Co-Chairs: R. P. Dameri (U. Genova), D. Mancini (U. Parthenope), A.I. Nicolaou (Bowling Green State U., US)
The objective of the track is to bring together researchers from all disciplines related to Accounting Information Systems (AIS). Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: AIS development, business patterns, internal control developments, strategic information systems, cultural influences on AIS, performance evaluation, decision aids, business process reengineering, business process modeling, audit and assurance regarding AIS, continuous auditing and reporting, enterprise resource planning, knowledge management, and XBRL.
The track is particularly interested in research on the links between information technology with accounting, auditing, reporting, management control, and related disciplines. The track is also interested in research on Enterprise Systems and their impacts on management control, organizational processes, and performance. The objective is to bring together researchers from all scientific fields related to Accounting Information Systems (AIS) for a high level interaction, discussion, and exchange of fruitful ideas in the setting of the Italian AIS (ItAIS).
The track will cover a wide range of topics. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• AIS modeling and design (including Resource-Event-Agent modeling)
• AIS implementation and evaluation
• Business process modeling and reengineering for accounting and auditing issues
• IS assurance, audit, continuous auditing, internal audit, forensic auditing, data mining & business intelligence
• AIS and management control
• AIS reporting, XBRL
• IS evaluation, IT business value, IT/IS costs and benefits
• IT governance and compliance
• Enterprise systems, Enterprise Resource Planning, Free/Open Source ERP systems
• Inter-organizational information sharing and data quality
• Analyzing relationships between components to improve efficiency and effectiveness in order to better support decision making
especially analyzing the link between accounting models and information technology; information technology and the accountants’ role (Chief Financial Officer, Internal auditor, Compliance officer, and so on)
• Relation with other relevant enterprise systems, such as management control systems, performance measurement systems, internal control systems, risk assessment and risk management systems
• Design and use of AIS in different contexts, such as private and public companies, interorganizational networks, SMEs or multinational enterprises.

Perspectives from diverse fields such as computer science, accounting, psychology, sociology, cognitive science, political science, behavioral science, and economics as well as high-quality and theoretically sound studies of any type (quantitative/qualitative studies, action research, surveys, behavioral/experimental studies, design science, case studies, theory development, etc.) are equally encouraged. Papers are also welcome, bringing together researchers and practitioners to improve different research perspectives on AIS. Theoretical or empirical studies are equally encouraged as well as different kind of research methodology. Completed research and research-in-progress papers will be accepted. All submissions must be in English and will be blind reviewed by at least two referees.
The best English papers of this track will be fast tracked for publication in the “Management Control” Journal (Franco Angeli).
Keywords: Accounting Information System (AIS), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Business Intelligence (BI), AIS Control, Compliance, Accountants role, IT Capability, IT Performance.

Co-Chairs: T. Abbate (U. Messina), F. Cesaroni (U. Carlos III Madrid, ES), P. Gubitta (U. Padova)
This track invites papers that deal with the topic of Business Models Innovation and the role that ICT tools play in supporting firms’ efforts to reorganize their activities and redefine their competitive strategies. Particularly, this track focuses on R&D-based new business models. As the Open Innovation paradigm has largely recognized, firms may promote innovation processes by promoting cooperative projects with external actors; at the same time, they can profit from the outcomes of R&D activity by undertaking technology commercialization activities. In both cases, the transfer of technologies and of technological knowledge lies at the core of firms’ strategies. In this respect, advanced ICT tools offer a set of new possibilities to facilitate the use of open cooperative and decentralized models, where different entities asynchronously co-operate by transferring their knowledge assets. The objectives of this track is thus to disseminate findings and exchange experiences on how information systems enable and facilitate the leverage of technological knowledge supporting (open) innovation. Studies that address new theories and/or show practical examples of best practices are welcomed. Possible topics related to this track include, but are not limited to:

