Дисертації з теми "Information intermediaries"

Cette thèse se compose de trois chapitres qui étudient empiriquement le rôle des intermédiaires d'information. La première partie analyse si la société mère d’une société de conseil en vote, a un intérêt direct dans les votes par procuration. La deuxième partie présente un travail conjoint réalisé avec Han Wu. Cette étude analyse si les conseillers en vote exercent un rôle actif en influençant la rémunération des dirigeants ou simplement un rôle passif en tant qu'intermédiaires de l'information. Le troisième chapitre, en collaboration avec Zhang Zhang, s’applique à déterminer si les rapports des agences de notation payées par les investisseurs transmettent des informations supplémentaires sur le risque des émetteurs de titres de créance
This dissertation consists of three chapters that empirically investigate the economics of information intermediaries. The first chapter investigates whether a proxy advisory firm’s parent company has a vested interest in proxy votes. The second chapter presents a joint work with Han Wu, examining whether proxy advisors exert an active role in influencing executive compensation or merely a passive role as information intermediaries. The third chapter, joint with Zhang Zhang, explores whether credit reports from investor-paid rating agencies provide incremental information of corporate debt issuers’ credit risk

Cette thése étudie le sujet du comportement stratégique des intermédiares de l'information.Dans le premier chapitre, j'analyse le comportement stratégique des plateformes financées par la publicité. Il existe une concurrence dans l'espace publicitaire entre les entreprises qui payent à une plateforme pour afficher leurs publicités. En effet, la plateforme décide de sa ``qualité de matching'' en choisissant le poids à accorder au paiement de chaque entreprise tout en tenant compte des préférences des consommateurs. L'augmentation de la qualité rend la plateforme plus attractive pour les consommateurs, mais diminue également ses revenus publicitaires, car elle atténue la concurrence pour l'exposition entre les entreprises. Dans un design optimal, la plateforme correspond activement avec l'entreprise qu'a un bénéfice par match faible en augmentant le poids de son paiement. Inversement, la plateforme mismatch avec l'entreprise qu'a un bénéfice par match élevé en diminuant le poids de son paiement. Donc, lorsque l'entreprise préférée des consommateurs dégage un bénéfice par match supérieur à son concurrent, une politique neutre dans laquelle la plateforme n'influence pas le matching améliore le bien-être des consommateurs. De ce fait, la plateforme améliore cependant le bien-être, lorsque l'entreprise préférée des consommateurs gagne peu par match. De plus, une meilleure information sur les préfèrences des consommateurs améliore le bien-être de ces derniers, car la plateforme correspond à la meilleure entreprise plus réguliérement.Le deuxième chapitre examine le comportement stratégique des intermédiaires de l'information en prenant comme exemple le marché des agences de notation financières. Ce chapitre se concentre sur le rôle de la concurrence entre les intermédiaires dans un contexte où les vendeurs comptent sur les intermédiaires pour communiquer leur qualité aux acheteurs. En effet, les intermédiaires sont stratégiques et rivalisent en termes de frais de notation ainsi que leurs normes de certification, c'est-à-dire leur rigueur dans l'attribution d'une certification. Le choix des honoraires et des normes de certification induit un jeu signaling entre acheteurs et vendeurs où, par leur choix d'intermédiaire, les vendeurs peuvent transmettre des informations sur leur qualité aux acheteurs. À l'équilibre, les intermédiaires établissent des normes de certification différenciées.Le leader établit une norme élevée et le suiveur définit la norme minimale de certification. Cela sert à relâcher la concurrence par les prix et conduit à une structure de marché à deux niveaux où les vendeurs de haute (faible) qualité optent pour des intermédiaires avec des normes de qualité élevées (faibles). Pour appuyer les résultats théoriques, je teste empiriquement les prédictions du modèle théorique sur le marché de la notation de crédit des banques commerciales européennes. Les résultats empiriques confirment la prédiction du modèle théorique selon lequel les agences de notation de crédit utilisent des normes de notation différenciées sur le marché.Le troisième chapitre continue sur le thème des incitations des intermédiaires sur le marché j'examine si un modèle de notation de crédit payé par les investisseurs conduit à une inflation de la notation. En utilisant les notations d'obligations de sociétés d'Egan-Jones Rating Company, je trouve des évidences qu'une agence de notation payée par les investisseurs a tendance à mieux noter les obligations qui offrent un rendement plus élevé. Cela suggère qu'une agence de notation payée par les investisseurs peut répondre aux besoins de ces derniers qui cherchent un rendement leur permettant de contourner les exigences du capital pour détenir de telles obligations. Ce résultat cofirme la théorie selon laquelle les réglementations subordonnées à la notation financière incitent à des notes élevés, indépendamment de la structure de rémunération des agences de notation
Asymmetric information is a major source of inefficiency in markets:Such frictions give rise to market institutions known as "information intermediaries" that presumably aim at decreasing these frictions by providing mechanisms through which market participants could interact.However, these intermediaries are strategic and consider the actions of other agents when making decisions.In this dissertation I study the strategic behavior of two major types of information intermediaries: (i) Advertising-financed platforms--Now among the largest corporations in the world operating at massive scales; and (ii) Credit rating agencies--who have been part of virtually any debate on the regulation of financial markets especially since the recent financial crisis.In the first chapter I study the strategic behavior of ad-financed platforms.Firms compete for slots on an ad-financed platform by paying the platform to display their ads.In its design, the platform decides on its ``matching quality'' by choosing how much weight to give to each firm’s payment while taking into account consumers’ preferences.Increasing the quality makes the platform more desirable to the consumers, but also decreases its ad revenue per consumer since it softens competition for exposure among firms.In the optimal design, the platform actively mismatches (matches) the firm with high (low) profit per match by decreasing (increasing) the weight that its payment carries.When consumers’ favourite firm enjoys a higher profit per match than its rival, a "neutral" policy in which the platform does not influence matching, improves consumer welfare.The platform is welfare enhancing however, when the consumers’ preferred firm earns little per match.Moreover, better information about consumer tastes improves consumer welfare because the platform mismatches the better firm less often.The second chapter looks at the strategic behavior of information intermediaries with application to credit rating agencies in financial markets.The focus of the chapter is on the role of competition among intermediaries in a context where the sellers rely on intermediaries to communicate their quality to buyers.Intermediaries are strategic and compete in fees as well as their certification standards i.e. how strict they are in awarding a certification.Choices of fees and certification standards induce a signaling game between buyers and sellers where through their choice of intermediary, sellers can convey information about their quality to buyers.In equilibrium, intermediaries set differentiated certification standards.The leader sets a high standard and the follower sets the minimum standard of certification. This serves to relax price competition and leads to a two-tier market structure where high (low) quality sellers opt for intermediary with high (low) quality standards.Further, I empirically test the predictions of the theoretical model in the credit rating market of European commercial banks.The empirical results confirm the prediction of the theoretical model that the credit rating agencies use differentiated rating standards in this market.The third chapter continues on the theme of incentives of intermediaries in credit rating market and takes an empirical approach.This chapter investigates whether an "investor-paid" credit rating model leads to rating inflation.Using the corporate bond ratings of Egan-Jones Rating Company, I find evidence that an investor-paid rating agency tends to upgrade bonds that offer a higher yield.This suggests that an investor-paid rating agency can cater to the needs of the investors who "reach for yield" allowing them to bypass capital requirements of holding such bonds.This result support the theory that rating-contingent regulations in financial markets create incentives for inflated ratings, regardless of compensation structure of rating agencies

