PROMISES OF OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE FOR AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT AGENCIES – AN EXPLORATORY STUDY

In wake of financial downturn open source software appears attractive to many public sector organisations. Built on a licensing model that avoids binding contracts or financial obligation, it permits like-minded developers to share source code and collaborate in the continuous improvement and enhancement of software. Open source software reduces dependencies on software vendors, is continuously evolving, and does not pose any possibility of running the user into the blind alley or dead-end of development trajectory. This paper presents the findings of a study conducted in three Australian state governments. Purpose of this study was to assess the organisational readiness and potential of open source implementation in government agencies. It identifies the level of open source utilisation in these agencies and also highlights the barriers involved in utilisation of open source at a larger scale. The study concludes that success of OSS in government agencies is contingent upon critical aspects such as, its implementation enabling technical and economic value; its maintainability and adequate support available to sustain its utilisation

Enablers of open source software adoption: A case study of APS organisations

Despite a considerable body of literature investigating factors involved in the Open Source Software (OSS) adoption process, there is little research into adoption of OSS by public sector organisations. So it was important to reassess the factors enabling OSS adoption in order to enhance OSS utilization within public sector organisations. This study explored various factors that may enable OSS adoption within Australian Public Sector (APS) organisations by interviewing those involved in software procurement. The findings were analysed through the lens of administrative complexity associated with OSS adoption. Success of OSS in government agencies was found to be contingent on critical aspects such as availability of support and maintainability of OSS products, ability to meet organisational business needs in a cost effective manner, economic value associated with OSS such as maintenance and training costs, and attitude of staff toward OSS. The findings suggested that value for money and fit for purpose criteria described in Commonwealth Procurement Guidelines were the major enablers of OSS adoption

Open data adoption in Australian government agencies: an exploratory study

Australia is among the leading countries that envisaged releasing unclassified public data under open license and reusable format with no further restriction on re/use. But, according to the Australian Information Commissioner John McMillan, Australia’s progress on open data is ‘patchy’ and ‘transitional’. He also evidenced that although a few agencies are proactive and have embraced the movements quite seriously, still there are “many obstacles that worked against effort to make government information and data discoverable and usable” (Hilvert 2013). Despondently, there is little empirical evidence that could explain what makes public departments not to release public data. Driven by the nature of the research, this study conducted an exploratory field study in Australia by interviewing eleven employees from six different government agencies. Applying content analysis technique, this study identifies six important antecedents to adoption of open data in public organisations, and proposes future research to test their relationships. As the main theoretical contribution, this study extends organisational behaviour toward technology diffusion. The findings of this study incite policymakers and managers to think about and prepare future strategies on open data developments

Perceived Environmental Factors And The Intention To Adopt A Standard Business Reporting Facility: A Survey Of Australian Corporate Cfos

The Australian government's extensible business reporting language (XBRL)-derived reporting facility, called Standard Business Reporting (SBR), went 'live' to companies in 2010. Its voluntary take-up by companies has been poor following a promotion that emphasised its technological benefits. This study seeks to identify a set of perceived environmental factors and examine how these factors influence managerial intention to adopt SBR. A survey instrument is developed to measure the extent of the competitive pressure, government pressure and external communication perceived by the Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) of listed companies as influences on their firms' intention to adopt SBR. Based on 54 usable responses by CFOs of relatively large listed companies, the survey results reveal that, contrary to the expectation, no significant association exists between perceived competitiveness in the industry and the intention to adopt SBR. However, CFOs regard becoming a leader or an early follower as a significant consideration influencing their firms' intentions to adopt SBR. As the paper reports, CFOs believe that they do not have adequate information about SBR from external sources. Communication about SBR is found to be significantly related to the intention to adopt SBR. Interestingly, government pressure is not found to relate to the intention to adopt SBR. Implications of these environmental influences for the successful voluntary take-up of SBR in Australia are discussed

Perceptions of library and information science community towards open source software adoption in libraries of Oman

This paper undertake a focus group research approach to investigate the perceptions of LIS community towards open source software adoption in libraries of Oman. The motivation of the study comes as a result of E-Oman strategy to uplift the information and communication technology services in Oman. The focus group approached applied in this study was carried out by means of inviting participants from seven institutions in Oman, to participate in a workshop about OSS adoption in libraries. During the workshop, focus groups were established. After the workshop, each group participates in responding to their perception towards OSS adoption in libraries. The results of their responses were analyzed. It was discovered that there are lack of awareness and readiness toward adoption of open source software in libraries of Oman

