Management Information Systems Commons^™

Architectural Dualities In Complex Systems: Components, Interfaces, Technologies And Organizations, C. Jason Woodard, Joel West

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Research on technological innovation and product development has long recognized the importance of product architecture, and many scholars have explored its relationship to the organizational structure of the product development process. Product architecture, in turn, has long encompassed both the allocation of functionality to components and the pattern of linkages between them. In this paper, we forge new connections among these established ideas by examining them as two pairs of dual relationships. First, we draw attention to the duality between components and interfaces. While innovation and product development researchers have historically emphasized the partitioning of products and systems into components, …

Enterprise Information Technology Organizational Flexibility : Managing Uncertainty And Change, Karen Prast Patten

Dissertations

Chief Information Officers (CIOs) lead enterprise information technology organizations (EITOs) in today's dynamic competitive business environment. CIOs deal with external and internal environmental changes, changing internal customer needs, and rapidly changing technology. New models for the organization include flexibility and suggest that CIOs should create and manage an enterprise IT organization that is more flexible in order to manage change and prepare for uncertainty, but they do not define what is meant by flexibility.

The first objective of this exploratory and ethnographic research study was to understand how uncertainty and unexpected change are currently managed by CIOs. The second was …

Leadership In Partially Distributed Teams, Linda Plotnick

Dissertations

Inter-organizational collaboration is becoming more common. When organizations collaborate they often do so in partially distributed teams (PDTs). A PDT is a hybrid team that has at least one collocated subteam and at least two subteams that are geographically distributed and communicate primarily through electronic media. While PDTs share many characteristics with both traditionally collocated and fully distributed teams, they also have unique characteristics and issues.

This dissertation reports on a field study of PDTs conducted over two semesters with student participants, This research was conducted as part of a larger series of studies investigating PDTs, In these studies, participants …

The Influence Of Organizational And Information Systems Factors On The Effectiveness Of Post-Merger Technology Integration, Gianilda A. Morsell

Dissertations

This dissertation explores how ten specific organizational and information systems factors influence post-merger IS integration success, and the role that degree of IS integration plays in moderating the influence these factors may have on IS integration success. Data were gathered, using a self-administered survey instrument, from senior IS executives at firms that experienced a U.S. public merger greater than $25 million between 2004 and 2007. Support is found for the study's Conceptual Model, indicating that all ten factors in unison influence post-merger IS integration success. The data support the hypotheses that quality of merger planning, quality of communication of merger …

Optimal Digital Content Distribution Strategy In The Presence Of Consumer-To-Consumer Channel, Yunfang Feng, Zhiling Guo, Wei-Yu Kevin Chiang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Although the online business-to-consumer (B2C) channel is the primary selling channel for digital content (e.g., videos, images, and music), modern digital technology has made possible the legal dissemination of such content over the consumer-to-consumer (C2C) channel through personal computing devices, such as PCs, mobile phones, and portable media players. This paper investigates the optimal channel structure and the corresponding pricing and service strategies for digital content distribution in order to understand the business value of introducing the C2C channel alongside the prevailing B2C channel. We identify conditions under which it is more profitable to use both B2C and C2C channels …

A Life Cycle Perspective On Online Community Success, Alicia Iriberri '06, Gondy Leroy

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

Using the information systems lifecycle as a unifying framework, we review online communities research and propose a sequence for incorporating success conditions during initiation and development to increase their chances of becoming a successful community, one in which members participate actively and develop lasting relationships. Online communities evolve following distinctive lifecycle stages and recommendations for success are more or less relevant depending on the developmental stage of the online community. In addition, the goal of the online community under study determines the components to include in the development of a successful online community. Online community builders and researchers will benefit …

Collaborative Learning Utilizing A Domain-Based Shared Data Repository To Enhance Learning Outcomes, David J. Lubliner

Dissertations

A number of learning paradigms have postulated that knowledge formation is a dynamic process where learners actively construct a representation of concepts integrating information from multiple sources. Current teaching strategies utilize a compartmentalized approach where individual courses contain a small subset of the knowledge required for a discipline. The intent of this research is to provide a framework to integrate the components of a discipline into a cohesive whole and accelerate the integration of concepts enhancing the learning process. The components utilized to accomplish these goals include two new knowledge integration models; a Knowledge Weighting Model (KWM) and the Aggregate-Integrate-Master …

Voting In Group Support Systems : Theory, Implementation, And Results From An Exploratory Study, Kung-E Cheng

