterprises in the Colombian Pharmaceutical Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Olga Luc´ıa Giraldo, Andrea Herrera, and Juan Erasmo G´ omez

431

A Change Execution System for Enterprise Services with Compensation Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ´ F´elix Cuadrado, Rodrigo Garc´ıa-Carmona, Alvaro Navas, and Juan C. Due˜ nas Author Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

441

451

Table of Contents – Part II

EIS Architectures Enterprise Tomography Driven Integration Lifecycle Management of Federated ERP in Green Clouds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jan Aalmink, Jorge Marx G´ omez, and Andr´e Schubert SOA Worlds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ˇ Jaroslav Kr´ al and Michal Zemliˇ cka An Architecture for a Web Service Based Product Configuration Information System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ant´ onio Arrais de Castro, Leonilde Varela, and S. Carmo-Silva Applying Enterprise Architecture to the Design of the Integrated Forest Products Supply Chain Management System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A.F. Marques, J.G. Borges, P. Sousa, M. Fonseca, R. Garcia, and G. Batista Enterprise Architecture to IT Governance: An Approach Based on Component Business Model and Performance Levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Luis Fernando Ramos Molinaro, Karoll Haussler Carneiro Ramos, Tomas Roberto da Cotta Orlandi, and Humberto Abdalla Jr.

1 10

20

32

41

Framework Based on Benefits Management and Enterprise Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ant´ onio Rodrigues and Henrique O’Neill

52

Value Model for Enterprise and Process Architectures Alignment Verification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Carlos P´ ascoa, Nuno Belo, and Jos´e Tribolet

63

Business Intelligence and Contribution of Entrepreneurial Information Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . S´ılvia Fernandes

73

Business Aspects Stakeholder-Driven Enterprise Process Model for Complex Services Adaptation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jay Ramanathan, Rajiv Ramnath, Joe Bolinger, and Praveen Nagarajan The Use of Experts Panels in ERP Cost Estimation Research . . . . . . . . . . Ahmed Elragal and Moutaz Haddara

83

97

XVI

Table of Contents – Part II

Military Medical Department Research Centers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Joseph Wood, Mary M. Klote, Hui-Lien Tung, Max E. Stachura, Elena V. Astapova, Donald A. Sofge, James Grayson, and W.F. Lawless

109

Data Warehouse Based Knowledge Management Controlling . . . . . . . . . . . Jorge Marx G´ omez and Peter Cissek

119

Business Intelligence Standardization and Corporate Strategy: A Paradox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jos´e Ant´ onio Porf´ırio, Marc Jacquinet, and Tiago Carrilho A Business Model for the Portuguese Air Force . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Carlos P´ ascoa, Pedro Leal, and Jos´e Tribolet The Role of Business Knowledge in Improving Information Quality Provided by Business Intelligence Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pedro Sim˜ oes Coelho, Aleˇs Popoviˇc, and Jurij Jakliˇc Business Process Model Dynamic Updating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nuno Castela, Marielba Zacarias, and Jos´e Tribolet

128

138

148

158

Collaboration, Networked and Virtual Organizations Professional Risk Assessment Using Virtual Enterprise Network Support for Knowledge Bases Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . George Dragoi, Anca Draghici, Sebastian Marius Rosu, Alexandru Radovici, and Costel Emil Cotet An Approach to Cooperation-Oriented Business Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . Giorgio Bruno The Inter-organizational Business Case in ES Implementations: Exploring the Impact of Coordination Structures and Their Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Silja Eckartz, Christiaan Katsma, and Maya Daneva A Model for Cooperation Networks: Promoting Information Share . . . . . . V´ıtor Jos´e Domingues Mendon¸ca, Jo˜ ao Eduardo Quintela Alves Sousa Varaj˜ ao, and Paula Cristina Ribeiro Coutinho Oliveira Distributed Informal Information Systems for Innovation: An Empirical Study of the Role of Social Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Vasco Vasconcelos and Pedro Campos

168

178

188

198

208

Table of Contents – Part II

Vector Consensus: Decision Making for Collaborative Innovation Communities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Josep Monguet, Marco Ferruzca, Alfredo Guti´errez, Yadira Alatriste, Claudia Mart´ınez, Carlos Cordoba, Joaqu´ın Fern´ andez, Teresa Sanguino, and Josep Aguil` a Mashup Enabled Dynamic Capabilities in the Fuzzy Front-End of Innovation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lu´ıs C.S. Barradas and J.J. Pinto Ferreira

XVII

218

228

Social Aspects An Analysis of How Enterprise Information Systems Challenge Vested Interests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Albert Boonstra Qualification and Certification of Research-Entrepreneur Skills Using the ECQA Platform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anca Draghici, George Draghici, Monica Izvercianu, Andreas Riel, Serge Tichkiewitch, and Richard Messnarz

238

249

Using People CMM for Dealing with Resistance on Implementing ITIL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Raul Nunes da Silva, Miguel Mira da Silva, and Nelson Gama

259

Enterprise Resource Planning System in a Multinational Enterprise: Users’ Attitude Post Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tiago Almeida, Leonor Teixeira, and Carlos Ferreira

264

SME Managers’ Most Important Entrepreneurship and Business Competences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Caroline Dominguez, Jo˜ ao Varaj˜ ao, Leonel Morgado, Irene Oliveira, and Fernanda Sousa

274

Adaptive Access Control Modes Enforcement in Organizations . . . . . . . . . S´ergio Guerreiro, Andr´e Vasconcelos, and Jos´e Tribolet

283

Organizational Knowledge: Ethics and the Importance of Trust . . . . . . . . Gon¸calo Jorge Morais da Costa, Mary Prior, and Simon Rogerson

295

Trust in ‘E’: Users’ Trust in Information Resources in the Web Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Alison J. Pickard, Pat Gannon-Leary, and Lynne Coventry Security Culture in Small and Medium-Size Enterprise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Luis Enrique S´ anchez, Antonio Santos-Olmo, Eduardo Fern´ andez-Medina, and Mario Piattini

305

315

XVIII

Table of Contents – Part II

IS in Education Towards an Enterprise System Learning Environment to Improve the Competence-Building for Enterprise Systems in Higher Education . . . . . . Dirk Peters, Liane Haak, and Tobias Schl¨ omer

325

Investigation into the Use of Microsoft SharePoint in UK Higher Education Institutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Julie McLeod, Sue Childs, James Lappin, and Gavin Siggers

335

Adoption of Authenticated Peer-to-Peer Academic Networks – A Case Study of a Failure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ant´ onio Tavares and Lu´ıs Amaral

345

ESEIG Mobile: An m-Learning Approach in a Superior School . . . . . . . . . Ricardo Queir´ os and M´ ario Pinto

355

E-Learning as a Shared Service in Shared Services Centers . . . . . . . . . . . . Agostinho Sousa Pinto

364

Mediation and Virtual Learning Environments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Irene Tom´e

374

Technical Aspects and Emerging Technologies On the Substantiative Experiment Study of Proxing Assurance between OpenID and SAML: Technical Perspective for Private Information Box Project of Japanese e-Government . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Masakazu Ohashi, Nat Sakimura, Tatsuki Sakushima, and Mayumi Hori

381

Automatic Extraction of ICT Competences from Unstructured Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Valentina Janev, Vuk Mijovi´c, and Sanja Vraneˇs

391

CBR Technique in Veterinary Pathological Anatomy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Paulo Tom´e and Helena Vala Moderated Regression: Effects of IT Infrastructure Integration and Supply Chain Process Integration on the Relationships between RFID Adoption Attributes and System Deployment Outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rebecca Angeles

401

406

Supporting the Operation of Semi-structured Work Systems . . . . . . . . . . . Jose Faria, Joao Silva, and Helder Marques

416

Ontology: An Analysis of the Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Joselice Ferreira Lima, Cl´eia M. Gomes Amaral, and Lu´ıs Fernando R. Molinaro

426

Table of Contents – Part II

Developing Dynamic Reports Using Rich Internet Applications . . . . . . . . Lu´ıs Matias

XIX

436

Smart Web Services: Systems’ Integration Using Policy Driven Automatic Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jo˜ ao C.C. Leit˜ ao and Miguel L. Pardal

446

Web4Desktop, a Framework for Improving the Usability of Web Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bogdan Carstoiu and Dorin Carstoiu

455

Author Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

465

The Mankind Growth Consistency: Outlook on Extant Political Settings Rinaldo C. Michelini and Roberto P. Razzoli PMAR lab. - DIMEC, University of Genova Via Opera Pia 15/a – 16145, Genova, Italy

Abstract. The human progress is described as sustainable growth corollary. This has stable technology-driven solution, at the global village extension, thus, it requires appropriateness and shared acceptation. The survey, on such guess, looks at the robot age potential, as supplementary aid in the balanced world deployment that adds to the socio-economic and politico-legal frames. The analysis moves from the globalisation issues, at the known (economic) global and (ecologic) no-global pictures, to show that the alternatives worked out due to the extant political settings cannot enjoy stability, even if imposed by the law of the force. Keywords: Knowledge Society; Social Change Models; Globalisation & World Stability; Technology & Environment; Economy vs. Ecology Prospects.

1 Introduction The globalisation represents the major feature of the current socio-political world changes. Its effects cannot be neglected, in view of the economy-pulled up-grading (global viewpoints), and of the ecology-pushed regulations (no-global viewpoints). The resulting society moves towards high complexity cross-linked political frames, with impending constraints on the life-quality issues. The global viewpoints have recently shown critical falls-off, and the simple financial instruments do not contribute creditable aids to the international stability. The no-global viewpoints provide suited ecology warning, but the precaution principle conservatism does not allow viable innovation. The selected topics come from transversal sources, and develop across economy and ecology conditions [1], [2], [3], [4], to motivate the eventually sketched technology-steered solving hypothesis. The study organises in three sections, providing succinct comments on, otherwise, well assessed questions: • the global outlook, economy-driven approaches, possibly aiming at the hypermarket setting; • the no-global outlook, ecology-driven approaches, mainly looking at caution headway paths; • the post-global outlook, approaches acknowledging the global/no-global inconsistencies, and in coherence suggesting the altruism path, with linked hyperdemocracy vision. J.E. Quintela Varajão et al. (Eds.): CENTERIS 2010, Part I, CCIS 109, pp. 1–10, 2010. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010

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Different scenarios can be outlined, to look after the wealth growth along the mankind history, having in mind to devise possible future issues. The standard reference is to the different types of capitalisms, from the ancient city-states, through the modern nation-states, up to emerging back at the sub-continental size, and to the worldwide dimension for today inhabitants, forced to share the global village common resources. Those types need, further, to encompass the basic assets, say, the technical, financial, human and natural contributions, so that (man invented) artificial and (earth) innate resources are made to concur at spendable riches rising. The extant socio-political settings permit looking at alternatives arrangements [5]: • the global consent, allowing the multinational companies ruling by scaleeconomy effectiveness, and the removal of local inefficiencies and position profits; • the no-global dissent, aiming at safeguarding the sectional achievements, along autarchy ruling, and the protection of the uncontaminated original (wild) surroundings. The globalisation effects are investigated into actual socio-political frames, openly derived from well assessed contexts. The international stability is thought to be crucially dependent on the growth sustainability, but this is not sufficient condition. The recent financial calamities, further transferred into worldwide economic crisis, express the inherent instability of the western lifestyle, grounded on the industry paradigms.

2 The Economic Growth Pledge The industrial revolution promoted the dramatic increasing of wealth, through the manufacture efficiency, transforming raw materials into useful goods. The affluent society requires widespread availability of cheap products, to be ceaselessly replaced with up-dated specimens, before disposal to landfills. The transformation efficiency, highly supported by artificial energy, is winning trait, with the drawback of withdrawing from the earth stock resources, eventually rejected as waste and pollution, at rates exceeding the natural recovery and remediation capabilities. The challenge to aim at unbroken growth comes out from the aptitude of discovering new natural resources and industrial processes, to diversify the manufacture flows once an option dries up, and to implement appropriate anti-pollution and reclaiming procedures, for the environment safeguard. The conformist global approach is accustomed to trust in technologies, with the reliance in these recent times (never betrayed) that the industrial revolution paradigms could always find out substitute stocks and processes, to feed durable development. The economic growth promise, thereafter, might focusing on finance organisation and trade regulation details, to foster the productivity return, or to enhance the supply chain successfulness. The Washington Consensus, [6], is foremost example of policy reform objectives, to be followed in view of encouraging expansion and lowering local inefficiencies. The recipe proved to be misleading in several contexts, because every political surroundings happens to require more tangled measures.

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Nonetheless, the global policies have many upholders, [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], with several suggestions on how to modify and improve the expected issues. Looking a bit at the agreed political surroundings, mainly three sceneries seem to grant noteworthy backing: • the expansion of the economical global market, basically ruled by the USA hegemonic power; • the setting of multi-polar markets, with competing nation-states, supplying complementary goods; • the deployment of the hyper-market, where the trans-national corporations are dominant players. The first aims at furthering the global market, along with the known schemes of the long global assent, ruled for a century by the British Empire after defeating Napoleon up to the first World War, and of the short global assent, ruled by the USA after the URSS collapse during the XX century last quarter. The restoration of global hegemony at the XXI century beginning, however, meets the new world order, with mostly foreign manufacture power (in China, India, etc.), outside the chief military power (USA). Even the joint USA and EU ruling runs into considerable weakness face to the fierce competition of the lower wages countries. The military hegemony alone is poor and disputed help, showing temporary successes, undermined by perilous retaliations and terrorism acts. The second scenery comes up again with known schemes when the power is shared by a number of nation-states. During the XX century, the European countries played into the multi-polar market, leading to instable settings, eventually broken by deadly wars to try widening the national influence areas. The lesson, actually acknowledged, induced the EU build-up, once the world supremacy was lost, to reach the subcontinent size position. Today, the multi-polar market deals with the powerful Asia entries (China, India, etc., adding to Japan), engaging outsized competitors, compared to each single European country. The past experience is mostly deceiving. Once nuisances and troubles take place, the principal parts’ egoism will foster the particular advantage to the detriment of the others, soon to turn competition into war. The last scenery is prettily new option, sometimes devised as desirable solution. It shall deserve the short comments, hereafter sketched. 2.1 Multinational Companies and Hyper-market The multinational companies are known reality, aiming at optimising effectiveness and return on investment by removing the local inadequacy and wastefulness, instead organising their activity on productive break-through and out-sourcing. The arrangement leads to oppose the interests of the trans-national organisations, face to the administrative burdens of the local bureaucracies and to the fiscal charges paid for the national governments’ functions. In the known global assent settings, the dominant country up-now played the central role, as sustain and in league with the domestic firms. The hyper-market idea aims at getting rid of every governmental authority, so that the companies are free to optimise their organisation, distributing activities and facilities for the highest return. In such political set-up, the worldwide market supremacy outruns the national laws; when local restrictions oppose, the trans-national business, simply, marginalises

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the area, with dramatic penalty of the related citizens. In parliamentary democracy, this means that the elector’s interest would turn in favour of the multinational companies assuring progress and better life quality. If successful, the hyper-market allows enhanced elasticity, to drive away the war risk, carrying over trade agreements and clearing steadiness, directly ruled on trans-national objectives, according to multinational profit, devoid of nation-state biasing. At least, this is an interpretation, not without appeal and supporters. An increasing number of civil servants (bureaucrats, but, as well, teachers, doctors, etc., and, in prospect, judges, policemen, etc.) will become employees, with officework organised according to clerical responsiveness, within hierarchic reliance on the pertinent trans-national service companies (replacing the administrative functions into every requested citizens’ provision). The hyper-market, freed from local ties and charges, turns to self-watching practices, ideally, with two objectives: • the transparency of the delivered functions to achieve company-wide quality, yielding customers’ satisfaction and third people’s safeguard; • the market-share widening to improve the corporation business by the acquisition of new clients and enlarged operation surroundings. The companies’ self-watching capabilities are needed to shelter the on-going business, keeping under surveillance the internal employees, the actual/latent clients, the suppliers, the competitors, and the regulation agencies. The governmental overseeing outlay lowers, most of the duties being accomplished by third-party bodies, moving, however, the control out of each nation jurisdiction. The privacy defence, today fought against local administrations’ intrusion, shall face trans-national polycentrism, maybe, less oppressive, but outside any democratic polls’ management. The switch from nation-state, to worldwide hyper-market capitalism is bet, in which the wealth creation effectiveness is made to play the main role. Right now, the hyper-market solution enjoys the global vision preferences, but its inherent instability (even with pace-wise evolution of the economical global market) suggests that it might be passing scenario, with temporary benefits. The transfer to public companies of many clerical and administrative tasks, in the recent past typical domain of political interests, is not without serious outcomes in the employment market and in the taxation systems. The welfare aims at fees in proportion to the income, to help the less fortunate. The hyper-market approach will charge, based on the actually delivered service, loosing the poverty shelter aids. Any different rule clashes against efficiency, when somebody receives aid without paying for it (because offered by the community). Moreover, the eco-protection becomes rather entangled engagement, requiring charges to be deferred for the future generations safeguard. 2.2 Global Contest and Self-administration Even if, as said, the hyper-market approach suggests, at most, partial solutions, some liked hints are useful starting points to devise better suited propositions. The most striking innovation traits are given by two facts: • the global contest polycentrism, made effective by networked facilities and functions, supporting the relational market;

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• the self-administration prospects, having desirable and disparaging features, going along with the knowledge entrepreneurship. The first is noteworthy global feature. As the prehistoric agriculture revolution, which knew set of alternative starts in different earth regions, the recent industry revolution might follow new paths. The conventional western world start is based on the scientific work organisation reductionism (the Taylor/Ford paradigm). The today setting moves across the intelligent work organisation, based on the robotic complexity (the Taguchi/Toyota paradigm). The scope economy, driven by the buyers’ satisfaction replaces the mass production exploiting the scale opportunity. The breaks are enabled by the information technologies, which made easy dealing with diversified product properties, and complying with changeful market requests. The scope economy obliges tackling with the product lifecycle, figuring out its onduty features as, inside, the shop faces only costs, while the profits come from the satisfied customers. The trend has already performed three steps: • the product-process integration, to exploit intelligent automation by simultaneous engineering; • the product-process-environment integration, to design (and servicing) with ecosafeguard mind; • the product-process-environment-enterprise integration, to adapt the company facilities/functions according to the supply chain changeful requirements. The last brings to the extended enterprise, firms’ alliance aiming at co-designing, co-producing, co-selling, co-supporting the delivery, to the buyer’s satisfaction and eco-protection. Such industrial organisation is technology-driven set-up, based on netconcerns, where the nodes are the facilities each time grouped, to fulfil the tasks needed by the product-service supplying. The arrangement is factual answer to the manufacturers’ extended responsibility, which states that, to lawfully put in the market new items, the producers need to comply the enacted eco-targets, covering onduty running and end-of-life recovery. The net-infrastructure, from technology-driven option, turns to be enabler of the legal eco-regulations. The information technologies and, specifically, the net-infrastructures, promote the changeover, not only, of the manufacture business, and, moreover, open the fully new industrial branches of the knowledge entrepreneurship. These profit of the internet and world-wide-web options, and expand to embrace cultural, educational, entertainment, etc. domains, adding to the many administrative, financial, governmental, etc. jobs, deeply up-graded by computer engineering methods. The hyper-market approach is critically dependent on the communication and information aids. The emerging net-concern includes nodes, with specialised tasks (according to the established classes: suppliers, transformers, dealers, clients, certifiers, controllers, etc.) and operation functions, detailed by legal guidelines and indenture agreements. The «new economy» starts a new phase, characterised by the struggle between the technical and the human capital. The technology-driven entrepreneurship reaches its success riding the innovation so to offer products always in advance of the competitors. The financial capital ceases to be critical, because considerably lower investments are required, and venture companies are profitably pushed, when appealing business projects are devised. The human capital role is much more entangled. The

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innovation is linked to the discoveries, accomplished by the human operators. The separation of the firm’s knowledge and know-how, from the inventor’s intellectual doings is further complicated by the information pervasiveness, allowing infinite duplication. The question is only mentioned; the existing settling is still requesting up-grading.