Mestrado em Finanças
O objetivo deste trabalho foi explorar a relação da divulgação financeira face ao comportamento dos investidores. A maioria dos registos e contabilidade escrita apontam que os níveis de exposição dos dados, que na sua maioria são utilizados como intermediários devido à natureza dos mesmos, apresentados por empresas registradas afeta o funcionamento do mercado financeiro, especificamente sobre a liquidez e a estimativa de ações individuais. Ao revelar mais dados, as empresas são vistas a diminuir as assimetrias de dados e, dessa forma, expandindo a certeza financeira especializada. Da mesma forma, as empresas devem fornecer critérios de tomada de decisão e de declarações financeiras "transparentes" aos investidores, para que os mesmos não sejam induzidos em erro por números e valorizações demasiado otimista ou fictícias. Os resultados desta pesquisa revelaram que existem diferenças significativas nas perceções dos investidores da Bolsa de Valores da Tailândia de acordo com a dimensão da transparência da informação financeira associado a variáveis demográficas, exceto para o grupo mais intelectualizado. Esta pesquisa também encontrou uma relação entre as perceções dos investidores relativamente à transparência da dimensão financeira e o seu comportamento na Bolsa de Valores da Tailândia. E, finalmente, a pesquisa também elucidou para o facto de existirem diferenças no comportamento do investidor no Mercado de ações da Tailândia de acordo com as diferentes categorias e experiência mesmos.
The purpose of this dissertation was to explore the relationship of financial disclosure and investor behavior. The majority of the surviving back and bookkeeping writing recommends that the levels of data exposure, for the most part utilized as an intermediary for the nature of data unveiled, by recorded organizations affects the financial market, specifically on the liquidity and estimating of individual stocks. By revealing more data, organizations are seen to diminish data asymmetries and by so doing, expand a financial specialist certainty. Likewise, companies should provide such "transparent" financial statements and decision making criteria to investors in order to ensure that investors are not being misled with fictitious or better than expected numbers and figures. The results of this research revealed that there are significant differences in Stock Exchange of Thailand investor perceptions regarding each dimension of financial information transparency according to demographic variables, except for the education group. This research also found that there are relationships between Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) investor perceptions of dimensions of financial information transparency and investor behavior in the Thai stock market. And finally, the research also found that there are differences in Stock Exchange of Thailand investor behavior according to different categories of investor experience.
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Diese Dissertation umfasst drei Aufsätze über die Rolle von Informationsintermediären und Intermediäre mit Aufsichtsfunktionen in Kapitalmärkten. Der erste Aufsatz untersucht, ob sich verschiedene Leerverkäufer bei ihrer Auswahl von Zielunternehmen anhand von sichtbaren Merkmalen unterscheiden. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass Hedgefonds und Investmentmanager im Durchschnitt größere und jüngere Unternehmen bevorzugen, während sich Banken auf Unternehmen mit weniger Restatements der Finanzdaten und einem höheren Verschuldungsgrad konzentrieren. Der zweite Aufsatz beschreibt, wie Unternehmen auf aktivistische Leerverkäuferberichte reagieren. Es wird festgestellt, dass die Antwortrate erheblich steigt, wenn der Bericht von deutlich negativen abnormalen Renditen begleitet wird und wenn die Leerverkäufer neue Beweise vorlegen. Dies stimmt mit der Vorstellung überein, dass Leerverkäufer als Informationsintermediäre fungieren können. Eine Nichtbeantwortung ist außerdem ist mit einer weniger negativen Aktienkursreaktion bei Veröffentlichung und mit weniger nachteiligen Ergebnissen verbunden. Die dritte Aufsatz fokusiert sich auf so-genannte Monitoring Trustees. Sie sind bei der Überwachung von Banken behilflich, die in der Europäischen Union während der letzten Finanzkrise staatliche Beihilfen erhalten haben. In einer von Hand gesammelten Stichprobe werden die Merkmale und Aufgaben dieser neu implementierten Aufseher und ihre Rolle im Zusammenhang mit dem Berichtsverhalten der Banken untersucht. Die Ergebnisse deuten darauf hin, dass diese zusätzlichen Aufseher die Transparenz und das Berichtsverhalten der Banken bei der Finanzberichterstattung beeinflussen können, insbesondere wenn die Berichterstattung über Kreditverluste und Anpassungen der Geschäftsberichte berücksichtigt werden. Der zweite Aufsatz wurde im Journal of Accounting Research (https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-679X.12356) publiziert.
This dissertation comprises three essays on the role of information and monitoring intermediaries in capital markets. The first essay investigates whether different short sellers vary in their selection of target firms using observable firm characteristics. Results show that hedge funds and investment managers on average prefer larger and younger firms, whereas banks focus on firms with fewer restatements and a higher leverage. The second essay provides descriptive evidence on how firms respond to activist short seller reports and how these responses are associated with outcomes for the targeted firms. It finds that the response rate increases substantially when the report is accompanied by significantly negative abnormal returns and when the short sellers provide new evidence which is consistent with the idea of short sellers acting as information intermediaries. Not responding is associated with a less negative stock price response when the report is released and fewer adverse outcomes. The third essay shifts the attention to Monitoring Trustees who assist in the supervision of banks that have received state aid in the European Union during the last financial crisis. It explores in a hand-collected sample the characteristics and duties of these newly implemented monitors and it studies the role of these supranational monitors and the banks’ reporting behavior. Results suggest that these additional supervisors can influence the banks financial reporting transparency and reporting behavior when mainly loan loss reporting and restatements are accounted for. The second essay has been published in the Journal of Accounting Research (https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-679X.12356).

