Unleashing the Effectiveness of Process-oriented Information Systems: Problem Analysis, Critical Success Factors, Implications

Process-oriented information systems (IS) aim at the computerized support of business processes. So far, contemporary IS have often fail to meet this goal. To better understand this drawback, to systematically identify its rationales, and to derive critical success factors for business process support, we conducted three empirical studies: an exploratory case study in the automotive domain, an online survey among 79 IT professionals, and another online survey among 70 business process management (BPM) experts. This paper summarizes the findings of these studies, puts them in relation with each other, and uses them to show that "process-orientation" is scarce and "process-awareness" is needed in IS engineering

RE-CONCEPTUALIZATION OF TAILORING TYPES AND THEIR IMPACTS: A PERSPECTIVE FOR CONTEMPORARY ERP SYSTEMS

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems continue to gain importance in today’s tough global environment. Organizations are making large investments in ERP systems because of their promised benefits. Several observations have been made in the literature which suggest that organizations should avoid tailoring the ERP systems as much as possible while implementing and using them. It is assumed that this approach will result in realizing the likely benefits of ERP systems. However, because of ever evolving requirements and individual needs of the organizations, even a ‘Vanilla’ package has to undergo through customization. Literature on the ERP systems provides different typologies of the ERP customizations. However, there is a pressing need for a new and refined typology as the functionality of the ERP packages has matured and advanced over the years. This paper is intended to present the re-conceptualization of the ERP customization typology and, moreover, it aims to develop new assessment criterion that can be used to assess the impact of the different types of customizations

Empirical Evidence of Executives’ Perception and Scanning of Business Environment in Nigeria

Strategic thinking about firms’ environment enables management to identify relevant environmental factors and industry drivers that weigh on the firms’ objectives, direction, strategy and business model. This study based on administered questionnaire examines executives’ perception of the characteristics of the business environment and its relationship with corporate performance. It was found that while variables in the task environment were considered most uncertain the general environment is the most scanned; and executives’ perception of the nature of the environment has a low association with the intensity of their scanning efforts. It is recommended that managerial discretion and judgement should play a significant role in determining the sections of the environment to be scanned and scanning void should not be permitted if effective and efficient organisation-environment fitment required to secure superior competitive advantage is to be attaine

Business Benefits from Enterprise Systems Implementation in New Zealand

Organisations rely on their enterprise systems (ES) to integrate and optimise business processes, automate business transactions and share context-rich information to support decision making, according to the literature. But does this happen and how? This study examines key benefits that organisations generally seek from ES implementations, how ES data are transformed into knowledge, how this knowledge is utilised to achieve business benefits and the critical success factors for this process. Findings indicate that key benefits New Zealand organisations expect from ES include improve information flow, reduce out-of-inventory events and implement process efficiencies. An important finding is that New Zealand companies have only recently started tracking benefits through analytical processes to optimise and realise business value from their ES investment. Implications for practice are discussed with a focus on usability of ES and its information

Attitudinal and behavioural determinants influencing decision makers when adopting integration technologies in local government

Over the last few years, the advent of innovative or revolutionary integration technologies has influenced pivotal decisions within top management to strategically transform Local Government Authorities (LGAs). These technologies may represent a huge cost for adopting LGAs, but may also offer the chance to achieve competitive advantage through superior service delivery. With the emergence of electronic Government (e- Government), LGAs are turning to integration technologies to fully automate and e-enable their business processes and integrate their IT infrastructures. While prior research on the adoption of integration technologies in the private and public domain has considered several determinants (e.g. benefits, barriers, costs), little attention has been given to investigate the attitudinal and behavioural determinants influencing top management’s decision making process for the adoption of integration technologies in LGAs. Notwithstanding, the implications of this research have yet to be assessed, leaving scope for timeliness and novel research. Therefore, it is of high importance to investigate this area within LGAs and contribute to the area of strategic decision making by examining attitudinal and behavioural determinants of top management in relation to integration technologies adoption

Influence of Enterprise Systems on Business Process Agility

Business process agility (a combination of speed and flexibility) is increasingly becoming an important weapon for achieving a competitive advantage in today’s growing competition and dynamic business environment. Based on literature review and past research by the author, this paper will present the development of a research framework to investigate the influence of enterprise systems on business process agility. Using exploratory qualitative case studies, this study will identify the major drivers and inhibitors for enhancing the process agility in business organizations that have implemented enterprise systems and investigate the possibility of attaining both process efficiency and agility simultaneously while automating and/or integrating business processes

Information, knowledge and the context of interaction

Representing knowledge as information content alone is insufficient in providing us with an understanding of the world around us. A combination of context as well as reasoning of the information content is fundamental to representing knowledge, within information –based systems. The field of knowledge representation and knowledge management has thus far been concerned with providing structures and theories that can lead to some form of qualified intelligent reasoning, and contextualised information. By drawing upon previous research and applying and extending concepts of Semiotics and Symbiosis from the interaction design school of thought, this paper presents a conceptual framework for establishing the interplay between knowledge and users of knowledge via information systems constructs. Subsequently, by drawing upon notions of interfaces to knowledge, a conceptual framework which describes the relationship between the semiotic, symbiotic and interface to knowledge presented, along with a discussion of contemporary issues common to the field of knowledge management is developed

The Organisational Impact of Implementing Integrated IS in HE institutions: a case study from a UK University

This paper explores the implementation process of integrated Information Systems (IS) in Higher Education (HE) institutions. This is achieved through the analysis of a HE institution’s strategy during the implementation process of the integrated IS and the impact that the new system had on the working practices of the HE institution. Through the use of interviews, the research indicates that there has been a growth of alternative power bases within the university, new roles and responsibilities for administrative staff and a different working environment for academics