Loukis Euripidis

Abstract:
Since the advent of the digital age, the transformation of government operations, policy-making, citizen engagement, and public services has fundamentally reshaped the relationships between citizens and public institutions. Digital government, as a field of study, has evolved to address the complex challenges at the intersection of technology, governance, and society. Over the past decades, Government Information Quarterly (GIQ) has played a pivotal role in documenting and shaping this evolution from basic computerization to sophisticated digital transformation initiatives. The impact of digitalization extends across all aspects of public administration, from service delivery and policy-making to citizen engagement and democratic processes. This study brings together perspectives from leading digital government scholars to examine the nature of digital government research. Through the analysis of the journal’s distinctive identity and characteristics, evolution, theoretical landscape, and methodological approaches, it offers insights into how GIQ has evolved to a transdisciplinary platform that bridges theoretical foundations with practical applications while consistently addressing emerging technological challenges, fundamental public sector values, and high-value public policy goals.

Abstract:
Economic crises are occurring with increasing frequency and duration in modern economies. They negatively affect both private and public sector organizations, but sometimes they can have some positive effects as well. However, the effects of economic crises with respect to the digitalization and digital transformation activities and aspects of organizations have been empirically investigated to a very limited extent, and only for private sector organizations. This study contributes to filling this research gap by empirically investigating the effects of economic crises on the digital transformation activities of the public organizations that perform one of the most critical functions of the modern state: public welfare. For this purpose, we have constructed a research model, based on the “Resource-based View” of the firm, and a comprehensive conceptualization of government digital transformation, as theoretical foundations. Our study has been conducted in Greece, a country hit by a strong economic crisis between 2010 and 2018. It has been concluded that this economic crisis resulted in a serious decrease of the ICT-related investment and operating expenses of the examined public welfare organizations. However, at the same time the economic crisis has unexpectedly led to a significant increase of digital transformation developments in these critical organizations, and a significant advancement in significant aspects of their digital transformation.

Abstract:
Value creation and innovation by a range of stakeholders, including citizens, analysts, journalists, non-profit entities, etc. are the hallmarks of Open Government Data (OGD) initiatives. At the same time, availability and interoperability of datasets are determined as two of the most important factors for value creation. In parallel, the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are meant to be realized to attain quality of life through the development of initiatives based on the value creation and innovation provided by the afore-identified stakeholders. Thus, the information provided from the public sector OGD regarding SDGs would help the monitoring of current and the identification of next actions and initiatives. The examination of SDG datasets availability and the assessment of their interoperability would provide valuable insights regarding the extent to which the data are of high-value. In that vein, the availability and the interoperability dimensions of the OGD provisioned via the national OGD portals of the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) constituents; viz., Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia, are studied based on a semi-automatic methodological approach. In this light, the present study seeks to answer the following research question: “To what extent are the national OGD portals of the GCC region catering for the interoperability dimensions, more specifically, the semantic interoperability, to facilitate value creation and innovation?” To drive home the arguments, semantic interoperability dimensions were investigated via the cosine similarity calculations in Python to understand the extent to which the availability of OGD via the national OGD portals facilitates their interoperability. Findings show that the value creation and innovation initiatives to realize the SDGs’ attainment is dependent upon both the availability and the extent of interoperability for all SDGs. GCC countries present different levels of both factors. This is suggestive of the mismatch of the OGD provision and their attributes which results in low interoperability. Findings from the study are indicators that the GCC countries should develop different strategies regarding the availability and the interoperability of SDG-related OGD in order to stimulate innovation and value creation.

Abstract:
Purpose – This study aims to underline the possible influence of the moderator, information systems (IS) infusion, on Open Government Data (OGD) adoption and usage. Design/methodology/approach – Using the partial least squares-structural equation modeling methodological approach, the adapted unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) model has been used for understanding the role of the moderating variable, namely, IS infusion. Findings – Findings show that the moderating impact of IS infusion is positively significant with respect to the performance expectancy–behavioral intention relationship thereby bolstering the impact on users’ perception of OGD vis-a-vis work/academics performance and negatively significant for social influence–behavioral intention, information quality–behavioral intention, thereby clinching the fact that with the increased engagement and involvement of OGD in the everyday life of the user, the role of significant others and information quality gets least significant. Originality/value – Extant OGD-focused research has underscored the impact of different variables as far as OGD adoption and usage is concerned; the present study seeks to add on to the extant literature by understanding the implications of IS infusion on the adapted UTAUT model constructs and behavioral intention relationships.

Abstract:
It is widely recognized that legislation is of critical importance for the proper functioning of economies and societies. However, the increasing complexity of the problems and challenges faced by modern economies and societies have resulted in the development of extensive, highly complex, and continuously evolving legislations. This makes it difficult for firms and administrations, as well as individual lawyers and public servants, to know the current applicable legislation on a particular topic of interest, as well as its evolution over time. This difficulty increases further due to the internationalization–globalization of economic activity, as well as the development of supranational organizations (such as the European Union (EU)), which make it necessary to continuously monitor legislations of several countries on various topics of interest. Existing national legal information platforms cannot satisfy the above highly complex requirements. This paper contributes to filling this gap, initially by describing the architecture and the capabilities/functionalities of an advanced “international” legal information platform, which has been developed as part of the European research program “ManyLaws,” based on requirements collected through interviews with lawyers and public servants; it enables the advanced search and retrieval of relevant legal documents on a particular topic of interest from within the legislative corpuses of many different countries, as well as EU legislation, using existing sources of open legal information, and also the automated comparative analysis of them and identification of various types of relations among them. The evaluation of this advanced legal information platform, using an extension of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), provides evidence of the usefulness and the ease of use of its novel functionalities, as well as their positive contribution to the productivity of both national-level legal work and internationallevel legal work, especially within the EU. The proposed advanced legal information platform can be quite useful for firms and administrations, as well as individual lawyers and public servants, active in the modern globalized economic context.

Abstract:
The generation of social and economic value from the vast quantities of data opened by governments has been much lower than the initial expectations. It requires the development and cooperation of ecosystems composed of various public, private, and non-profit actors. For the development of these ecosystems in order to generate social and economic value from open government data (OGD), necessary conditions are, on the one hand, the availability of a critical mass of OGD and, on the other hand, the existence of some level of homogeneity and interoperability among the numerous portals and websites providing them, which enables their combined exploitation that increases the potential for value generation from them. This paper focuses on the latter and develops the Technical, Semantic, Legal, and Organizational (TSLO) Interoperability Framework, a conceptual tool designed to provide a structured multi-dimensional assessment of the interoperability capabilities of OGD infrastructures, based on the ‘European Interoperability Framework’ (EIF) as well as relevant OGD literature. This TSLO framework has been applied for the assessment of the above main dimensions of the interoperability of the OGD infrastructures of the Greek local government administration institutions of all three layers (decentralized, regional, and municipal). After this application, nine interviews were conducted with nine municipalities that do not provide OGD in order to gain a deeper understanding of the reasons for this. The results of this first application of TSLO revealed not only the low participation of Greek local government institutions, and especially of the municipalities, in the OGD movement (with only 8 out of the 332 municipalities providing open data on their portals or websites), but also the inconsistent implementation of this, especially with respect to the use of semantic technologies as well as the legal frameworks under which the open data are provided, resulting in low levels of interoperability among them. The interviews that were conducted revealed that the opening of some of their data was not a priority for them, as their limited resources had to be used for the development of internal information systems for increasing their efficiency, as well as e-services for the citizens, enabling them to conduct transactions electronically (through the Internet). Our study makes a contribution to the still limited body of research on OGD ecosystems, examining an important precondition for their development that has not been researched in previous literature; also, our framework can contribute to the increase of interoperability of OGD infrastructures and therefore to the increase of social and economic value generations for the OGD they provide

Abstract:
Purpose – This study aims to underline the possible influence of the moderator, information systems (IS) infusion, on Open Government Data (OGD) adoption and usage. Design/methodology/approach – Using the partial least squares-structural equation modeling methodological approach, the adapted unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) model has been used for understanding the role of themoderating variable, namely, IS infusion. Findings – Findings show that the moderating impact of IS infusion is positively significant with respect to the performance expectancy–behavioral intention relationship thereby bolstering the impact on users’ perception of OGD vis-a-vis work/academics performance and negatively significant for social influence–behavioral intention, information quality–behavioral intention, thereby clinching the fact that with the increased engagement and involvement of OGD in the everyday life of the user, the role of significant others and information quality gets least significant. Originality/value – Extant OGD-focused research has underscored the impact of different variables as far as OGD adoption and usage is concerned; the present study seeks to add on to the extant literature by understanding the implications of IS infusion on the adapted UTAUT model constructs and behavioral intention relationships.

Abstract:
It is widely recognized that legislation is of critical importance for the proper functioning of economies and societies. However, the increasing complexity of the problems and challenges faced by modern economies and societies have resulted in the development of extensive, highly complex, and continuously evolving legislations. This makes it difficult for firms and administrations, as well as individual lawyers and public servants, to know the current applicable legislation on a particular topic of interest, as well as its evolution over time. This difficulty increases further due to the internationalization–globalization of economic activity, as well as the development of supranational organizations (such as the European Union (EU)), which make it necessary to continuously monitor legislations of several countries on various topics of interest. Existing national legal information platforms cannot satisfy the above highly complex requirements. This paper contributes to filling this gap, initially by describing the architecture and the capabilities/ functionalities of an advanced “international” legal information platform, which has been developed as part of the European research program “ManyLaws,” based on requirements collected through interviews with lawyers and public servants; it enables the advanced search and retrieval of relevant legal documents on a particular topic of interest from within the legislative corpuses of many different countries, as well as EU legislation, using existing sources of open legal information, and also the automated comparative analysis of them and identification of various types of relations among them. The evaluation of this advanced legal information platform, using an extension of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), provides evidence of the usefulness and the ease of use of its novel functionalities, as well as their positive contribution to the productivity of both national-level legal work and international level legal work, especially within the EU. The proposed advanced legal information platform can be quite useful for firms and administrations, as well as individual lawyers and public servants, active in the modern globalized economic context.

Abstract:
The economic crises constitute the most important disruptions in firms’ external environment, which have quite negative economic consequences for them, leading to significant reductions of their activities. However, the negative impacts differ significantly among firms, so it is important to identify factors that affect their magnitude at firm level, as they would provide to firms a useful basis for developing strategies for increasing their resilience to crisis. In this study, based on the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm as well as the dynamic-capability view (DCV) as theoretical foundations, we develop a set of research hypotheses concerning the effects of a series of factors on firm overall crisis economic vulnerability as well as crisis vulnerability with respect to several investment categories. We test these hypotheses using Greek firm data for the crisis period 2009–2014. We find evidence for a vulnerability reducing effect of new forms of “organic” workplace organization and human capital endowment, the latter effect particularly for investment in R&D and innovation, a stabilizing effect of a series of dynamic capabilities, a stabilizing effect of export activities, a de-stabilizing role of crisis-induced liquidity restrictions, and a de-stabilizing effect of crisis-induced decrease of overall private and public demand.