Masters of Commerce
The use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to share information is rapidly increasing worldwide. The South African government uses ICT to extend sharing of information and provide services to communities through websites, portals, forums and other online platforms. However, there are still digitally divided communities – without access it these ICTs due to, among others, a lack of necessary computer skills and financial resources. Consequently, these communities miss opportunities to use ICTs to share information with the government. To address the digitally divided communities, the government established an initiative to build community ICT access centres (e-centres). These e-centres have become the intermediaries between government and communities as shared community facilities that provide access to ICTs and connect the digitally divided communities to government services with social and economic benefits. However, there seem to be disparities between the government's roles and the eventual roles played by intermediaries in information sharing between communities and the government. The disparity might lead to intermediaries not providing services expected by communities, which might affect how communities use intermediaries to communicate with the government.

Den här studien undersöker om intressenter som verkar i det svenska ekosystemet för entreprenörskap upplever att det finns ett behov av insatser för att stötta sociala organisationers internationalisering – och om sa är fallet, vilket stöd som ska implementeras för att skapa maximalt värde. Nio semistrukturerade intervjuer med intressenter som representerar akademiska institutioner, myndigheter och stödorganisationer genomfördes. Resultaten visar att majoriteten av sociala entreprenörer som idag verkar i Sverige inte vill skala internationellt. Det framkommer också att de som skalar har ett tydligt tekniskt fokus och i första hand söker sig till övriga länder i Norden. Intressenterna upplevde vidare att det fanns ett behov av stödinsatser relaterat till internationalisering, i huvudsak kopplat till att stärka affärsmässigheten bland organisationerna. I diskussionen används en modell för skalbarhet samt den svenska regeringens strategi för sociala organisationer för att identifiera potentiella överlapp samt för att placera resultatet i en teoretisk kontext. Da fältet innefattar organisationer som verkar inom ett brett spektrum inkluderar rekommendationer för framtida forskning att identifiera stödinsatser som riktar sig mot mer nischade delar inom socialt entreprenörskap, samt att utvärdera hur offentliga organisationer kan bidra till att skapa ökad tillväxt.
This study is investigating if stakeholders in the Swedish ecosystem of entrepreneurship perceive that there is a need for initiatives supporting social organizations’ internationalization and if so – what support should be implemented to provide maximum value. Nine semi-structured interviews with stakeholders representing academic institutions, public agencies and support organizations were conducted. The result shows that the majority of social entrepreneurs currently operating in Sweden are not looking into scaling internationally and those who do often have a clear technology focus and target the Nordic countries. The stakeholders perceived that there was a need for support initiatives related to internationalization, mainly with regards to strengthening business-mindedness. In the final discussion, the results are mapped into a scalability framework and the strategy for social organizations developed by the Swedish government, to identify potential overlaps and place the findings in a theoretical context. As the field entails a wide variety of organizations, suggestions for future research includes identifying support initiatives targeting niches within social entrepreneurship, and assessing how public organizations can support further growth.

The purpose of this thesis is to assess the implications of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) on the agricultural supply chain in Greece by examining the relationships between farmers and their intermediaries, and their interactions during the buying and selling process. More specifically, the focus of the research takes place in Pouri, a small village in central Greece whose economy centers around Apple Farming, where we can observe the exchange of locally grown goods between farmers and intermediaries. The thesis consists of two parts; the first part examines how Greek farmers perceive the process of buying and selling agricultural products and how they respond to problems within their current structure; through observing processes, conducting interviews and collecting narrative stories to identify the issues, we assess whether it would be advantageous for farmers to implement ICTs as part of the solution. The second part consists of a review of the academic literature to examine the same or similar situations in the agricultural supply chain of other global regions and their economic contexts. Lastly, a thorough thematic analysis of the research data provides a better understanding of the issues facing farmers and their needs as they pertain to ICTs, to improve the agricultural supply chain and the entire rural sector.

Cette thèse comprend trois chapitres sur les conflits d’intérêts des intermédiaires qui agissent en tant que conseillers en fusions et acquisitions. Nous fournissons dans le Chapitre 1 une synthèse de la littérature académique sur la double négotiation en compte propre et client des intermédiaires de marché. Tout d’abord, nous présentons un aperçu de cette activité, puis explorons des questions comme qui s’engage dans cette activité, pourquoi et les principales préoccupations concernant les conflits d’intérêts. Dans le Chapitre 2, nous effectuons une analyse empirique axée sur l’aspect fusions et acquisitions de la problématique de recherche. Enfin, dans le Chapitre 3 nous étudions le rôle des intermédiaires qui agissent en tant que conseillers financiers dans les transactions de fusions et acquisitions. Nous y parvenons grâce à une analyse empirique d’un échantillon où nous pouvons identifier, autour de l’annonce, dans quelles transactions un conseiller a été impliqué. Les résultats démontrent une création de valeur dans les cibles de fusions et acquisitions le jour de l’événement, la présence du trading informé et d’une fuite d’informations avant l’annonce particulièrement forte pour les transactions dans lesquelles un conseiller était impliqué. Notre analyse nous permet de surligner l’importance de prendre en compte l’aspect réglementaire des opérations de fusions et acquisitions
This thesis contains three chapters on conflicts of interest of intermediaries that act as financial advisors in mergers and acquisitions. We provide in Chapter 1 a survey of academic literature on dual trading activity. First, we present an overview of this activity and then explore questions like who engages in this activity, why, and the main concerns regarding conflicts of interest. In Chapter 2, we conduct an empirical analysis focusing on the mergers and acquisitions aspect of the research problem. Finally, in Chapter 3 we investigate the role of intermediaries who act as financial advisors in M&As deals. We achieve this through an empirical analysis of a sample where we can identify, around the announcement, in which deals an advisor was involved. We found evidence of value creation in targets of Mergers and Acquisitions on the event day, of informed trading and leakage of information before the announcement particularly strong for deals in which an advisor was involved and showed evidence that advocate for the importance of taking into account the regulatory aspect of mergers and acquisitions operations

