Managing Corporate E-Mail Systems

Author(s):  
Aidan Duane ◽  
Patrick Finnegan

As the criticality of e-mail for electronic business activity increases, adhoc e-mail implementation, prolonged management neglect and user abuse of e-mail systems have generated negative effects. However, management’s ability to rectify problems with e-mail systems is hindered by our understanding of its organisational use. Research on e-mail systems is often dated and based on quantitative methodologies that cannot explain the interaction between various controls in organisational settings. Updating our understanding of the organisational aspects of e-mail systems utilizing qualitative methods is necessary. This chapter presents a multiple case study investigation of e-mail system monitoring and control. The study examines the interaction between key elements of e-mail control identified by previous researchers and considers the role of such controls at various implementation phases. The findings reveal eight major elements to be particularly important in monitoring and controlling e-mail systems within the organisations studied. These are: (1) form a cross-functional e-mail system management team; (2) implement and regularly update e-mail management software; (3) formulate a detailed and legally sound e-mail policy; (4) engage in structured e-mail system training; (5) create and maintain ongoing awareness of e-mail policy; (6) engage in a process of hybrid feedback and control-based e-mail monitoring; (7) firmly enforce discipline in accordance with the e-mail policy; and (8) conduct regular reviews and updates of the e-mail management programme.

Systems ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 33
Author(s):  
Olena Klymenko ◽  
Lise Lillebrygfjeld Halse ◽  
Bjørn Jæger

Sustainability accounting is an emerging research area receiving growing awareness. This study examines the role of digital technology in manufacturing companies’ sustainability accounting. To guide the research, we use a triple layered business model canvas, which supports the accounting of a manufacturer’s performance for the economic, environmental, and social aspects of sustainability. We present an explorative case study of four Norwegian manufacturing companies representing different industries. The findings from the study indicate that while accounting for economic values is well taken care of, companies do not perform comprehensive environmental and social accounting. Furthermore, we observed a shift from a focus on sustainability issues related to the internal manufacturing process to a focus on sustainability issues for the life cycle of the product. Even though the manufacturers are at the forefront with regard to automation and control of production, with extensive use of robots giving a large amount of data, these data are not utilized towards sustainability accounting, showing that sustainability and digitalization are seen as two separate phenomena. This study sheds light on how digital data available from applied Industry 4.0 technologies could enhance sustainability accounting with limited efforts, linking sustainability and digitalization. The results provide insights for manufacturers and researchers in moving towards more sustainable operations and products.


2020 ◽  
pp. 875697282097722
Author(s):  
Denise Chenger ◽  
Jaana Woiceshyn

The front end of projects is strategically important; yet, how project concepts are identified, evaluated, and selected at the pre-project stage is poorly understood. This article reports on an inductive multiple-case study of how executives made such decisions in major upstream oil and gas projects. The findings show that in such a high-risk context, often an experienced executive makes these decisions alone and he creates value by facilitating growth. We identified three value-creating decision processes that varied by the executives’ risk approach and decision context. These processes depart from the formal project management prescriptions and the strategic decision-making literature.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Seyed Taha Hossein Mortaji ◽  
Siamak Noori ◽  
Morteza Bagherpour

Earned value management is well-known as the most efficient method of project monitoring and control providing relatively reliable information about the project performance. However, this method requires accurate estimates of the progress of project activities, which are always associated with uncertainties that, if ignored or not addressed well, lead to incorrect results. To address this issue, the application of multi-valued logic, in particular fuzzy logic, in earned value management has recently attracted a lot of attention both in practice and research. This paper introduces directed earned value management (DEVM) in which ordered fuzzy numbers are used to express the so-called uncertainties as well as to capture more information about the trend of the project progress. To evaluate the performance of the proposed method, several numerical examples and a case study are presented. The results reveal that compared to the existing methods, DEVM has a lower computational complexity. Also, it doesn’t suffer from the overestimation effect and as a result, it has a higher ability to express project-specific dynamics. In sum, the proposed method allows project managers to make informed decisions that lead to taking preventive and corrective actions promptly and at a lower cost.


2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 585-592
Author(s):  
T. I. Fotina ◽  
H. A. Fotina ◽  
Zh. E. Klishchova ◽  
V. L. Arefiev ◽  
О. М. Chemych

2018 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
pp. 810-854 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan L. Cohen ◽  
Christopher B. Bingham ◽  
Benjamin L. Hallen

Using a nested multiple-case study of participating ventures, directors, and mentors of eight of the original U.S. accelerators, we explore how accelerators’ program designs influence new ventures’ ability to access, interpret, and process the external information needed to survive and grow. Through our inductive process, we illuminate the bounded-rationality challenges that may plague all ventures and entrepreneurs—not just those in accelerators—and identify the particular organizational designs that accelerators use to help address these challenges, which left unabated can result in suboptimal performance or even venture failure. Our analysis revealed three key design choices made by accelerators—(1) whether to space out or concentrate consultations with mentors and customers, (2) whether to foster privacy or transparency between peer ventures participating in the same program, and (3) whether to tailor or standardize the program for each venture—and suggests a particular set of choices is associated with improved venture development. Collectively, our findings provide evidence that bounded rationality challenges new ventures differently than it does established firms. We find that entrepreneurs appear to systematically satisfice prematurely across many decisions and thus broadly benefit from increasing the amount of external information searched, often by reigniting search for problems that they already view as solved. Our study also contributes to research on organizational sponsors by revealing practices that help or hinder new venture development and to emerging research on the lean start-up methodology by suggesting that startups benefit from engaging in deep consultative learning prior to experimentation.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmed Diab

PurposeThis study investigates state institutions' influence on corporate accountability and control practices in a rural African context. Exploring the different rationales behind state existence in the context of sugar production in Egypt, this work clarifies how accountability is practised differently in the case of the high centrality of state logics in the business sector.Design/methodology/approachTheoretically, the study draws insights from the institutional logics perspective. Following the case study approach, data are collected through interviews, observations and documents.FindingsThe study found that state institutions can play a supportive rather than a mere constraining role in the management, accountability and control processes. Notably, it clarified how state-related institutions were highly central and influential in a way that enabled them to curb the (negative) influences of the community and business institutions. In this context, it is social – rather than functional – accountability which emerges as the central control practice to achieve answerability and enforcement.Originality/valueThus, this study's reported findings confirm the role of institutional (political) logics as supportive in society.


2016 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephan Zimmermann ◽  
Christopher Rentrop ◽  
Carsten Felden

ABSTRACT In several organizations, business workgroups autonomously implement information technology (IT) outside the purview of the IT department. Shadow IT, evolving as a type of workaround from nontransparent and unapproved end-user computing (EUC), is a term used to refer to this phenomenon, which challenges norms relative to IT controllability. This report describes shadow IT based on case studies of three companies and investigates its management. In 62 percent of cases, companies decided to reengineer detected instances or reallocate related subtasks to their IT department. Considerations of risks and transaction cost economics with regard to specificity, uncertainty, and scope explain these actions and the resulting coordination of IT responsibilities between the business workgroups and IT departments. This turns shadow IT into controlled business-managed IT activities and enhances EUC management. The results contribute to the governance of IT task responsibilities and provide a way to formalize the role of workarounds in business workgroups.


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