Aurelio Tommasetti

Public-Sector Consolidated Financial Statements: An Analysis of the Comment Letters on IPSASB’s Exposure Draft No. 49

Public sector consolidated financial statements can be drafted according to different approaches, especially the “control approach” or “budgetary perspective.” Considering the growing importance of the International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) in the international scenario, the aim of the article is to investigate these approaches through an analysis of the comment letters submitted to the Exposure Draft no. 49, which will replace the current IPSAS 6. The main finding concerns the acceptance of the key role played by the control approach, even though it needs to be better specified, in order to take into account the public sector characteristics.

The Internet of Things and Value Co-creation in a Service-Dominant Logic Perspective

The new capacities of pervasive and ubiquitous computing are defining new horizons for human creativity and connectivity. This is also because pervasive and ubiquitous computing is very often linked with other emerging technologies, such as the semantic Web, cloud computing, and affective computing. At the same time, there has been a rapid development in 3G and 4G networks as well as in the use of feature-rich smartphones. This means that everyone can be connected at anytime and anywhere. In the near future, the development of specific hardware as well as software will enable everyone to be in touch with everything and everywhere, thus closing the “circle of pervasiveness.” The Internet of the future promises to connect our mobile devices with everything (from the fridge in our homes to special sensors in our cars or even in our bodies), whenever and whereverwe are.

Dream or reality? A recipe for sustainable and innovative health care ecosystems

Purpose Service ecosystems are gaining credence among management scholars. However, there is still little agreement about the distinguishing attributes of service ecosystems in both the public and the private sectors. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the health care service system, suggesting a “recipe” for the implementation of a sustainable and innovative health care service ecosystem. Design/methodology/approach A mixed methodology was used. First, a critical literature review was conducted to lay the conceptual foundations of this study. Then a theory about the institutional, organizational and managerial requisites for the implementation of a health care service ecosystem was developed. Findings The health care sector is appropriate for the core tenets of the service ecosystem perspective. Tailored interventions aimed at improving the functioning of the health care service ecosystem should be implemented at the micro, meso, macro and mega levels. Patient empowerment, patient-centered care and integrated care are the fundamental ingredients of the recipe for effective health care service ecosystems. Practical implications The ecosystem approach provides health policy makers with interesting insights to help shape the health care service system of the future. The paper also contributes to the innovation of managerial practices emphasizing the role of patient involvement in the design and delivery of health care. Originality/value This is one of the first attempts to systematize scientific knowledge about service ecosystems in the health care sector. An agenda for further research is suggested, in order to further advance the establishment of an effective and innovative health care service ecosystem.

Measuring customer value co-creation behavior: Developing a conceptual model based on service-dominant logic

In line with the precepts of service-dominant logic (SDL), the purpose of this paper is to devise a measurement framework of customer value co-creation practices during the service process.,Answering the call of McColl-Kennedy et al. (2012), the present study develops a general conceptual model for the measurement of customer value co-creation behavior, in line with the procedure elaborated by Churchill (1979). In particular, the paper focuses on the first stage of the protocol, corresponding to the specification of the domain of the construct.,The study shows that the scale for measuring behavioral processes in customer value co-creation has an implicit hierarchical structure based on eight activities to ensure adequate semantic coverage of the concept: cerebral activities, cooperation, information research and collation, the combination of complementary activities, changes in habits, co-production, co-learning, and connection. Moreover, the work highlights that the analysis of customer value co-creation behavior leads to three diverse steps of value co-creation and various levels of interaction.,By systematizing the construct of customer value co-creation behavior within a comprehensive framework, the conceptual model attempts to fill a gap evidenced by previous research in order to show that actions performed by users during the value co-creation process strictly conform to SDL assumptions. Moreover, the framework underpinning the practical application of SDL principles could benefit future practitioners and suggest interesting implications for future research.

