Business Commons^™

Systemization & Survival -- “Houston, We Have A Problem” – Business Lessons From Apollo 13, Judith Jacob Iddy, Njeru Zakayo

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

In the business world, there are different factors that determine whether a business will survive or not. Apollo 13 film perfectly demonstrates what every business undergoes throughout its lifecycle. Apollo 13 spacecraft started its journey to the moon successfully with the mission being to land on the moon. Unfortunately, within a very short period of time, Apollo 13 started to experience a series of problems that required quick actions and decisions to be made with the involvement of different sets of technical skills. Ultimately, by using the prototype and systems which NASA had established for Apollo 13, the teams managed …

Last-Minute Coordination: Adapting To Demand To Support Last-Mile Operations, Kedong Chen, Hung-Chung Su, Kevin Linderman, William Li

Information Technology & Decision Sciences Faculty Publications

In the highly competitive e-commerce industry, customer-facing warehouses are crucial as the “order penetration points” for e-commerce last-mile operations. This research examines how warehouses use last-minute coordination, an unstructured mechanism, to ensure sufficient inventory at the order penetration points. Previous research has focused on structured mechanisms like contracts and inventory management systems to enhance warehouse performance. However, these mechanisms can be ineffective when faced with unforeseen local contingencies. To adjust inventory and adapt to changes in supply and/or demand, warehouses need to engage in unstructured, last-minute coordination with other warehouses. Using coordination and loose coupling theories, we find that coordinating …

People, Processes, Systems, And Leadership — Keys To Organizational Performance, Cam Caldwell, Khalfan R. Al Asmi, Zulaikah Albusaidi, Rayan Esmaail

The Journal of Values-Based Leadership

Current evidence about successful organizations emphasizes the importance of integrated organizational factors that combine to convey a consistent message to employees that is the essence of an effective organizational culture (Beer, 2009; Shein & Schein, 2016). Although there is much that is positive about the achievements that some organizations are making to create a sustainable organizational culture, there is also overwhelming evidence that organizations and their leaders are struggling to earn the commitment and followership of their employees (Clifton & Harter, 2019; Edelman, 2023).

Outcomes Of Enterprise Resource Planning System On Organizational Productivity, Tambei Chiawah, William G. Dzekashu, Walter R. Mccollum, Evelyn E. Fomuso

International Journal of Applied Management and Technology

Leaders within local government organizations do not understand how to achieve expected and desired benefits from the implementation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. The lack of alignment between social and technical elements in ERP implementation continues to depress organizational productivity. The prime objective of our quantitative correlational study was to examine whether social and technical elements increase use and productivity in ERP implementation. Sociotechnical systems theory provided the theoretical basis for our study. We examined six dimensional variables relating to ERP implementation. Our key findings indicated positive significant relationships between ERP and information sharing, between ERP system quality and …

“It Felt Like Having A Second Job”: Perspectives From Deaf Professionals On Communication Equity In The Workplace, Paul B. Harrelson, Brenda S. Nicodemus

JADARA

More than 50 years of nondiscrimination legislation in the United States has resulted in greater diversity in the workplace; however, questions persist about the communication equity of Deaf employees who use a signed language. In this study, we investigate systemic factors that underlie the provision of signed language interpreting services in the workplace. Using the Critical Incident Technique, observations were collected from 17 Deaf professionals regarding the systems of interpreter provision at work. The data resulted in four main findings: (1) Deaf professionals hold a sophisticated understanding of their communication needs, (2) both quality and quantity of interpreting are important, …

Strategy Resilience: Getting Wise About Philanthropic Strategy In A Post-Pandemic World, Jewlya Lynn, Clare Nolan, Peter Waring

The Foundation Review

Public and private systems worldwide have been disrupted by COVID-19, cutting across all types of philanthropic priorities. Amid this uncertainty, some philanthropic strategies have struggled to find their footing while others have adapted easily, harnessing previously unanticipated opportunities to achieve change. Why have some philanthropic strategies been more successful than others? What wisdom can we draw from this moment that can help us prepare for the future?

