"In the future data communication networks interoperability becomes critical from both technological and business strategy perspective. Significance of interoperability has to be evaluated in terms of the overall economic performance of the system. In this paper we will present our view of the...

Certifiers have a crucial role in facilitating effective communication in the online and the traditional world. As a way of generating statistically meaningful information, certification has been adopted in financial statements evaluation and more recently in various online communities as well....

This dissertation explores several aspects of the theory in industrial organization.The first chapter builds a model with two cost asymmetric firms who not only have Cournot competition in the spot market but also have the opportunity to trade forward contracts. It is shown that with forward...

This dissertation looks at several issues in designing an optimal skill-basedconsumer contest (SBCC). Consumer product (or service) companies, such asonline entertainment providers, often use SBCCs to promote the consumption oftheir products (or services). The main objective of a SBCC is to...

The purpose of this paper is to investigate franchisees' perception of the value of quality service in the franchise system. Two dimensions, perceived importance and perceived gaps of the quality of the franchise system, form the anchors of a proposed 2 x 2 franchise system quality(FSQ) matrix....

Although information technology investments in business organizations are growing rapidly, IT executives in business organizations have great difficulties in justifying increasing IT spending and in measuring the benefits of these investments. This research study aims to investigate current...

Growth in IT outsourcing is expected to remain high in the coming years as there have been widespread market claims that IT outsourcing can reduce firms' costs by over 30 percent. The scope and range of IT outsourcing services are also increasing, as evidenced by the promotion of ASP...

Large organizations have invested substantial financial resources ininformation technology (IT) over the last few decades. However, many organizationshave discovered that they have not yet fully reaped the B2BEC benefits from their IT investments. A model of IT evaluation management is proposed...

There is now considerable evidence supporting the view that codon usage is frequently under selection for translational accuracy. There are, however, multiple forms of inaccuracy (missense, premature termination, and frameshifting errors) and pinpointing a particular error process behind...