Competence maps for the information service industry

The primary aim of this paper is to construct competence maps for the information service industry. Starting with a review of the literature related to the information service industry and the competence in this industry, this study defined a pool of competence items and developed a questionnaire for field survey. Based on the data collected from the information service companies in Taiwan, a series of factor analyses with item filtration was carried out. This resulted in a six-factor solution including Cognition, Management I (organizing, leading, and controlling), Management II (planning), Technology Infrastructure, Application Systems, and Clerical Processing as the competence sets. Then the factor-based scales were created to represent the derived competence sets, the pairwise correlations between these scales were calculated, and the competence maps were constructed accordingly. The results obtained may be helpful to the internal (e.g., training/education, deployment, or substitution) and the external (e.g., recruitment) developments of human resource in information service companies.     

Insider trading,overconfidence, and private information flow

In this study, we investigate a dynamic model wherein an overconfident and a risk-neutral informed trader optimally exploit their long-lived private information regarding the value of an asset. We find that when the degree of overconfidence becomes larger, or the intensity of private information flow becomes larger relative to the initial private signal, the market becomes more stable. Additionally, we find that the greater the intensity of private information flow relative to the initial private signal, the more evident the patient transaction and the slower the information is incorporated in the price.     

On domain modelling of the service system with its application to enterprise information systems

Information systems are a kind of service systems and they are throughout every element of a modern industrial and business system, much like blood in our body. Types of information systems are heterogeneous because of extreme uncertainty in changes in modern industrial and business systems. To effectively manage information systems, modelling of the work domain (or domain) of information systems is necessary. In this paper, a domain modelling framework for the service system is proposed and its application to the enterprise information system is outlined. The framework is defined based on application of a general domain modelling tool called function-context-behaviour-principle-state-structure (FCBPSS). The FCBPSS is based on a set of core concepts, namely: function, context, behaviour, principle, state and structure and system decomposition. Different from many other applications of FCBPSS in systems engineering, the FCBPSS is applied to both infrastructure and substance systems, which is novel and effective to modelling of service systems including enterprise information systems. It is to be noted that domain modelling of systems (e.g. enterprise information systems) is a key to integration of heterogeneous systems and to coping with unanticipated situations facing to systems.     

Analysis of information feedback and selfconfirming equilibrium

Recent research emphasizes the importance of information feedback in situations of recurrent decisions and strategic interaction, showing how it affects the uncertainty that underlies selfconfirming equilibrium (e.g., Battigalli et al., 2015, Fudenberg and Kamada, 2015). Here, we discuss in detail several properties of this key feature of recurrent interaction and derive relationships. This allows us to elucidate different notions of selfconfirming equilibrium, showing how they are related to each other given the properties of information feedback. In particular, we focus on Maxmin selfconfirming equilibrium, which assumes extreme ambiguity aversion, and we compare it with the partially-specified-probabilities (PSP) equilibrium of Lehrer (2012). Assuming that players can implement any randomization, symmetric Maxmin selfconfirming equilibrium exists under either “observable payoffs,” or “separable feedback.” The latter assumption makes this equilibrium concept essentially equivalent to PSP-equilibrium. If observability of payoffs holds as well, then these equilibrium concepts collapse to mixed Nash equilibrium.     

Concept-based query language approach to enterprise information systems

In enterprise information systems (EISs) it is necessary to model, integrate and compute very diverse data. In advanced EISs the stored data often are based both on structured (e.g. relational) and semi-structured (e.g. XML) data models. In addition, the ad hoc information needs of end-users may require the manipulation of data-oriented (structural), behavioural and deductive aspects of data. Contemporary languages capable of treating this kind of diversity suit only persons with good programming skills. In this paper we present a concept-oriented query language approach to manipulate this diversity so that the programming skill requirements are considerably reduced. In our query language, the features which need technical knowledge are hidden in application-specific concepts and structures. Therefore, users need not be aware of the underlying technology. Application-specific concepts and structures are represented by the modelling primitives of the extended RDOOM (relational deductive object-oriented modelling) which contains primitives for all crucial real world relationships (is-a relationship, part-of relationship, association), XML documents and views. Our query language also supports intensional and extensional–intensional queries, in addition to conventional extensional queries. In its query formulation, the end-user combines available application-specific concepts and structures through shared variables.     