During times of crisis, the concept of resilience is frequently applied to nonprofit organizations and their leaders. This article flips the vantage point toward funders, proposing a theory to explain what makes some …

Reshaping Competitive Advantages With Analytics Capabilities In Service Systems, Shahriar Akter, Angappa Gunasekaran, Samuel Fosso Wamba, Mujahid M. Babu, Umme Hani

Sydney Business School - Papers

Big data analytics capability can reshape competitive advantages for a service system. However, little is known about how to develop and operationalize a service system analytics capability (SSAC) model. Drawing on the resource based view (RBV), dynamic capability theory (DCT) and the emerging literature on big data analytics, this study develops and validates an SSAC model and frames its impact on competitive advantages using 251 survey data from service systems analytics managers in the U.S. Partial Least Squares (PLS)-Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used as a data analysis technique to develop and validate the hierarchical SSAC model. The main findings …

Disruptive Innovation Within The Legal Services Ecosystem, Donald G. Billings, Douglas G. Campbell

International Journal of Applied Management and Technology

Many law firms have done little to address the opportunities and threats presented by potentially disruptive technology (DT), such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore strategies that some law firm leaders use to address the potentially detrimental influences of DT on their organizations. The systems approach to management was employed as the conceptual framework. Data were collected from 6 participants at 2 international law firms with offices in California, using semi-structured interviews and organizational artifacts. Data were analyzed using inductive and deductive coding and thematic analysis, resulting in …

Dynamic Service Analytics Capabilities For Service Systems In The Global Big Data Economy - A Systematic Review And Agenda For Future Research, Shahriar Akter, Saradhi Motamarri, Mujahid M. Babu, Mario Fernando, Samuel Fosso Wamba, Kathy Ning Shen

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Extended abstract presented at the Data, Organisations and Society Conference, 21 November 2018, Coventry, United Kingdom

An Exploration Into The "Over The Wall Handling" Phenomenon Of Aid And Development Supply Chain Systems, Mark Edwards, Lee Styger

Sydney Business School - Papers

This paper provides some insight regarding the causes and implications of waste within Aid and Development programs and the impact on Aid effectiveness. In order to understand this better, a comparative case study analysis of three Aid and Development programs using a systems mapping process was used to identify major constraints within these supply chain systems. This work identified a complex matrix of nodal links within these systems that correspond to the flow of both funding and value creation. The findings point to Aid and Development supply chain systems being a closed loop system where much of the funding can …

Generating Revenue At Airports In The Southeastern Coastal Region Of North Carolina, John Daniel Strong

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Airports contribute about 5% of the gross domestic product and employ over 7 million people in the United States. The purpose of this qualitative multiple-case study was to explore the strategies that airport managers need to increase nonaeronautical revenue. A generic strategy does not exist to assist airport operators in generating operating income. Aeronautical revenue does not always provide sufficient funding for airport operations and existing research does not consistently provide effective strategies for all airports to generate revenue. The sample for this qualitative multiple case study consisted of 3 small commercial airport managers in the southeastern North Carolina coastal …

A Neighborhood-Based Family Center Redesign Process: Taking A Systems Perspective, Patricia Bowie, Richard Sussman

The Foundation Review

This article describes how the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving, with a subset of its grantees and their program recipients, teamed with the UCLA Center for Healthier Children, Families & Communities to redesign its evaluation process.

The foundation’s shift from traditional program evaluation to a more participatory, learning-focused approach resulted in new tools to assess variables that had been previously unexamined but were critical to program success.

This article examines the redesign process and those new tools – the data from which are being used to improve employee engagement and front-line practice as part of a cross-agency learning network – …

Strategies For U.S. City Government Enterprise Resource Planning System Implementation Success, Jennifer Miller

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Strategies for enterprise resource planning (ERP) system implementation success have been a focus of scholars since the 1990s. Researchers have demonstrated that ERP system implementation could cause both system failures and organization failures, affecting both operations and stakeholders. The theory of constraints was the conceptual framework for this single qualitative case study that explored ERP system critical success factors (CSFs) and strategies U.S. city governments use to successfully implement ERP systems. One city government in New Mexico with a successful ERP system served as the case study's population. Data were collected from semistructured interviews and relevant documents and then open …

Apologetics Without Apology: Arguments For The Existence Of God From Business & Economics, Michael E. Cafferky

Faculty Works

This paper offers the reader ways for the business practitioner to participate in Christian apologetics. Apologetics is defined. The purpose and tasks of apologetics is described. A case is made for the importance of Christian apologetics. Several tactics are introduced that offer potential for the Christian apologist. A matrix describes the potential opportunities to develop Christian apologetics for the context of business and economics. A discussion follows regarding the implications for business scholars and Christian business school curriculum at all levels.

