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The purpose of this paper is to explore persuasive rhetoric by critically scrutinizing metaphorical devices utilized by leaders of the cloud industry. This paper introduces a critical approach to the promotion of cloud technology.

In total, 13 video clips from YouTube were analyzed, containing presentations and talks delivered by leaders of Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon – four of the most influential companies within the information technology industry, sometimes referred to as GAFA. With the help of conceptual metaphor theory, often-repeated metaphors for cloud technologies reveal what properties were promoted and hidden.

GAFA mainly used the same persuasive metaphors to promote cloud computing’s positive aspects. Potentially negative or complex issues were mostly avoided. Cloud technology was uniformly described in metaphors of control, empowerment, transformation and automation. Implicitly, GAFA exerts power through the extensive dissemination of their metaphors and these are used in order to negotiate and overcome doubts about cloud computing and related technologies.

This is the first study aimed at understanding the persuasive rhetoric of GAFA, seen as a uniform object of study.

The digital revolution has substantially changed the business environment. Most banks have acknowledged the importance of new technologies to improve performance and client satisfaction. The development of these innovations has led to the entrance of the so-called Fintechs. This paper aims to evaluate the impact of these transformations on the performance of financial institutions and on their business model.

The authors use data envelopment analysis and Malmquist total productivity indices to measure financial institutions’ efficiency and their influence on strategy.

The main finding is that clients are more than ever at the core of banking strategy. The irrelevance of distance in basic banking transactions has reduced expenses and contributed to increasing revenues for all financial institutions. Banks will have a card to play in the advice they can bring to their clients.

This research could be of interest for financial managers who wish to re-examine their current business practices and imagine their business model for the future.

The contribution will be to further define the correlation between the provision of electronic banking services and its performance by including diversified institutions (conventional banks, Fintechs, Gafas) in the sample from multiple geographic zones to identify differences as regards their efficiency and business practices.

This study aims to assess the technological capability of Chinese internet platforms (BAT: Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent) compared to US ones (GAFA: Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple). More specifically, this study explores Baidu’s technological catching-up process with Google by analyzing their patent textual information.

The authors retrieved 26,383 Google patents and 6,695 Baidu patents from PATSTAT 2019 Spring version. The collected patent documents were vectorized using the Word2Vec model first, and then K-means clustering was applied to visualize the technological space of two firms. Finally, novel indicators were proposed to capture the technological catching-up process between Baidu and Google.

The results show that Baidu follows a trend of US rather than Chinese technology which suggests Baidu is aggressively seeking to catch up with US players in the process of its technological development. At the same time, the impact index of Baidu patents increases over time, reflecting its upgrading of technological competitiveness.

This study proposed a new method to analyze technology mapping and evolution based on patent text information. As both US and China are crucial players in the internet industry, it is vital for policymakers in third countries to understand the technological capacity and competitiveness of both countries to develop strategic partnerships effectively.

This paper aims to analyse the promises of the various political party in the 2019 general election in the United Kingdom (UK) concerning the provision of broadband, especially in remote and rural areas.

This is an analysis of the party manifestos, some interviews and speeches involving party leaders. It identified the various commitments, any costs for those and the reasoning given.

The UK lags badly on fibre to the premises, both homes and offices. Without analysing the reasons, the two dominant parties proposed to borrow large amounts of money to fund fibre deployment, the Conservative Party without explaining how it would be disbursed. The Labour Party produced a confused proposal to nationalise BT Openreach and probably other operators, without explaining how this transition would work. Nor did they explain why the service was to be free to users.

The UK political parties need to improve their understanding of broadband and digital policies, including means to simplify the governance of markets.

This is the first analysis of the broadband commitments of a UK general election and one of the very few analyses of political offers in an election.

This study aims to analyse the effect of brand interactions such as personal interaction, problem-solving, reliability and store physical appearance on channel loyalty and purchase intention in optical physical stores.

The hypotheses are tested through quantitative research based on a questionnaire with a sample of 414 respondents. Researchers conduct multiple regressions to analyse the data.

The findings reveal that channel loyalty and purchase intention are positively influenced differently. Person-to-person interactions play a vital role in both constructs (dependent variables). This study also offers relevant managerial implications and future research avenues.

Despite the relevance of purchase intention in the literature, almost no studies have been published about the intention to buy glasses in the optical physical stores, a relevant contribution this paper offers to the literature. The finding that the store’s physical aspect did not prove to be influential for channel loyalty is also an innovative and relevant contribution of this research.

