The value of crowdsourcing, arising from an instant access to a scalable expert network on-line, has been demonstrated by many success stories, such as GoldCorp, Netflix, and TopCoder. For enterprises, crowdsourcing promises significant cost-savings, quicker task completion times, and formation of expert communities (both within and outside the enterprise). Many aspects of the vision of enterprise crowdsourcing are under vigorous refinement. The reasons for this lack of progress, beyond the isolated and purpose-specific crowdsourcing efforts, are manifold. In this paper, we present our experience in deploying an enterprise crowdsourcing service in the IT Inventory Management domain. We focus on the technical and sociological challenges of creating enterprise crowdsourcing service that are generalpurpose, and that extend beyond mere specific-purpose, run-once prototypes. Such systems are deployed to the extent that they become an integrated part of business processes. Only when such degree of integration is achieved, the enteprises can fully adopt crowdsourcing and reap its benefits. We discuss the challenges in creating and deploying the enterprise crowdsourcing platform, and articulate current technical, governance and sociological issues towards defining a research agenda.

Purpose This paper aims to examine three of the major issues relating to the welfare of seafarers, including wages, social security benefits and onboard and ashore welfare facilities and services. It is impossible to research all countries here, so this paper selects Greece – which is one of today’s primary shipping countries as for shipowning, as well as for global supply and demand for seafarers – to conduct an empirical case study. Design/methodology/approach Based on the existing knowledge and scholarship, and primary data collected in several phases of fieldwork, this paper intends to critically examine three major issues relating to the welfare for Greek seafarers, namely, wages, social security benefits and onboard and ashore welfare facilities and services. Findings This paper finds that they face poor labour conditions, which are getting worse due to the depressed world and Greek economies and intense financial pressures on shipping companies. The entry into force of the Maritime Labour Convention 2006 has a significant impact on the world maritime industry. Research limitations/implications This paper critically examines the three major issues relating to the welfare of Greek seafarers. Originality/value Such issues, which Greece is facing are also common in other countries, so the findings and suggestions revealed from this paper are of importance for the global shipping industry and other states.

Knowledge that cannot be discovered through automated methods, such as user practices, remains in informal mediums. It is unstructured, and in collective possession of the experts, yet it is key for business insights. Typically this "Non-Discoverable knowledge" is gathered in semi-automated way, which at best provides crude estimates, and doesn't scale. In this paper, we describe our novel approach to rapidly design a process solution for a family of business objects, gathering required knowledge through the use of social networking to identify the experts. We propose a "Deconstructed Survey" that captures the knowledge request, and manages its lifecycle through task forwarding and subtasking. We developed the system BizRay, instantiating the proposed approach as a general-purpose, self-service Web-based, crowdsourcing service. We demonstrate its effectiveness in accelerating knowledge discovery, through our experiences with deployments for IT Optimization and Services Delivery.

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) has evolved from business-to-business interactions, into the new API model that enables open partnerships and interoperability with just about anyone. In SOA, terms of service (ToS) and service level agreements (SLAs) were agreed upon on one-to-one basis, as the Web service interfaces were defined. In contrast, API ecosystems appeal for self-serve and instant gratification, being able to access, try and buy an API with a single click. As business teams and citizen developers access API ecosystems, they will want to quickly identify APIs that conform to their legal and usage terms requirements. For example, a large, established enterprise would not be as keen to give up their brand permission easily through use of a 3 rd party API, whereas a citizen developer would probably not be concerned too much. Therefore we see a need to be able to automatically assess API terms of service to facilitate comparison and selection of multiple APIs from different providers. To enable API consumers to navigate this flood of APIs, we present a system that simplifies API terms of service creation and assessment. The core of the proposed system is a common API terms of service data model, which captures legal and entitlement capabilities. The system enables profile-based search, thereby allowing users to specify their terms of service requirements relevant to different roles that they may have in the ecosystem (e.g. citizen developer, enterprise procurement officer, etc.).

The Northern Sea Route (NSR) is a shipping route running from the Barents Sea, near Russia's border with Norway, to the Bering Strait between Siberia and Alaska. Melting Arctic ice caps are likely to increase traffic in and the commercial viability of the Northern Sea Route. It is expected to become a commercial alternative to the existing shipping network, which is defined by international trading patterns and population centres. However, there is a lack of substantial research on the development and prospect of the utilisation of the NSR. When the NSR can attain mainstream usage remains unexplored. Based on the existing knowledge and scholarship available in the public domain, together with data collected from Northern Sea Route Administration (NSRA) and Equasis database, this paper critically examines the usage of the NSR between 2011 and 2017, and the major factors preventing its wide adoption. It is found in this study that the usage of the NSR has generally been low, and has in fact dropped over the years.