Journal of Information and Organizational Sciences

1-20

Authors: Faris Ali, Randa Basheer, Mouhamad Kawas, Bassel Alkhatib

Conventionally, the Internet consists of three parts: Surface, Deep, and Dark Webs. In the last two decades, a massive increase in illicit activities took place on the different platforms of the Dark Web. Moreover, social networks on Dark Web implicate extremism dissemination on a wide scale. In this paper, we propose an approach to generate textual patterns from discussions on Dark Web terrorist forums employing Data Mining techniques. The discovered patterns help identify the influential members and extract critical topics. We describe our system modules that perform data preprocessing, text preprocessing with TF-IDF weighting, outlier detection, clustering evaluation, clustering, and clustering validation, implemented with the RapidMiner tool. We apply K-Means as the Clustering method with different distance metrics, evaluate the clustering process using Elbow and Silhouette methods, and validate it using Davies-Bouldin Index. Furthermore, we investigate the effects of altering the distance metrics for outlier detection on the Clustering results.

39-63

Authors: Xhavit Islami, Naim Mustafa

The purpose of this research is to measure the mediating role of teamwork and participation (T&P) on the relationship between two human resource (HR) practices – “training and development” (T&D) and “performance appraisal” (PA) – and operational performance (OP). Employing the contingency approach, this study develops a research model that validates the assumption that appropriate internal orchestration of HR practices improves firm performance. Using AMOS, data from 157 manufacturing firms are analyzed through structural equation modeling (SEM). The results show that T&P fully mediates the relationship between T&D and OP, and partially mediates the relationship between PA and OP. This study, which provides empirical support for the importance of OP to firm effectiveness, finds that OP is positively related to financial performance (FP). The study develops a theoretical logic and empirically demonstrates that T&P is an appropriate practice for mediating the impact of T&D and PA on OP. The inclusion of T&P contributes to the theory and shows that appropriate internal orchestration of HR practices can realize effective OP and consequently greater FP of the firm.

83-107

Authors: Ivana Čavar, Luka Bulian, Nikša Dubreta

Working from home and work flexibility have been highly researched academic topics over the past forty years, and their importance was further amplified during the COVID-19 pandemic. Numerous qualitative and quantitative studies were aimed at better understanding this work arrangement, but they often encountered the challenges of limited scope and the inability to generalize their results. The goal of this study was to test the consistency of the instrument used in measuring the experiences of working from home for Croatian engineers, check the presence of its latent dimensions, and finally determine whether these dimensions could predict engineers’ job satisfaction. Three factors were extracted by exploratory factor analysis (productivity and work quality, work-life balance, and organizations’ distrust and control), while the multiple linear regression analysis ran on those factors as predictors proved that, although work-life balance does not influence job satisfaction, productivity and work quality positively predict it, while organizations’ distrust and control do so negatively.

133-151

Authors: Mawloud Mosbah

Query, expressing the user need and requirement, has an important role, in an information retrieval system, for reaching a high accuracy search. In this paper, we present an overview of the different refinement operations that the query may undergo, in the sake to enhance performance of an information retrieval system, such as: automatic query formulation through words prevision, query reformulation, query expansion, and query optimization.

167-177

Authors: Vladislav Tanov

Data-centric is a newly explored concept, where the attention is given to data optimization methodologies and techniques to improve model performance, rather than focusing on machine learning models and hyperparameter tunning. This paper suggests an effective data optimization methodology for optimizing imbalanced small datasets that improves machine learning model performance. This paper is focused on providing an effective solution when the number of observations is not enough to construct a machine learning model with high values of the estimated magnitudes. For example, the majority of the observations are labeled as one class (majority class), and the rest as the other, commonly considered as the class of interest (minority class). The proposed methodology does not depend on the applied classification models, rather it is based on the properties of the data resampling approach to systematically enhance and optimize the training dataset. The paper examines numerical experiments applying the data centric optimization methodology, and compares with previously obtained results by other authors.

189-201

Authors: Rajender Kumar

The term "cloud computing" refers to a variety of tools and applications used by organizations to manage their work processes online. Apart from providing the expected benefits, the gadgets and applications of the cloud are helpful for education. The purpose of this study is not to examine the outcomes of cloud computing in universities, but to examine how students use cloud applications. A survey research design was used to examine how students of Kurukshetra University use cloud computing applications. 200 students from the streams of science, management, social science, and arts were randomly selected to answer a structured questionnaire. A response rate of 95% was achieved by 48 students in Science, 50 in Management, 48 in Social Science, and 44 in Arts who completed and returned the questionnaire on time. The analyzed data is presented in a table that includes the Likert scale mean, standard deviation, and the cross-table Chi-square test. In the study, most students highly preferred G Suite Cloud (57%) and Microsoft (40%) learning applications. It can be seen from the study that WhatsApp (98%), Facebook (96%), and YouTube (97%) are the most preferred cloud-based social media among the students, most students preferred Google Meet (95%) and Zoom (91%) meeting application, and most students preferred Google Drive (68%) and pCloud (67%) for data storage.

223-243

Authors: Melita Draganić

The framework for assessing the company's digital capability includes six key areas that can be individually evaluated to consider the overall maturity of a company's digital capability. According to this framework key areas are innovation capability, transformation capability and IT excellence as digital transformation enablers and customer centricity, effective knowledge worker and operational excellence as digital transformation goals. The focus of this research is the area of operational excellence. The purpose of the paper is to assess how the manufacturing company manages the digital transformation of the operational excellence. In the paper, the digital capability maturity model (DCMM) and its corresponding business transformation management methodology (BTM2) are used for this assessment. The BTM2 includes nine management disciplines and each of them is individually evaluated for the case of the operational excellence. These are the following disciplines: strategy management, value management, risk management, business process management, IT management, change management, training management, project management and meta management. According to the obtained assessment results the maturity of management disciplines for the case of operational excellence within the examined company is mostly reactive (maturity level 2). In order to improve the digital transformation of the company's operational excellence, it is necessary to define digital use cases based on the new technologies and map them to the existing maturity model of operational excellence of the company. It is necessary to consider the requirements of stakeholders regarding the benefits and risks of new digital technologies to improve the operational excellence of the company. Accordingly, the company should to define a new strategic plan and align it with the new IT strategy. For this purpose, COBIT 5 framework is used in the paper. The contribution of this research is in the proposed and described three-step approach to managing the operational excellence of companies and improving the level of digital capabilities of companies.