Effects of Information Technology on Business Performance and the Use of Accounting Measures

The understanding of the link between Information Technology (IT) investments and firm performance is still not completely understood in spite of numerous studies. However, these studies are not united in how they examine the effects of IT on business performance. They differ in their criteria, methodologies, and samples. Therefore, while there are positive effects associated with IT on firm performance, it is still difficult to reach overarching conclusions and highlight that there is still a need for further research. Specifically, this chapter contributes to this area of study by discussing the different types of benefits that firms can get from IT investments, examining the use of accounting variables to quantify the effect of IT, and providing future research directions.

The Evolving Role of the Chief Information Officer (CIO)

The new role of CIO was created in the early 1980s, a time when organizations had just begun to recognize the strategic importance of IS. Prior to that, the most senior role in IS had been that of the IS Manager, a functional or line manager role with only limited involvement with top management. This new role was expected to work within the top management team to “bridge the gap” between the IS department and top management, to ensure the ongoing successful exploitation of IS across the organization. Today, it has been suggested that the role of CIO has now evolved to cover the need to also “bridge the gap” between the organization itself and its external IS technological environment. The purpose of this chapter is to review the IS management literature relating to the CIO in order to gain a greater understanding of the evolution of this role.

A Past to Present Journey

This chapter explores the role of the Chief Information Officer (CIO). A detailed review of the existing literature traces the evolution of this role and highlights its characteristics and configurations. CIO role effectiveness can be described in terms of three demand-side roles: strategist, relationship architect, integrator, and three supply-side roles: educator, information steward, and utility provider. To explore the configuration of roles of CIOs in Australia, a large-scale survey of CIOs was conducted. The Australian results, based on 174 responses, are compared with those from similar studies in USA. The top priority for the Australian CIO was information steward, ensuring organizational data quality and security and recruiting and retaining IT skilled staff. In comparison, the first priority for the USA CIOs was utility provider - building and sustaining solid, dependable, and responsive IT infrastructure services. This study's findings have implications for CIO career development and recruitment.

Securing Enterprises from Malicious Attacks on their Networks

Routers interconnect networks of various enterprises, and the more secure the entry or exit points are made, the more robust the security of these enterprises is. These routers become the first direct targets and are vulnerable to security attacks. If these routers are not tightly protected, the attackers get an edge to intrude the system. In order to ensure the security of these routers, Secure Access Control Lists (ACLs) Filtering-Based Enterprise Networks (SAFE-Nets) are proposed in this chapter. In this scheme, routers are configured with Access Control Lists (ACL) that are used to filter in the intended packets and filter out the dangerous malicious packets from network traffic. This consolidates security deployment over the entire network on top of anti-virus software, weak passwords, latent software vulnerabilities, and other related secure measures. This can help network technicians working for various enterprises manage security at low costs.

Emerging Technologies and Organizational Transformation

Technologies continue to evolve and to largely transform business practices. In the near future, a few technologies, such as Internet of Things (IoT), Augmented Reality (AR), additive manufacturing (3D printing), and robots, can substantially influence businesses. The reason to focus specifically on these technologies as leading factors for organizational change is twofold: first, there already exist many prototypes and pilot experiments; and second, these technologies have the potential to provoke substantial breakthroughs, leading to substantial business changes. The chapter proposes an overall vision about the impact of these four emerging technologies on business practices and how they will fuel substantial business transformation. The chapter starts with a short analysis how IT influences the core business models and value formation. Then, the authors present the state of the art in e-business technologies and current emerging trends. Finally, the authors propose a detailed overview and discussion of the newly emerging bridge technologies, illustrating with examples their role and economic potential.

Technology Integration in Work Settings

Technology integration is gaining preeminence in the workplace. While plentiful definitions exist, researchers have attempted to answer many questions related to technology. Most of the issues dealing with technology in the workplace address, but are not limited to, technological entry, technological adoption, technological adaptation, technological appropriation, and technological invention. This chapter delves into the concept of technology integration in work settings. Starting with definitions, the chapter examines the nature of technology, its interrelationship with knowledge and the learning organization, its importance in the workplace, and its association with innovation.

Are Universities Unsocial with Social Media?

This chapter explores the necessity of teaching social media in university courses. Many of today's business organizations have replaced or augmented traditional marketing with social media in order to promote their products or services and take advantage of blogs, social networks, audio, video, email marketing, and collaborative environments to reach their customer base. The benefits include cost savings, stronger customer loyalty, increased sales, heightened product/service awareness, the ability to mine data, and reaching customers quickly. Universities, while focusing on the primary responsibility of teaching, are also employing social media to promote their business to their customers, the students. While university programs are sometimes criticized for focusing on theory instead of specific skills and relevance to the workplace, could this same criticism also be applicable to how universities use social media and how this burgeoning business tool is perhaps not being taught? In this chapter, various uses of social media in the university setting are uncovered and recommendations are made for improvement of social media initiatives.

Innovation Styles, Processes, and their Drivers

Technology innovation is not just a result of funds invested in research and development of a firm; it is a culmination of long-standing investments in well-thought-out processes, plans, and strategies. The chapter aims to address these aspects of technological innovations. The innovation process is a unique one, and each firm has a different style of bringing in innovation as per their requirements. These diverse innovation requirements are a direct consequence of the organizational structure and the innovation philosophies that those structures have embedded in them. Based on academic research done over the past decades on topics of organizational impact of innovation, the authors analyze the different innovation philosophies that organizations have, the processes that organizations use to promote innovation, as well as the drivers that impact these philosophies and processes.

Advances in Technology Project Management

As organizations must continually drive down costs of software-driven projects, they need to evaluate the Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) and other software-based design methodologies. These methodologies include looking at software-based alternatives that could save a significant amount of money by reducing the amount of proprietary software. This chapter explores the use and integration of Open Source Software (OSS) in software-driven projects to include in enterprise organizations. Additionally, the legalities of the GNU General Public License (GPL), Lesser General Public License (LGPL), Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), and Creative Commons are explored with the integration of these OSS solutions into organizations. Lastly, the chapter covers the software assurance and cyber security controls to associate with OSS to deploy a hardened product that meets the needs of today's dynamically evolving global business enterprise.

Business Competence and Acumen of Information Technology Professionals

There is an ongoing debate concerning information technology professionals and business competency skills. Conventional wisdom suggests IT professionals should first and foremost be proficient in all technical aspects and abilities with managerial, strategic, and soft skills as secondary. The business competence of information technology professionals may not seem to be a new technical or strategic development; however, the landscape of business has changed significantly. The information technology infrastructure is embedded throughout most organizations. Information technology and those responsible for IT can no longer afford to operate in a silo as they have in the past. Today's businesses rely more than ever on the technical infrastructure to provide scalability, functionality, and adaptability. The technical infrastructure is relied upon to help meet and assist with business operational, managerial, strategic, and competitive needs. This chapter examines the business competency of information technology professionals as a new development within IT.