Global Competition for Leadership Positions in Standards Development Organizations

This study provides a comprehensive analysis of the governance of standard development organizations (SDOs), with a particular emphasis on organizations developing standards for Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). The analysis is based on 17 SDO case studies, a survey of SDO stakeholders, an expert workshop, and a comprehensive review of the legal and economic literature. The study considers the external factors conditioning SDO decision making on rules and procedures, including binding legal requirements, government influence, the network of cooperative relationships with other SDOs and related organizations, and competitive forces. SDO decision-making is also shaped by internal factors, such as the SDOs’ institutional architecture of decision-making bodies and their respective decision-making processes, which govern the interaction among SDO stakeholders and between stakeholders and the SDO itself. The study also analyzes governance principles, such as openness, balance of interests, and consensus decision-making, and discusses their interplay. The insights from these analyses are applied to SDO decision making on Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) policies, which represents a particularly salient and controversial aspect of SDO policy development.

The effect of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) on our daily life needs no explanation. That standardization reduces diversity, facilitates interoperability and thus plays an important role in diffusing ICT uses is clear. Standardization matters to the ICT market. Less evident is the way in which standardization influences the kind of ICTs that become available to customers. In the past it was common to view committee standardization as a locus for collective learning and exchange of technological knowledge. New standards were expected to embody state-of-the art ideas on technology. But practitioners, i.e. ICT standards developers and implementers, as well as standardization watchers repeatedly voice disappointment about the technical content of new standards and the process of committee standardization. They criticize the formal standards bodies for furthering a politicized mode of standardization, and point to the greater use of standards that stem from other arena (e.g. consortia, user groups, and practitioner organizations). These other institutional settings of standardization are held to produce more applicable standards and standards of better quality technology-wise. Are they barking up the wrong tree? In this chapter I explore whether this is the case.

Information and communication technology (ICT) standards play a crucial role towards harnessing technological developments and shaping the technology landscape. ICT standards development is largely driven by standards developing organizations or standards setting organizations that represent and are informed by the perspectives and interests of the ICT private sector and the public sector. Thus the shaping of the standards is mostly driven by the business, technical, and legal impetus, towards facilitating greater market influence, coordination, integration, interoperability, and legal conformity. The technocentric, business-focused perspective to ICT developments, and corollary to ICT standards development, is distinct from and can be orthogonal to the human-centric perspective that elevates the role and centrality of the human concerns over the technology and business concerns. Notwithstanding the crucial role of business and technology, it remains that at the centre of the 21st century data-driven societies are individuals and end-users who are the primary actants and agents within the technology and data ecosystems. This gives motivation for infusing the human perspectives and values into technology development as well as into ICT standards development. This is more pronounced for cases where the business and technocentric interests are at odds and opposed to the human interests, such as, the need for increased datafication to support Big Data developments versus the need for individuals’privacy preservation. In this research, which is framed through a case study of personal health informatics in the context of sustainable development (i.e., sustainable development goal on “health and wellbeing” – SDG3) indicators monitoring, we have undertaken a survey to investigate the human-centric values and attitudes associated with the collection and use of personal data. From this inquiry, the paper highlights and surfaces: individuals attitudes and perceptions around monitoring of social indicators; key considerations associated with data ownership, privacy and confidentiality of data, as well as sharing of personal data within the data ecosystem. The paper then discusses how these findings could inform and be infused into the development of technology artefacts and standards, towards a realization of more human-centric data-informed societies.

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), would not function without standards. Today, almost all large vendors and service providers actively contribute to ICT standardisation, as do many smaller companies. Nevertheless, comparably little is known about firms' approaches to standardisation management. This paper analyses the characteristics of the major stakeholders and of the environment within which they work. It develops a framework as a basis for both practitioners and researchers to get a better understanding of the factors that may impact a firm's performance in standards setting. Some of these factors are then compared with findings from a case study and the identified differences are discussed.

