A theory-grounded framework of Open Source Software adoption in SMEs

This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in European Journal of Information Systems. The definitive publisher-authenticated version Macredie, RD and Mijinyawa, K (2011), "A theory-grounded framework of Open Source Software adoption in SMEs", European Journal of Informations Systems, 20(2), 237-250 is available online at: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/ejis/journal/v20/n2/abs/ejis201060a.html.The increasing popularity and use of Open Source Software (OSS) has led to significant interest from research communities and enterprise practitioners, notably in the small business sector where this type of software offers particular benefits given the financial and human capital constraints faced. However, there has been little focus on developing valid frameworks that enable critical evaluation and common understanding of factors influencing OSS adoption. This paper seeks to address this shortcoming by presenting a theory-grounded framework for exploring these factors and explaining their influence on OSS adoption, with the context of study being small- to medium-sized Information Technology (IT) businesses in the U.K. The framework has implications for this type of business – and, we will suggest, more widely – as a frame of reference for understanding, and as tool for evaluating benefits and challenges in, OSS adoption. It also offers researchers a structured way of investigating adoption issues and a base from which to develop models of OSS adoption. The study reported in this paper used the Decomposed Theory of Planned Behaviour (DTPB) as a basis for the research propositions, with the aim of: (i) developing a framework of empirical factors that influence OSS adoption; and (ii) appraising it through case study evaluation with 10 U.K. Small- to medium-sized enterprises in the IT sector. The demonstration of the capabilities of the framework suggests that it is able to provide a reliable explanation of the complex and subjective factors that influence attitudes, subjective norms and control over the use of OSS. The paper further argues that the DTPB proved useful in this research area and that it can provide a variety of situation-specific insights related to factors that influence the adoption of OSS

Transmission losses cost allocation in restructed electricity market environment

During these recent decades, the restructuring system of electricity market has been taken places around the whole world. Due to the restructuring (deregulation), the electrical power system has been divided into three separates categories according to the function. First stage of power system is the generation companies (GENCOs), followed by transmission companies (TRANSCOs) and distribution companies (DISCOs). The competitive environment will be handling by a non-profit entity, independent system operator (ISO) that functioning as the system securities that have to make sure that the power system continues to operate in a stable and economical manner. However, restructuring system can give effect during the energy transmission. One of the transmission issues is regarding the power losses. To overcome the losses, generators must generate more power. The issue regarding the transmission losses in deregulated system is how to allocate it to the user and charge them in fair ways as in for instance the pool trading model, it is hard to trace the power contribution and losses of each user in transmission line. In addition, the users didn’t want to pay the losses, it means that the ISO have to responsible for the losses and it will be unfair to put the responsible to ISO alone. Therefore, in this project, the allocation of transmission losses and loss cost methods which are the pro-rata and proportional sharing method will be investigated. Comparison between those methods will be done in order to identify which types of method that reflect an efficient and fair way to distribute the cost of the transmission losses to the user. These chosen methods will be tested on IEEE bus system

The real SAP® Business one cost : a case study of ERP adoption in an SME

This paper reports on a UK based service management Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SME) that invested into SAP® Business One. The action research case study highlights the real cost and difficulties faced in moving to the one single SAP system and the process that was followed in order to identify third-party vendors that can integrate or customise SAP® Business One. This paper highlights the additional costs required to ensure a ‘fit-for-purpose’ solution to close the gap between strategic needs and the existing SAP Business One solution. The gap itself is illustrated by highlighting 10 key functionalities expected by the given service management SME. The actual implementation cost of the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) was found to be approximately double the initial SAP costs. The real costs involve time for, among other things, process reengineering, strategic decision making, software add-ons, staff-training, project-management and software maintenance

Cognitive barriers during monitoring-based commissioning of buildings

Monitoring-based commissioning (MBCx) is a continuous building energy management process used to optimize energy performance in buildings. Although monitoring-based commissioning (MBCx) can reduce energy waste by up to 20%, many buildings still underperform due to issues such as unnoticed system faults and inefficient operational procedures. While there are technical barriers that impede the MBCx process, such as data quality, the focuses of this paper are the non-technical, behavioral and organizational, barriers that contribute to issues initiating and implementing MBCx. In particular, this paper discusses cognitive biases, which can lead to suboptimal outcomes in energy efficiency decisions, resulting in missed opportunities for energy savings. This paper provides evidence of cognitive biases in decisions during the MBCx process using qualitative data from over 40 public and private sector organizations. The results describe barriers resulting from cognitive biases, listed in descending order of occurrence, including: risk aversion, social norms, choice overload, status quo bias, information overload, professional bias, and temporal discounting. Building practitioners can use these results to better understand potential cognitive biases, in turn allowing them to establish best practices and make more informed decisions. Researchers can use these results to empirically test specific decision interventions and facilitate more energy efficient decisions

Risk factors affecting the ability for earned value management to accurately assess the performance of infrastructure projects in Australia

