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This paper looks at a number of approaches to health informatics that support decision‐making relevant to the integrated development and management of information systems with clinical and managerial practices in healthcare. Its main aim is to explore three such approaches for integrated development, the soft information systems and technologies methodology, participative simulation modelling and stakeholder analysis. A description of the health informatics research and development environment in the UK is given as necessary background to the paper. Organisational and social aspects are examined through these approaches including information and clinical process development, telemedicine, ethical issues of drug use and management, health policies and information management and strategies, tele‐education and modelling structures. In the conclusion the synergies between the three approaches are discussed and some principles are extracted for future research and development in integrated approaches to health informatics research.

Positioned in the e-retailing field, this study aims to investigate the effect of the retail store’s atmosphere on consumer behavior in 3D online shopping environments, focusing on store layout as a critical influential factor.

The research uses a mixed research method approach that includes two complementary studies. First, a three-round Delphi study with domain experts is used to develop a store layout classification scheme (Study 1), resulting in five distinct types of store layout. Subsequently, 3D online retail stores that use the five layouts are designed and developed. These serve as treatments of a laboratory experimental design, which is used to assess layout impact on a number of attitudinal and behavioral variables (Study 2).

Five distinct types of store layout have been identified in Study 1, and their distinctive features are presented. The findings of Study 2 indicate that online shopping enjoyment, entertainment and ease of navigation are influenced by the store layout types of 3D online environments. Specifically, the “avant-garde” layout type facilitates the ease of navigation of customers in the store and provides a superior online customer experience. The “warehouse”’ adopts long aisles for the display of products, which simplifies the comparison of products, whereas the “boutique” layout was found to be the best in terms of shopping enjoyment and entertainment. The “department” layout shares many common characteristics with traditional department stores, providing an entertaining and enjoyable store, whereas the “pragmatic” layout emphasizes low system requirements.

The paper presents characteristics that make store layouts effective for different aspects of online customers’ experience and identifies opportunities that 3D online store designers and retailers can explore for the provision of enhanced, customized services to online customers.

This paper examines recent technological developments in store design and visual merchandising. It identifies five layout types of 3D online stores, which are different from those of brick–and–mortar and 2D online stores, and investigates their impact on consumer behavior. Further, the paper examines how each layout type influences online shopping enjoyment, entertainment, ease of navigation, online customer experience and, in turn, purchase and word-of-mouth intentions. Finally, the paper examines the moderating role of telepresence. Individuals with high sense of telepresence conceive 3D environments as “real” and are more concerned about the attributes that trigger the sense of enjoyment they experience while browsing.

KM seems to be another buzzword. More and more we hear about the new imperatum of knowledge. Like researchers in a new field, our daily life is a continuous knowledge management process. Moreover, the origins of our focus diversify biased to the KM perspectives that we have conceptualized. Our paper intends to reveal the continuous process of KM to re‐usable learning objects. The case of organizational memory is treated as a cumulative system of value adding components. The deployment of information and communication technologies in our approach justifies the intelligence of our analysis. Web semantics, metadata specification and extensive XML specifications provide only the enclosure of an extensive analysis of concepts. Two concepts are presented: multidimensional dynamic e‐learning and the value adding knowledge management framework.

A large amount of research work in e‐business concerns the experiences and lessons learned from developing and implementing innovative e‐business models. The findings of this research usually concentrate on financial aspects or on the use of information and communication technologies in a specific company or industrial sector. While this is critical for understanding and replicating positive business results, we argue that it is as important to understand the societal context in which business models are developed; it is social issues that define (constrain or enable) the broader context of e‐business adoption. This paper aims to draw research attention to these social issues and suggests societal factors that influence the adoption of e‐business models. Specifically, the paper argues that factors related to region/geography, culture, the legal and regulatory environment, economic, ethical and professional factors, as well as factors related to social capital/social networks and social structure influence, directly or indirectly, the way in which e‐business models are perceived, implemented and evaluated. Three cases are presented to show how these factors become evident in e‐business, followed by a discussion of their managerial implications. The aim of the paper is to sensitise managers and policy makers in shaping an enabling societal context for the proliferation of socially acceptable business models.

The rapid growth of electronic commerce technologies and practices has created a tremendous need for awareness creation for organisations such as small and medium‐sized enterprises which seem to lack the necessary information about technology, business practices, investment cost and human capital. Often, the professional organisers of awareness activities are also uncertain about best practice in electronic commerce awareness creation. Thus, although a number of initiatives have taken place in Europe, they have failed to produce the expected results. This paper describes how a project funded by the European Commission (WeCAN) defined and evaluated a number of awareness models in electronic commerce in order to support organisations involved in awareness creation such as chambers of commerce, consulting companies and higher educational institutions.

The digital economy is based on knowledge and the ultimate objective is the reinforcement of performance. The business strategy has been shifted from the management of tangible assets to intangible resources and the traditional competitive position of business units is based on their capacity for effective action. The main conclusion is that a knowledge and learning management infrastructure is required in order to realize every knowledge organization as a learning organization capable of exploiting the organizational knowledge wealth.

The paper aims to discuss the critical issue of learning and knowledge convergence in knowledge‐intensive organizations, and to provide practical guidelines for effective strategies.

The paper brings together previous research in knowledge management and provides a critique for the lack of integration of previous studies with learning, a key process for efficient knowledge management. Stemming from this critique, an integrative framework for knowledge management support from a learning perspective is proposed.

The major contribution is the framework for knowledge management support from a learning perspective, which can guide strategies of effective knowledge and learning management. This framework initiates an interesting discussion of technological issues that can enhance current knowledge management practices.

The taxonomy of knowledge management systems provides the basis for an extensive specification of knowledge management strategies. Further research could focus on an instrumental approach to the integrative framework suggested in this paper, to illustrate how it can be used to enhance the integration of learning processes and products in the knowledge management process.

The paper is a very useful source of information and impartial advice for strategists, knowledge management officers and people interested in implementing learning and knowledge management in a knowledge‐intensive organization.

This paper presents a novel taxonomy of knowledge management systems from a learning perspective. Unlike previous literature on knowledge management, this paper makes an explicit claim for integrating knowledge management and learning activities and illustrates how the two can be jointly supported by various knowledge management systems.

E‐Teaching as the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in education is of growing importance for educational theory and practice. Many universities and other higher education institutions use ICT to support teaching. However, there are contradicting opinions about the value and outcome of e‐teaching. This paper starts with a review of the literature on e‐teaching and uses this as a basis for distilling success factors for e‐teaching. It then discusses the case study of an e‐voting system used for giving student feedback and marking student presentations. The case study is critically discussed in the light of the success factors developed earlier. The conclusion is that e‐teaching, in order to be successful, should be embedded in the organisational and individual teaching philosophy.