Complex Systems Informatics and Modeling Quarterly
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Development of Bankruptcy Prediction Model for Latvian Companies
Get PDFThis article addresses the financial performance prediction for Latvian companies. It is of critical importance to be able to provide timely warnings to management, investors, employees, stakeholders and other interested parties who wish to reduce their losses. There are literature review structures that previously made research into company performance prediction. Estimating the risk of bankruptcy of Latvian companies has been carried out by applying two commonly used approaches: Altman’s Z-score estimation and an experience-based machine learning approach using C4.5 Decision Tree. The results show that Altman’s Z-score method predicts bankruptcy for a massive number of companies, while the ML method predicts bankruptcy for only a few. Each of these approaches has its drawbacks. We propose an extended company performance prediction model that considers other factors that influence distress risk, e.g., changes in regulation and other environmental factors. Expert opinion is of great value in estimating a company’s future performance; therefore, an automated solution supporting experts in their decision-making is presented
Examining the Interplay Between Big Data and Microservices – A Bibliometric Review
Get PDFDue to the ever increasing amount of data that is produced and captured in today’s world, the concept of big data has risen to prominence. However, implementing the respective applications is still a challenging task. This holds especially true, since a high degree of flexibility is desirable. One potential approach is the utilization of novel decentralized technologies, as in the case of microservices to construct such big data analytics solutions. To obtain an overview of the current situation regarding the corresponding research, using the scientific database Scopus and its provided tools for search and analytics, this bibliometric review provides an analysis of the literature and subsequently discusses avenues for future research
Open Innovation Process for Inter-Organizational Projects
Get PDFOpen Innovation (OI) research has covered various organizational forms in dimensions of durability (permanent versus temporary organizing) and organizational scope (intra- or inter-organizational). Inter-organizational forms - both temporary and permanent – are regarded mainly as modes of OI. However, these organizational forms also act as initiators of OI activities to extend knowledge transfer across the inter-organizational consortium borders, which is hardly researched. To address this gap, the research presented in this article develops an OI process for inter-organizational projects (IOP) as initiators of OI. The initial model is developed by action research with an IOP of museums and educational institutions implementing a series of hackathons. The model’s applicability is then evaluated for other IOPs by a survey, indicating the model’s suitability for practitioners. Findings point to the importance of collaborative activities for aligning the OI initiative with both individual partners’ and common project goals, while outbound activities are regarded least important despite the time-limitation of the project. The research is limited by its focus on the specific IOP environment of EU-funded projects and the small scope of the survey
Selected Topics on Business Information Systems Research: Editorial Introduction to Issue 26 of CSIMQ
Get PDFBusiness Information Systems research deals with the conceptualization, development, introduction, maintenance and utilization of systems for computer-assisted information processing within companies and enterprise-wide networks. This CSIMQ issue contains five articles that deal with various information system (IS) issues, including IS security, product-related ISs, blockchain technology and sensor technology. The call for this issue was particularly targeted towards extended articles of two workshops that were held in conjunction with the 13th IFIP WG 8.1 working conference on the Practice of Enterprise Modelling. The first is the BES 2020 workshop (i.e., 1st Workshop on Blockchain and Enterprise Systems), which has the ambition to change the way one thinks, designs and implements ISs. The second one is ManComp 2020 (i.e., 5th Workshop on Managed Complexity), which is focused on approaches and methods for managing the complexity of ISs and IS interaction within ecosystems
Control-Flow-Based Methods to Support the Development of Sound Workflows
Get PDFWorkflows describe sequences of tasks to achieve goals. These sequences can contain decisions, loops, and parallelisations and are, therefore, similar to computer programs. Experts in the domain of workflow application usually design these workflows. However, these experts are rarely IT experts. For this reason, after automation by a computer, workflows can exhibit undesired behaviors. Such behaviors can be expensive and dangerous and should be avoided. The notion of soundness describes the absence of the undesired behaviors of deadlocks and abundances. The state of the art in workflow verification can detect such behaviors, but gives no indication of causes, does not provide detailed diagnostic information, or is slow. This article introducēs two new compiler-based techniques to find causes of deadlocks and abundances. These techniques provide detailed diagnostic information and have a cubic asymptotic complexity of runtime. Their efficiency and quality is evaluated using a benchmark of over thousand real-world workflows together with two leading state-of-the-art approaches
Towards Using Sensors as Data Sources in Teaching: Requirements for School Curricula-Compatible Sensors