Abstract:
Purpose – This study aims to develop a methodology for predicting the resilience of individual firms to economic crisis, using historical government data to optimize one of the most important and costly interventions that governments undertake, the huge economic stimulus programs that governments implement for mitigating the consequences of economic crises, by making them more focused on the less resilient and more vulnerable firms to the crisis, which have the highest need for government assistance and support. Design/methodology/approach – The authors are leveraging existing firm-level data for economic crisis periods from government agencies having competencies/ responsibilities in the domain of economy, such as Ministries of Finance and Statistical Authorities, to construct prediction models of the resilience of individual firms to the economic crisis based on firms’ characteristics (such as human resources, technology, strategies, processes and structure), using artificial intelligence (AI) techniques from the area of machine learning (ML). Findings – The methodology has been applied using data from the Greek Ministry of Finance and Statistical Authority about 363 firms for the Greek economic crisis period 2009–2014 and has provided a satisfactory prediction of a measure of the resilience of individual firms to an economic crisis. Research limitations/implications – The authors’ study opens up new research directions concerning the exploitation of AI/ML in government for a critical government activity/intervention of high importance that mobilizes/ spends huge financial resources. The main limitation is that the abovementioned first application of the proposed methodology has been based on a rather small data set from a single national context (Greece), so it is necessary to proceed to further application of this methodology using larger data sets and different national contexts. Practical implications – The proposed methodology enables government agencies responsible for the implementation of such economic stimulus programs to proceed to radical transformations of them by predicting the resilience to economic crisis of the firms applying for government assistance and then directing/focusing the scarce available financial resources to/on the ones predicted to be more vulnerable, ιncreasing substantially the effectiveness of these programs and the economic/social value they generate. Originality/value – To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first application of AI/ML in government that leverages existing data for economic crisis periods to optimize and increase the effectiveness of the largest and most important and costly economic intervention that governments repeatedly have to make: the economic stimulus programs for mitigating the consequences of economic crises.

Abstract:
n this paper, we develop a set of research hypotheses concerning the effects of six groups of factors on firms’ behavior during the 2008 global economic crisis with respect to ICT investment: three groups of internal factors (overall firm resource endowment, ICT-related resource endowment, ICT-related capabilities) and three groups of factors (competition, liquidity problems, macro-economic conditions concerning demand). These research hypotheses are tested using data from Greek firms for the economic crisis period 2009–2014

Abstract:
This article analyzes the ICT-related behavior of the five ‘system-relevant’ Greek banks in the first years 2010–2014 of the Greek economic crisis. We conclude that besides the standard immediate reaction to the crisis by reducing ICT-related expenses, the Greek banks in a later phase of the economic crisis proceeded to a substantial rationalization of their ICT processes/practices and improvement of their ICT capabilities, as well as the adaptation of their ICT plans to the crisis conditions.

Abstract:
Abstract— Previous political sciences research has revealed that democracy (democratic institutions, consultations with citizens) and technocracy (specialized knowledge of experts) are the main foundations for the development of effective and socially acceptable public policies, and that there should be balance as well as interaction and exchange of knowledge between them. However, there is a lack of e-participation platforms supporting this required ‘duality’: the collection of policy related information, knowledge and opinions from both citizens and experts, as well as the communication and interaction between them. This paper contributes to filling this critical research gap. It describes the development of an innovative e-participation platform, which supports on one hand structured consultation and argumentation between experts/technocrats concerning important social problems and public policies for addressing them, and on the other hand the collection and interrelation of relevant citizensgenerated textual content from numerous external social media. This platform enables the meaningful combination of technocrats’ expertise with public opinion, allowing the technocrats participating in policy related structured consultations to retrieve, understand and get insights from citizens’ perceptions. Evaluation results show that users appreciate the potential of exploiting the synergy of machine and human reasoning enabled by the proposed platform through a combination of data mining and structured consultation/argumentation - collaborative decision-making services.

Abstract:
Purpose: Public sector has started exploiting artificial intelligence (AI) techniques, however mainly for operational and to a lower extent for tactical level tasks. The purpose of this study is to exploit AI for the highest strategic level task of government: to develop an AI-based public sector data analytics methodology for supporting policy-making for one of the most serious and large-scale challenges that governments repeatedly face: the economic crises giving rise to economic recessions (though the proposed methodology has much wider applicability) Design/Methodology/Approach: A public sector data analytics methodology has been developed, which enables the exploitation of existing public and private sector data, through advanced processing of them using a big data oriented AI technique, ‘all-relevant’ feature selection, in order to identify characteristics of firms and their external environment that affect (positively or negatively) their resilience to economic crisis. Findings: A first application of the proposed public sector data analytics methodology has been conducted, using Greek firms’ data concerning the economic crisis period 2009-2014, which has led to interesting conclusions and insights, revealing some factors that affect the extent of sales revenue decrease in Greek firms during the above crisis period, and providing a first validation of our methodology. Research Implications: Our research contributes to the advancement of two emerging highly important for the society, but minimally researched, digital government research domains: public sector data analytics (and especially policy analytics) and government exploitation of AI. It exploits an AI feature selection algorithm, the Boruta ‘all-relevant’ variables identification one, which has been minimally exploited in the past for public sector data analytics, in order to support the design of public policies for addressing one of the most serious and large-scale economic challenges that governments repeatedly face: the economic crises. Practical Implications: The proposed methodology allows the identification of characteristics of firms and their external environment that affect positively or negatively their resilience to economic crisis. This enables a better understanding of the kinds of firms that are more strongly hit by the crisis, which is quite useful for the design of public policies for supporting them; and at the same time reveals firms’ resources, capabilities and practices that enhance their ability to cope with economic crisis, in order to design policies for promoting them through educational and support activities. Social Implications: This methodology can be very useful for the design of more effective public policies for reducing the negative impacts of economic crises on firms, and therefore mitigating their negative consequences for the society, such as unemployment, poverty and social exclusion. Originality/Value: Our research develops a novel approach to the exploitation of public and private sector data, based on a minimally exploited for such purposes AI technique (‘all-relevant’ feature selection), in order to support the design of public policies for addressing one of the most threatening disruptions that modern economies and societies repeatedly face the economic crises.

Abstract:
In this paper, we examine empirically the possibility that an economic crisis could affect firms’ innovation performance through the ICT investment channel. In connection with this, it is also interesting to analyze the ICT characteristics of a firm (both ICT inputs and ICT infrastructures) that are associated with its ICT-enabled innovation performance. Our study is based on firm data from the glass /ceramics /cement industry of six European countries. We find a statistically significant negative relationship between ICT-enabled product/service innovation and firm’s crisis vulnerability with respect to ICT investment (pro-cyclical behavior) only for new products/services that contain ICT components. Employment of specialized ICT personnel, ICT infrastructure that supports firm’s internal functions (use of a series of standard administration and production support ICT applications), e-procurement, ICT outsourcing (only for process innovation), the awareness of the relevance of new ICTs, and quality competition (only for product/service innovation) are ICT characteristics that positively correlate with ICT-enabled innovation. Our findings have interesting implications for research and practice.

Abstract:
Purpose – Previous empirical research on Cloud Computing (CC) adoption factors has examined the effects of only a small number of firm’s characteristics on CC adoption, and this has resulted in a limited understanding about firm’s internal conditions that favor and promote it. So, the research objective of this paper is to investigate empirically the effects of a wide set of firm’s characteristics, which concern four important aspects of it, its strategy, processes, personnel, and technology, on the propensity to adopt CC. Design/Methodology/Approach – Having as theoretical background the Technology, Organization, and Environment (TOE) theory of technological innovation adoption, in combination with Scott-Morton’s framework on firm’s main elements, which is used for elaborating the organizational perspective of this theory, twelve research hypotheses have been developed based on previous CC and management literature. They were tested using data collected through the e-Business W@tch Survey of the European Commission from 676 European firms from three traditional manufacturing sectors. Findings – Our results reveal three characteristics of a firm that affect positively its propensity to adopt CC for all firm sizes: the adoption of ICT investment reduction strategy, the adoption of product/service innovation strategy and the sophistication of firm’s administration support ICT infrastructure. Furthermore, they reveal five additional characteristics of a firm that affect positively the propensity for CC adoption only in the small firms: the adoption of process innovation strategy, the employment of ICT personnel, as well as the sophistication of firm’s production support, e-sales and e-invoicing ICT infrastructures. Research implications/limitations – First, our study proposes a theoretical foundation for the elaboration of the organizational perspective of the TOE theory of technological innovation adoption, which opens a new stream of CC adoption factors research, investigating the effects of a wide range of firm’s characteristics on CC adoption. Second, our study enriches the empirical literature on CC adoption factors, by examining the effects of different kinds of strategies, processes and ICT infrastructures, and also of ICT personnel, which have not been examined in previous relevant empirical literature, on firm’s propensity for CC adoption. The main limitation of our study is that it has been based on data from only three European manufacturing sectors, so findings may have been influenced to some extent by this specific sectoral and national context. Practical implications - Our findings provide new interesting insights concerning specific firm’s characteristics and therefore internal conditions that increase its propensity for CC adoption, and reveal specific kinds of strategy, processes and ICT infrastructures for which CC is more appropriate and beneficial; these are also shedding light on the main aspects of CC usefulness - value potential perceived by firms, as well as the envisioned ways/forms of CC exploitation. These insights can be useful to both CC user firms, as well as CC provider firms, for supporting various CC related decisions. Originality/value – We have developed a theoretical foundation for extending our knowledge concerning the characteristics and internal conditions of firms that favor/promote the adoption of CC, which enables the substantial extension of the existing knowledge base on CC adoption factors, quite useful for both CC user and provider firms. Based on this theoretical foundation we have formulated and tested twelve research hypotheses concerning effects of firm’s strategic directions, processes, ICT infrastructures and ICT personnel, which have not been investigated previously, on CC adoption propensity; our findings provide interesting and practically relevant novel insights concerning kinds of strategy, processes and ICT infrastructures that favor/promote CC adoption, as well as the role of ICT personnel.

Abstract:
Software as a Service (SaaS) is increasingly used by firms for sourcing business application software. SaaS can enable a cost reduction and quality improvement of existing operations and provide rapid and low-cost innovation. However, decision makers are unclear about how they can benefit from SaaS. This study contributes to filling this knowledge gap by investigating factors that determine the magnitudes of operational and innovational benefits and firm performance. These research hypotheses were tested using data collected through a survey of 102 Dutch firms that use sophisticated financial SaaS services. The results show that a firm's adaptation to the SaaS model as well as its ACAP positively affects operational and innovation benefits, whereas contractual governance positively affects only the innovational benefits, and relational governance does not affect any of these two types of benefits. Although both operational and innovational benefits positively impact a firm's performance, the former have a stronger impact than the latter. The insights gained from our survey can support firms' decision-making concerning the maximization of the business benefits and firm performance

Abstract:
Driven by ‘success stories’ reported by private sector firms, government agencies have also started adopting various Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies in diverse domains (e.g. health, taxation, and education); however, extensive research is required in order to exploit the full potential of AI in the public sector, and leverage various AI technologies to address important problems/needs. This paper makes a contribution in this direction: it presents a novel approach, as well as the architecture of an ICT platform supporting it, for the advanced exploitation of a specific AI technology, namely chatbots, in the public sector in order to address a crucial issue: the improvement of communication between government and citizens (which has for long time been problematic). The proposed approach builds on natural language processing, machine learning and data mining technologies, and leverages existing data of various forms (such as documents containing legislation and directives, structured data from government agencies' operational systems, social media data, etc.), in order to develop a new digital channel of communication between citizens and government. Making use of appropriately structured and semantically annotated data, this channel enables ‘richer’ and more expressive interaction of citizens with government in everyday language, facilitating and advancing both information seeking and conducting of transactions. Compared to existing digital channels, the proposed approach is appropriate for a wider range of citizens' interactions, with higher levels of complexity, ambiguity and uncertainty. In close co-operation with three Greek government agencies (the Ministry of Finance, a social security organization, and a big local government organization), this approach has been validated through a series of application scenarios.

