Search results

The chapter dwells on barriers for restoration and development of country's infrastructure on the platform of individual physical and practical forces, which are peculiar for the states with developing and transitional economy, as well as for developed countries. Directions of formation of the organizational model of restoration and development of country's infrastructure on the platform of individual physical and practical forces are presented; forms of public–private partnership are studied, as well as possibilities of financing. An important aspect is finding the mechanisms of leveling the risks according to the given classification. A mechanism of organizational model of controlling development of country's infrastructure and its structural elements are provided.

Smart card-based E-payment systems are receiving increasing attention as the number of implementations is witnessed on the rise globally. Understanding of user adoption behavior of E-payment systems that employ smart card technology becomes a research area that is of particular value and interest to both IS researchers and professionals. However, research interest focuses mostly on why a smart card-based E-payment system results in a failure or how the system could have grown into a success. This signals the fact that researchers have not had much opportunity to critically review a smart card-based E-payment system that has gained wide support and overcome the hurdle of critical mass adoption. The Octopus in Hong Kong has provided a rare opportunity for investigating smart card-based E-payment system because of its unprecedented success. This research seeks to thoroughly analyze the Octopus from technology adoption behavior perspectives.

Cultural impacts on adoption behavior are one of the key areas that this research posits to investigate. Since the present research is conducted in Hong Kong where a majority of population is Chinese ethnicity and yet is westernized in a number of aspects, assuming that users in Hong Kong are characterized by eastern or western culture is less useful. Explicit cultural characteristics at individual level are tapped into here instead of applying generalization of cultural beliefs to users to more accurately reflect cultural bias. In this vein, the technology acceptance model (TAM) is adapted, extended, and tested for its applicability cross-culturally in Hong Kong on the Octopus. Four cultural dimensions developed by Hofstede are included in this study, namely uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, individualism, and Confucian Dynamism (long-term orientation), to explore their influence on usage behavior through the mediation of perceived usefulness.

TAM is also integrated with the innovation diffusion theory (IDT) to borrow two constructs in relation to innovative characteristics, namely relative advantage and compatibility, in order to enhance the explanatory power of the proposed research model. Besides, the normative accountability of the research model is strengthened by embracing two social influences, namely subjective norm and image. As the last antecedent to perceived usefulness, prior experience serves to bring in the time variation factor to allow level of prior experience to exert both direct and moderating effects on perceived usefulness.

The resulting research model is analyzed by partial least squares (PLS)-based Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approach. The research findings reveal that all cultural dimensions demonstrate direct effect on perceived usefulness though the influence of uncertainty avoidance is found marginally significant. Other constructs on innovative characteristics and social influences are validated to be significant as hypothesized. Prior experience does indeed significantly moderate the two influences that perceived usefulness receives from relative advantage and compatibility, respectively. The research model has demonstrated convincing explanatory power and so may be employed for further studies in other contexts. In particular, cultural effects play a key role in contributing to the uniqueness of the model, enabling it to be an effective tool to help critically understand increasingly internationalized IS system development and implementation efforts. This research also suggests several practical implications in view of the findings that could better inform managerial decisions for designing, implementing, or promoting smart card-based E-payment system.

Purpose: The purpose of the work is to determine the possibilities and consequences of decision making in modern business systems by the principles of outsource.

Methodology: During studying the perspectives of decision making in modern business systems by the principles of outsource, the method of logical analysis (analysis of causal connections), the method of structural and functional analysis, and the method of formalization are used.

Conclusions: Perspective directions, advantages, and drawbacks of application of outsource for decision making in modern business systems at different stages of this process are determined. Possible variants of decision making in a modern business system by the principles of outsource and their consequences are determined: information and consultation decision support, business system's overcoming a crisis, optimization of certain business processes, and loss of independence of business system and path to its reorganization.

Originality/value: As a result, it is substantiated that outsource is a perspective tool of making of managerial decisions in modern business systems. Various directions of application of this tool are accessible at each stage of the process of making of managerial decisions in a modern business system. The advantages of decision making by the principles of outsource are attraction of additional resources, access to possibilities of automatization, and low expenses, and the drawbacks include the complexity of organization of this process and temporary character of obtained advantages. Too active usage of outsource and transfer of most managerial decisions to it may lead to loss of independence of the business system and increase of the risk of its reorganization. That's why the principles of outsource are recommended for making of certain managerial decisions by business systems in the period of crisis and by newly formed business systems and those that experience deficit of resources.

