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Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

More and more governmental organizations are switching to information systems to enhance their operations and reduce cost but the development of these systems involves a lot of challenges. This paper aims to find out the challenges that project managers have to face during the development of such systems and the practices they can adopt to address these challenges.

To identify the challenges, data have been gathered across six key project management areas. The six targeted key areas are project integration management, project scope management, project time management, project cost management, project human resource management and project communications management. The authors have coordinated with 11 managerial-level IT professionals using semi-structured interviews and have gone through their communication archives.

Findings prove that practices such as focusing on cost reduction, informal congregations, trainings and frequent communication between vendor and client help in addressing the challenges. Furthermore, learning from management experiences of the managers can assist managers in similar role to create a pattern of success while working with governmental projects.

The authors peek into the development life cycle of a public sector project named as prison information management system. The project has encountered numerous challenges and has been accomplished in significantly delayed time than designated.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to understand data management challenges in e-maintenance systems from a holistically viewpoint through summarizing the earlier scattered research in the field, and second, to present a conceptual approach for addressing these challenges in practice.

The study is realized as a combination of a literature review and by the means of analyzing the practices on an industry leader in manufacturing and maintenance services.

This research provides a general understanding over data management challenges in e-maintenance and summarizes their associated proposed solutions. In addition, this paper lists and exemplifies different types and sources of data which can be collected in e-maintenance, across different organizational levels. Analyzing the data management practices of an e-maintenance industry leader provides a conceptual approach to address identified challenges in practice.

Since this paper is based on studying the practices of a single company, it might be limited to generalize the results. Future research topics can focus on each of mentioned data management challenges and also validate the applicability of presented model in other companies and industries.

Understanding the e-maintenance-related challenges helps maintenance managers and other involved stakeholders in e-maintenance systems to better solve the challenges.

The so-far literature on e-maintenance has been studied with narrow focus to data and data management in e-maintenance appears as one of the less studied topics in the literature. This research paper contributes to e-maintenance by highlighting the deficiencies of the discussion surrounding the perspectives of data management in e-maintenance by studying all common data management challenges and listing different types of data which need to be acquired in e-maintenance systems.

Developments in the world of distributed computing have made possible the successful integration of diverse information systems working in different environments. Electronic government (eGovernment) provides governmental stakeholders with a wealth of information stored at the various entities in the organisation. Decision makers are often overloaded with the amount of information that they receive. Notwithstanding the logistics of information flows from government bodies to citizens, the flow of information between various entities with national and local government organisations has become a critical issue. As a result, this paper seeks to analyse the logistics of information decision‐making flows, within an eGovernment implementation, by modelling and extrapolating those key decision factors via a cognitive mapping approach.

The paper adopts a multi‐method approach in terms of combining an empirical qualitative case study with a quantitative analytical simulation technique for analyzing decision‐making behaviour relating to policy considerations within the eGovernment realm in a Gulf municipality, through the use of a Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping (FCM) approach.

By using the FCM approach, the paper was able to highlight the unique interplay between eGovernment stakeholders in the case context, whereby inherent relationships were shown to exist between decision‐making eGovernment stakeholders and the consumers of eGovernment information. Thus, project management information, relationships and deployment; evaluation of information systems, relationships and policy, change management policy and processes, system validation, processes and deployment; and alignment with strategic eGovernment drivers, deployment with policy are identified.

This realisation of the demand and supply of the underlying logistics information management needs, within an eGovernment context, provides an understanding of the principal factors which drive and define those technological and organisational challenges experienced by the eGovernment municipality. By exploring these factors through a combination of qualitative discourse and quantitative simulation, it is subsequently shown that an abundance of information exists within a seemingly placid organisational system, the basis for which resides in the constant flow of information between and among stakeholders, processes, and systems.

The paper uses a combination of a qualitative case research with quantitative analysis/simulation technique in order to identify inter‐relationships in the decision‐making criteria of a Gulf‐based municipality in order to shed light on the key components of their policy control.

The purpose of the paper is to establish whether Enterprise Content Management (ECM) and Records Continuum Model (RCM) frameworks could be used to mitigate long-term preservation challenges.

