Rewarding Knowledge Workers

In a business environment characterized by digitization, globalization, mobility, workgroups, immediacy, and disintermediation (Tapscott, 1996), organizations have become ever more reliant on delivering maximum value to their customers to keep competitive. Knowledge workers using computing and communication technologies produce intangible goods and services. They represent the primary leverage through which organizations maximize the value offered to their customers. Leveraging the intellectual assets of knowledge workers should be the primary focus of planning processes where customer service systems are designed along with accompanying IT solutions. Knowledge work will require new forms of management and, implicitly, a new strategy for human resource management (Collins, 1998). Consequently, human resource management is increasingly trying to reinvent itself around the emerging concepts of knowledge work and core competencies (Lawler, 2000).

Deception and Reality

Decisions are based on information. The decision maker naturally assumes that it reflects reality. Yet data, which is used to create information, is easily manipulated, and the context can be changed to influence knowledge derived from the situation. The use of deception is not new, but the advent of electronic information systems has made its potential more pervasive. This paper investigates the dilemma the information management function faces in ensuring the integrity of the data supplied, the information derived, and the knowledge created from their systems.

Motivation for Using Information Technology

Data gathered from MBA students, undergraduate students in business administration and school students were utilized to test the motivation for using microcomputers. Three motivators were investigated: perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and perceived enjoyment. The results suggest that school students have greater enjoyment in using microcomputers than MBA and undergraduate students do, and that undergraduate students in business administration have the greatest perception of the usefulness of microcomputers.

Human Factors in Interface Design

This paper discusses the issues of human factors that affect interface design. It addresses the challenges that system analysts may face. It presents the strategies of incorporating human factor engineering into the process of system analysis and design. The user performance and their mental models are also discussed.

The Human Side of Information System Development

Information systems (IS) are growing in importance within the tourism industry, where one key application is database marketing. Evidence from the IS domain suggests systems failure may be due, at least in part, to concentration on technical rather than human issues in the development process. Through an empirical study of visitor attractions in the United Kingdom, the need for a more human-centered approach to IS development is supported, and an example of such an approach is outlined. Both in-depth focus group analysis and a broader questionnaire survey are used, and lend weight to the human-centered arguments. From the analysis of a failed tourism database marketing information system, and from evidence of similar successful systems, the value of technology-enabled database marketing within the sector is demonstrated, but its success is seen to rest on participative, human-centered approaches to development.

The Effect of Individual Differences on Computer Attitudes

Computer competency is no longer a skill to be learned only by students majoring in technology-related fields. All individuals in our society must acquire basic computer literacy to function successfully. Despite the widespread influx of technology in all segments of our society, the literature often report high levels of anxiety and negative attitudes about using computers. Monitoring the computer attitudes and developing an understanding of the variables that affect computer attitudes will assist educators and adult trainers in providing appropriate learning experiences in which learners can succeed. This study examined the relationship between computer attitude and experience, demographic/education variables, personality type and learning style of 214 students enrolled in a university computer literacy course.

Between Individuals and Teams

As the software engineering field has developed, much attention has focused on improving the associated technology and processes. Comparatively little thought has been given to the issue of human resource management. Some see it as central to productivity and software quality. However, little empirical research has explored the required nature of such management. This paper examines human resource management practices in the software industry in Ireland: An economy that is heavily dependent on the software sector, with a high level of foreign multinational investment. A survey of the 100 largest software organisations reveals the nature of human resource practices, and the relative unimportance attached to the management of human resources. Two of the organisations studied are selected as examples of preferred and poor practice, and more in-depth data was gathered from these companies. The authors consider that this comparative analysis reveals a difference that is central to the design of human resource strategies in the software sector: One company managed software engineers as individuals within groups, while the other focused on the management of teams.

Personal Information Privacy and Internet Technology

Personal information privacy is arguably the most important issue facing the growth and prosperity of the Internet, especially of e-commerce. Protecting personal information privacy has ignited a debate that pits privacy advocates against technology growth enthusiasts. This paper explores personal information privacy on the Internet in terms of the technological challenges to personal information privacy facing individuals, businesses, and government regulators.

Toward a Theory-Based Measurement of Culture

In reviewing the history of the conceptualization and measurement of “culture,” one quickly realizes that there is wide-ranging and contradictory scholarly opinion about which values, norms, and beliefs should be measured to represent the concept of “culture.” We explore an alternate theory-based view of culture via social identity theory (SIT), which suggests that each individual is influenced by plethora of cultures and sub-cultures–some ethnic, some national, and some organizational. In IS research, the culture of subjects and respondents is problematic because it is typically an overly simplistic categorization. IS research nearly always assumes that an individual living in a particular place and time belongs to a single “culture,” e.g., someone living in Egypt is automatically classified as being a member of the Egyptian culture, or, more broadly, the Arab culture. This dearth of clear concepts and measures for “culture” may explain why cross-cultural research has been so exceedingly difficult to conduct. It may also explain why it has been hard to develop and refine theories. Moreover, it may give insight into why reasonable explained variance in predictive models has not been higher. Finally, it is very possible that much cross-cultural business research could be rightly accused of advancing an “ecological fallacy” by not recognizing the individual makeup of persons with respect to culture. Using SIT (or other theory bases) as grounding for cultural research programs implies the use of certain methodological approaches. Each study would have to establish the salient “cultures” in each individual’s background and include these different “cultures” as independent variables in positivist research. In qualitative research, there would need to be an equally rigorous assessment of the cultural identifiers of each individual.

Human-Centred Methods in Information Systems

This paper is about determining the context and scope of an information systems study and choosing an intervention strategy based on the findings. At the core of this is a process of boundary setting, for which an approach which enables boundaries to be determined through critical participant analysis is recommended and described. Alternative potential intervention strategies are then discussed, and a description of how the choice of strategy was informed within a recent intervention is given. The paper concludes with a discussion of the findings, and a summary and critique, both theoretical and practical, of the approaches available to enhance such studies in the future.