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The education services sector faces ever-changing global market dynamics with creative disruptions. Building knowledge brands can push the higher education sector beyond its geographical boundaries into the global arena. This study aims to identify key constructs, their theoretical background and dimensions that aid in building a global knowledge brand. The authors' research focuses on adapting and validating scales for global knowledge and education services brands from well-established academic literature.

The authors have adopted a mixed methodology approach and a systematic literature review. Authors interviewed 18 subject matter experts as part of content and face validity to arrive at select constructs, dimensions and items. Quantitative methods with random sampling were adopted as the primary methodology. Initially, the survey was administered to 390 students to test preliminary results. The survey was also administered to 5,112 students at a later part of this study. Valid responses stood at 3,244 with a 63% response rate. Further, the authors conducted confirmatory factor analysis, exploratory factor analysis and structural equation modeling to test the reliability and validity of scales. This study analyzed composite reliability, convergent validity and discriminant validity to finalize items for scales. The authors also validated the hypotheses based on the discriminant validity assessment scores.

Authors' key research findings are that academic stimulus, campus infrastructure and student intent play a significant role in campus culture and events design and experience at campus. Authors were able to bring out 16 key constructs and 55 critical dimensions vital to global education services brand building. This study also adapted and validated 99 items that meet construct validity and composite reliability criteria. This study also highlights that constructs such as student intent, academic stimulus, campus infrastructure scalability, selection mechanism, pedagogical content knowledge, brand identity, events experience and campus culture play a vital role in global brand recognition.

The authors' work is fairly generalizable to education services and the higher education sector. However, this study must be extrapolated and empirically validated in other industry sectors. The research implications of this study are that it aided the authors in building theoretical background for student brand loyalty theory, student expectation theory and study loyalty theory. This study adds to the body of knowledge by contributing to theoretical concepts on students, knowledge culture, events, infrastructure and branding. Researchers can adopt the scales proposed in this study to build research models in higher education branding. This study acts as a catalyst for building theories in education services areas. Researchers can delve deep into proposed research aspects of campus infrastructure, knowledge infrastructure, campus knowledge culture, events design and events experience.

This study aids educators and brand managers to develop global education services and optimize their effort and budget. Administrators in the education services sector must focus on practical aspects of student perception, campus infrastructure, culture and events experience. Practically administrators can reorient their efforts based on this study to achieve global brand recognition.

This study highlights that students are not customers but are co-creators of value in the education sector. This study provides scales and dimensions needed to build co-creation frameworks and models.

Most research in higher education branding has not covered wider aspects of global brand building. Existing theories proposed in higher education and education services articles cover only narrower aspects of campus infrastructure, culture, events design and branding. This study presents a comprehensive list of critical factors that play a vital role in global knowledge brand building. This study highlights the constructs and scales integral to building a global education services brand.

The case deals with a chain of hospitals, that has grown vary fast in last few years as a result of various acquisitions and new developments. The hospital chain is lagging behind in use of technology. The IT department is inward looking and the focus is more on provide support services rather than strategic orientation. A new CIO takes charge of the IT department and decides to transform IT from playing a support to strategic role. He identifies cloud computing as a tool to take the leap. The case provides an opportunity to discuss the type of service and deployment models of benefits of cloud technology. A rough data to do financial evaluation of cloud technology is presented. Evaluation parameters that may be used to decide on cloud versus in-house technology are also discussed.

The challenges of digital transformation (DT) have gained attention from both academics and practitioners, as more manufacturing companies are seeking digital technology implementation. This study, therefore, aims to identify the challenges of DT in manufacturing companies and propose new research directions.

A systematic literature review considering 176 articles (published between 2003 and 2019) was used to build a conceptual framework of DT.

A systematized view of challenges regarding organizational commitment, value creation, value proposition, value delivery, value capture, information and technology infrastructure and data security were identified. Moreover, a conceptual framework was developed to summarize the challenges and how they are associated with the business model value architecture and with the DT phases. Research opportunities for future research were also identified, contributing to the advancement of the topic.