Naturalness Of Ontology Concepts For Rating Aspects Of The Semantic Web, Yoo Jung An, Kuo-Chuan Huang, James Geller

Communications of the IIMA

The Semantic Web is expected to be the next generation of the WWW. Ontologies and agents are major ingredients of the Semantic Web. In (Lee and Geller 2005), we have argued that some existing ontologies make use of unnatural concepts. We stated that unnatural concepts make it difficult to use an ontology and they contradict the purpose of an ontology, which includes explanatory power for the purpose of sharing information. In this paper we elaborate what makes a concept unnatural. We also analyze existing ontologies to get numeric measures of how natural their concepts are.

A. Survey Of Entity Resolution And Record Linkage Methodologies, David Guy Brizan, Abdullah Uz Tansel

Communications of the IIMA

A great deal of research is focused on formation of a data warehouse. This is an important area of research as it could save many computation cycles and thus allow accurate information provided to the right people at the right time. Two considerations when forming a data warehouse are data cleansing (including entity resolution) and with schema integration (including record linkage). Uncleansed and fragmented data requires time to decipher and may lead to increased costs for an organization, so data cleansing and schema integration can save a great many (human) computation cycles and can lead to higher organizational efficiency. In …

Explicitly Stated Security Policies Of Web Sites Of Global Banks Of Europe, Australia, Asia And The U.S, Donald R. Moscato, Eric D. Moscato

Communications of the IIMA

This paper is the latest component of a research project conducted by the authors over a three-year period. The first phase emphasized the privacy policies of global banks and other businesses engaged in E-commerce. Over 600 individualized web-sites were visited and evaluated. This, the second phase of the research project, focuses on the security policies in place for global financial institutions. The purpose of this research study is to review, compare and summarize the security policies of global banks as they are expressed on their web sites. A total of over 300 web sites of global banks were included in …

A Case Study Of Pratt And Whitney Aircraft's Commercial Spares Planning, Vincent A. Mabert, Ashok Soni, Gerard Campbell

Communications of the IIMA

This case study, which can be used as a teaching case, deals with jet engine spare parts planning at Pratt and Whitney Aircraft Company, a division of United Technologies Corporation. The case includes background on the company's history and an overview of their jet engine manufacturing operations. The primary focus of the case is on the application and evaluation offorecasting models for demand planning within an ERF system environment. An Excel-based decision support system (DSS), which is available from the authors upon request, enables the evaluation of alternative time series forecasting models for a variety of jet engine spare parts. …

Organizational Culture And Telecommuters' Quality Of Work Life And Professional Isolation, Susan J. Harrington, Julie Santiago

Communications of the IIMA

While much has been studied and written about the adjustments managers must make when supervising remote workers in virtual work arrangements, little has been written about the potential change in the organizational culture and the effect the culture has on the virtual worker's quality of work life and professional isolation. Not only may culture affect the implementation and success of telecommuting arrangements, but the increased isolation and independence of a virtual worker may impact the culture surrounding remote workers and create an organizational subculture. This study examines the relationship between quality of work life, professional isolation, and an organization's cultural …

Review Of It Offshore Outsourcing Issues, Helen M. Carothers, Gerhard Steinke

Communications of the IIMA

This paper attempts to take an objective look at offshore outsourcing within the information technology (IT) industry. Background material is provided to establish a clear definition and context for the discussion. Basic benefits, risks, and trends are identified and domestic market impacts are explored.

Factors Affecting The Adoption Of Web Services Technology, Rajshri Chopde, Pruthikrai Mahatanankoon, Joseph H. Wen

Communications of the IIMA

This study aims to finding the factors that affect the adoption of web services technology. The study proposes a web service technology adoption model in which three contexts from Tornatzky and Fleischer's (1990) framework, namely, external environmental context, technological context and organizational context, and two constructs from the TAM (Davis, 1989) model, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use, are studied to determine their influence on web services adoption. Exploratory factor analysis is used to explore the factors affecting the adoption of web services technology. Structural Equation modeling is used to validate and analyze the research model.

Policies, Procedures, And Devices Used By U.S. Hospitals For Hipaa Privacy And Security Compliance, Diane C. Davis, Jeff Squibb

Communications of the IIMA

The purpose of the study was to identify the policies and procedures required in U.S. hospitals to meet the requirements of the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). A major aspect of the study focused on the degree of change required to meet the security standards and on the types of security devices used by the hospitals. Findings from a survey of 286 U.S. hospitals found the greatest amount of change needed to meet HIPAA security compliance were changes resulting in increased Information Systems (IS) budget requirements, changes to network monitoring, and additional hiring in the IS department.