• The role of IT/IS in firms’ strategies
• The impact of web Intelligence on firms’ capabilities and competitive advantage
• Cooperative IT-based technology transfer and innovation theory and practice
• Public-private partnerships for technology transfer and diffusion
• How to profit from IS management: actors and business models
• IT tools to support cooperative technology transfer and diffusion in the context of Web 2.0 and future 3.0
• New actors in the technology transfer and their strategies
• Case studies and best practices for specific technologies, geographical contexts, or organizations related to ICT or ICT-supported fields
• New product development practices and the use of information systems

Keywords:Open innovation, innovation transfer, web intelligence, IS business models

Co-Chairs: G. Ajani (U. Torino), R. Candiotto (U. Piemonte Orientale), P. Schwizer (U. Parma)
Financial and non financial companies and other private and public entities operate in a world which is increasingly subject to regulations of different nature and sources, like laws, industry regulations and self-regulations. At the same time, it is more and more difficult to manage, in a complex and changing environment challenging economic profitability, the combined effect of legislative sources regulating socio-economical activities, coming from different levels like the European, national and regional ones. Production processes, in particular in the service industry, are continuously evolving, due to international competition. Every change must however be compliant to date norms in all the operative sectors. These complexities hold also for the public administrations, and even legislators and regulators themselves are feeling the necessity to simplify norms, make them accessible and evaluate the impact of norms. These requirements can be met nowadays by a new generation of information and communication technologies. For example, it is possible to process legal texts to semantically connect them to the relevant processes of an enterprise or public administration, so to quickly understand the relevance of a new norm. Moreover, enterprise simulation processes can be used to forecast the effect of normative change so to adapt industrial strategies and business processes. This track encourages conceptual, theoretical, and empirical papers that further our understanding of these issues. Contributions are, thus, sought concerning, for example:

• Ontologies for legal systems
• Semantic technologies for legal texts
• Information systems to support regulatory compliance
• Simulation models for enterprises taking into account regulations
• Software for regulation inventories
• Compliance risk management
• Business process management systems
• Automatic monitoring of intellectual property right and copyright infringement
• Opinion monitoring technologies
• Business intelligence in highly regulated sectors
• Systems for regulatory impact assessment

Keywords: Regulatory compliance, law, business process management systems, ontologies, semantic technologies, simulation, business intelligence, compliance risk management

Co-Chairs: L. Tarantino (U. L’Aquila), G. Tortora (U. Salerno), G. Vitiello (U. Salerno)
Modern Management Information Systems (MIS) may greatly benefit from the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI), as methodologies for user-centered system design, usability engineering, accessibility, and information visualization have deep influence on technology usage in business, managerial, organizational, and cultural contexts. During the last years research and practice in HCI has continuously evolved, in response to the societal transformations occurred with the pervasive adoption of information technology in all aspects of life. The social, political, ethical, and organizational implications of emerging interactive technology are raising important research issues in the fields of interaction design, modeling and evaluation. As the user base of interactive systems is expanding from IT experts to consumers of different types, including elderly, young and special needs people, who access services and information via Web, new and exciting HCI research topics have emerged dealing with broader aspects of the interaction, such as designing for improving the overall user experience, favoring social connections and supporting collaboration.
The Track builds on the success of similar tracks of the last 5 editions of ITAIS. Considering this year main conference theme, ‘Empowering society through digital innovations’, we welcome researchers and practitioners of HCI and related disciplines who wish to offer their experience towards this ambitious goal. Submissions of research papers, experience reports, as well as research in progress articles are encouraged. Authors may contact track's co-chairs to check whether or not the nature of their submission is appropriate for this track.