3 The Ecologic Stability Pledge The global approach, already, knows the antagonism of several no-global movements, claiming that the suggested recipes are deceptive, even fatal for the man destiny. These analyses oppose the ecology to the economy, showing that the build-up of spendable riches for just today, squandering the earth resources and contaminating the environment, is irresponsible and cheating behaviour. The no-global position is diversified, with multifarious proposals focusing alternative issues, as an all, describing the damages of the economic global sceneries, according to the «better safe than sorrow» philosophy. The no-global views are valued by several upholders, [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], with general discussions on how protecting the environment, from the strict conservatism (not to alter the present equilibriums), to cautious headway changes, to explore limited corrections. Looking at the political constructs, basically two sceneries appear: • the severe ecology protection by no-global conservative autarchy, devoid of outer interferences; • the setting of multi-polar markets, aiming at balanced archipelagos, with selfconsistent hubs. The fragmentation into self-sufficient local community hypothesis follows the recurrent arcadia appeal, as if the natural order around the human beings is enjoying primigenial reliability, providing sufficient resources to everyone. The opinions are full of suggestions. The eco-protection by using experimented biologic practices is emphasised as universal answer, with satisfactory profit for the wise people. The conservative scruples look after regulations that forbid (because of the precaution principle), and do not permit innovation in view of the ecology invariability. The ecology, in fact, is thought to imply the existence of spontaneous relationships between the living organisms and the neighbouring material frames, not to be artificially modified by external perturbations originated by the man. The extent of hunted original relationships’ frame is divisive object; the controversial character affects, as well, its static either dynamic setting. The agricultural revolution has already transformed the wildlife, making doubtful the separation of artificial from spontaneous, should this bring to safety. The acceptation of dynamic settings, relaxing the strict spontaneity, does not help, being hard fixing thresholds, dividing safety from risks. The archipelago’s view is somehow sophisticated frame, to adapt the multi-polar markets, with competing nation-states, according to the (hybrid) glocal description. The autarchy, here, refers to clusters of local entities, which build-up prettily wide political bodies, at the continental range. The idea is to divide the globe into balanced clusters, with the twofold issue of respecting the identity of each local community,

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and of creating mediation authorities assuring balanced equilibriums. This way, the potential aggressiveness of the autarchy is dispersed in the belonging membership, and the worldwide exchanges might arrange suited trade agreements, with simplified provisions, due to the split between the archipelago’s intensive inner-flow and sketchy outer-flow. The outlined no-global sceneries remain a bit fuzzy, because based on negative logics, to sketch alternatives opposing to the global settings. In short, they might classify at the hyper-market rank of abstraction, while the ecology constraints are real threats, not to be forgot. They shall deserve a few comments, hereafter summarised. 3.1 Cautious Headway and Cutbacks The theoretic limits of development are well stated in physics by the entropy law, showing the unidirectional trend, towards undifferentiated chaos. The industry concept ignores the reversibility wants, as if waste and pollution are parts of transform processes, closed by imaginary regeneration and reclamation end. The industrialism ideas are pervaded by such nonsense; the ceaseless growth is claptrap, and the eco-consistency is necessary alternative. The cautious headway means looking at careful actions, enhancing the preservation of the existing resources. The rationale arrives from the precaution principle «when in doubt, do nothing», leading to the 8R-warnings: • • • • • • • •

to redefine, turning the value scale towards cautious headway scopes to revalue, fixing priority benchmarks heading to thrifty behaviours to reassign, modifying the riches allocation to charge the consumers to relocate, pricing local products/services, say, fostering autarchy to reinstate, poising the production facilities at their maximal leanness to reduce, lowering the bio-sphere footprint under mandatory targets to reuse, expanding items’ lifecycle through second-hand efficiency to recover, widening recycle/remediation to the supply chain totality.

The first 4R aim at deeply modifying the people minds by parsimony, specifying the eco-consistency imperatives: conservative scale value, thriftiness priority, consumption taxes, and trade centring. The subsequent 4R suggest paradigm shifts in the manufacture flow: internalities focusing, externalities betterments, conscious market policy, and backwards track support, aiming at business by servicing mind. Overall, the 8R-warnings are suited practices, noteworthy to face over-pollution. The overconsumption benefits by reverse logistics. The over-population remains open demand. The 4R-warnings with parsimony mind move off the affluence facets of the industry patterns, to come back to more conscious thriftiness practices. All four are especially relevant. The first two, for their educational spirit, help orienting towards eco-conscious behaviours. The third modifies the tax systems: from wealth redistribution towards less fortunate, to consumers’ charging in proportion to resources spoil. The fourth looks at resetting autonomous local economic frames, around provision self-sufficiency. The 4R-warnings with service mind look at creating more specific conservative businesses. The first two are general scopes to lower waste and pollution suppressing useless duty and redundancies and enacting compulsory targets in the bio-sphere

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impact. The other two openly address the reverse logistics. The four together foreshadow new ways in the material supply chains, in which the items’ provision embeds the linked information flow, allowing the resources’ bookkeeping. The tangibles’ productivity is enhanced by extensive servicing (further to conventional manufacturing). This leads to exchange functions (rather than plain products), with opportunities such as the following: • the product-service trade, when the provision includes the lifecycle support for the conformance-to-use certification and the end-of-life take-back; • the supplying of product-generated-functions, so that the buyer’s satisfaction becomes intangible allowance, without product transfer; • the facility/function timely allotment into productive set-ups, to meet the supply chain demands, without assets’ immobilising; • the extended resort to relational allocations, for diversified value added services, to broaden the intangible delivery stipulations. The trading of functions in addition or instead of products is not new; the idea, here, is to enable an eco-driven service economy. With the knowledge entrepreneurship, the staples are in intangible provisions. The function market will not entirely replace the manufacture market, as the industrial products did not totally substitute the land produces. The changeover towards service delivering is purposely devised as ecology demand, and the trade regulations transform it into economy option. The eco-value implies to measure the bio-sphere footprint for raw materials depletion and dispersed pollution, and to promote thriftiness by: • concerned measures: regulatory agreements expanding the cutbacks of nonconservative actions, by frequent conformance checks, end-of-life call-backs, etc.; • peremptory acts: mandatory collection of fees in proportion to the caused impacts, assessed with (legal metrology) standards, engaging the producers’ responsibility. The 4R-warnings with service mind, this way, become enabler of entrepreneurship restructuring. Together the all 8R-warnings are general precepts, helpful to spare resources. They are side means in view of keeping enhanced eco-consistency. Concerned and peremptory rules are preliminary step to outline the environmental policy of the «global village». 3.2 Ecology and Global Village Rules The no-global sceneries come out as the opposition of the global pictures; in fact, they follow such attitude, with, nonetheless, some exclusions. The contrasts, chiefly, involve: • the focus on local realities, giving the way to self-sufficient districts in which the transport, etc. squandering lowers, enhancing autarchy; • the parsimony planning, leading to thrifty societies, opposed to the affluent ones, avoiding most disposables and use-and-dump habits. The exclusions are a bit entangled, achieving factually similar outcomes, through, nonetheless, dissimilar philosophies:

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• the servicing planning, assuring centrality to the relational provisions of the knowledge society and intangible value added as qualifying option; • the worldwide monolithic matching (through glocal concepts), allowing to exploit the net concern to interconnect the local dimension duties. The contrasts are clearly acknowledged. The connections need further comments. The business, administrative, education, entertainment, etc. relational allotments are information technology issue obviously shared by the up-and-coming communities. The networked infrastructures, besides, allow modifying the interpersonal correlations, enabling the peripheries in touch with the authorities, and permitting throughout information spreading. The global/no-global connections, thus, are basically technology-steered issues, another way shaped depending on the socio-political preferences: e.g., an option for enhancing the self-watching operations; a way for supporting sorts of direct democracy; and so on. Back to the evident oppositions, the no-global position is seriously conditioned by the negative policy (local vs. global priorities) and greatly hindered by the precaution principle (the innovation is potentially harmful, the conservatism is safe without doubt). The no-global mode correctly pays heed on ecology, but prospects limited outcomes or palliatives (e.g., the parsimony plans), avoiding to devise decisive changes. Even worse. The biology laws are interpreted, distinguishing the safe «natural» (spontaneous) evolutionism, from the noxious «artificial» (genetic engineering) practices. The agricultural revolution is also regarded as doubtful, being origin of the domesticated animal and vegetables, and promoter of the (natural) species drastic mutation or even extinction. The negative policy, of course, cannot expand up, moving the man back to the primigenial safe opportunistic economy. The cautious headway accepts exceptions when well tested products/habits, not easily ranked as noxious, in the ordinary language. Among the artificial practices, besides, some are thought «natural» (spontaneous), so that the (so named) biological agriculture becomes ecology-consistent issue. The innovation changeover, from potentially harmful, to safe process, is becoming serious challenge, not easily solved, as every thing (electrical appliances, chemical transforms, etc.) can be risky and potentially dangerous. At this moment, the border between safe and risky is fuzzy question, well exemplified by the nuclear power plants: demonised (and forbidden, after democratic referendum) in some countries, or accepted elsewhere as beneficial, allowing no CO2 emission. The no-global sceneries, at this point, might suggest some concluding remarks: • the cautious headway does not permit riches to build-up, due to the fear of (risky) innovation; • the local autarchy is conflict presage, when the castling leads to real or presumed privileges; • the consumption/pollution ruling is «global village» shared duty, requiring global approaches. These conclusions bring to say that the ecology concern is real treat, impending on the industrial way to obtain spendable riches. This is precisely pointed-out by the noglobal movements, and not properly understood by the global views.

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4 Conclusions The solutions, if any, do not appear, whether remaining in the global/no-global approaches. The assertion leads to look at post-global frames. The subsequent analysis tries to suggest better suited sceneries, grounded on the knowledge society developments, made possible by net structures and computer aided backing. The picture might look futurology, [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], but needs to be warily weighed against the actual lack of stability of the present international frameworks, worsened by the overall economic crisis.

References 1. Antonelli, C.: The economics of localised technological change and industrial dynamics. Kluwer Acad. Pub., Boston (1995) 2. Forey, D.: The economics of knowledge. MIT Press, Cambridge (2004) 3. Michelini, R.C.: Knowledge entrepreneurship and sustainable growth. Nova Sci. Pub., New York (2008) 4. Michelini, R.C., Coiffet, P.: Essai sur les capitaux assurant la fortune de l’humanité. Académie de France des Technologies, Librairie (2009), http://www.academie-technologies.fr 5. Michelini, R.C.: Knowledge society engineering: the sustainable growth pledge. Nova Sci. Pub., New York (2010) 6. Williamson, J.: What Washington means by policy reform: the progress of policy reform in Latin America. In: Inst. Intl. Economics Rpt., Washington (1989) 7. Bhagwati, N.: In defence of globalisation. Oxford Univ. Press, New York (2004) 8. Koo, R.: The holy grail of macroeconomics. Wiley & Sons, London (2009) 9. Prestowitz, C.: Three billion new capitalists: the great shift of wealth and power to the east. Basic Book, New York (2005) 10. Stiglitz, J.E.: Making globalisation work. W.W. Norton, New York (2007) 11. Wolf, M.: Why globalisation works. Yale Univ. Press, New York (2004) 12. Krepon, M.: Better safe than sorrow: the ironies of living with the bomb. Stanford Uni. Press, Stanford (2009) 13. O’Neill, J.: Ecology, policy and politics. Cambridge Univ. Press, London (2001) 14. Steingart, G.: The war for wealth: why globalisation is bleeding the west of its prosperity. McGraw-Hill, New York (2008) 15. Kleinert, J.: The role of multinational enterprises in globalisation. Springer, Berlin (2004) 16. Zakaria, F.: The post-American world. W. W. Norton & Co., New York (2008) 17. Sirkin, H., Hemerling, J., Bhattacharya, A.: Globality: competing with everyone from everywhere for everything. Business Plus, London (2008) 18. Michelini, R.C.: Robot age knowledge changeover. Nova Sci. Pub., New York (2009) 19. Attali, J.: La crise: et après? Fayard, Paris (2008) 20. Mokyr, J.: The historical origin of the knowledge economy. Princeton Uni. Press, Princeton (2003) 21. Wiggin, A., Bonner, W.: The new empire of debt. John Wiley, Hoboken (2009) 22. Worster, D. (ed.): The end of the earth: perspectives on modern environment history. Cambridge Uni. Press, New York (1988) 23. Rajan, R.: Fault lines: how hidden fractures still threaten the world economy. Princeton Uni. Press, Princeton (2010)

The Mankind Growth Consistency: Outlook on Yet-to-Be Political Sceneries Rinaldo C. Michelini and Roberto P. Razzoli PMAR lab. - DIMEC, University of Genova Via Opera Pia 15/a – 16145, Genova, Italy

Abstract. The human progress is described as sustainable growth corollary. The latter has only technology-driven solution, at the global village extension, thus, requiring appropriateness and shared acceptation. The survey, on such guess, looks at the robot age potential, as supplementary aid in the balanced world deployment that adds to the socio-economic and politico-legal frames. The stability based on the law of the force was past option, even allowing steady truces; the globalisation, in our analysis, makes the choice unfit, having doubtful economic and social sustainability and not achieving ecologic sustainability on the required long term horizons. The extant guesses based on the global or the no-global views are recognised lacking stability. Here, we outline the traits of the post-global robot age, consistent with the sustainable growth, and, there through, with the international stability grounded on the force of the law. Keywords: Knowledge Society; Social Change Models; Globalisation & World Stability; Technology & Environment; Economy vs. Ecology Prospects.

1 Introduction The critical character of the sustainable growth threat is impending on the mankind future, since the industrialism pledge to provide spendable riches turns into swindling, with the raw resources from the earth moved into contamination and waste. The overpollution and over-consumption are progressively destroying the natural capital, unless effective restoring and reclamation measures are promptly made compulsory. The role of technology is believed essential to make possible devising sustainable growth, the basic way to generate spendable riches, and taking the ecology parameters under control. The all is referred as giving rise to the «robot age», a technologydriven issue, already, properly recognised. The technological appropriateness, nevertheless, is necessary, but not sufficient to support stable international surroundings. The correct political frames shall, concurrently, be achieved, grounded on uniform global village settlements, in which every one collaborates, aiming at consistent ecosafe mandatory bylaws. The paper moves from questioning looks on the future, imagining the conflicting issues, each based on mutually exclusive socio-political choices, [1]: J.E. Quintela Varajão et al. (Eds.): CENTERIS 2010, Part I, CCIS 109, pp. 11–20, 2010. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010

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• the global consent, allowing the multinational companies ruling by scaleeconomy effectiveness, and the removal of local inefficiencies and position profits; • the no-global dissent, aiming at safeguarding the sectional achievements, along autarchy ruling, and the protection of the uncontaminated original (wild) surroundings. On these facts, the study intends to prospect the somehow imaginative picture of the world to come, where the modelling of the knowledge society features and annexed robotic aids are weighed against the economy/ecology balanced drivers. This picture leads to: • the post-global approach, accepting the global village constraints, and devising solidarity rules, so that the generations to come could inherit an artificially upgraded surroundings. The mentioned three choices disagree on groundbreaking aspects. The first leads to vanishing national authorities, with the power transferred to cross-border corporations, with possible build-up of biased fortunes of individuals and related personally ruled businesses. The second aims, on the contrary, at preserving the existing peculiarities, retrenching into thrifty neighbourhoods, risking, if successful, the aggressive envy of the surrounding peoples. The last is, perhaps, utopia, looking after the worldwide natural capital sharing, through the resource transparent allocation and bookkeeping, grounded on supply chains synergies and robot innovation. However, the «robot age» technicalities are challenging bet, but only enabling opportunity, to make possible devising the necessary global village social and political arrangements. Much more entangled the latter ones. These are only considered on the backdrop in the present study, because exceeding the domains of technical developments. The other way, the technology innovation is by itself dramatic change. Whether, helpfully, successful, it will bring to new revolutions, should the mankind wellbeing face otherwise insuperable obstacles. The study leads to devise the cognitive revolution: the robots are instrumental enablers, whether the surrounding sociopolitical context provides consistent backing.

2 The Knowledge Course Bet The sketches up now given show that, both, the global and the no-global approaches are unfit to assure spendable riches by useful and steady modes. The socio-political stability of the cross-border hyper-market is dubious, even taking for granted the multinational firms’ self-govern viability. The past autarchy experiences prove endemic warfare situations, with battles, opposing poor to wealthy districts for wellness protection and resources hoarding. Leaving out the extreme sceneries, also the multipole pictures, based on strong nation-states’ leadership, either on soft archipelagos’ guidance, do not promise trustworthy issues. The first repeats at the worldwide range, with players at the sub-continent size level, the situation of the in-between the two world wars of the XX century European countries. The second is blurry concept, as the aggregation of the local districts, into self-sufficient economic clusters, without military hegemonic claims is, perhaps, only utopia.

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Actually, several analyses already pointed out that the global/no-global quarrel is out-of-date, and the post-global solutions need to be addressed, [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7]. Besides, basically two scenarios are prospective: • the passive post-global recognition, looking after inter-state agreements, in which the ecology and economy targets start outlining more transparent and balanced regulations; • the active post-global ruling, devising «global village» restrictions, through which the sustainable growth becomes acknowledged goal, under mandatory worldwide bylaws. In fact, the post-global period has conventional starting date with the Twin Tower terrorism act that ends the short global assent ruled by the USA. Its passive recognition does not mean looking after solutions. The active approach requires the combination of three prerequisites: • the acknowledgement that the world stability imposes rational legality grounded on altruism; • the deployment of technology innovation, providing chances consistent with durable growth; • the establishment of socio-political frames providing dependable «global village» ruling. The engineering viewpoint limits at the second prerequisite: here, the investigation looks at the robot technologies, and outlines technically sounds hypotheses. The task is challenging, but as well of little help, without the other two prerequisites. What is more, the current mind inclines towards financial instruments, when global driven, either technical conservatism, when no-global driven, so that technology innovation is mostly outside the standard way of thinking, and the robot centrality cannot be easily understood, unless strong motivations are developed. The other two prerequisites, thereafter, become qualifying viewpoints, to be largely scattered as widely accepted wisdom, to upturn the presently assessed habits pervading the socio-economics and politico-legal institutions, and to motivate the different liking towards technological innovation. In fact, it is not enough to work out effective technical solutions; it is necessary to achieve their broad appropriateness, and to become obvious reference, [1], [8]. 2.1 Rational Legality and Fair Altruism The end of the short global assent ruled by the USA is dramatically fixed at Sept. 11, 2001. The beginning is linked with to the URSS collapse, but its inherent frailty was evident all along. The dollar was reference money, tied on the USA internal advantages, because, since Aug. 15, 1971, its fixed gold convertibility was suppressed. This way, private changes happened with factually public money. The earlier Bretton Woods agreements required public change up-dating, by respect to the international money (the dollar, with fixed gold conversion). The related economical relationships moved from cross-dependent (among political self-sufficient countries), towards centrally-steered, without political control. The weakness is clear if, instead of the Hobbes rule (the law of the force), the hegemony runs with the Kant rule (the force of the law).

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With the Kant rule, the interstate agreements are enacted by supranational authorities. With the Hobbes rule, the countries recover independence, and need to be forced by imperialistic orders. If the central steering power gets rid of cross-dependence, the ruling is performed, instead than by supranational authorities, by multinational companies (hyper-market). Then, the selfishness of the short term profit cannot last for long. The credit consumption is damaging the future generations (with no poll power) and given national contexts (with local political institutions). The today crisis already shows the basic inconsistency of the arrangement. The altruism alternative means considering long term benefits, covering the all mankind wealth. The spendable riches should not be stolen. Instead of using credit consumption, the altruism aims at building and storing wealth, to be left in heritage to the generations to come. The different mode to operate clashes against the (Hobbes) selfish pragmatism, on the contrary, it assumes acknowledging the usefulness of the (Kant) rational legality. As said, the global way does not look appropriate; still, the no-global opposition either does not offer improvements. At local autarchy range, the districts’ cross-dependence is thought to vanish; the self-sufficiency of tiny areas might not allow bursting out huge conflicts, and confined skirmishes could be ignored. The scenery will basically move towards the life-quality dramatic decreasing, maybe, answering to the consumption and to the pollution demands, but leaving the over-population threat unsolved. The archipelago hypothesis is evocative, but vague. The multi-polar market is imagined linking separate self-sufficient clusters, each one with ruling supranational authorities and reference money. The EU is example setting, having established a common currency and central Commission. Similar institutions might be created to rule far-east Asia, south America, south-west Asia, African peoples, or other assemblies. Each time, the clusters have strict cross-dependence, under the rational legality of central organisations (governments, agencies, etc.). The political stability is entrusted to the Kant rule within each cluster, and to the Hobbes one at the worldwide archipelago level. The composition steadiness depends on the relative self-sufficiency of the aggregated nations, up to final assemblies at comparatively homogeneous level of power. In such situation, also the ecology constraints might be the object of special international agreements, negotiated within each cluster and approved at the whole archipelago range. 2.2 Robot Technology Value Chains Assuming that the rational legality of the altruism permits planning long term economic issues, we have to consider the technical instruments, which, if implemented, would grant durable growth. The picture, here, explores the robot technologies potentials, [3]. The study moves from the opportunities offered by the computer engineering tools, and aims at prospecting ways out, grounded on the following innovative choices: • the «to de-materialise» track enhancement, to turn the market towards intangible value added; • the worldwide eco-regulation, by supply chains monitoring and tangible resources bookkeeping;

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• the «to re-materialise» track enabling, to generate new stocks and to reclaim the environment. The first track corresponds to the relational entrepreneurship, betting on the knowledge course of the future staples. To achieve effective outcomes, the total spendable riches ought to be obtained, showing that two goals occur, [8], [9], [10]: • the value chain expands by no or negligible tangibles consumption or that (man safe) stock refills are, in any case, granted; • the pollution is removed by suited remediation measures, restoring life-friendly conditions, with in-progress eco-impact monitoring. The knowledge society is well priced option. Most likely, after staples in land produces (of the agricultural age) and staples in manufactured goods (of the industrial age), the intangibles will have the central role in the years to come. Even so, the tangible items cannot be totally removed by the ICT deliveries (nor the hard works fully replaced the foodstuffs). The transformation, thus, of raw materials in useful products (then dropped in waste and contamination) cannot cease, with the tied entropy increasing. The «to de-materialise» track, hence, is relevant aid, not decisive solution. The ecology hearing against the industry paradigms is duly documented, making the ICT tools alone unfit to affect the material side of the sustainable growth. The robotics is useful technicality to enable the post-global eco-balanced society (thus, to support the altruism socio-political demands). On the technical side, the instrumental aids play two roles: • the supply chains monitoring and eco-impact appraisal, to show the waste and pollution figures; • the oversee all the material «to re-materialise» processes, to grant safe watching and control. The wealth generation mechanisms, in the sketched frame, are linked to four capital assets: • the technical capital, stock of built-up wealth in know-how and other purposeful knowledge; • the financial capital, stock of cumulated wealth in money and/or other payment means; • the human capital, stock of potential wealth present in labour forces or related work capabilities; • the natural capital, stock of stored wealth in tangible supply, chiefly piled-up as earth reserve. The picture assumes that the prosperity is man-driven achievement (anthropic principle), gained by the artificial processes and machines (technical capital), which transform and improve the latent usefulness of the surrounding (living and inanimate) world (natural capital). The earth is distinctive habitat, recognised by the life (with local ordering ability, timely cutting off the entropy decay), and the intelligence (making possible choices, abstraction and views’ sorting). The man-driven changes cover up the spontaneous evolution; the (agricultural, industrial) revolutions are discontinuities, by which the cultural additions (technical capital) permit a paradigm shift, up-turning the wealth build-up procedures.

