Wissensmanagement im Nonprofit-Bereich - Barrieren und deren Überwindung (German Edition)

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Therefore, we want to elaborate on technical challenges of introducing an enterprise wiki. To do so we build upon our experiences earned in introducing wikis at three globally operating companies in the sectors of telecommunication, consultancy, and electronics design, namely British Telecommunications plc, Accenture, and Cadence Design Systems. These experiences align along the theme of proposal development in response to customer demands, a scenario which is not only highly critical across many business sectors, but also can be seen as a representative example in which enterprise knowledge structures are collaboratively created, enriched, and exploited.

Together with potential users, we have identified requirements that impose technical challenges to a wiki-based solution. Therefore, we assume that applying semantic concepts Its usage of standard semantic technologies such as RDF 1 and ontologies provides advantages beginning from an integrated means to formally describe the meaning and organization of the content to various enhancements of the way information is retrieved, displayed and navigated within the wiki.

For evaluation, we implemented the solution; the results were again presented to potential users, who have confirmed that the requirements were met. With this paper, it is our aim to achieve greater awareness of the technically motivated challenges behind enterprise wiki adoption and to allow enterprises to make an informed decision about deployment of our solution in a similar scenario.

Developed around representative enterprise knowledge structures information sources for proposal development, we assume the technical challenges to be typical for enterprise wikis. The description of the implementation is not only meant for evaluation but also provides a concrete example. The remainder of this paper is structured as follows. We first introduce the enterprise scenario and describe its relevant requirements Section 2. In Section 3, we describe how semantic technologies can be used to fulfil the technical challenges.

In Section 4 we foster our claim, explaining a concrete implementation. After that, an overview of related work is given in Section 5, followed by conclusions in Section 6. A proposal includes various types of information for instance, about marketing, pricing and certification provided by various enterprise departments for instance, technical consultants, product specialists and sales persons.

To illustrate this, consider the activity of gathering information about a customer. The way this activity is carried out depends on the preferences and expertise of the proposal development team, and on undocumented social communication and collaboration practices. One might visit a website, consult the intranet portal or call a former colleague, to name just a few. For engineering of functional and non-functional requirements, about 50 potential users knowledge workers involved in proposal development were asked within the ACTIVE project 2 for their opinion.

We only include requirements that impose technical challenges. Similarly, we do not include requirements that by themselves can be solved by typical wiki solutions, e. Functional requirements A proposal development workspace should help users to record, share and collaboratively refine on relevant enterprise knowledge structures.

Those structures comprise various information sources, available to an enterprise, that its employees use to manage the knowledge for their daily work.

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Examples include customer descriptions, product specifications, and price lists. The system should provide guidance to the user about what information is to be put into the wiki. Also, users prefer to not depend on wiki syntax, but to have simpler and faster ways of adding information into the wiki, e. Users should be able to access the results of common activities executed for previous proposals and find such reusable pieces of content in due time. The wiki is supposed to not only provide the necessary structure, but also to offer concrete information from already existing data sources relevant for proposal development.

Enterprises contain many different data sources, for instance relational databases, content management systems, and various document formats. They contain more or less unstructured information. Examples include descriptions of finished proposals; price lists of competitors; reports about industry sectors; and other elements that employees use for proposal development and therefore want to access, discuss, and refine through the wiki.

Data quality is of high importance. Users will not adopt the wiki if incorrect information is contained and not distinguishable from relevant information. On the one hand, flexibility of what to put into the wiki should be preserved. On the other hand, it should be possible to discover and solve data problems. Employees are accustomed to tools that help with developing proposals. For instance, the end-proposal is usually delivered in form of a Microsoft Word document. In the ideal case, users are free to continue using their tools, but these tools are extended and allow to exploit the wiki s added values.

Also, as interaction in a wiki occurs asynchronously, some users prefer to be able to keep track of changes without constantly visiting the wiki. Non-functional requirements The acceptance is likely to be higher if the tool is intuitive to use, also by users without technical background, and minimally invasive to established workflows and the enterprise IT landscape.

The system should run sufficiently fast, with loading times similar to external webpages. As a reference semantic wiki, we have chosen to use Semantic Then, in the next section, we present an implementation of a proposal development wiki having these capabilities. Creating structured information Our proposal development scenario makes it necessary to capture and refine enterprise knowledge structures within the wiki. For that, guidance to the users is necessary. More understandable, it allows to have property-value pairs explicitly assigned to wiki pages.

Such a property-value pair can be a named link so-called object property to another page, e. Properties can be inserted into a page with wiki syntax, but also using forms. First, this makes them easily usable. Second, enterprise knowledge structures, as we have them in our proposal development scenario, can be defined through categories of pages so-called classes with certain properties and serve as guidance for the users of how to use the wiki and what structured information to capture in it, e. Depending on the expressivity, this ontology can be automatically or manually applied to the wiki [VK06].

Note, such enterprise knowledge structures are bound to continuous change and refinement, e. Semantic data structures, in contrast to relational data structures, can be extended at any time in SMW either by administrators or the users themselves without modifying previous contributions. Retrieving information Users need to retrieve specific information from these enterprise knowledge structures. The machine-readable information stored with SMW gives more sophisticated possibilities of retrieving data from the wiki, other than traditional keyword searches.

First, it can be specifically asked for certain properties of a page, e. Second, all pages of a certain category having certain properties can be listed as an overview, including links to those pages, e. Various result formats can be used, starting from simple tables to more advanced calendars, timelines, and maps. Also, facetted search is possible, for incrementally filtering lists of pages with keywords or property-ranges see Figure 1 in a later section. Third, more complex but still user-friendly querying similar to the standard semantic web querying language SPARQL 4 is possible.

The users can enter keywords, the system looks for connections between pages described with the keywords and lists those pages [HHMT09]. In SMW, these queries are possible through forms on special pages, but can also be embedded as inline queries in normal wiki pages. Integrating external information Integrating external source allows to merge its content with existing enterprise knowledge structures, i.

However, simply creating a page for each element within an external source and copying its data from there, will lead to difficulties searching and using this data. SMW provides a possibilty to tightly intergrate external sources. Enterprise knowledge seldomly is represented in RDF, but there are many tools 5 available to transform the formalized enterprise knowledge into RDF, which then can be mapped to specific knowledge structure elements in the wiki, e.

The more structured this external information is, the more this transformation can be done automatically. To deal with redundancy, it is possible to allow users to refer to, and comment upon external sources in the wiki, while changes may be undertaken only through the original systems and tools.

Not only data sources within an enterprise but also sources in the web such as Freebase or other Semantic MediaWiki installations can be integrated, this way. A growing number of web services offer data in RDF 6. Using explicit bindings to such externally stored sources, wiki pages could be easily enriched with their data.

The users may integrate new external sources by themselves, although this can be restricted, e. Improving data quality One of the most useful features of a semantic wiki is its ability to perform consistency checks on the enterprise knowledge structures represented within the wiki and to indicate data quality problems. This provides a means to identify missing or incorrect information, which applies to both genuine wiki content and content from external sources. Users may not directly correct the latter, but they can rate it, and comment on it for revision. Besides the possibility that users detect inconsistencies, some checks can be performed automatically.

Deduction methods on the enterprise knowledge structures can provide insights about the wrong usage of categories, pages, and properties [Vra09]. Most of such errors cannot be automatically repaired, but at least, made visible to the users or administrators. For example if the imported data contains information about a proposal with customer X and a wiki page exists about X, which is not a member of the customer category, adding that page to the category can be automatically suggested to the administrator.

Interplay with other enterprise tools Also, enterprise knowledge structures reach full potential if they are not stored in an isolated data silo but can be accessed from other enterprise tools. SMW allows not only to integrate external sources in a standard and machine-readable manner, but generally to use external tools to input from and output to the wiki.

The content of a semantic wiki can be extracted as RDF, as well as many other structured data formats, e. Results of queries can be regularly checked for new pages or for modified properties and published as RSS-feeds or send per. Using HTTP requests to the wiki, external tools such as Microsoft Word can access, add, or modify pages and properties. Semantic technologies cannot generally fulfil the non-functional requirements of our scenario. Those are implementation-dependent and therefore will be described in the next.

Our implementation is based on the open-source wiki software MediaWiki and its semantic counterpart Semantic MediaWiki, which have been augmented with a series of generalpurpose extensions developed by the community 7 and custom extensions tailored to the needs of the proposal development scenario. Users access the wiki from the intranet using a personalized and enterprise-wide login, realized through LDAP Authentication extension.

Pages are cached until they are changed or reprocessing is explicitly requested. Creating proposal development information As a workspace for proposal development the wiki supports the entire life cycle of a proposal. For that, we have developed an ontology describing the proposal development structures. It contains categories of pages classes such as proposal, team, person, customer, customer issue, discussion question or answer, product, and event. Each of these categories are further defined through properties. For instance, a proposal has one or more proposal sections, a team of persons, a customer with customer issues, a monetary value, and offers one or more products; a customer issue can be discussed through questions and answers; a customer is related to an industry sector; and several meetings are held for a proposal.

The ontology has been developed together with potential users, but also by reuse of available enterprise vocabularies and ontologies such as The Enterprise Ontology [UKMZ98]. We expect that continuous refinement of the ontology is necessary, also after an official launch of the system, and will mainly be done by administrators.

