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This vision article alerts service managers to the potential of cognitive computing to reframe their value propositions. Humans are bounded in three ways: perception, rationality and physicality. Cognitive computing, hardware or software that transcends these three limits, offers many opportunities to improve the performance of service systems, in particular those focused on customer engagement. The intangibility spectrum is presented as a mental model for service managers to consider how to use cognitive computing to support augmenting their value proposition by moving across the spectrum.

Three frameworks are integrated: a five systems framework, a system's impact classification of types of cognitive computing and a tangibility spectrum.

Three examples illustrate the potential value of this integrative approach for service management.

This is the first integration of these frameworks, and two of them are the result of the first author's research.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how companies can achieve business excellence in a highly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) environment. Within the literature about business excellence, there is a lack of understanding of the impact of today’s high VUCA on achieving business excellence. A new business concept, business excellence in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environment (BEVUCA), will be illustrated so as to bridge this gap by considering the overall VUCA influence and the influences of each specific term individually.

The research incorporated a systematic literature review for three knowledge areas, namely: VUCA, business excellence and the management integration of quality and risk. The later knowledge area was reviewed because such diverse management thinking can help to achieve BEVUCA.

The research provided a definition for a new business concept and the systematic literature review identified 18 critical success factors so as to manage and excel under a high VUCA business environment. Finally a conceptual framework was developed for integrating quality management and risk management thinking so as to achieve BEVUCA.

BEVUCA can be used to close the current gap in the body of literature by providing a link between VUCA and business excellence, and hence advancing the discussion in these areas. Additionally, the BEVUCA conceptual framework can be used as guidance in integrating quality management and risk management to achieve the identified critical success factors.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the importance of ethnic workforce diversity for the internationalisation of small‐ to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). Using the resource‐based view, it is argued that an ethnically diverse workforce can help SMEs in overcoming barriers to internationalisation and increase the degree to which they benefit from globalisation.

This is a conceptual paper using the resource‐based view (RBV) of the firm to investigate the importance of work force diversity.

The paper identifies a series of mechanisms that link ethnic workforce diversity to increased internationalisation of SMEs as well as a range of contingencies of this relationship. It calls for a stronger appreciation of individual employees' external, co‐ethnic networks and knowledge as a hitherto largely ignored resource in the initiation, management and expansion of SMEs' international operations.

The findings of the paper have implications for research and practice by shedding light on the importance of this so far largely neglected phenomenon. The findings are limited in as far as they are yet to be tested empirically.

The paper provides a framework of mechanisms that can sensitise practitioners with regard to the importance of workforce diversity for internationalisation activities as well as human resource management practices.

The paper addresses an issue that is shown to be of increasing importance to SMEs, but has so far been largely neglected in research on SMEs.

To examine the weblogs written by members of UK legislatures and to determine whether such weblogs address commonly cited criticisms of MPs' web sites and serve to bridge the gap between representative and constituent.

Examination of the literature on MPs' web sites to draw up a list of common criticisms. Construction of evaluation criteria to analyse the blogs in terms of content, currency, design, interactivity and evidence of personality both as a snapshot and over a longer period.

That weblogs are, on the whole, kept up to date and show promising levels of activity. Blogs enable constituents to see with what their MPs have been involved (on both the local and the Parliamentary stages) and to see what areas of policy particularly interest their MP. Personality of the MPs is apparent on most of the blogs, which are less party‐oriented than many MPs' web sites. Although the gap between representatives and constituents may have been bridged to an extent, blogging is still largely a top‐down form of communication – even though people do submit relevant and pertinent comments to the blogs, proper two‐way debate is rarely seen and comments are not always acknowledged or answered.

Based on a small number of blogs covering the UK only.

Provides simple evaluation criteria that could be applied to blogs in other areas.

Provides a useful first structured analysis of weblogs written by elected representatives, on which further work can be undertaken once the sample size has increased and existing blogs are more established.

Until recently stakeholder communication has tended to be mostly unidirectional and simple. However, the advent of the Internet has brought unprecedented change. Stakeholder communication is no longer unidirectional, and as stakeholders increasingly communicate with each other this communication becomes infinitely more complex. Unfortunately many of the tools and models of PR were developed and refined in a pre‐Internet world. This paper introduces an integrated Internet stake‐holder communication matrix (I²SCM), and explains its use for the identification of issues that need to be managed with regard to the Internet and2 PR.

Small architectural firms (those that employ less than six people) account for an estimated 4525 or 74% of the total number of practices in the UK (RIBA, 2000), and market research has shown that there is a poor uptake of existing project specification information technologies in this sector. We present the results of an analysis of the ways that small practices currently create, manage and communicate project specification information and an overview of our research into new models to support these processes. The research has focused on the creation and population of appropriate, re‐usable information models and we describe these in the context of other modelling initiatives in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry. The research has resulted in the definition of a large pool of domain specific data objects, which have the potential to provide a generic information resource for the industry. The Architectural Informatics Group, in conjunction with the National Building Specification (NBS), have implemented the results of this research through the development of a new commercial software tool for use in small design practices in the UK.

Information Systems Technology (IST) has a recognised role in creating and sustaining competitive advantage. The link is developed between logistics and the use of IST to improve competitive performance by outlining a model of the logistics function that stimulates thinking about logistics issues and by describing instances of organisations that are using IST to gain competitive advantage in logistics. It is argued that IST will be a powerful tool for putting logistics and marketing together again. The majority of the case studies are drawn from the Australian business environment. A general process is also described that strategic planners can use when attempting to identify strategic information systems.

This article describes the development of a hypertext guide to the University of Birmingham Main Library. Using Asymetrix Toolbook software the guide offers users a description of library services and subject locations, floor plans and a subject index. The structure of the guide is described, the problems of development and revision are outlined and possibilities for future progress are suggested.

This paper examines how the adoption of e‐commerce will influence the processes of dissemination, communication and management of information in the AEC industry. We argue that e‐commerce will render redundant the business models that currently support these processes, and propose templates for the business models of the future. Effective information flow is fundamental to the process of realizing a construction project and within this project information pool, manufacturers' product information forms a core component. It provides designers with technical information to support decision making during design, the data necessary to communicate specification requirements to contractors and finally a means by which contractors can source the materials required to construct the project. We examine the current business model and motivations for each actor in this sector before going on to discuss the areas where e‐commerce can most effectively be adopted. We propose a three generation model for e‐business and conclude by describing the changes to the underlying business models that we believe are necessary to support effective e‐commerce in the future.

Information Systems Technology (IST) has a recognised role in creating and sustaining competitive advantage. The link is developed between logistics and the use of IST to improve competitive performance by outlining a model of the logistics function that stimulates thinking about logistics issues and by describing instances of organisations that are using IST to gain competitive advantage in logistics. It is argued that IST will be a powerful tool for putting logistics and marketing together again. The majority of the case studies are drawn from the Australian business environment. A general process is also described that strategic planners can use when attempting to identify strategic information systems.