With specific reference to information and communication technologies (ICT), this Chapter examines the structural relationship of various stakeholder groups to standardization, described both in terms of how different stakeholders demand and acquire standards and in terms of their corresponding motivations and/or capabilities to influence the standardization process. To this end, the Chapter will explore these dynamics in the context of ‘business models’, an emerging framework in the innovation context that describes commercial and organisational topologies for the supply and demand of goods and services from the perspective of how value is created and exchanged. Given the increasing synergy between many ICT standards and specific product and service environments, it will be shown how the business model is also potentially a useful device for understanding evolution in the supply and demand dynamics of standardization.

Information and communication technology (ICT) use has been associated with well-being among older adults. This link is often attributed to the fact that ICT use facilitates connecting with others. The purpose of this study is to assess how contact frequency and social tie strength impact the relationship between ICT use and depressive symptoms among older adults. Using data from the Detroit-based Social Relations Study collected in 2015, we use Bayesian analyses to examine the extent to which contact frequency with social network members moderates and the strength of these social tie (strong, moderate, and weak) mediate the link between ICT use and depressive symptoms among adults age 60 + (n = 483). ICT use was found to be associated with fewer depressive symptoms. Furthermore, ICT use was associated with more moderate and weak ties which were, in turn, associated with fewer depressive symptoms. Finally, a moderating effect was also found as ICT use was associated with fewer depressive symptoms only among those with lower contact frequency. Our findings suggest that for older adults who communicate with others less frequently, ICT use can prove beneficial to mental health (i.e., fewer depressive symptoms). Furthermore ICT use may be especially meaningful to connect with weaker social ties. These findings may be due in part to ICTs capabilities which enable older adults to maintain connection to a diverse array of social ties and bridge social and physical distance.

Digital development for a progressive networked society

The experience in Ethiopia rapid development of Information and Communication Technologies, which facilitates the flow of data and information, has tremendously enhanced the knowledge management practice in agriculture. The objective of this paper is to review the impact of information and communication technologies to improve agricultural productivity and rural income in Ethiopian and review the recently developed agricultural knowledge and information systems in Ethiopia and others related documents. The study is based on a systematic review of existing literature of agricultural information communication and knowledge management system work in the country and supported documents of others countries. The review paper is organized in four sections. Section I focuses on importance of Information and Communication Technologies to the Ethiopian agricultural extension system. The second section discusses types of Information and Communication Technologies used by the farmers in Ethiopia. The third section to review the challenges and opportunities of Information and Communication Technologies ICT in provision of information services for the developments of agricultural production and generates rural income in Ethiopia. The findings of this study reveal that the various forms of Information and Communication technology have been used in agricultural service delivery and were more in tune with the circumstances and requirements of smallholder farmers. Therefore, the emergence of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in this era has opened new opportunities in agricultural knowledge management that could play an important role in meeting the prevailing challenges related to innovation, sharing, exchanging and disseminating agricultural information, knowledge and technologies to the intended smallholder farmers. Keywords: Information communication technology; Agricultural Information ; productivity; Rural Income; knowledge management system; Ethiopia DOI: 10.7176/IKM/10-5-01 Publication date: August 31 st 2020

The framework of neoclassical growth accounting is widely used to estimate the impact of investments in information and communication technologies (ICT) on the macroeconomic bottom line. Results of multiple investigations presented evidence that investments in ICT have a positive impact on such measure of macroeconomic outcome as gross domestic product. Thus, it is not surprising that less developed countries of the world often turn to investments to ICT as one of the sources of a sustained economic development. But sustainability of economic growth is predicated on the sustainability of the sources of growth, such as investment capital and labor. The question of how annual investments in ICT are sustained is an important one, and yet it was not given much research consideration. This is, in part, due to the absence of a theoretically sound framework outlining mechanisms of investments → outcomes → reinvestments process. In this study, we synthesize a consistent with the framework of neoclassical growth accounting model allowing for investigating the process by which various microeconomic outcomes of investments in ICT are associated with re-investments in ICT. We test the proposed model using techniques of structural equation modeling with the data on investments in telecoms (a common subset of investments in ICT) in the context of transition economies. The results of the investigation support the notion of cyclical relationship between investments in ICT and economic outcomes [Qureshi, S. (2013). What is the role of mobile phones in bringing about growth? Information Technology for Development, 19(1), 1–4] and offer valuable insights to decision- and policy-makers tasked with the responsibility of improving the impact of investments in ICT.