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To make up for the negligence, the manufacture processes have to be depicted by models, where the four capital assets are explicitly accounted for. At the same time, the natural capital withdrawal, transformation and decay need to be measured, with suited standards (according to legal metrology rules), since the question affects the all mankind, and the duty is impending «global village» affair. The accomplishments are easy computer engineering business, and suited robot technologies are apt to assure the requested visibility (and: forewarned, forearmed). Going somehow forward into technology deployments, the robot age ways imply instance roles of artificial life and of artificial intelligence behaviour, to perform: • the operation function: the robot is exploited as self-reproduction machine, assuring autonomous proliferation; • the instrumental aid: the robot is exploited as watching equipment, to manage and govern the on-going processes. The artificial life developments are genetic engineering object, mostly devised by bio-mimicry, by trying to imitate the spontaneous life processes. As such, they are demonised by the conservative ecology, according to the precaution principle. Actually, the earth is an almost isolated system, with tiny exchanges with the universe (e.g., the solar energy). The entropy principle states the in progress decay of the material inanimate resources, towards the undifferentiated chaos. The life is exception phenomenon, building locally ordered structures, by exploiting surrounding sources (markedly, the sun radiation, fixing the CO2 into high complexity compounds). The anthropic principle suggests to explore such opportunity. The human intrusion in the living beings’ spontaneous evolution dates back, in prehistory ages, to the agricultural revolution, taming animals and modifying wilderness into farms. The artificial selection has dramatically altered the surroundings, making difficult distinguishing the spontaneous from the anthropic actions. The selfreproduction feature provides geometric productivity, allowing the life propagation, with multiplication of the issues (whether available the apt material and energy feeding). The pandemic explosion of illnesses is known drawback, to be fought by effective control of the processes, namely, by the robot watching and governing capabilities.

3 Global Village Hyper-democracy The passive post-global view, mostly, means recognising that the global and the noglobal ways do not bring to stable political issues; moreover, that the riches prospects are illusory or defective. It is useful looking at active post-global measures. The «anthropic principle» assumes that each one is author of his chance, i.e., that the wealth is issue of artificial changes (not of spontaneous findings). At least, this is lesson coming from the past. The mankind cultural deployment has in the past faced no-ahead ways, requiring revolutions in view of further progress. We are, possibly, approaching the unique up-turn of the cognitive revolution, leading to the knowledge society, supported by the robot technologies. The technical capital innovation is indeed necessary, not sufficient requirement. What is more, looking at both the global and the no-global ideas, the weakness is manifest: doping the growth by credit consumption, either enjoying the castled quiet declining are, in unlike form, selfishness mark, aiming from day to day, at individual

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chance not receptive of altruism betterments. The active post-global idea is the (citizen and society) responsibility for long terms achievements, taking today the measures for sustainable (or durable) growth. The successfulness is not in punctual riches, when it entails transferring the damages on somebody else (other peoples or future generations). The wealth build-up features need incorporating steadiness and solidarity. The solidarity or altruism is open outcome in pricing rational legality instead of brutish larceny. The global deregulation (according to the Washington consensus way) aims at subduing the enacted bylaws, to the efficacy test. The law of the force brings to instant transfer of riches to the temporary rulers (without backing, face to the claim of stronger parts). Even the realistic pragmatism suggests that general is better than punctual possession. In different words, the force of the law gives durable protection, with the safeguard of third people, not even involved in the given matter. The legality is a cost, directly in the back-up deed, and indirectly with the forbidden acts. The economic global tactic is based on the instant value illusion, mostly, transferred to financial derivatives: to be repaid, if expansion continues; to become buyers’ penalty, if contraction turns up. The regulation means lowering the hyper-market chance, suppressing self-administration prospects and effectiveness. The ecologic noglobal scheme nourishes the quiet decreasing illusion, possible within the retrenching autarchy of not cross-coupled local districts. The «global village» shows the ecodependence, suppressing the (self-centred) castling hopes. The altruism alternative looks after a trans-governmental authority, enabling what might be named hyperdemocracy, characterised by: • the «global village» ruling, particularly, for all acts affecting the ecologic regulation; • the deed durability, notably, concerning the generations to come protected heritage. The model might inspire to the EU. It gathers countries since centuries in wars: the solidarity is deemed beneficial, acknowledging common interest bylaws. The central authority and the single governments interplay, according to the subsidiarity principle. The legitimacy is basic puzzle: the member-states’ parliaments respond to voters; the common ruling is deferred to the Commission, administrative agency, having weighed national representatives. The factual functioning might be figured out by lifestyle elements and related in progress changes: • the hyper-democracy infrastructures: the hierarchy clustering of local, national, continental and worldwide entities assemble agencies, with given administrative functions; the political control establishes on bottom-up architectures; • the hyper-democracy market: the instant trade is mitigated by complementary specialisation; the steering agencies are entitled of compulsory regulations, collecting altruism fees, because they provide nomadic riches by rational legality; • the hyper-democracy entrepreneurship: the relational corporations cover the inter-personal interests; the abstraction needs to embed the future generations safeguard, being aware that, in the heritage, the safe life conditions are mandatory obligation; • the hyper-democracy citizenship: the individuals recognise the social rights priority of the eco-safeguard; the personal utility is not measured by the instant efficacy test, and resorts to the general planning for sustainable growth objectives.

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The «global village» ruling, as said, is ecology must: the over-consumption and overpollution do not have autarchy solutions. The future generations heritage is moral obligation, whose rationale clashes against today selfishness. The shared agreement in the parliamentary democracies is elusive question, as documented by the NIMBY (not in my back-yard) effect, and conflict of interests limits. The parliamentary democracy defines as «government through discussion», but active groups can condition the majorities on punctual choices. How the hyper-democracy will manage the impending eco-restrictions is big question, maybe, aiming at the subtle split between discussion and approval: bringing the general principles to direct «approval», and enacting the mandatory rules through inter-state agencies. The «global village» hyper-democracy is political set-up to find out, being desirable model, the altruism of the Kant rule. The scenario is only mentioned, the all exceeding plain engineering jobs. The frame is devised to lower the cautious headway/hyper-market intrinsic instability, and to aim at durable growth by robot technology innovation (maybe, after cognitive revolution). Moving around the «robot age» ideas, a series of statements might be expressed: • the industrial revolution is recent achievement fostered by the western style culture, in which the «robot age» shows the divide between the scientific vs. intelligent work organisation; • the «knowledge» paradigms, replacing the «industry» ones, address productservice deliveries, to bring forth the «robot age» intangible staples; • the artificial intelligence gives conscious autonomy («robot age» transformation transparency), in addition to the natural emergencies’ autonomy, given by artificial energy; • the «robot age» stands for artificial life and artificial intelligence synthesis, supporting cognitive abilities, to aim at «to re-materialise» opportunities; • the «robot age» tools allow overseeing the bio-mimicry processes, broadening the man potentials, after the artificial domestication/manufacture of earth (living or not) resources. Further to the example engineering statements, more general propositions can be stated, such as the following: • the communication/information technologies are cross-boundary glues; e.g.: the district castling is only utopia due to each other visibility of the economical and political rights and duties; the cross-watch practice is benefit (or emergency) affecting all individuals and communities; • the «global village» unified citizenship makes manifest the common destiny; each one behaviour affects the only earth; the surroundings fragmentation does not establish independent zones, where to vault stocks and riches or to segregate poisons and contamination; • the cautious-headway run-through needs to be understood as transparency practice, recording all the falls-off and related origin/responsibility, granting controlled evolution under the «robot age» watchful overseeing of the in-progress transformations;

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• the hyper-market spreading ought to be brought back to internet and www technicalities, meaning by that the instrumental exploitation of networking for monitoring the four capital assets, because the natural resources’ bookkeeping is compulsory duty; • the hyper-democracy administration means accepting the altruism scheme, as way out for the men survival; the political features are open debate, still supposing that the rational legality protects the generations to come. The listed example propositions show a mix of technology-driven socio-political options. The economy/ecology interplay remains conditioning factor: if the artificial energy/intelligence/life aids permit obtaining plentiful and safe spendable riches, even the quizzical hyper-democracy set-up for the unique «global village» will find accepted solutions.

4 Conclusions The eco-sustainable growth is challenge to accept, if we aim at assuring wellness, to the future generations. The hope is in the «cognitive» revolution, after the «industry» and «agricultural» ones, with staples in the knowledge market, after the manufacture and foodstuffs ones. The revolution success, certainly, requires important technology changes, especially, in the exploitation of the artificial intelligence, directly involved in promoting, overseeing and controlling new series of man-driven transformations not only limited to the in-animate material earth resources, rather, as well, covering the artificial life processes, through bio-mimicry or similar other processes, permitting to by-pass the entropy decay, by the reordering abilities of the living matter. However, the technical qualification cannot be achieved, unless its appropriateness becomes shared driver at the citizens’ concern and at the entrepreneurial attention. In the study, the plain technology is left in the shadow, face to the revolution necessity rationale. The literature, [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], [18], expands, showing concern for habits up now believed obvious and incredibility for the lack of assessed remedies. The sceneries mentioned in the paper summarise acknowledged models, marking the bewilderment face to alternatives very close to amazing visions. The depiction of scenery in series, would mean that the mankind can only learn after explicit experimentation. The lesson from the history might support such forecast, if we think that the European countries fought two world wars, ultimately destroying the European leadership, before understanding that the local achievements bring to instable truces. The somewhat optimistic wish suggests the present analysis, to show the altruism necessity, with «global village» unified administration. The stability is possible on condition of sustainable growth. The sustainability policies concern: • the ecology frame, to control spending up and contamination on long term horizons, to hand down valuable heritage, at least, in the range of the received wealth; • the economy frame, to assure the financial balance of the countries, corporations, citizens on their planned horizons, with the tied stakeholders’ satisfaction; • the social frame, to keep harmonic deployment through the individual and community civil rights protection, as acknowledged permanent obligation.

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The citizens’ (and countries’) behaviours do not spontaneously respect the sustainability, as the selfish pragmatism addresses towards the quickest advantages. Only the rational legality can show the benefits of long term planning. The idea to only utilise returns, and not to draw from the capital or to rise mortgages and loans, is recognised alternative, opposing to the present industry paradigms unfitness, and of the recent financial bubble. The utopia altruism, nonetheless, is rather difficult to envisage in the parliamentary democracies, where the governments respond to actual voters, while the future generations interest is, at least, debatable guess; even more difficult to conceive by the competitive corporations, whose managers are forced to grant real-time progress to the continuously interfaced stakeholders. The overall situation might be thought hopeless. Perhaps, the plain engineering discussion will help showing that the robot technology (up to the cognitive revolution) is nice opportunity. The few indications here collected provide that suggestion. At least, this is in the authors’ expectation.

References 1. Michelini, R.C.: Knowledge society engineering: the sustainable growth pledge. Nova Sci. Pub., New York (2010) 2. Easterly, W.: The elusive quest for growth: the economists’ adventures and misadventures. MIT Press, Cambridge (2001) 3. Michelini, R.C.: Robot age knowledge changeover. Nova Sci. Pub., New York (2009) 4. Mo, J.P.T., Nemes, L. (eds.): Global engineering, manufacturing and enterprise networks. Kluwer Acad. Pub., New York (2001) 5. Putnik, G.D., Cunha, M.M.: Knowledge and technology management in virtual organisations. IDEA Group Pub., Hershey (2007) 6. Tremonti, G.: La paura e la speranza. Mondadori, Milano (2008) 7. Whitman, J.: The fundamentals of global governance. MacMillan, Basingstoke (2009) 8. Teuteberg, F., Gomez, J.M. (eds.): Corporate Environmental Management Information Systems. IDEA Group Inc., Hershey (2010) 9. Cruz-Cunha, M.M. (ed.): Social, Managerial & Organizational Dimensions of Enterprise Information Systems. IDEA Group Inc., Hershey (2009) 10. El-Elran, M.: When markets collide: investments strategies for the age of global economic change. McGraw Hill, New York (2008) 11. Attali, J.: Une brève histoire de l’avenir. Fayard, Paris (2006) 12. Dembinski, P.H.: Finance servante ou finance trompeuse? Parole et Silence, Paris (2008) 13. Padoa-Schioppa, T.: Regulating finance: balancing freedom and risk. Oxford Uni. Press, Oxford (2004) 14. Ricol, R. (ed.): Rapport sur la crise financière. La Documentation Française, Paris (2008) 15. Ashcroft, B., Griffith, G., Tiffin, H.: Post-global studies: the key concepts. Routledge, London (2000) 16. Collier, P.: The plundered planet: why we must and how we can manage nature for global prosperity. Oxford Uni. Press, New York (2010) 17. Labadi, S., Long, C.: Heritage and globalisation. Routledge, London (2010) 18. Wolf, M.: Fixing global finance. John Hopkins Univ. Press, Baltimore (2008)

From Data to Wisdom in the Global and Civilizational Context the Cognitive Perspective Andrew Targowski Western Michigan University Haworth College of Business Department of Business Information Systems Kalamazoo, Michigan 49008 (USA) [email protected]

Abstract. The purpose of this study is to define information, mainly in terms of cognition units. Among these units are recognized: data, information, concept, knowledge, and wisdom. Their impact upon the concept of wisdom is evaluated. Finally, the model of comprehensive wisdom is defined. Wisdom is defined in terms of the evolution of minds, from Basic and Whole, through Global to Universal. In conclusion, the wisdom of these minds is defined for each of eight current civilizations: Western, Eastern, Chinese, Japanese, Buddhist, Islamic, Hindu, and African. Keywords: Data, Information, Concept, Knowledge, Wisdom, Semantic Ladder, Globalization, Civilization.

1 Introduction The purpose of this study is to define information, mainly in terms of cognition units, and also to reveal other perspectives and images of wisdom. Once we understand information, then it is possible to define its role in an organization, particularly at the level of information systems. The issue of how more complex information systems may advance an organization to higher levels in its structure (configuration) is investigated. This evolution is still very young, only about 50 years old, but already some evolutionary phases can be perceived and defined. Finally, the transformation from an industrial to an informated model of an enterprise is described and both models are compared with some conclusions about what this change means for civilization’s well-being.

2 The Cognitive Perspective of Information In order to describe the central role of information in civilization development, the theory of Information Ecology creates a model that views the existing body of accumulated human information as distinct and apart from the minds of information users. This body of information is called a Cognition Reservoir (CR) as is shown in Figure 1. The J.E. Quintela Varajão et al. (Eds.): CENTERIS 2010, Part I, CCIS 109, pp. 21–30, 2010. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010

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recognition of the CR permits researchers and users to assign descriptive characteristics to cognition units (among them information), and to treat the CR as though it was an independent entity of civilization. Information Ecology considers the interaction between users and the CR to be the most significant factor shaping human civilization.

Fig. 1. The Cognition Reservoir of Civilization

The Cognition Reservoir contains a semantic cross-section of cognition (decreased chaos) with cognition units of data, information, concept, knowledge, and wisdom. These units are created by humans’ science and practice (culture in general) and are stored and retrieved by different kinds of technology, such as writing, papyrus, books, print, libraries, computers, and so forth, which lead to the rise of communication information sciences and management. The info-communication process conveys meaning through five units of cognition: •

Datum (D) A measuring unit of cognition that describes transactions between natural, artificial, or other semantic systems. In business, data can measure performance characteristics of production, distribution, transportation, construction, or service. For example, the Dow Jones Stock Index (at the New York Stock Exchange) was 10,000 points on February 15, 2005.

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•

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Information (I) A comparative unit of cognition that defines a change between the previous and present state of natural, artificial, or semantic systems. Businesses often compare performance characteristics in two or more periods. For example, the Dow Jones Stock Index was 11,000 points high on February 14, 2005. The change from February 14 to 15 is -1,000 or 9% down. Concept (C) A perceptive unit of cognition that generates thoughts or ideas that create our intuition and intention – a sense of direction. For example, due to the market’s strong change, should an investor sell, buy, or hold his/her stocks? Knowledge (K) A reasoning unit of cognition that creates awareness based on scientific data (e.g.: Census Bureau research), rules, coherent inferences, laws, established patterns, and methods and their systems. Knowledge provides a point of reference, a standard for analyzing data, information and concepts. Knowledge can be categorized in four ways: ƒ Domain knowledge (Kd) ƒ Societal knowledge (Ks) ƒ Personal knowledge (Kp) ƒ Moral knowledge (Km) Once again elaborating on the previous examples, an investor will apply his/her or an adviser’s financial knowledge (Kd) to find out which concept he/she should apply. He/she can also apply remaining kinds of knowledge to evaluate each concept option. Wisdom (W) A pragmatic unit of cognition that generates volition – a chosen way of acting and communicating. Wisdom is a process of choosing among available concept options, based on knowledge, practice, morals, or intuition, or on all of them. Concluding our example, an investor will choose the hold concept option to wait and see the Federal Reserve’s decision on the interest rate.

The cognition units that compose the Cognition Reservoir can be structured from simplest to most complex in the Semantic Ladder, shown in Figure 2. Events occur at the existence level that are communicated as data and inserted into the Semantic Ladder of a person, discipline, or organization. These data are subsequently processed into information, and information is processed into concepts, which are later evaluated by available knowledge, before one of those concepts will be chosen by a decision-maker’s wisdom. Then, a frame consisting of a message and the decisionmaker’s intentions (very often different than the message’s content) is returned as feedback to the level of existence.

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Fig. 2. The Semantic Ladder

3 The Computer Perspective of Information Human cognition increases along with the development of info-communication technology: at first printing, later polygraphic, and recently tele-computing. The latter is known under the name of information systems (IS) or computer information systems. However, every level of cognition requires a different kind of IS. At the lowest cognition level data processing takes place under a form of Transaction Processing Systems. At the level of information processing, supporting systems are of the Information System kind, which compare planned with actual performance characteristics. The higher levels of cognition require Expert Systems based on artificial intelligence, with the exception of knowledge processing, where Data Mining Systems are of great value, too. The hierarchy of Computer Cognition Systems is depicted in Figure 3. Every kind of computerized system requires a different architecture, skills to build, timeline, and budget. This is similar to building construction, in which residential houses need different know-how to construct than public buildings, and so forth.

Paradigms

Computerized Systems Expert Systems

Wisdom Processing

Choice

Expert Systems and Data Mining Systems

Knowledge Processing

Awareness

Expert Systems

Concept Processing

Direction

Information Systems

Information Processing

Change

Transaction Processing Systems

Data Processing

Measurement

On-line Systems

25

transmitting

retrieving

storing

computing

editing

publishing

From Data to Wisdom in the Global and Civilizational Context

Computer Networks

Transmission

Fig. 3. The Hierarchy of Computer Cognition Systems

4 Information as Wisdom An attempt to illustrate the complexity of wisdom is shown in Figure 4, which defined the Five-Dimensional Model of Human Comprehensive Wisdom. This is a model which only approximates reality, and which with further research will be an object of improvements and change. The five modeled dimensions are: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Wisdom as cognitive process. Wisdom as solving criteria of social, reflective, methodical, and individual approaches. Wisdom as interaction within contexts. Wisdom as development of ability. Wisdom as solutions of survival, cognition, existence, and action under the forms of conclusion, position, suggestion, solution, decision, action, and other.