Abstract:
Open government data (OGD) initiatives have proliferated over the last years in many countries all over the world as the result of a long-standing movement towards the ‘open government’ paradigm. These initiatives have been launched and maintained by a variety of government organizations with different strategies and technical capacities, and under different social, political and legal conditions. As a result, the OGD sources (defined as various types of portals enabling access to government datasets by the public through the Internet and providing various capabilities/functionalities in this direction) developed through these initiatives demonstrate a great diversity in both content, functionality and technology. However, limited research has been conducted on these OGD sources for understanding better their main characteristics from various perspectives, and identifying their strengths and weaknesses. This paper contributes to filling this research gap, by presenting an analysis of the thematic, functional, semantic and technological characteristics of OGD sources in Greece. Sixty OGD sources have analysed from these perspectives and statistical analysis of relevant characteristics have been performed. Interesting conclusions have been drawn from this analysis, and based on them recommendations have been formulated for government policy makers, in order to enhance OGD provision in Greece, and increase the social and economic value that can be generated from them.

Abstract:
Cloud computing (CC) is emerging as a new paradigm of resource acquisition and management of information and communication technologies (ICT) by firms, which can offer significant benefits, but at the same time can pose significant risks as well, so its adoption by firms has been lower than the initial expectations. Therefore, it is quite important to gain a better understanding of the factors affecting positively or negatively the adoption of CC. This paper presents an empirical investigation of the effects on a firm’s propensity to adopt CC of a set of firm characteristics referring to technological infrastructure, strategy, personnel skills, size and competition. Its conceptual foundation is the Technology, Organization and Environment theory of technological innovation adoption. Our study is based on data from 676 European manufacturing firms from the glass, ceramics and cement sectors, which have been collected through the e-Business Survey of the European Commission. The results indicate that in the above sectors ICT infrastructure sophistication has the strongest positive effect on CC adoption propensity among all examined firm characteristics. Furthermore, we have found that the existence of an ICT investment reduction strategy, the employment of specialized ICT personnel and the existence of previous experience of ICT outsourcing also have positive effects on a firm’s propensity to adopt CC. On the contrary, employees ICT skills, price and quality competition do not affect CC adoption propensity. Finally, our results also indicate that in the three examined sectors firm size has no significant influence on the propensity to adopt CC.

Abstract:
Motivated by the multiple ‘success stories’ of the open innovation paradigm in the private sector, and also by the increasing complexity of social problems and needs, the public sector has started moving in this direction,attempting to exploit the extensive knowledge of citizens for the development of innovations in public policies and services. As the direct transfer of open innovation methods from the private sector to the public sector is not possible, it is necessary to develop effective ‘citizen-sourcing’ methods, which address the specific needs of the public sector, and then analyze and evaluate them from various political and management sciences' perspectives. This paper makes a two-fold contribution in this direction: i) It evaluates a novel method of monitoring relevant social media (e.g. political blogs, news websites, and also Facebook, Twitter, etc. accounts) by government agencies, by retrieving and making advanced processing of their content, and extracting from it external knowledge about specific domains of government activity or public policies of interest, in order to promote and support open innovation; ii) For this purpose it develops a multi-perspective evaluation framework, based on sound theoretical foundations from the political and management sciences, which can be of wide applicability; it includes three evaluation perspectives: a political perspective (based on the ‘wicked’ social problems theory from the political sciences), a crowd-sourcing perspective (based on previous management sciences research on crowdsourcing) and a diffusion perspective (based on Roger's diffusion of innovation theory from management sciences). The above evaluation provides interesting insights into this novel method of promoting and supporting open innovation in the public sector through social media monitoring, revealing its capabilities and strengths, and at the same time its problems and weaknesses as well, and also ways/interventions for addressing the latter.

Abstract:
Firms are increasingly shifting from the ‘closed’ innovation paradigm, in which their innovation design and implementation activities were based on their own internal knowledge resources, skills and production facilities, towards the inter-organizational ‘open’ innovation paradigm, which is based to a significant degree on collaboration with other organizations, aiming at the exploitation of external knowledge resources, skills and production facilities as well. This paper investigates empirically the effects of firm’s inter-organizational collaboration for the design and implementation of innovations, and also use of ICT for supporting this collaboration, on firm’s propensity to adopt cloud computing (CC), and in this way it examines in an ‘objective’ manner to what extent firms regard CC as a cost effective means of supporting inter-organizational collaboration for the design and implementation of innovation. Our study is based on a dataset collected in the e-Business Survey of the European Commission from 676 European firms from the glass, ceramics and cement manufacturing sectors. It has been concluded that firms of these sectors regard CC as a cost effective means of supporting collaboration with other firms for the design of innovations in their products, services and processes, and also of reducing the costs and increasing the capabilities and flexibility of already existing electronic support of inter-organizational innovation design collaboration. Furthermore, our results indicate that firms find CC useful for the reduction of the costs and the increase of the capabilities and flexibility of their existing electronic support of the complex operations required for the inter-organizational implementation of innovations.

Abstract:
In this paper we empirically investigate and compare to what extent Northern and Southern European firms view cloud computing (CC) as a means of: (a) ICT investment reduction; (b) supporting and facilitating product/service innovation and process innova- tion; (c) experimenting with and exploiting new ICT; and (d) supporting and facilitating electronic innovation collaboration. This is done by estimating econometrically a model of CC adoption propensity containing measures of the four main adoption motives men- tioned above besides further variables that are associated with technology adoption and a series of controls for firm size, sector and country affiliation. Our study is based on a data- set collected through the e-Business W@tch Survey of the European Commission from 556 European firms from the glass, ceramic and cement sectors. These findings indicate that Southern European firms are mainly oriented towards ‘first-level’ cost (and especially investment) reduction related benefits from CC as well as from new emerging ICT, while on the contrary Northern European firms are mainly oriented towards ‘second-level’ trans- formation related benefits from CC, which are associated with support and facilitation of innovation and external collaboration.

Abstract:
This paper investigates and compares the relationships for Swiss and Greek firms between indicators for the intensity of use of modern information and communications technologies (ICT), several forms of workplace organization, and human capital, on the one hand, and several measures of innovation performance at firm level, on the other hand. For the Swiss firms, we find that ICT contribute to innovation activities (a) as enablers of process innovation (but not of product innovation) and (b) as means for increasing the efficiency of the R&D process. The organizational variables for “work design” and “employee voice” show significant positive correlations for most innovation indicators. Human capital matters primarily for R&D activities. The findings for the Greek firms indicate positive correlations of ICT with product and process innovation and of new “work design” with product innovation and R&D. No correlation of human capital with innovation could be found. No complementarities for the three factors with respect to innovation performance could be detected in either country.

Abstract:
Motivated by the multiple ‘success stories’ of the open innovation paradigmin the private sector, and also by the\r\nincreasing complexity of social problems and needs, the public sector has started moving in this direction,\r\nattempting to exploit the extensive knowledge of citizens for the development of innovations in public policies\r\nand services. As the direct transfer of open innovation methods from the private sector to the public sector is\r\nnot possible, it is necessary to develop effective ‘citizen-sourcing’ methods, which address the specific needs of\r\nthe public sector, and then analyze and evaluate themfromvarious political and management sciences\' perspectives.\r\nThis papermakes a two-fold contribution in this direction: i) It evaluates a novel method of monitoring relevant\r\nsocial media (e.g. political blogs, news websites, and also Facebook, Twitter, etc. accounts) by government\r\nagencies, by retrieving and making advanced processing of their content, and extracting from it external knowledge\r\nabout specific domains of government activity or public policies of interest, in order to promote and support\r\nopen innovation; ii) For this purpose it develops amulti-perspective evaluation framework, based on sound theoretical\r\nfoundations from the political and management sciences, which can be of wide applicability; it includes\r\nthree evaluation perspectives: a political perspective (based on the ‘wicked’ social problems theory fromthe political\r\nsciences), a crowd-sourcing perspective (based on previous management sciences research on crowdsourcing)\r\nand a diffusion perspective (based on Roger\'s diffusion of innovation theory from management sciences).\r\nThe above evaluation provides interesting insights into this novel method of promoting and supporting\r\nopen innovation in the public sector through social media monitoring, revealing its capabilities and strengths,\r\nand at the same time its problems andweaknesses aswell, and also ways/interventions for addressing the latter.

Abstract:
Both private and public sector organizations tend to participate in networks in order to gain access to knowledge, skills and resources of other organizations and to create synergies to achieve highly demanding and complex goals they cannot attain individually. The governance of these networks has been recognized as being an important variable influencing organizational network performance. This Special Issue aims to contribute to the investigation and understanding of the relationships between ICT and governance of organizational networks. This introductory paper provides the conceptual and theoretical background. The relationship between network governance and technology is bi-directional; evolutions in ICT enable the development of new types of network collaborations and governance, whereas governance of collaboration networks is critical for the development of complex ICT infrastructures.We argue that network governance should be conceptualized as an evolving socio-technical process shaped by actors and aimed at tackling complex and dynamic contemporary challenges.

Abstract:
Government agencies all over the world are making big investments for developing information systems that open important data they possess to the society, in order to be used for scientific, commercial and political purposes. It is important to understand what value they create and how, and at the same time – since this is a relatively new type of information systems (IS) – to identify the main improvements they require. This paper contributes in this direction by presenting a methodology for determining the value generation mechanism of open government data (OGD) systems and also priorities for their improvement. It is based on the estimation of a ‗value model‘ of the OGD system under evaluation from users‘ ratings, which consists of several value dimensions and their corresponding value measures, organized in three ‗value layers‘, and also the relations among them. The proposed methodology has been successfully applied to an OGD system developed as part of the European project ENGAGE (‗An Infrastructure for Open, Linked Governmental Data Provision towards Research Communities and Citizens‘), and provided interesting insights and improvement priorities. This first application provides evidence that our methodology can be a useful decision support tool for important ODG systems investment, management and improvement decisions.