Get PDFThe continuous innovation in modern technologies in various sectors of society has transformed everyday life. It becomes imperative for the educational community to equip the future generation with digital skills. In this article, using qualitative and quantitative research techniques, we define criteria for school curricula-compatible sensors (particularly, for secondary school students in grades 5 through 9). We also develop requirements models for sensor classes that satisfy the school curricula compatibility criteria using requirements engineering techniques. The results show that integrating sensors into schools can improve students’ digital and data skills. Additionally, requirements models can help in developing school curricula-compatible sensors or transforming existing sensors into curricula-compatible sensors
Using i* and UML for Blockchain Oriented Software Engineering: Strengths, Weaknesses, Lacks and Complementarity
Get PDFNew blockchain-based projects do appear every day. The technology has indeed been popularized by cryptocurrencies but is now gaining interest in various domains and new types of applications are evaluated constantly. Understanding the impact of blockchain adoption on the organization and the internals of blockchain-related behavior nevertheless remains a challenge for managers but also for IT professionals. This article studies how two existing organizational and software modeling languages can be fit to document a blockchain development project in Supply Chain Management (SCM) at its earliest stages. These two frameworks are i* on the one side and the Unified Modeling Language (UML) use case and sequence diagrams on the other side. The real life project used as a case study in this application is ‘Farm-to-Fork’ where a blockchain solution for the Supply Chain (SC) of farm animals is developed. The application of the frameworks is intended to identify their strengths and weaknesses. An extension of i* is proposed to deal with blockchain privacy issues as well as laws and norms. We finally point to the complementarity of i* and UML use case and sequence diagrams in a Blockchain-Oriented Software Engineering (BOSE) context. The i* framework indeed supports early requirements to understand the impact of the project on stakeholders while UML use case and sequence diagrams support the late requirements and the design by depicting the use of blockchain and some of its behavioral mechanisms
An Introduction to Decentralized Finance (DeFi)
Get PDFDecentralized financial applications (DeFi) are a new breed of consumer-facing financial applications composed as smart contracts, deployed on permissionless blockchain technologies. In this article, we situate the DeFi concept in the theoretical context of permissionless blockchain technology and provide a taxonomical overview of agents, incentives and risks. We examine the key market categories and use-cases for DeFi applications today and identify four key risk groups for potential stakeholders contemplating the advantages of decentralized financial applications. We contribute novel insights into a rapidly emerging field, with far-reaching implications for the financial services
Identity Management in an Institution of Higher Education: A Case Study Using Structural Coupling and Fractal Enterprise Model
Get PDFThere are several ways of defining organizational identity and identity management. This article considers a less exploited one, namely, defining identity as a set of structural couplings that the organization has, and identity management as an activity aimed at maintaining these couplings. The concept of structural coupling comes from biological cybernetics, and it means that a system during its evolution becomes entangled with few other systems. The system at hand evolves together with these systems, adapts to them and causes them to adapt to it. The concept of structural coupling is applied in a study of an institution of higher education. To identify structural couplings, the authors use a so-called Fractal Enterprise Model that presents both internal structure of an organization and its business environment. The article analyzes to which elements of the environment an institution of higher education is structurally coupled and how the identity maintenance is arranged. The article provides examples of how well maintaining identity works in practice based on reflections on the authors' experience of working in the department. The article concludes with suggesting a generic procedure for identifying structural couplings and defining a strategy of maintaining these couplings
Product-IT Inclusive Enterprise Architecture Management: An Approach Based on Ecosystems, Customer Journey and Data-Driven Business Opportunities
Get PDFProducts have evolved from being solely composed of mechanical and electrical parts to complex systems that are connected to the Internet and form the basis for new kinds of functionalities and services. Such smart connected products include a substantial amount of software and information technology which can be called the “product-IT”. Enterprise architecture (EA) management is an established function in enterprises providing methods and tools for a systematic alignment of business and IT in an organization. However, EA models capture the details of business, information and technology architecture of an enterprise (i.e., the enterprise-IT) but usually do not include the product-IT. When value creation and delivery in an enterprise’s business model also includes the product-IT, a product-IT inclusive view on EA urgently is required. The focus of this article is the methodical support for integration of product-IT and enterprise-IT using enterprise architectures. The main contributions in this article are the conceptual expansion of EA management to become product-IT inclusive that is manifested in a proposal for an extended EA meta-model, and an approach and method components to handle product-IT inclusive EAM