Data Governance and Automated Marketing – A Case Study of Expected Benefits of Organizing Data Governance in an ICT Company

This research is looking to find out what benefits employees expect the organization of data governance gains for an organization and how it benefits implementing automated marketing capabilities. Quality and usability of the data are crucial for organizations to meet various business needs. Organizations have more data and technology available what can be utilized for example in automated marketing. Data governance addresses the organization of decision rights and accountabilities for the management of an organization’s data assets. With automated marketing it is meant sending a right message, to a right person, at a right time, automatically. The research is a single case study conducted in Finnish ICT-company. The case company was starting to organize data governance and implementing automated marketing capabilities at the time of the research. Empirical material is interviews of the employees of the case company. Content analysis is used to interpret the interviews in order to find the answers to the research questions. Theoretical framework of the research is derived from the morphology of data governance. Findings of the research indicate that the employees expect the organization of data governance among others to improve customer experience, to improve sales, to provide abilities to identify individual customer’s life-situation, ensure that the handling of the data is according to the regulations and improve operational efficiency. The organization of data governance is expected to solve problems in customer data quality that are currently hindering implementation of automated marketing capabilities.

Ethical Perspectives on Big Data in Agri-food: Ownership and Governance for Safety

Big data are reshaping the way we interact with technology, thus fostering new applications to increase the safety-assessment of foods. An extraordinary amount of information is analysed using machine learning approaches aimed at detecting the existence or predicting the likelihood of future risks. Food business operators have to share the results of these analyses when applying to place on the market regulated products, whereas agri-food safety agencies (including the European Food Safety Authority) are exploring new avenues to increase the accuracy of their evaluations by processing Big data. Such an informational endowment brings with it opportunities and risks correlated to the extraction of meaningful inferences from data. However, conflicting interests and tensions among the involved entities - the industry, food safety agencies, and consumers - hinder the finding of shared methods to steer the processing of Big data in a sound, transparent and trustworthy way. A recent reform in the EU sectoral legislation, the lack of trust and the presence of a considerable number of stakeholders highlight the need of ethical contributions aimed at steering the development and the deployment of Big data applications. Moreover, Artificial Intelligence guidelines and charters published by European Union institutions and Member States have to be discussed in light of applied contexts, including the one at stake. This thesis aims to contribute to these goals by discussing what principles should be put forward when processing Big data in the context of agri-food safety-risk assessment. The research focuses on two interviewed topics - data ownership and data governance - by evaluating how the regulatory framework addresses the challenges raised by Big data analysis in these domains. The outcome of the project is a tentative Roadmap aimed to identify the principles to be observed when processing Big data in this domain and their possible implementations.

Master data quality management in a global enterprise

In a networked business environment the visibility requirements towards the supply operations and customer interface has become tighter. In order to meet those requirements the master data of case company is seen as an enabler. However the current state of master data and its quality are not seen good enough to meet those requirements. In this thesis the target of research was to develop a process for managing master data quality as a continuous process and find solutions to cleanse the current customer and supplier data to meet the quality requirements defined in that process. Based on the theory of Master Data Management and data cleansing, small amount of master data was analyzed and cleansed using one commercial data cleansing solution available on the market. This was conducted in cooperation with the vendor as a proof of concept. In the proof of concept the cleansing solution’s applicability to improve the quality of current master data was proved. Based on those findings and the theory of data management the recommendations and proposals for improving the quality of data were given. In the results was also discovered that the biggest reasons for poor data quality is the lack of data governance in the company, and the current master data solutions and its restrictions.

