Factors Influencing SME Compliance with Government Regulation on Use of IT

The author hopes that this research-based evidence will provide better understanding of SME compliance behaviors and guide the development of appropriate solutions to compliance challenges in these organizations.

Factors Affecting Information Communication Technologies Usage and Satisfaction

Instant messaging (IM) technology has received extensive focus in the West while there is lack of knowledge of it in the Arab world. This study aims to shed light on factors affecting IM usage and user satisfaction in an Arab country (Kuwait). To achieve this objective, this study develops a theoretical model that is based on three well-known models. This model includes curiosity (from the theory of flow), compatibility (from the innovation diffusion theory), perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use (from the technology acceptance model), and individual characteristics in the form of prior similar experience. The proposed model was tested using survey data from 609 students, with the results lending support for the proposed model. Importantly, results highlight the impact of social effect on curiosity as a new mediator of technology adoption and satisfaction. This study contributes to the literature on technology adoption in the Arab word and aids educational institutions and companies to understand the social and technical nature of users’ attitudes with regard to ICT adoption and satisfaction.

Knowledge Management Systems Diffusion in Chinese Enterprises

With the recognition of the importance of organizational knowledge management (KM), researchers have paid increasing attention to knowledge management systems (KMS). However, since most prior studies were conducted in the context of Western societies, we know little about KMS diffusion in other regional contexts. Moreover, even with the increasing recognition of the influence of social factors in KM practices, there is a dearth of studies that examine how unique social cultural factors affect KMS diffusion in specific countries. To fill in this gap, this study develops an integrated framework, with special consideration on the influence of social cultures, to understand KMS diffusion in Chinese enterprises. In our framework, we examine how specific technological, organizational, and social cultural factors can influence the three-stage KMS diffusion process, that is, initiation, adoption, and routinization. This study provides a holistic view of the KMS diffusion in Chinese enterprises with practical guidance for successful KMS implementation.

The Influence of National and Organizational Cultures on Technology Use

This article presents the results of an exploratory study examining the influence of national and organizational cultures on technology use in a multinational organizational (MNO) context. Data were collected from 121 respondents of a multinational organization in the Asia Pacific with headquarters in Australia and three subsidiaries in Asia: Korea, Malaysia, and Thailand. Even though significant differences were found between respondents from headquarters and subsidiaries in terms of perceived media richness and preference for telephone and written documents, very similar media preference patterns for face-to-face and e-mail between the headquarters and subsidiaries were identified. Furthermore, face-to-face and e-mail were two primary media used for most communication activities in this MNO. Follow-up interviews revealed that the universal organizational culture of this MNO may explain media use consistency between the headquarters and subsidiaries. Implications of the findings are discussed and future research considered.

Understanding IT Governance

Legislators, regulators, and shareholders increasingly demand good governance over all aspects of their business. While much is made of financial governance, most legislation and regulation implicitly recognizes the need for prudent governance of information technology (IT) functions. In this study we conduct an exploratory collective case study of IT governance (ITG) in two financial mutuals - one in Australia and one in Canada, using a contextual lens. In one case, the mutual governs its IT through Board participation in a subsidiary. In the second, governance is delegated to management and a Lead Director. Both of these mechanisms appear to minimize ITG risk, and are the result of their respective regulatory environments. This research begins to lend some clarity regarding IT governance choices by firms, and denotes important contextual differences between countries’ regulatory environments. This will allow researchers, managers, and directors to better understand and discriminate between ITG processes and structures.

Managing Knowledge Transfer in Offshore Software Development

The aim of this article is to examine the role of copresent interaction and the extent to which this can be supplanted by information and communication technology-based interaction for managing knowledge transfer in distributed settings. This study draws on two case studies of small UK firms sourcing software development from India and Bangladesh. Using Nonaka and Konno’s knowledge creation theory, the role of copresent and ICT-based interactions in managing knowledge transfer is explained. The article contributes an extension of the concepts of knowledge creation theory by providing evidence of the role of copresent and ICT-based interaction for knowledge transfer in the context of offshore software development.

