Strategies, contributions and inhibitors of information systems to organizational competitiveness: An empirical analysis within the Caribbean

The study examines the impact of Information Systems (IS) through a consideration of improved competitiveness within a multi-business Caribbean firm. The methodology draws on a participant-observer approach for data collection and compares the application of IS by three business units within each of three organizations. It is argued that while there is already a substantial amount of research on IS effectiveness its value in the context of developing countries such as those of the Caribbean will be most significant. In this context firms are perceived to face more constraints than in developed countries so there is a need to explicitly recognize the effects of ‘inhibitors’. The study finds that for two of these businesses IS can be shown to have contributed to improved competitiveness, while the third had a less satisfactory experience. Analysis of the data revealed that in the two business units where IS contributed the units had been able to improve specific business processes in pursuit of identified competitive strategies. In the unit that did not derive such advantages, limitations in the functionality of the core application combined with insufficient adjustment of business processes, led to the unsatisfactory results. It is also observed that the explanatory value of the empirical analysis is enhanced if we identify inhibitors of IS for competitive advantage and make their effects more explicit

Am Empirical Test of the Relationship of Domain Integration and Information Technology as a Core Competence of the Firm

The relationship between executive involvement and participation with the successful use of Information Technology (IT) has been a frequent topic of research. This paper explores the relationship between two concepts: domain integration (the fit between business and IT strategies) and IT as a core competency. Using a sample of 87 Southeast Michigan manufacturing firms, the author supports a positive relationship. Potential factors to help explain the relationship, including firm size, business changes, IT outsourcing, executive desire to outsource and IT department power are explored for possible influence

Non-business e-commerce in Malaysia: An investigation of key adoption

Problem statement: Non-business EC is a relatively new research niche in the general e-commerce stream. Application of e-commerce by profit oriented organization already become bread and butter but still limited applied in non-business sectors such as academic institutions (as in the present study), non-profit organizations, religious organizations and government agencies. Nowadays e-commerce becomes crucially essential in reducing their expenses and improving their operations.Therefore, application of this new innovation should enhance to no non-business sectors to be livelier.Understanding the key factors of facilitating and adopting the e-commerce in non-business are still need to enrich in particularly within Malaysian context. A field survey was conducted to determine key factors that facilitate the adoption of non-business EC in Malaysian Universities. Approach: One main focus of IT implementation research has been to determine why people accept or reject new technology. The current research will explore why Non-business institutions will accept or reject e- commerce. Since e-commerce adoption decision is a strategic one, a comprehensive list of potential facilitators and non-facilitators for the strategic use of information technology was derived from past research. Thus factors used as the basis for collecting data from 65 schools, centers and units from 5 public universities in Kota Kinabalu and Kuala Lumpur. These data were factor-analyzed to determine the key underlying dimensions of facilitators. On the basis of the resulting 5 dimensions namely, relative advantage, network orientation, information efficiency, innovativeness and competitiveness, regression analysis was done to determine the impact of the 5 dimensions on adoption. Results: They suggest that relative advantage, network orientation and information efficiency are the most important facilitators to the used of e-commerce in non-business sectors. Inhibitors were not estimated eventually, as there were no non-users among the respondents. Conclusion: The results implies the non-business sectors should look into advantages, network orientation and information efficiency as a strategic based for implementing e-commerce in more effective manner to achieve their goals

Strategic Role of Information Technology Towards Building Competitive Advantage Study in Yemen (Southern Region)

This study empirically examines the strategic role of information technology towards building organization’s competitive advantage, in particular, the main objective of this study is to report the association of productivity efficiency, innovation, customer-supplier relationship, and database marketing with organization’s competitive advantage. This study is a summary-based investigation focusing on southern region of Yemen. The sample of this study compromises of 130 usable questionnaires. The findings of this study indicate that there is positive relationship between information technology and competitive advantage. This address problems and barriers encountered in the application of information technology as medium to build competitive advantage among organizations in Yemen (Southern Region). It is certainly enables scholars and practitioners to make better decision

Conceptualization of BIS Embeddedness Determinants

Actual and effective use of Business Intelligence Systems (BIS) is considered as one of the main sources of competitive advantage for long-term survival of organizations and presents a link between the information provided by BIS and the business value of BIS. Acceptance of BIS should not be understood only as frequency and intensity of use, which was the focus of most previous research focused mostly on operational IS. Using BIS must become embedded in the business value generation process. In this study we develop a conceptual model of BIS embeddedness with a specific set of determinants identified using exploratory analysis based on semi-structured interviews among professionals in the field. Understanding acceptance and use of BIS presents a priority item for both researchers and practitioners in the field alike, as better understanding of these factors might improve the utilization and business value of BIS in organizations

Pengaruh Kepelbagaian Kemahiran (Multi-Skilling) Terhadap Prestasi Kerja Kakitangan Sokongan Kementerian Pertahanan