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Fig. 4. The Five Dimensional Model of Human Comprehensive Wisdom in the 21st Century

In general, one can perceive wisdom1 as the last stage of cognitive processes: either reflecting, decision-making, problem-solving or just thinking; applying evolving intelligence-oriented tools and skills in the broad context; and driven by creativity, emotions, intentions, and motivation. Wisdom is not knowledge, not information, not data but the intelligent ability (skillfully controlled by intentions, motivation, and emotions) to choose an appropriate (right/meaningful) concept and do something with it in the right time, space, and group. 1

Socrates (470-399 B.C.) was searching for wisdom in terms of “What is good?” and “What is just?,” and the way these questions were answered impacted how people lived. For Plato (428-348 B.C.) wisdom was the virtue of reason, which directed somebody’s conduct in terms of the ultimate meaning of life. Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) understood wisdom as the highest form of knowledge, more speculative than practical. The Jews perceived wisdom as coming from relationships with God. For Christians, wisdom was seen as sapientia (eternal) and scientia, or knowledge of the material world (St. Augustine 354-430 A.D.). Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) perceived wisdom as a virtue rather than a science, applicable in the highest causes. For Descartes (1596-1650) wisdom was attainable through cognitive knowing and ethical attitude: “I think, therefore I am.” Locke (1632-1704) associated wisdom within a context of God. Kant (1724-1804) believed that Men did not possess wisdom but only felt love for it.

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In a short, practical definition one can perceive wisdom as the skillful judgment and choices driven by the art of life.

5 Information as Wisdom in the Global Context According to the evolution of mankind, these minds can be grouped into the following kinds (Figure 5): • • • •

BASIC MIND (Intuitive, Communicative, Practical, Moral), which allows humans to effectively function in civilization. WHOLE MIND (Basic Mind, Theoretical), which allows for knowing through logical reasoning leading to the development of advanced science and technology. GLOBAL MIND (Whole Mind, Connected, Digital), which allows humans to “act locally and think globally.” UNIVERSAL MIND (Global Mind, Universal), which will be the future mind if humans try to save their civilization by cooperation rather than by confrontation. UNIVERSAL MIND

GLOBAL MIND

Universal

Digital WHOLE MIND

BASIC MIND

Connected

Theoretical

Moral GLOBAL MIND

Practical

Communicative

WHOLE MIND BASIC MIND

Intuitive

200-1. 5 K

1.5- 2 K

2K

21K

Fig. 5. The Evolution of Mind’s Content

6 Information as Wisdom in the Civilizational Context In the 21st century there are eight civilizations (with Western civilization divided into four types), as shown in Table 1. This table ranks the Wisdom Potential (WPC) of each civilization (Targowski 2009b).

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A. Targowski Table 1. The Wisdom Potential of Civilization (WPC)

CIVILIZATION

BASIC MIND

WHOLE MIND

GLOBAL MIND

UNIVERSAL MIND

Ranking

JAPANESE

WPC 4

WPC 27

WPC 80

WPC 477

1

1

9

65

459

2

0.44

3

13

53

3

0.63

2

4

7

4

WESTERNJEWISH EASTERN

0.06

0.43

2

6

5

0.09

0.65

1

5

6

WESTERNLATIN BUDDHIST

0.02

2

7

0.05

0.14

0.4

0.4

8

HINDU

0.13

0.4

0.4

0.4

9

AFRICAN

0.003

0.002

0.01

0.05

10

ISLAMIC

0.02

0.02

0.03

0.03

11

WESTERNWEST WESTERNCENTRAL CHINESE

The Wisdom Potential of Civilization (WPC) can be defined as the probability of making a wise decision and wisely solving a problem. For example, in the Japanese civilization, its Basic Mind is able to be wise four times out of 100 cases, the Whole Mind 27 times out of 100 cases. The Western-West civilization is almost as wise as the Japanese civilization at the levels of the Global and Universal Minds, which means that it is more in charge of world problems (solving and creating them) than other civilizations. However, the Western-West civilization is three to four times less potentially wise than the Japanese civilization at the levels of Basic and Whole Minds, which is perhaps caused by its greater internal diversification and disagreements compared to the more monolithic Japanese civilization, which is also much smaller than the Western-West. Similar analysis can be provided for remaining civilizations.

7 Conclusion The Information Wave impacts strongly the way humans perceive cognition and its role in an organization transformation from an industrial to an informated model. As civilization has learned how to process materials, now it is learning how to process

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information. This leads to the transformation from hard to soft civilization, with more emphasis on informed, knowledgeable, and even wiser control of events, with the desire to cognize more and more. The latter is a good sign of human awareness that the future of civilization depends on human wisdom, which comes along with more knowledge-based and positive experiences of wisdom’s applications.

References 1. Ackoff, R.L.: Management Misinformation Systems. Management Science 14, 147–156 (1967) 2. Ackoff, R.L.: The Art Of Problem Solving. J. Wiley, New York (1978) 3. Anthony, R.N.: Planning and Control Systems: A Framework for Analysis. Harvard University Press, Boston (1965) 4. Beach, L.R., Mitchel, T.R., Daeton, M.D., Prothero, J.: Information Relevance, Content, And Source Credibility In The Revision Of Options. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance 21, 1–16 (1997) 5. Bohm, D., Peat, F.D.: Science, Order, and Creativity. Bantam Books, New York (1978) 6. Boulder, K.E.: Three Faces of Power. Sage Publications, Newbury Park (1989) 7. Charan, R.: New Networks Reshape Organizations – For Results. Harvard Business Review 69(5), 104–115 (1991) 8. Cyert, R., March, J.: A Behavioral Theory of the Firm. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs (1963) 9. Dewhirst, H.D.: Influence of Perceived Information-Sharing Norms on Communication Channel Utilization. Academy of Management Journal 14(3), 305–315 (1971) 10. Davis, S., Botkin, J.: The Coming of Knowledge-Based Business. Harvard Business Review 72(5), 189 (1994) 11. Draft, R.L., Lengel, R.L.: Information Richness. JAI Press, Greenwich (1984) 12. Galbraith, J.: Strategies of Organization Design. Addison-Wesley, Reading (1973) 13. Gore, A.: Information Superhighways: the Next Information Revolution. The Futurist 25(1), 21–23 (1991) 14. Halal, W.E.: The New Management. Berett-Koechler Publishers, San Francisco (1996) 15. Harris, P.R.: Management in Transition. Jossey Bass Publishers, San Francisco (1985) 16. Kanter, R.M.: The New Managerial Work. Harvard Business Review 67(6), 85–92 (1989) 17. Karraker, R.: Highways of mind, nationwide information network. Whole Earth Review, Spring, 4–15 (1991) 18. Kelly, K.: New Rules For The New Economy. Viking, New York (1998) 19. Mintzberg, H., Raisinghani, D., Theoret, A.: The Structure of Unstructured Decision Processes. Administrative Science Quarterly 21(2), 246–275 (1976) 20. Nye, J.S., Owens, W.: America’s Information Age. Foreign Affairs 75(2), 26–36 (1996) 21. O’Reilly, C.A., Chatman, J.A., Anderson, J.C.: Message flow and decision making. In: Joblin, F.M., Putman, L.L., Roberts, K.H., Porter, L.W. (eds.) Handbook of Organizational Communication. Sage, CA (1978) 22. Powers, W.T.: Behavior: the Control of Perception. Aldine Publishing Co., Chicago (1973) 23. Roberts, K., O’Reilly, C.A.: Organization as communication structures: an empirical approach. Human Communication Research 44, 283–293 (1978) 24. Shannon, C.E., Weaver, W.: The Mathematical Theory of Communication. University of Illinois Press, Urbana (1949) 25. Simon, H.A.: The Shape of Automation. Harper and Row, New York (1965)

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26. Starr, M.K.: Management: a modern approach. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., New York (1971) 27. Targowski, A.: Beyond a Concept of a Communication Process. The Journal of Business Communication 27(1), 75–86 (1990a) 28. Targowski, A.: The Strategy and Architecture of Enterprise-wide Information Management Systems. Idea Group Publishing, Harrisburg (1990b) 29. Targowski, A.: Electronic Enterprise, Strategy and Architecture. Idea Group Publishing, Harrisburg (2003) 30. Targowski, A.S., Bowman, J.P.: The Layer-based Pragmatic Model of the Communication Process. The Journal of Business Communication 25(1), 5–24 (1988) 31. Targowski, A.: Information Technology and Societal Development. IGI-Global, Hershey (2009a) 32. Targowski, A.: Civilization Wisdom in the 21st Century. Dialogue and Universalism XIX(3-5), 105–122 (2009b) 33. Weick, K.E.: The Social Psychology of Organizing, 2nd edn. Addison-Wesley, Reading (1979)

A New Role for Design and Design Managers in the ‘Organizational Design’ of High Social Value-Creative Business Models Jonatan Jelen1, Kaleem Kamboj1, and Marko Kolaković2 1

Parsons The New School for Design, 66 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10033 USA {jelenj,kambojk}@newschool.edu 2 University of Zagreb, Faculty of Economics, Trg J.F. Kennedyja 6, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia [email protected]

Abstract. Sustainability at the global and local level constantly requires a contextual understanding of the premise of organizational behavior. We unravel that in fact that currently there is no veritable role for design, designers, or design methodology associated with ‘organizational design’. Rather, already practiced organizational designs are analyzed retrospectively through trial and error, for possible change, adaptation, optimization, mutation - in short ‘evolution’ - while the original creation of the system blueprint or architecture is not questioned. The application of such a system to produce sustainability requires reexamination. The design of an organization is a byproduct of tactics and management bureaucracy in postindustrial organizational entities. The role of design is subordinate and residual at best. In this admittedly abstractive albeit critical and empirically supported paper we want to demonstrate that (a) an entrepreneurial perspective on design in the premise of sustainable change is challenged by the paradigmatic and transformational effects of information and information technology in their most recent incarnations (especially with the advent of complex information technology-intensive firms); and (b) that the apparent problematic absence of a design theory and the existence of the firm can be reconciled via the involvement of design managers with their presumed design-methodological grounding. We advocate a tripartite system for designing, producing, and the adaptation of sustainable change: design managers design the firm, managers operate it, and strategists lead and govern it. Thus, in the pursuit of a sustainable world – but contrary to our energy dependent convictions for it - we propose to substitute the anachronistic evolutionary speciation of organizational design with a perspective based on ‘intelligent design’. Keywords: Complex Information Technology-Intensive Firms, Organizational Design.

1 Introductory Framework Macro and micro sustainable change have become a global pursuit. Ideas and thinking need to be addressed in a postindustrial context. Traditionally, the discipline of ‘industrial organizational design’ makes little mention of a role for designers nor does it J.E. Quintela Varajão et al. (Eds.): CENTERIS 2010, Part I, CCIS 109, pp. 31–41, 2010. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010

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reference veritable design processes. Indeed, it is almost a misnomer. While the nomenclature of design invokes some proactive, a priori generative act of a layout or blueprint for an organization, institution, or bureaucracy, ‘organizational design’ remains descriptive and merely analytical of organically evolved organizational practices. For this highly pragmatic ex post-perspective on the design of an organization as a result of an evolutionary social structuration processes design is developmental, incremental, incidental, or even just a natural consequence of well-crafted strategy; the role of a designer is residual or implicit to the activities of the strategists, the managers, and the leaders in pursuit of sustainability. This pragmatic perspective may have been sufficient to capture the organizational phenomena of organizational design for the practical technologies of transformation, transportation, energy generation and distribution, coordination, and communication, during times when the advent of particular such technologies prompted its use and the adaptation of productive entities to harness them. Automating and even informating the firm was all too obvious. Epistemic knowledge of ‘what’ to do and the ‘how’ to do it was paramount (Foss, 2001). These ideas need to be revisited in the context of a sustainable potential of creative human activity involved in an existence that is harmonious with the environment and is not centered on human needs yet does not ignore such needs. The advent of the information-centric digital economy requires a further understanding of the treatment of the associated phenomena. Information and the requisite information technology as it emerged in its current version are spectacularly different - not only in degree, but in nature - from their own previous incarnations (language, print) as well as from the other highly practical technologies. Information technology is not merely pragmatic, but utterly paradigmatic in nature; it has its own transformative impact back onto those who want to consume and produce it despite any temporal and spatial barriers. No longer is it only important for firms to adapt and adopt, but to “become”, i.e. entirely change their character. In such context design cannot be taken for granted and left to develop unto itself; expected to spontaneously combust into more coherent and cohesive levels. Evidence bears a new category of firms, the so called complex information technology-intensive firms of the likes of Google, eBay, Amazon, YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Yahoo, Crag’s List, and even some foreign counterparts such as the Chinese Baidu. These firms become models for creative implementation into the sustainable organization. The productive elements of the ‘sustainable experience economy’ need to be designed intentionally and deliberately. While they may look like an uncoordinated sequence of incremental accidents, in reality they are carefully crafted experiments. And while we personally may adhere to evolutionary theory in the physical biological world, the virtual, intangible world of organizations is highly constructed, and we’d rather rely on the pursuit intelligent design. Unlike the messy, unstructured environments of the physical organisms that may very well result in speciation through mutation, we advocate a less behavioral perspective on organizational design, but a more cognitively motivated proactive role of design for organizations to properly capture and harness the transformative nature of information and information technology on our existence and productive efforts for creative global change. We demonstrate first the currently still prevailing understanding and conceptualization of organizational design. It is still dominated by the pragmatism of postindustrial

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technologies. We then make the argument for the necessity and the opportunity for a novel approach to organizational design inspired by the advent of a new breed of firms that prefigures a new role for designers in the ‘organizational’ design process, the complex information technology intensive firms. Such firms are remarkable not only for their framework and business mode (quantity of their production of information or the quality with which they harness, process, and create it), but far more for their distinctive adaptability in sustainable business models. In the light of creative human activity towards a sustainable transformation these firms with inherently complex information technology-intensive cores omit veritable design processes affected by design specialist and practitioners strikes us almost as a misspecification of the discipline. Three aspects of such omission are intriguing: Almost matter-of-factly is the charge to craft the organizational or productive entity incumbent on entrepreneurs, managers, leaders, and other strategists and tacticians. Almost incidentally, in an expectation of spontaneous combustion is the organization supposed to emerge and evolve as a byproduct of organizational purpose, mission, and value proposition. Secondly, the defining parameters of design for such entities are taken for granted. Thirdly, this entire process is essentially descriptive and substantively analyticalonly of observed or observable organizational practices. It is a pragmatic evolutionary and incremental perspective of continuing best practices and a projection of presumably successful results from the past superimposed onto future forms of the organizational or institutional bureaucracy. The little generative elements there are, are of residual nature. Sustainable development requires that firms create new roles for collaboration supported by complex information technology-intensive cores.

2 Traditional Organizational Design…without Design, without Design Managers, and without Design Methodology Traditional organizational design theory and literature rests on three major tenets: (a) it is dominated by an evolutionary, organic perspective of organizational design as a result of organizational structuration processes with an interactionist perspective (Orlikowsky, 1993), emphasizing change, adaptation, and reflexivity of the underlying system design (Mintzberg, 1979); (b) it is focused on structure as the main design variable at the neglect of other possible and important ones, such as strategy, scale, scope, and social responsibility; (c) it is reductive in that it primarily captures, analyzes and assesses designs already in practice, all the while deemphasizing design as a proactive, original creative phenomenon, the architectural blueprint ahead of the actual systems in place with global consequence. Most design phenomena are taken for granted in form of past best practices in an entrepreneurial and epistemic approach. (d) Finally, it is paradoxical: while the Weberian bureaucratic, as well as the Taylorian industrial model, require the visible hand in a top-down hierarchical command approach to deliver results, they allow for the invisible hand to mysteriously govern the bottom-up organic, self-managed process of the configuration and conceptualization of such design supportive of the ensuing productive activity. This is utterly inconsistent with dynamic ideals of collaboration in pursuit of global and local sustainability.

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Exceptions are such contributions as Allan Afuah’s “Business Models – A Strategic Approach” (2003), George Huber’s “The Necessary Nature of Future Firms: Attributes of Survivors in a Changing World” (2003) and Afuah and Tucci’s “Internet Business Models” (2002) that advocate the necessity the contextual premise of renewal and a proactive cognitive stance with regards to prefiguring new business models of sustainable development and creative design layouts before practicing them. And it was considered rather spectacular when Carnegie Mellon’s famed Software Engineering Institute introduced (for its graduate program in Software Engineering) a formal curriculum comprising systems architecture as a discipline and part of organizational information system design in the early 1990s. Representative of this “architectural” ex ante approach was Shaw and Garlan’s “Software Architecture: Perspectives on an Emerging Discipline” (1996). Nevertheless, it was limited to the design of information systems as a subset of the organizational system, and not dynamic in its collaborative approach to the design of the entire organizational or institutional entity. As for the still dominant mainstream, design is reduced to five organizational components, minimally required to define an organization as distinct from a group or other system. These are malleable to various degrees of openness or control by a careful dosage of structural elements, horizontal, vertical spatial, structure, formalization, and decentralization. General Taylorian organizational (production intensive) or Weberian bureaucratic (administration intensive) theory identified these five variables as: specialization (division of labor), departmentalization (compartmentalization of like activities), chain-of-command (hierarchy), authority-responsibility linkages (reporting relationships), and span of control (size of the organizational subunits or groups to be commanded). Originally there was a tendency to interpret these variables strictly, creating the mechanistic form of organization on one end of the spectrum. Over time, however, the latter perspective relaxed to allow for flexible, responsive, and nimble interpretation and application of these parameters. And if all of them are relaxed at the same time, an entirely new concept emerges, the organic form of the organization, creating the new continuum needed educational and social paradigm shifts. In this scenario, organizations could choose where to position themselves in collaborative response to sustainability rather than having to gravitate towards the mechanistic form or to be conflicted when departing from it. (For a representative example of the mainstream literature with regards to the above, see Schermerhorn, 2009). Kantarelis (2007) characterizes the four major influences on the above framework of the design of the firm as follows: The Neoclassical Theory of the Firm, in its basic form, views the firm as a black box rational entity. The theory is built on imaginary but plausible production and demand functions and it establishes the principal of profit maximization according to which profit is maximized when marginal revenue is equal to marginal cost. The theory may be used to, among many other things, describe various market structures, regulation issues, strategic pricing, barriers to entry, economies of scale and scope and even optimum portfolio selection of risky assets. The main weakness of the theory is that it assumes complete information and, as a result, there is no agency problem or concern for transaction costs due to conflict between owners and suppliers of inputs (even specific to whatever the firm produces) in the needs of a collaborative interaction of a globally sustainable market system. Another weakness of the theory is that it allows only for minimal firm evolution in response to creative needs.

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The Transactions Cost Theory of the Firm focuses on problems of asymmetric information involved in transactions. The firm, according to this theory, comes into existence because it successfully minimizes ‘make’ inputs costs (through vertical integration) and ‘buy’ inputs costs (using available markets.) The more specific the inputs that the firm needs are, the more likely it is that it would produce them internally and / or acquire them through joint ventures and alliances. The weakness of this theory is that it does not take into consideration agency costs or firm evolution neither it explains how vertical integration should take place in the face of investments in human assets, with unobservable value, that cannot be transferred. The Principal-Agent Theory of the Firm extends the neoclassical theory by adding agents to the firm. The theory is concerned with friction due to asymmetric information between owners of firms and their stakeholders or managers and employees; the friction between agent and principal requires precise measurement of agent performance and the engineering of incentive mechanisms. The weaknesses of the theory are many: it is difficult to engineer incentive mechanisms, it relies on complicated incomplete contracts (borderline unenforceable), it ignores transaction costs (both external and internal), and it does not allow for firm evolution. Finally, the Evolutionary Theory of the Firm properly speaking laces emphasis on production capabilities and process as well as product innovation. The firm according to this theory possesses unique resources, tied semi-permanently to the firm, and capabilities; the firm’s recourses can be classified into four categories: financial, physical, human and organizational. The theory sees the firm as a reactor to change and a creator of change for competitive advantage. The firm, as a creator of change, may cause creative destruction, which in turn may give birth to new industries and enable sectors of, or entire, economies to grow. Although many countries have established architectures to support entrepreneurial endeavors, a weakness of the theory remains: process and product innovation (especially the latter) are mostly due to serendipity and as a result ‘entrepreneurship’ is a very expensive factor of production; in the pursuit of profit and general wellbeing, it cannot be easily programmed within a firm or a nation. The above theoretical foundations for the design of the firm organization are altogether disrespective of the necessary preceding architectural act, their layout, and the associated configuration of the design variables that will frame the ensuing productive system.