Planning for Excellence: Insights from an International Review of Regulators’ Strategic Plans

What constitutes regulatory excellence? Answering this question is an indispensable first step for any public regulatory agency that is measuring, striving towards, and, ultimately, achieving excellence. One useful way to answer this question would be to draw on the broader literature on regulatory design, enforcement, and management. But, perhaps a more authentic way would be to look at how regulators themselves define excellence. However, we actually know remarkably little about how the regulatory officials who are immersed in the task of regulation conceive of their own success. In this Article, we investigate regulators’ definitions of regulatory excellence by drawing on a unique source of data that provides an important window on regulators’ own aspirations: their strategic plans. Strategic plans have been required or voluntarily undertaken for the past decade or longer by regulators around the globe. In these plans, regulators offer mission statements, strategic goals, and measurable and achievable outcomes, all of which indicate what regulators value and are striving to become. Occasionally, they even state explicitly where they have fallen short of “best-in-class” status and how they intend to improve. To date, a voluminous literature exists examining agency practices in strategic planning, but we are aware of no study that tries to glean from the substance of a sizeable number of plans how regulators themselves construe regulatory excellence. The main task of this Article is undertaking this effort. This Article draws on twenty plans from different regulators in nine countries. We found most generally that excellent regulators describe themselves (though not necessarily using exactly these words) as institutions that are more (1) efficient, (2) educative, (3) multiplicative, (4) proportional, (5) vital, (6) just, and (7) honest. In addition to these seven shared attribute categories, our reading of the plans also revealed five other “unusual” attributes that only one or two agencies mentioned. Beyond merely cataloguing the attributes identified by agencies, this Article also discusses commonalities (and differences) between plan structures, emphases, and framings. We found that the plans differed widely in features such as the specificity of their mission statements, the extent to which they emphasized actions over outcomes (or vice versa), and the extent to which commitments were organized along organizational fiefdoms or cut across bureaucratic lines. We urge future scholarship to explore alternative methods of text mining, and to study strategic plans over time within agencies, in order to track how agencies’ notions of regulatory excellence respond to changes in the regulatory context and the larger circumstances within which agencies operate. Looking longitudinally will also shed light on how agencies handle strategic goals that are either met or that prove to be unattainable

Building producer loyalty in Malaysia's fresh milk supply chain

The paper presents results from a survey of 133 dairy producers in Malaysia, and identifies how Malaysian milk buyers can build a loyal customer base with their suppliers as a means to secure uninterrupted milk supplies. A structural equation model was conducted to test the conceptual model using AMOS 17.0 software. The results show that whereas timely and collaborative communication, price satisfaction and cultural fit influence positively suppliers’ contractual and competence trust in their buyers, power dependency negatively influences competence trust. Furthermore, suppliers’ trust in their buyers will eventually lead to loyalty. The principal implication is that milk processors and other buyers need to engage in collaborative communication with the dairy farmers to ensure continuous and uninterrupted supply.dairy, Malaysia, customer base, competence trust, suppliers trust, collaborative communication, Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Farm Management, Industrial Organization, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, Marketing, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

Analysis of Studies on Applications and Challenges in Implementation of Big Data in the Public Administration

The big data ? huge amount of data ? era has begun and is redefining how organizations deal with information. While the business sector has been using and developing big data applications for nearly a decade, only recently the public sector has begun to adopt this technology to gather information and use it as a decision support tool. Few organizations have so many advantages to harness the potential of the big data as the public service agencies, because of the large amount of data they have access to. However, due to the current theme, there is still a long way to go. Some papers have presented ways in which governments are using big data to better serve their citizens. Nevertheless, there is still much uncertainty about the real possibility of improving government operations through this technology. By analyzing the literature related to the topic, this paper aims to present the areas of public administration that can take advantage of data analysis. In addition, raising the challenges and resilience faced for the insertion of the big data in the public sector is also important. In this way, we seek to understand how public organizations can take advantage of the data that they have, to manage and improve the efficiency and offer of public services to society. The results showed that several organizations can modernize and improve their operations with data analysis, but challenges need to be overcome. Therefore, the big data presents itself as an important tool for the modernization of public administration