Thesis (MTech (Tourism and Hospitality Management))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2012.
The reason for conducting this research was to evaluate the impact of information technology in the tourism industry, focusing mainly on tourism intermediaries, which include selected travel agencies and tour operators in Cape Town, and their awareness levels of the negative and positive impacts, as well as disintermediation that occurs owing to information technology developments. The research methodology for this thesis comprised a literature search and an empirical survey, which evaluated the impacts of information technology on tourism intermediaries in Cape Town. This research sought to establish whether disintermediation has occurred amongst travel agents and tour operators, whilst recognising strategies, which these tourism intermediaries can use to ensure survival in the competitive tourism industry. Relevant sources were referred to in the literature search. A number of appropriate normative measures were taken from the literature, followed by an empirical survey where randomly selected tourism intermediaries in Cape Town, namely small, medium to large companies were chosen to participate in the research questionnaire. The questionnaire responses were captured by the registered CPUT statistician in the form of frequency distribution analyses, and these were statistically analysed by the researcher and the registered statistician. The interpretations and findings of the statistical analyses were presented in tables and charts and were explained individually according to the statements' similarities, differences and verifications, as per the research questionnaire. A number of recommendations emanated from the literature sources and empirical survey, followed by concluding remarks in the form of conclusions.

La thèse contient trois essais. Dans le premier essai, je cherche à savoir si les experts financiers bénéficient de données plus lisibles par machine dans la production d'informations dans la gestion d'actifs. Exploitant un choc réglementaire exogène qui rend les dépôts des entreprises plus lisibles par machine, je constate que les institutions avec plus d'experts financiers ont une amélioration des performances plus importante que les institutions avec moins d'experts financiers, suggérant que les experts financiers bénéficient de plus de données lisibles par machine. Ce résultat permet d'évaluer la probabilité que les algorithmes remplacent les praticiens financiers hautement qualifiés. Dans le deuxième essai, j'étudie la justification et les implications de la récente réglementation MiFID II en Europe qui a rendu plus transparentes pour leurs clients les dépenses des gestionnaires d'actifs délégués en recherche d'analystes côté vente. Nous montrons que la transparence diminue l'utilisation de la recherche côté vente mais stimule davantage les activités de recherche côté achat, ce qui est cohérent avec les résultats empiriques. Notre modèle a des prédictions supplémentaires sur la performance, la liquidité et le bien-être social des gestionnaires. Dans le troisième essai, j'étudie les courtiers sur les marchés du placement privé, qui intermédient environ 20 % des capitaux levés par les entreprises non financières sur ce marché. Je trouve que les projets intermédiés par des courtiers ayant une meilleure réputation sont plus susceptibles d'être entièrement financés. Contrairement aux théories existantes sur les souscripteurs, les projets vendus par l'intermédiaire de courtiers sont en moyenne moins susceptibles d'être entièrement financés et la plupart des émetteurs préfèrent la vente directe. Un modèle qui présente à la fois des frictions de recherche et des informations asymétriques suggère que ces non-régularités peuvent être dues au fait que le rôle de certification des courtiers est limité par la concurrence entre la vente intermédiée et la vente directe. Le modèle explique également certains modèles non intuitifs de frais de commission dans les données. Ces résultats contribuent à une meilleure compréhension des marchés des placements privés et des intermédiaires sur d'autres marchés financiers
The thesis contains three essays. In the first essay, I investigate whether financial experts benefit from more machine-readable data in information production in asset management. Exploiting an exogenous regulatory shock that makes corporate filings more machine-readable, I find that institutions with more financial experts have larger performance improvement than institutions with fewer financial experts, suggesting financial experts benefiting from more machine-readable data. This result helps evaluate the likelihood of algorithms replacing high-skilled financial practitioners. In the second essay, I study the rationale and implications of the recent MiFID II regulation in Europe that made delegated asset managers’ spending on sell-side analyst research more transparent to their clients. We show that transparency decreases the use of sell-side research but stimulates more buy-side research activities, which is consistent with empirical findings. Our model has additional predictions on managers’ performance, liquidity, and social welfare. In the third essay, I study brokers in private placement markets, who intermediate about 20% of capital raised by non-financial firms in this market. I find that projects intermediated by brokers with better reputations are more likely to be fully funded. Contrary to existing theories on underwriters, projects sold through brokers are less likely to be fully funded on average and most issuers prefer direct selling. A model that features both search frictions and asymmetric information suggests that these non-regularities may be due to the fact that the certification role of brokers is limited by competition between intermediated selling and direct selling. The model also explains some non-intuitive patterns of commission fees in the data. These results contribute to a better understanding of private placement markets and intermediaries in other financial markets

The purpose of this study is to explore how IFRS 15 have influenced Swedish auditors and financial analysts’ understanding of companies’ revenue transactions. How accounting structural changes under IFRS 15 contribute to potential informational effects remains a largely unexplored topic. By applying asymmetric information theory, behavioral decision theory and the concept of uniformity versus uniqueness, this study explores potential factors that influence information intermediaries’ understandability of companies’ revenue transactions. This study uses an explorative approach consisting of 8 semi-structured interviews with Swedish auditors and financial analysts working in the telecommunication and construction industry. From a practical point of view, this study may assist the IASB and other regulators in obtaining a better understanding of information intermediaries’ ability to appropriately interpret and use financial information under IFRS 15. From a theoretical standpoint, the findings can provide areas of potential future studies in the field of accounting information research. Although the implementation of IFRS 15 has a limited quantitative accounting effect, this study finds that the implementation contributes to informational effects on financial analysts and auditors’ information environment. The findings indicate that the perceived informational effects are dependent on entities' application of the standard; intermediaries’ accounting knowledge and experience; as well as companies' transparency and manipulating incentives.