3 The Case for a Central Role of Design, Design Managers, and Design Methodology in ‘Organizational Design’ We make the case for incorporating design, design managers, and design methodology in a fully emancipated manner into the context social responsibility and global sustainability based following three observations: only structure as design variable – as is currently the case – is an insufficiently narrow and reductive perspective on design; we recognize a new spatial and temporal collaborative construct, the complex information technology-intensive firm; we finally make the argument that the paradoxical design vacuum in ‘organizational’ design can be filled by design, design managers, and design methodology committed to collaborative global responsibility for building sustainable, human-cooperative, creative solution to global and local needs.

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3.1 From Mere Structural Components to Truly Responsive Design Variables In order to demonstrate our proposition, we first separate the pragmatic from the paradigmatic aspect of the firm. We are encouraged by similar developments that expanded our understanding of the firm paradigm previously: Porter’s (1996; 1998) value chain idea was extended to include the value shop and the value network; bureaucratic hierarchical organizations were joined by flat network structures; and finally the initial construct of productive organizations based on fairly rigid mechanistic forms evolved into recognizing a continuum between mechanistic and organic structures. It is this last example that particularly informs our research proposition. We add our research to this movement. We identify the five variables -- scale, scope, strategy, structure, and social position -- as our design elements for firms. From a pragmatic vantage point, firms are practical productive assets. Their purpose is value creation, their activity is production of products and services through processes, their objective is profits. Call this the business mode. But firms also have also a paradigmatic aspect. They represent our most sophisticated business model for productive assets to date, elegantly sidestepping some of the infamous shortcomings of individual production, peer-production, statism, and markets. The business model can be broken down into its functional components on one hand (Afuah, 2003, Afuah and Tucci, 2002), and what we will label its design elements that define the “nature of the firm” on the other hand. Originally, this latter terminology was proposed by Ronald Coase (Coase, 1937) and further refined by the ensuing New Institutionalist school of economic thought (Williamson and Winter, 1991). Coase used it to identify the particular capabilities of firms to make superior decisions about their scope of activities than markets would. He avert that the firm’s predisposition to control which activities it would integrate or release back into the market, based on transaction cost associated with such integration - rather than on production cost - was the true nature of it. Since markets already assumed production cost-allocative decisions, a novel justification for the co-existence of firms with markets became necessary. And Coase delivered. Subsequent work by Chandler expanded on the defining elements of the model, adding scale to scope, and including strategy and structure. And most recent work has identified social position through the creation of culture and social value (e.g. Arakji and Lang, 2007; Hughes and Lang, 2006) as an element of the model in its own right. We hold that these elements of scale, scope, strategy, structure, and social position are not only constitutive of the firm as a model that can be used to describe and analyze the firm in terms of its outcomes, behaviors, and change processes, but are also design elements in their own right that can be used to generate new firm designs. Since we are interested in very young, utterly novel, and turbulently emergent firms in a very volatile and fast-paced environment, we are not interested in these variables as a result of an evolutionary bottom-up process upon being impacted by information technology. Rather it is their reinterpreted character under the new realities of information technology for purposes of a top-down design act for the complex information technology-intensive firm that informs our research. We then hold that certain combinations of these newly defined elements may yield firm designs beyond the interpretive and integrative capacity of the current framework. As we identify how

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information technology’s influence may generate such combinations and how the framework may have to evolve to accommodate these, we find that the current framework unduly limits itself to studying the formative forces on firms from an experiential, too epistemologically grounded bottom-up approach, and with the elements studied separately rather than integratively. Recognizing the possibilities of a more cognitive and ontological top-down design approach would provide greater insights and benefits. But it certainly leads to the recognition of a vacuum in the existence of such firms. While the century-old advent of the formal discipline of management and the recent renewed quest for leadership greatly support the practice and the governance of organizational existence, they do little to explain its origin in form of a blueprint, an architecture, i.e. a veritable design of a framework in which such organizational practices will occur. 3.2 The Notion of the Complex Information Technology-Intensive Firm While the pragmatism and the practical nature of previous industrial technologies masked the absence of an ontological anchor for the design of the particular productive systems, the advent of information technology in its most recent incarnation makes any further oversight impossible. Has arrived a particular breed of digital-economy firms that do not simply use information and information technology as yet another technology. Rather they are also ‘complex’ systems, i.e. serving multiple constituencies at a time, for example. They are community-based, social value-oriented, and network-centric models. Of an entirely new character, they do not merely represent a form of speciation or evolution from previous models. In order to configure and sustainably maintain such volatile and inherently unstable social networking models tremendous amounts of intentional and deliberate intelligent design is required. This is especially true when – as is the case with those types of firms - the variables strategy, structure, scale, scope, and social position have been radically deconstructed, reconfigured, and reconstructed in truly Schumpeterian spirit of creative destruction. Insofar our perspective is different from previous treatments of the subject: While much of the literature concerned with this aspect of information technology since the mid 1990s deals with the pragmatic impact of information technology on organizational design, and primarily remains concerned with epistemic problems and transactional aspects: their focus is on structuration issues, harnessing the potential of information technology through optimization, and the impact of information technology on firms’ activities, decision making processes and management effectiveness (see for example Brynjolfsson, Hitt 1997, and Brynjolfsson, et al. 1994), on one hand, and the necessary attributes to function under the new environmental conditions brought about by information technology on the other (see Huber, 2003). Our concern, however, is ontological and explores the very reason for existence of such firms, their new nature, their fundamentally redefined character as productive elements of the economic complex. They are designed sui generis, ex nihilo, ex ante, and de novo: The design variables strategy, structure, scale, scope and social position are used at the opposed and of the spectrum of their initial meaning. For example strategy is not competitive but cooperative; structure is not bureaucratic-hierarchical but network-flat, scope is not driven by transaction cost, but by transaction profits; size is not a quantified measure,

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but a qualitative result of dominance; finally, the social position of the firm is not across the table of its users, consumers, and clients, but implicates them as partners in a collaborative way to co-produce and co-generate the products, experiences, and content. The resulting entirely new business models of social networks, transmutability (Arakji, Lang 2007; Hughes, Lang 2005), and community models, do not evolve organically, however. 3.3 Imperative and Mandate to the Design Discipline and Design Managers to Fill the Void We finally advocate a role in its own right for the specific design discipline of design management to fill the above described vacuum. Unlike traditional industrial firms that coalesced around different technologies and thought sufficient to superimpose the leadership, governance, and management control structures as the integrative mechanisms onto organically evolved organizational practices, the new firms require an a priori conceptual design and configuration of the above five variables much like the blueprint for an architecture. Unlike the historical “industrial” technologies of transformation, transportation, energy-generation and –distribution, coordination, and communication, the current epistemic form of information technology is different in its own right. Previous technologies needed to be practiced and needed to be practice efficiently (i.e. productively) to continue existing. If they weren’t they would be eliminated through an evolutionary process. Information and information technology are different. It exists even if it is wrong or absurd. It cannot be destroyed, it continues to propagating; it appreciates with increased use, and can be generated by producers and consumers alike. It is infinitely expandable, costlessly distributable, and endlessly replicable. Such motivated firms then need to be deliberately imagined, carefully crafted and intentionally implemented. While these responsibilities have matter-offactly been assumed the domain of strategists and managers, a more careful look reveals that such assignments are increasingly imprecise and ineffectual. Enter the design managers.

4 Methodological Approach The findings and conclusions for this paper are supported through a composite methodology. While the main thrust of the present paper was from a critical-theoretical vantage point, we have arrived at the evidence through interpretive grounded theory and exploratory empirical analysis of interviews conducted with two dozen influential and qualified practitioners, professionals, and executives predominantly issued from the New York metro area. They were selected from a series of contacts mainly through the Baruch College Field Center for Entrepreneurship in the context of a larger inquiry into ‘the new nature of the firm’ as we were studying the aforementioned category of complex information technology-intensive firms. For the purpose of the larger ongoing research – and without pretention to be able to simply impose such new theory - we proposed a methodology that will rather allow such theory to emerge. In order to adequately capture the dynamic and organic nature of this phenomenon we propose to anchor this research in the qualitative-interpretive rather than the quantitative-positivist tradition.

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In particular, we are inspired and informed by a grounded theory approach for several reasons. A grounded theory approach generates a descriptive and explanatory theory of phenomenological change otherwise impractical or even impossible through variance models, or quantitative and cross-sectional data (Markus and Robey, 1988; Orlikowski and Baroudi, 1991). Firms, as organizational hierarchies, or network structures are above all dynamic, complex, contextual social phenomena. Then, grounded theory methodology has been proposed as particularly well suited for ambiguous, contradictory, and inconsistent situations and experiences that are “puzzling and difficult to interpret” (Orlikowski, 1993), such as for example particularly our proposition of absence of true design in the discipline of ‘organizational design’. Also, grounded theory is generative in nature, “an inductive, theory discovery methodology that allows the researcher to develop a theoretical account of the general features of a topic while simultaneously grounding the account in empirical observations or data” (Martin and Turner, 1986, p. 141, cited by Orlikowski, 1993). This seems of particular advantage in the information systems research discipline when considering the absence of a theoretical or empirical development with respect to the subject matter of the firm-nature altering forces of information technology. Finally, the opportunity provided by the iterativeness and comparativeness of grounded theory “to examine continuous processes in context in order to draw out the significance of various levels of analysis and thereby reveal the multiple sources of loops of causation and connectivity so crucial to identifying and explaining patterns in the process of change” (Pettigrew, 1989, p. 14, cited by Orlikowski, 1993) allows for unmatched levels of control of conceptual rigor and scope of the emerging theory. Our findings are thus based on empirical data and evidence gathered through a field study involving iterative contacts, conversations, and semi-structured interviews with qualified and representative high-level decisionmakers, entrepreneurs, practitioners issued from the professional infrastructure of the Field Center for Entrepreneurship at Baruch College. This process issued approximately twenty hours of material usable for the analysis and interpretation process and coding. This process included follow-ups and definitional clarifications. We interrupted this “iteration between data and concepts” (Orlikowski, 1993) at the moment where we experienced “theoretical saturation” (Glaser and Strauss, 1967). As predicted, after about a two dozen interviews our intuitive concepts solidified and the reactions of the interviewees began to repeat. While the selection of and contact with these individuals was undeniably somewhat predicated on scheduling, availability, convenience, and willingness, we believe the group to nevertheless be representative and the approach consistent with Glaser and Strauss’ (1967) technique of theoretical sampling. This entity of individuals is made up of mostly self-selected alumni, motivated to serve the school community by connecting academic foundation to real-world practice through their professionally proven academic experience. Thus they represent the requisite level of knowledgeable reflection and genuine interest in the subject matter. Finally, the capability of grounded theory to successfully build theory from a limited number of cases and observations has been legitimized by Eisenhardt (1989). Moreover, against the notion of researcher bias, it is the very intimate tie-in of the theory-building process with evidence that makes it ‘[…] very likely that the resultant

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theory will be consistent with empirical observation” (Eisenhardt, 1989, p. 547). According to Orlikowski (1993) it is an “[…] iterative comparison across sites, methods, evidence, and literature that characterizes such research”, leading to a “constant juxtaposition of conflicting realities [that] tends to ‘unfreeze’ thinking, and so the process has the potential to generate theory with less researcher bias than theory built form incremental studies or armchair, axiomatic deduction” (Eisenhardt, 1989, p. 546).

5 Further Research The present paper only intended to make an argument that designers issued from the design management discipline would have a role in their own right in the design process of firms. While this imperative may have been obscured during previous times of industrial, practical, automative, and transactional technologies, it is becoming utterly exposed by the impact of information technology on the very nature and character of the entire construct of the firm, the advent of complex information technologyintensive firms, and their associated transformational ambitions. What this paper does not reflect on are the necessary professional, academic, and experiential attributes of such design managers. What this paper also does not yet do is to formally reconcile the long history of the previous evolutionary interactionist and structurationist perspectives with our new mandate for ‘intelligent design’.

References 1. Afuah, A.: Business Models: A Strategic Management Approach. McGraw-Hill/Irwin, New York (2003) 2. Afuah, A., Tucci, C.L.: Internet Business Models and Strategies: Text and Cases. McGraw-Hill/Irwin, New York (2002) 3. Arakji, R.Y., Lang, K.-R.: Digital Consumer Networks and Producer-Consumer Collaboration: Innovation and Product Development in the Digital Entertainment Industry. In: Proceedings of the 40th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, HICSS 2007 (2007) 4. Brynjolfsson, E., Hitt, L.M.: Information technology and internal firm organization: an exploratory analysis. JMIS 14(2), 81–101 (1997) 5. Brynjolfsson, E., Malone, T.W., Gurbaxani, V., Kambil, A.: Does Information technology Lead to Smaller Firms? Man. Sci. 40(12), 1628–1650 (1994) 6. Coase, R.H.: The Nature of the Firm. Economica 4(N.S.), 386–405 (1937) 7. Eisenhardt, K.M.: Building Theories from Case Study Research. American Management Review 14(4), 532–550 (1989) 8. Foss, N.J.: Misesian Ownership and Coasian Authority in Hayekian Settings: The Case of the Knowledge Economy. QJ Austrian Eco. 4(4), 3–24 (2001) 9. Glaser, B.G., Strauss, A.L.: The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. Aldine Publishing Company, New York (1967) 10. Huber, G.P.: The Necessary Nature of Future Firms: Attributes of Survivors in a Changing World. Sage, Thousand Oaks (2003)

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11. Hughes, J., Lang, K.-R.: Transmutability: Digital Decontextualization, Manipulation, and Recontextualization as a New Source of Value in the Production and Consumption of Culture Products. In: Proceedings of the 39th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, HICSS 2006 (2006) 12. Kantarelis, D.: Theories of the Firm. Inderscience (2007) 13. Markus, M.L., Robey, D.: Information Technology and Organizational Change: Causal Structure in Theory and Research. Management Science 34(5), 583–598 (1988) 14. Martin, P.Y., Turner, B.A.: Grounded Theory and Organizational Research. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 22(2), 141–157 (1986) 15. Mintzberg, H.: The Structuring of Organizations. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River (1979) 16. Orlikowski, W.J.: CASE Tools as Organizational Change: Investigating Incremental and Radical Changes in Systems Development. MISQ 17(2), 309–340 (1993) 17. Orlikowski, W.J., Baroudi, J.J.: Studying Information Technology in Organizations: Research Approaches and Assumptions. Information Systems Research 2(1), 1–28 (1991) 18. Pettigrew, A.M.: Issues of Time and Site Selection in Longitudinal Research on Change. In: Cash Jr., J.I., Lawrence, P.R. (eds.) The Information Systems Research Challenge: Qualitative Research Methods, pp. 13–19. Harvard Business School Press, Boston (1989) 19. Porter, M.E.: What is Strategy? Harvard Business Review 74(6), 61–79 (1996) 20. Porter, M.E.: Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors. Free Press, New York (1998) 21. Schermerhorn, J.R., Hunt, J.G., Osborn, R.N.: Organizational Behavior. Wiley, New York (2008) 22. Shaw, M., Garlan, D.: Software Architecture: Perspectives on an Emerging Discipline. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River (1996) 23. Williamson, O., Winter, S. (eds.): The Nature of the Firm: Origins, Evolution and Development. Oxford University Press, New York (1991) 24. Williamson, O.E.: The Economics of Organization: The Transaction Cost Approach. Am. J. Soc. 87(3), 548–577 (1981)

Governance, Sociotechnical Systems and Knowledge Society: Challenges and Reflections Antonio José Balloni1 and Paulo Henrique de Souza Bermejo2 1

Center for Information Technology Renato Archer (CTI), Rodovia D. Pedro I km 143, 6, Campinas, S.P. Brazil [email protected] 2 Federal University of Lavras, Computer Department Science, Universitary Campus, Lavras, MG Brazil [email protected]

Abstract. This paper objective presenting some challenges and reflections about Governance, Knowledge Society and Sociotechnical Systems. Based on the Action Network Theory, Theory of Constraints and others techniques, questions are pointed and discussed in a systematic and innovative way. Points like the synergism and collaborative ecosystem research efforts, organizations knowledgeable and organization as a living being, the involvement of people and others IT resources on the questions, and others are discussed considering actual questions, challenges and future perspectives. Concluding, governance is pointed to offer normative goals of sustainability upon existing socio-technical systems and, to imply connecting and synchronising changes among the knowledge society actors. Keywords: Governance, Knowledge society, sociotechnical systems.

1 Panorama on Knowledge Society and Sociotechnical Systems Information Technology (IT) is redefining the businesses basis. Customer attendance, operations, products strategies, marketing and distribution and even the society of knowledge depend very, or sometimes even totally on Information System (IS). The IT and its costs are starting to make integral part of enterprise day-by-day. However, many enterprises still believe that the simple act of computerizing them, spreading computers and printers throughout departmental units, connecting them in a network and installing applications systems, can organize the same. Technology by technology, without planning, management and effective action from knowledge workers and above all, without considering the sociotechnical systems, does not bring any contribution to the enterprise [01]. 1.1 The Knowledge Society Knowledge societies is one in which knowledge becomes a major creative force, a major component of any human activity. Economic, social, cultural, and all other human activities become dependent on a huge volume of knowledge and information. J.E. Quintela Varajão et al. (Eds.): CENTERIS 2010, Part I, CCIS 109, pp. 42–51, 2010. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010

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Knowledge societies are not a new occurrence: the fishermen have long shared the knowledge of predicting the weather to their community and this knowledge gets added to the social capital of the community. What is new in a knowledge society [02]? A) With current technologies, knowledge societies need not be constrained by geographic proximity. One example is the Internet cost per kilobit, that has been increased in the last years [03,04]; B) Current technology offers much more possibilities for sharing, archiving and retrieving knowledge. Nowadays, everything about ourselves coud stored in any personal computer [05, 06]; C) Knowledge has become the most important capital in the present age, and hence the success of any society consists in controlling and making use of it. 1.2 Sociotechnical Systems As we know, the implementation of a new technology has been associated with problems often linked to resistance by the work force and failure to achieve the expected benefits [07]. Researchers, notably at the Tavistock Institute in London, suggested that it would be needed a fit between the technical system and the social system which together made up an organization [07, 08, 09]. As detailed below [03, 10]: • The social system - Organization, comprises the employees (at all levels) and the knowledge, skills, attitudes, values and needs they bring to the work environment as well as the reward system and authority structures that exist in the organization. • The technical system - Information System, comprises the devices, tools and techniques needed to transform inputs into outputs in a way which enhances the economic performance of the organization. The basis of the sociotechnical approach is: the fit is achieved by a design process aiming mutual optimization of all systems. Any organizational systems will maximize performance only if the interdependency of these systems is explicitly recognized [11]. 1.3 Governance The word governance is originated from the Greek verb “kubernân” and was used for the first time in a metaphorical sense by Plato to describe the act of governing men [12]. Governance involves monitoring and overseeing strategic direction, socioeconomic and cultural context, externalities, and constituencies of the institution. [13]. The essential meaning of governance could be defined as the “the process of keeping under control”. In the information technology / information systems area, the governance has been practiced an important role. IT/IS governance refers to a system of responsibilities that aims to coordinate all organizational activities aimed at IT/IS, referring to all involved [14].