Este estudio analiza el efecto de las interacciones de marca, como la interacción personal, la resolución de problemas, la fiabilidad y la apariencia física de las tiendas en la lealtad al canal y la intención de compra en las tiendas ópticas físicas.

Las hipótesis se prueban a través de una investigación cuantitativa basada en un cuestionario con una muestra de 414 encuestados. Los investigadores utilizan regresiones múltiples para analizar los datos.

Los resultados revelan que la lealtad al canal y la intención de compra están influenciadas positivamente de manera diferente. Las interacciones de persona a persona juegan un papel vital en los constructos (variables dependientes). Esta investigación también ofrece implicaciones de gestión relevantes y futuras vías de investigación.

A pesar de la relevancia de la intención de compra en la literatura, casi no se han publicado estudios sobre la intención de comprar gafas en tiendas ópticas físicas, una contribución relevante que este trabajo ofrece a la literatura. La constatación de que el aspecto físico de la tienda no ha demostrado ser influyente en la lealtad del canal también es una contribución innovadora y relevante de esta investigación.

Este estudo analisa o efeito das interações das marcas, tais como interação pessoal, resolução de problemas, fiabilidade e aparência física das lojas na fidelização de canais e intenção de compra em lojas físicas de ótica.

As hipóteses são testadas através de investigação quantitativa com base num questionário com uma amostra de 414 inquiridos. Os investigadores usam regressões múltiplas para analisar os dados.

As conclusões revelam que a lealdade ao canal e a intenção de compra são positivamente influenciadas de forma diferente. As interações pessoa-a-pessoa desempenham um papel vital em ambos os constructos (variáveis dependentes). Este estudo oferece também implicações de gestão relevantes e futuras vias de investigação.

Apesar da relevância da intenção de compra na literatura, quase não foram publicados estudos sobre a intenção de compra de óculos nas lojas físicas de ótica, uma contribuição relevante que este trabalho oferece à literatura. A constatação de que o aspeto físico da loja não se revelou influente na fidelização ao canal é também um contributo inovador e relevante desta investigação.

Nowadays, organizations have to resist the rising competition more effectively than their competitors and take a step closer to excellence in offering the product to customer demands. To do this, organizations need agile leaders in order to implement agility principles and practices. Especially in the health sector, health managers must be agile because of the specific characteristics of health services. From this view, this chapter aims to develop a theoretical agile leadership model in healthcare organizations. First, the authors define agile leadership and its sub-dimensions based on previous literature. Then, the antecedents and outcomes of agile leadership have been analyzed. “Drivers of agile leadership,” “organizational factors affecting agile leadership” and “individual factors affecting agile leadership” are identified as the antecedents of agile leadership. “Organizational outcomes” and “individual outcomes” are determined as the outcomes of agile leadership in the health sector.

This chapter explores to what extent the Quantified Self, and in general the self-tracking culture, could be considered as a ‘technology of the self’: hermeneutical apparatuses generating new processes of subjectivation. Quantified Self, described by Wolf as a ‘self-consciousness through numbers’ (Wolf, 2010), refers both to the cultural phenomenon of self-tracking with devices and to a community of creators and users of self-tracking technologies. In this context, the author considers mainly the first aspect of this phenomenon and examines how its uses are diffused throughout the social mainstream. The author begins with the author’s own personal experience using self-tracking devices, then the author considers the phenomenon of self-tracking in relation to its historical context described by Floridi as the era of the ‘4^th Revolution’ (Floridi, 2014). The second part of the chapter deals with the theoretical framework. The author discusses the Quantified Self from the perspective of the Material Engagement Theory (Malafouris, 2013) in order to outline the genealogical and anthropological perspectives of the relationship between man and technology. The author concludes that man and technology have always had a biunivocal relation; man shapes technologies that shape man, both materially and cognitively. In the final part of the essay and through the lens of Foucault’s and Agamben’s theories, the author discusses the Quantified Self as a ‘technology of self’ to underline the ambiguous nature of the phenomenon and its social and biopolitical implication in the age of transparency (Han, 2015) and surveillance capitalism (Zuboff, 2019).

This paper aims to spark a debate by presenting the need for developing data ecosystems in Europe that meet the social and public good while committing to democratic and ethical standards; suggesting a taxonomy of data infrastructures and institutions to support this need; using the case study of Barcelona as the flagship city trailblazing a critical policy agenda of smart cities to show the limitations and contradictions of the current state of affairs; and ultimately, proposing a preliminary roadmap for institutional and governance empowerment that could enable effective data ecosystems in Europe.