This study investigates what three large, multinational hospitality companies do in practice when evaluating and making IT investment decisions. This study was launched in an attempt to 1) learn more about how multinational hospitality companies evaluate, prioritize, and select IT investments in the context of hotel GDS; 2) call attention to an important and costly topic in hopes of improving current practices; and 3) fill a noticeable literary void so that future researchers on IT and hotel GDS would have a foundation and starting point. The perennial question of any business is "How does an organization add value?" Value can be defined from many different perspectives and may result from tangible and intangible factors. Principal stakeholders include shareholders (investors), customers, and employees. Shareholders typically measure value in terms of economic return on their investment based upon some level of perceived risk. For customers, value is assessed in terms of a price-value relationship; that is, how much they received in terms of product and services for the price they paid. For employees, value is measured by salary and by the intrinsic rewards of the job. Yet, one of the most elusive questions with respect to information technology is "How can value be measured?" Hospitality executives are being pressured daily to invest more in information technology (IT) - especially in the area of hotel global distribution systems (GDS), which have become the cornerstone of a hotel firm's IT infrastructure and portfolio. There are a number of sweeping changes on the horizon impacting hotel GDSs and requiring the development of a well-crafted strategy for global distribution systems. These broad changes include bypass theories to remove airline GDSs and travel agents, the introduction of new and emerging player, and innovative approaches to pricing and promotion. Many of these developments offer promise to hoteliers, but they also threaten their control over their customer relationships and their inventory and add to the complexity and cost of distribution. Selecting the appropriate distribution channels is paramount to success and important if hotel firms are to grow top-line revenue and control overhead; yet the number of choices facing hotel executives is overwhelming. They are also at a loss for measuring value derived from IT. One of the greatest issues plaguing the advancement of technology in the hospitality industry is the difficulty in calculating return on investment. Until recently, most technology investment decisions have been considered using a support or utility mentality that stems from a manufacturing paradigm. Under such thinking, business cases could be built around an application or technology's ability to reduce costs or create labor savings. However, management's attitudes towards technology have been shifting in recent years. The more technologically savvy hospitality companies are looking to IT to build strategic and competitive advantages. These types of investments yield results over time, and seldom in the short-run. This is problematic among owners and investors who demand more immediate results. Moreover, it is difficult to quantify and calculate the tangible benefits of technology when it is used for strategic purposes. Today's financial models are inadequate for estimating the financial benefits for most of the technology projects under consideration today. While the hospitality industry has disciplined models and sufficient history to determine the financial gains or success of opening a new property in a given city, it lacks the same rigorous models and historical data for technology, especially since each technology project is unique. Although this problem is not specific to the hospitality industry, it is particularly problematic since the industry tends to be technologically conservative and unwilling to adopt new technology applications based on the promises of its long-term merits if it cannot quantify the results and calculate a defined payback period. When uncertainty surrounds the investment, when the timing of the cash flows is unpredictable, and when the investment is perceived as risky, owners and investors will most likely channel their investment capital to projects with more certain returns and minimal risk. Thus, under this thinking, technology will always take a back seat to other organizational priorities and initiatives. Efforts must be made to change this thinking and to develop financial models that can accurately predict and capture the financial benefits derived from technology. Given the present predicament and difficulties surrounding the current tools, techniques, and measures, executives are faced with an important choice. They can 1) continue to use the present methods despite their shortcomings, 2) dispense with ROI, cost-benefit, and discounted cash flow analyses altogether for IT projects, or 3) develop new methods, tools, and measures that can accommodate the complexities of IT and quantify the intangibles. This study is a call to action in favor of the latter because the measures determine not only which projects will be accepted but also how their success will be evaluated. Having a rigid evaluation process forces executives to identify a project's potential contribution and align the project's objectives with the firm's strategic goals and objectives. Using the co-alignment principle as its theoretical underpinning, this study employs a multiple-case design to investigate the resource allocation processes used with respect to information technology and global distribution systems. It looks at how three leading, multinational hospitality firms address IT project/investment evaluation and decision-making, the measures they use, and the frustrations they encounter. These frustrations include problems that arise from a hotel firm's fragmented ownership as well as from hotel executives' inability to measure the results of IT through definitive cause-and-effect relationships. The results of the study provide affirmation of the co-alignment principle and document linkages and co-alignment between strategy and IT. Clearly, decisions involving IT and hotel GDSs require multivariate measures, multidimensional perspectives, and multidisciplinary involvement. However, research from the marketing discipline is noticeably absent in this area. This study concludes that because IT plays an important enabling role for marketing initiatives and is redefining the supply chain of a hotel firm, marketing researchers can no longer stand on the sidelines. This study also identifies three important constructs, or classes of variables (context, process, and project), the variables comprising each, and their influences on the evaluation and decision-making processes. These findings add to the understanding of IT evaluation, measurement, and decision-making in the context of hotel GDS. This study clarifies the intangible aspects in hopes that useful measures can be developed in subsequent research to quantify and evaluate these costs and benefits. Finally, this study provides a series of prescriptions or recommendations gleaned from the three companies that were the focus of this study in hopes that they will lead to the development of best practices in the hospitality industry.
Ph. D.

This dissertation aims to provide theoretical and empirical evidence on which information signals can explain venture investments and performance. The first two studies are empirical, employing film industry as the ideal setting to support the theoretical framework. A film is considered a new venture (project-based), film producer and director are considered the core members of the new venture founding team (VFT), film’s script represents the new venture’s business idea and the distributor represents an intermediary that legitimates the VFT in the market. The first study explains how investors decrease new venture “liability of newness” through two main signals: the VFT reputation and the socio-political legitimacy of the new venture idea. I find that VFT reputation enhances the socio-political legitimacy of a new venture idea, which on its own decreases the effect of VFT reputation on attracting potential investors. The second study, combining signaling and agency theories, explore signals that determine new venture performance. Results find that VFT reputation is an agent’s “value signal” for venture investors (principals respect to a VFT) that is mediated by the investment of an intermediary in the new venture, which represents an efficient “commitment signal” to maximize the new venture performance. The intermediary considered assumes a special “dual role” in the VFT-investors’ relationship: it is an agent with respect to investors and, at the same time, it is a principal to the VFT. Finally, the third study is a literature review proposing a new operational model for established and new ventures that aim to acquire competitive advantage through three relevant signals: reputation, legitimacy and status. The model explains how managers and venture founders, through the acquisition of venture’s legitimacy and network status, could strategically affect the corporate reputation of their venture, leading it to higher societal status and greater competitive advantage.

