Marcel Rosenberger
email: marcel.rosenberger@student.unisg.ch

Social Customer Relationship Management: An Architectural Exploration of the Components

Keywords: Social CRM, design science, Enterprise Architecture, artefacts, literature review

des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.

Introduction

Social media have gained interest and popularity in the past years. They are applications that build on web 2.0, which is a concept that encourages connecting, participation, and collaboration of users and sharing of content over the Internet [START_REF] Musser | Web 2.0 Principles and Best Practices[END_REF]. The high number of social media users attracts attention of companies, which aim to profit from the potentialities [START_REF] Smith | Conference notes -The social media revolution[END_REF][START_REF] Baird | From social media to social customer relationship management[END_REF]. At a first glance, with only little effort companies can use social media to publish advertisements that reach many people, which improves the marketing efficiency. This view, however, is short-sighted. A closer study reveals more opportunities, which are enabled by the integration of social media and the consumers into operational procedures. Examples of the potentialities are support-cost reduction, product innova-tion, and improvement of the reputation [START_REF] Cappuccio | Social CRM for SMEs: Current Tools and Strategy[END_REF][START_REF] Fliess | Understanding Patterns of Customer Engagement -How Companies Can Gain a Surplus from a Social Phenomenon[END_REF][START_REF] Jahn | How to transform consumers into fans of your brand[END_REF]. Social customer relationship management (CRM) is a philosophy and business strategy that professionalises the relationship to customers using social media and aims at realising the opportunities [START_REF] Greenberg | CRM at the speed of light: social CRM 2.0 Strategies, tools, and techniques for engaging your customers[END_REF].

The transformation of an organisation from CRM to social CRM is a complex task, because many different aspects are affected, which also are mutually dependent. For example, Askool & Nakata [START_REF] Askool | A conceptual model for acceptance of social CRM systems based on a scoping study[END_REF] highlight that a strategy must be developed to govern social CRM initiatives. The management's task is to provide for a supportive company culture and implement organisational changes [START_REF] Kuikka | Determining the chalenges of organizational social media adoption and use[END_REF]. Existing information systems (IS) need adjustments to enable and enhance business processes. Finally, Social CRM requires integrations on functional and technological level [START_REF] Acker | Social CRM: How companies can link into the social web of consumers[END_REF][START_REF] Reinhold | How Companies are Implementing Social Customer Relationship Management : Insights From Two Case Studies[END_REF][START_REF] Trainor | Social media technology usage and customer relationship performance: A capabilitiesbased examination of social CRM[END_REF]. Without understanding social CRM and its components, implementation projects are likely to fail. However, a holistic view of the components is still missing. The existing literature either focuses on single aspects or provides an abstracted overview of multiple aspects without giving details [START_REF] Patten | Enterprise 2.0 Management and Social Issues[END_REF][START_REF] Gruzd | Emotions in the Twitterverse and Implications for User Interface Design[END_REF]. This is justifiable in consideration of the complexity of social CRM. Still, a complete picture is desirable. Separation of concerns is a useful means of addressing complexity. The conglomeration of different issues is dissolved by conceptualising the components and its relationships. Artefacts, which are the results of design science, document components and its relationships of a domain of interest. They contribute to actual design-oriented business problems and support the implementation of technology-based solutions [START_REF] Hevner | Design science in information systems research[END_REF][START_REF] Müller | The Artifact's Theory -A Grounded Theory Perspective on Design Science Research[END_REF]. This paper aims to answer the following research question (RQ):

RQ: What are the components of social CRM from an architectural perspective?

The intention is to build a better understanding of social CRM from an enterprise architect's view. Instead of proposing another abstracted framework or deep diving into parts of the complex, the present paper reuses existing research results and integrates the findings into a holistic view. The concerns of social CRM are separated using connected architectural perspectives. This allows investigating social CRM focused on specific aspects and in its entirety. The research method is a literature review, which allows determining the current state of research. The artefacts of the discovered publications are assigned to five layers, which represent the architectural perspectives business, process, integration, software, and technology. The layers are adopted from Enterprise Architecture (EA), which is a holistic framework that helps representing an enterprise's artefacts. Each layer is a view from the perspective of a specific concern. All artefacts of all layers represent the entire body of knowledge within the research scope. The target groups of this paper are IS architects and researchers of social CRM.

The paper is structured in five chapters. Chapter 2 gives the background of the underlying concepts, which are social CRM, artefacts, and EA. The research method is described in chapter 3. Then, the findings are presented considering each architectural layer. Finally, the paper concludes with a discussion and interpretation and guides further research.

Conceptual Foundation

Fig. 1 provides an overview of the architectural exploration of the artefacts of social CRM. Each EA-layer may contain artefacts, and a single artefact may also address concerns of multiple layers mutually. Artefacts of social CRM and artefacts of CRM are included to broaden the perspective.

Social CRM

Web 2.0 is a concept of the internet, which enables users to create content collaboratively and build a network with other users. The characteristics are user participation, openness, and network effects [START_REF] Musser | Web 2.0 Principles and Best Practices[END_REF]. Openness means that results from user participation (e.g. posts, comments, and profiles) are accessible by other parties of the community. The concept is the foundation for social media, which are applications of the web 2.0 concept.

A basic feature of social media is to connect to other users to share information with them [START_REF] Ang | Is SCRM really a good social media strategy?[END_REF]. This principle is beneficial for the CRM of the company, which has the objective to establish and maintain profitable relationships to key customers and customer segments. CRM is a strategic approach that "involves identifying appropriate business and customer strategies, the acquisition and diffusion of customer knowledge, deciding appropriate segment granularity, managing the co-creation of customer value, developing integrated channel strategies and the intelligent use of data and technology solutions to create superior customer experience" [START_REF] Frow | Customer Relationship Management: A Strategic Perspective[END_REF].

Companies participate in the social network of users connecting to its target group. This facilitates the opportunity to gain business-relevant insights from the accessible data of the communication between the users. These insights help to intensify the relationship and to align the business with consumer needs. The integration of CRM with social media leads to the term "social CRM", which is a philosophy and business strategy [START_REF] Greenberg | CRM at the speed of light: social CRM 2.0 Strategies, tools, and techniques for engaging your customers[END_REF]. Customers are engaged to participate in business processes with the result of a value-added for both: the company and the customer.

Artefacts

Design science research is a paradigm that aims at solving real-world problems by designing general solutions. It is a fundamental IS discipline, which develops artefacts that improve the capabilities of organisations [START_REF] Hevner | Design science in information systems research[END_REF]. Generality means that an artefact solves a class of problems instead of an individual problem of a single organisation.

March & Smith [START_REF] March | Design and natural science research on information technology[END_REF] identify four artefact-types, which are constructs, models, methods, and instantiations. Constructs are the basic language of concepts needed to describe phenomena. Models build on constructs and relate them with each other. Methods describe activities to meet specified targets. These forgoing artefacts can be instantiated in specific implementations representing the fourth artefact-type. The two main evaluation criteria are that artefacts are innovative and valuable [START_REF] Peffers | A Design Science Research Methodology for Information Systems Research[END_REF]. Artefacts are ideal candidates to answer the research question, because they make components and its relationships explicit.

Enterprise Architecture

EA is a holistic framework, which provides views of an organisation's system from the perspective of specific concerns [START_REF] Aier | Understanding Enterprise Architecture Management Design -An Empirical Analysis[END_REF]. According to ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010:2011(E) [START_REF]Systems and software engineering -Architecture description[END_REF] architecture is defined as the "fundamental concepts or properties of a system in its environment embodied in its elements, relationships, and in the principles of its design and evolution". The elements of a system can be related to five EA-layers, which are business-layer, process-layer, integration-layer, software-layer, and technology-layer [START_REF] Winter | Essential layers, artifacts, and dependencies of enterprise architecture[END_REF].

The business-layer represents the strategy and subsumes organisational goals and success factors, products/services, targeted market segments, core competencies and strategic projects. The process-layer contains models to represent organisational units, business locations, business roles, business functions, metrics and service flows, for example. Applications and enterprise services are associated with the integration-layer. The software-layer contains software-components and data resources. Hardware units and network notes operate on the level of IT infrastructure (technology-layer). Relationships exist between components associated to the same layer and across layers. In the context of social CRM, sales and support are connected processes, for example, which both are associated to the process-layer. Social media are applications, which ultimately run on hardware. Thus, a connection between components of the integrationlayer and components of the technology-layer exists. Aier, Gleichauf, & Winter [START_REF] Aier | Understanding Enterprise Architecture Management Design -An Empirical Analysis[END_REF] identify the dissolution of information silos as an exemplary means of use of EA, which is the intention of use in this paper.