This paper draws on lessons learned in previous publications available in the sustainability (Calzada, 2018), regions (Calzada and Cowie, 2017; Calzada, 2019), Zenodo (Calzada and Almirall, 2019), RSA Journal (Calzada, 2019) and IJIS (Calzada, 2020) journals and ongoing and updated fieldwork about the Barcelona case study stemming from an intensive fieldwork action research that started in 2017. The methodology used in these publications was based on the mixed-method technique of triangulation via action research encompassing in-depth interviews, direct participation in policy events and desk research. The case study was identified as the most effective methodology.

This paper, drawing from lessons learned from the Barcelona case study, elucidates on the need to establish pan-European data infrastructures and institutions – collectively data ecosystems – to protect citizens’ digital rights in European cities and regions. The paper reveals three main priorities proposing a preliminary roadmap for local and regional governments, namely, advocacy, suggesting the need for city and regional networks; governance, requiring guidance and applied, neutral and non-partisan research in policy; and pan-European agencies, leading and mobilising data infrastructures and institutions at the European level.

From the very beginning, this paper acknowledges its ambition, and thus its limitations and clarifies its attempt to provide just an overview rather than a deep research analysis. This paper presents several research limitations and implications regarding the scope. The paper starts by presenting the need for data ecosystems, then structures this need through two taxonomies, all illustrated through the Barcelona case study and finally, concludes with a roadmap consisting of three priorities. The paper uses previous published and ongoing fieldwork findings in Barcelona as a way to lead, and thus encourage the proliferation of more cases through Cities Coalition for Digital Rights (CCDR).

This paper presents practical implications for local and regional authorities of the CCDR network. As such, the main three priorities of the preliminary roadmap could help those European cities and regions already part of the CCDR network to establish and build operational data ecosystems by establishing a comprehensive pan-European policy from the bottom-up that aligns with the timely policy developments advocated by the European Commission. This paper can inspire policymakers by providing guidelines to better coordinate among a diverse set of cities and regions in Europe.

The leading data governance models worldwide from China and the USA and the advent of Big Data are dramatically reshaping citizens’ relationship with data. Against this backdrop and directly influenced by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Europe has, perhaps, for the first time, spoken with its own voice by blending data and smart city research and policy formulations. Inquiries and emerging insights into the potential urban experiments on data ecosystems, consisting of data infrastructures and institutions operating in European cities and regions, become increasingly crucial. Thus, the main social implications are for those multi-stakeholder policy schemes already operating in European cities and regions.

In previous research, data ecosystems were not directly related to digital rights amidst the global digital geopolitical context and, more specifically, were not connected to the two taxonomies (on data infrastructures and institutions) that could be directly applied to a case study, like the one presented about Barcelona. Thus, this paper shows novelty and originality by also opening up (based on previous fieldwork action research) a way to take strategic action to establish a pan-European strategy among cities and regions through three specific priorities. This paper can ultimately support practice and lead to new research and policy avenues.

The extension of the vacuum-assisted multipoint moulding (VAMM) technology to a broader field of geometries makes it necessary to extend it with attachments to the enhanced vacuum-assisted multipoint moulding with additive attachments (EMMA) technology. Therefore, it is necessary to build additive manufactured attachments on a curved silicone surface by fused filament fabrication (FFF). The main challenge of FFF on a silicone-made build plate is the adhesion of the part on the build plate. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to find suitable and reliably manufacturable material and adhesion promoter combinations for the use of the FFF on silicone build plates.

The combinations of seven different filaments and four adhesion promoters were investigated with an experimental study. Therefore, four different specimen geometries were built with the different combinations and tested in a tensile test, and some of the specimens were analysed with a confocal laser scanning microscope (CLSM).

This study proves that the FFF on unheated silicone building plates is possible for several material combinations. As a filament material, polylactide can reliably be manufactured with all of the investigated adhesion promoters on the silicone build plate. Thereby, the highest adhesion strengths were achieved with an adhesive foil as an adhesion promoter, whereas the glue stick is the most appropriate solution. The investigations with the CLSM showed that there are large differences in the manifestation of the first layer depending on the adhesion promoter used.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to demonstrate the manufacturing of FFF-made attachments on silicone build plates for the EMMA process. This paper provides measurement data on the build plate adhesion of the attachments on silicone-made build plates.