Each relevant element of a proposal is represented in the wiki as a dedicated page or part of a page. Users can easily create pages and property-value pairs through the Semantic Forms extension. Adding properties to proposal elements supports auto-completion, checkboxes, radio buttons, and other value selection widgets such as mini-calendars and map views. Furthermore, the extension Header Tabs facilitate the realization of forms that are similar in their appearance to the rendered pages. Retrieving proposal information In order to provide users with an overview of the proposal workspace, pages explaining and listing a particular aspect of proposal development 7 openly available from MediaWiki and SMW Administrators define queries and visualizations, e.

The users themselves can issue queries and store them on wiki pages, although we expect more use of keyword based searches that, with AskTheWiki [HHMT09] extension, still exploit the wiki s structure. Figure 1 shows the workspace customized through Halo extension, and an anonymized example of facetted search using Exhibit.

Anonymized wiki content displayed through facetted search. Unnecessary searching and browsing is reduced by sharing relevant information between wiki pages. For instance, the property hascustomervision is not only shown on the particular customer page but also on proposal pages concerning this customer.

Integrating proposal-related information The proposal development structures established in the wiki were partly populated by content from external sources. We integrated externally created information about customers, industry sectors, offered products, time and pricing, people and their involvement in proposals, as well as status and result of proposals. This data mainly comes from relational databases or excel sheets, and is preprocessed, e. Some of this information is first transformed in an RDF-compliant format, then imported as pages such as proposals, or properties such as a customer vision.

Other imported wiki content such as person identification number is not supposed to be redundantly stored and open to changes. This information is only visualized, allowing users to refer to, and comment upon it in the wiki, while changes may be undertaken only through the original source.

Although promising for the future, so far, we have not found useful Linked Open Data for proposal development. Integrating various external data sources into the wiki makes implicit connections between them explicit. For instance, proposal descriptions may contain team member names, that provide direct links to pages of those persons. Misspelled names can be easily identified through links to nonexisting pages. Correct abbreviations or accronyms can be included as synonyms. More data quality problems are identified and corrected by the administrators when they export the data as RDF using RDFIO extension and compare its consistency with the proposal development ontology.

That way, wrong properties can be detected and made visible to the users, e. Interplay with tools for proposal development For automatic notifications about certain changes in the wiki, users can subscribe to RSS-feeds. Those publish information about new pages, e. Such information can also be displayed as a widget on other company intranet sites, and, using Semantic Notifications extension sent per.

When finally creating the actual proposal document within Microsoft Word, the users can access the structured information in the wiki through the WikiTags extension. If a particular proposal element is mentioned in the document, Word automatically underlines it and provides a wiki-based context menu for it, e.

Vice versa, for new expressions not yet used in the wiki, it is possible to create wiki pages, properties and links directly from the office application. Once additional information about these is collaboratively assembled in the wiki, the results can be used in the Word document.

Microsoft Word underlining a word 1 and providing a wiki-based context menu 2. Within the ACTIVE project, the implemented solution was presented to the potential users, who have confirmed that it fulfils the requirements. Recently, trials have been initiated for evaluating the solution with actual users. Danis and Singer [DS08] present a detailed study of the differences in wiki utilization in corporate, educational and public settings, but without going into detail on technical aspects. If any, only general solutions to technical challenges can be found.

For instance, deciding what hardware or service to use, and offering features such as a more simple file upload and an indexing of attachments for built-in search [Arc10]. The social software market offers various enterprise systems [DRBM09] that among other things provide wiki solutions. Atlassian Confluence and TWiki may provide this, however, they do not give details about their approaches to technical challenges. KiWi is a wiki solution that combines Web 2. It fulfils the technical requirements and beyond that opens up new opportunities for the enterprise, e.

We now conclude with some final remarks and possible future work. Due to the large number of extensions, choosing the most appropriate ones is a tedious task, that could be improved by further empirical studies on the utility of existing or possible extensions in specific application scenarios. For now, we have evaluated the hypothesis that the technical challenges can be resolved by a semantic wiki. We have not evaluated whether the requirements acually were representative and whether our solution will bring the expected benefits. Measuring its impact is under work in recently initiated trials.

As an example, the time the user spend with the wiki, either directly or through external tools, could be an indicator for sucess. Still, evaluating the success of a wiki is not an easy task, due to many confounding success factors. We have not tried to fulfil the requirements with other technologies than Semantic MediaWiki and, thus, cannot say much about comparison to other systems, be they semantic wikis or not. As intended, we solely argue that semantic wiki technologies clearly expand the capabilities of knowledge workers for managing enterprise knowledge structures.

Factors for the success for Wikis 2: Magic Quadrant for Social Software in the Workplace. A wiki instance in the enterprise: Damianos, and Daniel Weiss. Factors impeding Wiki use in the enterprise: Semantic MediaWiki in Operation: Experiences with Building a Semantic Portal. Journal of Web Semantics, 5: Ideator - a collaborative enterprise idea management tool powered by KiWi.

In 5th Workshop on Semantic Wikis: Overcoming Information Overload in the Enterprise: In Social Semantic Web: Evidenzbasierte Praktiken haben ihren Ursprung in der Medizin. Social Software wird dabei gleichzeitig als Gegenstand und als Werkzeug von Evidenzbasierten Praktiken betrachtet. Wikis, Micro- Blogs, Soziale Netzwerke betreiben will. Es wird sich herausstellen, dass Social Software in diesem Kontext zweifach von der Evidenzbasierung betroffen ist: Evidence bedeutet, dass eine Annahme wahr bzw.

Evidenz kann auch durch Erfahrung entstehen. Da es bei allen Evidenzbasierten Praktiken letztlich um Best Practices und das optimale Ausnutzen von vorhandenen Ressourcen z. Evidenzbasierte Praktiken setzen sich nach [Ro06] aus folgenden Aspekten zusammen: Lernen von Ursache-Wirkungs-Effekten in der professionellen Praxis, 2. Teilen von Informationen mittels Communities, 4. Im Idealfall sind Wissensmanagementtools nicht nur technisch optimal aufgestellt, sondern lassen sich auch von den Nutzern intuitiv handhaben und erleichtern ihnen die Wissensarbeit.

Sie erfordern eine enge Verbindung zwischen Theorie und Praxis. Auch im Bereich der Social Software kann man immer mehr Neuheiten entdecken. Es wird besonders nach akademischer Literatur gesucht, deren Inhalt das Unternehmen in die Praxis umsetzen kann. Es ist allerdings zu erwarten, dass bald viele Mitarbeiter Anwendungen der Social Software aus der privaten Benutzung kennen [Sc07] und somit der Umgang mit ihnen leichter fallen sollte. Genau dieser Aspekt wird jedoch auch zu einem Problem.

Es sollten deswegen beide evidenzbasierten Praktiken angewandt werden. Durch die aktive Nutzung oder die Nutzung neuer technischer Entwicklungen von Social Software im Unternehmen kommt es zu Wettbewerbsvorteilen und dadurch zur Absicherung eines Unternehmens auf dem Markt. Social Software kann aber nicht nur als Gegenstand Evidenzbasierter Praktiken betrachtet werden, sondern auch zum Werkzeug der Evidenzbasierung werden. Traditionelle Methoden der Evidenzbasierung lassen sich dabei durchaus mit Anwendungen der Social Software kombinieren.

Dabei sind Wikis nicht rein text-basiert. Nur er ist zudem in der Lage den Beitrag zu editieren. Folksonomies entstehen bei der freien Verschlagwortung von Informationsressourcen mit nutzergenerierten Tags [Pe09]. Hier kann der Wissensmanager evaluieren, ob die Wissensbasis sinnvoll angelegt ist oder ob Aspekte fehlen. Werden in diesen Datenbanken, z. Dadurch, dass andere Nutzer ggf.

Auch kann er ermitteln, ob bereits Literatur zum Thema vorliegt oder nicht. Twitter ist ein Microblogging-System, welches das Publizieren von sehr kurzen Statusmeldungen erlaubt. Andererseits kann der Wissensmanager Social Software dazu nutzen, um in Kontakt mit der Wissenschaft zu bleiben 8 und bspw. Evidenzbasierte Praktiken werden in der Medizin schon seit eingesetzt. Durch evidenzbasierte Praktiken werden zum einen Mitarbeiter miteinbezogen und zum anderen spielt auch die Wissenschaft eine tragende Rolle. Durch diese beiden Aspekte wird die Auswahl der richtigen Tools erleichtert und die Implementierung wird erfolgreicher bzw.

Tools werden besser angenommen. Hier gibt es bereits den Ansatz der evidenzbasierten Sachbearbeitung [Gu09]. Literaturverzeichnis [As08] askoxford com Where Systems Meet Services: Toward Evidence-Based Information Practice. Why Evidence Based Information Practice? Facet Publishing, London, ; S.

Evidence-Based Practice for Information Professionals: Discovering the Iceberg of Knowledge Work: A Weblog case Hypothesis, , 11 3 ; S [Fi09] Finke, I.: Weblogs und Wikis eine neue Medienrevolution. Zwischen Theorie und Praxis: Wissensmanagement, , 3; S [Ka07] Kakizawa, Y.: In-house Use of Web 2. NEC Technical Journal, , 2 2. Wissensmanagement Warum so viele Projekte scheitern. Indexing and Retrieval in Web 2. Mit Geschichten Wissen managen. The Anatomy of Evidence-Based Practice: The Context of Evidence-Based Practice.