Factors affecting the organisational adoption of blockchain technology in australia : a mixed-methods approach

Blockchain (BCT) is an emerging technology that promises many benefits for organisations, such as disintermediation, data security, data transparency, a single version of the truth, and trust among trading partners. Despite its multiple benefits, the adoption rate of BCT among organisations has not reached a significantly high level worldwide. The present thesis addresses this issue in the Australian context. There is a knowledge gap in what specific factors, among the plethora of factors reported in the extant scholarly and commercial literature, affect Australian organisations while deciding to adopt BCT. To fill this gap, this thesis uses a mixed-methods approach known as sequential exploratory mixed methods. In this approach, the research starts with a qualitative phase as an initial phase followed by a quantitative phase. During the qualitative phase, data were collected through semi-structured interviews of the BCT experts and decision-makers working with the ifferent Australian organisations that adopted or were in the process of adopting BCT. The Technology, Organisation, Environment (TOE) framework, based on the qualitative interpretative approach, was used as a theoretical lens during the qualitative phase. The qualitative data were analyzed using the thematic analysis technique with the SQR NVivo software. The analysis shows that the different factors, belonging to the technological, organisational, and environmental contexts, affect the organisational decision to adopt BCT in Australia. The technological factors include perceived benefits, perceived computability, perceived complexity, perceived disintermediation, and perceived information transparency; organisational factors are organisational innovativeness, organisational learning capability, top management support; environmental factors consist of government support, standards uncertainty, competition intensity, and trading partners readiness. The qualitative analysis also shows the direct and moderating effect of the perceived risks between the relationship of the identified factors and organisational adoption of BCT. Based on the findings of the qualitative phase, the thesis develops a theoretical conceptual model, which shows the relationship between the factors and the organisational adoption of BCT. To increase the external validity of the developed conceptual model, the thesis started a quantitative phase with the administration of an online survey for data collection. Certain criteria were set to screen out the irrelevant participants in the survey. During this phase, hypotheses were proposed for the relationship of the factors identified in the qualitative phase and the organisational adoption of BCT. The survey data was analyzed using the PLS Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) technique with the SmartPLS 3 software. The quantitative analysis confirms the findings of the qualitative phase that the perceived benefits, perceived compatibility, perceived information transparency, perceived disintermediation, organisational innovativeness, organisational learning capability, top management support, competitive intensity, government support, and trading partner readiness have a positive effect on the organisational adoption of BCT. Whereas the perceived complexity, standards uncertainty, and perceived risks have a negative effect. The analysis also shows that the moderating effects of perceived risks are significant in the relationship of perceived compatibility, perceived information transparency, perceived disintermediation, organisational innovativeness, organisation innovativeness, competition intensity, and organisational adoption of BCT. Contrary to the qualitative findings, ‘perceived risks’ has no moderating effects on the relationship of perceived benefits, organisational learning capability, top management support, government support, trading partner readiness, and the adoption of BCT. The thesis has both theoretical and practical contributions, which are useful both for theory development and decision-making for the adoption of BCT in Australia. Theoretically, this thesis contributes to the existing IT adoption literature in several ways. Firstly, the thesis provides empirical evidence about the factors affecting organisational adoption of BCT in Australia. This is the first in-depth sequential exploratory mixed methods research that bridges this knowledge gap in the extant literature. The identification of such factors is important, particularly for the Australian government and organisations interested in the value creation of BCT. Second, the thesis reports the effect of new factors, namely, perceived information transparency, perceived disintermediation, organisational innovativeness, organisational learning capability, standards uncertainty, trading partner readiness, and competition intensity on BCT adoption that are exclusively identified in this research. Third, this thesis confirms the findings of the past studies that the factors of perceived benefits and perceived compatibility, perceived complexity, and top management support have an effect on the organisational adoption of BCT. Fourth, according to the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first research that has used the qualitative interpretive research approach to investigate the organisational adoption of BCT. Therefore, the thesis confirms the suitability of the qualitative interpretive research approach for BCT adoption. Lastly, most of the researchers have used the TOE framework in either in qualitative or quantitative research. This thesis proves its validity in mixed methods research as well. The thesis's practical contributions are discussed in chapter 7.Doctor of Philosoph