Qualitative research was undertaken using two case studies and interviews were conducted with the different categories of the municipal personnel to solicit answers to the research questions. The questions were designed using the lens of the RCM and its four dimensions that cover the creation, capture, organization and pluralization of records and prescribed factors of ECM which include business process management, enterprise architecture, collaboration, system integration, re-purposing of information, change management, knowledge management and the life cycle management of information. Not all the ECM factors are dealt with in this paper: the remainder have been dealt with in the author's earlier works.

Challenges of long-term preservation of information still persist despite the enormous research that has been generated over the years. The municipalities that were subjects of this research are still grappling with issues of lack of long-term information management policies, enterprise architecture, disparate information systems, collaboration and system integration. This is likely to work against the investments that are being ploughed into e-Government developments should the municipalities fail to espouse strong information and records management regimes. Embracing the ECM prescribed factors and the RCM thinking might mitigate these challenges.

The author's licentiate research proved that there was no discourse between records managers/archivists and ECM proponents. Therefore, the originality of this article lies in the application of the two frameworks of ECM and RCM. The findings confirmed that even within the records management framework the municipalities were addressing factors similar to ECM prescribed factors. Embracing both the RCM model and the ECM prescribed factors might mitigate the challenges of long-term preservation and hence the re-use of information and enhancement of the societal memory.

While companies worldwide are largely comprised of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), a significant amount of management accounting (MA) research focuses on larger organisations, thus leaving MA practice in SMEs relatively under-researched. This paper aims to examine MA adoption (MAA) and its interfaces with MA challenges and business performance from a small business perspective.

A sample of 502 small businesses is investigated with an embedded mixed methods research design comprised of qualitative content analysis, factor analysis and analysis of variance.

Up to 78% of small businesses are facing MA challenges that stem from organisation, systems, personnel and/or resources. Based on the present findings, MA challenges do motivate small businesses to at least consider investing in MAA as small businesses facing challenges are more likely to acquire systems and services than those reporting no issues at all. Hence, small business managers seem to not only recognise where their challenges lie, but also seek ways to improve the situation through MAA. The analysis also reveals that companies with the highest MA know-how have the best average solvency, suggesting that small businesses indeed benefit from MAA. Interestingly, the performance at medium levels of know-how declines while investments increase, revealing a “decreasing solvency phenomenon”. Potential explanations are, e.g. the MA not fitting the company’s exact needs, or information usability and use being limited by poor MA understanding.

The originality of the research lies in exploring the interfaces between MA challenges, MAA and small business performance using distinctive embedded mixed methods research design.

The essential investments in new product development (NPD) made by industrial companies entail effective management of NPD activities. In this context, performance measurement is one of the means that can be employed in the pursuit of effectiveness.

This paper aims to provide a framework of the multidimensional concept of one master data. Preconditions required for successful one master data implementation and usage in large high‐tech companies are presented and related current challenges companies have today are identified.

This paper is qualitative in nature. First, literature was studied to find out the elements of one master data. Second, an interview study was carried out in eight high‐tech companies and in three expert companies.

One master data management framework is the composition of data, processes and information systems. Accordingly, the key challenges related to the data are that the definitions of master data are unclear and overall data quality is poor. Challenges on processes related to managing master data are inadequately defined data ownership, incoherent data management practices and lack of continuous data quality practices. Integrations between applications are fundamental challenge to tackle when constructing an holistic one master data.

Studied companies are vanguards in the area of master data management (MDM), providing good views on topical issues in large companies. This study offers a general view of the topic but not describes special company situations as companies need to adapt the presented concepts for their specific case. Significant implication for future research is that MDM can no more be classified and discussed as only an IT problem but it is a managerial challenge which requires structural changes on mindset how issues are handled.

This paper provides a better understanding over the issues which are impacting on the implementation of one master data. The preconditions of implementing and executing one master data are: an organization wide and defined data model; clear data ownership definitions; pro‐active data quality surveillance; data friendly company culture; the clear definitions of roles and responsibilities; organizational structure that supports data processes; clear data process definitions; support from the managerial level; and information systems that utilize the unified data model. The list of preconditions is wide and it also describes the incoherence of current understanding about MDM. This list helps business managers to understand the extent of the concept and to see that master data management is not only an IT issue.

The existing practical research on master data management is limited and, for example, the general challenges have not been reported earlier. This paper offers practical research on one master data. The obtained results illustrates the extent of the topic and the fact that business relevant data management is not only an IT (application) issue but requires understanding of the data, its utilization in organization and supporting practices such as data ownership.