Arbitrage and price revelation with asymmetric information and incomplete markets

This paper deals with the issue of arbitrage with differential information and incomplete financial markets, with a focus on information that no-arbitrage asset prices can reveal. Time and uncertainty are represented by two periods and a finite set S of states of nature, one of which will prevail at the second period. Agents may operate limited financial transfers across periods and states via finitely many nominal assets. Each agent i has a private information about which state will prevail at the second period; this information is represented by a subset S_i of S. Agents receive no wrong information in the sense that the “true state” belongs to the “pooled information” set ∩_iS_i, hence assumed to be non-empty.Our analysis is two-fold. We first extend the classical symmetric information analysis to the asymmetric setting, via a concept of no-arbitrage price. Second, we study how such no-arbitrage prices convey information to agents in a decentralized way. The main difference between the symmetric and the asymmetric settings stems from the fact that a classical no-arbitrage asset price (common to every agent) always exists in the first case, but no longer in the asymmetric one, thus allowing arbitrage opportunities. This is the main reason why agents may need to refine their information up to an information structure which precludes arbitrage.     

Endogenous information revelation in a competitive credit market and credit crunch

In this paper, we propose a new mechanism able to explain the occurrence of credit crunches. Considering a credit market with an asymmetry of information between borrowers and lenders, we assume that borrowers have to pay a cost to reveal information on the quality of their project. They decide to be transparent if it is necessary for getting a loan or for paying a lower interest rate. Two types of competitive equilibria may exist: an opaque equilibrium in which all projects receive funding without revealing information; a transparent one in which only the best projects reveal information and receive funding. It is also possible to get multiple equilibria. Incorporating this microeconomic mechanism in an OLG model, the economy may experience fluctuations due to the change of regime, and indeterminacy may occur.     

Measuring trustworthiness of information diffusion by risk discovery process in social networking services

Most of current social network services are vulnerable to malicious actions. For example, rumor (e.g., contaminated and distorted information) can be diffused along the social links. In this paper, given a social network service, we design a peer-to-peer (P2P) network, and propose a robust information diffusion model to efficiently detect the malicious peers from which a risk (i.e., rumor) has been generated on the P2P network. Thereby, by aggregating social interactions among users, a set of interaction sequences are obtained. Given a set of interaction sequences, statistical sequence mining method is exploited to discover a certain social position which provides peculiar patterns on the P2P networks. For evaluating the proposed method, we conducted two experimentations with NetLogo simulation platform for risk discovery on social network.     

Beyond symbolic and substantive: Strategic disclosure of corporate environmental information in China

Under increasing regulatory pressure to disclose environmental impacts, corporate environmental information disclosure (EID) is becoming more prevalent. However, the motives for EID and disclosure approaches (i.e., symbolic or substantive) remain controversial. Using a sample of data for 742 listed manufacturing firms in China across 3 years, we provide evidence to show that the level of EID is significantly positively associated with a firm's advertising intensity and that firms in moderately competitive industries have a higher propensity for adopting an EID‐based differentiated strategy than firms in stronger or weaker competitive industries. We also find that firms that are more sensitive to environmental issues strategically understate their environmental impact when directly facing consumers. Our results suggest that the implementation of corporate EID is strategic and that firms have strong market motives, even under regulatory pressure to demonstrate legitimacy. We discuss this study's contributions to research on EID theory and implications for strategic EID management.     