Success factors of customer and supplier master data system

Especially in global enterprises, key data is fragmented in multiple Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. Thus the data is inconsistent, fragmented and redundant across the various systems. Master Data Management (MDM) is a concept, which creates cross-references between customers, suppliers and business units, and enables corporate hierarchies and structures. The overall goal for MDM is the ability to create an enterprise-wide consistent data model, which enables analyzing and reporting customer and supplier data. The goal of the study was defining the properties and success factors of a master data system. The theoretical background was based on literature and the case consisted of enterprise specific needs and demands. The theoretical part presents the concept, background, and principles of MDM and then the phases of system planning and implementation project. Case consists of background, definition of as is situation, definition of project, evaluation criterions and concludes the key results of the thesis. In the end chapter Conclusions combines common principles with the results of the case. The case part ended up dividing important factors of the system in success factors, technical requirements and business benefits. To clarify the project and find funding for the project, business benefits have to be defined and the realization has to be monitored. The thesis found out six success factors for the MDM system: Well defined business case, data management and monitoring, data models and structures defined and maintained, customer and supplier data governance, delivery and quality, commitment, and continuous communication with business. Technical requirements emerged several times during the thesis and therefore those can’t be ignored in the project. Conclusions chapter goes through these factors on a general level. The success factors and technical requirements are related to the essentials of MDM: Governance, Action and Quality. This chapter could be used as guidance in a master data management project.

Decentralized systems for the protection and portability of personal data

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has been designed to help promote a view in favor of the interests of individuals instead of large corporations. However, there is the need of more dedicated technologies that can help companies comply with GDPR while enabling people to exercise their rights. We argue that such a dedicated solution must address two main issues: the need for more transparency towards individuals regarding the management of their personal information and their often hindered ability to access and make interoperable personal data in a way that the exercise of one's rights would result in straightforward. We aim to provide a system that helps to push personal data management towards the individual's control, i.e., a personal information management system (PIMS). By using distributed storage and decentralized computing networks to control online services, users' personal information could be shifted towards those directly concerned, i.e., the data subjects. The use of Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) and Decentralized File Storage (DFS) as an implementation of decentralized systems is of paramount importance in this case. The structure of this dissertation follows an incremental approach to describing a set of decentralized systems and models that revolves around personal data and their subjects. Each chapter of this dissertation builds up the previous one and discusses the technical implementation of a system and its relation with the corresponding regulations. We refer to the EU regulatory framework, including GDPR, eIDAS, and Data Governance Act, to build our final system architecture's functional and non-functional drivers. In our PIMS design, personal data is kept in a Personal Data Space (PDS) consisting of encrypted personal data referring to the subject stored in a DFS. On top of that, a network of authorization servers acts as a data intermediary to provide access to potential data recipients through smart contracts.

April 25, 2012

Geneva Henry, Executive Director of the Center for Digital Scholarship, Rice University. Data rights and ownership of digital research data can impact how you use data, how others use data you've collected, and how rights are determined in collaborative research. Copyright rules governing data vary from one country to the next, making data ownership in international collaborations particularly murky. Licensing the use of data sets from the start is one way to address these issues early and provide a means for easily sharing datasets that can be cited and properly attributed. This talk with introduce issues associated with digital research data governance and how to protect your rights with data you work with.

Surveillance risks in IoT applied to smart cities

Nowadays, cities deal with unprecedented pollution and overpopulation problems, and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies are supporting them in facing these issues and becoming increasingly smart. IoT sensors embedded in public infrastructure can provide granular data on the urban environment, and help public authorities to make their cities more sustainable and efficient. Nonetheless, this pervasive data collection also raises high surveillance risks, jeopardizing privacy and data protection rights. Against this backdrop, this thesis addresses how IoT surveillance technologies can be implemented in a legally compliant and ethically acceptable fashion in smart cities. An interdisciplinary approach is embraced to investigate this question, combining doctrinal legal research (on privacy, data protection, criminal procedure) with insights from philosophy, governance, and urban studies. The fundamental normative argument of this work is that surveillance constitutes a necessary feature of modern information societies. Nonetheless, as the complexity of surveillance phenomena increases, there emerges a need to develop more fine-attuned proportionality assessments to ensure a legitimate implementation of monitoring technologies. This research tackles this gap from different perspectives, analyzing the EU data protection legislation and the United States and European case law on privacy expectations and surveillance. Specifically, a coherent multi-factor test assessing privacy expectations in public IoT environments and a surveillance taxonomy are proposed to inform proportionality assessments of surveillance initiatives in smart cities. These insights are also applied to four use cases: facial recognition technologies, drones, environmental policing, and smart nudging. Lastly, the investigation examines competing data governance models in the digital domain and the smart city, reviewing the EU upcoming data governance framework. It is argued that, despite the stated policy goals, the balance of interests may often favor corporate strategies in data sharing, to the detriment of common good uses of data in the urban context.