Die Bottom-Up-Revolution im Wissensmanagement. Blogs und Wikis im Praxiseinsatz. Wissensmanagement, , 4; [We99] Wenger, E.: Cambridge University Press, New York,. Im Zusammenschluss zu kooperierenden Netzwerken begegnen sie diesen Herausforderungen. Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien sind dabei ein entscheidender Treiber, wobei neue Web 2. In diesem Zusammenhang relevant ist die Evaluation der zu etablierenden Technologien und Anwendungen im Hinblick auf Akzeptanz und Benutzung. Ziel dieses Beitrages ist es daher, eine anerkannte Theorie, die Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology, in den Anwendungskontext zu adaptieren und anzupassen.

Die Messung der Akzeptanz und Benutzung der implementierten Anwendungen spielt demzufolge in diesem Zusammenhang eine wesentliche Rolle. Der vorliegende Beitrag befasst sich aufgrund dessen mit der Entwicklung eines Modells, welches die empirische Messung der Akzeptanz und Benutzung von Web 2. Januar anhand von drei Kriterien. Die Implementierung und Anwendung von Web 2. Im Mittelpunkt stehen neue Formen von Web 2.

Neben den technischen Aspekten baut Enterprise 2. Das Potential des Einsatzes von Web 2. Effort Expectancy Aufwandserwartung wird definiert als the degree of ease associated with using the system. Social Influence Sozialer Einfluss wird definiert als the degree to which an individual perceives that important others believe he or she should use the system.

Daher wird es im vorliegenden Kontext als geeignetes Modell betrachtet und herangezogen. Zur Beantwortung der zugrundeliegenden Forschungsfrage, welche Faktoren die individuelle Nutzung von Web 2. Im Folgenden werden daher die relevanten Konstrukte herausgearbeitet und operationalisiert. Drei der vier Konstrukte werden im Ursprungsmodell vom Sozialen Geschlecht moderiert. Das Alter moderiert im Ursprungsmodell den Einfluss aller 4 Konstrukte. Auch die bisherige Erfahrung im Umgang mit Web 2. Aufgrund dessen wird die Freiwilligkeit der Nutzung aus dem Modell ausgeklammert. H1a Die Leistungserwartung beeinflusst die individuelle Verhaltensabsicht.

A1e Wenn ich Web 2. A1f Wenn ich Web 2. A1g Die Benutzung der Web 2. H2a Die Aufwandserwartung beeinflusst die individuelle Verhaltensabsicht. A2a Die Arbeit mit den Web 2. A2b Ich empfinde Web 2. H3a Der Soziale Einfluss beeinflusst die individuelle Verhaltensabsicht. A3b Kollegen, die mir wichtig sind, sind der Meinung, dass ich die Web 2. A4c Die Web 2. A5a Ich beabsichtige, die Web 2.

A5b Ich gehe davon aus, dass ich die Web 2. A5c Ich plane, die Web 2. Im Rahmen des Projektes werden prototypisch Web 2. Insbesondere in Bezug auf die beiden Konstrukte Leistungserwartung und Aufwandserwartung kommt dies zum Tragen. Die Mitarbeiter innerhalb der einzelnen Netzwerkunternehmen werden die Web 2. Die empirische Validierung der Konstrukte sowie die kritische Reflexion und Feinjustierung des theoretischen Modells bilden den Kern weiterer Forschungsarbeiten auf diesem Gebiet. Literaturverzeichnis [Ch96] Chau, P.

An empirical assessment of a modified technology acceptance model. Pries- Heje et al. The Drawn of Emergent Collaboration. What Is Web 2. Social Software im Unternehmen: External Relationships and the Small Business: Erfolg in kleinen und mittleren Unternehmen: Gabler Wiesbaden, [Ve00] Venkatesh, V. A theoretical extension of the technology acceptance model: Management Science, , 46 2 , S Venkatesh, V.

User Acceptance of Information Technology: Toward A Unified View. In Unternehmen ist die Dokumentation von anfallendem Wissen meist ein langwieriger Prozess, an dem viele Personen beteiligt sind. Im Internet werden Web 2. Tools genutzt um Wissensentstehung, Weitergabe und Nutzung, d. Diese Entwicklung, zum Beispiel von einer handgeschriebenen Notiz hin zu einem Schulungshandbuch, wird als Wissensreifung bezeichnet.

Hierbei spielen zwei Faktoren eine wichtige Rolle: Erstens, Wissen muss strukturiert und formalisiert werden um es auffindbar und in verschiedenen Kontexten nutzbar zu machen. Die Entwicklung des Internets zeigt, dass Web 2. Der Einsatz von Systemen wie z. Diese Vorteile machen Web2. Die in dieser Arbeit beschriebene Studie zeigt ein Beispiel, wie bestehende Web2. Basis des Informationssystems ist ein Semantic MediaWiki, das sowohl an die Anforderungen des Unternehmens, als auch an die des Wissensreifungsprozesses angepasst wurde.

Die folgenden Kapitel beschreiben die Phasen der Anforderungsanalyse, das resultierende System und dessen Evaluation. Da jedoch Ressourcen wie Dokumente meist aus vorhandenem Wissen erstellt werden, stellt dies einen problematischen Systembruch dar. Hierbei liegt der Fokus auf zwei wissensintensiven Prozessen; der Entwicklung von Software auf der einen Seite und der Dokumentation des Entwicklungsprozesses auf der anderen.

Wissensreifung bedeutet auch, dass die Ressourcen, in denen das Wissen enthalten ist, wiederverwendet und weiterentwickelt werden. Daher ist auch die Bereitstellung von geeigneten Ressourcen ein wichtiger Beitrag zur Wissensreifung. Wie Abbildung 1 zeigt, werden, zum Beispiel, in der ersten Phase Kundenanfragen aufgenommen.

Die Dokumentation dieser Anfragen bedeutet eine Bereitstellung von Wissen. Ziel der ersten Phase der Anforderungsanalyse war es, Situationen zu identifizieren in denen eine Dokumentation von Informationen sinnvoll ist. Dazu wurden Prozesse im Unternehmen dokumentiert und analysiert. Folgende Situationen wurden identifiziert: Diese Anforderungen wurden durch die Analyse der zuvor gesammelten Situationen gefunden. Dies beinhaltet zum Beispiel die Zugriffskontrolle und das Eventlogging.

Konkret bedeutet das die Anbindung des Wikis an andere Systeme. Besondere Anforderungen waren hier die Anbindung an den Mailserver und das bestehende Ticketsystem. Daher fiel die Wahl auf ein Semantic MediaWiki. Eine weitere wichtige Rolle in Unternehmensanwendungen spielt die Zugriffskontrolle. Dies spielt eine wichtige Rolle bei der Filterung von Suchergebnissen und semantischen Abfragen.

Daher wurden existierende Systeme an das Semantic MediaWiki angebunden. Dieses System wird dazu genutzt Supportanfragen der Kunden zu dokumentieren und zu verwalten. Die Anbindung des Systems erlaubt es Tickets zwischen Wiki-system und Ticket-system auszutauschen und so Tickets im Wiki sichtbar zu machen. Metadaten erlauben es Inhalte zu Filtern und mit Hilfe der semantischen Strukturen gezielt nach Tickets zu suchen z. Zeig mir alle offenen Tickets eines Kunden die bis zum. Das Wiki ist ein kommunikativ einseitiges Medium. Das bedeutet, der Benutzer muss aktiv auf das Wiki-System zugreifen, um Informationen zu erhalten.

Durch die Zuteilung von Inhalten zu bestimmten Nutzergruppen und die automatische Benachrichtigung wird dies umgangen. Dadurch wird der Benutzer automatisch benachrichtig, wenn der Status eines seiner Tickets von offen auf erledigt gesetzt wird oder ein anderer Benutzer das Ticket kommentiert. Ein Artikel, der nicht gelesen wird, muss nicht adaptiert werden. Die Auswertung der Ratings wird zur Verbesserung der Inhalte verwendet. Daraus werden erste Versionen der Artikel erstellt Draft. Abbildung 2 Statusauswahl im Wiki-Editor Von den Seiten existieren Revisionen, wovon mit einem Artikelstatus annotiert sind.

Die durchschnittliche Rate der Revisionen die pro Jahr in ihrem Status verbessert wurden blieb relativ konstant bei ca. Die Auswahl des Semantic Mediawikis und dessen Erweiterung beruht auf einer detaillierten Anforderungsanalyse. How businesses are using Web 2. A McKinsey global survey. McKinsey Quarterly Web Exclusive. What we can learn from Wikipedia, In: Wissenstranfer mit Wikis und Weblogs. Knowledge Maturing in the Semantic MediaWiki: A design study in career guidance, Cress, U. Human resource management HRM plays an equal, if not more important, role in building and sharing the right set of employee competencies that help organizations to successfully compete.

In many organizations, HR executives and KM experts have found that developing an IT infrastructure that allows the free exchange of employee experience and expertise has increased the company's competitiveness. Many companies are now aware that timely capturing their employees collective knowledge is the only way to preserve their investments in human capital. As a result, some of them have invested to develop a corporate culture of sharing knowledge and experience, capable of convincing employees to share their expertise. However, how to enable synergy between KM and HRM to foster open innovation is still a relatively new issue.

Recent experience has shown that innovation is largely dependent on creative individuals working in an environment that spans multiple organizations and includes, beyond regular employees, consultants and suppliers. Knowledge-supported HR can play a key role in attracting and keeping the most innovative people and partners, creating a culture that supports innovation. This workshop objective is twofold.