Abstract:
Purpose - In recent years, there has been much debate about the value generated by the firms’ investments in Information Technology (IT). Although literature suggests that technology itself will rarely create superiority, Web infrastructure can be critical for knowledge sharing and the formation of virtual teams to execute innovation processes which, in turn, may enhance e-Innovation and business value. Building on these antecedents, this study seeks to explore whether and how Web infrastructure and e-Innovation can create business value by complementing each other. Methodology - Based on the Resource-Based View (RBV) of the firm this paper develops a conceptual model to assess the effects of Web infrastructure and e-Innovation on business value as well as the complementarity between these resources. To test the associated hypotheses, a regression model was estimated and tested on a large sample of Spanish firms from different industries. Results - The results show that Web infrastructure is not positively related to business value, but on the contrary e-innovation has a positive impact on business value. However, support for complementarity between Web infrastructure and e-Innovation was not found. Originality/ Value - The present study tests the RBV logic, arguing that not all IT resources are source of competitive advantage. In the same vein, this study shows that e-Innovation, as it requires combination of IT infrastructure with other unique intangible resources, is much more difficult to imitate, leading to competitive advantages.

Abstract:
The opening of government data, in order to have both social and economic value generated from them, has attracted the attention and interest of both researchers and practitioners from various disciplines, such as information systems, management sciences, political and social sciences and law. Despite the rapid growth of this multidisciplinary research domain, which has led to the emergence and continuous evolution of technologies and management approaches for open government data (OGD), a detailed analysis of the specific areas and topics of this research is still missing. In this paper, a detailed taxonomy of research areas and corresponding research topics of the OGD domain is presented: it includes 4 main research areas (ODG management & policies, infrastructures, interoperability and usage & value), which are further analysed into 35 research topics. An important advantage of this taxonomy, beyond its high level of detail, is that it has been developed through extraction and combination of relevant knowledge from three different kinds of sources: important relevant government policy documents, research literature and experts. For each of these 35 research topics we identified, its research literature has been summarized and main research objectives and directions have been highlighted. Based on the above taxonomy, an extension of the existing in the literature OGD lifecycle has been proposed; also, under-researched topics that require further research have been identified. Our OGD research taxonomy extends and elaborates previous research taxonomies for the ‘ICT-enabled Governance’ and ‘Policy Making 2.0’ domains, which have been developed in the European projects CROSSROAD and CROSSOVER.

Abstract:
Hospitals are making big investments in various types of ICT, so it is important to investigate their effects on innovation and performance. This paper presents an empirical study in this direction, based on data for 743 hospitals from 18 European countries. We specified and estimated econometrically five equations: one for product innovation, one for process innovation and three equations for the three different dimensions of (ICT-enabled) hospital performance. All five equations included various ICT-related variables reflecting ICT infrastructure and a series of important ICT applications, some of them hospital-specific, and some others of general business use, and also ICT personnel (viewed as a kind of ‘soft’ ICT investment), while the performance equations also included the two innovation measures.

Abstract:
We investigated the effect of modern information and communication technologies (ICT), new forms of workplace organization, and trade (export) activities on the demand for employees with different levels of (vocational) education for Greek and Swiss enterprises. We found positive (negative) effects of the use of ICT for high-educated (low-educated) personnel in both countries and mixed effects for medium-educated employees. New forms of workplace organization do not have uniform effects on the workforce composition. A positive effect of exports for high-educated employees was traced only for Swiss firms.

Abstract:
One essential characteristic of open data ecosystems is their development through feedback loops, discussions and dynamic data suppliers - user interactions. These user-centric features communicate the users’ needs to the open data community, as well to the public sector organizations responsible for data publication. Addressing these needs by the corresponding public sector organizations, or even by utilising the power of the community as ENGAGE supports, can significantly promote and accelerate innovation. However, such elements appear barely to be part of existing open data practices in the public sector. A survey we conducted has shown that professional open data users find the feedback and discussion on open data infrastructures from their users to their providers as highly useful and important, but they state that they do not know at least one open data infrastructure that provides various types of discussion, and feedback mechanisms. In this paper we describe and discuss an open data platform, which contributes to filling this gap and also present a usage scenario of it, explaining the sequence of using its functionality. The discussed open data infrastructure combines functionalities that aim to close the feedback loop and to return information to public authorities that can be useful for better government data opening and publication, as well as establishing communication channels between all stakeholders. This may effectively lead to the stimulation and facilitation of value generation from open data, as such functionality positions the user at the centre of the open data publication process.

Abstract:
Purpose – This paper aims to develop and evaluate, in “real-life” pilot applications, a framework for advanced social media exploitation by government agencies in their policy-making processes to promote public participation and conduct crowdsourcing. Design/methodology/approach – This framework has been developed through cooperation with public sector employees experienced in public policy-making, using both qualitative and quantitative techniques: semi-structured focus group discussions, scenarios development and questionnaire surveys. The evaluation of the framework has been conducted through semi-structured focus group discussions with public sector employees involved in the pilot applications. Findings – A framework has been developed for advanced social media exploitation by government agencies, which is based on the automated posting of policy-related content to multiple social media, and then retrieval and processing of citizens’ interactions with it (e.g. views, likes, comments and retweets), using the application programming interfaces (API) of these social media. Furthermore, a supporting information and communication technologies (ICT) infrastructure and an application process model for it were developed. Its evaluation, based on “real-life” pilot applications, leads to useful insights concerning its capabilities, strengths and weaknesses. Research limitations/implications – The proposed framework has been evaluated in a small number of pilot applications, so further evaluation of it is required, in various types of government agencies and for different kinds of policy consultations. Practical/Implications – The above framework enables government agencies to communicate with wider and more heterogeneous audiences in a short time and at a low cost, increase public participation in their policy-making processes, collect useful knowledge, ideas and opinions from citizens and, finally, design better, more socially rooted, balanced and realistic policies. Originality/value – This research contributes to the development of knowledge concerning advanced practices for effective social media exploitation in government (which is currently limited, despite the considerable relevant knowledge developed in this area for the private sector), by developing and evaluating a framework for advanced and highly automated exploitation of multiple social media by government agencies. Furthermore, an evaluation methodology for such practices has been developed, which is based on sound theoretical foundations.

Abstract:
Social innovation requires extensive networking, communication, and collaboration among various social actors. This article presents an approach to fostering and supporting social innovation through the combined exploitation of multiple social media. Furthermore, a methodology is developed for evaluating this approach, based on sound theoretical foundations: The wicked problems theory and the diffusion of innovation theory. This methodology is used for evaluating three pilot applications of this approach, organized in cooperation with members of the European Parliament.

Abstract:
Purpose – The purpose of this study is to develop a novel approach to e-participation, which is based on “passive crowdsourcing” by government agencies, exploiting the extensive political content continuously created in numerous Web 2.0 social media (e.g. political blogs and microblogs, news sharing sites and online forums) by citizens without government stimulation, to understand better their needs, issues, opinions, proposals and arguments concerning a particular domain of government activity or public policy. Design/methodology/approach – This approach is developed and elaborated through cooperation with potential users experienced in the design of public policies from three countries (Austria, Greece and the UK), using a combination of quantitative and qualitative techniques: co-operative development of application scenarios, questionnaire surveys, focus groups and workshops and, finally, in-depth interviews. Findings – A process model for the application of the proposed passive crowdsourcing approach has been developed, which is quite different from the one of the usual active crowdsourcing. Based on it, the functional architecture of the required supporting information and communication technologies (ICT) infrastructure has been formulated, and then its technological architecture has been designed, addressing the conflicting requirements: low response time and, at the same time, provision of sufficiently “fresh” content for policymakers. Practical implications – Taking into account that traditionally government agencies monitor what the press writes about them, our research provides a basis for extending efficiently these activities in the new electronic media world (e.g. newspapers websites, blogs and microblogs, online forums, etc.) to understand better the needs, issues, opinions, arguments and proposals raised by the society with respect to important domains of government activity and public policies. Social implications – The proposed approach provides a new channel for the “voice” of the society to be directly communicated to the government so that the latter can design its policies and activities based on the social needs and realities and not on oversimplified models and stereotypes. Originality/value – Our paper proposes a novel approach to e-participation, which exploits the Web 2.0 social media – but in a quite different way from previous approaches – for conducting “passive crowdsourcing”, and elaborates it: it develops an application process model for it and also an ICT infrastructure for supporting it, which are quite different from the ones of the existing “active crowdsourcing” approaches.

Abstract:
This article investigates the relationships between various types of educational value generated by the Markstrat simulation game. Considering several theoretical models of experiential learning and the research framework proposed by previous studies, an educational value generation model is developed and validated, using primary data collected from 305 UK-based students. Four types of educational value are identified: experience generation, conceptual understanding, skills development, and affective evaluation. The application of structural equation modelling indicates several significant relationships: experience generation has a strong impact on conceptual understanding, and both of them have medium to high direct impacts on skills development. On the other hand, the participants’ perception regarding the professional skills developed during the simulation game determines their affective evaluation of the Markstrat exercise. The model presented in this study is generalizable to other simulation games, and to other academic disciplines that implement the same experiential learning approach.

Abstract:
Emerging pervasive assistive environment applications for remote home healthcare monitoring of the elderly, disabled and also patients with various chronic diseases generate massive amounts of sensor signal data, which are transmitted from numerous homes to local health centers or hospitals. While it is critical to process this data efficiently (in a fast and accurate manner) and cost-effectively, in a large scale application of the above technologies it is not possible to do so manually by specialized human resources. This paper proposes a methodology for automatic real-time screening of heart sound signals (one of the most widely acquired signals from the human body for diagnostic purposes)and identification of those that are abnormal and require some action to be taken, which can be applied to many other similar types of bio-signals generated in assistive environments.It is based on a novel Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) Bayesian Inference approach, which estimates conditional probability distributions in structures obtained from a Tree-Augmented Naïve Bayes (TAN) algorithm. It has been applied and validated in a highly ‘difficult’ heterogeneous dataset of 198 heart sound signals, which comes from both healthy medical cases and unhealthy ones having Aortic Stenosis, Mitral Regurgitation, Aortic Regurgitation or Mitral Stenosis. The proposed methodology achieved high classification performance in this difficult screening problem. It performs higher than other widely used classifiers, showing great potential for contributing to a cost-effective large scale application of ICT-based assistive environment technologies.

Abstract:
It is widely recognized that the recent economic crisis in Greece is due not only to excessive government spending and tax evasion, but also to the low competitiveness of its economy. Innovation has become of critical importance for the competitiveness of firms, sectors and countries in the modern economy. This paper presents an empirical study of the ‘new’ innovation determinants based on information and communication technologies (ICT) and also of the ‘traditional’ innovation determinants in the Greek economy. In particular, it investigates the impact of three different ICT (internal information systems (IS), e-sales and e-procurements) and also of six important traditional innovation determinants identified by previous relevant research (four ‘external’ ones—demand expectation, price and non-price competition, market concentration—and two ‘internal’ ones—investment in research and development (R&D) and firm size), on the innovation performance of Greek firms. It is based on firm-level data collected through a survey of 271 Greek firms before the start of the economic crisis, which have been used for the estimation of regression models. It is concluded that in the Greek ‘innovation-averse’ national context (characterized by low level of innovation and uncertainty avoidance culture) none of the examined external (market-related) traditional innovation determinants has an impact on product or process innovation of firms, while on the contrary the internal ones, R&Dexpenditure per employee and size, affect positively both. Furthermore, the examined new technologies seem to be important drivers of innovation: it is concluded that the internal IS have a positive impact on both product and process innovation, the e-sales only on process innovation, but the e-procurement on none. Our results indicate the high potential of ICTas innovation drivers even in such innovation-averse and lower economic development contexts, which, however, vary between different types of ICT.