Method

The method for finding the existing artefacts is a literature review. Vom Brocke et al. [START_REF] Vom Brocke | Reconstructing the Giant: On the Importance of Rigour in Documenting the Literature Search Process[END_REF] propose guidelines of a rigour process of literature reviews. They state that not only results should be presented, but, to allow replicability, also the approach. Table 1 characterises the conducted literature review following the taxonomy proposed by

Cooper [START_REF] Cooper | Organizing knowledge syntheses: A taxonomy of literature reviews[END_REF]. The focus ( 1) is on existing constructs, models, methods, and instantiations that support the design, implementation and governance of social CRM. The goal (2) is to connect to existing knowledge to solve the research problem on a conceptual level (3).

The perspective (4) can be characterised as neutral representation, because the position is unbiased. Practitioners and researchers of social CRM are the target audience [START_REF] Fliess | Understanding Patterns of Customer Engagement -How Companies Can Gain a Surplus from a Social Phenomenon[END_REF].

The results are representative [START_REF] Jahn | How to transform consumers into fans of your brand[END_REF] for the IS community because prominent data sources have been queried. and full text (TX) fields was applied. The first search-string was built to find specific design science results containing the term "social CRM" in particular. The total number of hits without duplicates was low [START_REF] Vom Brocke | Reconstructing the Giant: On the Importance of Rigour in Documenting the Literature Search Process[END_REF]. As a consequence, the search-string has been broadened. The second search-string includes design science results that consider CRM and also social media or web 2.0. This ensures the inclusion of research results that are applicable to the research scope whereas the term "social CRM" is not used. Only reviewed publications have been considered to ensure the level of quality. Duplicate publications of the two searches have been removed. The relevance of the distinct papers has been determined by reading the full texts. For example, publications that defined the term "CRM" as "component reference model" or "core reaction model" have been treated as not relevant. Only original publications written in English have been incorporated. The artefact-type of the found artefacts has been determined and the publication has been assigned to an architectural-layer. In cases where no unequivocal assignment could be made, multiple assignments of the same publication to all fitting layers have been made.

Findings

Table 2 shows the numerical results of the literature review. The two search-strings, which ultimately lead to the relevant publications, are the following:

Search-string (1):

"social crm" AND "design science" Search-string ( 2):

(crm OR "customer relationship management") AND ("web 2.0" OR "social media") AND "design science" The keyword "design science" proved to be eligible, because it allows an efficient and effective search. Prior searches with the keywords "architecture" or "integration" did not lead to noteworthy results. Applying the keyword "model" shows results, but this term is more often used in the context of quantitative research and signifies statistical models and does not lead to the sought architecture elements. Both terms "elements" and "components" are too broad and do not reduce the results sufficiently. Applying the search-string (1) to the data source AISeL displays 21 results. This indicates two different things. Firstly, social CRM is a present research field of the IS community. Secondly, design science is a common research paradigm of this research field. Apart from that, Emerald, JSTOR, and Web of Science display no results for search-string [START_REF] Musser | Web 2.0 Principles and Best Practices[END_REF]. A possible reason is that Emerald and JSTOR include mainly journal publications and no conference papers. The publication-period of conference proceedings is usually shorter. Hence, "social CRM" is a novel term that is not yet established in journals. The fact that JSTOR has results for "design science", but no results for "social CRM", supports that argument. Emerald does not feature to search the full texts of publications and the occurrence of "social CRM" and "design science" in the metadata is non-existent. This also applies to Web of Science, where only title (TI) and topic (TO) fields are searchable. In total, search-string (1) leads to 24 unique publications.

Applying search-string (2) displays results in all data sources, except Web of Science due to the limitation to search in the abstracts or the full texts of the publications. The high total number of unique results (137) indicates that CRM is better established in research than social CRM. More precisely, the term "social CRM" is not as widely used as the combination of CRM and web 2.0 or social media. This is not surprising, because all three terms CRM, social media, and web 2.0 are the foundation and a prerequisite to define social CRM. EBSCO, ProQuest, and AISeL are the data sources with the highest totals for search-string [START_REF] Smith | Conference notes -The social media revolution[END_REF].

In summary, 21 relevant publications describe artefacts that represent components of social CRM. Fig. 2 shows the yearly distribution of the publications. The findings indicate that social CRM is a contemporary research field. All artefacts have been published in the past six years. The year 2012 is remarkable, because the number of publications increased threefold compared to the previous year. Since then, the number of publications that include artefacts relevant to social CRM amounts five to six per year in the queried data sources.

Fig. 2. Distribution of the relevant publications per year

Table 3 lists the publications, the artefact-types, the artefact-names, and the addressed EA-layers. A model is the most commonly occurring artefact-type among the explored publications. Eleven publications present models, five describe instantiations, three develop a method, and two publications propose constructs. Models, methods, and instantiations are built on constructs [START_REF] March | Design and natural science research on information technology[END_REF]. Consequently, every publication that describes an artefact contains or relies on constructs. In cases where models, methods, and instantiations implicitly rely on artefacts of other types, only the targeted artefact of the publication is incorporated. As a result, the number of counted constructs can be less than the number of the other artefact-types.

The business-layer includes the most artefacts. Ten artefacts address aspects of the business-layer, nine thematise processual issues, nine target applications of social CRM (integration-layer), seven outline software issues, and no artefact depicts components of the IT infrastructure (technology-layer). The artefacts of ten publications address concerns of multiple EA-layers. Examples are framework-models, which provide different views of components and its relationships [START_REF] Patten | Enterprise 2.0 Management and Social Issues[END_REF][START_REF] Lehmkuhl | Towards Social CRM -A Model for Deploying Web 2[END_REF][START_REF] Werder | Social Media for Success: a Strategic Framework[END_REF]. Five artefacts address aspects of the integration-layer and software-layer in conjunction. The combined consideration of the business-layer and process-layer occurs four times and is second most therewith. This indicates a close architectural relationship between these layers. A model of the business-layer is most frequent counting seven occurrences. Four publications develop models that highlight processual issues and four other publications describe instantiations that relate to the integration-layer implementing applications.

Artefact [28] ○ ○ • • ○ ○ • ○ ○ Framework of

an ontology-based social media analysis [29] ○ • ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ • Text mining application for exploring the voice of the customer

[30] ○ ○ ○ • ○ ○ • ○ ○ Data model of data objects of social networks [31] ○ ○ • ○ ○ ○ • ○ ○ Framework for gathering business intelligence from blogs [32] ○ • • • ○ ○ ○ ○ • Social CRM tool framework [33] • ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ • ○ Method for developing a taxonomy of social media [14] ○ ○ • • ○ ○ ○ ○ • User interface design for Twitter [34] • • ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ • ○ Social media innovation method [35] ○ ○ • ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ • Social data analytics tool (SODATO) [26] • • ○ ○ ○ ○ • ○ ○ Social CRM framework [36] • ○ ○ ○ ○ • ○ ○ ○ Web 2.

factors and value drivers [37] • • • ○ ○ ○ • ○ ○ Maturity model for the adoption of social media [38] • • ○ ○ ○ ○ • ○ ○ System dynamics model and word-of-mouth effects

[39] ○ • ○ ○ ○ • ○ ○ ○ Ontology for IS sentiment analysis [13] • ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ • ○ ○ Enterprise 2.0 management framework [40] ○ • • • ○ ○ • ○ ○ Blueprint of an analytical social CRM system [41] ○ ○ ○ • ○ ○ • ○ ○ Social network data model [42] • ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ • ○ ○ Customer satisfaction theoretical framework [43] ○ ○ • • ○ ○ ○ ○ • Multimedia platform providing social e-services [27] • ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ • ○ ○ Social media strategy framework [44] • ○ • ○ ○ ○ ○ • ○ Social app prototypes Legend:
○ not a focus of the publication; • focus of the publication

Business-layer

The artefacts of the business-layer address abstracted concepts, strategic aspects, organisational goals or success factors relevant to social CRM. Emamjome et al. [START_REF] Emamjome | Understanding the Value of Social Media in Organisations: a Taxonomic Approach[END_REF] propose a method for developing a taxonomy of social media in an organisational context. The findings help to create an understanding of the concepts and support building a foundation for further research. Patten & Keane [START_REF] Patten | Enterprise 2.0 Management and Social Issues[END_REF] conceive social CRM as a com-bination of three dimensions of a company-wide concept. Their Enterprise 2.0 Management Framework relates the dimensions (1) technology, tools and capabilities, (2) user-generated content, and (3) employee and customer applications, which are governed by culture and policies. The maturity model of organisational adoption of social media allows positioning and comparing of the companies' achievements along the dimensions strategy, processes, IS, culture, and governance [START_REF] Lehmkuhl | Towards a maturity model for the adoption of Social Media as a means of organizational innovation[END_REF]. The artefact is useful to determine and adjust the approach to social media from a strategic perspective. Factors and value drivers of web 2.0 support the creation of a social CRM strategy, because they show causes and effects in a business context. Lehmkuhl & Jung [START_REF] Lehmkuhl | Value Creation Potential of Web 2.0 for Sme -Insights and Lessons Learnt From a European Producer of Consumer Electronics[END_REF] identify social networking, interaction orientation, user-added value, and customisation/personalisation as factors, which have a varying relevance for a specific company depending on the business model. A commerce-oriented online marketplace, for example, should encourage the customer-company and customer-customer communication (interaction orientation). A content-oriented online newspaper can profit from gathering and exchanging information and opinions of its readers by enabling social networking. According to Werder et al. [START_REF] Werder | Social Media for Success: a Strategic Framework[END_REF], the social media strategy should include three components, which are scope, capabilities and governance. The scope is defined by actors, platforms and interaction. Social media objectives and activities are conceived as capabilities. The governancecomponent addresses value, resources and risks. Customer experience and customer satisfaction are further strategic focus areas that need attention and allocation of funds [START_REF] Seng | E-government evaluation: The use of design science approach to build and evaluate customer satisfaction theoretical framework[END_REF].

