Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

Implementation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) and especially SAP in the construction industry: The case of Elliniki Technodomiki SA

The last few years many companies have adopted and implemented an ERP system in order to manage their business needs and challenges. Firstly, this report attempts to gain insight into ERP systems by briefly describing the systems and their possible advantages and disadvantages of having an integrated ERP system, focusing more on SAP. More specifically, the basic purpose of this study is to investigate the impacts of ERP systems in organizations in the Construction Industry. It also tries to understand the motives for the adoption of an ERP system by a construction company and the possible consequences for taking this decision. For these reasons, it is presented an analysis on the implementation of SAP in Elliniki Technodomiki S.A., which is the first company in terms of turnover in the Greek construction market. Recommendations, derived from the analysis of the case study, are given. An analysis of the operational and strategic implications of the implementation of an ERP system is presented. Study findings confirm the importance of ERP implementation in the field of Constructions. The study findings could be of interest to managers of these companies, who seek to better understand the issues surrounding ERP systems implementation. Finally, in the conclusion, further research on the topic is suggested, having the context in which construction companies are doing business in mind

Management Accountant's Role and Functions in the Enterprise Resource Planning Environment - Author's Own Research into Enterprises in Poland

This article seeks to answer whether the implementation of an ERP system has an effect on the management accountant's tasks and functions, especially in the field of performance measurement and internal reporting. The ERP impacts on the controller's role in the organization will be evaluated using field studies on six enterprises owned by multinational corporations. The question that should be asked here is whether controller's functions and tasks will also be unaffected.Celem badania jest próba odpowiedzi na pytanie czy zastosowanie zintegrowanego systemu informatycznego w przedsiębiorstwie zmienia zadania i funkcje specjalisty do spraw rachunkowości zarządczej. Na podstawie studium przypadku sześciu przedsiębiorstw będących częścią koncernów międzynarodowych zostaje dokonana ocena wpływu zastosowania ERP na rolę kontrolera w organizacji. Autor odpowiada również na pytanie czy w funkcjach i zadaniach kontrolera nie zaobserwowane zostaną zmiany w związku z implementacją ERP

Assessing Accrual Accounting Reform in Greek Public Hospitals: An Empirical Investigation

During the last decades, several countries worldwide have introduced financial management reforms, as an important part of the New Public Management (NPM) initiative at one or more levels of government sector, by either replacing or transforming their traditional budgetary cash accounting systems towards a business-like accrual accounting concept. Following the example of this upcoming managerial trend, the Greek government introduced in 2003 the accrual basis accounting into public hospitals, as the hospital sector is one of the areas where NPM reforms have been introduced in search of higher efficiency, effectiveness and economy in service production. The purpose of this paper is twofold. The first goal is to provide an overview of the government sector reform initiatives in Greece and to present empirical evidence regarding the adoption level of the accrual basis accounting standards in the Greek public Health sector. The second goal of the research is to investigate the impact of a range of potentially contingent factors on hospitals compliance with the accrual financial and cost accounting reform. The present analysis is based on the results of an empirical survey that took place during 2009. For the purposes of this survey, a structured questionnaire was prepared and sent to the Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) of 132 Greek public hospitals. In particular, a linear regression model analysis was used to examine the cross-sectional differences on a number of explanatory and implementation factors of the accounting reform adoption level. The empirical evidence reveals that the level of accrual and especially cost accounting adoption in Greek public hospitals is realized only to a limited extent. In particular, results show that the level of reform adoption is positively related to IT quality, reform related training, education level of accounting staff, and professional consultants’ support. However, no significant relationship was found between the level of reform adoption and hospital size, reform implementation cost, CEO educational background, experience effect, and absence of management-physicians conflict relationship. The main contribution of this study is the empirical evidence it provides on the approaches and processes used by the Government of Greece to implement accrual financial and cost accounting systems in the Greek National Health System (GNHS) and the role certain human, organizational and situational factors played in such implementations for enhancing researchers’ and managers’ understanding of major implementation processes and challenges as well as helping them refine models of effective implementation process and improve systems and processes on similar future projectsAccrual Accounting, Public Sector Accounting, Compliance, Public Hospitals, contingency factors

ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks: a literature review

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation is a complex and vibrant process, one that involves a combination of technological and organizational interactions. Often an ERP implementation project is the single largest IT project that an organization has ever launched and requires a mutual fit of system and organization. Also the concept of an ERP implementation supporting business processes across many different departments is not a generic, rigid and uniform concept and depends on variety of factors. As a result, the issues addressing the ERP implementation process have been one of the major concerns in industry. Therefore ERP implementation receives attention from practitioners and scholars and both, business as well as academic literature is abundant and not always very conclusive or coherent. However, research on ERP systems so far has been mainly focused on diffusion, use and impact issues. Less attention has been given to the methods used during the configuration and the implementation of ERP systems, even though they are commonly used in practice, they still remain largely unexplored and undocumented in Information Systems research. So, the academic relevance of this research is the contribution to the existing body of scientific knowledge. An annotated brief literature review is done in order to evaluate the current state of the existing academic literature. The purpose is to present a systematic overview of relevant ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks as a desire for achieving a better taxonomy of ERP implementation methodologies. This paper is useful to researchers who are interested in ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks. Results will serve as an input for a classification of the existing ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks. Also, this paper aims also at the professional ERP community involved in the process of ERP implementation by promoting a better understanding of ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks, its variety and history

Multidimensional Knowledge Flow Dynamics in Context

Knowledge is a sustainable advantage and knowledge assets can increase value with use. A snowball effect of knowledge advantage advocates effective knowledge management and fosters its continual growth as it flows. Knowledge, however, flows unevenly throughout an organization and the problem is that the fundamental dynamics of these flows are still not well characterized in theoretical and computational models. This study built on existing work—knowledge-flow theory, need knowledge generation, and the critical success factors for enterprise resource planning implementation—to examine the multidimensional knowledge-flow phenomenon in context, and used the case study methodology for knowledge-flow theory building. The research question was two-pronged: how can need knowledge and its flow across stakeholders within an organization be explained using a multidimensional knowledge-flow model and how can Nissen’s five-dimensional knowledge-flow model be validated using a real-life immersion case? The researcher relied on three sources of evidence for this case study: project-related documentation, archival records, and interviews. Data triangulation yielded three results components: (a) a chronology of key events that obstructed knowledge flow, (b) a logic model depicting themes that contributed to knowledge-flow obstruction, and (c) explanations of the knowledge-flow patterns. This case study suggested enabling need knowledge determinants and obstructing conditions are in play that determine the path of need knowledge flow. These two research artifacts should be considered together to provide a fresh research avenue towards better understanding of knowledge flow dynamics

The Marshall Plan: Searching for Creative Peace, Then and Now

The article reviews the elements of the Marshall Plan after World War II, and relates its positive features to economic challenges of the end of the 20th century.Marshall Plan; economic development; Europe; transition countries; foreign policy; institution building; infrastructure

Change management in Greek state-owned enterprises : the role of archaic Hellenic philosophy and the adoption of business process management

PhD ThesisThis thesis presents and discusses the findings from research in Change Management (CM) in Greek State Owned Enterprises (SOEs). These organisations are currently under great pressure from the state to implement changes with the aim to improve their competitiveness, increase profitability, and become non-reliant on government rescue funds. Previous reform policies have been unsuccessful, mainly due to direct political intervention in the operation of the Greek SOEs, bureaucracy, ineffective recruitment, lack of employee participation in the management of the organisations, and resistance to privatisation efforts. The recent economic crisis in Greece and the imposition of austerity measures has led to reductions in salaries and a diminution in governmental financial support to SOEs, and the abolition of the permanent employment status of new recruits. The author’s work experience, combined with extensive literature review suggested that Ancient Greek Philosophy (AGP) could play an important cultural role in influencing the beliefs, and attitudes of management and staff working in Greek organisations. Greek SOEs are adopting Business Process Management (BPM), which among other contemporary management tools is a method for both implementing change and operational improvements. The research concentrates on: (i) the facilitating or inhibiting role of AGP in bringing about change; and (ii) the impact of adopting BPM as a method of promoting change in Greek SOEs. The theoretical framework of context (why), content (what), and process (how) in the management of strategic and operational change and competitiveness, developed by Pettigrew et al. (1989) was used to investigate change in Greek SOEs. A deductive followed by an inductive analysis of the data was conducted to extend the model of Pettigrew et al. (1989) to account for both the influence of AGP and the impact of BPM in implementing change in Greek SOEs. The Ancient belief that change is unavoidable could facilitate change, while push for change that is not associated with long-term benefit to both the organisation and the employees could face great resistance. A performance related pay system using monetary reward based incentives to promote business process implementation, and a fair bonus scheme to encourage and reward achievement is required