Abstract:
Government agencies are gradually moving from simpler towards more sophisticated and complex practices of social media use, which are characterized by important innovations at the technological, political and organizational level. This paper intends to provide two contributions to the current discourse about such advanced approaches to social media exploitation. The first is of practical nature and has to do with assessing the strengths and the potential and at the same time the weaknesses and the challenges, of a centralized cross-platform approach to social media exploitation by government agencies in their policy making processes. The second contribution is of theoretical nature and consists in the development of a multi-dimensional framework for an integrated evaluation of such advanced practices of social media exploitation in public policy making processes from technological, political and organizational perspectives, which is based on theoretical foundations from various different domains. The proposed framework is applied for the evaluation of a pilot consultation campaign conducted in Italy using multiple social media based on the above approach, concerning the large scale application of a telemedicine program, in the context of an international research project named PADGETS (‘Policy Gadgets Mashing Underlying Group Knowledge in Web 2.0 Media’), and leading to interesting insights.

Abstract:
This paper aims at analyzing (a) the factors determining the firms’ propensity to outsource various processes (production of intermediate products, production of final products, R&D activities, ICT activities), and (b) the impact of outsourcing on firms’ innovation performance as well as labour productivity. The integral investigation of the determining factors as well as the impact of outsourcing on innovation and productivity based on the same data in a comparative setting (Switzerland versus Greece) are important new elements and contributions of this study to the existing empirical literature. It has been concluded that in both countries more innovative firms (R&D) were stronger inclined to outsourcing activities than less innovative ones, while on the contrary the educational level of employees and the labour cost showed no effect on outsourcing in for both countries. Also, the intensity of ICT use and organizational aspects, especially those related to the formal structure of workplace organization, were relevant for the Swiss firms but not for the Greek firms. With respect to the impact of outsourcing on performance, it has been concluded that it tends to enhance innovation, particularly process innovation, but only weakly productivity (at least directly).

Abstract:
It is widely believed that the establishment of interoperability of the information systems (IS) of a firm with those of its collaborators (e.g. customers, suppliers, business partners) can generate significant business value. However, this has been empirically investigated only to a very limited extent. This paper contributes to filling this research gap by presenting an empirical study of the effect of adopting the three main types of IS interoperability standards (industry-specific, proprietary and XML-based ones) on the four important perspectives/dimensions of business performance proposed by the Balanced Scorecard approach (financial, customers, internal business processes, learning and innovation). Our study is based on a large dataset from 14065 European firms (from 25 countries and 10 sectors) collected through the e-Business Watch Survey of the European Commission. It is concluded that all three examined types of IS interoperability standards increase considerably the positive impact of firm’s information and communication technologies (ICT) infrastructure on the above four perspectives/dimensions of business performance; however, their effects differ significantly. The adoption of industry-specific interoperability standards has the highest positive effects, while XML-based and proprietary standards have similar lower positive effects. Furthermore, these effects of the industry-specific IS interoperability standards are quite strong, as they are of similar magnitude with the corresponding effects of the degree of development of firm’s intra-organizational/internal IS, and of higher magnitude than the corresponding effects of the degree of development of firm’s e-sales IS. These conclusions provide valuable empirical evidence of the multidimensional business value generated by IS interoperability, its big magnitude and its strong dependence on the type of IS interoperability standards adopted.

Abstract:
This paper investigates the impact of adopting an e-business strategy on two organizational characteristics which have gradually become highly important for organizations in the last 20 years, information and communication technology (ICT) assets and business processes, and also on a ‘traditional’ one, the non-ICT (regular) assets, and finally through them on business performance. Its theoretical foundations are the Contingency Theory of Organizations in combination with the Cobb-Douglas Production Function. Advanced quantitative techniques of structural equation modelling (SEM) have been employed, which allow the estimation of complex multi-layer models including mediator variables that are both dependent (i.e. affected by others) and independent (i.e. affecting some others) at the same time, and enable the investigation of complex networks of relationships. Firm-level data collected through a survey of 271 Greek firms have been used for estimating a SEM connecting the above variables. The results show that the adoption of e-business strategy by Greek firms leads to adaptation of their business processes, which has a positive impact on their business performance, but not to additional investment to ICT or non-ICT assets. In particular, e-business drives Greek firms’ processes adaptations aiming mainly to increase the non-hierarchical decentralized coordination within the firm, in order to cope with the higher task complexity and uncertainty that e-business gives rise to, and also to respond to the specific technical and operational requirements that this strategy poses.

Abstract:
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of four types of “soft” information and communication technologies (ICT) capital related to ICT knowledge and skills (ICT personnel, ICT training of ICT personnel and users, ICT unit) on the innovation performance of Greek firms. Furthermore, the paper compares these effects with the ones of the hard ICT capital and also of four important “traditional” innovation determinants identified from previous research in this area (demand expectation, price and non-price competition, market concentration). Design/methodology/approach – A quantitative methodology has been adopted for investigating the above effects, based on the estimation of regression models. Using data collected through a survey based on a structured questionnaire from 271 Greek firms, innovation models have been estimated, having as independent variables measures of hard ICT capital, the examined four types of soft ICT capital and also the above traditional innovation determinants. Findings – The paper has been concluded that in the innovation averse Greek national context the examined traditional innovation determinants have very low impact on firms’ innovation performance, however, on the contrary both hard ICT capital, and three out of the four examined types of soft ICT capital (ICT personnel, ICT training of ICT personnel and users) have positive impact on both process and product/services innovation. Furthermore, it has been found that the total effect of these three knowledge and skills related types of soft ICT capital on innovation performance is stronger than the effect of the hard ICT capital. Research limitations/implications – The main limitations of the paper are that it uses simple innovation performance measures (not distinguishing between different types of innovations), and also is based on firm-level data collected from a single country. The paper has interesting implications for future research on the impact of the relation between ICT and innovation, which should not any more neglect the soft ICT capital, but consider various types of both hard and soft ICT capital. Practical implications – The results of the paper can be useful to firms’ chief information officers and chief executive officers and also to consultants and practitioners interested in maximizing the exploitation of the innovation potential of ICT, in order to understand the hard and soft aspects of ICT that have to be developed for this purpose and optimize firms’ ICTrelated investment. Originality/value – The limited previous empirical literature concerning the effect of ICT on innovation focus on the hard ICT capital (mainly on ICT equipment) and neglect the role of the soft ICT capital. The paper contributes to fill this research gap, by examining the effects of three types of ICT capital, and also – for comparison and regression models’ completeness purposes – of hard ICT capital and of four traditional innovation determinants, on firms’ innovation performance.

Abstract:
Many cities all over the world are making large investments for the construction of big network infrastructures, in order to offer to local public organizations, businesses and citizens high speed connectivity, and on top of them useful e-services, aiming to achieve various social and economic objectives. The value generated from these costly ‘digital city’ investments is actually the value provided to the citizens and businesses by the e-services that will be developed and run on these network infrastructures. This paper proposes and validates a structured methodology for assessing and improving e-services developed in digital cities. The proposed methodology assesses the various types of value generated by an e-service, and also the relations among them, allowing a more structured evaluation, a deeper understanding of the value generation process and also identification and prioritization of the improvements that should be made in the e-service with the usually scarce resources in municipalities. This methodology is applied for the evaluation of an e-learning service developed in the Greek city of Karlovassi for young citizens, and also for the prioritization of the necessary improvements in it. The above application provided positive and encouraging evidence concerning the validity, usefulness and applicability of the proposed method.

Abstract:
This article describes and evaluates two different models of structured electronic consultation, using multiple evaluation methods: discussion tree analysis, quantitative evaluation, and qualitative evaluation. The results indicate that structuring the electronic consultations leads to higher-quality focused debates, however, it can create participation difficulties and barriers to less-sophisticated and educated citizens, so it might result in reduced participation and exclusion of some groups. This can increase the “quality,” but at the same time decrease the “quantity” of e-participation.

Abstract:
There has been significant research and practice oriented towards the rational exploitation of the rapidly expanding social media by private sector enterprises. However, much less research and practice have been done in this area with respect to the public sector. This paper explores advanced forms of rational exploitation of social media in government policy-making processes, aiming to strengthen and widen participation of and interaction with citizens, concerning new or existing public policies and services. The proposed approach is based on a platform, which can publish policy-related content and micro-applications towards multiple social media simultaneously, also collect data on citizens’ interaction with them (e.g. views, comments, ratings, votes, etc.), using the application programming interfaces (API) of the targeted social media. The information gathered through social media will then undergo various types of advanced processing (e.g. access analytics, opinion mining, simulation modelling) in order to extract synthetic conclusions from them and provide substantial support to government policy-makers, always respecting data privacy guidelines. In addition, an extension of this ‘stimulated/ guided crowdsourcing’ approach is presented, based on ‘nonmoderated crowdsourcing’ by government agencies. The above approaches allow a more advanced and rational exploitation of social media by government for supporting evidence-based decision and policy making.

Abstract:
This paper describes the research concerning the systematic, intensive and centralized web 2.0 social media exploitation by government agencies for widening and enhancing participative public policy making, which is conducted as part of the research project PADGETS (‘Policy Gadgets Mashing Underlying Group Knowledge in Web 2.0 Media’) partially funded by the European Commission. The proposed approach is based on a central system, which publishes various types of policy-related content (e.g., short text long text, images, video) and micro-applications in multiple social media simultaneously, and also collects from them and processes data on citizens’ interactions (e.g., views, comments, ratings, votes, etc.). This poses difficult research questions and challenges, both technical (analysis and exploitation of social media application programming interfaces (APIs), appropriate design of the central system architecture, processing and integrating the large amounts of collected citizens’ interaction data) and also non-technical (investigation of the value generated by this approach, preconditions for its effective application by government agencies), which are researched in the project. Some first findings on them are presented and discussed.

Abstract:
The rapidly increasing penetration and use of the Internet, in conjunction with the explosion of various technologies based on it, gave rise to the development of numerous e-services, such as e-business, e-banking, e-government and e-learning ones. The websites providing these e-services collect large amounts of users’ activity and evaluation data. It is necessary to transform these data into useful business analytics that allow a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the e-service, the various types of value it generates, and its whole value generation mechanism, and at the same time provide guidance for its improvement and optimization. In this direction this paper proposes and validates a methodology for transforming users’ evaluation data into practically useful business analytics, which is founded on well established theoretical frameworks from previous research in the areas of IS evaluation, Technology Acceptance Models (TAM), IS Success Models and e-services. It is based on the definition of a three layers value model of the e-service, which includes its main value dimensions and measures, concerning its efficiency, effectiveness and impact on users’ future behavior respectively. This value model is used initially for collecting e-service evaluation data from users and for processing them. From these data are then calculated two classes of business analytics: the average users’ ratings for all value measures, dimensions and layers, which allow the identification of strengths and weaknesses of the e-service at various level; and the impacts of first layer value measures (which are ‘independent variables) on the second and third layer value ones (which are ‘dependent’ variables), which allow a better understanding of the value generation mechanism of the e-service and a rational definition of improvement priorities. The proposed methodology has been applied and validated for an e-learning service provided by the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) to ICT professionals.