La nuova eGovernance sanitaria europea: verso una piena integrazione della digitalizzazione nei sistemi sanitari degli Stati membri

L’elaborato approfondisce il diritto alla salute nell’ordinamento dell’Unione europea, con la consapevolezza che il settore della sanità, nella complessità di una tensione perdurante tra la sua matrice sociale e l’applicazione di logiche europee di mercato, rappresenta un ambito da sempre sottratto all’intervento diretto e vincolante delle istituzioni. Contemporaneamente, prende spunto dall’osservazione della transizione digitale dei sistemi sanitari nazionali per proporre una rilettura dei tradizionali equilibri istituzionali tra ordinamenti e constatare il grado di influenza dell’Unione oltre la dimensione transfrontaliera. Infatti, per le attuali esigenze di sostenibilità dei sistemi di tutela della salute e per il valore aggiunto riconosciuto alle azioni europee nel corso della gestione della pandemia da Covid-19, l’eHealth ha rappresentato l’occasione per una vigorosa intrusione delle istituzioni europee entro prerogative tipicamente statuali, fino all’emersione di una eGovernance sanitaria europea. Pertanto, la trattazione compie un percorso evolutivo che muove dalla Direttiva 2011/24 sull’assistenza transfrontaliera e l’assistenza sanitaria online, in combinato disposto con il complesso degli atti di soft law connessi, per verificarne l’esiguo impatto sui sistemi sanitari degli Stati membri e, alla luce dei recenti investimenti strategici ed interventi normativi rilevanti in tema di tecnologie applicate alla sanità, riconoscerne il sostanziale superamento. In particolare, il confronto tra l’insufficiente livello di digitalizzazione raggiunto finora nei sistemi sanitari degli Stati membri ed il tenore della Proposta di regolamento sullo European Health Data Space suggerisce l’evoluzione dell’impianto di governo dei dati sanitari stabilito nella Direttiva, a partire dalla previsione di una disciplina comune sulla cartella sanitaria. A questo proposito, l’interoperabilità tra tecnologie diviene un presupposto operativo indefettibile, che corrobora la natura ‘tecnologicamente condizionata’ del diritto alla salute e propone l’idea che la sanità digitale rappresenti un passo in avanti verso un’assistenza europea uniforme.

Governance of Healthcare Data: International Standards and Recommendations

In the global phenomenon, the aging population becomes a critical issue. Data and information concerning elderly citizens are increasing and are not well organized. In addition, these unstructured data and information cause the problems for decision makers. Since we live in a digital world, Information Technology is considered to be a tool in order to solve problems. Data, information, and knowledge are crucial components to facilitate success in IT service system. Therefore, it is necessary to study how to organize or to govern data from various sources related elderly citizens. The research is conducted due to the fact that there is no internationally accepted holistic framework for governance of data. The research limits the scope to study on the healthcare domain; however, the results can be applied to the other areas. The research starts with an ongoing research of Dahlberg and Nokkala (2015) as a theory. It explains the classification of existing data sources and their characteristics with the focus on managerial perspectives. Then the studies of existing frameworks at international and national level organizations have been performed to show the current frameworks, which have been used and are useful in compiling data on elderly citizens. The international organizations in this research are selected based on their reputations and the reliability to obtain information. The selected countries at national level provide different point of views between two countries. Australia is a forerunner in IT governance while Thailand is the country which the author has familiar knowledge of the current situation. Considered the discussions of frameworks at international and national organizations level illustrate the main characteristics of each framework. At international organization level gives precedence to the interoperability of exchanging data and information between different parties. Whereas at national level shows the importance of the acknowledgement of using frameworks throughout the country in order to make the frameworks to be effective. After the studies of both international and national organization levels, the thesis shows the summarized tables to answer the fitness to the proposed framework by Dahlberg and Nokkala whether the framework help to consolidate data from various sources with different formats, hierarchies, structures, velocities, and other attributes of data storages. In addition, suggestions and recommendations will be proposed for the future research.