Yoon et al. [START_REF] Yoon | Empirical Investigation of Web 2 . 0 Technologies for Social Commerce and Implementation of Social App Prototypes[END_REF] develop a conceptualisation of social commerce identifying the components user contribution, participation, collaboration and technological features. By reference to the customer life cycle model they argue that web 2.0 supports business goals. Interesting to note, social commerce addresses similar aspects of what Greenberg [START_REF] Greenberg | CRM at the speed of light: social CRM 2.0 Strategies, tools, and techniques for engaging your customers[END_REF] terms social CRM. A clear differentiation between both terms is missing. In summary, the artefacts of the business-layer help to understand basic concepts, identify strategic aspects for planning and organising social CRM, include recommendations for governance, and "[stimulate] thinking about the impact of social media beyond the marketing function" [START_REF] Werder | Social Media for Success: a Strategic Framework[END_REF].

Process-layer

In order to implement social CRM in organisations the management needs to introduce, adjust, and evaluate business processes. A framework model helps to scope the tasks and structure work packages. The core processes for planning social CRM are readiness assessment, strategy development, value creation, multichannel management, information management and performance measurement [START_REF] Lehmkuhl | Towards Social CRM -A Model for Deploying Web 2[END_REF]. The implementation-activities are governed by project management & change management and employee engagement. Helms et al. [START_REF] Helms | Reaching Out: Involving users in Innovation Tasks through Social Media[END_REF] focus on user participation in the innovation process developing a social media method for matching innovation tasks with social media characteristics. The characteristics are organised in three dimensions, which are audience, content and time. Botzenhardt et al. [START_REF] Botzenhardt | A Text Mining Application for Exploring the Voice of the Customer[END_REF] focus on supporting the product development process. Their instantiation is a text mining software that analyses the unstructured content of customers' posts in social media. Maier & Reinwald [START_REF] Maier | A System Dynamics Approach to Value-based Complaint Management Including Repurchase Behavior and Word of Mouth[END_REF] support the decision-making in the complaint management process. The authors propose a system dynamics model and incorporate the influence of social media on word-of-mouth effects and the customers' repurchase behaviour. Online social networks act as an accelerator and can have both: positive and negative effects.

The artefacts of the process-layer represent only some processes of social CRM. Other relevant processes are not covered, e.g. customer support, lead management, upselling/cross-selling, and market research.

Integration-layer

The artefacts of the integration-layer propose models of applications and describe reallife instantiations of social CRM applications. The framework of an ontology-based social media analysis is a social CRM system model [START_REF] Alt | Towards an Ontology-Based Approach for[END_REF]. The central component is the Text Mining Framework, which has social media interfaces to access data of social media and database interfaces to enrich the data of enterprise systems (e.g. CRM system). The Ontology Engineering component extracts domain concepts of the company (i.e. ontology) from the data of its enterprise systems. The extracted company information and information about products is forwarded to the text mining application, which uses the ontology for filtering relevant and irrelevant social media data. The insights from social media data can be used to enhance products or plan marketing campaigns, for example. Chau & Xu [START_REF] Chau | Business intelligence in blogs: Understanding consumer interactions and communities[END_REF] propose a framework for collecting and analysing business intelligence in blogs. This model is more concrete and regards blogs, which are a type of social media. The approach is the same: content analysis techniques are used to gather insights from the user-created content. Deng et al. [START_REF] Deng | Implementation and research of social CRM tool in mobile BOSS based on complex network[END_REF] apply network analysis technologies to enhance marketing and sales processes and implement an application. The publication contains details of the data resources and software components and thus is additionally assigned to the software-layer. The Social Data Analytics Tool is a software-instantiation that fetches the social graph and the social text from social media [START_REF] Hussain | Social Data Analytics Tool (SODATO)[END_REF]. The social graph represents actors and actions. Sentiments, keywords, and topics are extracted from the social text. Spagnoletti & Resca [START_REF] Spagnoletti | A Design Theory for IT Supporting Online Communities[END_REF] implement a multimedia online platform and highlight that an online-community is a valuable tool for CRM. Most artefacts of the integration-layer concentrate on gathering insights from social media data using analytical technologies. The represented integrations between enterprise systems and social media have in common that they follow an extract-transformload (ETL) approach. This leads to a unidirectional connection from social media to the enterprise systems. However, a communication needs a two-way integration.

Software-layer

The artefacts of the software-layer model components of social CRM applications. Examples of components are the user interface and the data model [START_REF] Gruzd | Emotions in the Twitterverse and Implications for User Interface Design[END_REF]. Rosemann et al. [START_REF] Rosemann | Leveraing social network data for analytica CRM strategies -the introduction of social BI[END_REF] include social media data in a Business Intelligence (BI) system that is capable to report on characteristics, needs, wishes and demands of customers. These insights are extracted by analytical operations on a combined set of the data of the CRM system, the data warehouse and social media. Key activities and components of the analytical social CRM system can be organised by the groups social web, multi-channel-management, analytical CRM, data, and operational CRM [START_REF] Reinhold | Analytical Social CRM: Concept and Tool Support[END_REF]. Analytical operations on the data are analysis, reporting, monitoring, and generating. The operational activities are planning, executing, and controlling CRM processes.

The identified artefacts are valuable to describe the structure and function of social CRM applications. The models and instantiations either focus on single components of a social CRM application in detail or give an overview of multiple components and its relationships.

Technology-layer

No artefact represents technological aspects of IT infrastructure, such as hardware units, network nodes, and physical servers. It is undisputed that technology is an important component of a social CRM system [START_REF] Greenberg | CRM at the speed of light: social CRM 2.0 Strategies, tools, and techniques for engaging your customers[END_REF]. However, the artefacts discovered in the literature review do not provide details about necessary or recommended IT infrastructure components.

Conclusion

Social CRM is an emergent research field with an increasing number of publications that present artefacts. However, the term is not commonly established. Besides "social CRM", researchers use the terms "Enterprise 2.0", "CRM 2.0", and "social commerce" without clear differentiation [START_REF] Patten | Enterprise 2.0 Management and Social Issues[END_REF][START_REF] Yoon | Empirical Investigation of Web 2 . 0 Technologies for Social Commerce and Implementation of Social App Prototypes[END_REF][START_REF] Trainor | Relating Social Media Technologies to Performance: A Capabilities-Based Perspective[END_REF]. The findings help to establish a better understanding of social CRM, because the explored artefacts reveal the components and its relationships. Social CRM, in entirety, comprises aspects of the business-, process-, integration-, software-, and technology-layers. No single artefact, however, covers all components of all layers mutually. This is explainable by the complexity of social CRM and, in consequence, the need to examine the philosophy and business strategy on different levels of abstraction and by separation of concerns. No discovered artefact represents components of the technology-layer. A possible reason is that the setup of hardware units, network nodes and servers are specific to an organisation and depend on company-size and individual organisational requirements. However, research results should also be applicable to other (similar) situations. Artefacts provide a general solution to a problem in a specified context [START_REF] Hevner | Design science in information systems research[END_REF][START_REF] March | Design and natural science research on information technology[END_REF]. Hence, it is not surprising that the technology-layer is under-represented in research. On the contrary, artefacts of the technology-layer are a possible research output. Examples are design principles of successful infrastructure-setup to accommodate the high load of the analytical social media data processing. The findings have managerial impacts. Not all artefacts, however, are relevant to all stakeholders of social CRM. For example, the management of an organisation might want to adduce artefacts of the business-layer to refine the social media strategy, while developers receive conceptual guidance from the models and instantiations of the integration-layer and software-layer in particular.