The rapid evolution of information and communication technologies (ICTs) has made after-hours work-related ICTs (W_ICTs) use commonplace. The double-edged sword effects of W_ICTs have been widely concerned by researchers, but the role of cognitive appraisal has not been fully investigated. Based on the Transactional Model of Stress, this study explores the underlying mechanism and boundary condition of W_ICTs on work goal progress and fatigue. The hypotheses were tested using 200 two-wave employees’ data. The results showed the following: W_ICTs could improve work goal progress through challenge appraisal; Family Supportive Supervisor Behaviors (FSSB) could strengthen the positive relationship between W_ICTs and challenge appraisal while indirectly strengthening the positive relationship between W_ICTs and work goal progress and the negative relationship between W_ICTs and fatigue. This study revealed the positive impact of W_ICTs and the strengthening effect of FSSB on the W_ICTs–challenge appraisal relationship.

Background. Life expectancy is an important health status indicator based on average number of years a person at a given age may be expected to live given current mortality rates. Given this significance, it would be necessary to probe into the factors affecting the life expectancy. Ensuring that information and communication technology (ICT) services are properly used could contribute to development and achievement, as it represents an important issue for the countries moving toward knowledge-based and information-based societies. Therefore, this study explored the impact of the information and communication technology on life expectancy. Methods. This study covers annual data from 2008 to 2018 for a group of countries in the Middle East. Data were retrieved from the Annual Reports such as World Bank and International Telecommunication Union (ITU) data sets. The effects of ICT on life expectancy are estimated with the Panel model. We also used the Hausman test to investigate fixed versus random effects. The data were analyzed by Stata 14 software. Results. The core findings of this study confirm the significant impact of ICT on life expectancy in the Middle East. The calculated Coefficient of the regression was 0.551 indicating how much life expectancy changes when ICT variable increases by one unit. Moreover, the rho (intraclass correlation) was found to be 0.975 showing that 97.5% of the variance is due to differences across panels. Conclusion. Considering the effect of ICT on life expectancy, policymakers of the Middle Eastern countries should integrate the use of ICT with the existing programs and systems. Technology is not an end in itself but merely the means to reinforce the existing system and to meet the locally determined goals. It can be used as a tool to attain broader health and development goals. Background Life expectancy is an important health status indicator based on average number of years a person at a given age may be expected to live given current mortality rates. Given this significance, it would be necessary to probe into the factors affecting the life expectancy. Ensuring that information and communication technology (ICT) services are properly used could contribute to development and achievement, as it represents an important issue for the countries moving toward knowledge-based and information-based societies. As ICT affects everyday lives, it also impacts the macroeconomic growth, which in turn further affects everyday lives by allowing improvements in infrastructures and a higher standard of living. ICTs inherently entail the economic development of countries, regions and cities, while also improving social inclusion, well-being and therefore quality of life. Therefore, this study explored the impact of the information and communication technology on life expectancy. Methods This study covers annual data from 2008 to 2018 for a group of countries of in the Middle East. Data were retrieved from the Annual Reports such as World Bank dataset and International Telecommunication Union (ITU) data set. The effects of information and communication technology on life expectancy were estimated through the Panel model. First, stationary tests were performed with the Fisher’s generalized unit root test. In the Fisher test for panel data, the null hypothesis of a unit root was rejected at the 5% level of significance. The cross-section correlation test was performed with the Freeze test. The null hypothesis of no correlation was rejected at the 5% level of significance. We also used the Hausman test to investigate fixed versus random effects. The null hypothesis of no fixed effects was accepted so the random effects model was used. The Hausman test detects endogenous regressors in a regression model. Endogenous variables have values that are determined by other variables in the system. The data were analyzed by Stata 14 software. Results The core findings of this study confirm the significant impact of information and communication technology on life expectancy in the Middle East. The Coefficient of the regression was 0.551 indicating how much life expectancy changes when information technology variable increases by one unit. The coefficient of ICT shows that 1% increase in ICT variable causes 0.551 % incline in life expectancy and this result is significant at 5% level of significance. Regarding control variables, we found that all have expected statistically significant effects on life expectancy. The intra-cluster correlation coefficient (rho) is a measure of the relatedness, or similarity, of clustered data. Values of rho range from 0 to 1 in human studies, and as the rho increases, more individuals within the clusters resemble one another. The rho (intraclass correlation) was found to be 0.975 showing that 97.5% of the variance is due to differences across panels. This research recommends that human development programs need to focus on polices which foster digital inclusion. Conclusion Considering the effect of information and communication technology on life expectancy, policymakers of the Middle Eastern countries should integrate the use of information and communication technology with the existing programs and systems. The digital citizen is happier and values living in regions with technological capacity, investing in research & development, and committed to achieving sustainable growth. ICT use leads to improved assessments of the efficiency and management of the public administration by more technological users, underlining the importance of an understanding between users and public services in the virtual sphere. Technology is not an end in itself but merely an instrument to reinforce the existing system and to meet the locally determined goals. It can be used as a tool to attain broader health and development goals. The findings from this study provide key insights that explain how life expectancy may be enhanced through ICTs. Practical Implications of Research According to the influence of information and communication technology (ICT) on life expectancy, policymakers should provide ICT infrastructures and adopt strategies integrating ICT policies with human life criteria such as education, health and work to improve life expectancy. Ethical Consideration The paper reflects the author’s own research and analysis in a truthful and complete manner. Conflict of Interests This study was an independent research and the author declares no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Acknowledgement I would like to thank Dr Marzieh Ronaghi for her guidance and assistance throughout this research.

