Human Resource Information Systems for Competitive Advantage: Interviews with Ten Leaders

[Excerpt] Increasingly, today\u27s organizations use computer technology to manage human resources (HR). Surveys confirm this trend (Richards-Carpenter, 1989; Grossman and Magnus, 1988; Human Resource Systems Professionals 1988; KPMGPeat Marwick, 1988). HR professionals and managers routinely have Personnel Computers (PCs) or computer terminals on their desks or in their departments. HR computer applications, once confined to payroll and benefit domains, now encompass incentive compensation, staffing, succession planning, and training. Five years ago, we had but a handful of PC-based software applications for HR management. Today, we find a burgeoning market of products spanning a broad spectrum of price, sophistication, and quality (Personnel Journal, 1990). Top universities now consider computer literacy a basic requirement for students of HR, and many consulting firms and universities offer classes designed to help seasoned HR professionals use computers in their work (Boudreau, 1990). Changes in computer technology offer expanding potential for HR management (Business Week, 1990; Laudon and Laudon, 1988)

Specification of vertical semantic consistency rules of UML class diagram refinement using logical approach

Unified Modelling Language (UML) is the most popular modelling language use for software design in software development industries with a class diagram being the most frequently use diagram. Despite the popularity of UML, it is being affected by inconsistency problems of its diagrams at the same or different abstraction levels. Inconsistency in UML is mostly caused by existence of various views on the same system and sometimes leads to potentially conflicting system specifications. In general, syntactic consistency can be automatically checked and therefore is supported by current UML Computer-aided Software Engineering (CASE) tools. Semantic consistency problems, unlike syntactic consistency problems, there exists no specific method for specifying semantic consistency rules and constraints. Therefore, this research has specified twenty-four abstraction rules of class‟s relation semantic among any three related classes of a refined class diagram to semantically equivalent relations of two of the classes using a logical approach. This research has also formalized three vertical semantic consistency rules of a class diagram refinement identified by previous researchers using a logical approach and a set of formalized abstraction rules. The results were successfully evaluated using hotel management system and passenger list system case studies and were found to be reliable and efficient

A Decision Making System for Selecting Sustainable Technologies for Retail Buildings

CIB Publication 382: Selected papers presented at the CIB World Building Congres Construction and Society, Brisbane 5-9 May 2013 Papers from the Designated Session TG66 - Energy and the Built EnvironmentThe implementation of sustainable technologies can improve the energy and carbon efficiency of existing retail buildings. However, the selection of an appropriate sustainable technology is a complex task due to the large number of technological alternatives and decision criteria that need to be considered. Also, there exist series of uncertainties that are associated with the use of sustainable technologies, but have to be evaluated to achieve realistic and transparent results. The selection of sustainable technology is therefore most challenging. An earlier study was conducted with UK experienced practitioners including clients/developers, engineers, contractors and suppliers to identify the drivers and barriers for the use of sustainable technologies in UK retail construction. One major barrier identified from the study was the lack of a decision making tool, highlighted by both construction professionals and stakeholders in the retail industry. The large number of alternatives and potential solutions require a decision support method to be implemented. Information data on the economic variables, energy performance and impact on the environment of these systems is presently affected by vagueness and lack of knowledge. To deal with this high level of complexity and uncertainty an evaluation support approach is needed. This paper aims to develop a decision making framework to assist both retailers and construction professionals to define and evaluate the selection of sustainable technological options for delivering retail buildings. The research was carried out through a combination of a critical literature review and a survey-based study using expert opinions of retailers and contractors. The developed framework of decision criteria should provide a sustainable technology model to assist both construction professionals and stakeholders in the retail industry to systematically and effectively select the most appropriate technology. This approach should make the decision progression more transparent and facilitate sustainable development of retail buildings in achieving the carbon targets set by the UK and other governments

The Knowledge Application and Utilization Framework Applied to Defense COTS: A Research Synthesis for Outsourced Innovation

