Optimizing the ROI of Enterprise Architecture Using Real Options

This chapter illustrates how to optimize the return on investment (ROI) of enterprise architecture. Enterprise architecture is a blueprint for defining the structure and operation of organizations such as local, state, and federal agencies. Done well, enterprise architecture results in leaner and more effective information systems that satisfy organizational goals and objectives. This chapter introduces a suite of simple metrics and models for measuring the ROI of enterprise architecture. This chapter also introduces real options, which is a contemporary approach to measuring ROI. Whereas typical measures tend to underestimate ROI, real options have the ability to unearth business value hidden deep within the economics of investments in enterprise architecture.

Supporting Distributed Groups with Group Support Systems

The leadership role facilitates group process by structuring group interaction. How leadership affects group performance in GSS settings remains one of the least investigated areas of GSS research. In this study, the presence of a group leader is found to make a significant difference in objective decision quality and satisfaction with the decision process. At the same time, perceived decision quality and consensus are not significantly different in groups with a leader and those without one. A content analysis of comments by group leaders shows that group leaders are effective when making comments on clear group objectives and interaction structure in the early stages of group interaction. In the later stages, however, it becomes more important for group leaders to offer comments encouraging interaction and maintaining group cohesion.

The Organization of End User Development in an Accounting Company

The chapter presents a case study following the activities of super users and local developers during the adoption of a new business application by an accounting firm in Scandinavia (referred to as the Company). The Company launched a program to train super users to help with this process because of the complexity of the new system, a generic, multipurpose application system replacing several older, non-integrated systems. The system, Visma Business (VB), is a comprehensive financial and accounting application delivered as a set of components that need to be configured for domain-specific tasks, depending on the clients the accountants will interact with. The super users and the local end user developer (also called the application coordinator) were asked to take part in this study. We documented their activities empirically and analytically, using interviews to gather data and drawing on aspects of activity theory for the conceptual framework for analysis. Our findings provide insight into end-user development (EUD) activities with VB: what roles were created by the Company, what roles emerged spontaneously during the process, what the various user groups (regular users, super users, and the application coordinator) did, and how EUD was coordinated between super users and the application coordinator. Our findings show that super users fill an important niche as mediators between regular users and local developers and can make a significant contribution to the success of EUD efforts in a nontechnical application domain.

The Importance of Ease of Use, Usefulness, and Trust to Online Consumers

This research examines electronic commerce participation and attitudes by older Americans. Questionnaires were distributed at a large retirement community and several senior centers located in Pennsylvania. The sample of 110 respondents ranged in age from 52 to 87. Fifty-nine percent reported purchasing an item online in the last 6 months. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was used and modified to examine the impact attitudes concerning ease of use, usefulness and trust had on electronic commerce usage. Usefulness and trust were found to have a positive, direct affect on usage. Ease of use had significant impacts on usefulness and trust had a significant impact on both ease of use and usefulness. The chapter concludes with a discussion of these results, study limitations, and directions for future research.

Privacy Statements as a Means of Uncertainity Reduction in WWW Interactions

Grounded in uncertainty reduction theory, the present study analyzes the content of 50 privacy policies from well-known commercial Web sites with a view to identifying starting points for improving the quality of online privacy policies. Drawing on traditional content analysis and computer-assisted textual analysis, the study shows that privacy policies often omit essential information and fail to communicate data handling practices in a transparent manner. To reduce Internet users’ uncertainty about data handling practices and to help companies build stable relationships with users, privacy policies need to explain not only the data collection and sharing practices a company engages in but also those practices in which companies do not engage. Further, more exact lexical choice in privacy policies would increase the transparency of data handling practices and, therefore, user trust in World Wide Web (WWW) interactions. The results also call for less verbose texts and alternatives to the current narrative presentation format.