A limitation of this research is that the quality of the discovered artefacts has not been evaluated. Furthermore, due to the research question, only design science results, i.e. artefacts, are included in the literature review.

Further research may focus on components of a single layer, multiple layers, or the connection of the layers. A higher layer gives orientation and determines aspects, which need further concretisation on a lower layer. For example, culture and governance are mentioned as important issues of the business-layer [START_REF] Patten | Enterprise 2.0 Management and Social Issues[END_REF][START_REF] Lehmkuhl | Towards a maturity model for the adoption of Social Media as a means of organizational innovation[END_REF]. However, no artefact on the process-layer continues these aspects. It is not sufficient to identify what the important components of social CRM are, but also how the components function. In summary, the findings lead to a call for more artefacts that concretise the components of the business-layer. Especially constructs, which define a common terminology and methods that guide the successful implementation of social CRM components are sparse.

Fig. 1 .

 1 Fig. 1. Overview of the architectural exploration

Table 1 .

 1 Taxonomy of the conducted literature review (borrowing from[START_REF] Cooper | Organizing knowledge syntheses: A taxonomy of literature reviews[END_REF])

	Characteristic Categories
	(1) focus	research	research methods	theories	applications
		outcomes
	(2) goal	integration	criticism	central issues
	(3) organisation historical	conceptual	methodological
	(4) perspective neutral representation	espousal of position
	(5) audience	specialised	general scholars	practitioners general public
		scholars
	(6) coverage	exhaustive exhaustive and selective representative central/pivotal

A keyword search in the databases of AISeL, EBSCO, Emerald, IEEE, JSTOR, ProQuest, and Web of Science in title (TI), topic (TO), abstract (AB), keyword (KW)

Table 2 .

 2 Numerical results of the literature review

	Data source	Search fields	Search string	Publications
			(1)	(2)	Total 1	Rele-
						vant
	AISeL	TI, AB, KW, TX	21	38	53	12
	EBSCO	TI, AB, KW, TX	2	53	53	5
	Emerald	TI, AB, KW	--	1	1	--
	IEEE	TI, AB, KW	1	4	5	2
	JSTOR	TI, AB, KW, TX	--	5	5	--
	ProQuest	TI, AB, KW	3	46	46	1
	Web of Sci-	TI, TO	--	--	--	--
	ence
	Total 1		24	137	151	21

Table 3 .

 3 Explored publications, artefact-types, artefact-names, and addressed EA-layers

		EA-layer			Artefact-type
	Publi-cation	Business	Process	Integration	Software	Technology	Constructs	Model	Method	Instantiation

The total numbers are not equal to the column and row sums respectively, because duplicates have been counted only once.


Farooq Mubarak

Reima Suomi
email: reima.suomi@utu.fi

A Visual Uptake on the Digital Divide

Keywords: Digital divide, ICT, Digital technologies

Factors found to influence the adoption of ICT have been explored in several studies. However, few writers have been able to produce any systematic research into the digital divide. Although, differences of opinion still exist, a growing body of literature has established that income and education are positively related to digitalization patterns. This research attempts to deepen the understanding of the present ambiguous relationship between socio-economic indicators and the ICT. This account tested the links between socio-economic variables (GDP per capita, GINI index, World Bank Education Statistics, and Transparency International's corruption perception index) and ICT diffusion across developed and developing countries. Positive correlations were found for income and ICT, education and ICT. A negative correlation was found between corruption and ICT adoption. The paper discusses implication of these findings and suggests future courses of actions for policy makers. Proceeding from the findings of this paper, this research suggests there is an urgent need to address the digital divide by initiating impactful efforts to reduce it.

Introduction

Researchers have long sought to determine how patterns of digitalization link with economic variables. To that end, a hefty volume of publications has appeared in academia that looks at such links that have a variety of well-disputed varying research methods and measurement mechanisms. Moreover, recent advancements in ICT research have laid rest to several myths concerning the nature of the digital divide. Nevertheless, much doubt still persists since there still appears to be little agreement on the leading causes of the digital divide. The past decade, in particular, has seen rapid progress in ICT research, which has reshaped the conventional concept of the digital divide from narrow to wide and made it considerably complex paradigm. This shift has resulted in mounting literature across academia, politics, and the press. Much of the existing debate on the digital divide revolves around the qualitative nature of the issue, while the quantitative uptake on the topic appears to be overlooked. Thus, Noh & Yoo [START_REF] Noh | Internet, inequality and growth[END_REF] view the measurement of the digital divide as a controversial issue. Owing to the complexities of the subject, some researchers [START_REF] Butcher | At the foundations of information justice[END_REF][START_REF] Hilbert | The end justifies the definition: The manifold outlooks on the digital divide and their practical usefulness for policy-making[END_REF][START_REF] Van Dijk | Digital divide research, achievements and shortcomings[END_REF] state that the digital divide is a confused theme in literature. These critics justify their views by noting severe pitfalls of the data and methodologies used to quantify the digital divide.

In the history of the digital divide, poverty has been thought of as a key factor that is responsible for the breach in the access and the utilization of the digital technologies. In their major analysis of publications from thirty leading researchers, Skok and Ryder [START_REF] Skok | An evaluation of conventional wisdom of the factors underlying the digital divide: a case study of the Isle of Man[END_REF] concluded that GDP per capita and education were the principal factors responsible for the digital divide. A similar result was reported by Billon, Lera-Lopez, and Marco [START_REF] Billon | Differences in digitalization levels: a multivariate analysis studying the global digital divide[END_REF] who found GDP and infrastructure as to be the main factors for slow digital progress in developing countries. A number of researchers [e.g. [START_REF] Tipton | Bridging the digital divide in Southeast Asia: Pilot agencies and policy implementation in Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, and the Philippines[END_REF][START_REF] Olaniran | Globalization, educational hegemony, and higher education[END_REF][START_REF] Brooks | Developing Nations, the Digital Divide and Research Databases[END_REF] have acknowledged GDP per capita/income as a leading cause of the digital divide between and within countries. It appears safe to say that poverty alone explains a major portion of the digital divide outgrowth.

The connections between GDP per capita and patterns of digitalization have been an object of research since the evolution of the digital divide concept, in the mid-1990s. Vodoz, Reinhard, and Giauque [START_REF] Vodoz | The farmer, the worker and the MP[END_REF] noted that individuals with higher education levels are likely to adopt the digital technologies faster than people with low or no education at all. Two large-scale studies [START_REF] Zhang | Income disparity and digital divide: The Internet Consumption Model and cross-country empirical research[END_REF][START_REF] Quibria | Digital divide: determinants and policies with special reference to Asia[END_REF] demonstrated the positive correlation between GDP and the Internet diffusion curve.

However, uncertainty still exists about the relation be-tween education and ICT diffusion; and two major studies [START_REF] Middleton | Approaching digital equity: is wifi the new leveler? Information[END_REF][START_REF] Cruz-Jesus | Digital divide across the European Union[END_REF] defy any relation between the two. Consonantly, Stanley [START_REF] Stanley | Beyond Access: Psychosocial Barriers to Computer Literacy[END_REF] intensifies psychosocial resistances as key factor responsible for the digital divide, thus putting aside income and education. Nevertheless, considerable criticism has been levelled at quantitative research on the digital divide. Much of the research on this subject has been restricted to local and limited comparisons, while only a few studies such as those by Cruz-Jesus et al. [START_REF] Cruz-Jesus | Digital divide across the European Union[END_REF] have attempted to assess the digital divide across a wide range of geographical territories.

The recent rise in public computer facilities in developed countries has allowed a large segment of the population to benefit from ICT, who otherwise could not afford computers and the Internet. Thus, it can be fairly argued that there exists a category of people in developed countries who can benefit from ICT regardless of in-come constraints. If the findings made by Vodoz et al. [START_REF] Vodoz | The farmer, the worker and the MP[END_REF] about the high rates of ICT adoption on education being dependent on education are accurate, then what explains the exponential growth of the Internet in developing regions with low literacy rates, such as South-East Asia? What is not yet clear is the measured impact of income and education on ICT adoption in the current era. Despite the research mentioned earlier, there is still very little scientific understanding of the degree of the relationship if any, of socio-economic indicators with ICT, particularly in developed countries. In addition, the general dispute in the quantitative literature on the digital divide hints that much of the evidence so far is inconclusive at best. This indicates a need to understand the various perceptions of any possible connections of socio-economic indicators with ICT in this current age. For the purposes of this study, the chosen socio-economic variables are the World Bank GDP per capita, the GINI index, World Bank Education, and Transparency Inter-national's Corruption Perception index.

