Organizational Competencies for Managing Investments in Visionary Applications of Information Technology

Despite the noted potential of information technology (IT) for enhancing organizational effectiveness (Boynton and Victor 1991; Venkatraman 1991), few fm-ns seem to have achieved consistent success in deploying IT in ways that fundamentally alter industry practices or existing work processes associated with value chain activities and customer interactions (McKenney 1995). Prior IS research has focused attention on the impacts and organizational drivers associated with strategic applications of IT (Sabherwal and King 1995). The main objective of such applications is the seizing of competitive advantage in the marketplace. The focus of this researchisuponapplicationsoflTthatarebroaderinorganizationalscope: whiletheirultimategoalmightbetheattainmentofmarket advantages, their immediate focus might be on the enhancement of business competence with respect to managerial decision-making, customer service, manufacturing management, or launching of a variety of value-added products and services. In order to distinguish such strategic applications of IT, we term them as visionary applications of IT. We consider them to be different from strategic applicationsoflTintworespects: (i)whilevisionaryapplicationsareaimedattheaugmentationofbusinesscompetencies,strategic applications are often targeted on exploiting market or competitive advantage opportunities and (ii) visionary applications are usually driven by the visionary insight of a senior business executive and exhibit an enterprise-wide flavor in their implementation scope, whereas strategic applications often arise in business units and are restricted to a specific market or business in their implementation scope

Competency Implications of Changing Human Resource Roles

[Excerpt] The present study examines which competencies will be necessary to perform key human resource roles over the next decade at Eastman Kodak Company. This project was a critical component of an ongoing quality process to improve organizational capability. The results establish a platform that will enable Kodak to better assess, plan, develop, and measure the capability of human resource staff

Industrial R&D in Italy: What are new dynamics of exploitation and exploration?

This paper aims at exploring the dynamics of industrial R&D activities in large companies. Through the use of four case studies of the largest R&D centers of Italian firms operating in different industrial sectors (telecommunications, automotive, rubber and plastics, and semiconductors), we try and compare the different approaches that private R&D centers have chosen in the recent past, to face the challenges of growing complexity in their research areas and increasing constraints in budgets devoted to R&D activities. The difficulties Italian companies face in the management of their R&D investments have to do with the specificities of a fairly weak national innovation system as well as with challenges that are common to other national and industrial contexts.

The Impacts of BTM Capability and CIO Role Effectiveness on Firms\u27 Information Technology Assimilation: An Empirical Study

This study presents a conceptual model to investigate the impacts of business technology management (BTM) capability and CIO role effectiveness on firms’ information technology assimilation. A large-scale field survey was used as the methodology for this research. Global logistic enterprises of Taiwan and China were randomly selected for constituting a representative sample in this study. Using the partial least squares (PLS) method, the causal relationships among BTM capability, CIO role effectiveness, and firms’ IT assimilation were verified. Also, the contribution of business technology and business management competencies on CIO role effectiveness was verified. The results of this study can provide practical implications for how firms can align, synchronize and converge IT and business management, thus ensuring better execution, risk control, and profitability

Capabilities for growth

This study explores firm growth and its relation with firm-specific capabilities. Organisations can benefit from growth in many ways, including greater efficiencies through economies of scale, increased power, the ability to withstand environmental change, increased profits and increased prestige for organizational members. The second element of research in this study, firm-specific capabilities, refers to the ability to integrate, build and reconfigure internal and external competencies to address rapidly changing environments. The fields of growth and capabilities seem to be complementary. However, the exact relationship currently seems to be underdeveloped. In this study, an attempt is made to incorporate the development of capabilities in the process of organisational growth. The following issues are addressed: The way organisations strive to grow, the manner in which firm-specific capabilities are incorporated and translated into the corporate strategy and whether these companies have succeeded.

A conceptual model for assessing managerial implications of changes in information technologies (Bilişim teknolojilerindeki değişimlerin yönetsel sonuçlarının değerlendirmesi için kavramsal bir model)

Information Technologies and business should be considered together to get the best results in business life. Therefore their integration and reflections on each other are very important in managing institutional change due to changes in the IT world. Change is a very sensitive concept that must be managed very carefully. In this article, a framework for managing IT based changes by protecting the business leverage and through all levels of hierarchy in the company is proposed

Resilience Capacity and Strategic Agility: Prerequisites for Thriving in a Dynamic Environment

organizational resilience, strategic agility, competitive dynamics

Execution: the Critical “What’s Next?” in Strategic Human Resource Management

The Human Resource Planning Society’s 1999 State of the Art/Practice (SOTA/P) study was conducted by a virtual team of researchers who interviewed and surveyed 232 human resource and line executives, consultants, and academics worldwide. Looking three to five years ahead, the study probed four basic topics: (1) major emerging trends in external environments, (2) essential organizational capabilities, (3) critical people issues, and (4) the evolving role of the human resource function. This article briefly reports some of the study’s major findings, along with an implied action agenda – the “gotta do’s for the leading edge. Cutting through the complexity, the general tone is one of urgency emanating from the intersection of several underlying themes: the increasing fierceness of competition, the rapid and unrelenting pace of change, the imperatives of marketplace and thus organizational agility, and the corresponding need to buck prevailing trends by attracting and, especially, retaining and capturing the commitment of world-class talent. While it all adds up to a golden opportunity for human resource functions, there is a clear need to get to get on with it – to get better, faster, and smarter – or run the risk of being left in the proverbial dust. Execute or be executed