Le catalogue occupe une place privilégiée dans l'offre de service des bibliothèques universitaires, pivot de l'intermédiation. Depuis 10 ans, il traverse une crise grave, voyant les usagers le délaisser à la faveur des moteurs de recherche généralistes. Le web, plus qu'un sérieux concurrent, devance aujourd'hui les systèmes d'information documentaires, et devient le point d'entrée principal pour la recherche d'information. Les bibliothèques tentent de structurer un espace documentaire qui soit habité par les usagers, au sein duquel se développe l'offre de service, mais celle-ci se présente encore comme une série de silos inertes, sans grande possibilité de navigation, malgré de considérables efforts d'ingénierie et des pistes d'évolution vers les outils de découverte. La profession, consciente de cette crise profonde, après avoir accusé les remous occasionnés par la dimension disruptive du numérique, cherche des moyens pour adapter et diversifier son offre, fluidifier la diffusion de l'information, et se réinvente un rôle d'intermédiation en cherchant à tirer profit des nouvelles pratiques des usagers, de leurs nouvelles attentes, et de nouvelles perspectives. Les bibliothèques placent leur espoir dans de nouveaux modèles de données, tentent d'y ajouter un niveau d'abstraction favorisant les liaisons avec l'univers de la connaissance. L'évolution vers le web sémantique semble une opportunité à saisir pour valoriser les collections et les rendre exploitables dans un autre contexte, au prix d'importants efforts que cette analyse tente de mesurer. Une approche constructiviste fondée sur l'observation participante et le recueil de données offre une vision issue de l'intérieur de la communauté des bibliothèques sur l'évolution des catalogues et des outils d'intermédiation, et ouvre des perspectives sur leurs enjeux.

碩士
朝陽科技大學
資訊管理系碩士班
92
The development of information technology and the prevalence of Internet have shifted the focus of corporate Internet application from the construction of Websites to the establishment of Intranet and Extranet. Consumers now may easily find the interested product information and conduct transactions anytime and anywhere in the cyber space. However, the available online information multiplies so rapidly that users often have difficulties to digest. The massive wealth of information causes hurdles in screening and leads to the issue of information credibility inevitably. Such an information explosion also introduces problems on information symmetry, on information transparency to both buyers and sellers, and on security and privacy issues with online transactions in e-Trading. In addition, because consumers have more options to choose, suppliers failing to meet the consumers’ requirements on quality and services would lose their competitiveness in the marketplace. The emergence of Internet infomediaries, players that have value-added functions and assist information transparency and symmetry, could enhance enterprises on business transactions. This thesis aims at improving the quality and efficiency of electronic transactions, through the participation of infomediaries and from the consumers’ perspective. Strategies to eliminate or minimize the influence of information overload, and thereby increasing the purchasing potential and reducing the trading risk, are investigated. By analyzing present problems and performing process reengineering, strategic models for infomediaries are explored. Practical approaches that help to improve information symmetry and information transparency are suggested for establishing a bi-directional information flow between buyers and sellers. Furthermore, a platform for employing infomediaries in e-Trading is proposed. Variances between buyers and sellers on values, cost, and network capabilities are analyzed to accelerate the matching of transactions. A complete operational model for informediaries thus can be established.

博士
國立交通大學
經營管理研究所
94
Since information exchange plays a vital role in the interorganizational interdependence, emerging interorganizational information systems (IOS) are designed to facilitate the flows of information between organizations. Therefore, the increasing use of information results in adding information value. By setting up common formatting standard, electronic data interchange (EDI), one of popular IOS in practices, alleviates the problem resulting from different information formats adopted by a variety of trading partners and blocking the free flows of information among information users; the shortcomings and limitation of establishing, maintaining and using common formatting standard, however, may spoil the expected benefits and purposes of information exchange. Based on the expanding notion of information intermediaries, this research proposes an adaptive information intermediaries framework for information exchange, employing information professionals to bridge the gaps between common formatting standard and information formats used by internal applications and reduce information users’ burdens of information technology as well as costs of information exchange, in addition, increasing trading partners’ participation and performance of information exchange, while the constrains on common formatting standard are given. This adaptive information intermediaries framework for information exchange presents not only information technology and domain knowledge but also multiple layers and cross-linked configurations to provide information exchange services for trading partners in various contexts; this study also addresses related issues of the framework, functionalities, workflows, patterns, and benefits. This framework has been applied to cargo clearance in international logistics in order to overcome the problem arising from lack of EDI integration and to reduce information exchanging costs; the functional feasibility of the proposed framework was demonstrated through a prototype system built by this study. In addition, the expanding framework also has been applied to semiconductor supply chains to fulfill requirements for specific knowledge-intensive support as well as information exchange between dominant semiconductor producers.

Personal informatics are important tools in health self-management as they support individuals to quantify and self-reflect on their lifestyle. Human-computer interaction researchers have devoted resources on studying how to design such tools. Various motivational strategies have been explored for their capabilities in improving user engagement. However, such strategies are developed with an assumption that the targeted consumer of information is the one directly manipulating user interfaces of the system that has information. This may not always be the case for users in developing regions. As a result, such systems may not scale well in contexts where a targeted consumer (beneficiary) may use technology through the facilitation of another person (intermediary) whom is responsible for manipulating user interfaces, because such facilitators are not recognized as part of the system, hence motivational strategies don't cater for them. In order to uncover design implications for intermediated technology use in the context of personal health informatics (PHI), the researcher started with the theoretical framing of the work followed by a contextual enquiry which led to development of mobile applications' prototypes for tracking nutrition and physical activity. Evaluation of the prototypes revealed that a familial relationship is a prerequisite for such an intervention. The most promising combination involves family members, possibly a child and a parent working together. The study used self-determination theory to understand how a collaborative gamified system can increase engagement. The result revealed that gamification as the source of a significant increase in perceived competence in intermediary users whom also tended to consider themselves as co-owners of the interaction experience. Therefore, gamification was found to be a catalyst for increasing collaboration between an intermediary and beneficiary user of technology, provided that the two users that formed a pair had a prior social relationship. In the absence of gamification, intermediary users tended to be less engaged in the intervention. The study highlights both the positive and negative aspects of gamification in promoting collaboration in intermediated use and its general implications in health settings. Design considerations required in order to improve the overall user experience of both users involved are proposed. In general, this work contributes to both theory and empirical validation of factors for, supporting proximate-enabled intermediated use of personal health informatics.

