Inclusion of Social Subsystem Issues in IT Investment Decisions

Researchers have attempted to augment the traditional cost/benefit analysis model used in the IT decision process. However, frequently social subsystem issues are inadequately considered. Survey data, collected from a U.S. sample of 200 executives, provides an empirical assessment of how these issues compare with other IT decision criteria given differing decision types. The social subsystem issues considered most important by decision makers are also identified and the manner by which they consider these issues is investigated.

The Impact of IT Personnel Skills on IS Infrastructure and Competitive IS

The knowledge and skills of information technology (IT) personnel have become of critical importance as the strategic value of IT in modern organizations has become apparent. In addition to technical skills traditionally expected of IT personnel, organizational, functional, and managerial skills have been increasingly cited as mandatory for these employees. This paper used a well-accepted typology of IT personnel knowledge and skills, and investigated its relationship to desirable technological traits in organizations and to technological variables that have been closely aligned to competitive advantage in organizations. This exploratory examination used the statistical technique of canonical correlation analysis to investigate the relationship between IT personnel knowledge and skills and the flexibility of information systems (IS) infrastructure. Additionally, the same technique was used to test the relationship between the knowledge and skills of these personnel and measures of IT contribution to competitive advantage. In both cases, the relationships were significant and positive. Implications of these findings and a call for further research into the strategic value of IT personnel knowledge and skills are discussed.

IT Project Managers' Perceptions and Use of Virtual Team Technologies

This chapter presents the results of a case study pertaining to the use of information and communication media to support a range of project management tasks. A variety of electronic communication tools have evolved to support collaborative work and virtual teams. Few of these tools have focused specifically on the needs of project managers. In an effort to learn how practicing IT project managers employ these tools, data were collected at a North American Fortune 500 industrial company via interviews with IT project managers regarding their use and perceptions of electronic media within the context of their work on project teams. In this study, “virtual” describes the extent to which communication is electronic rather than the extent to which team members are geographically separated. Although the number of respondents was limited, the richness of the data collected leads to the conclusion that successful project managers and teams become skilled at adapting a variety of existing communication technologies to match the project task or process, the receiver, their own role as sender, and the content of the message. Groupware designers and developers need to better understand project management methods and best practices in order to provide better tools for practitioners, particularly as organizations expand globally and increasingly outsource various functions of their IT development and operations.

Multimedia Impact on Human Cognition

Organizations are faced with increasing costs needed to train employees in today’s high technology environment. Educators are also striving to develop new training and teaching methods that will yield optimal learning transfer and complex skill acquisition. This study suggests that trainee/learner cognitive processing capacity, information presentation format and complexity, and multimedia technology should be leveraged in order to minimize training duration and costs and maximize knowledge transfer. It presents a causal model of how multimedia and information complexity interact to influence sustained attention, mental effort, and information processing quality, all of which subsequently impact comprehension and learner confidence and satisfaction outcomes. Subjects read a text script, viewed an acetate overhead slide presentation containing text-with-graphics, or viewed a multimedia presentation depicting the greenhouse effect (low complexity) or photocopier operation (high complexity). Causal

Tranquilizing the Werewolf that Attack Information Systems Quality

After years of research and experimentation with information systems building, delivering high-quality systems remains a largely elusive objective. Since the prophetic assertion of Fred Brooks that the essential difficulties of “software engineering” would frustrate the search for a “silver bullet” to slay the legendary werewolf that beset its quality, IS delivery has become more difficult, and organizations have magnified the struggle to overcome what has been called “the software crisis.” There is unlikely to be a silver bullet. Only the disciplined, effective management and selection of appropriate approaches by knowledgeable and committed participants in the delivery process are likely to increase the odds of producing high-quality software products. This article discusses a variety of available user-centered and process-oriented systems delivery methods, philosophies, and techniques, which may be used in innovative permutations to tranquilize the dragon beyond its capacity to generate terror. The application context for these approaches, their strengths and weaknesses as indicated by the research literature, and reported practitioner experiences are also discussed.

Information Sharing in Supply Chain Management with Demand Uncertainty

Information sharing is a major strategy to counteract the amplification of demand fluctuation going up the supply chain, known as the bullwhip effect. However, sharing information through interorganizational channels can raise concerns for business management from both technical and commercial perspectives. The existing literature focuses on examining the value of information sharing in specific problem environments with somewhat simplified supply chain models. The present study takes a simulation approach in investigating the impact of information sharing among trading partners on supply chain performance in a comprehensive supply chain model that consists of multiple stages of trading partners and multiple players at each stage.

Testing and Extending Theory in Strategic Information Systems Planning Through Literature Analysis

Strategic information systems planning (SISP) has been and continues to be a key concern to information systems managers, and much research effort has been devoted to studying it. SISP has been theorized in terms of an input-process-output model, with well-defined categories and a set of hypotheses to be tested. Based on this theoretical framework, a comprehensive analysis of academic literature published since 1991 is undertaken. The analysis reveals the extent to which the various categories and hypotheses within this framework have been researched, as well as identifying additional hypotheses that are suggested from the literature.

Identifying and Managing the Enablers of Knowledge Sharing

Knowledge sharing in public services has not yet received much attention in the research literature. This chapter investigates knowledge sharing in one public service context, the UK National Health Service (NHS), and identifies factors that influence the readiness of an organization to share knowledge effectively. Using participant observation, document analysis, interviews, and a survey of managers, data are presented to highlight enablers of effective knowledge sharing in health care service delivery. Through factor analysis and regression modeling, we have isolated six factors that are significant predictors of effective knowledge sharing. Our research is broadly consistent with previous findings that an innovative culture, a capacity to learn from failure, and good information quality are strong predictors of successful knowledge sharing. However, we also identify factors associated with change management and a predisposition to confront performance indicators that significantly influence the knowledge sharing process. We suggest that the peculiar nature of the public sector environment poses unique challenges for health care managers who seek to develop a knowledge sharing capability.

A Socio-Technical Heuristic for Analysis of IT Investments

A majority of CEOs have experienced failed information technology (IT) investments. While such investments have the potential for providing competitive advantage, actual returns have varied widely. Numerous methods exist for investment evaluation, but traditional methods do not adequately account for the intangible benefits that characterize strategic investments and lack other features of portfolio selection. This chapter presents a framework based upon the analytic hierarchy process, combined with integer programming, to overcome the deficiencies associated with traditional approaches to economic evaluation of IT investments. Based on socio-technical theory and observations from two case studies in which the framework was applied successfully, a heuristic is developed for the investment process. Findings and implications are discussed.

Global Service Provider Strategies and Networking Alternatives…

Deregulation and liberalization of the telecommunications markets has led to tough international competition. This chapter presents well-established approaches used by large telecom service providers in assessing the technical and market forces impacting their network planning and strategies. This paper, in the form of a tutorial, takes the reader through the assessment and analysis processes dealing with the requirements, design and implementation issues facing global communications carriers today. Four generic telecommunication network models (varying based on the degree of capital intensity required) are presented to demonstrate that a strategy of employing these generic models to appropriate settings generates cost savings and network efficiencies. A specific case analysis conducted by the global communications carrier for a regional network in Italy is included that discusses strategic planning for the provision of new data and Internet services, and assesses alternative network designs and technologies to provide optimized solutions and service delivery.