International Journal of Services Operations and Informatics (4 papers in press)

Regular Issues

• The Sovereign Debt Crisis and National Centripetal Vs Regional Centrifugal Forces in Political Economy: Empirical Lessons from Spain.  
  by Joaquin Gonzalez-Garcia, Joaquin Sotelo-Gonzalez, Pablo Zegarra-Saldaña 
  Abstract: Existing analytical frameworks are unable to establish what should be the right balance between national centrifugal and regional centripetal economic and political forces that allow for the creation of a stable and prosperous nation so this paper contributes to the body of scholarly works in political economy by concentrating on reviewing empirical evidences that the Spanish highly decentralized political system is failing to strike the right balance, especially during difficult economic times, since the regional centrifugal economic and political forces are overpowering the national centripetal ones and may signal a dangerous disassembling of the nation with the emergence of regional autarkical independence. The political balance of these forces will inevitably have a reflection on the economic variables, thus a causal relationship can be inferred by analysing the evolution of the variables sovereign debt at national and regional levels and the behaviour of the variables risk premium and the public securities credit rating.
  Keywords: Spanish sovereign debt crisis; sovereign risk premium; CRAs ratings; national centripetal economic and political forces; regional centrifugal economic and political forces; regional public debt; fiscal decentralization; country default risk; public accounts transparency; regional fiscal discipline.
  
  
• Construction of an instrument to evaluate the User eXperience of a group of co-creators in the upstream innovation process  
  by Adrien Lecossier 
  Abstract: The first part of this paper presents a theoretical model, named UX-FFE, which combines a User eXperience (UX) approach with an upstream innovation process. The main interest of this UX-FFE model is that it allows to evaluate the social aspect of the upstream innovation process, which may be detrimental to the success of radical innovation projects in mature companies. The second part presents the outcomes of the experiment of the model application for the ideation stage of the upstream innovation. The objective of this experiment is to evaluate how much the designed bipolar mixed-method instrument and construct are reliable enough. Finally, the results permit, from the original structure of the UX-FFE model, to construct an instrument UXi dedicated to evaluate the user experience of co-creators in ideation stage.
  Keywords: Fuzzy Front End; Frond End Innovation; Innovation Management; User eXperience; Reliability; Ideation; Assessment; Mixed-Method.
  
  
• Quantifying Value Co-Creation: Examining the Relationship between Realised Value Facets and Customer Experience in a B2B Context  
  by Muhammad Zeeshan, Yasir Rashid, Umer Ayub, Ansar Waseem 
  Abstract: Value co-creation has become central and one of the most researched topics among marketing scholars worldwide. This study discusses the relationship between value realization facets and customer experience that emerges from a value co-creation process. With assumptions of a positivist paradigm, this study is responding to the call for quantification of value co-creation concept by developing a multidimensional scale to measure value co-creationin the context of ICT industry. Multivariate data analysis techniques like exploratory factor analysis (EFA), cranachs alpha, and multiple regressions were used to check the reliability and validity of scale and test the hypothesis. The study finds that experience value (EV) is significantly and positively influenced by monetary value (MV), relationship value (RV) and functional value (FV). Moreover, it was also found that customer is more inclined toward RV and FV than that of MV to evaluate EV.
  Keywords: Value Co-creation; S-D Logic; Customer Experience; Value in Use; Value Realisation.
  
  
• Review Paper on Neighbor Discovery Protocol in IPv6 Link-local Network  
  by Emir Mahmood, Ayad Adhab, Ahmed Al-Ani 
  Abstract: Abstract: IPv6, that is, the Internet Protocol version 6, signifies the latest version of IP, the Internet Protocol. The communication protocol allocates an identification, as well as a location system of computers on th network. It routes traffic covering the Internet. One of the key protocols in IPv6 is the Neighbor Discovery Protocol (NDP). The NDP covers many functions including the discovery of nodes on a similar link, the verification of addresses that are link-layer, the detection of addresses that are duplicate, and the detection of routers. Due to the importance of NDP, it makes it susceptible to several attacks including DoS; Denial of Service attack. Many mechanisms have been proposed to secure NDP. However, these mechanisms are still vulnerable. This paper reviews the significance of NDP and presents the advantage and disadvantage of each proposed mechanism. Moreover, the SeND mechanism was implemented and the results were compared with the original NDP. This paper presents and discusses the requirements of features of the proposed security mechanism in securing the NDP processes in an IPv6 link-local network.
  Keywords: Neighbor Discovery Protocol; NDP; IPv6 Link-local Network; Network Security.