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate a set of risk-related factors influencing the earned value management (EVM) concept as an assessment technique in evaluating the progress of modern sustainable infrastructure construction projects. Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative research approach has been adopted for identifying risk-related factors influencing EVM concept from a literature review and through interviewing industry personnel, followed by an inductive process to form sets of key factors and their measuring items. Findings – EVM is a common method for assessing project performance. A weakness of this approach is that EVM assessment in its current form does not measure the impact of a number of project performance factors that result from the complexity of modern infrastructure construction projects, and thus does not accurately assess their impact in this performance. This paper discusses and explains a range of potential risk factors to evaluating project performance such as sustainability, stakeholder requirements, communication, procurement strategy, weather, experience of staff, site condition, design issues, financial risk, subcontractor, government requirements and material. In addition, their measuring items were identified. Practical implications – This research assists projects managers to improve the evaluation process of infrastructure construction performance by incorporating a range of factors likely to impact on that performance and which are not included in current EVM calculations. Originality/value – This research addresses the need to include in the EVM calculation a range of risk factors affecting the performance of infrastructure projects in Australia and therefore makes this calculation a more reliable tool for assessing project performance

Modelling the Determinants of Organic Farming

Analysis of scientific literature lead to the conclusion that academic society, politicians and producers of agricultural products more and more realize the importance and significance of organic farming on the development of society through the prism of the sustainable development and understand that organic farming creates the preconditions for the solution of environmental, economic and social problems in agriculture. The analysis of the previous methodologies and results regarding the factors of organic farming has enabled the following conclusions to be drawn: • the quantitative researches based on the farmers’ opinions dominated. The opinion of consumers was used rarely, and the qualitative experimental researches were ever so seldom. It is likely, that the reason of such a situation was the said assumption that the decision to change the method of production was the prerogative of the farmer and his family; • already the initial period (until the seventies of the last century) of the studies on the factors of conventional farming has revealed that the respondents named many factors encouraging them to run the agricultural activity. This encouraged in later researches to classify the factors of organic farming by different characteristics. It should be noted that the conclusions of studies of the said initial period stressed the importance of the external factors such as the market of organic products, promotional policy, consumer opinion. In the results of slightly later studies the prominence was given to the personal characteristics of the farmers, and were stressed the elements of farming systems, the significance of their interaction and links with the external environment, i.e. it was an attempt to emphasize the significance of the factors of the farm internal environment. Eventually, the studies started to treat as significant both the internal and external factors. It all goes to cause the mixed matrix of the identified factors; • for quite a long time it was an attempt to identify the organic farming influencing factors analyzing the organic farmers as a homogeneous group, i. e. as an alternative to the conventional farmers. Only since mid-nineties of the last century it was started to search for the dividing line among the respondents farming organically classifying them by certain features, i. e. by different characteristics of the surveyed farmers or their farms. However, for this reason the matrix of the identified factors has become even more mixed, and the opinions of researchers on the factors’ significance to the farmers have divided even more. The analysis has showed and supposed the grounds for the classification of organic farmers into different groups by priority of activity independent of the duration of the development of organic farming and on this basis to identify the significance of the determinants of organic farming. The model for research of the determinants of organic farming includes two groups of factors (the external and internal) affecting the farmers’ decision to farm organically and four subgroups (respectively, the government and the market, and the farm and the personality of farmer). The research model was tested on the opinions of the respondents engaged in organic farming. The results of the empiric research proved the rightness of the theoretical model and enabled to clarify that in Lithuania under the present conditions the respondents engaged in organic farming assessed the groups of determinants differently. The cluster analysis of the empiric research enabled to identify two groups of organic respondents depending on statistically significant differences of activity priorities: profit-oriented and organic-oriented lifestyle (in the beginning of the clustering process 24 cluster groups of the respondents were formed). This shows that the clustering enabled the elimination of the socio-economic heterogeneity of organic farms while identifying the organic farming encouraging factors. The results of the empiric research have showed that in the opinion of the respondents engaged in organic farming the external factors are more significant than the internal; the external determinants are more encouraging but not limiting organic farming. The regressive analysis of the factors of organic farming has revealed that for both cluster groups of the respondents (profit-oriented and organic-oriented lifestyle) the external and internal determinants have different significance. The assessment of the determinants of organic farming depending on their importance and significance in the both identified cluster groups of the respondents has revealed the following differences: • the majority of the determinants encouraging organic farming the respondents of organic-oriented lifestyle assessed more favorably than the profit-oriented respondents; • the opinion of both groups’ respondents was the most different concerning the importance of the environmental issues (soil, water resources, etc.) on the farm

Network Analysis, Creative System Modelling and Decision Support: The NetSyMoD Approach

This paper presents the NetSyMoD approach – where NetSyMod stands for Network Analysis – Creative System Modelling – Decision Support. It represents the outcome of several years of research at FEEM in the field of natural resources management, environmental evaluation and decision-making, within the Natural Resources Management Research Programme. NetSyMoD is a flexible and comprehensive methodological framework, which uses a suite of support tools, aimed at facilitating the involvement of stakeholders or experts in decision-making processes. The main phases envisaged for the process are: (i) the identification of relevant actors, (ii) the analysis of social networks, (iii) the creative system modelling and modelling of the reality being considered (i.e. the local socio-economic and environmental system), and (iv) the analysis of alternative options available for the management of the specific case (e.g. alternative projects, plans, strategies). The strategies for participation are necessarily context-dependent, and thus not all the NetSyMod phases may be needed in every application. Furthermore, the practical solutions for their implementation may significantly differ from one case to another, depending not only on the context, but also on the available resources (human and financial). The various applications of NetSyMoD have nonetheless in common the same approach for problem analysis and communication within a group of actors, based upon the use of creative thinking techniques, the formalisation of human-environment relationships through the DPSIR framework, and the use of multi-criteria analysis through the mDSS software.Social Network, Integrated Analysis, Participatory Modelling, Decision Support