Co-Chairs: V. De Antonellis (U. Brescia), M. Missikoff (LUSPIO), D. Saccà (U. Calabria)
In the recent years, the emergence of mobile and cloud computing, social data and big data, has radically changed the business landscape. The growth in information volume, velocity, variety and complexity, and the increased importance of information to the business make the ways of information and knowledge management extremely different from the past. Modern organizations need advanced effective methods and tools to take advantage of the ways that information is driven by cloud, social and mobile platforms. New data sharing and management models can allow people in organizations to achieve a number of aims: to improve business processes; to extend business knowledge; to collaborate with potential partners; and to develop, share and access huge quantities of available resources from different sources. Among the new research lines we wish to mention the convergence of collaborative social networks and the management of knowledge in holistic scenarios, addressed by Collaborative Awareness Platforms (CAPs). Traditional KMS are focused on business and domain knowledge, while the pragmatics and the whole knowledge lifecycle typically remains outside of the systems, embedded in the organization and the head of the people. A CAP solution instead has a holistic approach, including in the system the representation of the actors, strategies, objectives and all the knowledge elements connected to the pragmatics of the domain knowledge. Such an enhanced knowledge resource needs to be managed and maintained by the whole community, as an expression of a form of collective intrelligence.
This track aims to present the latest research on information and knowledge management and collaboration in modern organizations. The track serves as a forum for researchers, practitioners, and organizational stakeholders to exchange ideas and experiences on ways in which new technologies and systemic tools and techniques may contribute to "extract", represent and organize "knowledge" and provide effective support for collaboration, communication and sharing of information and knowledge. Relevant tools and technologies might include the semantic Web, social Web, linked data, data clouding, semantic Web services, OLAP systems, tools for data and service integration and mashup, big data, "information" wrapping and extraction, data mining and process mining, knowledge engineering, conceptual modeling, and ontological analysis.

Co-Chairs: P. Bednar (U. of Portsmouth, UK), P. Depaoli (U. Urbino), R. Winter (U. St. Gallen, CH)
According to Hevner et al. (Hevner et al. 2004) two scientific approaches characterize much of the research in the information systems (IS) discipline, namely behavioral science and design science research (DSR). Traditionally behavioral science would be used in efforts that address research through the development and justification of theories that describe, explain or predict existing phenomena in a domain. In this track however, we want to focus on design oriented IS research which we view as an effort to address research through the construction and evaluation of innovative artifacts that are intended to solve important, relevant design problems in the IS domain. This design focus does also include reflection on theoretical foundations and methodologies in order to provide guidance for researchers. The track is aimed at discussing IS research that focuses on innovation and problem solving instead of understanding and/or explaining existing IS phenomena. Appropriate methodologies amalgamate components from engineering, computer science, management, and also from social sciences. Common to all design oriented IS research is that:

• the design problem is specified and based on a comparison of existing solutions against important, relevant design problems in organizations
• the design solution is iteratively created/developed using state-of-the-art knowledge both from IS theory and successful design solutions and design practices
• the utility / progress of the proposed design solution and/or design process is demonstrated, maybe even validated by experiments, case studies, surveys, or other instruments
• the generality of the proposed design solution and/or design process (its reuse potential, its contribution to the knowledge base, its implications for IS theory) are discussed

Subjects of design oriented IS research can be problem analyses, concepts/ontologies, design theories, models of any kind, methods of any kind, or actual IS instantiations in companies, government agencies or in private households. Also welcome is meta research that reflects design oriented IS research, proposes methodology advancements, etc.
Submissions can be both completed research reports or research in progress papers as long as the basic design research components are visible and can be discussed.

Co-Chairs: A.M. Braccini (U. Tuscia, Viterbo), G. Mangia (U. Federico II, Napoli), A. Sussmair (Leuphana U., DE)
The investigation of Information Systems (IS) from the perspective of critical management studies seems to be occasionally adopted by researchers, specifically in the Mediterranean area. When critical approaches for the investigation of IS and IT related phenomena appears pushed to the side, we invite them to come the fore. The track aims at stimulating debate on the role of IS in organization and society from the critical perspective, focusing to this regard especially on the concept of value.
Theoretical reflections on the concept of value are deemed central to any understanding of market exchange. The recent financial crisis contributed to engage in a rethinking of market exchange relations pulling towards a re-conceptualization o the idea of value, including the perspective of ethical economy. Moreover the widespread diffusion of Internet platforms started to support forms of social production, representing a new field for a fresh analysis of the concept of value. The discussion of the potential shift in meaning and in relevance of the concept of value from the mere perspective of an economic transaction, to the social and public value embedded in the emancipation potential of the Internet, of social media, and of IT platforms in general is open. In addition, the topic of Big Data and social forecasting has gained more and more attention. Some argue that Big Data is a game changing revolution that will fundamentally change how information is collected, stored, managed and consumed thereby positively transforming the business as well as the social life. Others are more critical – focusing on the risks and consequences associated with Big Data and social forecasting.
We would therefore welcome research papers and contributions capable of stimulating the audience with critical insights on the current challenges and new perspectives for the future of critical IS research, taking into account the implications of the concept of value, both from the individual, organizational, and public perspective. Furthermore we would also take into account contributions focused on the relationship between critical perspective and mainstream approaches, especially if they do not consider them as antagonists and if they try to build bridges between them.
The tracks aims at organizing an open space for researchers adopting a critical perspective to stimulate the generation of new knowledge and the growth of new theoretical approaches to the study of IS related phenomena.
The track welcomes papers discussing the following (but not exhaustive) list of possible themes:

• Critically rethinking the concept of value in IS research
• Challenging perspectives for critical research of IS related phenomena
• IS research in the Mediterranean area
• The emancipation potential of the Internet and social media
• IS and IT through the postmodern lens
• IS and IT between sustainability and in-sustainability
• Reconciling critical and mainstream approaches in IS research
• Critical reflections on Big Data
• Social forecasting concepts, limitations and implications from a critical point of view

Co-Chairs: M. Gatti (U. Sapienza), S. Maffettone (LUISS), A. Resca (LUISS)
Due to limits in knowledge, foresight, skill and time, individual human beings turn necessarily to organizational forms for the achievement of human purpose (Simon, 1957). Market and bureaucracy, historically, are the two more successful forms because of the capacity to process information. In a bureaucracy, rules and procedures allow the subdivision of a complex task into more simple subtasks that require a less amount of information processing during the execution and, through the hierarchy, the coordination among the different tasks is achieved. Market is another information processor. On the basis of the price information, economic actors coordinate each other. Specifically, producers and consumers, considering prices, see if there are the conditions to stay on the market. With the advent of information technology, a third organizational form comes to the fore: peer production (Benkler, 2002). Phenomena such as the open source and Wikipedia are typical examples of peer production. Here, effective communication platforms are at the basis of the information processing and rules, procedures and prices are not so important. In the peer production organizational form, individuals have the possibility to be involved freely according to their creative talent. In contrast, market and bureaucracy can prevent it. Rules and procedures can reveal themselves as constraints to individual potentialities. The same is valid in the market: contracts and property rights limit the range of individual. One of the aims of this track is to solicit submissions that investigate the role of individuals in organizational contexts in which behaviors are not only bound by rules, procedures and contracts but also by the possibility to pursue creative talent. Despite the capacity to support individual human beings expressing talent and personal aspiration, Web 2.0 raises a series of questions as far as different aspects of citizenship are concerned. The frequenting of the internet and specifically of the Web 2.0 inevitably leaves behind digital footprints such as content, data, and specifically metadata eventually employed for profiling web users. Acquired information can then be used as a marketing tool for example. Therefore, among the aims of the present track, there is the intention to solicit contributions that examine these issues envisaging, eventually, solutions that allow to web users to re-appropriate or control more carefully available digital footprints. Expected (but not limited to) subjects to be addressed are:

• Ethics and social networks,
• Web 2.0 and intellectual property rights
• Web 2.0 and free speech rights
• The digital divide issue
• Peer production as an innovative organizational form
• Markets, bureaucracies, clans and peer production

Keywords: peer production, innovative organizational forms, digital footprints, Web 2.0