Even though, some research has studied the socio-economic links with ICT, most research has been undertaken by analyzing just a few statistical observations. Nonetheless, it is possible to further improve the research design and scope by utilizing a combination of methods. With this goal, the present research seeks to obtain visualizations of the major factors that are responsible for the digital divide. Drawing upon this stand of research into the digital divide, this paper shall attempt to verify the aforementioned claims in preceding paragraphs by examining the links between income, education, and corruption with ICT patterns across high-income Nordic countries, the low-income Indian sub-continent region, and a few middle-income countries. A secondary aim is to shed light on the implication of the findings and suggest a direction for possible future developments. This paper aims to broaden the scope of the main factors responsible for the digital divide, since the digital disparities are intermixed with social and psychological factors in addition to income and education. The hypothetical premises at this point rest on four assumptions: GDP per capita is positive related to Internet adoption, GINI index is inversely related to Internet adoption, education is positively related to Internet adoption, and Corruption is inversely related to Internet adoption.

2

Literature review

During the past twenty years, much more information has become available on the digital divide and its rigorous threats to the world economy. However, very little was found in the literature on the question of quantitative analysis of the digital divide. The digital divide can be defined as the disparity between those who do and do not benefit from digital technologies [START_REF] Cullen | Addressing the digital divide[END_REF]. In the context of the digital divide, the chief division is between two significant groups namely inclusion and exclusion with respect to those who benefit and those who do not benefit from digital technologies. One group consisting of developed countries is continuously reaping the benefits of ICT whereas the other group consisting of developing countries is missing out on many benefits due to lack of access to the digital technologies [START_REF] Antonelli | The digital divide: understanding the economics of new information and communication technology in the global economy[END_REF][START_REF] Qingxuan | New Economy and ICT development in China[END_REF]. Menou [START_REF] Menou | The global digital divide; beyond hICTeria[END_REF] and Mansell [START_REF] Mansell | Constructing the knowledge base for knowledge-driven development[END_REF] already warned that if the issue of the digital divide is left unattended, world inhabitants will be living in a dual planet. Call for future research on the nature of the digital divide has been a recurring theme of many scholarly articles.

As noted in the introduction that digital divide has been viewed as a confused theme in literature: some studies [START_REF] Menou | The global digital divide; beyond hICTeria[END_REF][START_REF] Dewan | The Digital Divide: Current and Future Research Directions[END_REF][START_REF] Drouard | Costs or gross benefits? -What mainly drives cross-sectional variance in Internet adoption[END_REF] consider the digital divide to be a matter of gap in access to ICT while others [1, 23, 24, 25 26, 27, 28, 29, 30] consider the digital divide as a complex and broad phenomenon where several variables play their respective part. Pick & Nishida [START_REF] Pick | Digital divides in the world and its regions: A spatial and multivariate analysis of technological utilization[END_REF] found education to be the principal determinant of technology utilization. It can be inferred from the study´s conclusion that the role of education is significant in increasing adoption of digital technologies. Similarly, Cooke & Greenwood [START_REF] Cooke | Cleaners don't need computers": bridging the digital divide in the workplace[END_REF] maintain that the educational sector has made significant progress in promoting the adoption of ICT. Pittman [START_REF] Pittman | Converging instructional technology and critical intercultural pedagogy in teacher education[END_REF] postulates that the role of ICT is essential in fostering a globally diverse educational system.

However, recently some literature has emerged that offers contradictory findings regarding the role of education in ICT adoption. An empirical investigation led by Lee [START_REF] Lee | The roles of demographics on the perceptions of electronic commerce adoption[END_REF] suggests that demographic factors (age, gender, education) have little effect on the digital divide. Unlike Pittman [START_REF] Pittman | Converging instructional technology and critical intercultural pedagogy in teacher education[END_REF], a survey study of 158 Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) owners by Middleton and Chambers [START_REF] Middleton | Approaching digital equity: is wifi the new leveler? Information[END_REF] found that education has no effect on the adoption of Internet. However, this attitude would appear to be outdated even the study was published in the year 2010. There are limits to how far the idea of Middleton and Chambers [START_REF] Middleton | Approaching digital equity: is wifi the new leveler? Information[END_REF] can be taken because ICT is being increasingly incorporated into the education systems worldwide.

Tipton [START_REF] Tipton | Bridging the digital divide in Southeast Asia: Pilot agencies and policy implementation in Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, and the Philippines[END_REF] and Olaniran & Agnello [START_REF] Olaniran | Globalization, educational hegemony, and higher education[END_REF] document income disparity as the leading cause of the digital divide by noting that the digital divide reflects high income levels in developed world where as the opposite is true for the developing world. Quibria et al. [START_REF] Quibria | Digital divide: determinants and policies with special reference to Asia[END_REF] report a strong correlation between GDP per capita and the usage of computer. However, Tavani [START_REF] Tavani | Ethical reflections on the digital divide[END_REF] develops the claim that there are numerous other factors responsible for the breach in access and utilization of ICT other than income alone. Brooks et al. [START_REF] Brooks | Developing Nations, the Digital Divide and Research Databases[END_REF] maintain that costs of Internet connectivity in developing countries is significantly higher than those in developed countries. This corroborates with the view of Norris [START_REF] Norris | Digital Divide: Civic Engagement, Information Poverty, and the Internet Worldwide[END_REF] who maintain that the richer countries are better in reaping the benefits of ICT than the poorer countries. The evidence presented in this paragraph suggests that there is a strong connection between GDP per capita and the patterns of digitalization. However, a number of studies [ e.g. 14, 36, 37; 38, 39] have reported significant digital divide in developed countries, which questions the relation of GDP with the ICT diffusion. This doubt is further reinforced since some researchers [40 , 41] report a regional digital divide with respect to urban and rural settlements in highincome developed countries.

Novo-Corti, Varela-Candamio, & García-Álvarez [START_REF] Novo-Corti | Breaking the walls of social exclusion of women rural by means of ICTs: The case of 'digital divides' in Galician[END_REF] maintain that simply promoting the access to digital technologies is a simple solution to overcome the digital divide. Although, the study was targeted towards a particular region, the claim is question-able because the digital divide has been proved as a complex phenomenon and a variety of factors are responsible for the di-vide other than just access. Bach, Zoroja, and Vukšić [START_REF] Bach | Determinants of Firms' Digital Divide: A Review of Recent Research[END_REF] calls for effective policies for organizations and governments to com-bat the digital divide. This corroborates with the findings of Graham [START_REF] Graham | Bridging Urban Digital Divides? Urban Polarisation and Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs)[END_REF] who highlights the need of effective government systems with effective subsidies to minimize the digital divide. Peng [45] points out that although governments have access to household profile data such as education, income, and gender, they often lack reliable insights into psychological and cognitive profiles of individuals. This implies that efforts to fight the digital divide are required on multiple fronts since other than income and education; psychological factors are also responsible for adoption / nonadoption of ICT.

The insights drawn from the literature review advances us towards testing three hypothesis. First, income per capita bears a positive relation with ICT adoption. Second, education has a positive link with ICT adoption. Finally, corruption bears negative relation with ICT adoption.

Research design 3.1 Methodology

To date various methods have been developed and introduced in order to determine the connection between two or more variables. Traditionally, the digital divide measurements have been studied by comparing the variables in a select geographical territory. In addition, correlations between these variables have also been calculated to measure the degree of relationship. In the present study, the visualization approach was chosen to represent the association of GDP and education with the digitalization patterns across OECD member countries. The correlation attempt to provide an estimate of the degree of association between the variables under consideration. The correlations were calculated by using the following formula.

Where r is the coefficient of correlation, X and Y are variables, whereas x bar and y bar represent respective sample means. S represents the sample standard deviation of the respective variables x and y. n equals the number of items in the samples under consideration. Pearson product correlations from the above mentioned formula were calculated between the variables under consideration after each figure. The average values of the data sets were taken for the available years, wherever possible. In some cases, data was missing for some countries in specific years; thus only years with complete data for all countries were taken into consideration.

Data Selection

Although, a range of different organizations provide data sets for GDP and similar economic indicators, this research employed data from World Bank statistics database. In addition to the simplicity of the data downloads according to the customized preferences, World Bank statistics are known for providing credible information. The statistics were also found to be in close accordance with data provided by other institutions, although there were minor differences. PISA test scores were taken directly from the official PISA scores website. The corruption Perception Index was taken from the Transparency International official website. For the purposes of the present study, information from the developed Nordic countries, developing Indian subcontinent countries and a few middle-income countries was chosen. In some instances, the data for some countries was not available for a particular indicator; therefore different countries were added to the comparison. The data sources are detailed in Table 1.