2 Challenges and Reflections If we go back a little in history we shall remember that competitive advantage was marked by the ownership of capital and assets such as natural resources, estates, etc.,

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but today we are experiencing a fourth great revolution, that of knowledge. The first revolution, the industrial age (initiated in 1750 until the mid 1960s) was marked by the evolution of the processes. A second moment took place in the 70s, marked by the expansion of the Japanese industry. The world was overtaken by a revolution in processes. Concepts such as Just in time, Lean, Kam-bam, Six Sigma arouse, defining quality as being "the differential". Today quality is just a basic requirement! In the 80s and 90s the third moment, marked by a technological revolution in the West, lead by the Americans, commenced: the digital revolution via machines, software and methodologies capable of controlling in detail the management of an organization, increasing their gains in productivity [15]. Then from the mid 90s on, the investment for access to new technologies evolved into a non impeditive factor in face of the vertiginous decrease on their prices, enabling organizations to compete in same levels [03, 16]. In the present age, a great movement towards appreciation of the intellectual asset can be observed inside the organizations, focusing "people" as a great competitive differential. Here is the "Age of Knowledge" [15]. At the present process of acceleration at the transition of Ages, we rapidly moved from the Age of Information to the Age of Knowledge and observed the emergence of an increasingly globalized and virtual culture, urged on by the development of computers and of communication in a very particular manner, which, consequently, is devastating for the social web and nature. One asks How about the social-technical question involving IT and people? A possible answer to such question could be provided by what is known as Action Network Theory: the emerging issue is linked to the complexity of the real which shall not be able to be reduced since the great relations network (peer to peer) became evident through the technological development of ICT(s) [17]. There is also the vision where the world is seem as an intricate fabric made up of connections, of several types, alternate, combined and juxtaposed, determinant of the structure of the whole [18]. Other possible answer to the questioning could be provided by “knowing the organizations”. The organizations are composed of complex organisms (people) who need to be understood through the knowledge of nature of their relations and within a determined context. It is the treatment of the organization as a living being, through a systemic view (think globally but acting locally), that will enable the emergence of phenomena which shall enable the whole to be more than the sum of the parts of such being or organism. Treatment of the organization as a living being → synergism! On the other hand, the organizations known as relation networks, not everything can be reduced and “systematized”. Thus, the focus on people is not enough, it is necessary to connect and contextualize them in the organization’s cause. So, connecting and contextualizing the people in the organization’s cause we hope to get the differential, that is, the full knowledge of the dynamics of the system as whole! How to theorize such context? An answer, perhaps, is in the Theory of Constraints (TOC), which possesses as one of its pillars the concept of Inherent Simplicity: “a deep understanding that there is always a simple explanation to any seemingly intractable problem. This leads one to use the intuition to find the core of the problem and develop a solution which both solves the immediate problem and doesn't create additional problems along the way”. [19]

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The utilization of the Theory of Constraints (TOC), which considers the application of the exact science principles to human organizations, possesses as one of its pillars the concept of Inherent Simplicity and, the difficulty, initially, is to believe in such statement. Therefore it is necessary to study the cause-and-effect relations from the system in question in order to discover such Inherent Simplicity. On the present causality map the technological, psychological, environmental and political elements must be present, demonstrating all inevitable logical links between causes and effects (visible or not). Such logical maps, called “trees” in the TOC (from present reality, from future reality, etc.), aid us in obtaining an essential systemic view. The creator of the TOC, physicist Eliyahu Goldratt, applied the exact science principles to human organizations and demonstrated, amongst other things, that technology is necessary, but not sufficient. The personal factors, especially those linked to individual performance mensuration, generally exert a very strong influence in any context, which frequently frustrate any initiative for change. [20]. But in the end, a simple answer to the previous question (How about the socialtechnical question involving IT and people?) could the following: The socialtechnical question involves the people (obvious) and everything surrounding them, including the IT. It is a question of utility, of functionability, of usability for the consumer (if we are to discuss market), for the user (if we are to discuss society). How to demonstrate this? One of the aspects which are becoming important at everyone’s everyday life has to do with the values changes in our society. As well as manual labor was the basis for the Agricultural Age, and capital and energy were basic at the Industrial Age, the computer networks and human beings are essential in the Age of Knowledge. Therefore, how to deal with the social-technical questions in such Age? A possible answer relates to the Orkut phenomenon, with its 60 million profiles and the Twitter with its achieve of over 75 million active users account in the end of year 2009; id est. a good illustration for the social-technical questions from the new age. Its growth 'provoked' other social networks with specific purposes, but every network’s dream is to become either Orkut or Twitter. Today, organizations participate in such network, not only using 'fakes', but showing their face, in order to get closer to their consumers, to provide service, offer products, and receive suggestions. Sales teams are being managed with the aid of Moodle, keeping the team informed of processes and procedures uniformity, distance training, study groups and collaborative works in real time. Chiefs of major organizations communicate with their personnel via blog (Wordpress, Blogger, and alike) or micro-blog like Twitter. A small detail to be observed, not of little importance, is that teens of up to 18 years of age deal with email the same way the rest of the post-teen humanity faces ID and Individual Taxpayers Registry ID: as ills necessary so as to take the compulsory bureaucratic measures. Are such statements facts, how can we prove this? Can we? One possible answer is Yes: by 2008, blogging, photo- and video-sharing, social networking and on-line gaming had been embraced by half the Internet users worldwide. Some regional patterns seem to emerge: Asian countries are leading the adoption of these, followed by the US and Europe [21].

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We are living a unique moment in History, discovering that, despite our way of thinking and living not being based on the holistic paradigms and us being in the middle of a dehumanized digital economy but, at the same time we are moving towards the development of a sense of unity and perception of the whole and, hopefully, towards a sustainable and solidary economy. Is the present economic crisis the “last straw” in order for us to, finally, develops such sense of unity and perception of the whole? In order for such to take place it is indispensable to learn new means of fomenting trust and the social and environmental responsibility, which means we need to organize our individual, social and political efforts in this new knowledge information society so as to develop a new conscience and a new ethics. The figure 1 shows a representative model for such concern, identifying the 5 moral dimensions of a society across individual, social, and political levels of action. [22].

Fig. 1. The Relationship between Ethical, Social, and Political issues in an Information Society. [22].

Does the solution for this knowledge information society go, necessarily, through the social-technical IT questions? One possible answer is: Yes! Again, according to what previously showed about the concept of Inherent Simplicity (TOC), an answer could be: a deep understanding that there is always a simple explanation to any seemingly intractable problem, id est. this

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leads one to use the intuition to find the core of the problem and develop a solution which both solves the immediate problem and doesn't create additional problems along the way. Following it is necessary to study the cause-and-effect relations from the system in question in order to discover such Inherent Simplicity...” The access to the Internet and television by all citizens is becoming essential for the participation in a real time democratic life [21]. Is it the onset of a negative impact from the ITs social-technical questions? Maybe not! It could be the opposite: deals with the positive impact from the socialtechnical questions, now defined by the Ultimate Consumer. Not withdrawing the importance of TV and other means of mass communication, the consumer market on the Internet estimates the 'value' of products through clicks and, nowadays (and in the future), this is what matters. The supplier who relates with such public square is able to estimate the impact of its product analyzing the number of clicks. This is possible through the advance of Internet technologies. In the beginning of popularization of Internet, with Web 1.0, we usual accessed statics sites, we mean without an Internet graphic interface. Web 1.0 was the not-for-profit information age. After this, Web 2.0 can be seen as a result of technological refinements, such as broadband, improved browsers, and the rise of Flash application platforms. Has generally been regarded as the social Web. Web 3.0 refers to a supposed third generation of Internet-based services. [21,23]. AND IN THE FUTURE?

Fig. 2. As mentioned before, Web 3.0 refers to a supposed third generation of Internet-based services. Web 4.0 must predict the management and the intelligent use of all available knowledge in the net with media convergence and a more intuitive search mechanisms. Based on previous demands from the Internet users as well in about the study of their behavior in the web, the sites would start to deduce their next intentions... [21,23]. AND IN THE FUTURE?

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3 The Future Therefore, for countries in development, such as Brazil, to transform their condition, it is necessary, NOW, to advance their R&D and local Collaborative Ecosystem research efforts. This R&D and local collaborative ecosystem (ecosystem refers to a combined components of an environment) research efforts must consider the principle of the Systemic View (thinking globally but acting locally), and it may be accomplished by the integration among one of these interdependent subjects: ecology, biology, communication, organizations, economy, education, communities, technology, culture and the human being (human, social, psychological, intellectual and mental ecology: social-technical systems). How to elaborate/build a new way of development, which comprises the social, economical, cultural and environmental spheres, and that leads us to a new model of perception and knowledge of the world – a perfect social-technical system? Maybe an answer to such questioning “perfect social-technical system” is the following: many ways are elaborated each moment. Maybe there is no definitive way, as definitive only the Eternal. Here we are able to return to the TOC, from physicist Eliyahu Goldratt, who applied the exact sciences principles to human organizations and demonstrated, amongst other things, that technology is necessary, but not sufficient. The personal factors, especially those linked to individual performance mensuration, generally exert a very strong influence in any context, which frequently frustrate any initiative for change. BUT, stressing: IF such new system had already been developed, AND ACCEPTED, would the present financial crisis have occurred? This demonstrates that the run for money cannot be sustained for a long period and this was already common knowledge, as shown by the famous "chain schemes", where with the simple ‘investment’ of US$ 1,0 a citizen would receive several times more what had been invested without having to do anything. Note that although the basis of the capitalist principle (if I invest US$ 1,0 million, be it in stocks, be it in a new enterprise, I expect, without having in fact to actively work, have the higher compensation of such amount), this is a crime. The present crisis, which has been announcing itself for a few years, is a symptom of a new Social-technical System (or symptom of a gigantic Information System?), which is not, yet, well defined for a great parcel of the population, connected to the paradigms of the 19th century economy. Today’s crisis is the result of a catastrophic failure, primarily in the financial system but also of our economic and political systems; is the result of the reductionist, atomistic thinking that had long dominated humanity’s approach to problem-solving [24]. The Sarbanes-Oxley (Sarbox or SOX) Act of 2002, supported by corporate governance practices, was an important initiative of U.S. Government to regulator companies after the drop of financial institutions [27], but it has been appeared that it wasn’t the effective enough to avoid a financial crash in the world economy in 2008. The challenge now is the systemic thinking - to design a society (regulator) - that goes beyond companies’ compliances - and actually measures and focuses on systemic risks, rather than on the individual parts of the system id est., systems thinking

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focuses on the performance of a system as a whole [25]. And at this point that governance could exercise its essential mean and to extend its role to the hole society. Contributing to define a new systematic way of manage business, society and why not the individuals? Finally, it is important to draw the attention to new ways of organizations arising in the past few years and which provoked a reorganization of the social sectors. An important class of such new organizations is the so called Learning Community, promoting Education and the Social Asset with the development of individual qualities at people networks dynamized by the electronic networks, leading possibly to new ways of acquaintance and relationship, aiming essentially at the transformation of knowledge, of circumstances, of institutions, of concepts, of the Arts, of the Sciences and values from the human being. However, the great challenge of the 21st century shall be to change the system of values behind the global economy, so as to make it compatible to the demands of human dignity and to the ecological sustainability in a system where the IT of information changes parameters every 24 months and lowering the income inequality. Therefore, we must consider all technological possibilities available, not inventing the wheel, but, yes, improving bearing.

4 Perspectives Our world is fundamentally a sociotechnical world, id est. a world deeply characterized by human and technological interactions: human organizations are living systems and should be analyzed accordingly. Their interactions drastically affect people relationships in space and time [25]. Therefore, if we consider that the core knowledge is embodied in people’s heads (tacit knowledge [26]), and their abilities to utilize them generating new knowledge, we cannot speak about knowledge society without taking into account these interactions. Since the Internet brings together the computer, media, and the distributed intelligence of the family and the community, constituting a new basis for the effectiveness of socio-technical organizations then, in this way, beyond the economic, organizational, cultural, and technological dimensions, the specific sociotechnical context characterizes every knowledge society initiatives: synergism and ubiquitously driven by the Internet! However, management opposition persists because sociotechnical system by nature enables collaborative decision-making and shared leadership. Management has been reluctant to give up the power and authority they have worked so hard to establish. Indeed, sociotechnical system challenges the traditional management taboos that of sharing information and knowledge with subordinates on a need to know basis only [26]. The central corner stone of a technocratic bureaucracy is that decision-making is top-down and implementation is bottom up. The governance imposing normative goals of sustainability upon existing socio-technical systems, implies connecting and synchronizing changes among these actors, institutions and artifacts at many different points in the system. Hereby, governance must consequently fulfill diagnostic, prognostic, prescriptive and coordination functions. The challenge is to bring appropriately resourced actors into the governance arrangements needed to steer socio- technical change [28].

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This this new scope is changing all our mentality about and, this letter, in its section 2 “Challenges and Reflections”, tried to awake such feelings towards this new era of knowledge but, news questions remain to be answered: who or what will be driving innovations in this new era? Which is the impact of the sociotechnical system in such innovations process? About SOX, it seems that it has not been to avoid a financial crash in the world economy in 2008- Why?.

References 1. Balloni, A.J.: Por que GESITI?, Edit. Komedi (2006), http://www.cti.gov.br/noticiaseeventos/2006/gesiti/pdf/ livro_por_que_gesiti.pdf 2. Sorlin, S., Vessuri, H.: Knowledge Society vs. Knowledge Economy: Knowledge, Power, and Politic, Copyright © 2010 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. New York (2007) 3. Laudon, K.C., Laudon, J.P.: Management Information Systems: Managing the DigitalFirm. 9/e. Prentice Hall, New Jersey (2006) 4. Willinger, W., Doyle, J.: Robustness and the Internet: Design and evolution (2002), http://www.maoz.com/~dmm/complexity_and_the_internet/ robustness_and_the_internet_design_and_evolution.pdf 5. Chang, E.: Magnetic Data Storage and Nanoparticles (2010) http://www.eng.uc.edu/~gbeaucag/Classes/Nanopowders/ Applications/ErnieChang_NaMagneticMemory.pdf 6. Laudon, C.K., Laudon, J.P.: MIS (Activebook). Prentice Pearson/Hall (2004) 7. Akbari, H., Land, F.: Socio-technical theory (2010), http://www.fsc.yorku.ca/york/istheory/wiki/index.php/ Socio-technical_theory 8. Warne, L., Hart, D.N.: The Impact of Organizational Politics on Information Systems Project Failure - A Case Study (1996), http://www.computer.org/plugins/dl/pdf/proceedings/hicss/ 1996/7333/00/73330191.pdf?template=1&loginState=1&userData= anonymous-IP%253A%253A201.82.72.62 9. Bostrom, R.P., Stephen Heinen, J.: MIS Problems and Failures: A Socio-Technical Perspective, Part II: The Application of Socio-Technical Theory. MIS Quarterly 1(3) (1977), http://www.iei.liu.se/is/edu/courses/725a04/kurslitteratur/ 1.107778/MISproblemsII.pdf 10. Wang, R.Y., Pierce, E.M., Madnick, S.E., Fisher, C.W.: Advances in Management Information Systems. In: Understanding Interdependencies Between Information and Organizational Processes, ch. 11 (2005) 11. Lucas Jr., H.C., Baroudi, J.: The role of information technology in organization design. Journal of Management Information Systems 10(4), 9–23 (1994) 12. European Commission. Étymologie du terme gouvernance (2010), http://ec.europa.eu/governance/docs/doc5_fr.pdf 13. Mueller, R.K.: Changes in the wind of corporate governance. Journal of business strategy, Spring 1(4), 8–14 (1981) 14. Hamaker, S.: Spotlight on Governance. Information Systems Control Journal 1, 15 (2003) 15. de Hoyos Guevara, A.J., Dib, V.C.: The Ager of Knowledge and the growing relevance of human and social capital (2000), http://in3.dem.ist.utl.pt/downloads/cur2000/papers/S26P05.pdf

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16. Gilheany, S.: Moore’s Law and Knowledge Management (2004), http://www.ee.ic.ac.uk/pcheung/teaching/ee4_asic/notes/ Lec%201%20Moore%20Law%20and%20Knowledge%20Management.pdf 17a. Aidemark, J.: IS planning and socio-technical theory perspectives - Växjö University (2007), http://www.iseing.org/emcis/EMCIS2007/emcis07cd/ EMCIS07-PDFs/571.pdf 17b. Aidemark, J.: What is Actor-Network Theory? (2010), http://carbon.ucdenver.edu/~mryder/itc_data/ant_dff.html 18. Capra, F.: The web of life. In: A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems. Anchor Books, New York (1996) 19a. Goldratt, A.Y.: The Theory of Constraints and its Thinking Processes (2009), http://www.goldratt.com/toctpwhitepaper.pdf 19b. Victoria, M.: Goldratt’s “Theory of Constraints” Thinking Processes: A Systems Methodology linking Soft with Hard (1999), http://www.systemdynamics.org/conferences/1999/PAPERS/ PARA104.pdf 20a. McMullen Jr., T.B.: Introduction to the theory of constraints (TOC) management system. The St. Lucie Press (1998) 20b. Mabin, V.J., Balderstone, S.J.: The world of the theory of constraints: a review of the international literature. The St. Lucie Press (2000) 21. Mutka, K.A., Broster, D., Cachia, R., Centeno, C., Feijóo, C., Haché, A., Kluzer, S., Lindmark, S., Lusoli, W., Misuraca, G., Pascu, C., Punie, Y., Valverde, J.A.: The Impact of Social Computing on the EU Information Society and Economy. In: Punie, Y., Lusoli, W., Centeno, C., Misuraca, G., Broster, D. (eds.) European Commission, Joint Research Centre Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (2009) 22a. Laudon, K.C., Laudon, J.P.: 9th edition Pearson - Prentice Hall 2006, Management Information Systems - The Digital Firm: Ethical, Social & Policy Issues (2010), http://elearning.najah.edu/OldData/docs/ Ethical%20and%20Social%20Issues%20Ch%205%20ALL.doc 22b. Laudon, K.C., Laudon, J.P.: Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems (2010), http://www4.comp.polyu.edu.hk/~csajaykr/ESI.pdf 22c. Laudon, K.C., Laudon, J.P.: Chapter 4 of Organizations, Management, and the Networked Enterprise - Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems (2010), http://www.prenhall.com/behindthebook/0132304619/pdf/ laudon%20MIS10_CH-04%20FINAL.pdf 23. Spivack, N.: Web Evolution Nova Spivack Twine (2009), http://www.slideshare.net/novaspivack/ web-evolution-nova-spivack-twine?from=share_email 24. Ackoff, R.L.: Redesigning the Future: A Systems Approach to Societal Problems. New York, Wiley (1974) 25. Emery, F.E., Trist, E.: Introduction to Volume 1, 1st edn. Systems Thinking (vol.1), selected readings. F. E. Emery. Harmondsworth, Penguin (1981) 26. Balloni, A.J.: Why GESITI: Why Management of System and Information Technology. Book Series IFIP International Federation for Information Processing, Book Virtual Enterprises and Collaborative Networks. Springer, Boston 27. Lander, G.: What Is Sarbanes-Oxley? McGraw-Hill Trade, Blacklick (2003) 28. Smith, A., Stirling, A.: Moving Inside or Outside? Positioning the Governance of Sociotechnical Systems. In: Science and Technology Policy Research, University of Sussex, Falmer (2006)

Management Model for Mobile Applications Assisted by Events Rui Rijo1 and Sílvio Bernardes2 1

INESCC - Institute for Systems and Computers Engineering at Coimbra, Rua Antero de Quental, Nº199, 3000 - 033, Coimbra, Portugal Phone: +351 239 851040/9; Fax: +351 239 824692 [email protected] 2 Research Center for Informatics and Communications – Polytechnic Institute of Leiria, Apt. 4163, 2411-901 Leiria, Portugal Phone: +351 917 001 892; Fax: +351 244 820 310 [email protected]

Abstract. Information and Communication Technologies are used in almost every activity sector. With the adoption and proliferation of such technologies in mobile devices, a complex and major growth of mobile applications is observed. Hardware manufacturers are keen on perfecting their components. Such perfectioning is done with the intent of improving component and equipment's performance indexes. Mobile computing has been undergoing constant improvements as far as processing, storage and autonomy are concerned. However, there remain multiple challenges associated with mobile devices. This document will be focusing essentially on the challenges presented by the processing power and autonomy constraints. In order to minimize the problems presented by the processing power and autonomy constraints, a model is presented which aims to minimize the processing requirements and increase the autonomy of mobile devices. In more detail, the benefits of the utilization of a distributed event driven notification system will be studied. Since some of the processing will be shifting from mobile devices towards workstations, an efficient communication and control logic is mandatory. In order to achieve this, a text-based communication protocol is used. With this model, mobile applications avoid engaging in computing intensive tasks. Keywords: Mobile computing, smartphones, mobile applications, mobile devices, performance.

1 Introduction The world-wide propagation of personal computers, and mobile computing constant development, presents users with a wide range of applications and services at their disposal. These applications and services are geographically independent from the J.E. Quintela Varajão et al. (Eds.): CENTERIS 2010, Part I, CCIS 109, pp. 52–61, 2010. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010

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device. With the rising number of users of mobile devices it is expected that in a couple of years millions of people will hold such a device. The vast majority of devices will have wireless communication capabilities, being able to connect either with other mobile devices, or with other devices belonging to a wired network [1]. As mobile computing evolves, so emerges the necessity to improve the services and applications offered by mobile devices. PDA's and smart phones are examples of products with great success in the market, granting the user the ability to install applications such as spreadsheet applications, text editors, audio and video players, imaging or even management applications. The general acceptance of mobile telephones allows an easier communication between individuals despite their location, and companies adopt them as an essential work tool, making it possible for a continuous information flow. Initially, mobile telephones were mainly used as a device to hold simple audio conversations, with support for very minimalist applications, and 2D. Nowadays, it is common for a mobile telephone to support complex applications, 3D games and Internet access. Applications have been evolving along with mobile devices' market. Smart phones have support for rich applications, such as word processors, 3D games, personal calendars, music players, third generation (3G) Internet access, and Customer Relationship Management (CRM). As far as software is concerned, it is clearly perceptible the growing tendency by companies to release versions of their products compatible with mobile devices [2]. Mobile devices are directly dependent on batteries. Without them, it would be impossible to make use of mobile devices in places where there is no electrical power. [3]. The burden of developing components and applications that are optimized, as far as power consumption goes, is on the systems’ developers [3]. The present work intends to show an alternative working model for mobile applications, which allows for a more efficient power usage. A model shall be presented, which will enable the management of event driven mobile applications. With this model, some of the processing will shift from the mobile device to an external processing device. Within this paradigm the mobile device will only make use of its resources when strictly necessary, thereby decreasing usage of the processing unit, memory and network resources, in order to optimize power consumption. This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 introduces mobile operating systems. Section 3 presents the event driven notification model. Section 4 presents an analysis and evaluation of the model. Finally, a summary of the results is given in section 5.