Dissertations

Group decision making is essential in organizations. Group Support Systems (GSS) can aide groups in making decisions by providing tools and process support. GSS is especially useful for geographically or temporally distributed groups. Researchers of GSS have pointed out that convergence processes are hard to accomplish in GSS. Voting tools in GSS can be a valuable asset in alleviating the difficulty of convergence processes because voting is a concise communication of individual preferences with a well defined procedure that is accepted by group members. In addition, voting results can serve as a group memory of the convergence processes. Field observations …

When Is It Beneficial For A Firm To Pursue A Unified Procurement Strategy For Enterprise Software Solutions?, Robert J. Kauffman, Juliana Y. Tsai

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The underlying structure of the enterprise software marketplace during the past ten years suggests that the arrangements that firms make with respect to the acquisition of such software capabilities will become increasingly concentrated. This article explores the multiple theoretical rationales and business cases for the move to a unified procurement strategy for enterprise software, reflecting some differences in terms of what might be expected from the predictions of the well known move-to-the-middle hypothesis. Our central argument is that a "move-to-the-middle" with more than just a single vendor is the likely outcome in unconsolidated industry markets. In industries experiencing consolidation, firms …

Offering Rss Feeds: Does It Help To Gain Competitive Advantage?, Dan Ma

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Nowadays, many Websites have adopted the really simple syndication (RSS) technology to deliver online content to visitors. In this paper, I build an analytical model to examine how the offering of RSS feeds impact the number of visitors, total traffic load, and profit of Websites in a competitive setting. I show that although RSS can always attract more visitors, it may reduce the Website's profit. Interestingly, in a competitive market there are cases that the RSS feeds hurt the offering Website but benefit the competing Website instead. The conditions under which these will happen are derived. I also study the …

The Impact On Organizational Performance Of Contextual Factors, Strategy And Management Control Systems, Nazmi Saeb Jarrar

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This dissertation examined antecedents of the use of contemporary management control systems (MCS) by testing the alignment of strategic and contextual variables with variables of contemporary systems of control in the organization. The study further explored the performance consequences of the implementation of these control systems, and the manner in which strategy can influence the organization’s control culture and management accounting practices. The impact of contextual factors, notably size and structural arrangements, such as decentralization and diversification, on management's choice of control systems were also examined. Hence, the study addressed the need for a better understanding of the association between …

Making Sense Of Technology Trends In The Information Technology Landscape, Gediminas Adomavicius, Jesse C. Bockstedt, Alok Gupta, Robert J. Kauffman

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

A major problem for firms making information technology investment decisions is predicting and understanding the effects of future technological developments on the value of present technologies. Failure to adequately address this problem can result in wasted organization resources in acquiring, developing, managing, and training employees in the use of technologies that are short-lived and fail to produce adequate return on investment. The sheer number of available technologies and the complex set of relationships among them make IT landscape analysis extremely challenging. Most IT-consuming firms rely on third parties and suppliers for strategic recommendations on IT investments, which can lead to …

Evaluating Online Health Information: Beyond Readability Formulas, Gondy Leroy, Stephen Helmreich, James Cowie, Trudi Miller '08, Wei Zheng '08

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

Although understanding health information is important, the texts provided are often difficult to understand. There are formulas to measure readability levels, but there is little understanding of how linguistic structures contribute to these difficulties. We are developing a toolkit of linguistic metrics that are validated with representative users and can be measured automatically. In this study, we provide an overview of our corpus and how readability differs by topic and source. We compare two documents for three groups of linguistic metrics. We report on a user study evaluating one of the differentiating metrics: the percentage of function words in a …

Market Liquidity Provision For On-Demand Computing, Zhiling Guo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper focuses on a market intermediary’s role of liquidity provision to support on-demand computing in a dynamic market trading environment. We outline a framework in which a number of distributed agents sell and buy assets based on their changing utilities over time and a service provider acts as a market maker performing market intervention. We present benchmark models based on socially optimal liquidity provision and a brokerage framework. We then examine the benefits and the dealer’s incentives to provide market liquidity.

