End-user Attitude in ERP Post-Implementation

This chapter analyzes the impact of the implementation of SAP R/3 in a Multinational Portuguese Organization (MPO), defining some Critical Success Factors (CSFs). In order to understand the motivations of end-users prior to implementation and to analyze the behavior after a change (post-implementation), a study based on a questionnaire was carried out. The sample included 67 users of SAP R/3 that were present throughout the process. Considering the results, the authors conclude that the implementation of SAP R/3 in MPO was successful, and the respondents consider their work more productive and achieve easier access to information. The existence of a solid team to support the project was established as a major facilitator in the whole process, as opposed to the limited time and lack of training that emerged as barriers to the implementation. It was also found that the learning period assumes a high importance in the success of the implementation, since increasing the training time reduces the need for support to the end-users.

In Search of a Star Trek Affective State

The authors’ meta-analysis showed that leadership studies have ignored pioneering research into the heuristic tools people employ that affect decision-making and, subsequently, judgments regarding effective group performance in organizational settings. The chapter suggests a postmodern model superseding the modernist perspectives whose theoretical grounding remain mired in Frederick Taylor’s (1911) scientific management theories. The authors’ meta-analysis identified salient characteristics found in the selected leadership research, allowing for a disambiguation of the transformational and charismatic leadership operational traits. The meta-analysis comprised selected research studies from 1999 to 2008, and revealed distinctive intrapersonal (5 organizational referents) and interpersonal (5 social identity/normative referents) icons that inform emergent leader and follower behaviors. The chapter proposes a postmodern evaluation matrix to reveal the structural biases and modernist conceptual ambiguities tied to the leader-worker dyadic in varying organizational contexts. The findings suggest that leadership researchers should consider complex behavioral decision-making processes that result in emergent group performances instead of focusing on a leader’s ephemeral behavioral traits. A postmodern approach also helps leadership researchers identify a group’s performance on a continuum that would demonstrate their willingness to act in a way that tests individual limits, stretches group boundaries, and exceeds company goals, what the authors term a Star Trek Affective State.

Corporate Governance of IT in Spanish Family Owned Enterprises

IT Corporate governance is the information technology-governing discipline of corporate governance.. Governing IT is not a simple discipline: researchers and practitioners have developed frameworks, best practices, etc. The standard ISO/IEC 38.500 sets the principles and activities to be carried in the organization to implement corporate governance of IT. Family-owned enterprises introduce a specific particularity regarding governance: the family. This paper presents an analysis of corporate governance of IT in family owned enterprises, considering this singularity, from the Spanish perspective. Also, it introduces two examples of implementation in family owned enterprises

Enterprise Tomography Driven Root-Cause-Analysis and Integration Lifecycle Management of Federated ERP in Green Clouds

Cloud Computing is finding its way into the architecture of current IT landscapes. The present chapter depicts the challenges of the required changes and transitions of Enterprise Data Centers from non-integrated on-premise solutions towards fully integrated on-demand systems in silo-free clouds. Cloud standardization in the context of the Open Cloud Manifesto is discussed as well as a reference model based upon semantic composition and federation (Federated ERP Systems and Corporate Environmental Information Management Systems CEMIS 2.0). How Enterprise Tomography can support the governance process is described as the Root-Cause-Analysis procedure and Integration Lifecycle Management of an Enterprise Cloud and by comparing different system states. On the basis of an operator-based approach, Root-Cause-Analysis and data integrity can be ensured. Finally, an outlook on an approach involving environmental aspects (Green Clouds) is given.

Efficient Alternatives in the Adoption of Software for Public Companies

Public Administrations are seeking more efficient alternatives for the use of information and communication technologies in terms of a cost-benefit analysis. Open source standards can offer them rational alternatives. Up to this moment one can find some good experiences in the implementation of open source software in Public Administrations worldwide. This study offers the results of research where a group of eighteen Public Administration experiences of integral systems migration to open software standards have been analyzed. Public Administrations perceive improvements in the way they offer services, a reduction of the costs, and better secured information systems. The authors think this analysis can be of value for IT decision makers at Public Administrations.

