Luis San Martín, Alfonso Rodríguez, Angélica Caro and Ignacio Velásquez
Security requirements play an important role in software development. These can be specified both in enterprise architecture models and in business processes. Enterprises…
Abstract
Purpose
Security requirements play an important role in software development. These can be specified both in enterprise architecture models and in business processes. Enterprises increasingly carry out larger amounts of business processes where security plays a major role. Business processes including security can be automatically obtained from enterprise architecture models by applying a model-driven architecture approach, through a CIM to CIM transformation. The aim of this article is to present the specification of transformation rules for the correspondence between enterprise architecture and business process model elements focusing on security.
Design/methodology/approach
This work utilizes motivational aspects of the ArchiMate language to model security in the business layer of enterprise architectures. Next, a set of transformation rules defined with the Atlas Transformation Language are utilized to obtain the correspondence of the enterprise architecture elements in a business process, modelled with a security extension of BPMN.
Findings
A total of 19 transformation rules have been defined. These rules are more complex than element to element relations, as they take into consideration the context of the elements for establishing the correspondence. Additionally, the prototype of a tool that allows the automatic transformation between both models has been developed.
Originality/value
The results of this work demonstrate the possibility to tackle complex transformations between both models, as previous literature focuses on semantic correspondences. Moreover, the obtained models can be of use for software developers applying the model-driven approach.
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Javier Alfonso Rodríguez-Escobar and Javier González-Benito
This research aims to establish the role of the purchasing function’s strategic alignment in the relationship between well-established practices and performance in that function…
Abstract
Purpose
This research aims to establish the role of the purchasing function’s strategic alignment in the relationship between well-established practices and performance in that function. It is argued that the strategic alignment of purchasing may have effects (direct, mediating and moderating effects) on the purchasing function’s operating performance.
Design/methodology/approach
The hypotheses derived from key studies about strategic and advanced purchasing practices are tested with data from 156 industrial companies using structural equation modelling methodology.
Findings
The results suggest that the effect of strategic alignment on the role of purchasing consists of mediated effects on purchasing performance through implementation of certain advanced practices. It was also concluded that strategic alignment – as well as the implementation of these advanced purchasing practices – fosters the implementation of differentiation strategies based on quality, dependability and flexibility rather than on the implementation of cost leadership strategies.
Research limitations/implications
Although it is a common practice in operations management research, the use of perceptual measures obtained from a single informant constitutes a noteworthy limitation. Future research should make an effort to combine different sources of information and to identify and use more objective indicators.
Practical implications
Top managers should take into account the need to involve the purchasing function in the firm’s strategic planning process.
Originality/value
The results not only confirm findings from previous literature as to the purchasing function’s strategic relevance but also help clarify the mechanisms that make this integration important.
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Ana Ares-Pernas, Carmen Coronado Carvajal, Alfonso Gomis Rodríguez, María Isabel Fernández Ibáñez, Vicente Díaz Casás, María Sonia Zaragoza Fernández, María Sonia Bouza Fernández, Manuela del Pilar Santos Pita, Antonio Domingo García Allut, María Pilar Comesaña Pérez, María Jesús Caínzos López, Belén Feal Cabezón and Araceli Torres Miño
This paper aims to present and describe the main actions carried out in six different faculties and common areas such as cultural and research centres and administrative buildings…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to present and describe the main actions carried out in six different faculties and common areas such as cultural and research centres and administrative buildings in the Ferrol campus at the University of A Coruña to achieve the second green flag on a Galician University.
Design/methodology/approach
A case study describing the steps for implementing a green campus programme in a medium-size, young university campus integrated into a small city. An Environmental Campus Committee was created to assess the main factors that affect environmental footprint, discuss sustainability initiatives and develop a guide to action regarding different goals related to sustainable transport options, energy, water conservation and waste reduction. The actions included several fields such as education, circular economy and healthy life and involved the on and off-campus community.
Findings
The programme achieved a decrease in water consumption and electrical energy. An important change in educational values and behaviours regarding sustainability was observed in and out of the campus community. The measurements adopted mainly in waste management, mobility and education led the Ferrol campus to achieve a green campus flag on November 2019.
Originality/value
This experiment can serve as a guide to establish the Green Campus philosophy in other similar university campuses.
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Raphael Lissillour and Javier Alfonso Rodriguez-Escobar
Balancing exploration and exploitation is a strategic challenge for technology-based companies striving to successfully implement ambidexterity in rapidly changing markets. This…
Abstract
Purpose
Balancing exploration and exploitation is a strategic challenge for technology-based companies striving to successfully implement ambidexterity in rapidly changing markets. This study aims to look at the extent in which corporate universities can be instrumental in the cross-functional deployment of the resources, capabilities and experience needed to achieve organizational ambidexterity.
Design/methodology/approach
This study is the result of a single case study of ZTE University in China. Data from archives, direct observations, and semi-open interviews have been triangulated and analyzed with pattern matching technique.