Abstract:
The extraction and exploitation of existing knowledge assets for supporting decision making and increasing the effectiveness of various internal and external interventions is of critical importance for the success of modern organizations. The use of advanced Operational Research based quantitative methods in combination with high capabilities information systems can be very useful for this purpose. In this paper we are investigating the use of Ensemble Random Forests for extracting, codifying and exploiting existing organizational knowledge on gas turbine blading faults identification, in the form of a large number of decision trees (called a ‘forest’); each of them has internal nodes corresponding to various tests on features of signals acquired from the gas turbine and leaf nodes corresponding to classifications to the healthy condition or particular faults. Two heterogeneous kinds of inserting randomness to the development of these forest trees, based on different theoretical assumptions, have been examined (Random Input Forests and Random Combination Forests). Using data from a large power gas turbine the performance of Ensemble Random Forests has been evaluated, and also compared against other machine learning classification methods, such as Neural Networks, Classification and Regression Trees and K-Nearest Neighbor. The Ensemble Random Forests reached a level of 97% in terms of precision and recall in engine condition diagnosis from new signals acquired from the gas turbine, which was higher than the performance of all the other examined classification methods. These results provide some first evidence that Ensemble Random Forest can be an effective tool for the extraction, codification and exploitation of the technological knowledge assets of modern organizations, and contribute significantly to the improvement of organizations’ decision making and interventions in this area. The extraction and exploitation of existing knowledge assets for supporting decision making and increasing the effectiveness of various internal and external interventions is of critical importance for the success of modern organizations. The use of advanced Operational Research based quantitative methods in combination with high capabilities information systems can be very useful for this purpose. In this paper we are investigating the use of Ensemble Random Forests for extracting, codifying and exploiting existing organizational knowledge on gas turbine blading faults identification, in the form of a large number of decision trees (called a ‘forest’); each of them has internal nodes corresponding to various tests on features of signals acquired from the gas turbine and leaf nodes corresponding to classifications to the healthy condition or particular faults. Two heterogeneous kinds of inserting randomness to the development of these forest trees, based on different theoretical assumptions, have been examined (Random Input Forests and Random Combination Forests). Using data from a large power gas turbine the performance of Ensemble Random Forests has been evaluated, and also compared against other machine learning classification methods, such as Neural Networks, Classification and Regression Trees and K-Nearest Neighbor. The Ensemble Random Forests reached a level of 97% in terms of precision and recall in engine condition diagnosis from new signals acquired from the gas turbine, which was higher than the performance of all the other examined classification methods. These results provide some first evidence that Ensemble Random Forest can be an effective tool for the extraction, codification and exploitation of the technological knowledge assets of modern organizations, and contribute significantly to the improvement of organizations’ decision making and interventions in this area.

Abstract:
This paper presents an empirical study of the risk factors of large governmental information systems (IS) projects. For this purpose the Official Decisions of the Greek Government Information Technology Projects Advisory Committee (ITPAC) concerning 80 large IS projects have been analyzed and interviews with its members have been conducted. From this analysis 21 risk factors have been identified, and further elaborated and associated with inherent particular characteristics of the public sector, extending existing approaches in the literature. A categorization of them with respect to origin revealed that they are associated with the management, the processes, and the content of these projects. Results show that behind the identified risk factors there are political factors, which are associated with intra-organizational and inter-organizational politics and competition, and can be regarded as ‘second level’ risk sources. The risk factors identified in this study are compared with the ones found by similar studies conducted in Hong Kong, Finland, and the United States, and also with the ones mentioned by OECD reports. Similarities and differences are discussed.

Abstract:
This paper investigates the main barriers to the adoption of B2B emarketplaces by large enterprises and at the same time the expected benefits that push in the opposite direction towards the adoption, through a case study conducted at the Hellenic Aerospace Industry (HAI), one of the largest industrial enterprises of Greece. The evidence collected from this case has been analyzed using various frameworks from the literature and also the innovation diffusion theory of Rogers, and shed light on the specificity of the large enterprises concerning e-marketplaces adoption.

Abstract:
The article provides a review of the adoption of a resource-based view of the firm (RBV) in eBusiness literature and, then, suggests directions for future research. First, a distinction is drawn between Internet resources and eBusiness capabilities. Second, the relationship between Internet resources and eBusiness value is emphasized. Third, the relationships among Internet resources, eBusiness capabilities and firm performance are argued and, finally, the complementarity of Internet resources and eBusiness capabilities is proposed as source of business value. In this regard, a set of propositions is advanced to help guide future research.

Abstract:
Parliaments possess huge amounts of valuable knowledge on public policies which concerns social needs, problems, and interventions for addressing them. This knowledge is highly useful to other parliaments and also to government agencies of various layers. However, this valuable knowledge is hidden in numerous text documents so that it cannot be efficiently exchanged and exploited. In this regard, it is highly important to extend the concept of interoperability among information systems (IS) of Parliaments and Government Agencies so that it covers not only the ‘operational level’, but also the ‘knowledge level’. This paper presents a methodology for achieving higher level interoperability among IS of parliaments and government agencies with respect to the exchange of public policy related knowledge. It is based on the use of the complex problems representation ontology provided by the ‘Issue-Based Information Systems’ (IBIS) framework for codifying public policy related knowledge. An application of the proposed methodology is presented for the case of the law on the ‘Contracts of Voluntary Cohabitation’, which has been recently passed by the Greek Parliament. The evaluation of this application gave encouraging conclusions as to the usefulness of this methodology and resulted in the development of a refinement of the IBIS ontology.

Abstract:
For long time the strategic alignment of information systems (IS) has been one of the most important issues that IS and business managers face and at the same time a major research topic in the IS domain. In this paper is presented an empirical study of the business value of IS strategic alignment, which examines IS strategic alignment both at the strategy formulation and implementation level; also, we investigate the effect of adopting an innovation strategy on IS strategic alignment. The study is based on firm-level data from Greek companies, which are used for estimating econometric models of firm output based on the Cobb-Douglas production function. It is concluded that IS strategic alignment both at the strategy formulation and implementation level generates significant business value, increasing considerably the contribution of ICT investment to firm output. Also, the adoption of an innovation strategy has a positive effect on the strategic alignment of IS both at the strategy formulation and implementation level, as it puts pressure on firms to direct their IS investment towards the support of their new innovative products/services, and also to increase the involvement of organizational units responsible for these innovations in the projects implementing the required IS and applications.

Abstract:
The e-participation research has investigated and suggested some Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) tools such as e-forum, e-petition and e-community tools. This paper investigates the use of an advanced and more structured ICT tool, the ‘structured e-forum’, for supporting and enhancing e-participation and e-consultation in the legislation formation process in Parliaments. For this purpose, we designed and implemented an e-consultation pilot on a law under formation in the Greek Parliament, using a structured e-forum tool based on the Issue-Based Information Systems (IBISs) framework. This pilot has been evaluated using multiple methods (analysis of discussion tree, quantitative evaluation and qualitative evaluation).

Abstract:
E-participation is a relatively new approach, so it is necessary to evaluate it carefully so that we can improve e-participation practice. This paper describes a framework that has been developed for evaluating a number of e-participation pilots in the legislation development processes of parliaments. The framework is based on the objectives and basic characteristics of ‘traditional’ public participation, e-participation and the legislation development processes, as well as the existing frameworks for the evaluation of Information Systems (ISs), e-participation and traditional public participation. It includes three perspectives: process, system and outcomes evaluation; each of them is analysed into a number of evaluation criteria.

Abstract:
The growing complexity of the problems and needs of modern societies necessitate extensive negotiation and collaboration among government organisations from the same or even from different countries. Therefore it is an important challenge to extend ‘electronic government’ in this direction. In this paper we present the internet/WWW-based information system TNC (Trust-Negotiation-Collaboration), which offers a wide range of functionalities supporting initial trust relationship building and then negotiation and collaboration among public organisations. The development of TNC has been based on extensive analysis of the relevant requirements of public organisations from the USA and the European Union. Also, an application scenario of TNC is presented in the area of environmental policy design and implementation.

Abstract:
This paper presents the results of the first empirical investigation of the effect of information and communication technologies (ICT) investment on business performance in Greece. It investigates the effect of both ‘hard’ ICT investment (in ICT hardware, software and networks) and ‘soft’ ICT investment (in ICT human resources, skills and organization) on firm output. It is based on data from big Greek industrial firms, which have been collected via a questionnaire-based survey conducted in cooperation with the Federation of Greek Industries (FGI). Using these data, econometric models of output have been constructed based on the microeconomic production theory. Our analysis shows that the Cobb–Douglas production function can adequately describe the output, as compared to the more general transcendental production function. Using this type of production function it has been found that hard ICT investment in Greece makes a positive and statistically significant contribution to firm output; however its output elasticity is lower than the one of the non-computer capital and much lower than the one of the labour. Also, from the dimensions-measures of the soft ICT investment we examined, it has been found that the existence of a separate ICT department has a positive and statistically significant effect on firm output, which is of considerable magnitude of about two thirds of the effect of the hard ICT investment. The possibility of an effect of firm size on the structural stability of the econometric models we employed was also investigated; it was found that for firms with total sales above about €20 million the structure of the models is reasonably stable, and therefore the conclusions drawn from them are valid, at least for the range of firm sizes that our data cover.

Abstract:
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate and compare the moderating effects of the two basic business process change paradigms – business process reengineering (BPR) and total quality management (TQM) – on the business value generated for firms by their information and communication technologies (ICT) investment. Design/methodology/approach – Using data collected through a survey of 271 Greek firms, moderated regression models founded on the Cobb-Douglas production function are estimated, which have as the dependent variable the firm value added (objective measure of business performance), and as independent variables the yearly labour expenses, the value of the non-computer capital, the value of the computer capital and BPR (TQM) measures. Findings – From the above models it is concluded that both BPR and TQM have considerable positive moderating effects of a similar magnitude on the relationship between ICT investment and firm value added. Also, different BPR and TQM activities have different moderating effects on ICT business value; process simplification, process improvement and the creation of a horizontal interdepartmental process are the BPR activities with the largest moderating effects, while measurement of employee satisfaction and simplification of work methods for quality improvement are the TQM activities with the largest moderating effects. Research limitations/applications – The basic limitation of this study is that it is based on data from Greek firms. Another limitation is that only one business performance measure, although quite important and theoretically fundamental (i.e. firm value added), is used. Practical implications – Both BPR and TQM are important ICT “complementary factors”, which, if combined with ICT, can increase the business value it generates. Therefore ICT should not be used simply as a tool for automating existing business processes, but for creating and supporting new business processes and practices, such BPR and TQM. Originality/value – This study investigates and compares the moderating effects of the two main business process paradigms – BPR and TQM – based on reliable measurement of both through validated multi-item scales, and also on theoretically sound models, founded on the Cobb-Douglas production function.

