Organizational Preparedness Required for System Implementation

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are currently in high demand as organizations seek to streamline, synchronize, and synthesis operational information, efforts, and resources to make decisions swifter and operate more efficiently and effectively. As the results and benefits of system output are realized within the market, organizations seek to implement ERP systems but are not successful because their organizations are not prepared prior to implementing the system. As a result, organizations search for a roadmap or collection of best practices as a guide for organizational preparation prior to system adoption and implementation. But these materials are lacking within the industry. The purpose of this research project is to illuminate the research problem of the lack of organizational preparedness required to successfully adopt and implement ERP systems to decrease supply chain disruptions and increase profitability. This research project was conducted using a constructivism paradigm within a flexible design and was executed using the single case study method. The participating organization and 15 volunteer participants allowed the researcher to use tools such as surveys, interviews, and performance metric extraction to obtain information and data, and to code, sort, and analyze it for the discovery of themes. Anticipated themes were discovered and confirmed through research findings. Data was triangulated to further verify the feedback’s validity, creditability, and reliability. Persistent themes highlighted research results and the critical need for organizational preparation prior to system adoption and implementation, providing a basis for insight into additional areas for further study

Service Undone: A Grounded Theory of Strategically Constructed Silos and Their Impact on Customer-Company Interactions from the Perspective of Retail Employees

This work elaborates the impacts of strategically constructed silos that are not byproducts of flagging cross-departmental cooperation or the cumulative effect of decades of decentralized command and control. Rather, these silos are strategically intended structures within organizations. Most significantly, the substantive theory of strategically constructed silos and their impact on customer service contributes to the field by illustrating the presence and consequence of silos occurring in suboptimal conditions. The existence of silos has implications that extend far beyond the retail area. A key take-away from this research is that contrary to how most customer service processes are designed, not all customer-company interactions are alike. As shown in the data, interaction types vary both in regard to the degree of knowledge needed by retail employees to fully serve customers, and the routine or nonroutine nature of the interaction. This is an important finding since it directly relates to whether the existence of a silo is appropriate (or optimal) for a specific interaction or task. Additionally, the findings suggest the role that a task\u27s routine-ness plays is secondary to the degree of specialized knowledge needed by retail employees to meet customer expectations. Understanding the various customer-company interaction types and how each interaction type may be affected by silos is crucial for designing customer experiences that will sustain over time. Likewise, identifying customer-company interaction types correctly and then subsequently developing strategies to support these interaction types is critical for both customer experience management (CEM) initiatives and customer relationship management (CRM) system design within the company. This work provides an overview of the implications of strategically constructed silos occurring in suboptimal conditions and provides recommendations for diagnosing customer-company interactions based on interaction type. By identifying strategically constructed silos as an intended structure of the company, the model elaborated here works to deliver prescriptive and specific strategies for managers and employees\u27 use as they attempt to improve their firm\u27s customer-company interaction outcomes

Feasibility study and prototyping of a blockchain-based transport-service pricing and allocation platform

This report summarizes the activity and findings of the JRC Proof of Concept Project Ridechain. The project investigated the applicability and market potential of blockchain technology for asset sharing in the road transport sector. The project comprised two principal activities. The first activity was market research and analysis to support the development of a new service concept and business model for blockchain-powered shared mobility. Specifically, the research resulted in the definition of a novel technology platform that leverages blockchain, cloud services, and in-car technology to enhance trust, streamline coordination and improve information exchange in P2P car sharing ecosystems. The second activity was technology prototyping to demonstrate the technical feasibility of the novel service concept using state of the art blockchain and IoT frameworks. These two activities provided answers to two respective research questions. First, what would be a high-value transport sector market to which a blockchain-powered technology product could offer a high-value solution? Second, how could this technology product be realized?JRC.C.4-Sustainable Transpor

Missional Interim Ministry Processes a Case Study

A case study of conducting an interim missionally. Presents theological and theoretical bases for missional interim processes and description of an actual interim period in which the interim was approached missionally. Units of analyses are environment/context, power/leadership, conflict, organizational restructuring, trust, and conventional interim tasks. Interpretation of data is by time-sequence analysis and explanation building. Charismatic power yielded to democratic expressions through process of legitimization. Political organizing within congregation was method for power transformation. Goal was communicative action that discerned the mission of God, determined congregation’s calling within that mission, and described congregation’s ministries to carry out its calling.

An Assessment of Contextual Design and Its Applicability to the Design of Educational Technologies

Thesis (PhD) - Indiana University, School of Education, 2008Increased use of computing technology in support of learning necessitates the collaboration of instructional designers with technology designers. Yet the instructional designer portrayed in current instructional design textbooks does not participate in technology design but instead designs instructional strategies and materials that are implemented by others. For instructional systems design as a field to move towards the kinds of collaborative work required for the development of effective, innovative educational technologies, there is a need for methods that can integrate the concerns and activities of both instructional and technology designers. This research critically examines a human-computer interaction design method, contextual design (CD), assessing how practitioners employ and characterize it as a method and explores its potential utility in instructional systems design. CD is briefly described and available evaluative studies are summarized. Next, three studies are presented: a case study of CD usage in the design of a digital music library, a case study of CD integrating with another design approach called PRInCiPleS, and a learning-oriented analysis of CD work models. Based on the findings of the literature review and these three studies, a practitioner survey and interview guide were developed. Results from 106 survey respondents and 16 interviews characterized CD as a guiding framework and a collection of useful techniques. However, because of its resource requirements and other limitations, the method is rarely used in full or exclusively. Respondents reported valuing the ability of CD to uncover and communicate user needs but also suggested CD did not provide a means of resolving conflicts between user needs and organizational objectives. Implications of these results are explored for three constituencies: developer-designers of instructional places or interactive materials, educators of instructional designers who will work with software developers, and educational researchers and their graduate students

Identifying a competency model for hotel managers

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston UniversityThe purpose of this study was to develop a competency model that incorporates the necessary knowledge, skills and attributes for an outstanding hotel manager based on actual experiences of successful hotel managers. The general managers and director of human resources from each hotel selected three outstanding and three average-performing managers from their respective properties (a total of 18 managers). Over a two-month period, using the behavior event interview process, both superior and average managers were interviewed and asked to describe, in great detail, situations when he or she was particularly effective and situations when he or she was ineffective. The interviews were transcribed and coded using a combination of a validated competency dictionary and thematic analysis. Competencies observed in outstanding managers but not in average performing managers were identified and a competency model was created. An expert panel of senior industry executives validated the findings. In brief, the model includes the following competencies: achievement orientation, information seeking, customer service orientation, organizational awareness, professional expertise, honesty, interpersonal understanding, teamwork, team leadership, analytical thinking, initiative, self-control, self-confidence, self-learning, face- to-face communication, relationship building, optimism and passion

ID5.2 Roadmap for KRSM RTD

Roadmap for KRSM RTD activities.The work on this publication has been sponsored by the TENCompetence Integrated Project that is funded by the European Commission's 6th Framework Programme, priority IST/Technology Enhanced Learning. Contract 027087 [http://www.tencompetence.org