Co-Chairs: R. Conte (ISTC-CNR), F. Marzo (LUISS), L. G. Nardin (Universidade de São Paulo,Brazil)
The multi-disciplinary nature of Information Systems field has rapidly developed into a complex interdisciplinary approach characterized not only by the ample variety of objects and phenomena under investigation that have interference with one another, but also by the theoretical and methodological dialogue of several disciplines involved.
In order to endorse these characteristics, the track aims at presenting research in different area of information systems that focus particularly on modeling crucial aspects of cognitive features and/or environmental constraints of digital platforms. Studies on models that provide integrated theoretical and formal frameworks for supporting Information Systems design and for understanding related phenomena (i.e. complex organizations, virtual enterprises, interconnected organizations) are both interesting in the track.
In particular, research works on cognitive models aimed at achieving an higher awareness of cognitive mechanisms that, on one side, create the need of specific tools and, on the other, allow for the good functioning of such tools, are welcome. As well as we encourage the submission of multi-agent simulation studies and system dynamics approach able to deliver instruments capable to have a key role in obtaining and diffusing the understanding of dynamics in Information Systems, both through the explanation of the underlying theory and with the development and use of innovative simulation tools. We also invite scholars and researchers to present and discuss new ideas and topics to stimulate a reflection on this promising and still largely unexplored interdisciplinary approach.

Co-Chairs: R. Agrifoglio (U. Parthenope), L. Mola (U. Verona), Ø. Sæbø (U. Agder)
Internet has affected not only the business world but also the society at large. Distance, time, and culture limits are no more an obstacle to interaction and collaboration among individuals and organizations, but seem to belong to the distant past. The rapid expansion and popularity of the Internet has encouraged the development of new ways to work and interact within organizations, changing the traditional working procedures and extending firm’s boundaries. For instance, it have favorite the proliferation of virtual communities, fostering the social and exchange processes among individuals. Furthermore, the spread of Internet has also encouraged the development of business and market strategies, changing the nature of the organizations and their relationships with suppliers and customers. Social platforms, market places and online work places are becoming the trading zone of commercial lives and social lives alike and as such are affecting the design of global communities and organizations. Many of these platforms have been created with the aim of riding the technological evolution of the Internet and building their competitive advantage or organizational transformations on the intensive, if not exclusive, use of network technologies. Some experiences have ended up as big failures (e.g., Covisint reported in Klein, Krcmar, 2006), others have disappointed stakeholders’ expectations (e.g., Barnes and Noble, (Barnes, Vidgen, 2002)), yet others have reached enormous success revolutionizing entire markets, industrial sectors and public administrations. The Track aims at discussing papers that seek to analyze the evolution of these platforms in their role as the enablers and constrainers of global collaborations. This track encourages theoretical and empirical contributions that cover the following topics, but are not limited to:

• New organizational form IT-enabled;
• New services for mature industries and sectors;
• Social transformation throughout IT base platforms;
• Social transformations;
• Virtual organizations:
• Virtual communities;
• Social networks;
• Smartcities.

Co-Chairs: P. Di Nauta (U. Foggia), L. Giustiniano (LUISS), D. Muzio (U. Manchester, UK)
This track is concerned with project management with particular emphasis on the three sub-themes listed below. Nevertheless, papers with other specific focuses will be also taken in consideration.

Theme “Project Management approach in Project-based Organizations”
Advances in project management and the development of the so-called project-based organizations rely more and more on IT solutions enabling co-ordination among workers, even if remotely located. Although the large availability of actual technical solutions, the topic of understanding which skills are actually needed for managing projects in a IT-mediated setting. Hence, some issues seem to arise:

• Integration trough IT-mediate solution: new wine in old barrels?
• Time-based competition and the effectiveness of project management
• IT-supported coordination is the modern idea of hierarchy
• Temporary organizations in non-temporary settings
• Mastering IT: A skill or a competence?