First, the study provides a categorization of the main challenges of DT in manufacturing companies. Second, it identifies research gaps and future research avenues; and finally, it proposes a conceptual framework that aims to support more rigorous studies and guide management decisions regarding an integrative understanding of DT.

How do you efficiently design a global yet local user experience for Web sites? Arguably, the user-centered design approach has been one of the best methods in designing a successful user experience for Web services in the initial market, but why isn’t this process applied to international markets? This chapter makes a case for applying a user-centered design process to the international expansion of Web sites and discusses issues impacting the creation of a successful user experience for local audiences. Although this chapter primarily focuses on designing large scale Web services, many of the principles can be applied to any sites that undergo internationalization.

Although government investments in IT is growing, it is unclear how and what kind of IT investments lead to desirable E-Government performance. Several studies pertaining to the business value of IT have developed and tested frameworks for IT infrastructure, IT capability and business performance. However, E-Government-related IT investment outcomes cannot be measured by profits and hence requires a separate investigation. E-Government research using theoretical approach has been reported as very scarce in previous studies. This research aims to bridge the gap by developing a model to study IT infrastructure capability and E-Government performance in the emerging context of new IT service delivery models.

This paper follows a case study method in this research with a priori conceptual framework. The data were collected following an interview method used for deductive theory building.

The results identified a positive relationship between IT assets and IT infrastructure performance in the presence of service delivery channels and an anticipation of a positive influence of infrastructure performance variables on IT capability which in turn shows positive effect on E-Government performance.

Because the study followed a qualitative approach, the findings from this study are not useful for statistical generalization. However, the analytical framework provides sufficient ground to test E-Government performance.

The study provides insights in the choice of IT infrastructure elements fitting an E-Government strategy.

This study provides an integrated framework for measuring E-Government performance, thereby making deployment of IT infrastructure accountable both in terms of IT performance and IT capability. This in turn will lead to improvement in citizen services.

This paper builds on the existing literature on IT assets, IT infrastructure performance, IT infrastructure capability and applies to the E-Government domain.

Building upon Internet of Things (IoT), Internet of Vehicles (IoV) and Social Internet of Things (SIoT), Social Internet of Vehicles (SIoV) is the latest development in the field. SIoV allows vehicles to socialize among themselves and share information of common interests. The increasing popularity of the SIoV concept demands more research to explore its great potential. However, very few studies have systemically investigated this concept to provide a comprehensive view for readers. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

This paper discusses the perspectives of the utilizations and limitations of SIoV, setting forward a systematic and epistemological framework.

The authors summarize the benefits of SIoV from four information-management perspectives: safety management, traffic control and convenience, productivity improvement and commercialization and exploring the factors inhibiting the development of SIoV from the following seven aspects: standardization, adaptability, scalability, infrastructure, lack of application, privacy and security.

The paper lays a solid foundation for researchers to find possible solutions to address the challenges to SIoV and provides valuable insights for practitioners who are interested in adopting SIoV initiatives.

The case can be introduced in the information technology (IT) strategy course. The case can also fit well in courses like emergent technologies where the case forms the vehicle to show how cloud-based solutions can provide leverage to an organization.

The case is aligned more for management participants, for example, students who are enrolled in master's or executive program in management. Considering the master's program in management, the case can be introduced in the IT strategy course. The case can also fit well in courses like emergent technologies where the case forms the vehicle to show how cloud-based solutions can provide leverage to an organization. Assignment questions addressed below are designed from the perspective of teaching this case to a business student audience. The case could certainly be adjusted to fit the needs of students in more technical disciplines.

Set in March 2009, Charan Padmaraju, the CTO of redBus was grappling with his companies IT infrastructure and scalability issues. He was considering cloud computing as a solution to all his worries. redBus was founded in August 2006 as a bus ticketing company in India. From INR 50 lakhs of gross bookings in their first financial year 2006-07 to an estimated INR 300 million in gross bookings in the financial year ending 2008-09, redBus had registered phenomenal growth. From selling 10 tickets a day, it now sold more than 4,000 tickets a day for more than 5,000 routes across 15 states in India. However, the IT infrastructure of redBus could not match up with their business needs and required frequent upgrades. Charan thought “The procurement of new servers, upgrading existing servers and most of the developer's time went into circumventing scaling issues which were not adding values to our core business.” He wondered “Can cloud computing be an answer to all my worries? “But what exactly is cloud computing? Will it solve my existing scalability issues? How reliable it is? Is it expensive? What is the time for deployment?”