2 Mobile Operating Systems An operating system is the software that provides the bridge between hardware and general purpose software. Its main functions are memory management, processor scheduling, file systems and other I/O operations [4]. Usually, operating systems for mobile devices adopt, just as their desktop's counterparts, a layered architecture (Kernel, Middleware, Application Execution Environment, User Interface and Application Suite) view figure 1.

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The layering grants theses systems scalability, since it allows one layer to undergo development without the need to change any of the other layers. Kernel and hardware devices are the operating system's core. It is in this layer that hardware drivers are kept, along with the file system and memory, and process management takes place [5]. The middleware layer represents an interface to provide the user the ability to interact with hardware devices through the use of software libraries [5]. The Application Execution Environment is responsible for providing the user all the system's Application Programming Interfaces (API's) to help him in the development of new applications. The User Interface layer provides the user with the system's graphical interface. The Application Suite layer is the common place for all the general purpose applications. Among others, one can find browsers, configuration menus and games. Plugins and software with the intent of providing the system with extra functionalities can be found at third party applications. Usually these pieces of software are written by companies other than the system provider. Games, browsers and email clients are also to be found at this layer.

Fig. 1. Layers of a Mobile Operating System. Adapted (Kotsis,2007).

2.1 Platforms Nowadays various mobile operating systems are available in the market. A special distinction goes to Symbian, Research in motion (Rim), Windows Mobile and the iPhone Operating System (OS), these being the most widely used during the year of 2008 [6]. In addition to these systems, Android OS, the Google alternative, has recently come forth. Despite the number of existing operating systems in the market, they all share functionalities, although differing significantly when it comes to usability, performance and reliability. All of these systems offer support for audio players, movie players, imaging capabilities, organizers and games.

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According to a study by the PcWorld magazine, Apple iPhone OS and Android OS are the best operating systems in the market [7] view figure 2.

Fig. 2. Most widely used operating systems during the year of 2009. Adapted from (Jaskl, 2009).

In the period of 2006 to 2009, software flexibility, focus on middleware and opensource systems were software market’s main trends. Just like personal computers' operating systems, mobile devices' operating systems support a wide range of devices. This compatibility allows for the personalization of interfaces, network and multimedia services, depending on the device, granting them a high potential [5]. Multimedia playback and Internet connection through wireless technology are some of these systems' standard characteristics. Currently mobile operating systems and personal computer operating systems share some common characteristics, however, mobile operating systems are limited as far as battery life and input/output resources are concerned. These limitations are fairly perceptible in applications developed for mobile devices, which are most of the times, presented with a subset of the functionalities present in their personal computer's versions. In spite of the advantages presented by the use of mobile devices, yet some obstacles are to be overcome. The acquaintance of a user towards mobile devices can be inferred from the complexity, efficiency and speed of text introduction by the user. Due to its small size, getting used to text insertion is the hardest task [8]. Taking into consideration the fast growth of mobile devices oriented software development, the adaptation by the user to the software may be one of the key factors in its success. Softwares that excel in this field get recognition by the users [9]. Mobile devices are directly dependent on batteries. Without them, it would be impossible to make use of mobile devices in places where there is no electrical power. Usually batteries tend to be heavy and provide only for a few hours of usage. Battery life has been a great obstacle in mobile computing. Battery manufacturing has not been able to keep up with the remaining technological progress surrounding mobile computing. Therefore, the burden of developing components and applications that are optimized as far as power consumption goes is on the systems' developers [10].

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3 Event Driven Notification Model Presentation With the minimization of processing done by the mobile device in mind, some of it should be transferred to one or more servers. Even though some processing will always remain for the mobile device to execute, some tasks not dependent on the hardware may be migrated. Checking email, stock market or the current temperature in a given city stands as some tasks that could easily be migrated. The application server should be installed on a server and should be responsible for regularly pooling the services provided the WebServices. With the processing distributed amongst one or more servers and the mobile device, building an efficient communication system to allow for the exchange of information between all the parts in the system is mandatory.

E-mail server Enterprise server

(…) Event mobile server The server processes and notifies the mobile device every time an event occours

Services Application server Mobile device

Fig. 3. Event driven notification model

For the success of this model (figure 3), it is of the essence that the sections presented in the previous diagram are correctly defined. In the services section one or more WebServices must exist in order to provide services for the application server. The application server is responsible for any processing that should support the mobile device. It implements a client/server architecture based on socket communication. With this architecture, the application server simply needs to know the WebService address, which must be periodically checked in order to assert if any new event has occurred. In the mobile device section the client application can be found. The client application connects to the application server through sockets. Once the communication has been established the client application silently awaits for notifications from the application server. Once the application server has notified the client of a new event, the client application acts according to user predefined configurations.

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4 Model Evaluation In order to evaluate the model, five test groups were defined. All the tests were performed under similar conditions, the same mobile device (HTC Touch) was used with the battery fully charged. The architecture used in the tests can be found in the vast majority of traditional client applications. In picture 4 an example of the model's operation is shown. 1 1 3 2

Rede

3

Rede

4

Fig. 4. Proposed model

The diagram enumerates the steps taken by the information flow in the proposed model. In step one the mobile application is put into execution and an authentication request is made to the application server. In step two, the application server confirms the connection has been established. In step three, the application server queries the services. In step four, if and only if, necessity arises, the application server notifies the client of new events. 4.1 Test Group to Compare the Proposed Model versus the Traditional Model for 180 Minutes When Applied to Email Reception [Group A] This group was designed so that a comparison could be established between the proposed model and the traditional model, as far as email reception is concerned. The evaluation is made based on the battery usage by the mobile device during a three hour period. The application implementing the traditional model contacts the email server every ten minutes for three hours, with the objective of checking if there are any new email messages. Even though the server is contacted every ten minutes, the user only receives new email messages every twenty minutes. The difference of time between the periodical contact to the server by the mobile device and the effective arrival of a new email translates into one extra communication between the client and the server every twenty minutes, resulting in the usage of 18% more of battery. In this test the application server was configured to check the WebService for new messages every 10 minutes. The mobile device is running the client application, which waits for notifications by the application server. Whenever the application server notices the arrival of a new email message, a notification is triggered to warn the client application. Once the client application has been notified, it executes the predefined email application, allowing the user to read the email. With this model, it

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is guaranteed that the mobile application only checks in with the email server once it has been notified of the existence of a new email message. The results may be considered satisfactory, since only a 10% battery usage was observed, thereby showing an 8% improvement over the traditional model (fig. 5). The previously described scenery of one email every twenty minutes is an approximation to reality; however the purpose of these tests is to realize the model's behavior during short periods of time. These periods may be compared to short activity bursts by the users, whom may or may not be interested in having the application running for the entire battery life.

Fig. 5. Test group A

4.2 Test Group to Compare the Proposed Model versus the Traditional Model for the Period of Time Defined by the Battery at Full Charge When Applied to Periodic Email Reception [Group B] These tests take place under the same conditions defined for Group A, with the exception of the duration. While the tests in Group A lasted for three hours, the tests in Group B will be executed while the device battery lasts. This test will assess how long the battery will last when running the proposed model, and how long it will last when running the traditional model. After running the tests, it was observed that the traditional model was able to run for 492 minutes, while the proposed model managed to run for 1438 minutes (fig. 6). This result shows larger differences between the models than the previous tests.

Fig. 6. Test group B

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4.3 Test Group to Compare the Proposed Model versus the Traditional Model for the Period of Time Defined by the Battery at Full Charge When Applied to Random Email Reception [Group C] While the previous test had a predetermined new email frequency, this test will run under the condition that new email messages will arrive in a non-periodic fashion. With this modification, the test scenery will become closer to that observed in real life. For the traditional model it was again defined that the email application should check for new emails every 10 minutes. The random arrival of new emails with periodic checks by the client scenario puts us in the currently used commercial architectures' frame of reference. The results shown by the traditional model in this test were below our expectations since the battery only lasted for 400 minutes. The proposed model, where the mobile application is notified by the application server whenever a new email is received, was able to last for 990 minutes (fig. 7).

Fig. 7. Test group C

4.4 Test Group to Compare the Proposed Model versus the Traditional Model for the Period of Time Defined by the Battery at Full Charge When Applied to Checking Weather Conditions [Group D] This group of tests focuses on mobile applications designed to provide data related to Lisbon's weather conditions. Currently, these kind of applications are largely spread and can be easily found in smart phones. The tests aim to evaluate the performance of two different approaches to this problem. The first application will use the ruling paradigm used by nowadays' software vendors, and it will run on the mobile device for as long as the battery allows (starting at full charge). This application will update its data every ten minutes. The second application will make use of the proposed model, where the mobile phone will be notified whenever there is a change in the temperature readings, and it will run under the same battery conditions as the first implementation. The application server will update the temperature information every twenty minutes through a WebService. Since the temperatures will see little changes throughout the day, the application server will make an excessive use of the WebServices. Most of the data collected

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from the WebService shows that the temperature did not changed since the previous data transfer. The results show that the first alternative managed to run for a period of 480 minutes, with little temperature fluctuation. Alternatively, the second approach managed to run for a period of 1300 minutes, which more than doubles the amount of time the mobile device stayed on while running the application (fig. 8). The results from this group of tests can be considered satisfactory, since it can also be inferred from the data collected that there is a direct relationship between the number of times a give WebService is accessed and the energy spent by the mobile device.

Fig. 8. Test group D

5 Conclusions In our globalize world, users and organizations have a sense of need to be connected every time and everywhere. The expectation is the possibility to access the e-mail, the Internet, and all the work and leisure applications all the time. Hardware devices are becoming more and more powerful, it is also true that the way of developing applications influences the devices energy consumption. The chapter presents a set of experiences that show the relation between these two aspects. From this set of experiences, a model based on events is proposed. This model may improve the autonomy of the devices shifting operations from the devices to main servers. As the quality of communications and mobility increases this model may be explored. From the first group of tests, one can infer that the application shows benefits even when used for short periods of time. When comparing the results from the tests where the duration is determined by the battery life, one can understand that by using the event driven notification model, the smartphone can be used for longer periods of time. It should also be noted that the test group designed to compare the proposed model versus the traditional model for the period of time defined by the battery at full charge when applied to periodic email reception was the one producing better results. It is possible that in a scenery where the flow of email messages or with constant temperature shifts the smart phone battery life may be shorter. In order to have a common background against which results could be weighted, both implementations were run in the same mobile device.

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The event driven notification model presents itself as a solution to the necessity of constant updates and network usage by some mobile applications. These queries allow for the mobile applications to keep an updated version of whatever data it is they are dealing with. When there is a shift from a periodic query paradigm to an event driven one, it was observed that the battery life increased. Due to limitations on available hardware, the tests were run in one single smartphone, the HTC Touch. However, it would be interesting to expand the tests further, by running them in other devices. It would also be of interest to study the possibility of developing an application server that could notify the client in similar fashion to what SMS and telephone calls use. This would allow for the client device to remain on stand-by, avoiding the processing that current client takes.

References 1. Ribeiro, D.: Estudo de Interface Humano-Máquina em Dispositivos Móveis (2006), http://projetos.inf.ufsc.br/arquivos_projetos/projeto_521/ rascunho20060708.pdf (retrieved) 2. Tavares, P., Ferreira, S.M.: Commerce e M-Business: um panorama da computação móvel e suas perspectivas (2009), http://seer.unirio.br/index.php/monografiasppgi/article/ viewFile/265/257 (retrieved January 13, 2010) 3. Mateus, G.R., Loureiro, A.F.: Introdução à Introdução à Computação Móvel. 11a Escola de Computação, COPPE/Sistemas, NCE/UFRJ (1998) 4. Kotsis, G., Khalil, I.: Mobile Computing (2009), http://www.tk.uni-linz.ac.at/download/ mc_02_mobileoperatingsystems.pdf (retrieved September 11, 2009) 5. Andreas, C.: Mobile operating systems: The new generation (2006), http://www.visionmobile.com/rsc/researchreports/ Mobile_Operating_Systems_The_New_Generation.pdf (retrieved September 11, 2009) 6. Jaskl, A.: Mobile Operating Systems, http://www.symbianresources.com/tutorials/general/mobileos/ MobileOperatingSystems.pdf (retrieved October 25, 2009) 7. PCWorld (February 2009), http://www.pcworld.com (retrieved) 8. MacKenzie, S., Soukoreff, R.: Text entry for mobile computing: Models and methods, theory and practice (2003), http://www.yorku.ca/mack/hci3-2002.pdf (retrieved October 10, 2009) 9. Ribeiro, D.: Estudo de Interface Humano-Máquina em Dispositivos Móveis, http://projetos.inf.ufsc.br/arquivos_projetos/projeto_521/ rascunho20060708.pdf (retrieved November 25, 2009) 10. Mateus, G., Loureiro, A.: Introdução à computação móvel, http://homepages.dcc.ufmg.br/~loureiro/cm/docs/ cm_livro_2e.pdf (retrieved August 13, 2009)

Evaluating Goal-Oriented Analysis in the Domain of Enterprise Information Systems Malihe Tabatabaie, Fiona A.C. Polack, and Richard F. Paige Department of Computer Science, University of York, YO10 5DD, York, UK {malihetb,fiona,paige}@cs.york.ac.uk

Abstract. The development of Enterprise Information Systems (EIS) raises specific challenges related to the scale and complexity of the business processes that must be supported. Techniques for managing the challenges of scale and complexity are often based on modelling, and are targeted at different parts of the EIS development process. This paper presents the results of an evaluation of a number of goal-oriented analysis approaches in the domain of EIS, based on an example EIS for health care. The paper concludes that existing approaches lack process guidance and, in particular, guidance on the evaluation of the results of goal analysis. We present an analysis of the problem of evaluation, and propose a scenario-based approach to evaluate the results of goal analysis. Keywords: Enterprise Information System, Goal-oriented approaches, Stroke Care System, Goal Structuring Notation, KAOS, GBRAM, i∗ .

1 Introduction This paper summarises the results of assessing a number of goal-oriented analysis approaches in the development of Enterprise Information Systems (EIS), and identifies a scenario-based evaluation approach that can be applied to the results of goal-oriented analysis. We identify some limitations and strengths of each approach, as a stage to developing a process model for goal-oriented analysis of EIS (see [25]). The term EIS is widely used, as are related terms, such as small or medium-sized enterprise, enterprise architecture [21] and enterprise services [18]. In [24,23], we consider the definition and domain of enterprise and EIS, and review common uses of the terms. We observe that a key characteristic of EIS is having multiple linked business processes that create complexity [23]. The development of such systems is costly, and failure in IT projects might have a substantial effect on the whole of society. One example of EIS that affects the UK is its National Health Service (NHS) IT system projects. Our study of this type of EIS has allowed us to categorise some of the common challenges of EIS [5]: – – – –

lack of clear links between EIS and an organisation’s key priorities; lack of agreed measures of success; lack of effective engagement with stakeholders; lack of understanding of and contact with the supply industry at senior levels in the organisation;

J.E. Quintela Varaj˜ao et al. (Eds.): CENTERIS 2010, Part I, CCIS 109, pp. 62–70, 2010. c Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010 

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– lack of ability to visualise complex software systems. An enterprise is a collection of small or medium-sized businesses (SMEs) and partners that operates as a single organisation. An EIS is a software system that integrates the business processes of organisation(s) to improve their functioning [23,24]. The challenges of developing and deploying EIS vary across enterprises, with many challenges related to scale and complexity. Some factors that create complexity in EIS are [24]: – size and growth of information technology (IT), information systems (IS) and the organisation itself; – the interactions between different IT and IS; – the involvement of many different parties in the construction and use of IT and IS; and, – the ever-increasing rate of organisational and social change. These factors give rise to the failures of communication and understanding identified as challenges above [5]. Techniques that can help to address these challenges in communication may help to reduce the risks inherent in developing and deploying EIS. Communication difficulties are typically apparent, and important to overcome, in the early stages of the IS engineering lifecycle, i.e., when trying to identify clear requirements, policies, objectives, and regulatory constraints. We thus propose a goal-oriented approach to facilitate communication and understanding in the development of EIS. At this stage we cannot expect business people to design their own software systems but we can provide support for them in identifying and structuring their goals; similar support could be provided for software systems developers as well. Through a structured process of analysis and modelling, EIS developers are led towards an understanding of the priorities of the enterprise organisation and its organisational goals. Analysis requires identification of a sufficiently-complete sets of goals, by engagement with different groups of stakeholders. Engagement with senior staff can help to create understanding between developers and organisational seniors. Structuring the goals of EIS can lead towards a vision of the EIS-to-be and systems-as-is, and can address the challenge of EIS structural visualisation. The need to identify enterprise-level goals led us to review well-known goal-oriented approaches (GOAs) to requirements elicitation and engineering. Of the GOAs reviewed, some have previously been applied to EIS, but all are aimed at use by GOA experts, rather than domain experts. The reviewed GOAs are not generally associated with a clear process of how to extract and refine the goals and goal structures: this is a critical concern for EIS where overlapping, contradictory, and possibly inconsistent goals may lead to enterprise-wide problems. There are various types of EIS with very different requirements, and it may therefore not be possible to develop a generic process that can satisfy all of them. Approaches tailored for specific EIS domains may be more profitable. However, in any case, when there is no process the use of an approach is limited by its reliance on GOA experts. To address these difficulties, we are developing and implementing a process, based on KAOS heuristics, and best practices taken from KAOS and other goal-oriented approaches. We have also tailored this process specifically to the EIS considered in our

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research so far: that is, EIS to support large governmental enterprises in the domain of health care. We have not yet applied our process to other kinds of EIS in other domains. The paper is structured as follows. Section 2 presents an example of an EIS for managing stroke care across England. The example is used as the basis for our assessment of goal-oriented analysis approaches. Section 3 presents a general review of goal-oriented approaches. This leads to a more detailed review of the four most well-known goaloriented approaches, and summarises their shortcomings and strengths, thus allowing us to propose improvements for EIS analysis. Section 4 explains the challenges of evaluating the results of a goal-oriented analysis, and proposes a scenario-based approach that is sufficient for the health care EIS domain in which we are working, and which deals with some of the shortcomings from Section 3. We then conclude with pointers for future work.

2 EIS Domain: Stroke Care This paper focuses on the challenges of a specific example of EIS in the health care domain, an EIS for managing patient care, particularly for care of people who have had a stroke. This section introduces the example and justifies why it is a suitable EIS example; the next section presents an assessment of goal-oriented approaches that we have applied to capturing and analysing the goals of enterprises in this domain. “Stroke has been described as ‘an earthquake in the brain’. The shock waves of stroke can leave a lasting and profound impact on how people move, see, speak, feel or understand their world” [26]. Stroke is the third biggest killer in the UK [26]. Stroke Care is not only about supporting people who have just had a stroke, but also “helping people of all ages establish and maintain a lifestyle that promotes good health and minimises the risk of ever having a stroke” [26]. Stroke care is the management of medical and care procedures related to stroke within organisations such as the UK’s NHS. Stroke care is based on different business and organisational processes relating to governmental and other organisations as well as hospitals. There are different views of the goals and functionalities of the stroke care system from different groups of stakeholders, such as politician, health specialists, IT specialists, and society groups such as patients and their families. This organisational and medical system requires a strong and clear connection between different business processes and partners. Therefore, stroke care is an example of EIS. There are different documents and proposals for this system that show the large group of society members and organisations who are interested in achieving the goals of Stroke Care. In this research, various documents were reviewed, leading to adoption of the UK Department of Health’s “National Stroke Care” [26] as the primary resource. This report lists and describes non-functional requirements, soft goals and strategies of stroke care management. Some other key resources are: – – – –

Interview with IT expert; An IT proposal from a local health team in the UK [17]; Public documents for an American stroke care system [20]; Public documents of electronic patient record systems in Denmark [7];

Where there is a lack of available information, realistic assumptions have to be made.