Visualizations

Human brains are designed to process visual images before texts, and they need less energy to consume images than texts [START_REF] Burkhard | Learning from architects: complementary concept mapping approaches[END_REF]. In particular, visualizations present clear pictures of possible trends where the data is vast. Therefore, visualizations were chosen as a means for seeing any connections between the variables. In addition to giving a clear picture of a major scenario, visualizations can also represent the predictability of a certain variable's behavior over time.

In the present study, there are a mix of developed and developing countries under consideration. After trying various visualizations in Microsoft Excel software, a few were selected because they tend to report the best trends between the variables. Charts were used to show any possible link between the two variables.

4

Results and discussion

Results

The visualizations revealed several interesting insights, a few of which negate previous studies. In the forthcoming paragraphs, each figure shall be discussed and all possible interpretations shall be subsequently drawn in the next section of discussion. Figure 1 shows that a positive parallel relation was found between GDP per capita and Internet users per hundred people in developed and developing countries. The Pearson product correlation coefficient "r" was found to be 0.882. The positive correlation suggests that there is a tendency for increase in the number of Internet users with an increase in the GDP per capita of a given country. It can be seen from figure that Norway has the highest GDP per capita and the highest percentage of Internet users. Along with Norway, other Nordic countries show high rates of GDP per capita and percentage of Internet users. This is in stark contrast with the Indian subcontinent countries which show low rates of GDP per capita and Internet users. Figure 2 compares the GINI index with the Internet user's percentage across a range of developed, developing, and middle-income countries. A general trend that can be noticed from the figure 2 that higher the GINI index, lower the Internet users percentage. For instance, Iceland has the lowest value of GINI index and the highest number of Internet users percentage along with Norway. Thus, it can be inferred that higher the inequality of income in a given country, lower shall be the ICT adoption, in general. There are however exceptions to this rule. For example, GINI index values of Nepal and Bangladesh are almost same, however Nepal shows considerable high percentage of Internet users. This negative result might be due to other factors such as political and regional infrastructure differences. The correlation analysis yielded a negative value of -0,45 indicating a negative link between inequality of income and Internet usage. Correlation between the percentages of secondary school enrollment and Internet users 0.699 Figure 3 compares percentages of secondary school enrollment and Internet users across Nordic, few Indian subcontinent countries for which data was available, and middle-income countries. Comparatively less intense than the correlation between GDP per capita and Internet users, however, still a positive correlation between secondary school enrollment and Internet diffusion was found to be 0.699 as reported in Table 3. All Nordic countries show high percentages of secondary school enrollments and Internet users, whereas countries in Indian subcontinent region show low values of both variables under examination. There are however exceptions to this general trend of parallel growth of secondary school enrollments and Internet users. For instance, Luxembourg and Sri Lanka have almost similar values of secondary school enrollments at 86,4 % and 85,4% respectively but they differ remarkably in percentage of Internet users. Despite the high secondary school enrollments rate, Sri Lanka has only 15 % of Internet users as compared to 90,02% in Luxembourg. Advancing the comparison between education and ICT, PISA test results were included in the analysis. Since, the Indian subcontinent countries did not take part in PISA test, a different set of developing and developed countries were taken into account. It can be inferred from the figure 4 that countries with high PISA test scores have high percentage of Internet users, suggesting a positive relation between the two. However, there are exceptions to this assumption. For example, Vietnam and Finland show almost same values of PISA test scores, however they vary considerably in terms of Internet users percentage. Finland has far higher percentage of Internet users at 89,88% than Vietnam at 39,50%. The correlation between the subject variables in figure 4 was found to be 0,693 as reported in table 4. The positive value of the correlation at 0,693 suggests a positive link between PISA test scores and Internet usage. The findings from figures 3 and 4 are close to the previous findings of Vodoz et al. [START_REF] Vodoz | The farmer, the worker and the MP[END_REF] and Skok & Ryder [START_REF] Skok | An evaluation of conventional wisdom of the factors underlying the digital divide: a case study of the Isle of Man[END_REF] who determined education to be a principal factor responsible for ICT adoption Taken together, these visualizations and correlations lend some support to test the hypothetical assumptions introduced in the beginning of the study. The results of the hypothetical testing is tabulated in the table 5. In summary, the results support the assumptions presented in the introduction. The next section, therefore, moves on to discuss the findings and their implications in detail.

Discussion

This study set out to determine the possible links between socioeconomic indicators and ICT in developed and developing countries. It was hypothesized that income and education are positively related to ICT adoption whereas inequality of income and corruption were negatively associated with ICT adoption. As mentioned in the introduction and literature review, the abundant studies on the digital divide show no definite consensus on above mentioned links to draw any firm conclusions. Results of this study indicate that indeed income and education have a positive link with ICT whereas corruption bears a negative relation.

As shown in the literature review, there has been an inconclusive debate about whether education bears any considerable link with ICT or not. Although, there have been a few dissenters to the view that education and ICT bears any significant relation; the present research dispels this view by noticing a positive correlation between education and Internet use from two stand points. First, secondary school enrollment appears to be positively related to Internet use. Second, countries with high scores of PISA test results often show high penetration of Internet.

Correlation between GDP per capita and Internet diffusion was significantly higher than the correlation between secondary school enrollment and Internet diffusion. This leaves room for interpreting that income disparity is the ruling factor responsible for the digital divide. The result emerging from the correlation between educational fac-tor and Internet diffusion is consistent with the views of Le (2010, 84), who maintains that education has little effect on the adoption of digital technologies. However, reader must bear in mind the ease of access to public free Internet in developed countries; opposite results are likely for developing countries where one may only / mostly tie knot with digital technologies for the purposes of higher education.

A possible explanation for a slight degree of correlation be-tween education and ICT might be that modern modes of education themselves encourage the adoption of digital technologies. ICT has been integrated with education on a global scale excluding misfortunate poverty ridden areas. It then follows that in order to continue the education; one has to utilize ICT, which may be the main motivator behind the purchase decision of digital technologies. This finding has important implications for strengthening the education systems particularly in the developing countries. Education and ICT in several developing countries are ridiculously expensive leaving millions of masses behind, for them needs of education and ICT are pushed aside by basic human needs of food and shelter. Poverty once again wins in breeding nuances of low standards of living including considerable portion of the digital divide pie. Governments particularly in the developing regions should therefore concentrate on providing ICT-enhanced education at reasonable costs for masses. Ideally, however, the solution should rest somewhere near providing free education and access to ICT wherever it is feasible.

The results of this study will now be compared to the findings of previous work. Present findings are consistent with earlier re-search (Tipton [START_REF] Tipton | Bridging the digital divide in Southeast Asia: Pilot agencies and policy implementation in Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, and the Philippines[END_REF]; Norris [START_REF] Norris | Digital Divide: Civic Engagement, Information Poverty, and the Internet Worldwide[END_REF]; Olaniran & Agnello [START_REF] Olaniran | Globalization, educational hegemony, and higher education[END_REF]) which documents income disparity as the principal reason for the digital disparities in the world. While the current findings about positive relation between education and ICT corroborates with Lee [START_REF] Lee | The roles of demographics on the perceptions of electronic commerce adoption[END_REF], they negate with the results of Middleton & Chambers [START_REF] Middleton | Approaching digital equity: is wifi the new leveler? Information[END_REF] who report that education has no effect on the ICT adoption. This difference urges itself as an evidence of dispute in the research concerning factors responsible for the digital divide.

Turning now to the hypothesis posed at the beginning of the study, it is now possible to state that income factor rules as the leading cause of the digital divide: however, education has slight effect on ICT adoption. Current research appears to validate the assumption that corruption and inequality of income are negatively associated with ICT use. This combination of findings provides some support for the conceptual premise that poverty is mainly responsible for breeding the nuances of the digital divide. An implication of this could be to provide subsidies on ICT related products so that masses can reach and bene-fit from the digital revolution.

Among various lasting divides on accounts of wealth, health and standards of living, the digital divide is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore due to strong ties of ICT with economic growth and wellbeing. Despite massive progress in the digital technologies over the past twenty years, the ICT diffusion re-mains regrettably uneven at a global scale. The underlying threats posed by the digital divide have been globally acknowledged across press and policy discourses, resulting in the production of various publications and action plans. Fortunately, there are good policies by OECD and International Telecommunications Union in the battle against the digital divide; unfortunately, the action plans in these policies are often poorly calibrated across different countries. Among various reasons, one obvious reason for inappropriate action plans by governments lies in the fact that the quantitative nature of the digital divide is significantly overlooked in the literature.

