BACKGROUND Little is known about the effect of different forms of patient cost-sharing on the utilization of clinical preventive services or if the effect varies by type of health plan. OBJECTIVES To assess empirically the relationships between the utilization of recommended preventive services and different forms of patient cost-sharing and how the effect is mediated by type of preventive se...

But what most people don't understand about open source software is why jt works. Software released as open source costs money and time to make-it has value. To some people. especially those who are more business-minded, this sounds like a throwback to late-90s dot-corn-era business plans: give your product away for free and make it up on volume. They see very few business models in that sort o...

In this study we explore the concept of business model and its essential elements in software business. There are no rigorous previous definitions or descriptions of the term business model in the context of software businesses in existing academic literature. Hence, a conceptual definition was found essential. Furthermore, there is a clear managerial need for constructs that help understanding...

This paper presents the development of a training tool that enhances and empowers trainees’ ability in developing business projects by preparing high-quality business plans. An ontology-based knowledge network was developed for the semantic representation of the business plans preparation procedure. The model can combine existing multimedia material with ontology constructs in order to build us...

The economics of small group insurance makes offering health benefits to employees a risky business. Surveys of employers from 1989 to 2003 reveal that more rapid premium increases are forcing small firms to impose higher cost-sharing. In 2003, premiums for small firms (3-199 workers) increased 15.5 percent, outpacing the 13.2 percent increase for large firms (200+ workers). From 2000 to 2003, ...

The hallmarks of today’s business environment are volatile demand, shorter product life cycles, and increasing global competition. Advances in information technology allow more and more information to be shared across entities so that the activities can be better coordinated throughout the entire supply chain. For different products and under different demand patterns, sharing information may h...

Design concept evaluation plays a critical role in the early phases of product development as it has a significant impact on the downstream development processes, as well as on the success of the product developed. In this work, a novel three-stage methodology has been developed. The preliminary stage screens all the criteria from different viewpoints using House of Quality (HoQ). The second st...