The first goal is to provide a forum to discuss theoretical models and practical evidence on the effectiveness of knowledge-supported human resource HR management. The second goal is to investigate the connection between the implementation of knowledge-supported HR and the degree of open and employee-driven innovation achieved by organizations. Knowledge workers are increasingly selforganized and learn mostly informally on the work place.

These changes have relevant implications for human resource management. Based on data that was collected in 11 semi-structured interviews with key people in two companies, four current knowledge work practices in the domains of competence management, knowledge management and innovation management are richly described. These practices are then analyzed with respect to highlighting and characterising potential interfaces to human resource management. Competency Roadmap to Strategy Paolo Ceravolo, Valerio Bellandi, Fulvio Frati and Ernesto Damiani It is well acknowledged that Human Resources are one of the most important assets of a company; as a consequence, Competency Management became a well established approach for organizing workforce recruitment, training and development.

At the same time, Competency Management is more and more moving towards a tight integration with business and knowledge management frameworks, having a crucial role in business process re-engineering, giving to competencies a central role to achieve higher performance variance, determine better return-on-investment or economic value of competency initiatives, implementing deep organizational transformation, and change market and organizational strategies. Our approach, taking inspiration from Technology Roadmaps, proposes the Competency Roadmap to Strategy, an integrated model for organizing the competency bouquet of a company in coordination with strategic desing of business activities.

Development of a Competence Management System: Focus on an Italian aerospace company, Alenia Aeronautica, the paper wants to illustrate the use of set theory in order to represent objects, rules and indexes of the competence management methodology. This mathematical formalism allows to easily represent the complexity of this context and to guide the implementation of a future competence management system CMS. In addition, the use of an algebraic approach allows the implementation of a competence management information system that may be customized to any industrial context.

In addition, this flexible structure can Goh, University of South Australia Prof. Sheth, University of Georgia Prof. Vladan Devedzic, University of Belgrade Martin Dzbor, Open University Prof. John Edwards, Aston University Dr. Deniz Eseryel, University of Oklahoma Dr. Kai Hakkarainen, University of Helsinki Prof. Ashok Jashapara, Loughborough University Prof. Nikos Karacapilidis, University of Patras Prof. Karvalics, University of Szeged Dr.

Kinshuk, Athabasca University Prof. Sharman Lichtenstein, Deakin University Dr. Sheizaf Rafaeli, University of Haifa Dr. Marko Rosic, University of Split Prof. SampsonDe, University of Piraeus Prof. Alain Senteni, University of Mauritius Dr. Erkki Sutinen, University of Joensuu Dr. Salvatore Valenti, University of Ancona Prof. Gottfried Vossen, University of Muenster Prof.

Yang, National Central University Prof. It is well acknowledged that Human Resources are one of the most important assets of a company; as a consequence, Competency Management became a well established approach for organizing workforce recruitment, training and development. A roadmap identifies precise objectives and helps focus resources on the critical technologies that are needed to meet those goals.

Generally speaking, the notion of competency helps to break down jobs into their critical processes and skills, which employees must perform everyday in order to ensure employee safety, regulatory compliance, and productivity. Typically competencies drive the definition of training and development programs and they are used to assess and build team competencies. Competency Management Systems CMS are increasingly moving towards the integration into business and knowledge management frameworks, providing an integrated environment for the management of company profiles, human resources and task assignment.

Such an approach can play an important role also in forecasting future competency needs with respect to possible new products or services, in response to the releasing of new technologies or to the emergence of new market s requirements. The aim of this work is to introduce a framework providing an integrated view on the connections of workers, competencies, products and services with business strategies and actions. Our claim is that only an explicit representation of the above mentioned elements can fully support the accountability of competency management impact, in a business prespective.

In particular in this paper we propose the first step in the definition of the environment providing the rationale and the conceptual structure of the framework, giving a metamodel that formalize Competency Roadmaps and defining the relation between the concepts that compose the roadmaps. The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 describes relevant literature in the field of Technology Roadmaps. Finally, Section 6 gives our conclusions. Technology roadmap helps to forecast technological future trends based on either exploratory methods or normative approaches [Kap01].

At the corporate level, it provides a graphical means for exploring and communicating the relationships among strategies, products, and technologies over time [MHD01] [PFMP03]. Other kind of roadmap made product at second level and focus on services and processes, to be more close to customers [BSEJ05]. This is an example of an issue-oriented roadmap, rather than a technology roadmap, although the availability of a required technology may be considered an issue to be addressed. This roadmapping approach, customized for DOE EM sites, is intended to identify issues and their consequences for project planning and budgeting.

Identify critical product or competency needs, to drive technologies selection and development decisions: CR2S associates products and services with the related skills or competencies, giving to organization a methodology to select which technologies are currently exploitable and, consequently, which products can be developed with the available competencies.

Determine the competency alternatives that can satisfy critical product needs: Define a learning plan to introduce a new competency in the company: In order to fulfil that task, specific learning plans have to be designed, executed and assigned to the users the company want to exploit in the new product development. The implementation of our approach is related to the introduction of a strategic methodology into the competency management process. In fact, competencies are not treated as separate and independent elements of the company HR system, but they are organized in a structured trees allowing the application of specific reasoning activities that could help in the identification of missing skills and in the organization of ad hoc learning activities.

CR2S has been formalized in the metamodel described in Section 4 to define a flexible structure able to model any specific company situation. As an example, Section 5 presents a simple instance of the metamodel describing a Software House, specialized in web design, that has to face the absence of a skill in response to the supply of a new product.

In particular, the metamodel approach allows identifying all the objects that implement the methodology and all the relations that incur between the objects. The structure of CR2S metamodel is depicted in Fig. It clearly describes the hierarchy between the objects, and the relations between them, without any constraints about the cardinality of objects and relations. CR2S Metamodel structure The top element represents strategies guiding the business model implemented by the company. A strategy is a plan designed to achieve a particular aim. Then the Strategy S class expresses an aim and a plan.

The aim is contained in the strategy itself while the plan is implemented through one or more actions. The Action A class describes any kind of activity, precisely or broadly defined, implemented to achieve the particular aim expressed by the strategy of reference. The Action class is directly followed by the Product P class, that describes the set of products and services managed by an organization whose implementation, deploying, and maintenance requires a precise set of competencies to be present in the company.

Following the hierarchy, the Enterprise Competency EC node defines all the high level competences that describe the capabilities of the company. The cardinality of the relation between EC and the next node defines the expected size of a precise skill that has to be available in a working team, as well as the required level of competency that a user has to reach to be included in the team, can be described as properties of the relation itself.

In fact, the Personal Competency PC class describes all the single skills that could by assigned to a user or worker of the organization. The skill definition must be carried out following precise methodologies and covering all the competencies that are required for realizing the EC they are connected to. Finally, the User class identifies a component of the organization that will be associated to her personal skills; the relation could be enriched with a property that defines the level of ability in that particular competency.

In fact, a complete and exhaustive instantiation of a CR2S model, adherent to the structure and competency of an organization, will help in finding possible competency gaps in response to specific stimuli, in terms of missing competencies that have to be granted to specific users. The first level, as introduced in Section 4, has been omitted, while the below levels depict the competency map of the organization starting from the delivered products, the skills necessary to implement them, and the users involved.

This level could be represented, for instance, by one of the standards dicussed in [CAG10]. About the actions in our example we identified three distinct class, but the set could be enlarged applying the approach in different scenarios: New Task Assignment, when a new task is created and assigned to the working group; the task could be assigned by the management to the respective business function, with the goal of realizing a new products or releasing a new service.

New Job Title, when a new technical figure is introduced in the organization, requiring the addition of new competencies to the company s profile. New Market Challenge, when the study of market trends or community identify the emergence of new challenges or exigences from the market itself, like for instance a new product released by a competitor, or an interesting discussion on a new technology in a forum that gathered a great number of followers and that could be of interest for the Company.

Actions involve products, for example, looking at the e-commerce Tool node, it is possible to derive the Enterprise Competencies needed to build the tool i. Note that not all the PCs have to be assigned and mapped to products; as in the case of WS-Security, Ann has declared that she owns such a skill, but currently any active project is exploiting it. The information delivered by an instance of CR2S metamodel are manifold, depending on the chosen analysis level, and they can give a multilevel view of Company capabilities.

In fact, analyzing the User and PC level, it is possible to have a snapshot of company available staff and the set of competencies that the team could exploit in the developing phase, highlighting, at the same time, specific competency gaps that have to be bridged organizing new learning activities or extending the existing team. At the EC and Product levels, the organization exposes all the Enterprise Competencies that describe the bouquet of offered services and capabilities, along with the set of products released by the Company. Such analysis is important in case that the target is to describe the reaction of the company in response to specific Strategy stimuli.

In particular, as described in Fig.

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As presented in the example, the company Example of CR2S model without the Strategy level. The implementation of the new framework will imply the exploitation of PCs that are already present in the company, such as all the competencies connected to the Secure Transaction Management node together with WS-Security, and a new skill BPEL that is not already included in company skill map.

Indeed, to start the development of the new product filling this competency gap, the company can follow two ways, that could be followed with respect to the product time to market. First of all, it can start ad hoc learning activities in order to give the BPEL skill to one or more of its workers; this solution can be followed when the time to market is not a strict requirement and the company could wait until the learning activities are successfully concluded.