Researchers seem to have routinely confused technology access divide with the digital divide over the span of a decade since the evolution of the digital divide concept in the mid-1990s. The heated debate on the digital divide over the past decade left a considerable room for interpreting the digital divide as a broad and complex phenomenon. Soon it was established that breach in technology access was a small portion of the giant digital di-vide; the need for further research into the digital divide be-came even significant than earlier. Today, the digital divide breaks along multiple fronts ranging from individual to a global scale. This broadly indicates that the digital divide can be best tackled by initiating efforts from multiple ends.

As was noted in the introduction of this paper, poor quantitative understanding of the digital divide seriously impedes governments´ abilities to form appropriate frameworks to minimize the digital divide; it becomes increasingly difficult to ignore the poorly understood quantitative aspect of the digital divide. Measurement of the digital divide is a classic problem often noted for deployment of unreliable data in the analysis. Once an adequate quantitative understanding of the subject is established and universally acknowledged, the mission to minimize the digital divide can be crystallized faster than ever before.

Prior research has stressed enough that governments should deploy superior strategy by focusing on weakening the roots of the digital divide rather than just providing access to ICT assuming that the market forces shall eliminate the digital divide over time. Unless governments execute impactful policies, the digital divide shall remain a dilemma for already troubled world economy.

Conclusion

Summary of findings

This study was undertaken to verify the links of socio-economic indicators concerning GDP per capita, GINI index, education, and corruption with ICT. The present paper has given an account of validated positive links between income along with education and Internet usage. While there has been considerable research on the digital divide, only few studies have attempted to investigate the quantitative nature of the digital divide on a large scale. The doubt in existing quantitative accounts of the digital divide is reinforced by the distaste several researchers have in the data and methodologies used for analysis. Therefore, this study has taken a unique visualization approach with measured degree of covariance to provide a confirmatory evidence of any emerging relation between the factors under current examination. Paired with literary clues, the visualizations paint a compelling picture in support of the hypothesis posed at the beginning of this study. This study has shown a positive association of income with levels of ICT penetration and a marginal correlation between education and ICT across an array of low-income, middle-income, and high-income countries. Present research has also shown that corruption has is inversely related to Internet usage. The present study confirms the previous findings about income and ICT relation and contributes additional evidence that the increasing GDP per capita determines increasing ICT adoption rate. Among the plausible explanation for this finding is that high purchasing power encourages investment in general. Nevertheless, the results of this study do not support the idea that education and ICT are very highly related with each other. It is, however, not an inalterable rule because in some countries, poor can benefit from free public access to computers and Internet regardless of income / education levels.

The work contributes to existing knowledge in digital divide by strengthening the views of previous research and noting that there exists a dispute in literature regarding the relation of education and ICT. However, low degree of correlation between education and ICT found in this research cannot be extrapolated to the developing world where there is not widespread free public access to ICT and one must purchase the digital technologies for education purposes. The present findings also leave significant room for blaming poverty as the leading cause of the digital divide. It is possible to state that poverty alone breeds a significant proportion of the digital divide; nevertheless other factors such as motivation to adopt ICT, education, forced adoption of ICT due to work requirements, and cultural norms are important to consider when addressing the issue of the digital divide.

The practical implication of these findings is that governments must start efforts on multiple fronts to round up the economic threats posed by the digital divide. On the basis of the evidence currently available, it is possible to suggest that the education in developing countries should be made easily affordable to the poor masses if not totally free. While the poverty breeds the digital divide, the digital inclusion would breed economic development due to enhanced workforce. Overtime, the economic and social benefits of affordable education and ICT shall outweigh the sacrifice in monetary costs by the governments.

Press and policy documents in the name of effective policies against the digital divide shall remain fruitless without pronouncing a decisive aggression against the digital divide on a global scale. The relentless objections to the existing accounts on quantification of the digital divide make it advisable to reconsider the methodology and data used for analysis in future research on the topic. It appears that the crowning success in the battle against the digital divide would require a thorough grasp of both quantitative and qualitative nature of the digital divide. It is a high time to change the course of the digital divide history by initiating impactful efforts on multiple fronts, preferably on determining the mechanism to accurately quantify the digital divide. The digital divide has caused severe havoc to socio-economic lives of millions of people, not to mention its deadly impact on economic footings. Unless there are concrete moves by the governments against the digital divide, the gap between inclusion and exclusion groups shall continue to pose rigorous threats on the world economy.

Limitations

The findings in this paper are subject to at least two main limitations. First, the chosen data was only from World Bank database in addition to official PISA website and Transparency International website; a wiser approach could have been to perform the statistical analysis with data from different databases and then compare the results. Second, few variables representing education such as PISA results and secondary school enrollments were included in analysis. The present research might have been enriched by including several representative variables of education and ICT diffusion in analysis.

Future directions

A natural progression of this work would be to analyze the links tested in this study in the developing world. There is abundant room for future progress in determining the links between ICT and other indicators of the economy. Research questions that could be asked include link of ICT with education at different levels, effect of free public ICT access enters on the relation between income and ICT diffusion, comparing the education and income relations with ICT in OECD member states with developing countries. Future work on exploring such connections with different variables shall help to understand patterns of ICT diffusion from multiple perspectives. Further research might explore the links of cultural influences and cognitive factors with ICT adoption on a broad scale including developing and developed countries. The present slow progress in the digital divide projects a poor quantitative understanding of the subject. Therefore, the future research should concentrate on finding reasonable ways to quantify and measure the digital divide.

Fig. 1 .Table 2 .

 12 Fig. 1. Comparison between GDP per capita average (2005-2013) and Internet users' percentage average (2005-2013) (Based on World Bank 2015) Table 2. Correlation between PISA 2012 test scores and the percentage of Internet users Emerging correlation in figure 2 Correlation between GDP per capita average (2005-2013) and Internet users percentage average (2005-2013)

Fig. 2 .Table 3 .

 23 Fig. 2. Comparison between GINI index 2010 and Internet users 2010 (Based on World Bank 2015) Table 3. Correlation between GINI index in percentage (2010) and Internet users in percentages (2010) Emerging correlation in figure 2 Correlation between the GINI index in percentages (2010) and Internet users in percentages (2010)

Fig. 3 .Table 4 .

 34 Fig. 3. Comparison between the percentage of secondary school enrollment and the percentage of Internet users for the year 2011 Table 4. Correlation between the percentages of secondary school enrollment and the precentage of Internet users Emerging correlation in figure 3

Fig. 4 .Table 5 .

 45 Fig. 4. Comparison between PISA 2012 test scores in mathematics and the percentage of Internet users (Based on data from OECD 2015 and World Bank 2012 Table 5. Correlation between PISA 2012 test scores and the percentage of Internet users Emerging correlation in figure 4 Correlation between PISA 2012 test scores and Internet users percentage

Fig. 5 .Table 6 . 933 Figure 5

 569335 Fig. 5. Comparison between Corruption perception index and Internet users (Based on data from Transparency International Secretariat 2015 and World bank 2015) Table 6. Correlation between Corruption perception index and Internet users Emerging correlation in figure 9 Correlation between Corruption perception index in percentage (2013) and Internet users (2013)

Table 1 . Data sources

 1

	Name	Institu-	URL	Select-	URL
		tion		ed data
				source

Table 7 .

 7 Results of hypothesis

	Hypoth-	Measuring	Hypothetical statements	Calculat-	Results
	esis	factor		ed corre-
				lations
	H1:	Income	GDP per capita and the rate of	0.89	Sup-
			Internet use are positively related		ported
			Inequality of income (GINI in-
			dex) is inversely related to Inter-
			net user	-0.45	Sup-
					ported
	H2	Education	Secondary school enrollment and	0.699	Sup-
			the rate of Internet use are posi-		ported
			tively related
			PISA test scores and the rate of	0.693	Sup-
			Internet use are positively related		ported
	H3	Corruption Corruption is inversely related to	0.933	Sup-
			the rate of Internet use		ported


Robert Woitsch

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Business Process as a Service (BPaaS) Model Based Business and IT Cloud Alignment as a Cloud Offering

Keywords: Business Process as a Service, Business Processes in the Cloud, Business and IT Alignment, Meta Modelling and Semantic

Cloud computing proved to offer flexible IT solutions. Although large enterprises may benefit from this technology by educating their IT departments, SMEs are dramatically falling behind in cloud usage and hence lose the ability to efficiently adapt their IT to their business needs. This paper introduces the project idea of the H2020 project CloudSocket, by elaborating the idea of Business Processes as a Service, where concept models and semantics are applied to align business processes with Cloud deployed workflows. Four architectural building blocks proposed for (i) design, (ii) allocation, (iii) execution and (iv) evaluation are discussed before providing and outlook.