The role of big data in governance: a regulatory and legal perspective of analytics in global financial services

This paper discusses how global financial institutions are using big data analytics within their compliance operations. A lot of previous research has focused on the strategic implications of big data, but not much research has considered how such tools are entwined with regulatory breaches and investigations in financial services. Our work covers two in-depth qualitative case studies, each addressing a distinct type of analytics. The first case focuses on analytics which manage everyday compliance breaches and so are expected by managers. The second case focuses on analytics which facilitate investigation and litigation where serious unexpected breaches may have occurred. In doing so, the study focuses on the micro/data to understand how these tools are influencing operational risks and practices. The paper draws from two bodies of literature, the social studies of information systems and finance to guide our analysis and practitioner recommendations. The cases illustrate how technologies are implicated in multijurisdictional challenges and regulatory conflicts at each end of the operational risk spectrum. We find that compliance analytics are both shaping and reporting regulatory matters yet often firms may have difficulties in recruiting individuals with relevant but diverse skill sets. The cases also underscore the increasing need for financial organizations to adopt robust information governance policies and processes to ease future remediation efforts.

Data Mart para apoio ?? capacita????o em gest??o de pol??ticas p??blicas voltado para uma Escola de Administra????o P??blica

Este trabalho consiste num estudo de caso que se destina ao desenvolvimento de um Data Mart que possibilite a Escola Nacional de Administra????o P??blica ??? ENAP conhecer o perfil e o panorama geral da situa????o funcional dos servidores p??blicos federais que se capacitaram na Escola nos ??ltimos 7 anos. O aplicativo foi desenvolvido cruzando o banco de dados do sistema gerenciador dos cursos ministrados pela ENAP, onde est??o armazenadas informa????es sobre os alunos capacitados, os cursos realizados, os resultados alcan??ados, o perfil dos docentes e demais informa????es relativas ??s atividades da Escola, com os dados gerados pelo Sistema Integrado de Administra????o de Recursos Humanos ??? SIAPE, cuja extra????o de dados foi direcionada para os registros sobre a situa????o funcional, cargos, carreiras, fun????es, ??rg??os e alguns dados pessoais dos alunos, servidores p??blicos federais que se encontram registrados no SIAPE

Institutional Development for Good Governance: the role of intermediary NGOs in Pará state, Amazonia

The paper analyses the roles of intermediary NGOs for linkages between government and rural communities in carrying out socio-environmental development programs as a mean of institutional development for good governance. In particular, the paper focuses on the Proambiente program that was carried out in Pará State, Amazonia, Brazil. This program was the first experience of a socio-environmental development program in Brazilian Amazonia that took into account local communities' demands to link environmental conservation and small-scale family-based rural production. Methodologically, the research was based on qualitative analysis and used semi-structured interviews for data collection. The paper shows that NGOs as intermediaries between government and rural communities is a significant mechanism to promote the strengthening of the power of local communities, to create bridges between federal government and local communities; and to stimulate participatory processes by engaging rural communities' culture and knowledge in socio-environmental development program as Proambiente.

