This paper presents a novel approach to the adaptation of multidimensional data models to user-specific needs. The multidimensional data models used in contemporary business-intelligence systems are inherently complex. In order to reduce the complexity of these models, we propose using a qualitative multiple-criteria decision modelling method that is based on using a hierarchical tree of the criteria to decompose the larger problem into a group of smaller problems. The final value is derived by aggregating the criteria values using simple “if-then” rules, which form the knowledge-based expert rules in the hierarchical criteria tree that reflect users’ preferences. The multiple-criteria analysis of the multidimensional model structure results in a multidimensional model that exhibits a reduced complexity and is adapted to users’ needs. The model was validated using sales data from a medium-size enterprise. The qualitative (through questionnaires) and the quantitative (through usage mining) evaluation of the proposed methodology both showed that the proposed approach increases the ease-of-use of business intelligence systems and also contributes to a higher user satisfaction.
COBISS.SI-ID: 7458067
This paper addresses the gap identified in the literature by exploring underlying structure of sustainability-oriented innovation practices as well as their effects on the particular performance dimensions (i.e., economic performance, quality performance, innovation performance, environmental performance and social performance). The large scale web-based survey yielded 266 usable responses encompassing both the manufacturing and service industries across five countries: Germany, Poland, Serbia, Slovenia and Spain. The results of the regression analysis demonstrate that sustainability-oriented innovation practices are positively related with the overall organizational performance. The empirical evidence suggests that when organizations strongly emphasize sustainability practices they can improve both economic and non-financial performance. From a practical perspective, the findings of the study may provide a clue regarding how organizations can embed sustainability aspects in their innovation processes with the aim of improving their performance.
COBISS.SI-ID: 7456275
The objective of this paper is to emphasize issues connected with micro-business fi nancial success and adoption of information and communication technology (ICT) as possible factors to determine further organisational growth. This understanding is based on the results of an investigation conducted in Slovenia between May and December 2009 in 134 Slovene micro-enterprises. Data for the main study were collected via structured interviews with owners or top managers of micro enterprises. We used some demographic questions about the business annual turnover, computerisation, owner’s characteristics and some questions about the fi nancial investments in ICT. To visualize and define factors we proposed a research model of annual turnover dependency in micro enterprise. The research focused on characteristics of owners of the enterprise, investments in ICT and characteristics of enterprises’ usage of available ICT in correlation to business annual turnover. The results indicate that adoption, the number and type of hardware and software are positively associated with the micro- enterprise success. An important factor is also formal education of the manager and/or owner and his or her computer and ICT knowledge and skills. We also found out that use of internet, eBusiness and number of used business software contribute to enterprise’s success. We can confirm that micro-enterprise informatisation can be the basis for a healthy economy growth if adequate knowledge and skills are present. To increase growth in micro-businesses we can use this and additional factors (intentions to growth, size, annual turnover, industry type,…) as filters to separate potential growing micro-enterprises from others that represent more than 94% of all enterprises in country. When we defined target group we can start to encourage growth with knowing methods from best practices all over the world. Based on our survey and on the review of literature, recommendations have been given how to be more effective and effi cient in encouraging the growth of micro-enterprises.
COBISS.SI-ID: 7456019
Among the answers to the new challenges of contemporary environment, cooperation between those who implement development in public administration at state, local and regional levels is increasingly highlighted. Surprisingly, the role of cooperation in developing projects and the maturity of public administrations’ project management organizations for accelerating the development of municipalities have not been researched until now. This study confirms that project cooperation between Slovenian municipalities promotes the municipalities’ orientation for achieving development through projects, and their management awareness of the importance of fundamental managerial functions and other project management concepts and techniques for the successful achievement of development goals.
COBISS.SI-ID: 12004636
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of the information retrieval component of a daily newspaper publisher’s integrated library system (ILS) in comparison with the open source alternatives and observe the impact of the scale of metadata, generated daily by library administrators, on retrieved result sets. In Experiment 1, the authors compared the result sets of the information retrieval system (IRS) component of the publisher’s current ILS and the result sets of proposed ones with human-assessed relevance judgment set. In Experiment 2, the authors compared the performance of proposed IRS components with the publisher’s current production IRS, using result sets of current IRS classified as relevant. Both experiments were conducted using standard information retrieval (IR) evaluation methods: precision, recall, precision at k, F-measure, mean average precision and 11-point interpolated average precision. Results showed that: first, in Experiment 1, the publisher’s current production ILS ranked last of all participating IRSs when compared to a relevance document set classified by the senior library administrator; and second, in Experiment 2, the tested IR components’ request handlers that used only automatically generated metadata performed slightly better than request handlers that used all of the metadata fields. Therefore, regarding the effectiveness of IR, the daily human effort of generating the publisher’s current set of metadata attributes is unjustified. The paper provides a framework for the evaluation of an ILS’s IR effectiveness for libraries.
COBISS.SI-ID: 7490835