Otherwise, the organization can enlarge the working team staffing new figures that have experiences with BPEL; respect to the previous one, this solution is quicker and allows to include in a shorter time the new competence. In both the cases the CR2S approach gives a methodology that could help in the organization of the innovation process, giving immediate and accurate snapshots of company capabilities and suggesting solutions for unexpected competency lacks. Example of model with Market Challenge. We described a metamodel providing the constructs to implement such an integrated approach.

In section 5 we shortly illustrated which kind of analysis can be implemented on the basis of the information provided in the framework. Our final aim is to make this framework a tool for supporting quantitative analysis in competency management, enriching it with techniques to construct learning and training plans or to evaluate the specific impact of actions and strategies.

To achieve this objective several open issues must be treated. The following is the list of extensions scheduled in our next Composition and aggregation of PCs and ECs. To express the conditions of activation of ECs, depending on the PCs available and their level of adeptness. Instances of metrics for gap analysis. To define techniques to identify gaps with exact or soft matchers. To use gap analysis in the definition of the learning activities adapting to user requirements. To use gap analysis in team construction maximizing the capability of teams. Cost-benefits analysis of the impact of a strategy, distinguishing among short, medium and long term effects.

A customer relationship management roadmap: What is known, potential pitfalls, and where to go. Journal of Marketing, 69 4: Product Innovation Management, 18 1: Science and technology roadmaps. Science and technology roadmapping to support project planning. Customizing the technology roadmapping approach. The complexity in engineering processes of high technology companies needs to carefully and efficiently manage the human resources competences dedicated to the related activities.

In addition, this flexible structure can be easily modified to respond to a continuously changing competence scenario related to the business environment. In this situation, competence-based management is becoming an object of growing interest. The human resources and specially their competences are considered strategic assets to achieving the companies objectives [Ct07]. The continuous monitoring of resources and competence gaps, and the definition of actions aimed to fill them, become fundamental organizational capabilities. The management of competences requires the definition of several entities and principles leading the implementation of a whole system that can be translated in an information system.

In fact, studies of effects and challenges related to computer-aided competence As part of a human resource management system, information technology IT -supported strategic competences management can be a driver of relevant benefits such as experts and talents location and allows to increase the objectivity in the evaluation of human resource. An efficient way to implement a complete competence management tool, which have a flexible structure related to the enterprise context, is to explicit a mathematical formalization supporting a valid understanding of competence management.

Several studies have been focused on the use of analytic mathematical model adapted to the theoretical basis concerning the competence management system [Hr06; Pt07; Rn07] but no one is based on the representation of the complexity of engineering competences in aerospace sector. In this perspective, the paper treats the case of a leading Italian aerospace company, Alenia Aeronautica, especially of the CTO Chief Technical Officer departments, very careful to have a clear view about the competences available and very interesting to search and continuously improve its competence management system.

Alenia Aeronautica is a large Italian aerospace company, part of the Finmeccanica group which operates in the aerospace sector and is involved in several programs e. Its CTO department has a purposeful competences management methodology and web-based application [Cr10] that need to be improved in order to optimize the evaluation and allocation of resources. By means of the set theory using sets, relationships and mappings between sets, the main concepts of the competence management methodology are defined to allow further and easily improvements with the aim to optimize the identification, development, and scouting of competences required in design, manufacturing, and testing activities through the realization of a new system.

The paper wants to underline the utility of a mathematical approach to overcome linguistic divergences between semantically equivalent concepts concerning a competence management methodology. Moreover, a mathematical model permits to lead an easier development of a related IT system. Zur Zielerreichung wird ein Mixed-Methods-Ansatz verfolgt. Dies bedeutet, dass unterschiedliche quantitative und qualitative Forschungsmethoden auf die genannten Fragestellungen angewendet werden, was einer Methodentriangulation auf die Problemstellung entspricht Myers Jeder Beitrag ist durch den Titel, die Autoren, das Publikationsorgan sowie die Einordnung in ein Ranking beschrieben.

Auf folgende Rankings wurde dabei Bezug genommen: C der Nacherntelogistik Teuteberg, F. Eine Anforderungsanalyse Freye, D. Smart Enterprise Engineering; Proceedings der Innovations and Teuteberg, F. Der Verfasser der vorliegenden kumulativen Dissertation leistete einen wesentlichen Beitrag zu allen Arbeiten. Frank Teuteberg begleitete alle Publikationen durch eine kritische Reflexion sowie eine inhaltliche und methodische Ausrichtung.

Zudem waren Marita Imhorst und Dr. Diethardt Freye wurde als Koautor aufgenommen. Die operative Transportauftragsdisposition wird als Basismerkmal des 4PL-Ansatzes im betrachteten Anwendungsfall identifiziert. Die Entwicklung des Reifegradmodells erfolgte von beiden Autoren zu gleichen Anteilen. Ordnungsrahmen der Dissertation 7. Zum anderen definieren sie die Ausgangssituation der Forschung durch eine Analyse des praxisorientierten Status quo, indem mit Hilfe des TOE-Frameworks die Ausgangssituation der betrachteten Branche bestimmt werden konnte. Beitrag 8 Mehmann et al.

Vielmehr integriert der Ansatz qualitative sowie quantitative Aspekte und Methoden im Rahmen der Methodentriangulation Myers Zur Einbindung in die Praxis und Darstellung eines anwendungsorientierten Bezugs wurde qualitative Forschung eingesetzt. Mittels eines konstruktionsorientierten Forschungsansatzes konnte der Bezug zur Wirtschaftsinformatik hergestellt werden, da unterschiedliche Artefakte untersucht werden konnten. Ein Artefakt kann dabei ein Informationssystem darstellen, welches mittels Forschungsmethoden der Fallstudienforschung, der Modellierung, der Simulation sowie der prototypischen Implementierung untersucht werden kann 9.

Zum einen wurde dadurch der Stand des Wissens ermittelt. Zur Abgrenzung des Forschungsgebietes war eine standardisierte Analysestruktur zur Beurteilung der einzelnen Publikationen notwendig. Tabelle 4 zeigt den analytischen Rahmen. Danach folgte im zweiten Schritt die Betrachtung der Forschungsmethoden, die in den analysierten Publikationen eingesetzt wurden. Diese Analyse verdeutlicht den bisherigen methodischen Ansatz der Wissenschaft im Kontext. Schritt 1 orientierte sich zur systematischen Auswahl der wissenschaftlichen Literatur am Forschungsprozess von Brocke et al.

Dieser unterteilt sich in Definition des Besonderer Fokus der Entwicklung der N-Tier-Architektur lag auf der Symbiose zwischen der Darstellung der praxisrelevanten Anforderungen und der Darstellung der wissenschaftlichen Weiterentwicklung der Thematik.

Die zahlreichen komplexen Schnittstellen des 4PL-Ansatzes konnten darstellt werden. Folgende Forschungsfrage FF wurde damit beantwortet: Abbildung 3 zeigt das erarbeitete Forschungsmodell. Neben der Untersuchung der Diffusionsfaktoren konnten folgende Erkenntnisse erarbeitet werden. Es wurde zudem herausgefunden, dass mit steigender Bekanntheit die Bereitschaft tendenziell steigt, mit einem derartigen SC-Integrator oder SC-Mediator zusammenzuarbeiten. Ein 4PL-Dienstleister mit einem abgestimmten Dienst- Abbildung 4 zeigt die eruierten Einflussfaktoren.

Abbildung 5 stellt das konzipierte TAMS dar. Zur Beantwortung der Forschungsfrage wurde die interpretative Fallstudienforschung angewandt Walsham Die zugrunde liegende Forschungsfrage definierte sich wie folgt: Die Datenaufnahme der Fallstudien erfolgte im Zeitraum von Februar bis Mai Nach einem telefonischen Erstkontakt mit den Befragten wurden alle notwendigen Informationen zur Vorbereitung per versandt. Zudem wurde eine relationale Perspektive eingenommen, damit jeder befragte Netzwerkakteur die Auswirkungen eines 4PL sowie die Potenziale eines 4PL versteht und auf seine Perspektive reflektieren kann.

Methodisch unterteilt sich der Beitrag in einen Bereich der Fallstudienforschung Yin sowie einen konstruktionsorientierten Forschungsansatz Wilde und Hess Abbildung 6 zeigt die im Beitrag vorgestellte Methodik. Jeder Prozessschritt wurde bewertet und analysiert. Beitrag 7 betrachtet den 4PL-Ansatz daher aus einer weiteren Perspektive wodurch zwei weitere Forschungsfragen beantwortet werden konnten.

Zur Beantwortung der Forschungsfragen beschreibt der Beitrag eine inhaltliche Diskussion der Nachhaltigkeitsanforderungen. Die Nachhaltigkeitsanforderungen wurden anhand der Prozessschritte des Transportplanungsprozesses untersucht. Tabelle 5 beschreibt die Datengrundlage in Form einer Matrix. Die anwendungsorientierten Erkenntnisse beschreiben eine signifikante Verbesserung der Transportplanung durch den 4PL-Ansatz, wodurch Kosteneinsparungen zu erwarten sind. Zudem wurde das adaptierte Model Nikolaou et al.

Abbildung 7 und Abbildung 8. Zur weiteren Aufbereitung der Thematik wurde ein Reifegradmodell entwickelt Becker et al. Diskussion der Ergebnisse 4. Erfahrungen und Wissen aus der Praxis, zur Dies beinhaltet die Analyse und Darstellung eines notwendigen Kooperationsansatzes im Netzwerk.