碩士
淡江大學
教育資料科學學系研究所
86
The main purpose of this study is to important factors of a good performanc e of information intermediaries by developing the evaluation checklist. By em ploying the "Delphi Method", first step is to collect delphi panel''s (people w ho are/were in charge of reference and information services in university libr aries) opinion by open questionnaire in thefollowing seven deserved profession al abilities: (1)professional development;(2)knowledge background; (3)teaching implementation; (4)search skills and implementation; (5)communicational skill s; (6)personal characterisitcs: (7)vocational morality. Upon then, a construct ive questionnaire is developed and sent out to experts to rank on the degree o f importance of evaluationitems. A final consensus among the experts is gotte n in the second roundof Delphi process. An evaluation checklist of informatio n intermediariesis established based on the study result. The major results o f this study are:1.Among 192 items, delphi panel ranked from important to very important andreach high consensus on 187 items, middle consensus on 5 items. 2.Among seven parts of evaluation checklist on performance of informationinter mediaries, the most important one is personal characteristics, the others by t heir order of important are: communicational skills, vocationalmorality, teach ing implementation, professional development, search skillsand implementation, and knowledge background. 3.There are distinction between the opinions collec t from the two roundsdelphi process in the examination Chi-square test. 4.Acco rding the result of the study, the final evaluation checklist comprised seven parts with 191 items totally. That can be a reference to related fields and fo llowing researches.

Telephony plays a fundamental role in our society. It enables remote parties to interact and express themselves over great distances. The telephone as a means of communicating has become part of every day life. Organisations and industry are now looking at Voice over IP (VoIP) technologies. They want to take advantage of new and previously unavailable voice services. Various interested parties are seeking to leverage the emerging VoIP technology for more flexible and efficient communication between staff, clients and partners. VoIP is a recent innovation enabled by Next Generation Network (NGN). It provides and enables means of communication over a digital network, specifically the Internet. VoIP is gaining wide spread adoption and will ultimately replace traditional telephony. The result of this trend is a ubiquitous, global and digital communication infrastructure. VoIP, however, still faces many challenges. It is not yet as reliable and dependable as the current Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). The employed communication protocols are immature with many security flaws and weaknesses. Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), a popular VoIP protocol does not sufficiently protect a users privacy. A user’s information is neither encrypted nor secured when calling a remote party. There is a lack of control over the information included in the SIP messages. Our specific concern is that private and sensitive information is exchanged over the public internet. This dissertation concerns itself with the communication path chosen by SIP when establishing a session with a remote party. In SIP, VoIP calls are established over unknown and untrusted intermediaries to reach the desired party. We analyse the SIP headers to determine the information leakage at each chosen intermediary. Our concerns for possible breach of privacy when using SIP were confirmed by the findings. A user’s privacy can be compromised through the extraction of explicit private details reflected in SIP headers. It is further possible to profile the user and determine communication habits from implicit time, location and device information. Our research proposes enhancements to SIP. Each intermediary must digitally sign over the SIP headers ensuring the communication path was not be altered. These signatures are added sequentially creating a chain of certified intermediaries. Our enhancements to SIP do not seek to encrypt the headers, but to use these intermediary signatures to reduce the risk of information leakage. We created a model of our proposed enhancements for attaching signatures at each intermediary. The model also provides a means of identifying unknown or malicious intermediaries prior to establishing a SIP session. Finally, the model was specified in Z notation. The Z specification language was well suited to accurately and precisely represent our model. This formal notation was adopted to specify the types, states and model behaviour. The specification was validated using the Z type-checker ZTC. Copyright
Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2010.
Computer Science
unrestricted

abstract: This paper examines how equity analysts' roles as information intermediaries and monitors affect corporate liquidity policy and its associated value of cash, providing new evidence that analysts have a direct impact on corporate liquidity policy. Greater analyst coverage (1) reduces information asymmetry between a firm and outside shareholders and (2) enhances the monitoring process. Consistent with these arguments, analyst coverage increases the value of cash, thereby allowing firms to hold more cash. The cash-to-assets ratio increases by 5.2 percentage points when moving from the bottom analyst-coverage decile to the top decile. The marginal value of $1 of corporate cash holdings is $0.93 for the bottom analyst-coverage decile and $1.83 for the top decile. The positive effects remain robust after a battery of endogeneity checks. I also perform tests employing a unique dataset that consists of public and private firms, as well as a dataset that consists of public firms that have gone private. A public firm with analyst coverage can hold approximately 8% more cash than its private counterpart. These findings constitute new evidence on the real effect of analyst coverage.
Dissertation/Thesis
Ph.D. Business Administration 2012

abstract: Public organizations have been interested in tapping into the creativity and passion of the public through the use of open innovation, which emphasizes bottom-up ideation and collaboration. A challenge for organizational adoption of open innovation is that the quick-start, bottom-up, iterative nature of open innovation does not integrate easily into the hierarchical, stability-oriented structure of most organizations. In order to realize the potential of open innovation, organizations must be willing to change the way they operate. This dissertation is a case study of how Arizona State University (ASU), has adapted its organizational structure and created unique programming to incorporate open innovation. ASU has made innovation, inclusion, access, and real world impact organizational priorities in its mission to be the New American University. The primarily focus of the case study is the experiential knowledge of administrative leaders and administrative intermediaries who have managed open innovation programming at the university over the past five years. Using theoretical pattern matching, administrator insights on open innovation adoption are illustrated in terms of design stages, teamwork, and ASU's culture of innovation. It is found that administrators view iterative experimentation with goals of impact as organizational priorities. Institutional support for iterative, experimental programming, along with the assumption that not every effort will be successful, empowers administrators to push to be bolder in their implementation of open innovation. Theoretical pattern matching also enabled a detailed study of administrator alignment regarding one particular open innovation program, the hybrid participatory platform 10,000 Solutions. Creating a successful and meaningful hybrid platform is much more complex than administrators anticipated at the outset. This chapter provides administrator insights in the design, management, and evaluation of participatory platforms. Next, demographic assessment of student participation in open innovation programming is presented. Demographics are found to be reflective of the university population and provide indicators for how to improve existing programming. This dissertation expands understanding of the task facing administrators in an organization seeking to integrate open innovation into their work.
Dissertation/Thesis
Doctoral Dissertation Public Administration 2016

