Requirements of IS Development Methodologies Towards the New Organizational Paradigm - A Brasilian Study Using Delphi Technique

The purpose of this study was to identify through the Delphi Technique, important requirements of an information system development methodology. These requirements should satisfy the needs of actual organizations, regarding the strategic use of information technology. An initial listing of requirements was developed through a review of the related literature. The Delphi panel consisted of 31 brazilian specialists in information systems. Two rounds were employed to collect from this panel the most important requirements. The requirements were distributed in five basic areas: technical process, interaction between the end user and analysts, organizational structure, business strategies and quality of the information system. It is expected that methodologies will continue to be of great importance in the development of information systems and they will increase their focus on the social-technical approach.

Software Development in Developing Countries

A number of software quality enhancement approaches have been suggested and implemented. Over the last decade, software (SW) companies in developed countries have reported significant enhancements in productivity and quality by using various quality approaches. Software companies operating in developing countries have also undertaken quality initiatives in the recent years. This chapter presents a framework for analysis of quality initiatives. The need for considering customer and market aspects in assessing an organization’s quality initiatives has been established. The notion of a market quality indicator (MQI) has been introduced for this purpose. Information on the quality and process improvement initiatives at some of the leading software companies of Pakistan has been collected. The proposed framework is applied to analyze the quality initiatives of these companies. Based on the insights obtained from this analysis, some recommendations for companies interested in launching quality and process improvement initiatives are also presented.

Leapfrogging an IT Labor Force

Throughout the world countries recognizing the economic benefits of IT are rapidly developing information sectors. Advanced industrialized nations have been moving gradually from industrial to post-industrial work while newly industrializing nations are leapfrogging directly from agrarian to information-intensive work. At the close of the twentieth century some interesting tensions result from these two types of nations moving in the same direction. An important issue for both advanced industrialized countries and newly industrializing nations is the human resource issue. Managers at multinational firms as well as policy makers in newly industrializing countries recognize the need for developing qualified IT personnel. The Irish IT sector provides a valuable setting for studying human resource issues associated with the rapid development of an information sector because it affords the opportunity to explore both the multinational and the indigenous viewpoints. Two key human resource issues for the global IT sector are explored in this paper: ensuring a supply of qualified IT workers in the host country and managing IT workers in a cross-cultural work environment. This paper is based upon an ethnographic study of the information sector in Ireland. The issues that are raised represent the experiences of American and Irish managers, Irish policy makers and Irish IT workers.

Dysfunctional Development Pathways of Information and Communication Technology

This paper argues that there are three factors, which counter the inevitable movement towards globalisation. Firstly the incremental force of technology as illustrated by the growth stage model of the development of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is flawed. This model implies a linearity of development and an inevitability of stage following stage. While this stage model may provide historic explanation for the development in the developed world and amongst the mature users, the model fails when used predictively for the developing nations or for the late adopters. Secondly the imperialism of technology overcoming all barriers fails to reconcile the cultural dimensions of both the developing context or the application domain. Technology is not culturally neutral but is developed in a cultural context and in the case of information rich applications carries that cultural within its design. Applications of culturally developed systems, such as office and management systems assume the user’s compliance with the design culture, but this inevitably leads to cultural clashes as we apply outside the design context. Thirdly the assumption of universality of economic access and development is incompatible with both the reality and development paths in both developed and developing countries. This inevitably will lead to a divided society split between the internationally mobile, technology-supported communities and those communities disadvantaged economically and technologically but culturally rich. The failure to bridge this gap may leave society as a whole weakened through lack of access to ‘variety’. The paper discusses these perspectives and illustrates the case with evidence from NE Asia and the United Kingdom. In particular it focuses on software development and information-rich contexts.