Robust implementation under alternative information structures

In this paper we consider a model in which agents have complete information about their neighbors and, possibly, incomplete information about the rest of the environment. We consider two different informational frameworks. In the first, agents do not have priors about the relevant characteristics in the rest of the environment. In the second, agents are supposed to have priors about the unknown characteristics. We present a mechanism which implements any social choice correspondence satisfying monotonicity and no veto power in both informational settings for every possible prior thus requiring little knowledge from the point of view of the designer of the information possessed by agents about the environment. The authors wish to thank J. Canals, B. Chakravorty, P. Chander, C. Herrero, G. Orosel, D. Schmeidler, W. Thomson, W. Trockel, F. Vega, A. Villar, T. Yamato and two anonymous referees for helpful comments. The usual disclaimer applies. The first author acknowledges financial support from the Institució Valenciana d’Estudies i Investigació; L.V.I.E. and DGICYT under projects PB/88-0289 and PB/91-0756. The second author acknowledges financial support from DGICYT under project PB/90-0156. A previous version of the paper was written when authors visited (May 1991) the Institute of Mathematical Economics (Bielefeld) to which authors are grateful.     

Electricity derivatives pricing with forward-looking information

In order to increase overall transparency on key operational information, power transmission system operators publish an increasing amount of fundamental data, including forecasts of electricity demand and available capacity. We employ a fundamental model for electricity prices which lends itself well to integrating such forecasts, while retaining ease of implementation and tractability to allow for analytic derivatives pricing formulae. In an extensive futures pricing study, the pricing performance of our model is shown to further improve based on the inclusion of electricity demand and capacity forecasts, thus confirming the general importance of forward-looking information for electricity derivatives pricing. However, we also find that the usefulness of integrating forecast data into the pricing approach is primarily limited to those periods during which electricity prices are highly sensitive to demand or available capacity, whereas the impact is less visible when fuel prices are the primary underlying driver to prices instead.     

Learning and coordination with dispersed information

We analyse adaptive learning in a model of incomplete and dispersed information, with externalities and strategic interactions. We build on the framework proposed by Angeletos and Pavan (2007a) and extend it to a dynamic multi-period setting where agents need to learn to coordinate. We derive conditions under which adaptive learning obtains in such setting and show that, when actions are strategic substitutes, the information structure affects the speed of convergence: while more precise private information is beneficial, better public information has negative effects. We also show that adaptive learning dynamics converge to the Bayesian Nash equilibrium, which means that agents can learn to act strategically by relying only on observable (exogenous) information.     

Information acquisition and/or bid preparation: A structural analysis of entry and bidding in timber sale auctions

Recently, several auction models with entry have been proposed: in one model ( and ), bidders are assumed to draw their private values after they decide to enter. In another model ( and ), bidders are assumed to learn their values before their entry decisions are made. The entry cost in the latter model can be interpreted as bid preparation cost, while the entry cost in the former model consists of both costs from information acquisition and bid preparation. Moreover, these two models have different implications for important policies, e.g., the optimal reserve price. In this paper we provide a unified structural framework where the two models can be estimated and distinguished using the Bayesian method. We apply our method to analyze Michigan timber sale auctions.     

Constructing HR information systems

Accounts of human resource information systems (HRISs) range from predominantly technical accounts, which assume that the data contained and the way it is organised are straightforward reflections of reality, to accounts which see such systems as a way of exercising disciplinary power through the creation of a new view of the organisation. These different conceptions are explored through an investigation of three organisations which were developing information systems relating to workforce skills and workplace requirements. The article focuses on different conceptualisations of skill and their significance for approaches to HR strategy. It is also concerned with the way in which managers develop and refine such information systems, and the analogy of mapping is examined as a way of understanding this process.     

Method towards discovering potential opportunity information during cross-organisational business processes using role identification analysis within complex social network

ABSTRACT

The key to discover potential opportunity information in cross-organisation business processes (COBPs) is to identify the primary roles and actors, i.e. how to obtain their associations according to the interactive behaviours within the complex social networks. The information of roles in COBPs is commonly considered important and explicitly related with activities contained in COBPs. In this paper, we define a role as a configurable resource model integrating the capabilities and knowledge required to the qualified actors. Furthermore, we introduce two networks named as role-based interactive behaviour network and handover of work social network to investigate the information on roles. How to build the complex social network mapped on roles from COBPs is also discussed, and an approach to obtain the potential opportunity information is proposed by combining with the significance of roles and actors. The simulation result shows that the primary roles may not completely correspond to the central position in networks, but they are closely associated with more reliable actors.     