O presente trabalho parte duma perspetiva pós-crise financeira de 2007 para efetuar uma análise à celebração de contratos swap de taxa de juro e aos deveres de informação que impendem sobre os intermediários financeiros, no seguimento desta. Mantendo o foco sempre na especial posição que o intermediário financeiro assume no mercado, enquanto guia e, muitas vezes, contraparte do investidor, visa observar quais as normas que estes devem respeitar e, mais importantemente, se o fazem. Centrado particularmente no contexto jurídico-económico português, o presente trabalho contacta com diversas áreas do Direito, entre as quais frisamos o Direito Civil, o Direito do Mercado de Capitais e dos Valores Mobiliários e o Direito da União Europeia. A abordagem assenta em três vértices do mercado de capitais: o produto financeiro, o intermediário e o investidor. Não obstante, a mesma pauta-se por um estudo comparativo, tentando, sempre que possível, contrapor os diversos entendimentos que vigoram no Direito Português e da União Europeia, entre outros. Através deste trabalho, foi possível retirar duas conclusões. A primeira remete para uma progressiva exigência legislativa a nível comunitário quanto aos deveres de informação dos intermediários financeiros, enquanto agentes do mercado. A segunda conclusão prendeu-se com a existência de tendências jurisprudenciais totalmente diversas consoante o país, destacando-se o contraste entre os tribunais portugueses e espanhóis.
The following works starts from a post-2007 financial crisis point of view, in order to analyze the information duties that financial intermediaries are subject to when celebrating interest rate swap contracts. Maintaining its focus on the special role that the financial intermediary has in the market, as a guide and, several times, as a counterpart to the investor, it intends to observe which rules they are bound to and, most importantly, if they are followed. Particularly centered around the Portuguese legal and economical context, the present work interacts with several areas, especially Civil Law, Capital Markets and Securities Law and European Union Law. The subject is approached while keeping in mind three main points of the capital market: the financial product, the intermediary and the investor. However, the present work also does a comparative study between several points of view that are rooted within Portuguese and European Union Law, amongst others. From this work, two conclusions arose. The first one relates to progressively demanding criteria implemented by law-makers, on an European Union level, on duties that financial intermediaries are subject to. The second one observes that there are totally different jurisprudential decision tendencies, depending on the country, while underlining the sharp contrast between Portuguese and Spanish courts.

La question de la responsabilité pénale des intermédiaires techniques est un enjeu central et actuel dans la réglementation du cyberespace. Non seulement les implications économiques sont énormes mais c'est tout le cadre juridique de la responsabilité pénale des intermédiaires techniques qui est en cause. Or, l'environnement Internet comporte des spécificités qui rendent difficiles l'imputation de responsabilité à l'auteur de l'activité illicite qui peut alors se retrouver hors d'atteinte ou insolvable. La poursuite des intermédiaires techniques devient alors une solution envisageable aux autorités chargées de réprimer les délits, compte tenu de l'état de leur solvabilité et dans la mesure où ils sont plus facilement identifiables. Par le fait même, ces derniers se retrouvent alors pris dans l'engrenage judiciaire pour n'avoir que facilité la commission de l'activité en question, n'ayant aucunement pris part à la réalisation de celle-ci. L'absence dans le corpus législatif canadien d'un régime de responsabilité spécifiquement applicable aux intermédiaires techniques nous oblige à baliser les critères qui emportent leur responsabilité pénale, à partir de «principes directeurs» d'imputabilité se dégageant de plusieurs textes nationaux et internationaux. Dans ce contexte, le mémoire étudiera, dans un premier temps, les conditions d'ouverture de la responsabilité pénale des intermédiaires techniques en droit pénal canadien et, dans un deuxième temps, répondra à la question de savoir si le droit pénal canadien en matière d'imputabilité des intermédiaires techniques est conforme aux principes directeurs ressortant de normes et pratiques internationales.
Criminal liability of technical intermediaries is a central and actual issue in the regulation of cyberspace. Not also their vast economic implications in the cyberspace are in question, but also their entire legal framework regarding criminal liability of technical intermediaries is an unresolved issue. This is because a liability allegation to the author for an illicit activity can be difficult or impossible thanks to the complex nature of cyberspace and the insolvent status of the technical intermediaries Considering their state of solvency and identification facility, taking legal actions against the technical intermediaries will be a conceivable solution to the jurists. Having implied legal proceedings, even the fact that a judicial action will be taken against them will prevent them from involving illicit activities. Non-existence of a liability regime which is specifically applicable to the technical intermediaries in the Canadian legislative corpus makes us obligated to apply to the «guiding principles» of imputability which can be released from several national and international texts. In this essay, we will study, at first, the conditions of applicability of the criminal liability for the technical intermediaries with regard to Canadian Criminal Law and, in second time, will answer the following question: Is Canadian Criminal Law complied with guiding principles arising from International norms and practice in terms of imputability of the technical intermediaries?

CHARLES UNIVERSITY IN PRAGUE Faculty of Law Institute of Copyright, Industrial Property Rights and Competition Law DOCTORAL DISSERTATION The Evolution and the Limits of the Copyright Protection in the Global Information Society ABSTRACT Author: Mgr. Alena Andruško Supervisor: Prof. JUDr. Dr. iur. h. c. Jan Kříž, CSc. Field of Study: Civil Law Theoretical Legal Science Year: 2015 ABSTRACT Copyright law is one of the branches of law that has become, with the development of the Internet, the center of interest for different types of stakeholders in the global information society. With the evolution of "Web 2.0", sometimes called the "Participative Web", represented by user-generated content (UGC), and also with the evolution of peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing and recently cyberlockers, the effectiveness of copyright protection online has become a problem where solutions can be found only with difficulty. Online copyright infringement is a complex phenomenon with a multiplicity of contributing factors. To see and understand these factors one must not only know and understand the territorial and international legal rules governing copyright, but also know and understand the online ecosystem in which copyright infringement takes place, which is impossible without knowing the history, evolution and technical...

Copyright law is a special category of civil law which, with the upswing of the Internet, has become important for different types of stakeholders in the global information society. The 'participative web' operates with content generated by users. This user-generated content has often disputable origins in terms of copyright clearance. The Internet has opened the possibility for developing new forms of communication between anonymous or individual users who are not easily identifiable. Especially peer-to-peer file sharing and recently the information services offered and operated by the so-called 'cyberlockers' are the reason of questioning the role of copyright protection online which needs a beneficial solution. Copyright infringement in the era of information society is a complex phenomenon with a multiplicity of contributing factors like the importance of information data with big business potential, personal attitudes shown by internet users towards the value and scarcity of intellectual property, or legal responsibility of internet service providers (ISP) who paradoxically act from the safety of the so-called safe harbours as intermediaries of information exchange, representing a new element in the communication chain between rights holders and users. Commercial and business models operating...