To understand what is a business model; to appreciate the technical issues related to business expansion decisions; to explain the concepts behind cloud based solutions; and to demonstrate how adoption of the cloud solution can enable an organization to achieve competitive advantage.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

Although governments are hugely investing in information technology (IT) infrastructure, eGovernment performance has reported variations in performance. The relationship between IT infrastructure investments and eGovernment performance remains unexplored in academic research. This study aims to explain how investments in IT assets lead to infrastructure capability and eGovernment system performance. The work conceptualizes technical performance of IT infrastructure as a consequent of thoughtful investments in IT assets, which help generate IT infrastructure capability. The findings have important implications for eGovernment theory and practice in developing understanding about eGovernment IT infrastructure and supporting decision-making on the choice of infrastructure components.

This study showcases quantitative analysis based on survey method-based research using a questionnaire for testing the hypotheses formulated.

The analysis of the work showed that IT infrastructure performance is a significant mediator between investments in IT assets and IT infrastructure capability.

Owing to constraints of data collection, probability sampling was not followed, which is a prerequisite for statistical generalization.

The study provides insights for governments on investing in technologies that meet requisite performance standards. IT infrastructure performance is an antecedent of IT infrastructure capability, which directly determines how an eGovernment system performs.

The study shows that delay in implementing new service models such as cloud potentially result in relatively lower performance of the IT infrastructure for the investments made in the given assets.

This paper builds on the existing literature on IT assets, IT infrastructure performance and IT infrastructure capability and applies it to the eGovernment domain.

Web services are going mobile. A mobile enterprise can be established in a cellular network by participating mobile hosts, which act as web service providers, and their clients. Mobile hosts enable seamless integration of user‐specific services to the enterprise, by following web service standards, also on the radio link and via resource constrained smart phones. However, establishing such a mobile enterprise poses several technical challenges, such as the quality of service (QoS), discovery aspects and proper integration solutions, for the network as well as for the mobile phone users. The purpose of this paper is to summarize the challenges and research associated with this domain and with establishing the mobile enterprise.

The paper summarizes the challenges and research in the mobile web services domain, along with a detailed discussion of the developed mobile web service mediation framework (MWSMF). MWSMF is realized based on the enterprise service bus (ESB) technology, as an intermediary between mobile hosts and web service clients. Moreover, to scale the mobile enterprise to the loads possible in cellular networks, some of the components of MWSMF are shifted to the new utility computing paradigm, cloud computing.

From the study it was found that ESB provides a good integration solution for the mobile enterprise research challenges. The detailed analysis of the MWSMF concludes that the mediation framework and its components are horizontally scalable, thus allowing to utilize elasticity of cloud platform to meet load requirements of mobile enterprise in an easy and quick manner.

The study addresses the research with providing services from smart phones and establishing mobile enterprise. The QoS challenges are addressed and the study introduces an integration framework using ESB technology. The porting of MWSMF onto the cloud is also addressed. As an added value, the research serves as a case study for porting enterprise applications to the cloud.

Since 1995, Internet banking has allowed consumers to utilise the Internet as a platform to interact with their bank. Initially, the hype surrounding Internet banking was immense. However, more realistic expectations about the value of Internet channels and changes in the financial services sector are affecting opinions of Internet banking systems. This study examines contemporary Internet banking systems in five leading ‘clicks and mortar’ banks operating in the North‐Eastern part of the United States. The findings reveal a move towards viewing Internet banking as an operational rather than a competitive instrument, with consequential changes in how banks evaluate their Internet banking systems. The paper concludes by proposing some changes to expectations on how Internet banking is likely to develop.