Understanding Evolution In Technology Ecosystems, Gediminas Adomavicius, Jesse Bockstedt, Alok Gupta, Robert J. Kauffman

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The current environment of information technology can be a complex place for analysts and firms to navigate, especially when making decisions about new product development, technology investment, and technology planning. Many industry analysts recognize that it is difficult, if not impossible, to accurately predict future technological advances. However, successful firms need to understand the nature of technological change and evolution in order to accurately forecast and take advantage of investment and market opportunities. For example, although RFID has been in the news for the past decade as the potential distribution and retail "killer technology", uncertainties about its future technical capabilities, …

Relative Importance, Specific Investment And Ownership In Interorganizational Systems., Kunsoo Han, Robert J. Kauffman, Barrie R. Nault

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Implementation and maintenance of interorganizational systems (IOS) require investments by all the participating firms. Compared with intraorganizational systems, however, there are additional uncertainties and risks. This is because the benefits of IOS investment depend not only on a firm's own decisions, but also on those of its business partners. Without appropriate levels of investment by all the firms participating in an IOS, they cannot reap the full benefits. Drawing upon the literature in institutional economics, we examine IOS ownership as a means to induce value-maximizing noncontractible investments. We model the impact of two factors derived from the theory of incomplete …

Developing A Virtual City For Emergency Preparedness Planning And Training, Jon K. Morgan

Theses

Existing techniques for emergency preparedness planning and training fail or lack the ability to convey training on a broad scale and timely fashion. Skill sets that are required for planning, mitigation, response and recovery issues are lost through information overload or failure to identify other channels in which to convey the information. In order to resolve some of the issues with currently existing methods such as tabletop training exercises (TTX), instructional video learning and full-scale exercises we can turn to virtual environments.

In a virtual environment teams can interact with their surroundings from the comfort of the office without having …

E-Transcript Web Services System Supporting Dynamic Conversion Between Xml And Edi, Myungjae Kwak '11, Woohyun Kang '14, Gondy Leroy, Samir Chatterjee

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

As XML becomes a standard for communications between distributed heterogeneous machines, many schools plan to implement Web Services systems using the XML e-transcript (electronic transcript) standard. We propose a framework that supports both XML e-transcript Web Services and existing EDI e-transcript systems. The framework uses the workflow engine to exploit the benefits of workflow management mechanisms. The workflow engine manages the e-transcript business process by enacting and completing the tasks and sub-processes within the main business process. We implemented the proposed framework by using various open source projects including Java, Eclipse, and Apache Software Foundation’s Web Services projects. Compared with …

The Pricing Strategy Analysis For The Software-As-A-Service Business Model, Dan Ma, Abraham Seidmann

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model is a novel way of delivering software applications. In this paper, we present an analytical model to study the competition between the SaaS and the traditional COTS (Commercial off-the-shelf) software. The main research goal is to analyze the pricing strategy of the SaaS in a competitive setting. The model captures the most salient differences between the SaaS and COTS, including their distinct pricing structures, user initial setup costs, system customization levels, and delivery channels. We find that the two could coexist in a competitive market in the long run, and more importantly, we show how the …

Issues And Procedures In Adopting Structural Equation Modelling Technique, Siu Loon Hoe

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

When applying structural equation modeling (SEM) technique for analytical procedures, various issues are involved. These issues may concern sample size, overall fit indices and approach. Initiates of SEM may find it somewhat daunting in resolving these technical issues. The purpose of this paper is to highlight key issues in adopting SEM technique and various approaches available. This paper provides a discussion on the sample size, fit indices, standardized paths, unidimensionality test and various approaches in relation to SEM. It is hoped that having reviewed the paper, new researchers can devote more time to data analysis instead of procedural issues involved.

Revenue Management In Business Services, Brenda Dietrich, Giuseppe A. Paleologo, Laura Wynter

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

A significant portion of the services industry is focused on providing services (medical, legal, financial, personal, and travel) to individuals. However, studies have shown that a less visible but rapidly growing segment of the service sector comprises firms that provide business functions to other businesses. The sector covers tasks such as payroll processing, procurement, and information systems management, as well as business consulting, technical support, call center operations, and software development. Firms may choose to purchase, rather than perform, these business functions to reduce costs, to mitigate risk, or simply to focus on their processes that provide marketplace differentiation. Transferring …

Spreadsheet Modeling Of Equipment Acquisition Plan, Thin Yin Leong, Michelle L. F. Cheong

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Excel spreadsheets have been used in many classrooms to teach modeling and analysis of real business problems. This can be done with relative ease but often the modeling approach may be inappropriate and the analysis results not easily implemented. In this article, we illustrate these difficulties with the modeling of the number of equipment required in future years, given demand (historical and projected) and the amount of equipment held. We show how the desired output can be, and needs to be related to the given input. For this purpose, we apply the TREND function to predict data into future years. …

The Motivators And Benefits Of Sharing Knowledge To A Kms Repository In An Omani Organization, Kamla Al-Busaidi '05, Lorne Olfman, Terry Ryan, Gondy Leroy

