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Advances in communication technologies have enabled organizations to acquire and retain distributed organizational structures by supporting coordination among people working from different locations. Today’s managers need to rely on methodologies and tools to map and continuously monitor the evolution of the hidden relationships within and across organizations. We propose and apply a Social Network Scorecard to monitor how an interdisciplinary and inter-organizational project team – with members from academia and industry – has been able to successfully collaborate to implement a technological platform integrating Knowledge Management, e-Learning, e-Business and Project Management. This platform, called “Virtual eBMS”, represents a collaborative working environment enabling knowledge sharing and learning processes within a higher education institution, the e-Business Management Section (eBMS), a department of Scuola Superiore ISUFI, University of Salento, Italy. We used the team working to design the Virtual eBMS as test bed to test the validity of the scorecard. We observed how this tool could help in monitoring the evolution of an organizational community, recognizing innovative roles and phases and finding structural properties connected to innovative outcomes. Looking at trends at individual, team and (inter-)organizational level, we identified the most innovative phases within the team’s life cycle, using network indicators like density and degree centrality. The Network Scorecard provided feedback on the effectiveness of the team working to create the integrated platform and helped discover the phases in which the team acted in a manner conducive to innovation.We recognized in the Virtual eBMS project team the typical structure of an innovative knowledge network where learning networks and innovation networks co-exist with a more sparse interest network.

This paper hypothesizes that Virtual Community of Practices (VCoPs) are valuable to Business Schools and Universities because they contribute to the emerging paradigms of just-in-time, action based and informal learning. It presents a real case study of a VCoPs called “Virtual eBMS”, that was built by applying the participative observation (Yin, 1994). In particular, the paper provides a process-oriented model of the “Virtual eBMS”, that is composed by four main elements: The People participating in the community, the Processes and the Purpose of the community in terms of value created for the Business School, and the Technology enabling the interactions between the community members. Indeed, from a technological point of view, the community is supported by an integrated Web Learning and Knowledge Management platform, described in terms of the main knowledge processes triggered and the correspondent technologies supporting the actions. Finally, the work presents some preliminary results and the value created through the use of the “Virtual eBMS”.

In the context of the e-Business Management Section (eBMS) of the Scuola Superiore ISUFI at University of Salento (Italy), the case of the International Master in e-Business Management (IMeBM) is discussed here which is aimed to contribute pragmatically to create e-Business Capabilities in Mediterranean Countries. This chapter presents the results obtained in the Laboratory Phase of the first two years of Master’s editions, i.e. 2006 and 2007 editions. This phase has been designed on blended (on-line and off-line) learning experience. Specifically, it has been structured by mixing the delivery of some Web learning courseware with face-to-face meetings with mentors and e-Business experts. The technological platform designed, developed and adopted for the Web learning activities is called the “Virtual eBMS” that represents the collaborative learning environment of the Mediterranean School. The pedagogical approach adopted by the School, named (“Learning-in-Action”) together with some considerations on the effectiveness and the implications of the Problem-Based Learning (PBL) strategy are also deliberated upon. It also presents how the whole case of the International Master in e-Business Management generated intellectual capital assets, described in terms of Human Capital (competences developed in the e-Business context), Social Capital (networks and cooperation with local institutions and companies) and Structural Capital (research projects).

Mobile systems and applications are raising some important information security and privacy issues. This chapter discusses the need for privacy and security in mobile systems and presents technological trends which highlight that this issue is of growing concern.