Transfer of Information Technology to the Arab World

The complex societal beliefs and values of the Arab world provide a rich setting to examine the hypothesized influence of culture on information technology transfer (ITT). Two research questions arise in this context: (1) Do cultural beliefs and values affect the transference of information technology in the Arab world? and (2) Does contact with technologically advanced societies impact ITT and systems outcomes? The present study addresses these research questions by conceptualizing and testing a cultural influence model of ITT. In this model, cultural beliefs and values are one major construct while a counterbalancing variable is the external influence of technologically advanced societies. These constructs along with the variable “national IT development” form the conceptual basis for the model. This study is the second part of a program of research investigating ITT. The setting of the study was Arab society, which allowed us to test our “cultural influence” model in, perhaps, one of the more complex cultural and social systems in the world. The program of research took place in several phases. In the early phases, Arab-American businessmen and women as well as Arabs studying in American universities were studied. In the latter phases, the cross-disciplinary research team gathered primary data in the Arab cultures of Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and the Sudan. Both quantitative and qualitative techniques were used to explore the phenomenon of ITT. This paper reports quantitative findings from the latter phase. Findings suggest that the model has explanatory power. Arab cultural beliefs were a very strong predictor of resistance to systems and thus ITT; technological culturation was also a factor. These results have implications for future theory-testing and for technology policy-setting by responsible Arab leaders. Additionally, there are implications for transnational firms and managers charged with introducing IT in foreign ports, subsidiaries, offices, and plants.

Information Technology for Relational Business Ecosystems

This article presents a framework to integrate effectively different information technologies in order to coordinate a relational business ecosystem, an innovative business model. The information technologies needed to create this new business environment are presented, as well as an integrated model based on a technology-service-process-production taxonomy. A case study addressing a major engineering company in Brazil, now playing the role of an integrator within a relational business ecosystem is presented in order to validate the proposed model. Some conclusions in this realm are presented addressing the main obstacles and hurdles to accomplish a relational business ecosystem as well as the solutions to overcome them, so as to make the findings and concerns applicable to other countries.

Sticking to the Basics

M.K. Mikels and Company is a manufacturer that serves mainly as a supplier for the building industry in Israel. The company makes glues and related products used to construct buildings. To begin with, several factors have contributed to the current high price of housing in Israel, including waves of immigration from Russia and Ethiopia during the 1990s, demand created by young couples for housing, and heavy population density in the main cities. These factors particularly accelerated demand for construction of new apartments in this decade, giving rise to an increase in activity for the Israeli construction industry and its suppliers, including M.K. Mikels.

Out of Scandinavia - Facing Social Risks in IT Development in South Africa

South Africa is undergoing a number of changes, which has an effect on every aspect of society from the workplace to everyday life. South Africans need to reflect on this situation and determine how to proceed. The purpose of this article is to consider the development and implementation of information technology, one particular problem area, in this broader context. The article draws an analogy between the trade unionist systems development tradition in Scandinavia and the possible application it might have in South Africa. The article describes the situation in South Africa, presents the trade unionist approach to systems development, and describes the underlying principles that have been identified by Scandinavian researchers. It then evaluates these principles from a South African perspective and discusses the possible uses they might have in the South African situation.

Can National Information Infrastructures Enhance Social Development in the Least Developed Countries? An Empirical Investigation

The need for national information infrastructures (NII) in the world’s least developed countries (LDCs) tends to be overshadowed by the nation’s severe deficiencies in physical infrastructure. Consequently NII may be inadequately addressed by governments and supporting agencies in their plans for stimulating social growth. The example of Singapore’s TradeNet and other lesser-developed countries developing national, electronic information infrastructures, suggests that information technology infrastructure may enable an LDC to develop at a particularly advanced rate. This paper studies the relationship of information infrastructure and social development. It establishes a clear correlation between 1) levels of information infrastructure and social development, and 2) growth rates of information infrastructure and social development. The findings suggest that governments of LDCs may enhance their countries’ growth by developing strategic plans for NII development.

Developing an Expert System to Software Selection in Small Business

The expert system discussed in this chapter, the Expert System to Software Package Selection (ESSS), was developed motivated by the needs of small bussines to support the software packages selection task. ESSS, is a rule based expert system designed to evaluate software packages using the ranking approach. ESSS evaluates software packages using six factors, and point values appropiate for each factors. The factors includes: Users requirements, technical requirements, vendor support, documentation, user considerations and costs. Tasks to ESSS developing and its architecture are showed in this paper.