Information and communication technology (ICT) has changed and continues to change almost every aspect of our daily lives. Our personal lives, social interactions, educational systems, business atmosphere, and corporate culture-everything has changed in one way or another due to advances in the field of ICT. The construction industry is no exception. ICT provides an unprecedented opportunity as well as enormous challenges to the construction industry.

Education has been an important instrument for social and economic transformation. Presently, higher education in Algeria is experiencing a major transformation in terms of access and quality. This transition is highly influenced by the swift development in information and communication technologies (ICTs) all over the world. As Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has become one of the basic building blocks of modern society, its introduction in higher education has profound implications for the whole education process, especially in the issues of access, equity, management, efficiency, pedagogy, and quality. Inventive use of ICT is defined as the use of ICT applications that hold up the learning objectives based on the requirements of the modern information society. Hence, there is a need to bring out the facts on the impact of ICT on educational trainers. At the same time, the optimal utilization of opportunities arising due to diffusion of ICTs in higher education system presents a profound challenge for higher education institutes. The purpose of this paper is to discuss how implementation of ICT in EFL will improve the learning process in higher education in Algeria. It addresses the opportunities that can be gained through the integration of ICTs in various aspects of higher education. The study will be purely quantitative, and one questionnaire is administered for students to be analyzed.

Development of information and communication technology (ICT) for a coordinated healthcare program serving low income, chronically ill children

The development of information and communication technology is increasing in accordance with the changing times and needs of today's society, so that almost any activity or work is already subject and applying information technology and communication. The development of information technology and impact to the world of education, so that the public interest to major in computer informatics include Computer Network, Audio Visual, Graphic Design, Information Technology, etc. continue to increase both the level of high school or college level. Many enthusiasts of computer majors resulted in strong competition for the graduates to get jobs, so it needs no efforts to improve the skills and graduate students majoring in computer that does not merely want to find a job but was able to create job. STMIK Kaputama continue to perform activities of teaching, research and community service, see the strong competition of graduates and the needs of society Binjai and surrounding areas, lecturer STMIK Kaputama feel compelled to carry out community service to improve the skills of students SMKTunasPelita and AbdiNegara in the form of training computer assembly, installation of operating systems and installation of local networks and the internet to build a network of internet cafes, offices and internet village in increasing independence. With their training computer assembly, installation of operating systems and the installation of local networks and the Internet, it is expected students SMKTunasPelita and SMKAbdiNegara can further enhance the skills and entrepreneurial spirit so that they are capable of self-employed at the same time create jobs specifically to be able to receive computer repair and network cafe, internet network of offices and internet networks into the village. In addition to their entrepreneurial spirit, especially rural society also helped that the acceleration of information and communication can be further increased.