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The purpose of this paper is to report an inter‐disciplinary experience in building a context‐aware system that provides adapted functionalities to inhabitants of a smart home. The paper focuses on the management of uncertainty that is intrinsic to pervasive computing systems.

The paper presents the principles that characterize the context‐aware architecture: the acceptability‐driven design, where privacy and acceptability are favored; the awareness of the gap between the reality of human activity and the capabilities of the capture process; the step‐by‐step abstraction of contextual information; the management of uncertainty imprecision and ignorance at individual‐ and cross‐layer levels. The paper presents the principles and describes the system architecture, focusing on the management of uncertainty.

The authors built a layered architecture that manages and propagates uncertainty, imprecision and ignorance, allowing the recognition of ambiguous contexts and the provision of adapted functionalities. The paper illustrates this architecture and an application leveraging it.

Future work will investigate the exploitation of feedback mechanisms and the recognition of context dynamics. These improvements will allow resolving inconsistencies and ambiguities in context information and improving the provision of functionalities in situations characterized by temporal developments.

The research aims at realizing the long‐term vision of smart homes that provide adapted functionalities to inhabitants: saving energy and improving comfort and quality of domestic life.

The paper introduces some principles that can be considered when designing a context‐aware system and presents an architecture that follows those principles. Researchers in the smart home and pervasive computing domains may consider this paper when designing their context‐aware architectures.

In this quarterly review of government publications, the judgments expressed are those of the reviewer, Dr. Frederic J. O'Hara, professor of library science. Graduate Library School, Long Island University, Greenvale, New York 11548. Unless otherwise indicated, all items are depository items and may be purchased from the Super‐intendent of Documents, Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402. Dr. O'Hara does not handle the distribution of any documents.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the effects of knowledge management (KM) enablers on KM processes in research universities and testing the direct relation between KM processes and OP. This study also proposes to examine the mediating role of intellectual capital (IC) and innovation in the relationship between KM processes and performance of universities.

Using a sample of 217 academic and administrative personnel from research universities of Pakistan, the hypothesized relationships were tested through partial least squares structural equation modeling technique.

The results reveal that KM enablers have a significant impact on KM processes. The results also indicate that KM processes influence organizational performance (OP) directly and indirectly through innovation and IC.

Findings of this study reinforce the corporate experience of KM and suggest how administrators of research universities and higher educational institutions can promote innovation and IC, which in turn enhance OP.

Despite the augmented importance of KM in higher education institutions or research universities, there is a dearth of studies that investigate the interplay of KM, innovation, IC and OP. This is one of the earliest studies that not only empirically investigate the interaction of KM enablers, KM processes and performance of research universities but also shed insights into the existing literature by simultaneously investigating mediating role of IC and innovation in the underlying relationship.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how peer-to-peer word-of-mouth (PPWOM) conversations evolve over time because of the dynamic social nature of the community in which they take place.

This study analyzed PPWOM conversations in an online community website for new and expectant mothers. Two data collection phases were undertaken during a four-year period. In phase I, messages were collected for a one-month period from five different bulletin boards (i.e. cross-sectional data) and at two points in time (i.e. semi-longitudinal). In phase II, a full longitudinal study was conducted, and the complete text of all messages of a newly formed bulletin board was captured for a nine-month period. The corpus of messages was examined in line with the basic tools of ethnomethodology and conversation analysis.

This research developed a typology of PPWOM genres and showed that these genres change over the community lifespan. The findings confirmed that the levels of social cohesiveness and the interaction communicative motives are the main factors that distinguish different PPWOM genres.

This research has offered a new perspective into the study of PPWOM, and hopefully it will serve as a starting point for a broader dialogue regarding the social context in which PPWOM is exchanged.

In contrast to traditional word-of-mouth research, this study demonstrated that PPWOM conversations go much beyond the exchange of functional information, and instead serve numerous social and emotional goals.

Purpose: Entrepreneurial teams are one of the most crystallized forms of collaboration in the generically collective dynamics underpinning social entrepreneurship. Despite their quantitative prevalence, social entrepreneurial teams (SETs) remain quite absent from the scholarly literature. This chapter aims to develop a research agenda addressing this gap. Methodology/Approach: This chapter first reviews the scarce literature dealing with this subject and develops an operationalizable definition of SETs. Next, it confronts current knowledge on entrepreneurial teams with the specific context of social entrepreneurship to introduce and discuss main topics of investigation on SETs. Findings: Six topics are suggested to have a high potential for developing knowledge on SETs: formation, size and extended team, gender, decision-making and leadership, identity, and turnover. Research Implications: This chapter frames these research avenues within a developmental stages perspective with the aim to contribute to help form and maintain effective SETs. Originality/Value of Chapter: This research has implications for scholars as it defines SETs as a distinct object for research, which allows extending knowledge on collaborative dynamics in social entrepreneurship, but also on entrepreneurial teams in general. The suggested research agenda and its orientation toward the development of effective SETs should be a springboard for future research on this subject.

This chapter provides a detailed account of the comparison-based case study approach and argues that traditional case study approaches should adopt the comparison-based case study model. This study outlines the benefits and drawbacks of the comparative case study design. The penultimate section provides an example of a comparison-based case study to illustrate the virtues and the shortcomings of this mode of research. The chapter concludes with suggestions to aid novice tourism researchers and postgraduate students.

The Houma Indians reside in the backwaters of the Mississippi Delta, a coastal area that is disappearing due to natural subsidence, sea-level rise, and mismanagements of the ecosystems. The purpose of this paper is to scrutinize the causes of this ecocide and the responses addressing such environmental challenges, including scientific strategies, political non-intervention, and the United Houma Nation’s plans for preserving a sense of place and togetherness as a prerequisite for its cultural survival.

This ethnographic investigation relies on participant observation, and interviews with tribal leaders, fishermen, trappers, as well as scientists and local politicians. In order to grasp the emic perspective, most interviews were conducted in the Houma French dialect.

The Mississippi Delta epitomizes issues that will shape tomorrow’s world, namely, the vulnerability of coastal areas and the flows of environmental refugees. As shown by this study, coastal residents do not make a passive flux of evacuees responding to state/NGO-run plans. Actually, they are chief agents who either develop resilient strategies or proactive relocation stratagems to avoid ethnocide. Their pragmatic methodologies provide valuable data for any crisis management efforts.

This research gives a voice to the voiceless, and conveys their existential struggles from within – unlike most studies of endangered communities relying on outsiders’ viewpoints. This perspective depicts the Houmas as actors of their survival who implement diverse tribal strategies for coping with environmental change.