Automation of the Approval and Control Process of Documents

Traceability systems, including the approval and control of documents, are increasingly assuming a pivotal role in the workflow of information across an organization and they can be classified as an element of any internal control system at the organizational context which contributes for a continuous auditing and helps to manage and minimize organizational risk. RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) is a technology that can enable the development of architectures which provide an adequate response to this requirement of internal control. Thus, this chapter, as main objective, raises awareness of the importance of these systems in an organizational environment. Moreover this chapter’s objective is to propose a modular and flexible solution which simultaneously traces, monitors, and searches the flow and location of documents in an organization, using RFID technology.

An Approach for Recovering the Connections between Business Process and Software System

The relationship existing between a business process and the supporting software system is a critical concern for organizations, as it directly affects their performance. The knowledge regarding this relationship plays an important role in the software evolution process, as it helps to identify the software components involved by a software change request. The research described in this chapter concerns the use of information retrieval techniques in the software maintenance activities. In particular, the chapter addresses the problem of recovering traceability links between the entities of the business process model and components of the supporting software system. Therefore, an information retrieval approach is proposed based on two processing phases including syntactic and semantic analysis. The usefulness of the approach is discussed through a case study.

A New Dynamic Framework for Managing ERP Development and Enterprise Strategy

The enterprise management (EM) approach provides a holistic view of organizations and their related information systems. In order to align information technology (IT) innovation with global markets and volatile virtualization, traditional firms are seeking to reconstruct their enterprise structures alongside repositioning strategy and establish new information system (IS) architectures to transform from single autonomous entities into more open enterprises supported by new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. This chapter shows how ERP engage-abilities cater to three distinctive EM patterns and resultant strategies. The purpose is to examine the presumptions and importance of combing ERP and inter-firm relations relying on the virtual value chain concept. From a review of the literature on ERP development and enterprise strategy, exploratory inductive research studies in Zoomlion and Lanye have been conducted. In addition, the authors propose a dynamic conceptual framework to demonstrate the adoption and governance of ERP in the three enterprise management forms and points to a new architectural type (ERPIII) for operating in the virtual enterprise paradigm.

Organization Identity

Organizations not only play an increasingly active role in today’s society but also address everyday necessities and concerns of individuals. To achieve a competitive advantage, it is becoming more and more necessary that organizations perform efficiently in order to survive. As organizations can be defined as a group of people who work together to obtain common results, it is imperative that all its constituents represent themselves as part of the whole. Essential issues belonging to self-identity such as: who is the organization, what it does, for whom it operates, and what its core values are can be answered by building a Business Model. In this context, the Business Model and artifacts like the Business Motivation Model, which help to specify the enterprise business architecture, can be complementary. This paper shows how the Portuguese Air Force developed its generic Business Model and describes two example of application in the strategic and operational levels.

An Enterprise Architecture Approach for Designing an Integrated Wood Supply Management System

The wood supply chains encompass a multitude of agents with independent business processes and information systems. The network of interrelationships and information flows among the agents is often neglected when designing information systems. Common processes and automatic data exchanges can enhance collaboration as well as improve IT alignment with business needs across multiple organizations in the supply chain. This article proposes an Enterprise Architecture methodological approach for designing an integrated modular Wood Supply Management System. Both Process Architecture Framework and Information Architecture were developed and used to define individual systems and integration requirements, discussed on the Applications Architecture. The Technological Architecture was further addressed. Results of its application to the Portuguese pulpwood, biomass and lumber-based supply chains are presented. Results show that this approach can effectively specify individual systems requirements driven from the processes descriptions built in collaboration with the agents. It further shows that a Service-Oriented Architecture can be derived, ensuring systems integration and interoperability.