Effects of health decentralization, financing and governance in Mexico

OBJECTIVE: To identify the effects of decentralization on health financing and governance policies in Mexico from the perspective of users and providers. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was carried out in four states that were selected according to geopolitical and administrative criteria. Four indicators were assessed: changes and effects on governance, financing sources and funds, the final destination of resources, and fund allocation mechanisms. Data collection was performed using in-depth interviews with health system key personnel and community leaders, consensus techniques and document analyses. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed by thematic segmentation. RESULTS: The results show different effectiveness levels for the four states regarding changes in financing policies and community participation. Effects on health financing after decentralization were identified in each state, including: greater participation of municipal and state governments in health expenditure, increased financial participation of households, greater community participation in low-income states, duality and confusion in the new mechanisms for coordination among the three government levels, absence of an accountability system, lack of human resources and technical skills to implement, monitor and evaluate changes in financing. CONCLUSIONS: In general, positive and negative effects of decentralization on health financing and governance were identified. The effects mentioned by health service providers and users were related to a diversification of financing sources, a greater margin for decisions around the use and final destination of financial resources and normative development for the use of resources. At the community level, direct financial contributions were mentioned, as well as in-kind contributions, particularly in the form of community work.

When Corporate Governance crosses the firm borders: family firms in local productive systems

The family involvement in firms is observable is most economies around the world, although there are significant differences among these countries, not only regarding its predominance in these economies, but also in what refers to the levels of involvement of the family in business. This research aims at understanding the family-based firms’ management when compared to non family based, with particular regards to the forms of corporate governance. This analysis is based on case studies and on secondary data found in the literature to support the findings from the empirical research. The data was collected via face to face in-depth interviews with entrepreneurs from the furniture and the events organisation industries (where the family is predominantly present in the furniture but not on the events organisation industry) and with industry and regional business associations. The case studies used in this research allowed the comparison between the Portuguese firms when the family plays an important role in business and those in which the family is absent. It has been found that there are important differences in businesses in countries/industries/local productive systems in which the family is seen as a dominant institution in the society (where businesses are based on strong ties; there is a harmonious relationship between the family members; and the family is accepted locally and dominates the firm organization) and on situations in which the family plays a more marginal role in the society. In fact, the family brings special characteristics to the business, in terms of management, corporate governance, inter and intra firm relationships and succession. Our findings confirm other empirical studies’ results found in the literature. Thus, this article provides a discussion on the factors that play a role in the form of corporate governance structure in family firms highlighting the pros and cons of organising the firm around the family.

Regional governance: strategies and disputes in health region management

OBJECTIVE To analyze the regional governance of the health systemin relation to management strategies and disputes.METHODOLOGICAL PROCEDURES A qualitative study with health managers from 19 municipalities in the health region of Bahia, Northeastern Brazil. Data were drawn from 17 semi-structured interviews of state, regional, and municipal health policymakers and managers; a focus group; observations of the regional interagency committee; and documents in 2012. The political-institutional and the organizational components were analyzed in the light of dialectical hermeneutics.RESULTS The regional interagency committee is the chief regional governance strategy/component and functions as a strategic tool for strengthening governance. It brings together a diversity of members responsible for decision making in the healthcare territories, who need to negotiate the allocation of funding and the distribution of facilities for common use in the region. The high turnover of health secretaries, their lack of autonomy from the local executive decisions, inadequate technical training to exercise their function, and the influence of party politics on decision making stand as obstacles to the regional interagency committee’s permeability to social demands. Funding is insufficient to enable the fulfillment of the officially integrated agreed-upon program or to boost public supply by the system, requiring that public managers procure services from the private market at values higher than the national health service price schedule (Brazilian Unified Health System Table). The study determined that “facilitators” under contract to health departments accelerated access to specialized (diagnostic, therapeutic and/or surgical) services in other municipalities by direct payment to physicians for procedure costs already covered by the Brazilian Unified Health System.CONCLUSIONS The characteristics identified a regionalized system with a conflictive pattern of governance and intermediate institutionalism. The regional interagency committee’s managerial routine needs to incorporate more democratic devices for connecting with educational institutions, devices that are more permeable to social demands relating to regional policy making.