Uber oder Lieferando angeboten werden. Dennoch unterliegen die Prozesse Beitrag 1 Mehmann et al. Delivering insight today, Creating value tomorrow. Strategies for qualitative research, Transaction Publishers. Wirtschaftsinformatik S Mehmann, J. Innovations and Strategies for Logistics and Supply Chains. Informatik angepasst an Mensch, Organisation und Umwelt; Guidelines for improving the software process, Addison-Wesley.

Research in Organizational Behavior. A beginner's guide, Berlin, Heidelberg: Design and methods, Sage publications.

Jens Mehmann Lingen, IX. Die Nacherntelogistik erstreckt sich dabei von der ersten Lagerung bis zum ersten Weiterverarbeitungsschritt des Gutes. Dieser gliedert sich in die Schritte Definition des Forschungsbereiches, Konzeptualisierung, Literatursuche und -auswahl, Literaturanalyse sowie Ableitung von Implikationen.

Soziokulturell und organisatorisch betrachten die Forschungsarbeiten vor allem Entscheidungsfindungsprozesse eines 4PL. Technologische Forschungsfragen betrachten vor allem die Erforschung einer 4PL-Plattform mit unterschiedlichsten Funktionen. Es wurde festgestellt, dass der 4PL-Ansatz mit einer entsprechenden Plattform bisher nicht in der Branche vorhanden ist bzw. Der allgemeine Tenor erkennt das Verbesserungspotenzial in der Nacherntelogistik. Information systems in a globalizing world; challenges, ethics, and practices, Proceedings of the 17th European Conference on Information Systems, Verona Heinrich, L.

The value a 4PL provider can contribute to an organization. Analyzing the past to prepare for the future: In order to elaborate upon the diffusion factors, we based our research on an exploratory study, and applied the Technology-Organization-Environment TOE framework. Within the scope of our research, we extracted those factors e.

The study concentrates on the sector of German agricultural bulk logistics in which the 4PL approach is not implemented yet. The findings have important implications for the development of a 4PL approach within the sector. Our study provides an overview of prevailing characteristics of further diffusion factors in view of the main technologies, organizational structures and environmental influences. The total cultivated area, however, remained unchanged which is due to the introduction of industrial structures such as increased employment, improved harvesting technologies and enhanced methods of the processing of the harvest.

One key element of the harvesting process is the post-harvest transport logistic. While in the early 90s companies and traders tended to outsource logistics activities, and thus contributed to a propagation of logistics service providers [2], this trend occurred only sporadically in the agricultural sector [3].

This may be a result of the traditional structures within the agriculture. The current agricultural value chain in the bulk segment is characterized by the activities of various actors producers, local traders, freight forwarders, carriers, wholesalers, processors who perform various logistical tasks e. Those actors possess the required transport and storage re- XVII. Each actor is responsible for an efficient use of his own resources.

The opportunity of saving logistics costs based upon a cooperation with external logistic providers PL has been neglected [4]. Expert interviews with wholesale traders and dispatchers in August revealed the following characteristics for the German sector of agricultural bulk logistics: In the German agricultural sector, there are similar structures, however, without focus on supply chain management. The agricultural sector consists of a wholesale level which consolidates the harvest volumes for the internal market. Hence, transport activities are generated.

Currently, there is no effort towards transport optimization. Each actor of the agricultural sector tries to handle the freightage of traded goods. This results in empty runs and high costs. Exploratory studies that examine the 4PL approach in agricultural bulk logistics have not been endeavored so far. This paper presents the first exploratory study of German agricultural bulk logistics with focus on the 4PL approach. The addressed research question is: What are the main diffusion factors of the 4PL approach in the sector of German agricultural bulk logistics? This research question emerges from two main questions in the relevant literature: What is the role of a 4PL [7] [8] including the actors of the transport network [9]?

What are preconditions to manage the supply chain [10] and what are the reasons of cooperation and outsourcing of transport activities in the examined sector [11]? The research effort is presented as follows: Section 3 addresses the TOE framework. Thereafter in section 4, the research model is described. In section 5 the empirical effort is described. Section 6 presents the survey results. Prior to the detailed presentation and discussion of the hypothesis in section 7. Section 8 summarizes limitations, further research and the main contributions. During the late 90s, this approach was sporadically discussed in the literature.

However, since , an increasing number publications explore the approach. Especially, conference papers describe developments of 4PL platforms [13] [14]. Definitions of the 4PL approach are relatively uniform. Win [7] supplements the aforementioned definition with criteria of asset freedom and an operational perspective. In all these definitions 4PL is described as an element of a network that can contribute to a total supply chain solution. In this context 4PL may perceive various tasks. According to Gattorna and Selen [18] 4PL may be seen as a supply chain SC visionary, as SC planner and optimizer, project manager, service, system and information integrator [19].

From a strategic point of view, 4PL is supposed to manage the supply chain as well as support the cooperation of actors within that supply chain. From an operational point of view, the core capability of a 4PL comprises the supply of an IT-Infrastructure as well as the information and communication technology. The aim is to provide an information flow that enables actors in a supply chain to better network and thus participate in a complex and far-reaching transport planning process [49] Only with the support of IS and IT a 4PL is capable of mastering the challenges and complexity of a supply chain, which classifies 4PL as a relevant artefact [30].

A common information platform is necessary for the implementation of the desired tasks and for an information management within a network of actors [20]. One challenge of a 4PL is its role in implementing the skills required by customers and transportation providers 3PL , shippers 2PL and producers with their own logistics equipment 1PL in terms of desired services, technological connectivity and motivation of cooperation [21]. Prior to the introduction of 4PL, available services have to be implemented in a more efficient way than previously accomplished by solitary actors within the network.

On the one hand, the arrangement of transportation should result in its increase in efficiency due to a larger number of freightage commissions on the 4PL level , and on the other hand this has to be an outsourced service. In order to implement that, various actor perspectives have to be analyzed [50].

The TOE framework is an approach that is capable of such an analysis, and therefore is being applied. It is divided into three elements technology, organization and environment that may affect the introduction of a technological innovation. The technology aspect refers to the available technology within a company internal and a market external. The organizational aspect covers descriptive characteristics such as company size, the number of employees and internal and external resources.

The environmental aspect describes the influences of the industry, trade partners and the competition situation. The literature provides a number of examples in how the TOE framework supported an analysis of technological innovation in various research contexts. In another example the framework helped to examine the influence of mobile commerce [24] and e-business [25] on companies.

In this study the 4PL approach within the sector of German agricultural bulk logistics was analyzed. Only those TOE-related diffusion factors are analyzed that assume the willingness of companies to introduce innovations [29].

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The 4PL approach within the annotated sector is an innovative attempt. Based upon the TOE framework seven different hypotheses have been elaborated. These hypotheses examine the diffusion of 4PL in the light of criteria that have been derived from the elements Technology, Organization and Environment of the TOE framework. This way a methodological consistency between TOE framework including its elements and the 4PL approach is achieved. This way a 4PL can work as an integrator [17]. IT Platforms with various inter- XX. The application of IT in the supply chain is as a benefit that companies mainly use for the operational execution of business processes [31].

Internal LIT includes the technology used internally for inter-departmental communication, information exchange and the implementation of internal processes. Examples of internal information technology are e. External LIT facilitates communication and information that may be shared with supply chain partners. This includes interfaces, transmission media and software applications which allow an efficient exchange of information with supply chain partners. Due to the high number of small and medium enterprises SME in the agricultural sector, various technologies must be considered based upon insights from SME research [33].

This results in a division of external LIT in telephone, fax, mobile phone, , online portal, EDI and others to provide a variety of technologies depending on the development stage of a company. For the 4PL as an integral entity in a supply chain the available technology of the supply chain partners is important for handling tasks such as transport planning.

At the same time, these technologies can cohere with the support of a 4PL. If such systems are already implemented on a company level the request for 4PL might be significantly lower. Under these circumstances the assumption can be made that there is a relationship between the external LIT and the diffusion of the 4PL approach when communication and information sharing infrastructures are used. Therefore the following hypothesis is derived: In terms of internal LIT we assumed no relationship with the diffusion of the 4PL because a 4PL approach represents an optional service.

Every network participant has a choice to use that offer. The internal LIT implies internal systems whereby the 4PL approach has more an external character, which results in the second hypothesis: Zhu et al [25] state that larger organizations tend to adopt innovative approaches more slowly due to their inertia. Nevertheless, they can provide greater financial resources for the introduction of new technologies. Smaller companies expect a resources-saving implementation with less communication and less cooperation than large enterprises. In terms of logistics, information management via Internet is one possibility for the performance improvement [35].

The internet-based 4PL approach with the provision of a common platform is of particular importance for the SME driven sector: The approach provides sufficient capabilities for a lean information flow and the connectivity of network participants [21]. The sector of agricultural bulk logistic is dominated by SMEs which at the same time act as transport services.

Under the assumption of various development stages of companies in the sector, no direct correlation between company size and the diffusion of the 4PL approach may be expected. Larger companies are likely to have more experienced internet users but have already appropriate software and services available. Smaller companies may use the internet less than larger ones but would appreciate the beneficial services of a 4PL. The service portfolio of a logistics service provider influences its role in the network [37] in a way that diffusion factors for a 4PL can be affected.

In the SME environment of the sector the question arises: Nevertheless, it is necessary to consider what services are of particular importance. This is because they often have an own service portfolio. Overlapping and similar services influence the diffusion of the 4PL approach [17]. Network actors with similar services may recognize the bundling of services as synergies so that 4PL is an option for them.