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3 Goal-Oriented Approaches There are at least 15 distinct GOAs [9] from areas of computer science such as artificial intelligence [8], software assessment [28], requirements engineering [16,3] and safety argumentation [11,12]. In this section we review goal-oriented approaches to requirements engineering, and present an assessment of four leading approaches applied to EIS for stroke care. The approaches, which were selected after considering the definition of EIS, the aim of the research, and the internal characteristics of each GOA, are GSN [11], KAOS [16], GBRAM [2], and i∗ [3]. KAOS and GBRAM have approaches for defining and refining the goals of an organisation; KAOS is the better-documented approach, and has been used in many successful projects. i∗ is a well-known and successful approach, and has been applied to health care [1]; it claims to encourage the involvement of stakeholders in requirement analysis, and to help the developers to achieve a deep understanding of the domain. GSN is widely used for presenting the structure of arguments in the domain of safety, and has been applied to requirements analysis in research contexts [6]. GSN structures an argument using goals, and can help to bridge the gap between developers and stakeholders. The following critique of these methods is based on their literature and on applying each of the approaches to the stroke care EIS development (Section 2). 3.1 Critique of GSN [22] GSN is typically used to summarise the evidence of safety from traditional safety analysis techniques. Whilst GSN provides a powerful structuring notation, it lacks a supporting process, and does not provide a goal identification method. In this respect, GSN compares unfavourably with the other approaches: for example, GBRAM goal identification uses instance scenarios [2]. The basic GSN guidelines that exist [13,11] have no requirement to document sources of goals. GSN does not enforce traceability between goals and sources, although Kelly [13] gives some examples of acceptable types of goal reference, and textual references can be included in element labels. This hampers the use of GSN for goal analysis and complicates the process of changing a goal structure, even in the context of safety-case maintenance for which GSN was designed [27]. There are patterns and suggestions to address the change-maintenance problem but no mechanism of validation or enforcement to clarify the source of the goals structure [29,12]. Because of its origins in safety-case argumentation, the GSN notation includes useful features such as modularity, but cannot easily express contradiction or priority of goals. In EIS, it is invariably the case that the enterprise assigns priorities to its goals, and it is generally the case that some identified goals will conflict (excellence vs cost-saving is a common instance). Similarly, because of its origins, goals are derived from (safety) requirements and expressed as a claim over evidence; by contrast most requirements engineering GOAs, goals are expressed before identifying the requirements and are a source for identifying the requirements [10,2,16].

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3.2 Critique of i∗ i∗ supports process modelling and re-engineering [30]. The motivation of i∗ is to understand why a business process is the way it is, rather than just to describe the requirements of a business process; the approach was chosen for review because of its focus on understanding of the business environment and the domain [30]; its encouragement of stakeholder involvement in requirements analysis; its visual notation for communication between stakeholders; and, finally, its previous use in health care [1]. These positive attributes, in addition to its tool support, influence our eventual process. However, like [1], we find that i∗ requires too much detailed information early in the design process. Whilst the level of detail may exist in business-specific IS development, it is not appropriate for analysis of enterprise goals. This problem applies in some part to the other GOAs, but is particularly problematic in i∗ , which requires detailed information for allocating dependency relationships, and produces a goal structure that includes implementation information. 3.3 Critique of GBRAM Ant´on [2] presents GBRAM as an approach for analysing, identifying, and classifying goals, agents and stakeholders. The detail level of GBRAM is more appropriate than that of i∗ : goals are a “logical mechanism for identifying, organizing and justifying software requirements” [2]. GBRAM provides a top-down approach to refining and structuring goals; it addresses identification and documentation of goals, as well as the issue of knowing when the goals are adequately specified. These positive attribute influence our eventual approach. The main disadvantage of GBRAM is its lack of a generic analysis process: this lack of guidance inhibits use the method as-is for EIS. 3.4 Critique of KAOS KAOS is an tool-supported approach to goal-based requirement engineering that has a comparatively well-defined process, with many conceptual similarities to GBRAM. It has both a top-down approach and a bottom-up approach to identifying and refining goals. In this sense, it is more detailed and complete than GBRAM; KAOS’ approach is also at an appropriate level for EIS, without the need for detailed information early in the analysis that is problematic in i∗ . The rigorous approach to goal definition in KAOS can cause difficulties for stakeholders who are unfamiliar with IT development, but adds its own value in respect of concrete definition. The KAOS methodology is actively evolving and is well-documented; it is applied in many industrial cases. Although, as in other approaches, the process of applying KAOS is not well-defined, largely comprising usage examples [16, P. 502], the advantage of documentation makes it the basis for our EIS process. 3.5 Critique Summary In conclusion, firstly, we find a general lack of clear process guidance for GOAs, which makes the approaches heavily reliant on the expertise of practitioners. It is arguable that

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there is insufficient world-wide expertise to support the needs of EIS development, and thus more guidance in the application of approaches is necessary. Secondly, a key limitation of all the reviewed GOAs is the lack of evaluation techniques. Evaluation, again, relies heavily on expertise. KAOS suggests using bottom-up and top-down approaches to evaluate goal models – asking a “why question” from child goals to its parents and vice versa [16]. Whilst this can work in practice, more systematic consideration of evaluation is needed. Evaluation is considered in more detail in the following section.

4 Evaluating a Goal-Oriented Analysis A goal-oriented analysis is evaluated to ensure that its results are consistent and appropriate. In particular, we need to ensure that the goals and the goal structure are sufficient to allow EIS developers to start with the next phase, the development of specific IT systems. This section addresses how to evaluate the results of a GOA in the domain of our health care EIS. The four goal-oriented approaches discussed above are heavily reliant on expert review. It is clear that expert review has an essential role, but we believe that other evaluation options are available to developers, complementing and focusing expert review. For GSN, Kelly [14] gives the following criteria for evaluating a goal structure: – – – –

Argument comprehension. Well-formedness checks. Expressive sufficiency checks. Argument criticism and defeat.

Such criteria-based or checklist approaches are beneficial in general, and identify the obvious or generic problems, but may miss unusual or special issues that happen in some cases [10]. To uncover special cases, we propose to use scenario-based evaluation. Scenarios are widely used for collecting data in requirement engineering, but, to the best of our knowledge, have not been used in evaluation goal structures. Scenarios have the ability to define the goals of actors [19], and can thus be easily adapted for goal-oriented approaches. They can be detailed and narrowed down as much as required. Scenarios “can be made deliberately incomplete to help developers cope with uncertainty” [19]. Scenarios are easy to create and understand, they are simple to use and inexpensive, hence they are suitable to use in many fields: scenario-based evaluation is used successfully in software architectures [4]. For this research, a scenario is defined as a short statement describing the goals and expectations of one of the stakeholders from the system. Two different types of scenario could be applied to evaluation in goal-oriented approaches. The goal-model point of view defines different roles for scenarios: Introduction, planning, automation, operationalisation, evaluation [10]. Alternatively, an architectural view of scenarios is given by the ATAM approach [4], which presents the following scenario types[4, P. 54], all of which are at least partly applicable to our GOA evaluation purpose: Use case scenario: describes a user’s intended interaction with the completed running system; expresses a specific stakeholder’s desires.

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Growth scenario: represents typical anticipated changes to a system. Change and evolution is a feature of typical EIS, and growth scenarios could be used to evaluate goal structures in the context of change. Exploratory scenarios: expose the limits or boundary conditions of a current design and expose possibly-implicit assumptions. To investigate scenario use in evaluating the results of EIS goal structures, we constructed scenarios that cover some of the primary functionalities of the Stroke Care system, and reviewed the criteria to evaluate which set of scenarios are most appropriate. As the titles suggest, the categories from the goal-model point of view are detailed and focus on stages of software development (planning, automation, operationalisation), only some of which can be generated in the early stages of development considered here. It is more practical in the Stroke Care example to generate scenarios for the categories given in ATAM. The descriptions of ATAM categories were thus tailored to match the EIS research domain as follows: – Use case scenario to describe the desires and goals of stakeholders in relation to the EIS. – growth scenario to describe the anticipated goals if the system changes in future, or to describe the possibility of goals that change in future. – exploratory scenarios to explore the EIS limits and boundary goals. From a review of approaches to the use of scenarios, such as [15], we extract the following steps for an evaluation process, which can be applied to each module, or to a group or related goals: – – – – – – –

Select a few high priority scenarios from one ATAM category Present each scenario as a sequence diagram Check that agents are captured in the diagram Check that goals are captured in the diagram Generate requirements if possible Generate expectations if possible Generate operations if possible

By applying this evaluation process using scenarios related to Stroke Care we addressed the following evaluation criteria: – Understandable: The goals are understandable because at least one scenario justifies the condition under which the goal(s) could exist. – Correct: The correctness of the goal structure is checked against the scenarios. – Right level of detail: The level of detail for goals is checked by creating a sensible and understandable scenario out of the documented goal(s) – Unambiguous: Detect ambiguity by presenting the ambiguous scenarios. – Redundancy: A goal is redundant if no rational scenario can be found that justifies the existence of the goal. – Organised: Check the structure and organisation of goals by creating scenarios that includes several goals.

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5 Conclusion and Future Work This paper outlines how goal-oriented approaches to modelling and analysis can facilitate the development of health care EIS, and may be applicable to EIS in other domains. Facilitation comes from better structuring and explicit modelling of goals and points of contention amongst stakeholders. A detailed review of GOAs using an EIS example identifies features that can be usefully applied in the stroke care example. The analysis illustrated that KAOS methodology is the most convenient approach, but that this technique has limitations, including limited guidance on evaluating the results. The key contribution of this paper is the proposal of scenario-based evaluation for the results of GOA. It is assumed that stakeholders could understand scenarios related to the goals more easily than the goal structure itself; hence, this technique both helps developers to do the evaluation and helps to engage domain experts in the process of systematic evaluation. The approach reduces reliance on GOA experts for evaluation and review. Work is continuing on the testing and documentation scenario-based evaluation, and more generally in identifying and applying other possible appropriate evaluation techniques.

References 1. An, Y., Dalrymple, P., Rogers, M., Gerrity, P., Horkoff, J., Yu, E.: Collaborative social modeling for designing a patient wellness tracking system in a nurse-managed healthcare center. In: International Conference on Design Science Research in Information Systems and Technology. ACM, New York (2009) 2. Ant´on, A.I.: Goal-based requirements analysis. In: IEEE International Conference on Requirements Engineering, pp. 136–144 (1996) 3. Castro, J., Kolp, M., Mylopoulos, J.: Towards requirements-driven information systems engineering: the Tropos project. Information Systems 27(6), 365–389 (2002) 4. Clements, P., Kazman, R., Klein, M.: Evaluating Software Architectures: Methods and Case Studies. Addison-Wesley, Reading (2002) 5. RAE-BCS Working Group. The challenges of complex IT projects. Technical report, The Royal Academy of Engineering (2004) 6. Habli, I., Wu, W., Attwood, K., Kelly, T.: Extending Argumentation to Goal-Oriented Requirements Engineering. In: Hainaut, J.-L., Rundensteiner, E.A., Kirchberg, M., Bertolotto, M., Brochhausen, M., Chen, Y.-P.P., Cherfi, S.S.-S., Doerr, M., Han, H., Hartmann, S., Parsons, J., Poels, G., Rolland, C., Trujillo, J., Yu, E., Zim´anyie, E. (eds.) ER Workshops 2007. LNCS, vol. 4802, pp. 306–316. Springer, Heidelberg (2007) 7. Harrell, E.: In: Denmark’s Electronic Health Records Program, a Lesson for the U.S. (April 2009), http://www.time.com/time/health/article/ 0,8599,1891209,00.html (accessed September 16, 2009) 8. Hong, J.: Goal recognition through goal graph analysis. Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research 15, 1–30 (2001) 9. Kavakli, E., Loucopoulos, P.: Goal driven requirements engineering: Analysis and critique of current methods. In: Krogstie, J., Halpin, T.A., Siau, K. (eds.) Information Modeling Methods and Methodologies, pp. 102–124. IGI (2005)

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Empowering the Web User with a Browserver Miguel Raposo and José Delgado Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, Av. Prof. Cavaco Silva, Porto Salvo, Portugal

Abstract. Although we already provide our services in the Web, we are not seen as service providers. Electronic and human services still don’t coadunate, and that’s in part due to the lack of interoperability and a generic and universally used user interface for services. Web users are still mere consumers of services and resources that other entities provide, being unable to publish their own capabilities in the Web. In this paper we address the empowerment of the Web user with a web services server, enabling him to provide services and interact with other users and electronic services in a complete service paradigm. Keywords: Human Services, Unification, Service Paradigm, User Interface, Browser, Server.

1 Introduction The philosophy of Web 2.0 [1] puts the Web user as an active information generator by providing him collaborative and social platforms along with many other tools to support his workflow. Each user should be a Web peer on his own right, a service provider that fulfills requests from other users and feeds information into the Web. However, the client/server is still the basic Web model, with a clear separation between the browser, essentially a human interface, and the server, centrally located in a logical hub and spokes architecture. In our view, the user’s entry-level tool for Web access should be a Browserver (which includes a browser and a server) hosted by his personal computer to ensure an active Web presence, with central servers reserved to host non-human based services and to support the logical peer-to-peer network of Web users, giving them the ability of being not only service consumers but also service providers. REST [2] based web services applications are developed knowing that cannot interact bilaterally with the user. Pages are all pre-built by the application and AJAX [3] is used to minimize communications, simulate requests from the server, and more interactive user interfaces (UIs). On the other hand, SOAP [4] based web services applications require specific clients and are not compatible with the generic browser every user has. Human centered processes are hard to design and execute, as they typically rely on different tools and communication methods to involve the user (email is still commonly used). Intermediation in user interactions in the Web raises another problem: privacy. Web applications are mainly server-centric, requiring all communications to go through a central server, even if the user is just interacting with another user. Information is J.E. Quintela Varajão et al. (Eds.): CENTERIS 2010, Part I, CCIS 109, pp. 71–80, 2010. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010

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therefore available to more entities than those directly involved, its ownership becomes shared and the usage given to it is often unknown. This paper addresses these problems by proposing to empower the Web users with a Browserver, bundling a generic and universal browser with a generic and universal server in a peer-to-peer (P2P) paradigm. Central servers are not a requisite for user interactions in the Web, safeguarding information privacy (Fig. 1). We distinguish web services as any electronic service in the World Wide Web (Web) from the standard Web Services (WS) [5]. Although we exemplify with WS technologies, the Browserver is not limited to specific set of service languages or protocols.

Fig. 1. P2P Browserver. Central servers are not imperative in user interactions.

Much like the browser has been an evolution from specific clients to a generic one, the Browserver extends the user capabilities in the Web from a simple navigator to a service provider. In short, the Browserver can be seen as: • A generic, universal browser. A browser capable of rendering and executing existing Web browser technologies; • A generic, universal server. An applicational server united with the browser enabling the provision of services to the Web; • Peer-to-peer interaction model. Contrasting with the restrictive client-server model, services and applications can be conceived knowing that any entity in the network can make requests and reply to requests. In our approach, we do not create a new browser, but rather use an existing one (e.g. Firefox, Internet Explorer). Using a web services server (e.g. Glassfish, Tomcat), a local proxy service connects the browser to the Web and to local and remote services. Each Browserver entity is called a peer and considered as equal to other peers. Each peer has a unique Universal Resource Name (URN) [6] space, from which each of its services’ unique URN is derived. The peer-to-peer model enables applications to be built without the need for intermediaries, minimizing or extinguishing privacy problems that affect server-centric Web applications nowadays. As presented in Fig. 1, through the Browserver, users a and b can interact directly and bidirectionally with each other and also with a server SO from an organization x. In this paper, we focus on describing how to get a user to be seen as a web service provider and how he can interact with other services. Additional features of the Browserver, including service location, asynchronous message communication and offline work are not discussed here.

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2 Integrating a Browser and a Server 2.1 Turning the Web User into a Web Services Provider Nowadays, there is no universal means of a user to interact with a business process given his own capabilities. By giving each Web user a server capable of executing web services, his capabilities can be modeled and executed as real web services, invocable by other services. Traditional solutions put the responsibility of representing the user as web services on the server side, building a UI that he can access through the browser using a Universal Resource Locator (URL). The capabilities represented are the ones determined by the analysts and programmers who define what a user can do in a business process. The Browserver enables a user to have its own services, representative of the capabilities he wants to expose to the world (public services), as well as private services for own consumption. Either private or public, a service can be one of two kinds: • User Interface services. These services are necessarily mapped to a UI for user interaction; • Non-interface services. These services do not interact directly with the user and include system and business level services (base services and user services). The UI services contain all the basic operations a user can do to interact with the Web services. These services are described in section 2.3. Enabling the service paradigm, the Browserver non-interface services can be composed of other services, and so forth, until the rock-bottom services, simple operations, are reached. Business level services make use of one or more UI services to interact with the user. Simple operations for UI services are small units of UI capable of presenting to the user a means of interacting with the services. Fig. 2 represents a simplified model of the possible composition relations between service types in the Browserver. The ability to execute services and to participate in two-way relationships (bidirectional requests and replies) enables new design models for Web applications. Using AJAX, part of the processing can be done on the client side, but the interactions are not bidirectional. With the Browserver, more than publishing content, a user can publish his capabilities in the Web where other users or service oriented applications can request his services. Fig. 3a presents a situation where (1) user a publishes the description of a service Sa1 (2) user b finds that description and (3; 4) consumes the service through a service Sb1 with a request-reply interaction. Fig. 3b presents part of a business process where the participants are an organization (through one of its servers) and a Browserver user, who is sequentially requested to execute service Sa3 (composed by Sa1 and Sa2) and service Sa1. New capabilities (web services) can be acquired by: • Transferring services from remote locations and deploying locally (service duplication or migration); • Composing local or remote services onto new services using, for instance, the Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) [4]; • Designing new services.

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Fig. 2. Browserver Conceptual Service Model

Fig. 3. The user as a Web Service Server: (a) in a single user to user relationship and (b) in a long-running business process.

2.2 Modeling and Programming the Services To develop new services through composition, a paradigm must be chosen. A process-oriented modeling paradigm implies that the programmer must worry with the whole process orchestration. Otherwise, a service-oriented paradigm makes use of encapsulation to and Object Oriented techniques to abstract the whole process. For the first case, a BPEL engine is provided; in the second case, the services are directly programmed at the level of an object oriented programming language (e.g. Java). Any service interacting with the user must invoke one or more of the Browserver’s UI services. Fig. 4a presents a business process x composed of: a task a and two subprocesses b and c executed in sequence. Sub-process b includes a task I1 requiring user activity and sub-process c two parallel tasks I2 and I2 also requiring user activity. The composition view of services is represented in Fig. 4b, with Sx, Sa, Sb, Sc corresponding to non-interface Browserver services and SI1, SI2, SI3 corresponding to Browserver UI service operations that generate browser interfaces UII1, UII2 and UII3. All the communications are done asynchronously, even between local services. Message queuing with pull and push based retrieval and callback mechanisms can be used.

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Fig. 4. Modeling Services. (a) is the Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) [9] representation of a process and (b) a composition view of the corresponding services.

Modularity and reusability are highly promoted. Building a typical website can be done by sending to the user the service description that, using the UI services, can compose the whole page. This service can be reused to create new web pages. 2.3 Achieving Continuous Presence Browserver services can be private or public, depending on whether the user wants to expose them to the Web, or keep them for his own consumption. Services also have another property: continuity. A continuous server is always available, even if its owner (or just his Browserver) is not. In a P2P network, the continuous availability of a service is a bigger challenge than in server-centric approaches due to its dynamic characteristics. The availability of a peer is not guaranteed as a user can disconnect or loose connection at any time. To guarantee the availability of a service marked as continuous, or to enable the normal execution of a process even in the absence of a service, the Browserver offers: • Message queues with pull and push based mechanisms. Local and remote message queues enable service consumption even in its absence. Message queues are facilitators of asynchronous communication. The messages are delivered to the recipient as soon as a communication channel is available; • Service delegation through migration or duplication to another peer which assumes permanent or temporary responsibility for the service. Super-nodes or dedicated servers in the network take accumulated responsibilities to guarantee remote queues and delegated services. Decisions regarding approaches that can be used are always defined by the user and affect the Quality of Service. If using remote queues and service delegation, protocols must be agreed between interested parties at information level (e.g. WS-Security [4]). 2.4 User-Services Interaction To enable a user to be seen as a web service, we need to enable him to be invoked the same way any other web service is. The Browserver provides a set of web service operations which can be used by other services to interact with the user. The set of operations constitute a common GUI library usable by other services constituting abstractions of the specific final presentation. UI services are exposed through a service description language (e.g., WSDL [4]). A transport protocol (e.g., SOAP) is used to exchange structured messages between

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services to execute the operations. The composition of multiple simple user interfaces into a more complex one requires a process implementation language (e.g. BPEL) describing the relationships between them. Parallel executions result in a UI with multiple elements, whereas sequential executions present the user with an element at a time. The UIs generated by each service are device-independent. Fig. 5 represents the generation of a UI for service Sc to interact with the user, with XForms [8] as the UI specification language. Each service SI2, SI3 builds a UI with the parameters in the SOAP messages (Fig. 6). A Composer unites both the UIs and passes them to the Transformer that translates (e.g. given some device-specific XSLT files) the UIs to HTML and AJAX to be rendered by the browser. Note that AJAX is used solely for browser interaction with the local server. Using different XSLTs for final UI generation, the look and feel can change from device to device or be customized by the user.

Fig. 5. User Interface generation

Fig. 6 shows the creation of a simple input form. An input operation of the UI service is used to query the Browserver user about his name. The resulting XForms contain, in the action parameter for the submission, the identification (URN) of the service requiring the input. The submission is done through AJAX (no HTTP GET or POST is used, with only the relevant part of the page being changed accordingly) to the local server that sends the collected results as an asynchronous reply to the either local or remote requesting service. SOAP