Theme “Complexity, project and knowledge management, skills and methods”
The world of decision makers and business in general have always been interested in research on complexity, since the widespread conviction that traditional interpretation schemes and predefined schemes reveal their inadequateness to guarantee survival in the turbulent dynamism of the context. Organizations need to shift their focus from an operational approach (techniques) to a government (methods) one. Day by day professionals of Project Management face this kind of situations. Their role in organizations aims at a methodological framework for decision making and meta-models of reference for a systems approach to Project Management, that can be read as an effective technique which supports decision making in complex contexts, by acting as a compass that orients in the convergence toward shared goals. A Project Manager, then, even if his skills are not always well identified and itemized, acts as a sort of scaler of complexity. In this direction, some challenging questions arise:

• Is the spread technical and mainly quantitative Project Management approach to problem solving able to capture the subtle qualitative aspects detected within a decision making context (where it is not actually essential to ‘solve problems’ but rather to ‘make choices’ often lacking any form of information support)?
• Is there a right set of skills for a Project Managers to act in this environment?
• Is there any ‘recipe’ that Project Management professionals can pass from hand to hand just improving the ‘cooking’ procedure?

Theme “The professionalization of project management”
Project management represents one of the most iconic occupations of the knowledge economy. It is in rapid expansion everywhere in the world and is developing some solid professional institutions around PMI in the US and IPMA in Europe. Yet there are question marks on whether traditional professional models and practices, developed with references to the 19th century liberal professions, are appropriate for a new organizationally located knowledge based occupation like project management or whether this should develop new models of professionalism and new approaches to professionalization. Accordingly, this track raises the following questions:

• Is project management undergoing a process of professionalization and, if so, what are its key features?
• To what extent does project management’s professionalization conform or depart from the models developed by the traditional professions such as law or medicine?
• What novel strategies, tactics and features has this occupation developed in connection to its professionalization?
• Are there national differences between the development of projected management and how do these relate to their broader political-economic contexts?
• How do clients, employers and practitioners experience the professionalization of project management? Is this something which is likely to deliver value for individuals active in this area?

Keywords: project management, knowledge management, project-based organizations, complexity, decision making/problem solving, information technology, information systems.

Co-Chairs: R. Bonazzi (U. Lausanne), A. Carugati (Aarhus School of Business, DK), C. Rossignoli (U. Verona)
In the last decade, organizations have found themselves facing a dilemma. On the one hand, they need to constantly reduce the enterprise budget for information technology (IT). On the other hand, IT has to contribute to the strategy and competitiveness of organizations. Information technology (IT) outsourcing is increasingly used as strategy to achieve both objectives under the shape of cloud computing (SAAS, PAAS and IAAS), captive outsourcing (private and secure cloud) or selective near/off-shoring for software development. Moreover, new outsourcing options - such as crowdsourcing and IT consumerization – increase the number of options and challenges as well as the pace of change. This shift towards a network approach for enterprise resource management calls for new competences, methodologies and instruments to support CIOs in managing the IT infrastructure from projects to operations, as well as to help them address the constantly emerging organizational changes.
The topic of outsourcing has been discussed in almost 20% of the articles published on CIOs in the last ten years. Using Google Scholar one can also notice how the number of publications using the keywords “Chief Information Officer”, “outsourcing” and “cloud computing” has shifted from 2 in 2007 to 112 in 2011. While traditional forms of outsourcing have been widely investigated (Lacity et al., 2010), and its most recent evolution in cloud computing is reaching maturity (Buyya et al., 2009; Luftman and Ben-Zvi, 2010; Martens and Teuteberg 2012), the interaction of these outsourcing forms with crowdsourcing and employees owned devices is still to be conceptualized in the literature. Literature on the topics is quite scant (e.g. Greiger et al 2012) and still in exploratory phases (Lebraty and Lobre 2010). The impact on the IT infrastructure of crowdsourcing and consumerization is still to be understood beyond the traditional rant about the risk for the infrastructure. The extent to which the relinquishment of control is compensated by increased organizational performances – together with the dimensions of these performances – is still to be investigated. The nexus between IT infrastructures, Cloud technologies, mobile work, and control appears to be a very promising ground for research, that remains largely unexplored. Topics relevant to this track include (but are not restricted to):

• How do organizations strategize about their IT infrastructures?
• How and why organizations implement Cloud technologies?
• How and why organizations accept employees use of their own technologies at work?
• How do employees appropriate prescribed mobile technologies into their everyday work?
• How do employees incorporate their own devices at work?
• How do organizations cope with the challenges that ‘bring your own mobile device’ creates?
• How does employees’ use of own mobile technologies affect organizational processes?