With the following hypothesis we would like to proof whether or not there is a relationship between the number of services and the diffusion of the 4PL: In this context the 4PL approach can be understood as a kind of a market where customers and transport providers act as participants. For this reason, the willingness to use IT and the willingness to invest in IT are central characteristics of the actors.

This is of particular importance for the diffusion of the 4PL approach. The varying willingness of actors to outsource services on the one hand, and limited trust, which is apparent in an occasional analysis of the willingness of other actors to cooperate, on the other clearly indicate a competitive situation. The readiness to use IT is a factor for the introduction of new and innovative approaches. The decision to apply IT in companies can be seen as subject to industry-specific factors such as technological change or market volatility [39].

If manual information systems such as fax XXII. To implement this, it is necessary to develop those technologies that are capable to encourage investments in the sector [13], and that rely on the participants willingness to invest in appropriate information and communication technologies. For this reason, it is possible that companies support the 4PL approach without the required financial resources.

They may not support the recent information and communication technologies but they support the 4PL approach notwithstanding. Hence, the readiness to support the 4PL approach does not depend on the level of willingness to invest in information technologies, which is expressed in the following hypothesis: Another aspect within the environmental context is the variation in structures of a 4PL approach, taking into account the core competence approach of resources theory [40].

While a typical SME 2PL or 3PL classifies occasional services such as transport or storage as core competences in the sector, a 4PL acts as a strategic service provider. It generates greater planning periods whereby resources can be used efficiently to achieve increased levels of data transparency [5] [41]. Therefore, it is necessary that network actors outsource services and acquire targeted services from providers within the network. The following hypothesis should examine this context: The division of labor in a network of agricultural bulk logistics as a diffusion factor of a 4PL approach requires the technical readiness of the involved actors and their willingness to cooperate.

Studies have revealed that cooperation improves the innovation capability and performance of the cooperating companies [42]. However, readiness to cooperate, trust, resources and systematic management among the companies are required [43]. Willingness and confidence should be a premise for tasks and services, which could be provided to actors of the network that are more efficient.

In view of actor behavior in the SMEdriven sector trust and readiness to cooperate might be difficult to accomplish. This could hamper the emergence and transparency of information in the form of a 4PL platform. A transparent exchange of information is a central characteristics for the 4PL approach [21]. A 4PL provider is not a direct competitor, network actors might be more easily willing to exchange information than through a direct cooperation.

Therefore, a direct relationship cannot be presumed. The research objective is to identify the factors that will help to understand the diffusion factors of the 4PL approach in the sector of German agricultural bulk logistics. The research model Figure 1 includes seven factors, which are deduced from three different contexts of the TOE framework, and represented in form of seven hypotheses. In the organizational context a distinction is made between company size and the number of services by the network participants [34].

As part of the environment context there is some differentiation between the participants willingness to invest in IT, to outsource services to the 4PL and to cooperate [43]. In order to test the seven different hypotheses empirical data must be collected and analyzed. The methodology for the data collection is described in the following section 5. Research Model 5 Actor selection, data collection and empirical knowledge The TOE concept including its three main elements provides a well structured conceptual framework for designing empirical research. This way the derived hypotheses can be tested, and the opportunities for the diffusion of the 4PL are indicated in detail.

However, the survey population must be chosen carefully because of the high degree of specialization and the close relationship to the sector. For this reason stakeholder involvement and actor analysis is required prior to the actual survey. Data collection and enhancement for this study was accomplished in cooperation with a research partner wholesale level who is an actor in the field of agricultural bulk logistics. This partner identified the most relevant actors and experts in the field. As a first step semi-structured interviews were conducted.

Those experts, two 2PL, two traders and two 3PL, were selected with the aim to provide various actor perspectives within this sector. The results of the expert interviews helped to identify the sample. For this reason a high representation of these two actor XXIV. With the help of Limesurvey an online Survey was generated and provided to the selected actors. The survey design was evaluated by those experts of the sector who had worked for at least 8 years as dispatchers. Based upon the experience of these experts with actors of type 2PL and 3PL, they helped to find the appropriate terminology for the survey.

The survey has the aim to detect the potential for the introduction of the 4PL approach in the sector. For this reason quantitative and qualitative questions were raised with the opportunity to comment and annotate. Two 2PL actors tested the revised draft of the survey in a pretest. This test resulted in the final version of the survey, which was sent to 2PL and 3PL between October and November for the results, please, also refer to the appendix 6 Results The data collected in our study were measured at different scale levels.

The items in the questionnaire were scaled in a way that the analysis could be performed using non-parametric distribution-free tests. Given a sample size of 31 a gausian distribution could not be assumed since companies have developed differently in terms of technology, organization and environment depending on the enterprise size. For the calculation of the difference hypothesis, the Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test and the Kruskal-Wallis test were used. The implementation of the function test was based upon the correlation coefficients Spear man's rho.

Mathematically, this approach does not result in deviation, since it uses the median [44]. The groups depend on the factors turnover, employees and number of trucks of the participants. All together 31 questionnaires were completed, which implies a response rate of Table 1 in the appendix displays the characteristics of the participants. Table 2 in the appendix shows the main characteristics of the companies of the survey. Although the sample is comparatively small in terms of the available quantitative data, it is nonetheless a useful statistical outcome [45]. Various reports have demonstrated that feasible results can be achieved with small sample sizes such as ours i.

To classify the situation of the market the questionnaire asked for outsource activities and purchase activities of services Appendix Fig. If particular functions are outsourced, these are predominantly accounting and workshop repairs as well as for IT, truck and ship freight. Twenty of the XXV. Furthermore, in our survey we asked about the services a company would desire from a 4PL. For this purpose, there was a choice of 39 different services. Figure 2 Appendix displays the most requested 10 services. Table 1 Appendix Table 3 lists the evaluation results of hypotheses testing.

The sample size, the correlation, the significance as well as the acceptance or rejection of the hypotheses is presented. Hypothesis Sample Table 1. Results of the hypotheses testing Testing of group differences Testing of correlation Chisquare significance Correlation Significance asymptotic df Technological context Perception H Not supported H1.

Supported Organizational context H2. Supported Environmental context H Supported H Not supported H Supported 7 Hypotheses testing and Discussion The goal of our research was a better understanding the diffusion factors of the 4PL approach in the sector of German agricultural bulk logistics. Based on the TOE framework, various factors have been worked out. The results reveal the current situation as well as a potential for further research activities. In the following paragraphs the individual factors are discussed in more detail.

An effective technological environment enables value-added services, such as transparency and tracking of products [18]. The means of IT involve logistical processes, sharing information and minimizing interfaces for the networking of companies [47]. These technologies are special for a 4PL as a possible provider for a sector to provide services for the supply chain participants. Our survey demonstrates that the use of external LIT is rather low in the sector. The prevailing communication means are telephone and fax The analysis of the relationships resulted in a negative correlation Respondents quotes such as: We use software to connect GPS and application systems including route planning substantiate that.

On the one hand, there is a possible potential of the sector, on the other hand some of the companies use their own existing internal LIT. When analyzing a possible introduction of a 4PL approach the size of the company is a criterion. Therefore, the hypothesis H2. Different development perspectives towards a 4PL approach could be a reason. Larger companies with lot of IT and other services may not have the need for a 4PL as they have the capability to develop those internally.

Moreover, small companies might suffer from a synergy effect of an emerging 4PL within the network as they could result in a price deterioration among 2PL actors. Nevertheless, smaller companies recognize a potential for applying a 4PL, in spite of their existential fears. This was attested with statements such as "live and let live" or "fair play. The presumption of the H2. A relation that confirms the hypothesis was not be indicated correlation , significance 0.

The negative correlation might be indicating that companies who offer many services are unwilling to support the 4PL. An average of two services per company is offered. None of the respondents was offering IT services. This confirms the low implementation and use of information and communication technologies ICT.

Apart from the willingness to invest, an industry s readiness to outsource and its cooperativeness have to be examined. With regard to the willingness to invest it was not possible to determine a significant correlation between the willingness to invest in ICT and the diffusion of the 4PL approach H3. Thus, the hypothesis was confirmed. However, in order to increase transportation sales actors are willing to invest in the exchange of equipment and new mobile technology.

This relates predominantly to transport overhangs which could not be used due to capacitive restrictions. If a 4PL provides similar services, the majority of respondents would be willing to use the services. The possible functions of planning and control, the combination of services and the development of standards for the sector have been assessed as highly important. According to Xuefang [21] a 4PL approach requires transparency. From the perspective of the carriers stock overview are less important.

Functions important for cooperation are: The explanatory model for the diffusion of the 4PL approach in the German agricultural bulk logistics sector is depicted in Figure 4 in the appendix. In this chart all diffusion factors according to the TOE framework are quantified including the correlation and the significance. A central factor is the actors' acceptance of the introduction of a 4 PL approach in the considered sector. Moreover, the question arises whether there is a company with a strong market position to occupy the role of a 4PL actor.

In a network structure with many small companies, different internal developments may be assumed. These are technological, organizational and environmental differences. The improvement of services and lowering of costs are in the focus of the developments. From a practical point of view one of the main results is that the participants' expectations in a 4PL approach are the improvement of cooperation and networking rather than higher sales.