The launch of Government Transformation Program (GTP) is a starting point towards a mind change of the whole people in the country. The changes brought about by the Government covering various aspects including human capital development. Talking about human capital, we cannot run away from discussing labor issues in the country, including those in the public sector. The need to improve self-competence as well as having a competitive advantage always been emphasized especially in the aspect of skills. Therefore, this study aims to examine the relationship and influence of various skills (multi-skilling) on the work performance of support staff working in the Ministry of Defence. This study is also aim to determine the strength on the influence of multiskilling elements such as supervision, leadership, self-regulation and multi-tasking with job performance. A total of 304 respondents were involved in this survey. Descriptive analysis techniques used to assess the level of performance and multi-skilling based on the demographic factors like educational level, gender and age. Whereas inferential analysis such as one way ANOVA, Post Hoc test, Pearson correlation and Standard Multiple Regression was used to test hypotheses formulated. The results showed that there are differences between the performance of multi-skilling and work performance based on the factors like length of service period, educational level and gender except for an age. In addition, there is also a significant relationship between the dimensions of multi-skilling (vertical and horizontal) on the work performance. The study also found that multi-skilling influenced work performance by 40.4% where multi-tasking is the best determinant followed by self-leadership and self-supervision. Meanwhile, the self regulatory element showed no significant effects on the work performance of the Ministry of Defence support staf

The Influence of Organization Factor on E-service Adoption: The Case of Cambodia

Background: The diffusion of ICT has made the researchers or scholars in the field of e-government continue to find out the problems of pay attention on the government barriers to successfully implement it implement in public services in the both developed and developing countries. It is the important title for the top management leader in the public organization to reexamine and improve e-service for users. This paper is to illustrate examined factors of e-service adoption in public sector in Cambodia. Method: Challenging factors which were proposed for as model of e-service adoption in study are the Top Management Support (TMS), and ICT skill (ICT-skill). 500 respondents who were civil servants (service providers) and general citizens (service recipients) participated in this study. The correlations and regression methods were employed in the IBM SPSS v.20.  The study employed both online and face to face survey by which the determinants were examined in SPSS. The questionnaires were focused on the General Department of Tax (GDT) the Ministry of Commerce (MC), and the Ministry of Public Work and Transportation (MPWT). Results: The majority of responses of participants were indicated that the determinants have the result as the following; TMS has strong direct effect and indirect effect to e-service adoption as H1 and H2. ICT-skill has strong direct effect on e-service adoption as H3. TMS has measure value as b = .560, t = 16.20, P = .000 < 0.01 in direct effect influence on e-SA, and ICT-skill has measure value as b = .831, t = 33.37, P = .000 < 0.01 in direct effect influence e-SA. The TMS value of indirect effect influence on e-SA is b = .383, t = 11.06, P = .000 < 0.01 Conclusion: Regarding to rule of significant, it is seen that all determinants are the strongly predicting predicted variable which is highest strongly positive influenced on the e-service adoption (E-SA). All the hypotheses are confirmed by Pearson’s correlation and Linear Regression test. Keywords: Top management Support, ICT-skill, e-Service Adoption DOI: 10.7176/JETP/9-1-0

The Influence of Travel Web Sites Effectiveness on Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations: Malaysian Travellers’ Perspective

There is growing reliance on the web sites for promotion of tourism and travel related product/services. Thus, identification of travel web site effectiveness attributes based on traveller/internet users’ expectation is necessary. This paper explores the travel web site effectiveness attributes and their relationships with the intrinsic and extrinsic motivation of Malaysian travellers. Here an attempt is made in the context of explaining internet users’ beliefs using Technology Acceptance Model with data collected from 679 internet users/travellers. Factor analysis results indicate three dimensions of travel web effectiveness were derived, namely: i) technical adequacy & customization, ii) system quality & specific content and iii) web appearance. In testing the model, multiple regression results show that the above dimensions have positive influence on individual extrinsic motivation (perceived usefulness). Meanwhile, web appearance and technical adequacy & customization have positive influence on intrinsic motivation (perceived ease of use and enjoyment) of travel web sites

IS Leadership and Strategy Realization

With alignment of Information Systems (IS) strategy with business strategy, organizations can fully realize full potential of information technology (IT) resources. We view IS leadership as a core enabler to lead IS unit to contribute to organizational performance. Using upper echelons theory, we look at the effects of two characteristics of an IS leader, transformational leadership and gender, on IS unit’s teamwork capability and how this capability, in turn, affects the realization of IS unit’s strategy. We also investigate how the effect of teamwork capability on IS strategy realization is contingent on IS strategy. Consistent with prior studies, the results show that transformational IS leadership is effective in enhancing an IS unit’s teamwork capability, which in turn significantly influences the realization of IS strategy to the extent the IS unit seeks to create systems that enable the organization to be flexible

Adoption of B2B Exchanges: Effects of IT-Mediated Website Services, Website Functionality, Benefits, and Costs

Prior studies investigating business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce adoption have predominantly focused on institutional and transaction-cost theories while neglecting the influence of IT-based design characteristics on B2B e-commerce adoption. This study probes the design features of B2B exchanges, and their effects on perceived benefits, perceived costs, and intentions to adopt such exchanges. In this paper, we propose that the degree of website functionality provided by a B2B exchange positively influences the intentions of companies to adopt that exchange. Towards supporting this proposition, we identify a set of IT-mediated website services salient to B2B exchanges. We propose a theory that an aggregation of these services, what we refer to as website functionality, impacts potential B2B exchange users’ assessments of the costs and benefits of the services as well as their intentions to join the B2B exchange. This paper identifies website functionality in B2B exchanges and explicates the theoretical influences of such functionality