Purpose — The chapter presents the practical applications of web search statistics analysis. The process description highlights the potential use of search queries and statistical data and how they could be used in various forecasting situations. The presented case is an example of applied computational intelligence and the main focus is oriented towards the decision support offered by the software mechanism and its capabilities to automatically gather, process and analyse data.

Methodology/approach — The statistics of the search queries as a source of prognostic information are analysed in a step-by-step process, starting from their content and scope, their processing and applications, and concluding with usage in a software-based intelligent framework.

Research implications — The analysis of search engine trends offers a great opportunity for many areas of research. Into the future, deploying this information in the prognosis will further develop intelligent data processing.

Practical implications — This functionality offers a unique possibility, impossible until now, to observe, estimate and predict various processes using wide, precise and accurate behaviour observations. The scope and quality of data allow practitioners to successfully use it in various prognostic problems (i.e. political, medical, or economic).

Originality/value of paper — The chapter presents practical implications of technology. The chapter then highlights potential areas that would benefit from the analysis of queries statistics. Moreover, it introduces ‘WebPerceiver’, an intelligent platform, built to make the analysis and usage of search trends easier and more generally available to a wide audience, including non-skilled users.

The advent of new enabling technologies and the surge in corporate scandals has combined to increase the supply, the demand, and the development of enabling technologies for a new system of continuous assurance and measurement. This paper positions continuous assurance (CA) as a methodology for the analytic monitoring of corporate business processes, taking advantage of the automation and integration of business processes brought about by information technologies. Continuous analytic monitoring-based assurance will change the objectives, timing, processes, tools, and outcomes of the assurance process.

The objectives of assurance will expand to encompass a wide set of qualitative and quantitative management reports. The nature of this assurance will be closer to supervisory activities and will involve intensive interchange with more of the firm s stakeholders than just its shareholders. The timing of the audit process will be very close to the event, automated, and will conform to the natural life cycle of the underlying business processes. The processes of assurance will change dramatically to being meta-supervisory in nature, intrusive with the potential of process interruption, and focusing on very different forms of evidential matter than the traditional audit. The tools of the audit will expand considerably with the emergence of major forms of new auditing methods relying heavily on an integrated set of automated information technology (IT) and analytical tools. These will include automatic confirmations (confirmatory extranets), control tags (transparent tagging) tools, continuity equations, and time-series cross-sectional analytics. Finally, the outcomes of the continuous assurance process will entail an expanded set of assurances, evergreen opinions, some future assurances, some improvement on control processes (through incorporating CA tests), and some improved data integrity.

A continuous audit is a methodology that enables independent auditors to provide written assurance on a subject matter, for which an entity’s management is responsible, using a series of auditors’ reports issued virtually simultaneously with, or a short period of time after, the occurrence of events underlying the subject matter.

• –

  CICA/AICPA Research Study on Continuous Auditing (1999)

CICA/AICPA Research Study on Continuous Auditing (1999)

Companies must disclose certain information on a current basis.

• –

  Corporate and Auditing Accountability, Responsibility, and Transparency (Sarbanes-Oxley) Act (2002)

Corporate and Auditing Accountability, Responsibility, and Transparency (Sarbanes-Oxley) Act (2002)

The chapter studies the current tendencies of the Russian practice of decision-making in business systems by the example of a gas distribution company of the Russian Federation. In the modern Russian practice, the companies transform the system of decision-making to the process-oriented approach, which envisages decision-making and correction of decisions not according to functional responsibilities but according to consecutively performed procedures of conducted business processes.

The authors describe the procedure of formation of business processes in a gas distribution company by the example of the business process “Technological connection” and provide its characteristics.

As a result of studying foreign approaches to formation of the model of management and decision-making in companies, the authors develop a methodology of evaluation of economic effectiveness of implementation of a business process, based on the principles of management according to goals and KPI. This methodology allows evaluating the obtained results of a separate stage and of the business process on the whole.

By the example of the studied business process, a set of key indicators of effectiveness of a separate subprocess “Formation of technical condition” in a company is offered, and calculations of final results of effectiveness of this business process are provided. As a result of the final evaluation, practical recommendations for development of managerial decisions in a company are provided.