However, this should not affect the core business transport. This confirms the approach of asset freedom [7]. Based upon the survey there is a link between an increasing awareness and a willingness to work with a 4PL. There is undoubtedly a potential in this segment in comparison to other industries. The actors of the sector only have core competencies transport. A 4PL provider with a range of services could be a partner in the supply chain combining and implementing administrative activities. The analysis has shown that companies are willing to invest in new technology.

Synergies for the carrier and for the 4PL are possible. From a scientific point of view, we provided a number of insights: As a result we contribute to a better understanding of the non-critical considered 4PL approach in a continuously growing and increasingly connected working environment. The focus on the agricultural sector showed a potential for the 4PL.

With the TOE framework, we analyzed the 4PL approach from various perspectives, and indicated a field of application in the logistical context. First, our study is based upon the sector of agricultural bulk logistics in Germany. Future research should also address the agricultural bulk logistics in other countries. Future research should evaluate an industry where a 4PL is already successfully implemented and accepted by the supply network partners. A back casting of their relevant diffusion factors might deliver valuable insights for the agricultural bulk logistics. Third, the nature of the research and the available data result in uncertainties: Moreover, the advanced average age of the respondents indicates a general reluctance to accept and apply recent ICT; b the TOE framework has limitations in terms of its strict definitions of the contexts.

Real world phenomena might have overlapping characteristics. However, the TOE framework applied to other industries provides a high degree of comparability. If future studies are carried out in an industry that specifies the 4PL approach in detail, yet available empirical methods such as questionnaires and surveys can be further developed, if resources are available. The virtue of a 4PL approach is that varieties of support services and tools can be developed which are capable of enhancing the entire process of a transport job in the sector.

In future the use of techniques in route planning for the sector as a service should be explored by the 4PL. This way early indicators for the operational and the strategic planning of the transport process can be incorporated. In respect of the retentiveness of several actors and the growing competition in the logistics business indicators need to be developed that show the performance of a 4PL. In this context, the 2PL and 3PL are given transparent information about their own functions but also in cooperation with a possible 4PL. Only by a high degree of cooperation the 4PL can implement the desired functions in the network.

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Company size effect in innovative performance. Savannah, Georgia The influence of industry culture on an inter-organisational information system adoption process. Transportation planning may imply versatile and complex decision problems. The most distinctive feature of agricultural transportation planning is: During the harvesting process various actors such as farmers, contractors, agricultural traders, transportation companies and processing industries have to collaborate.

This contribution presents a conceptual framework of a decision support approach for operational dispatching and its implementation based upon a multi-agent system MAS. This agent-based approach enables users to conflate dispersed structure information, apply optimization techniques and provide a goal-oriented planning and transaction of transportation.

This is a result of structural changes in the sector such as a steadily decreasing number of reception points and the emergence of major processing industries. In addition, an increasing commodity trading on the stock market as well as the current trend towards more energy supply through biomass indicate a change within the agricultural sector [1], [2]. As a result an increasing demand in transportation has to be met with available capacities, which are presently at their limits. Other means of transportation are railroad cargo traffic, inland navigation and sea cargo handling, which serve as cross-boarder transport through import and export of agricultural goods.

The value of the harvests of agricultural goods significantly impacts the transportation volumes and thus the dispatch of transports. The main influencing factors of dispatch are: For example, within the factor 'environment' weather determines the harvest period and for the harvest volumes stock markets determine price development and trading activities. At the same time legislation influences the dispatch of transportation depending on the use and processing of the goods with foodstuffs directives.

The quality of the harvested crop influences its utilization and thus the type XXXV. Furthermore, the dispatch of transportation depends on the supply of cargo space and machinery. The latter is important because many harvested crops require specific means of transportation. Currently, people are the main factor for transportation dispatch. According to an online survey of carriers in the sector, conducted in October and November , transportation commissions are assigned based upon experience and individual preferences of the cargo loaders.

The factor 'management' of this sector is characterized by little interconnectedness and few approaches of cooperation. In terms of the methodology, dispatching is accomplished mainly via phone and fax as well as sporadically via. Presently, this may be characterized as 'ad hoc workflow' of transportation transaction. As a result transparency and oversight of transportation activities for the dispatch of agricultural bulk goods are slight. Figure 1 provides an overview of the main influencing factors [5].

Main influencing factors of dispatching agricultural bulk goods In order to introduce market transparency as well as to pool the aforementioned key actors the authors examined the Fourth Party Logistic Provider 4PL approach. The main challenge of a TOMS is to master the transition from the previous ad hoc workflow, in which each actor tries to optimize individual target criteria locally, to a global optimization of work flow with network-oriented target criteria and standardized information flow.

The main part of a TOMS is the transaction of shipping orders. The following paragraphs describe the conceptual framework as well as design considerations of a decision support system DSS for the transaction of shipping orders in the agricultural sector. This sector is characterized by loosely linked actors which create a transportation network of Germany. Furthermore, the transportation network is subject to dynamic alterations dependent upon varying harvest periods as they affect trading and transportation activities as well as the routes of transportation.

From the point of view of a 4PL structural information is decentralized in the hands of the actors of the transportation network. For this reason a multi-agent architecture was selected, which represents actors as software agents integrated in a DSS. These actors may be endorsed with diverse manifestations and functions. This agent is endowed with the capability to operatively dispatch agricultural bulk goods. The agent's activities are integrated in a conceptual framework of a TOMS.

These research activities are part of the third party funded research project KOMOBAR, which examines decision and communication strategies of cooperating mobile agricultural work machines. The following section provides terms and definitions. Section 4 elaborates on the functions of a TOMS based upon an implemented requirements analysis within the sector in combination with a validation of the MAS and taking into account practical values of the involved actors. The last section 5 discusses potential future research and benefits of the TOMS, for the 4PL approach and for the sector. This actor is equipped with the capacity of the suppliers [6], [7].

The pooling of available information is supposed to create synergies among customers and suppliers. Practice-oriented approaches describe a successful implementation of 4PL in retailing [8] as well as automobile production [9]. These results encouraged the authors to review an adaption of the 4PL approach within the agricultural sector. Similar to the aforementioned branches, customers within the agricultural sector should be enabled to acquire traded goods safely and transparently. Moreover, transportation services suppliers may expect an efficient resource utilization. In order to implement the 4PL approach sufficiently a thorough analysis of the previous ad hoc workflow for the transaction of transportation including its applied methods, mechanisms and processes of the sector.

A typical ad hoc workflow is characterized by a non-standardized process, which can not always attain optimal results. Furthermore the ad hoc workflow is mainly determined by individual experience. However, an administratively supporting workflow follows well-defined procedures, apart from occasional exceptions [10]. Internal and cross-company business processes that are operated and controlled by IT support have key functions for the workflow management as well as the 4PL approach [11]. An increased process transparency, an improved integration of actors, an accelerated information flow and this way an improved efficiency result in an increased additional value of the workflow.

A cross-company workflow is significant for a transportation management that controls the transportation of goods and includes all actors of the sector traders, transportation providers, service providers, recipients and senders. This results from the timing process among the various actors. This may also be relevant for the application in the agricultural sector. Central transportation approaches plan and regulate the transportation network by help of a software instance. This includes the recognition of a transportation request message TRM , transaction and controlling.

The integration of various actor parameters which includes processing large data sets is a challenge. These data sets may alter permanently, but have to be processed instantly [13].

In addition, only local planning expertise is available for processing relevant information within a centralized planning system [14]. In case of a decentralized transportation planning approach network actors decide autonomously. Each of the actors may apply own specific target criteria, and individually decide either for acceptance, forwarding or rejection of a commission. In this case local knowledge is applied [14]. Yet, available local actor systems are linked due to software agents as well as predefined interfaces and protocols. This system landscape facilitates a data and information exchange beyond local scale.

Hybrid planning systems merge both centralized and decentralized planning approaches, whereby a centrally designed plan is being provided for autonomous units. In case of a deviation of the plan agents flag feedback, which may achieve control function on demand [13]. According to Wooldridge and Jennings [15] a software agent is a hardware or software-based computer system which operates without the direct intervention of humans or others.

Software agents have some kind of control over their actions and internal state autonomy. In addition, agents may have social capabilities in order to interact with other software agents or users. Moreover, agents are reactive and even proactive, and this way have the capability to interact with the environment entities that are not agents nor users [15].

Once single software agents are linked and start interacting, a multi-agent system MAS emerges. These MAS may generate and represent complex systems with various functions [16]. Agentbased approaches including MAS emerged from a number of scientific disciplines such as artificial intelligence, robotics or system science when object-oriented programming methods were applied and human interfaces have been examined [17].

The application of agent-based approaches is manifold and reaches from product developments to supply chain management SCM [18]. The following section discusses related agent-based approaches as well as previous knowledge and experience of the agricultural sector as well as the 4PL approach. This resulted in various descriptions of applications in the field of logistics in scientific journals and conference proceedings. For instance, Mishra et al [19] describe the MAS-based logistic management of a recycling process that supports the enterprise in the implementation of 'green' supply chains.

Kaihara und Fujii [20] demonstrate an example of a gaming approach for the management of industrial collaboration with an MAS. Sheremetov und Rocha-Mier [21] demonstrate another example of a supply chain optimization with an MAS. The focus is here on dynamic structure and information alteration within a decision making process in a supply chain.

Gerber and Klusch [22] describe the use of agents for mobile planning services in the agricultural sector for the harvesting process. The intended transport process takes place down-stream of the harvesting process.

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