Abstract:
Firms all over the world make significant investments in information and communication technologies (ICT) aiming to increase their efficiency and effectiveness. It is of critical importance to investigate the impact of these investments on firms’ performance in various contexts, and also identify ‘soft factors’ that can increase this impact. This paper presents the results of an empirical investigation of the effect of ICT investments on Greek firms’ business performance, measured through value added and labor productivity. It also examines for first time in Greece whether and to what extent this effect can be increased if ICT investments are aligned with business strategy. The study is based on a unique research dataset, including data from 237 Greek firms about business performance, usage of ICT, adoption of modern organization forms and innovation, which has been collected through a questionnaire-based survey among Greek firms conducted in cooperation with ICAP, one of the largest business information and consulting companies of Greece. Using these data econometric models of output and labor productivity have been estimated based on the Cobb-Douglas production function. It has been concluded that ICT investments in Greece make a positive and statistically significant contribution to both firm output and labor productivity, so there is no ‘ICT Productivity Paradox’ in Greece. Additionally, it has been found that this contribution can be increased considerably, in the firms for which a very high degree of bilateral relationship between the ICT Plan and the Overall Business/Strategy Plan exists.

Abstract:
Information Systems (IS) evaluation is of critical importance for assessing the value they generate and its main determinants, and identifying weaknesses and improvements priorities. This paper proposes a new approach for the multidimensional evaluation of IS in the domain of e-learning, which enables the assessment of the value generated at various levels and dimensions, and also the identification of the whole mechanism of value creation and flow. The proposed approach has been applied for evaluating an e-learning course in the domain of cultural heritage developed as part of the ERMIONE Project. By using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM), and in particular the Partial Least Squares (PLS) approach, the value flow model of this e-course has been estimated and used for drawing conclusions concerning the value generated at various levels and improvements priorities.

Abstract:
This paper describes a comparative empirical study of the effect of information and communication technology (ICT) capital, human capital and new organizational practices on labour productivity in Greek and Swiss firms. We use firm-level data collected in 2005 through a common questionnaire administered to samples of similar composition (e.g. similar firm sizes, similar sectors), from which we construct econometric models with similar specifications for Greece and Switzerland. The analytical framework is based on a firmlevel production function. We find statistically significant positive effects for physical capital, ICT capital, human capital and ‘‘employee voice”-oriented organizational practices for both samples. We also identify considerable differences: Swiss firms are more mature and more efficient than Greek firms at creating, using and combining these ‘new’ production factors.

Abstract:
Taking into account that heart auscultation remains the dominant method for heart examination in the small health centers of the rural areas and generally in primary healthcare set-ups, the enhancement of this technique would aid significantly in the diagnosis of heart diseases. In this context, the present paper initially surveys the research that has been conducted concerning the exploitation of heart sound signals for automated and semi-automated detection of pathological heart conditions. Then it proposes an automated diagnosis system for the identification of heart valve diseases based on the Support Vector Machines (SVM) classification of heart sounds. This system performs a highly difficult diagnostic task (even for experienced physicians), much more difficult than the basic diagnosis of the existence or not of a heart valve disease (i.e. the classification of a heart sound as ‘healthy’ or ‘having a heart valve disease’): it identifies the particular heart valve disease. The system was applied in a representative global dataset of 198 heart sound signals, which come both from healthy medical cases and from cases suffering from the four most usual heart valve diseases: aortic stenosis (AS), aortic regurgitation (AR), mitral stenosis (MS) and mitral regurgitation (MR). Initially the heart sounds were successfully categorized using a SVM classifier as normal or disease-related and then the corresponding murmurs in the unhealthy cases were classified as systolic or diastolic. For the heart sounds diagnosed as having systolic murmur we used a SVM classifier for performing a more detailed classification of them as having aortic stenosis or mitral regurgitation. Similarly for the heart sounds diagnosed as having diastolicmurmur we used a SVM classifier for classifying them as having aortic regurgitation or mitral stenosis. Alternative classifiers have been applied to the same data for comparison (i.e. back-propagation neural networks, k-nearest-neighbour and naïve Bayes classifiers), however their performance for the same diagnostic problems was lower than the SVM classifiers proposed in this work.

Abstract:
Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the effect of two external factors – the “generalized” competition an organization faces, and the strategy it follows in response to its external environment – on the business value generated by its ICT investment. Design/methodology/approach – For achieving these research objectives econometric models of output are constructed, using firm-level data from Greek companies, which have been collected through a survey through a structured questionnaire. These econometric models are based on the microeconomic production theory (Cobb Douglas production function). For operationalizing the “generalized competition” an organization faces are used the five dimensions of the generalized competition of M. Porter’s “five forces framework”. Findings – Concerning the above generalized competition dimensions it is concluded that higher level of bargaining power of suppliers results in higher ICT business value generation. Also, concerning strategy it is concluded that in organizations following a strategy of frequent introduction of new innovative products and services is generated higher ICT business value. Originality/value – This paper investigates the effect of external environment related factors on the business value generated by ICT investment. The conclusions constitute of first evidence that there are external conditions that result in higher business value from ICT investment by necessitating a more efficient and effective use of ICT.

Abstract:
During the last few years, research and practice worldwide have shown that enhancing interoperability among organizations, systems or software applications is a multi-disciplinary issue of critical importance, touching upon processes, data and technical standardization. Fortunately, researchers and practitioners have started to realize the impact of interoperability in achieving true one-stop service provision for citizens and businesses, in fostering collaboration between enterprises or in minimizing the needed investment for maintaining complex systems. Current research results show that there exist common practices to be shared among public sector organisations and private sector enterprises, in attempts related with aligning organisation and processes, tackling semantic and technical shortcomings, building relevant architectures and finally achieving the legal interconnection and co-operation of systems. The identification of such common areas between eBusiness and eGovernment can then lead to a joint exploration, enhance reuse of the real paradigms and real exploitation of results by enterprises and administrations. Also future interoperability research directions, as emerging from relevant strategies and research roadmaps of important stakeholders, and also from relevant research workshops, are outlined. Furthermore, it is argued that interoperability research should be extended towards ‘knowledge interoperability’ as well, and deal with the development of methods and architectures enabling the exchange of knowledge among co-operating organizations.

Abstract:
This paper concerns the development and use of ontologies for electronically supporting and structuring the highest-level function of government: the design, implementation and evaluation of public policies for the big and complex problems that modern societies face. This critical government function usually necessitates extensive interaction and collaboration among many heterogeneous government organizations (G2G collaboration) with different backgrounds, mentalities, values, interests and expectations, so it can greatly benefit from the use of ontologies. In this direction initially an ontology of public policy making, implementation and evaluation is described, which has been developed as part of the project ICTE-PAN of the Information Society Technologies (IST) Programme of the European Commission, based on sound theoretical foundations mainly from the public policy analysis domain and contributions of experts from the public administrations of four European Union countries (Denmark, Germany, Greece and Italy). It is a
horizontal ontology that can be used for electronically supporting and structuring the whole lifecycle of a public policy in any vertical (thematic) area of government activity; it can also be combined with
vertical ontologies of the specific vertical (thematic) area of government activity we are dealing with. In this paper is also described the use of this ontology for electronically supporting and structuring the collaborative public policy making, implementation and evaluation through
structured electronic forums,
extended workflows,
public policy stages with specific sub-ontologies, etc., and also for the semantic annotation, organization, indexing and integration of the contributions of the participants of these forums, which enable the development of advanced semantic web capabilities in this area.

Abstract:
Current medical technologies allow for capturing patient brain pathology in scans of several different types at the same visit, yielding multiple modality image sequences from which objects of interest, such as multiple sclerosis (MS) lesions, can be extracted. It is of interest to model the development of these objects (e.g., lesions, nodules or tumors) over time and in different modalities, in order to characterize and group them. Grouping lesions of different behavior patterns allows a better understanding of the development of the disease. Information exchange between clinicians and computational experts is possible through a common collection platform that takes into account disparity of data and need for integration as well as security. This paper focuses on the issues related to collaboration with regulated data. We describe an approach based on converting private data into an abstracted form that unprivileged researchers can use.

Abstract:
Purpose – This paper investigates whether and how G2G collaboration for policy and decision-making can be effectively supported by an appropriately developed information system. Design/methodology/approach – The research method adopted in this paper follows the “Design Science Paradigm”, which has been extensively used in information systems research. Findings – As resulted fromthe case study described in this paper, the proposed systemhas significant potential for supportingG2Gcollaboration for policy and decision-making. It can support the collaborative understanding of social problems and needs, and the development of alternative actions or solutions for them. In addition, it can support the collaborative development of detailed action plans for the selected alternative(s). During the implementation of these actions, the system can be used for the collaborative monitoring of them, the identification of implementation problems and issues, and the development of alternatives formanaging them. Finally, it can be also used for the collaborative evaluation of these actions by the involved public organizations, as well as the citizens and groups who are their recipients. Practical implications – Enhanced public policy and decision-making through the use of the proposed web-based system. Originality/value – The main contribution of this paper lies in the development of a web-based system for supporting the G2G collaboration required for public policy and decision-making in the public administration, as well as the creation, leveraging and utilization of the relevant knowledge. The proposed system allows for distributed, synchronous or asynchronous, G2G collaboration and aims at aiding the involved public organizations by providing them a series of argumentation, decision-making and knowledge management features.

Abstract:
Background: New technologies like echocardiography, color Doppler, CT, and MRI provide more direct and accurate evidence of heart disease than heart auscultation. However, these modalities are costly, large in size and operationally complex and therefore are not suitable for use in rural areas, in homecare and generally in primary healthcare set-ups. Furthermore the majority of internal medicine and cardiology training programs underestimate the value of cardiac auscultation and junior clinicians are not adequately trained in this field. Therefore efficient decision support systems would be very useful for supporting clinicians to make better heart sound diagnosis. In this study a rule-based method, based on decision trees, has been developed for differential diagnosis between "clear" Aortic Stenosis (AS) and "clear" Mitral Regurgitation (MR) using heart sounds. Methods: For the purposes of our experiment we used a collection of 84 heart sound signals including 41 heart sound signals with "clear" AS systolic murmur and 43 with "clear" MR systolic murmur. Signals were initially preprocessed to detect 1st and 2nd heart sounds. Next a total of 100 features were determined for every heart sound signal and relevance to the differentiation between AS and MR was estimated. The performance of fully expanded decision tree classifiers and Pruned decision tree classifiers were studied based on various training and test datasets. Similarly, pruned decision tree classifiers were used to examine their differentiation capabilities. In order to build a generalized decision support system for heart sound diagnosis, we have divided the problem into sub problems, dealing with either one morphological characteristic of the heart-sound waveform or with difficult to distinguish cases. Results: Relevance analysis on the different heart sound features demonstrated that the most relevant features are the frequency features and the morphological features that describe S1, S2 and the systolic murmur. The results are compatible with the physical understanding of the problem since AS and MR systolic murmurs have different frequency contents and different waveform shapes. On the contrary, in the diastolic phase there is no murmur in both diseases which results in the fact that the diastolic phase signals cannot contribute to the differentiation between AS and MR.