Introduction

Cloud Computing is undoubtedly the current mega trend that has the potential to massively influence current use of IT, especially for business applications. Estimated improvements caused by efficient, flexible and networked IT resources range up to 30% [START_REF] Liebhart | Die modernen drei Musketiere, Cloud Computing, Computerwelt[END_REF]. Hence, Cloud Computing is a chance for start-ups and smart companies that enter this global IT marketplace and obviously a risk for those who do not appropriately take advantage of Cloud Computing. he ultimate challenge is to overcome so-called business and IT alignment, and bridge the gap between the business and IT domains. With respect to cloud offerings, this means that the current application view needs a corresponding business process view. Currently, typical parameters for SaaS -which is regarded as the current and upcoming market -are of a technical nature such as pricing models considering technical parameters, computing power, availability or network capacity. Business parameters such as legal aspects, business packages, process interoperability, or avoidance of vendor lock are used for distinction between different market players. Business Domain specific parameters like customer relationship for SMEs in the health domain, or web-appearance of an IT company are potential future options.

Hence we observe the need to abstract parameters from pure technical distinctions up to business and domain specific characteristics, which describe and distinguish cloud offerings.

In the following, the approach of the EU project CloudSocket [2] for tackling the aforementioned issues is introduced.

BPaaS Use Cases

Our primary targets are SMEs that are currently excluded from using the cloud due to a lack of competence and high entry barriers. There is a gap between pragmatic, legally influenced and well-defined business processes, which are understood by SMEs, and a gigantic cloud market with numerous offerings that rarely consider the business episodes of an entrepreneur but focus on technical details. Startups and SMEs typically focus on their core business. Hence, there are several business processes such as customer relations and advertising, administrative issues on registration, IT services as well as after sales support that are necessary for business success, but can only be insufficiently supported by the IT resources of those organizations. For a complete analysis of the use cases, please refer to [START_REF]D2.1 Use Case Analysis[END_REF].

Business Incubator Use Case

The Business Incubator focuses on supporting the "Coaching and Finance" efforts of start-ups facilitating designing, analyzing and simulating individual business plans and processes. These aspects also demand a high degree of adaptability of Cloud Services for Start-ups, e.g. Customer Relationship Management, Order Management, Human Resources Management.

Ecological Agriculture:

A 28 year old biologist has an idea to take biological waste from a restaurant and stimulates a biological decomposition process. Usually such a process takes several years but the idea of the startup is to use worms to speed up this process.

• Initial situation: The startup presented the ideas to the business incubators. After this, the consultants have discussed with her about how to transform this business idea into a solid business model.

• CloudSocket technology intervention: The startup may require a range of different BPaaS, especially for customer relationship and worm production management.

Green Energy:

This startup is a small-scale virtual power plant which connects to a grid infrastructure with power generation from wind, photovoltaic, and biogas. The company serves its customers with environmentally friendly energy for households and provides smart home functions through its remote access capability for turning appliances on or off.

• Initial situation: The company is intending to expand its services to include mobile energy sources for recharging electric cars and offer them for rental as a rangeextension for drivers e.g. for a long weekend trip. The startup contacted the business incubator consultants.

• CloudSocket technology intervention: The startup may require a range of different BPaaS especially for customer relationship, partner management and internal management processes.

The observation in the first use case -the Business Incubator -is that supportive business processes can be applied across several startups. So BPaaS addressing e.g. Customer relationship can be offered to a wide range of startups.

2.2

Cluster Process Broker Use Case

The Business Process Broker use case identifies typical business episodes of potential SMEs in different application domains such as eHealth, Manufacturing, Photonics, Government, Security, e-Commerce, Retail, etc. but share a common set of business processes.

Internet Research and Procurement Process:

An SME sells software and integrated appliances/electronic components that make devices "internet ready" in a few seconds.

• Initial situation: The SME continuously verifies prices of the electronic and mechanical components in the market and buys only products that match specific requirements in terms of customer needs and pricing. Monitoring the prices and the quality is a costly activity, which requires an ongoing analysis and trade-off between quality and price.

• CloudSocket technology intervention: The Company needs a solution that reduces the costs for procurement activities by improving the effectiveness. Generic selfmanagement infrastructures or specially designed research processes including crawler and result databases have the potential to run in the cloud and to raise the productivity of this SME.

Kiosk Distribution Process:

A company aims at distributing newspapers and magazines to kiosks and other points of sales in an Italian town. Every day, around 250 different Italian and foreign newspaper are delivered to 600 points of sales.

• Initial situation: Current customers are small kiosks with very limited IT infrastructure. Often the orders are realized via Facebook comments. To improve the maturity of the ordering and interaction process with those points of sales, a new but still light-weight Web-application must be provided.

• CloudSocket technology intervention: A new order process can be handled in the cloud, without IT installation on either the supplier or consumer sides. Furthermore the process can reflect a better understanding of the customer needs.

The observation in the second use case -the Cluster Broker -is that most of the potential end users of the CloudSocket have the potential need for a generic business process but also for more specific business processes. Hence the flexible configuration of business processes, hiding the complexity of the cloud and providing easy to use solutions, is a promising market potential.

2.3

The SME End User Perspective

In addition to the two aforementioned use cases -that describe the targeted end users market -we identify the steps of interested end users in a process-oriented approach.

We propose three steps for a typical SME as an end user.

• Check Cloud Readiness • Transform Business Processes to be executable in the Cloud • Enter the marketplace to access BPaaS

The project provides a checklist for SMEs and start-ups in order to check if they are capable of entering the cloud with their business processes. This framework is provided as an online questionnaire relating to business processes, see [START_REF]CloudSocket Project, D2.3 Cloud Transformation Framework[END_REF].

The transformation of business processes to be executable in the Cloud is divided in two transformations, whereas the first transformation is a horizontal one that transforms from one business process to another one and the second transformation is a vertical on transforming from business process to workflows. Although both business processes are not executable, the latter one has clear anchor points, where cloud offerings make sense. Hence the horizontal transformation extracts those parts of the process where a cloud offering can actually be applied.

The next transformation is a vertical one that maps to an executable workflow in the cloud -this actually provides the cloud offerings and enables the execution in the cloud. This next step is performed by entering the market place and selecting the most appropriate workflow that runs in the cloud. This selection can be supported by smart mechanisms.

The CloudSocket Broker Perspective

The so-called CloudSocket is a market place, where BPaaS are offered in a similar way to how SaaS are offered. Hence, from a market place point of view, the same mechanisms can be applied as for SaaS, as each "executable business process" can be identified as a workflow in the cloud with a corresponding end point. The difference between a SaaS and a BPaaS is the description in the form of a business process and its semantic annotation for enabling smart selection. For organizations aiming for becoming a CloudSocket broker we propose: Plan, Build, Run, Check.

"Plan Business Processes" denotes the use of business process management tools to acquire, design, analyse and simulate and finally release domain-specific business processes. Here we understand business processes as a know-how platform of an organisation, hence those processes have the potential for domain-specific consultancy and improvement. Traditional business process management tools such as ADONIS ® [START_REF][END_REF] are used.

"Build Business Processes" denotes that each of the aforementioned business processes are made executable by a set of deployable and executable workflows. We agreed to use the term workflow for processes that are orchestrated and executable on an IT platform to strengthen the difference to human orchestrated or executed business processes. Traditional workflow design tools like yourBPM [START_REF] Yourbpm | [END_REF] may be used.

"Run Business Process" indicates the provision and operation of processes as a service within a market place that are executed and run across services offered in the cloud. Although this is technically the most challenging part, the focus of this paper and the focus of the introduced CloudSocket project is on the alignment, hence the mapping between domain specific business processes and cloud deployable and executable workflows.

"Checking Business Processes" indicates the abstraction, using conceptual models and semantic, to introduce a semantic meaning into the purely technical data and process logs from the execution environment in the cloud. The meta model platform ADOxx [START_REF] Adoxx | [END_REF] will be used to develop conceptual and semantic models that can be analysed and mapped to business processes.

BPaaS Reference Architecture

CloudSocket will provide business solutions to SMEs, which can be offered in an open and interoperable form. A particular focus is on startups which do not want to invest in their own IT infrastructure but concentrate on the development of their business. IT services need to be adapted according to the changes and evolution of the organization and business.

CloudSocket comprises four phases, each phase supported by a corresponding building block: (a) the design environment to describe business processes, business requirements and workflows (b) the allocation environment linking deployable workflows with concrete services, (c) the execution environment that executes and monitors the workflow as well as (d) the evaluation environment that lifts key performance indicators back to the business level.

Fig. 1 introduces the four major building blocks, whereby each of the four building blocks supports one phase of the BPMS paradigm when applied for business process management in the cloud. The BPMS is a well-established business process management system paradigm that can be applied also on business process management in the cloud. More information on the architecture is available at [Fehler! Verweisquelle konnte nicht gefunden werden.].

Fig. 1 .

 1 Fig. 1. CloudSocket High Level Architecture