Strategic Implications of Information Technology for Resource and Capability Outsourcing Decisions

Outsourcing generally involves non-strategic resources and/or non-asset specific capabilities. However, in this paper, the authors examine the non-traditional, but increasingly more common, use of IT to facilitate theoretically inconsistent outsourcing decisions involving core resources and capabilities. The authors reconcile theory with practice by developing propositions to explain how IT can enable such outsourcing decisions and how performance advantages may ensue. The authors develop a finer-grained perspective of the constructs of knowledge-based resources and capabilities. The paper concludes with a discussion arguing that such IT-enabled outsourcing decisions, if implemented correctly, can provide an organization with both capability advantages and cost benefits, resulting in higher performance.

A Typology of Tacit Knowledge Sharing Themes to Fostering Group Decision Support System

Today, much effort and importance is placed on the management of knowledge, its security, and sustainability in context to organizations and their competitiveness. This paper outlines a typology to guide that applying tacit knowledge sharing themes from a social perspective, that is trust, care, leadership charisma, knowledge culture, concept ba, and social network analysis, affect a group’s decision support system. This paper shows that the mentioned themes facilitate a more open group discussion with a higher degree of consensus and agreement resulting in a vividly higher amount of accuracy in decision making.

EBDMSS

This paper describes a Web-based intelligent decision making support system (DMSS) to deliver balanced scorecard (BSC) based modelling and analysis in support of strategic E-business management. This framework supports E-business managers during the strategy making process in a comprehensive, integrated, and continuous manner. The paper demonstrates how practitioners can use this system to deliver a wide range of embodied E-business strategy expertise in support of real-time decision making.

A Social-Academic Network Analysis of the EURO Working Group on DSS

This paper addresses aspects of the social network analysis (SNA) performed on the social-academic network implemented for the EURO Working Group on Decision Support Systems (EWG-DSS). The EWG-DSS network has more than 105 members and is defined with the objective of analysing and representing the various relationships that academically link the group members, as well as evaluating the group’s collaboration dynamics. This paper shows graphical representations and discusses their corresponding interpretation and analytical data. This work is part of the study carried out within the underlying project of the EWG-DSS social-academic network to understanding how the group interacts, as well as encouraging new research and promoting further collaboration among the EWG-DSS group members.

Application of Selected Software Tools for Data Collection and Analysis in Library Management and Their Effectiveness Assessment

In this paper, the authors present the results of research on the use of software tools for data collection and analysis in strategic and current library management. Special attention has been paid to StatuS and Performance Analysis for Polish Research Libraries (AFBN) — the tools most frequently used by Polish academic librarians. StatuS is used by the academic libraries of Krakow Library Group and several other libraries in Poland. Performance Analysis of Polish Research Libraries (AFBN) is a national project. Its main objective is to create standards for Polish libraries based on a set of performance indicators. AFBN consists of the e-survey, a database and special software for the collection and analysis of data. The surveys are submitted by academic and public research libraries once a year. The research on the application of selected software tools for data collection and analysis in library management in Polish academic libraries was conducted in February and March 2009. Results of the research reflect attitudes of managers toward usability of such tools to support various aspects of managerial processes.

The Evaluation of Library Services Methods

In these competitive years of continuing change, libraries enrich their services with modern technologies and innovative approaches to satisfy users’ standards. This engagement significantly increases the effects of these new inputs on library budgets as new technology applications demand money and new organization schemes. Consequently, the annual budget has to be increased and difficulties arise due to its efficient allocation. This paper describes a methodology of evaluating offered services by using specific important factors like Users Satisfaction of a Service, Usage, and Cost of this service. Known methods for estimating Costs (ABC method) and estimating Satisfaction (MUSA method) in library fields are used. Also, the multi-criteria method to evaluate a service by correlating the above mentioned factors are used to give the observer the ability to find useful information. Finally, a case study about the evaluation of services using the proposed methodology is presented. The goal of the proposed methodology is to help library decision makers choose the most appropriate services to offer change and improvements according to user needs and allocated budgets.

Using the Rhizomer Platform for Semantic Decision Support Systems Development

Decision support systems get more useful as they manage to make decisions more informed. However, the cost of information and of combining and making it available in the appropriate context make this a tricky trade-off. Fortunately, Semantic Web technologies make it possible to easily publish and reuse data. But this is not simple data, it is semantic data, which makes it easier to query, browse and combine it. Apart from semantic data, it is also important a user interface that carries all this potential to the user. Rhizomer is a framework for semantic data publishing and user interaction that facilitates building semantic dashboards. It is possible, for instance, to build a simple dashboard on top of semantic data generated from financial reports and incorporate web services that provide specialised ways to interact with semantic data, like showing geo-located resources in a map or events in a timeline.

E-Government

Governments across the European Union (EU) face the challenge of responding to public demand for more responsive, efficient and effective services. E-Government based on the principle of providing services via internet to citizens and companies. The rapid growth of electronic government gave the EU the ability to correspond more effectively to the needs of citizens and provide more valuable services. In this paper the authors analyze the web based services that have been developed by EU member states. A comparative measurement of the progress of online services delivery is presented using a Multi-criteria INteractive Ordinal Regression Analysis (MINORA) system. The paper demonstrates the importance of Multicriteria Analysis and the use of reliable methods that allowed the development of a function of total utility dynamically modified depending on the evolution of e-government services.

Towards an Assessment of Public Library Value

This paper presents methodology, early findings, possible applications of results and lessons learnt from the research study “Public libraries: value, trust and satisfaction”. The study was conducted in Latvia as the part of the impact assessment plan within the public library development project “Third Father’s Son”. The project’s goal was to improve people’s quality of life by strengthening the capacities of public libraries to facilitate better and proactive use of resources offered by free access to information technology and the Internet. In this paper, the author introduces practical results from the measurement of use-oriented value of public libraries by using information from the ecology approach and identifying the role of the public library within a context of other information sources used by the public.

Using Transaction Logs to Study the Effectiveness of Librarian Behaviors on User Satisfaction in a Virtual Setting

Chat reference is becoming more common and it is important to be able to effectively judge user satisfaction with the results they receive. The behaviors the reference librarian should use to ensure that users are satisfied with chat reference sessions must also be determined. In this paper, the authors indicate that many of these behaviors could be mapped to the virtual environment with great success. The purpose of this paper is to describe and explain the methodology, which is a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods, to allow others to adapt this methodology to their own situations.