Purpose -- Militaries of developing nations face increasing budget pressures, high operations tempo, a blitzing pace of technology, and adversaries that often meet or beat government capabilities using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) technologies. The adoption of COTS products into defense acquisitions has been offered to help meet these challenges by essentially outsourcing new product development and innovation. This research summarizes extant research to develop a framework for managing the innovative and knowledge flows. Design/Methodology/Approach – A literature review of 62 sources was conducted with the objectives of identifying antecedents (barriers and facilitators) and consequences of COTS adoption. Findings – The DoD COTS literature predominantly consists of industry case studies, and there’s a strong need for further academically rigorous study. Extant rigorous research implicates the importance of the role of knowledge management to government innovative thinking that relies heavily on commercial suppliers. Research Limitations/Implications – Extant academically rigorous studies tend to depend on measures derived from work in information systems research, relying on user satisfaction as the outcome. Our findings indicate that user satisfaction has no relationship to COTS success; technically complex governmental purchases may be too distant from users or may have socio-economic goals that supersede user satisfaction. The knowledge acquisition and utilization framework worked well to explain the innovative process in COTS. Practical Implications – Where past research in the commercial context found technological knowledge to outweigh market knowledge in terms of importance, our research found the opposite. Managers either in government or marketing to government should be aware of the importance of market knowledge for defense COTS innovation, especially for commercial companies that work as system integrators. Originality/Value – From the literature emerged a framework of COTS product usage and a scale to measure COTS product appropriateness that should help to guide COTS product adoption decisions and to help manage COTS product implementations ex post

Identifying critical success factors of ERP systems at the higher education sector

In response to a range of contextual drivers, the worldwide adoption of ERP Systems in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) has increased substantially over the past decade. Though the difficulties and high failure rate in implementing ERP systems at university environments have been cited in the literature, research on critical success factors (CSFs) for ERP implementations in this context is rare and fragmented. This paper is part of a larger research effort that aims to contribute to understanding the phenomenon of ERP implementations and evaluations in HEIs in the Australasian region; it identifies, previously reported, critical success factors (CSFs) in relation to ERP system implementations and discusses the importance of these factors

Selection of third party software in Off-The-Shelf-based software development: an interview study with industrial practitioners

The success of software development using third party components highly depends on the ability to select a suitable component for the intended application. The evidence shows that there is limited knowledge about current industrial OTS selection practices. As a result, there is often a gap between theory and practice, and the proposed methods for supporting selection are rarely adopted in the industrial practice. This paper's goal is to investigate the actual industrial practice of component selection in order to provide an initial empirical basis that allows the reconciliation of research and industrial endeavors. The study consisted of semi-structured interviews with 23 employees from 20 different software-intensive companies that mostly develop web information system applications. It provides qualitative information that help to further understand these practices, and emphasize some aspects that have been overlooked by researchers. For instance, although the literature claims that component repositories are important for locating reusable components; these are hardly used in industrial practice. Instead, other resources that have not received considerable attention are used with this aim. Practices and potential market niches for software-intensive companies have been also identified. The results are valuable from both the research and the industrial perspectives as they provide a basis for formulating well-substantiated hypotheses and more effective improvement strategies.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Integration of decision support systems to improve decision support performance

Decision support system (DSS) is a well-established research and development area. Traditional isolated, stand-alone DSS has been recently facing new challenges. In order to improve the performance of DSS to meet the challenges, research has been actively carried out to develop integrated decision support systems (IDSS). This paper reviews the current research efforts with regard to the development of IDSS. The focus of the paper is on the integration aspect for IDSS through multiple perspectives, and the technologies that support this integration. More than 100 papers and software systems are discussed. Current research efforts and the development status of IDSS are explained, compared and classified. In addition, future trends and challenges in integration are outlined. The paper concludes that by addressing integration, better support will be provided to decision makers, with the expectation of both better decisions and improved decision making processes