Findings
This study analyzed the development of capabilities allowing the strategic combinations of exploration and exploitation, and to clearly witness how the corporate university was dynamically linked with those development.
Originality/value
The empirical results offer new insights on the most relevant capabilities for technology-based companies and notably those that are more likely to be exploited through a corporate university.
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Gaël Bonnin and Mauricio Rodriguez Alfonso
With the rise of digital media and content marketing, business-to-business (B2B) technology firms increasingly use narratives in their marketing strategy. If research has studied…
Abstract
Purpose
With the rise of digital media and content marketing, business-to-business (B2B) technology firms increasingly use narratives in their marketing strategy. If research has studied the impact of narrative on audiences, the structuration of the narrative strategies is still an overlooked area. The purpose of this paper is to understand the structuration of narrative strategies.
Design/methodology/approach
Authors studied the cases of narratives on the Internet of Things produced by two leading technology firms, IBM and Cisco, between 2012 and 2016. Material includes advertising campaigns, blogs, written customer cases, white papers, public speeches and selling discourses.
Findings
The research highlights the importance of metanarratives as the core of the structuration of seemingly different contents. It also shows how firms tap into fundamental mythic archetypes and broader sociocultural narratives to try and legitimate the emerging technology. Finally, research also introduces the concept of transmedia strategy and illustrates its use by the two firms studied.
Research limitations/implications
The results are based on only two cases of multinational firms, limiting the generalization of the findings.
Practical implications
The results of the research may encourage firms to use more narrative branding strategies. They also offer directions for the key elements to manage when elaborating a narrative strategy (defining key metanarratives, identifying and using broader sociocultural narratives, designing a transmedia strategy).
Originality/value
The paper is among the first to try to understand the structuration of narrative branding strategies. While exploratory, it contributes to research on B2B branding and digital branding by bringing the narrative into B2B branding research.
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Javier Alfonso Rodríguez-Escobar and Javier González-Benito
This paper aims to analyze how information technology (IT) can help explain performance by the purchasing function. In addition to analyzing the direct effect and mediating role…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to analyze how information technology (IT) can help explain performance by the purchasing function. In addition to analyzing the direct effect and mediating role of purchasing practices in the relationship between IT and purchasing performance, as has been considered in previous research, this study investigates the possibility of a moderating effect of IT in the relationships between purchasing practices and purchasing performance.
Design/methodology/approach
The propositions are tested with data from 156 purchasing managers, collected through a survey of members of the Spanish Association of Professionals of Purchasing and Supply Management who work in industrial companies.
Findings
Although IT investments exert a positive effect on the purchasing function, the results show that this effect takes place through the implementation of purchasing practices that in turn improve the results of the purchasing function.
Originality/value
Instead of focusing on a single, specific effect of IT investment in the purchasing function, this paper considers three potential effects (direct, mediated and moderating). Thus, it provides a more comprehensive overview of the topic and a more complete elucidation of the actual effects.
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Gilberto Garcia Batista, Rosa Maria Masson Cruz and Emigdio Rodriguez Alfonso
Cuban education under the direction of the State guarantees education for all. This allows achieving equality and full social justice in order to train men and women capable of…
Abstract
Cuban education under the direction of the State guarantees education for all. This allows achieving equality and full social justice in order to train men and women capable of facing contextual demands, within a social model that aspires to form their citizenship in corresponding to the historical tradition and contemporary demands within a global system. This educational process takes place within difficult economic conditions and a complex international scenario, which affects the Nation in a particular way because it is a developing country. In this work, an evaluative analysis of Cuban educational policy in its development in the last six decades is carried out with the purpose of demonstrating its distinctive features consolidated in the historical evolution of an educational system that maintains its development in complex economic situations and improvement based on the changing demands of society. This analysis considers both the national and global levels, science, technology and the references of pedagogical sciences, without renouncing the purpose of guaranteeing by the State a free, inclusive and quality education for all its citizens throughout life.
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Abstract
This chapter discusses the control of women's bodies and minds through the daily practices of menstrual control apps. Based on Michel Foucault's concepts (2003, 2006, 2013), the research is based on women's relationship with their own bodies. Still, it is wider than the body per se since the central theme is the construction of subjectivities. This paper embraces power modalities and explores disciplinary and discursive practices and regimes of truth, biopower, biopolitics and governance. The paper frames the fundamental points of Michel Foucault's analysis of power and how they are associated with strategies used for menstrual tracking apps. It looks at how apps act on the subjectivity of being a woman, shaping ways of thinking and acting. It looks at how disciplinary practices, knowledge–power and surveillance, as Foucault tells us, relate to themselves and medicine. The text highlights that monitoring data and corporate surveillance by menstrual apps poses unprecedented challenges to feminist politics. Therefore, we argue that the technology of menstrual tracking apps acts subtly and uninterruptedly to docilise female bodies and make them useful. Trying to find new paths and solutions from a feminist and critical perspective, we offer suggestions for further research on the topic, disregarding liberal approaches which rely on media literacy exclusively rather than a holistic comprehension of technology and women's rights.