Abstract:
Objective: Differentiating a fourth heart sound (S4), from a split first heart sound (SP1), or ejection click (EC), is often difficult particularly for inexperienced clinicians. The objective of this study was to develop and evaluate a computer-assisted classification tool to aid in this difficult differentiation problem, and in general for heart sound differentiation and diagnosis. Design: Developmental study. Methods: Emphasis was given to the selection of appropriate features that are adequately independent from the heart sound signal acquisition method. Relevance analysis was initially performed to identify the features of the heart sound most relevant to aiding diagnosis of S4, SP1 and EC. To detect and differentiate S4, SP1 and EC, a detection decision tree (DeDT) and a differentiation decision tree (DiDT) were used independently and also together in a multiple decision tree architecture. The DeDT provides three suggestions for each heart sound pattern, whereas the DiDT provides one. The MuDT analyses the suggestions of both decision trees to provide one final suggestion for each sound pattern. Results: Relevance analysis on the different heart sound features demonstrated that the most relevant features for aiding diagnosis of S4, SP1 and EC are the frequency features and the morphological features that describe S1. The DeDT architecture demonstrated an average classification accuracy of 80.56%, sensitivity of 70.93%, and specificity of 83.42%, but provided more than one suggestion for many cases. The DiDT architecture demonstrated an average classification accuracy of 66.46%, a sensitivity of 66.15% and a specificity of 82.15%, and only provided one suggestion for each case. The MuDT architecture slightly improved performance compared to the DiDT architecture. Average classification accuracy was improved by 2.79%, classification sensitivity by 2.73% and classification specificity by 1.26% Conclusions: The present work has demonstrated that decision tree algorithms can be successfully used as the basis for a decision support system to assist inexperienced clinicians in heart sound diagnosis. Further work is currently in progress to improve the accuracy, specificity and sensitivity of the system.

Abstract:
In this paper a Decision Support System Architecture is proposed for the heart sound diagnosis problem, and in general for complex medical diagnosis problems. It is based on the division of a complex diagnostic problem into simpler sub-problems; each of them is handled by a specialized decision tree. This Multiple Decision Trees Architecture in general consists of a network of detection decision trees and arbitration decision trees, and can also incorporate other classification methods as well (e.g. patterns recognition, neural networks, etc.). The initial motivation for developing this Multiple Decision Trees Architecture has been the problem of Differentiation among Opening Snap (OS), 2nd Heart Sound Split (A2_P2), and 3rd Heart Sound (S3), which is a crucial and at the same time difficult and complicated part of the heart sound diagnosis problem. The Multiple Decision Tree Architecture developed for the above diagnosis/differentiation problem has been tested with real heart sound signals, and its performance and generalisation capabilities were found to be higher than the previous ‘traditional’ architectures.

Abstract:
e-Government today is focused on the electronic delivery of existing public services (e.g. social services, etc.) and, in general, on offering to citizens/enterprises the capability to transact electronically with Public Administration (e.g. declarations, applications, etc.), mainly over the Internet. In this sense modern e-Government, only to a small extent, exploits the huge capabilities of the Information and Communication Technologies for supporting and transforming the whole lifecycle of public policies, programmes and services design, production, delivery and evaluation. This paper examines the exploitation of Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW) methodologies and technologies for supporting and transforming G2G collaboration concerning interorganizational processes, public policies/programmes/services design, monitoring and evaluation, as well as decision-making for difficult and complex social problems. An architecture of a flexible Public Sector Collaborative Environment for the above purposes is described, which has been developed, based on a detailed user requirements analysis, as part of the ICTE-PAN (Methodologies and Tools for Building Intelligent Collaboration and Transaction Environments in Public Administration Networks)Project of the European Union IST (Information Society Technologies) Programme. In order to provide the required flexibility for supporting the huge variety of G2G collaboration typologies of modern Public Administration, this Collaborative Environment should consist of a set of adaptable and customisable modules. In order to support the users-centred and participative customisation of this Collaborative Environment for a specific collaborative process, a Collaborative Processes Modeling Methodology has been developed. This Methodology also incorporates an Ontology of the domains of Public Sector Collaborative Decision Making and Public Policies/Programmes Design and Management, consisting of the main concepts-elements used in these domains and the main associations among them.

Abstract:
The development of decision support systems for supporting effectively the ill-defined and unstructured enterprise decisions associated with the managerial making and planning both at the strategic & tactical level constitutes a very challenging and at the same time a practically quite useful task. These systems, if properly developed according to the requirements of the users, can be very useful for all kinds of enterprises, and in particular for the small & medium enterprises, which do not have the required specialized personnel and expertise for strategic & tactical planning. In this paper is described the ergonomic development of a decision support system for supporting the managerial, making and the strategic & tactical planning in small & medium industrial enterprises, putting special emphasis on the human factors. The system is based on an extensive knowledge base including more than 500 rules, extracted from structured interviews and planning scenario analyses conducted with managers of small & medium industrial enterprises.

Abstract:
Extensive research has been conducted on the main issues that organizations face concerning Information Systems (IS) management, in order to exploit the capabilities of the rapidly evolving Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) to the highest possible extent. However most of this research has been directed towards the private sector. The present study attempts to contribute to the research of the critical issues of IS management in the public sector. Based on 32 interviews with IS Managers of Greek Public Sector organizations using a structured questionnaire, the main issues and challenges that the organizations of the Greek Public Sector face concerning the whole cycle of IS management are investigated. From this investigation it is concluded that the most important IS management issue currently faced is to hire 'New IS Human Resources', followed by the issues of 'Extending Use of Office Automation' and of 'Management and Use of Data Resources'. The results shed light on the profile of the modern IS management function, which has become highly complex and multidimensional, containing many both technical and non-technical management issues, which can be either internal or external to the IS Unit. The results also show the highly horizontal nature of the IS function: its success depends more on issues concerning its cooperation and relationship with the other functions of the organization, than on issues concerning its own functional expertise. From the study of the main expected IS management issues after 3 years, it is concluded that about one third of the main agenda currently faced by IS management is expected to change within three years, confirming the highly dynamic nature of the IS management function. The results of the present study were also compared with the results of previous studies of IS management issues conducted in Greece and in USA. From the comparison were determined both similarities and differences as to the main IS management issues faced. Therefore some of the main IS management issues faced by organizations are universal, while some others are specific to particular sectoral and national contexts.

Abstract:
Extensive research has been conducted on the computerization of the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and on the similarities, differences and specificities it presents compared with the computerization of the large enterprises. However the above research has mainly focused on the larger SMEs, while very little research work has been done on the computerization of the smaller SMEs, though they contribute significantly to the national product and to the total labour employment of most countries. This paper investigates the factors affecting the computerization of the Small Industrial Enterprises (SIEs). both the initial decision to introduce IS in the enterprise. and the subsequent decisions to extend the use of IS in the enterprise. For this purpose data from 427 SIEs were collected and processed, in order to determine statistically significant business and financial factors affecting the above computerization decisions. The resultS shed light on a variety of business and financial factors affecting the computerization of Small Industrial Enterprises.

Abstract:
The security aspects of public sector information systems are important as the respective systems are often part of critical infrastructures or deal with personal or sensitive data. A set of 53 Greek public sector organizations were investigated by means of a structured questionnaire concerning important aspects of information systems security. We present the relevant theoretical background, the methodology of our research, and an analysis of the obtained results. Greek public sector organizations have only a basic level of information system security awareness. Most care about digital data confidentiality; however, only a small percentage have developed a systematic, complete, and integrated approach towards the security of their information system, including internal audit procedures. The importance of proper training and generally the importance of the human factor for achieving high levels of information systems security is often underestimated

Abstract:
Modern private and public organizations make extensive use of digital systems (information systems, electronic systems, etc.), which support significantly their most critical functions. Digital systems can offer important and multidimensional benefits and can contribute highly to organizational efficiency and effectiveness, but at the same time they can create some new threats and risks and can give rise to a new category of 'digital' crises. In this paper a methodology is proposed for managing these digital crises. based on risks identification, quantification and analysis, and also on contigency planning. The proposed methodology is characterized by wide applicability and therefore can be used for all future massive digital crises. This methodology has been successfully applied for managing the Y2K problem in the information and the electronic systems of the Greek public sector.

Abstract:
A method enabling the automated diagnosis of gas turbine compressor blade faults, based on the principles of statistical pattern recognition, is initially presented. The decision making is based on the derivation of spectral patterns from dynamic measurement data and then the calculation of discriminants with respect to reference spectral patterns of the faults while it takes into account their statistical properties. A method of optimizing the selection of discriminants using dynamic measurement data is also presented. A few scalar discriminants are derived, in such a way that the maximum available discrimination potential is exploited. In this way the success rate of automated decision making is further improved, while the need for intuitive discriminant selection is eliminated. The effectiveness of the proposed methods is demonstrated by application to data coming from an industrial gas turbine while extension to other aspects of fault diagnosis is discussed.

Abstract:
It is widely accepted in the management literature that Information Technology can greatly contribute to the administrative modernization and especially to the improvement of organizational productivity. This is of great interest for the Greek Public Administration, which faces long term problems of low productivity. The main objective of this work is to analyse the impact of Information Technology on the organizational structure of Greek Public Administration, that is one of the main determinants of its productivity. Initially the theoretical background is presented on which the present work is based. Using data compiled from the whole Central Government, firstly the study is focused on the hardware and software technologies which are employed. At a second stage the impact of the use of Information Technology on a set of dimensions of the organizational structure,which are of critical importance for the productivity of the Greek Public Administration, is examined. The conclusions of the study provide the basis for the development of strategic guidelines for maximizing the benefits from using Information Technology in Greek Public Administration.

Abstract:
A method for diagnosing the existence and the kinds of faults in blades of a gas turbine compressor is presented in the present paper. The innovative feature of this method is that it performs the diagnosis automatically, that is, it gives a direct answer to whether a fault exists and what type of fault it is, without requiring the interpretation of results by a human expert. This is achieved by derivation of the values of discriminants calculated from spectral patterns of fast response measurement data. A decision about the corresponding engine status is then derived according to the values of the discriminants. In the paper, the procedure of examining the suitability of particular parameter discriminants and the constitution of a related knowledge base is described. The derivation of decisions by a computer, and on what engine condition a particular measurement data set corresponds, are then described.

Abstract:
The distortions of the pressure field around rotating blades of turbomachinery components due to alterations of their shape can be utilized for the identification of faults related to the blading. Measurement of the unsteady pressure field near the wall provides information on such flow and pressure distortions and can thus be used for diagnostic purposes. An experimental investigation of the compressor rotating blade pressure field of an industrial gas turbine has been undertaken, in order to demonstrate the feasibility of the abovementioned principle. Various realistic gas turbine blade faults have been examined. Application of the appropriate processing techniques demonstrates that unsteady pressure measurements can be used to identify the occurrence of minor blade faults (not traceable by standard techniques) as well as the kind of fault. The proposed methodology has the potential for being incorporated in a computerized engine health monitoring system.

Abstract:
The results from an experimental investigation of the compressor casing vibration of an industrial gas turbine are presented. It is demonstrated that statistical properties of acceleration signals can be linked with engine operating conditions. The power content of such signals is dominated by contributions originating from the stages of the compressor, while the contribution of the shaft excitation is secondary. Using nonparametric identification methods, accelerometer outputs are correlated to unsteady pressure measurements taken by fast response transducers at the inner surface of the compressor casing. The transfer functions allow reconstruction of unsteady pressure signal features from the accelerometer readings. A possibility is thus provided for “seeing” the unsteady pressure field of the rotor blades without actually penetrating through the casing, but by simply observing its external surface vibrations.