An Edi Transaction Set Development Lifecycle (Tsdl): A Case Study In The Food Manufacturing Industry, Robert C. Beatty, Mary C. Jones

Communications of the IIMA

Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is widely regarded by organizations worldwide as the business standard for the timely and secure exchange of electronic business transactions in an expanding global marketplace. While numerous research efforts have explored how the adoption, implementation, and integration of this technology can impact an organization's technical, organizational, and competitive environment - few studies have documented the process used by organizations to implement EDI transaction sets with trading partners. This paper advances an innovative lifecycle used by a food manufacturing company to successfully design, implement, and test an EDI transaction set. This paper also describes how this transaction …

The Interrelationship And Effect Of Trust And Strong Cultures In Setting Information Systems Security Goals, Ioannis V. Koskosas, Jyoti Choudrie, Ray J. Paul

Communications of the IIMA

This paper investigates the interrelationship and effect of trust and culture on the level of goal setting within the context of information systems security. In doing so, it explores and discusses the concepts of trust and strong culture and seeks to demonstrate their importance in setting efficiently information systems security goals. The paper contributes to interpretive information systems research with the study of goal setting in a security management context and its grounding within an interpretive epistemology.

Developing Security For E-Commerce Applications: A Teaching Case, Chang Liu, Brian G. Mackie

Communications of the IIMA

The number of severe computer security breaches in e-commerce applications has been on the increase over the last few years. This has become one of the biggest security problems in recent years. Although there are tools to build e-commerce application firewalls to alert and prevent intruder attacks, these tools are not trivial to install (they are not plug-and-play). Internet intruders can create havoc and produce catastrophe results by exploiting weaknesses in e- commerce applications. Therefore, developers of e-commerce web sites have to incorporate ways to systematically identify and eliminate vulnerabilities in the EC applications to enhance their security. This paper …

Managers' Perceived Benefits Of Using Electronic Procurement In Taiwan, Jack Shih-Chieh Hsu, Edward T. Chen

Communications of the IIMA

Facing the competitive pressure from new hospitals and new regulations from the Bureau of National Health Insurance, hospital managers in Taiwan are concentrating on reducing the hospital operation costs and improving the healthcare quality. Practitioners and academic researchers agree that reducing the pharmacy cost is one of the best solutions to sustain competitive advantage. As electronic commerce becomes popular in many industry sectors, e- procurement is growing rapidly in the healthcare industry. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the managers' perceptions of benefits of using electronic procurement system. After surveying 152 hospitals in Taiwan, we find that hospital …

Project Zenith: A Case Study Of Electronic Data Interchange, Charles Frank, Jack T. Marchewka

Communications of the IIMA

This paper utilizes a case study approach to analyze the key decisions, stakeholders, and lessons learned from a project to develop an Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) application conceived and developed by a consulting firm. Several individuals within the firm viewed this EDI service as an opportunity for generating new revenue. However, the new system was not embraced fully by several sales and account representatives who did not view this potential product as a service that could make an adequate profit margin and translate into larger commissions. In addition, the consulting firm's president supported the project to the extent that it …

Likelihood Of Purchase On-Line: Reliability, Security, And Design, Milam Aiken, Mahesh B. Vanjani

Communications of the IIMA

Several factors can influence a consumer's likelihood of purchasing on the Web including trust, ease-of-use, and price discounts. This study examines over a dozen different variables that affect the decision to conduct business online. A survey of experienced Web users validated that poor design, security, and reliability tend to decrease a person's willingness to purchase through the Web.

Australian Online Public Information Systems: A User-Centred Study Of An Evolving Public Health Website, Helen Hasan, Joseph Meloche, Sumayya Banna

Helen Hasan

The strategic, transformational nature of many information systems projects is now widely understood. Large-scale implementations of systems are known to require significant management of organisational change in order to be successful. Moreover, projects are rarely executed in isolation - most organisations have a large programme of projects being implemented at any one time. However, project and value management methodologies provide ad hoc definitions of the relationship between a project and its environment. This limits the ability of an organisation to manage the larger dynamics between projects and organisations, over time, and between projects. The contribution of this paper, therefore, is …

Informing Destination Recommender Systems Design And Evaluation Through Quantitative Research, Ulrike Gretzel, Yeong-Hyeon Hwang, Daniel Fesenmaier

Ulrike Gretzel

Purpose - Destination recommender systems need to become truly human-centric in their design and functionality. This requires a profound understanding of human interactions with technology as well as human behavior related to information search and decision-making in the context of travel and tourism. This paper seeks to review relevant theories that can support the development and evaluation of destination recommender systems and to discuss how quantitative research can inform such theory building and testing. Design/methodology/approach - Based on a review of information search and decision-making literatures, a framework for the development of destination recommender systems is proposed and the implications …