End User Computing Ergonomics

Until recent years, the end user computing ergonomic focus has primarily been on stationary computer use. A new trend for the end user is mobile computing. An increasing number of end users are working outside of the traditional office. Mobile computing devices allow for these workers to perform job functions while in the field, at home, or while traveling. The organizational and end user benefits abound for the use of such enabling technology. However, the mobile computing environment introduces a new area of ergonomic concerns. Are businesses and end users monitoring the use of these devices from an ergonomic perspective? The good news is the outcome can be influenced and/or determined with intentional efforts on the part of both end users and managers. This paper includes an in depth review of the current and emerging issues, especially the mobile end user environment, that is important to the end user, manager, and organization as a whole. It also provides end user ergonomic suggestions and resources and addresses the management challenges rising from ergonomic issues.

Evaluating Group Differences in Gender During the Formation of Relationship Quality and Loyalty in ISP Service

This study examines the moderating role of gender during the formation of relationship quality and loyalty in the context of IT service. In the proposed model, expertise, relational selling behavior, perceived network quality, and service recovery indirectly influence a customer’s loyalty through mediation of relationship quality. Gender moderates each model path. The moderating effects are examined simultaneously using data from customers of Taiwan’s leading Internet service provider. Test results indicate that the influences of perceived network quality on relationship quality and of relationship quality on loyalty are stronger for males than females, while relational selling behavior influences relationship quality more for females than for males. Furthermore, service recovery influences relationship quality for both the male and female groups, but its influence does not differ significantly between the two groups. Finally, expertise exerts an insignificant influence on relationship quality for both groups. Implications of the empirical findings also are discussed.

Examining User Perception of Third-Party Organization Credibility and Trust in an E-Retailer

Despite the fact that over half of U.S. residents are now online, Internet users hesitate to enter into transactions with e-retailers in the absence of certain assurances. Recent IS research shows that institution- based assurance structures, such as Web seals, are drivers of online trust. We extend the research in online trust to include the effect of third-party organization (TPO) credibility on both Internet users’ perceptions of assurance structures and purchase risk. Findings indicate that TPO credibility is positively related to the value that Internet users assign to assurance structures and negatively related to perceptions of purchase risk. Furthermore, perceptions of TPO credibility are strongly associated with users’ trusting attitudes toward the e-retailer. For some online consumers, trust may have less to do with privacy and security and more to do with the reputation of the TPO. These findings have important implications for the design of Web sites, the selection of assurance providers and services, and the reputation of both e-retailers and providers.

Semantic Composition of Web Portal Components

Many recently emerging component-based Web portal application platforms allow end users to compose dynamic Web dialogues on the fly. Experts predict that this paradigm will enable a class of new applications for Web-based content delivery in information-rich, agile business domains, such as health care. We present a conceptual analysis of the user-based composition paradigm currently used and argue that its usability is limited with respect to complex, dynamic applications. To overcome these limitations, we present an alternative composition paradigm, which is based on a semantic model of a portal’s application domain. We evaluate this approach with an application scenario in the health care domain.

Advancing End User Development Through Metadesign

End-user development means the active participation of end users in the software development process. In this perspective, tasks that are traditionally performed by professional software developers at design time are transferred to end users at use time. This creates a new challenge for software engineers: designing software systems that can be evolved by end users. Metadesign, a new design paradigm discussed in this chapter, is regarded as a possible answer to this challenge. In this line, we have developed a metadesign methodology, called Software Shaping Workshop methodology, that supports user work practice and allows experts in a domain to personalize and evolve their own software environments. We illustrate the Software Shaping Workshop methodology and describe its application to a project in the medical domain. The work proposes a new perspective on system personalization, distinguishing between customization and tailoring of software environments. The software environments are customized by the design team to the work context, culture, experience, and skills of the user communities; they are also tailorable by end users at runtime in order to adapt them to the specific work situation and users’ preferences and habits. The aim is to provide the physicians with software environments that are easy to use and adequate for their tasks, capable to improve their work practice and determine an increase in their productivity and performance.