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

Knowledge is a powerful resource that enables individuals and organizations to achieve several benefits such as improved learning and decisionmaking. Repository knowledge management system (KMS) assists organizations to efficiently capture their knowledge for later reuse. However, the breadth and depth of a knowledge management system depends on the magnitude of knowledge contributed to the system. This paper aimed to empirically investigate the motivators of knowledge sharing behavior and the individual benefits of such behavior in a culture where knowledge is perceived as power and private. Based on 104 employees in a major private petroleum organization in Oman and the partial …

Smartphones To Facilitate Communication And Improve Social Skills Of Children With Severe Autism Spectrum Disorder: Special Education Teachers As Proxies, Gondy Leroy, Gianluca De Leo

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

We present an overview of the approach we used and the challenges we encountered while designing software for smartphones to facilitate communication and improve social skills of children with severe autism spectrum disorder (ASD). We employed participatory design, using special education teachers of children with ASD as proxies for our target population.

Work Dispersion, Process-Based Learning And Offshore Software Development Performance, Narayanasamy Ramasubbu, Sunil Mithas, M. S. Krishnan, Chris Kemerer

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this paper we develop a learning-mediated model of offshore software project productivity and quality to examine whether widely adopted structured software processes are effective in mitigating the negative effects of work dispersion in offshore software development. We explicate how the key process areas of the capability maturity model (CMM) can be utilized as a platform to launch learning routines in offshore software development and thereby explain why some offshore software development process improvement initiatives are more effective than others. We validate our learning-mediated model of offshore software project performance by utilizing data collected from 42 offshore software projects of …

Appropriation Of Privacy Management Within Social Networking Sites, Catherine Dwyer

Dissertations

Social networking sites have emerged as one of the most widely used types of interactive systems, with memberships numbering in the hundreds of millions around the globe. By providing tools for their members to manage an ever-changing set of relationships, social networking sites push a constant expansion of social boundaries. These sites place less emphasis on tools that limit social boundaries to enable privacy.

The rapid expansion of online social boundaries has caused privacy shockwaves. Privacy offline is enabled by constraints of time and space. Online, powerful search engines and long term digital storage means private data have no expiration …

Dynamics Of Online Chat, Mihai Moldovan

Dissertations

Millions of people use online synchronous chat networks on a daily basis for work, play and education. Despite their widespread use, little is known about their user dynamics. For example, one does not know how many users are typically co-present and actively engaged in public interaction in the individual chat rooms of any of the numerous public Internet Relay Chat (IRC) networks found on the Internet; or what are the factors that constrain the boundaries of user activity inside those chat rooms. Failure to collect and present such data means there is a lack of a good understanding of the …

Perception Gaps And The Adoption Of Information Technology In The Clinical Healthcare Environment, Karen Hare

Dissertations

Implementation of information systems has lagged in many areas of clinical healthcare for a variety of reasons. Economics, data complexity and resistance are among the often quoted roadblocks. Research suggests that physicians play a major part in the adoption, use and diffusion of information technology (IT) in clinical settings. There are also other healthcare professionals, clinical and non-clinical, who play important roles in making decisions about the acquisition of information technology. In addition to these groups there are information technology professionals providing the services required within the healthcare field. Finally within this group are those IT professionals who have sufficient …

The Impact Of Cultural Differences In Temporal Perception On Global Software Development Teams, Richard William Egan

Dissertations

This dissertation investigated the impact of cultural differences in temporal perception on globally dispersed software development teams. Literature and anecdotal evidence suggest that these temporal differences affect individual communication quality, which in turn will affect individual satisfaction and trust within global teams. Additionally, the temporal dispersion of the team was expected to affect an individual's sense of temporal disruption which, in turn, was expected to affect individual satisfaction and trust. Differences in temporal perception were expected to moderate this impact on perceived temporal disruption. A Fortune 100 Company that carried out software testing in Ireland, the United States, China and …

Platform Competition In Digital Systems: Architectural Control And Value Migration, C. Jason Woodard

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Digital systems give rise to complex layered architectures in which products at one layer serve as platforms for applications and services in adjacent layers. Platform owners face a difficult balancing act. On one hand, they need to make their platforms attractive to potential complementors by mitigating the threat of architectural lock-in. On the other hand, platform owners must be careful not to give away too much too soon, or risk being unable to recoup their own investments. This paper presents an agent-based model that explores this tension at both the firm and industry levels. Computational experiments show that boundedly rational …