Understanding information propagation on online social tagging systems: a case study on Flickr

Online social networking services (SNS) have been regarded as one of the most powerful online communication channels to propagate information to other users. It means that the online social networking services are providing users with efficient features (e.g., searching, managing and visualizing new information). It is important for many online collaborative applications to understand how the information can be propagated via such social media. Thus, we want to focus on a social tagging system (e.g., Flickr) where users can easily exchange resources as well as their tags. In this paper, given a certain tag, a social pulse can be established by counting (i) the number of users and (ii) the number of resources over time. More importantly, we assume that information can be propagated by (iii) inducibility from other tags by comparing social pulses. To conduct experimentation, a tag-based searching system (called Tagoole) has been implemented to collect a dataset from Flickr.     

Sequential optimization three-way decision model with information gain for credit default risk evaluation

To categorize credit applications into defaulters or non-defaulters, most credit evaluation models have employed binary classification methods based on default probabilities. However, while some loan applications can be directly accepted or rejected, there are others on which immediate accurate credit status decisions cannot be made using existing information. To resolve these issues, this study developed an optimized sequential three-way decision model. First, an information gain objective function was built for the three-way decision, after which a genetic algorithm (GA) was applied to determine the optimal decision thresholds. Then, appropriate accept or reject decisions for some applicants were made using basic credit information, with the remaining applicants, whose credit status was difficult to determine, being divided into a boundary region (BND). Supplementary information was then added to reevaluate the credit applicants in the BND, and a sequential optimization process was employed to ensure more accurate predictions. Therefore, the model’s predictive abilities were improved and the information acquisition costs controlled. The empirical results demonstrated that the proposed model was able to outperform other benchmarking credit models based on performance indicators.     

Learning and stability of the Bayesian–Walrasian equilibrium

Under the Bayesian–Walrasian Equilibrium (BWE) (see Balder and Yannelis, 2009), agents form price estimates based on their own private information, and in terms of those prices they can formulate estimated budget sets. Then, based on his/her own private information, each agent maximizes interim expected utility subject to his/her own estimated budget set. From the imprecision due to the price estimation it follows that the resulting equilibrium allocation may not clear the markets for every state of nature, i.e., exact feasibility of allocations may not occur. This paper shows that if the economy is repeated from period to period and agents refine their private information by observing the past BWE, then in the limit all agents will obtain the same information and market clearing will be reached. The converse is also true. The analysis provides a new way of looking at the asymmetric equilibrium which has a statistical foundation.     

Evaluating the success in international sourcing of information technology projects: The need for a relational client‐vendor approach

This article investigates the differences across and the need to consider both the client and vendor perspective in evaluating international sourcing (offshoring) success and highlights the need for incorporating relational factors into the success assessment rather than focusing solely on financial or operational outcomes (e.g., projects delivered on time, within budgeted costs). We take an expanded view of project success (using relational/process dimensions) and provide insight into how client and vendor firms evaluate success differently across relational dimensions and how relational factors play a key role in achieving success. Based on the findings, propositions are presented to guide future offshoring success research.     

Uncertain information structures and backward induction

In everyday economic interactions, it is not clear whether each agent’s sequential choices are visible to other participants or not: agents might be deluded about others’ ability to acquire, interpret or keep track of data. Following this idea, this paper introduces uncertainty about players’ ability to observe each others’ past choices in extensive-form games. In this context, we show that monitoring opponents’ choices does not affect the outcome of the interaction when every player expects their opponents indeed to be monitoring. Specifically, we prove that if players are rational and there is common strong belief in opponents being rational, having perfect information and believing in their own perfect information, then, the backward induction outcome is obtained regardless of which of her opponents’ choices each player observes. The paper examines the constraints on the rationalization process under which reasoning according to Battigalli’s (1996) best rationalization principle yields the same outcome irrespective of whether players observe their opponents’ choices or not. To this respect we find that the obtention of the backward induction outcome crucially depends on tight higher-order restrictions on beliefs about opponents’ perfect information. The analysis provides a new framework for the study of uncertainty about information structures and generalizes the work by Battigalli and Siniscalchi (2002) in this direction.