Taking Information Systems Business Process Outsourcing Offshore

As Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) moves offshore and now includes Information Systems (IS) Processes, there is a need to consider a combination of the two. This article explores the factors that a multinational organisation considered when it “offshored” its IS business processes to lower-cost destinations. It focuses on determining the driving factors and challenges faced during the offshore sourcing project. A single, in-depth interpretive case study approach was used to explore this research topic. The results of this study show that the organisation under investigation was primarily driven to offshore its IS business processes in order to become more competitive in the marketplace. This was assisted by the organisation reducing its operational costs, and establishing a global presence in many lower-cost locations offshore. A model was developed, which illustrates the interrelationships that exist between these concepts.

Chronism Theory, Culture, and System Delay

System response delay has been cited as the single most frustrating aspect of using the Internet and the most worrisome aspect of Web application design. System response time (SRT) research generally concludes that delay should be eliminated where possible to as little as a few seconds, even though delay reduction is costly. Unfortunately, it is not clear if these conclusions are appropriate outside of the developed world where nearly all of the SRT research has taken place. Cultural effects have been, hence, generally missing from SRT research. The one SRT study to date outside of the developed world did report differences using the theoretical construct of cultural chronism, and this finding could limit the generalizability of SRT research findings from developed countries to many economically developing nations. However, limitations and potential confounds in this single study render those findings tentative. The end of Apartheid in South Africa allowed an opportunity to conduct a longitudinal free simulation experiment that overcomes the critical limitations of this previous research. Subjects were members of historically polychronic and monochronic groups who had been segregated by Apartheid and now live in an integrated society with shared infrastructure and computer access. Results find that members of the historically polychronic group are more accepting of longer delays and are more willing to trade longer delays for improved functionality than are their historically monochronic counterparts. Furthermore, tests find that members of the historically monochronic population that came of age in a desegregated, majority-polychronic culture appear to be polychronic themselves and to differ significantly from the older monochronic generation. Results from this study can be applied to design culturally-sensitive applications for users in the developing economies of the world.

The Influence of Organizational Communication Openness on the Post-Adoption of Computers

This study adopts social identity theory (SIT) to examine the post-adoption of computers using a research model that extends the theory of planned behavior (TPB) with two organizational cultural factors. Individual attitudes toward using computers and perceived behavioral control are TPB personal factors, while subjective norms can be viewed as the social factor. Empirical findings from 400 Arab end-users show that openness to superior-subordinate relationships (reducing organizational boundaries) significantly influences current computer usage only through personal factors. In contrast, openness to superior-subordinate relationships significantly influences continued use of computers through personal and social factors. However, openness to work communication (reducing communicative boundaries) does not significantly influence either current computer usage or continued use of computers through TPB beliefs. The implications for research and practice, and the limitations of this study, are discussed accordingly.

The Information Overload Paradox

Information overload is one of the major problems for individuals and organizations in modern urban environments. This phenomenon has been studied for many years, and has proven to be more complex than researchers believed it to be. It is important to better understand this “pathology of information” for two reasons. First, it has a deleterious impact on work productivity and quality. Second, it has traditionally been a driver of Information Technology developments aimed at helping individuals to better cope with it. The study presented here aims at shedding light on the complexity of information overload, by examining the relationship between perceived information overload intensity and three traditional information overload predictors as well as one nontraditional predictor. The nontraditional predictor is power distance, or the extent to which less powerful members of a national culture accept that power is distributed unequally. Power distance was manipulated through the collection of data from 184 local managers and professionals (in New Zealand, Spain and the U.S.A.). The data analyses led to one surprising conclusion: perceived information overload intensity seems to be more strongly related to power distance than to the volume of written information or number of information transactions processed by an individual.