What-if analysis combining Fuzzy Cognitive Map and Structural Equation Modeling

Nowadays, public funded universities have to increase their traction in acquiring students and in gaining and retaining their commitment, satisfaction and loyalty. In the area of information management, the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) technique has been widely applied to perform inter-construct causal analysis (i.e. Commitment, Quality of Services, Loyalty, etc.) on specific observed indicators in order to model and analyze student loyalty in educational institutions. Nevertheless, SEM does not support what-if analysis contrived to consider decision-making scenarios, such as: what happens to student loyalty if managers adopt a quality-based strategy, and so on. This work proposes to combine SEM results with a Fuzzy Cognitive Map (FCM) to support what-if analysis and to determine the best strategy to adopt for the case study of the Relationship Quality-Based Student Loyalty Model (RQSL). Specifically, the causal models retrieved from SEM will be exploited as the input map of concepts enabling FCM. Subsequently, FCM is performed considering different input configurations corresponding to specific managing strategies (e.g. investing in quality of service, or quality of teaching, etc.) activating/deactivating various input concepts in order to simulate implications on the output constructs (e.g., Loyalty, Commitment, etc.). The results of the experiments provide reasonably good estimates of the impact on student loyalty deriving from investing in each specific factor and provides a helpful analysis that will support decision making. Furthermore, this study highlights the opportunities deriving from the cross-fertilization between the management and computer science domains.

Big-data-driven innovation for enterprises: innovative big value paradigms for next-generation digital ecosystems

Among the various interpretations and meanings of the well-known Vs (Volume, Velocity, Variety) of Big Data, V as Value represents the most significant and critical innovation for enterprises, which are a well-known case of digital ecosystems. The key issue for big enterprise data consists in extracting knowledge for creating new value and innovation for the target enterprise. Therefore, the big data analytics phase plays a critical role to this end. Following these considerations, in this paper we provide the following three contributions: (i) an overview of most relevant proposals in the context of big data innovation for enterprises; (ii) a reference architecture for supporting advanced big data analytics over big enterprise data; (iii) a discussion on future challenges in the context of big data innovation for enterprises.

Flatness-based adaptive fuzzy control of chaotic finance dynamics

A flatness-based adaptive fuzzy control is applied to the problem of stabilization of the dynamics of a chaotic finance system, describing interaction between the interest rate, the investment demand and the price exponent. By proving that the system is differentially flat and by applying differential flatness diffeomorphisms, its transformation to the linear canonical (Brunovsky) is performed. For the latter description of the system, the design of a stabilizing state feedback controller becomes possible. A first problem in the design of such a controller is that the dynamic model of the finance system is unknown and thus it has to be identified with the use neurofuzzy approximators. The estimated dynamics provided by the approximators is used in the computation of the control input, thus establishing an indirect adaptive control scheme. The learning rate of the approximators is chosen from the requirement the system’s Lyapunov function to have always a negative first-order derivative. Another problem th...

The Role of Contracts and Informal Relations in the Governance of IT Outsourcing Processes

This paper aims to give a contribution to represent and comprehend the characteristics of the relationships between customers and providers in the specific context of IT services supply; furthermore it provides its peculiar perspective on the relationship between the formal governance, which is mostly realized through the use of contracts, and the informal relations based on trust and commitment between the parties. Moreover, the current study underlines that within contexts which are strongly based on the uncertain evolution both of market and technology, the governance of IT outsourcing processesneeds the development of complex informal relationships in support of the contracts. The study shows how it is possible to absorb the effects of the market and technology uncertainty within the IT outsourcing contracts. Moreover, the research shows how the use of dynamic contracting together with an explicit attention to the social processes can lead to remarkable operative and strategic benefits.

Myth #3: Healthcare Institutions as Well as the Overall System Can Be Fixed by Bringing in the Great Leader

The recent global crisis has turned the spotlight on national health systems, and Italy in particular, which is undergoing serious difficulties, has once again seen the reigniting of the debate on the sustainability of its national health system.

Health Myths and Service-Dominant Logic

It has always been an inspiration for me to be exposed to Henry Mintzberg’s innovative and pragmatic ways of addressing a specific field. First it was organization theory, then strategy and now it is health care.