In order to advance the state of research on these issues and more generally on the interplay between IT infrastructures, cloud computing, mobile work, mobile technology, and control we call for original contributions, both empirical and theoretical, that rely on a variety of methods and theories.
Keywords: Chief information officer; outsourcing; cloud computing; crowdsourcing

Co-Chairs: C. Cuccurullo (Seconda U., Napoli), D. Mascia (U. Cattolica, Roma), O. Marjanovic (University of Sydney Business School, Sydney, Australia)
The implementation of healthcare information systems and technologies (IT) is nowadays at the heart of the successful provision of healthcare services. Quality, appropriateness, and efficiency are all relevant performance dimensions on which IT-based innovation have significant impact. Whereas IT-based innovation is in principle desirable, its adoption and implementation poses a number of challenges and complexities for organizations in this field. First, multiple organizational dimensions of providers are subject to significantly change since the activities of a wide range of professionals and the way they provide services to patients are affected by the implementation of new information systems and technologies. However, professionals are often reluctant to change, and IT effectiveness may be hindered by the high degree of autonomy they held in organizations. The presence of various subcultures and the long-lasting conflict between administrators and professionals may also hamper IT effectiveness. The economic impact and sustainability of IT-based innovation is another major issue in this field, where resource constraint has progressively urged organizations and systems to accurately assess the cost-effectiveness of IT-based interventions. Because of the performance of healthcare organizations is multidimensional in nature, additional concerns regard the complete and accurate assessment of IT benefits in healthcare settings. In the last few years, health technology assessment functions, roles and tools have proliferated providing robust support in decision-making regarding IT adoption and implementation. The objective of the track is to seek original research contributions on IT-based innovation within healthcare systems and organizations. The track welcomes papers (work in progress as well as research ready to be published) that address issues related, without being limited, to the following areas:

• Design, implementation and management of healthcare information systems
• Diffusion of IT-based innovation in health care
• Adoption of IT-based innovation and organizational change in health care
• Barriers to the adoption and implementation of information systems in healthcare organizations
• Large-scale IT integration projects in health care
• Economic and organizational impact of IT-based innovation in healthcare
• Cross-country comparison of healthcare information systems
• Alliances and cooperative organizational arrangements for the development of innovative healthcare information systems
• Performance of IT-based innovation in health care organizations
• IT-based innovation and health technology assessment
• Data and systems standardisation and integration
• Accelerating value and innovation in healthcare through “big data” analysis

Keywords: healthcare organizations, health systems, organizational change, health technology assessment, e-health, telemedicine, IT-costs and IT-benefits, patients, big data analysis.

Co-Chairs: B. Di Martino (Seconda U., Napoli), M. Ficco (Seconda U., Napoli)
Cloud Computing is a multi-purpose paradigm that enables efficient management of data centers, virtualization of resources, and services, according to an on-demand, self-service, and pay-by-use business model. The goal of Cloud Computing is to consolidate infrastructure, and share resources among the cloud service consumers, cloud partners, and cloud vendors in the cloud value chain. The resource sharing at various levels results in various Cloud offerings such as infrastructure clouds, software clouds, application clouds, and business clouds. The continuous development of Cloud Computing infrastructures are making possible the development of large scale applications and services for supporting information systems (IS) in many fields of science and engineering. In this track are solicited topics addressing all areas related to Cloud Computing technology, systems, applications, and business innovations. Such topics include, but are not limited to the following:

• Cloud Computing Architectures
• Infrastructure, Platform, Application, Business, Social, and Mobile Clouds
• Security, Privacy, and Compliance Management for Public, Private, and Hybrid Clouds
• Cloud Quality Management and Service Level Agreement (SLA)
• Cloud Programming Models and Paradigms
• Cloud Configuration, Performance, Monitoring, and Management
• Cloud Composition and Federation
• Cloud Provisioning Orchestration
• Storage and Data in Cloud
• Innovative Cloud Applications and Experiences