The Evolving Role of Information Specialists as Change Agents in Performance Management: A Cross Disciplinary Study

This paper aims to explore the changing role of the Information Specialist (ISp) in the implementation of business performance improvement through business process re-engineering (BPR) initiatives. The paper will begin by examining the evolution of BPR and then discuss the changing role of the ISp. Technology enabled Performance Management (PM) and its strategic implications are found to be key to measuring the effectiveness of BPR and the role of the ISp is a vital part of this. Through a literature review and case based empirical evidence a conceptual framework is developed to appraise the role of the ISp

Technology Strategy for Re-engineering Design and Construction

Automation technology can provide construction firms with a number of competitive advantages. Technology strategy guides a firm's approach to all technology, including automation. Engineering management educators, researchers, and construction industry professionals need improved understanding of how technology affects results, and how to better target investments to improve competitive performance. A more formal approach to the concept of technology strategy can benefit the construction manager in his efforts to remain competitive in increasingly hostile markets. This paper recommends consideration of five specific dimensions of technology strategy within the overall parameters of market conditions, firm capabilities and goals, and stage of technology evolution. Examples of the application of this framework in the formulation of technology strategy are provided for CAD applications, co-ordinated positioning technology and advanced falsework and formwork mechanisation to support construction field operations. Results from this continuing line of research can assist managers in making complex and difficult decisions regarding reengineering construction processes in using new construction technology and benefit future researchers by providing new tools for analysis. Through managing technology to best suit the existing capabilities of their firm, and addressing the market forces, engineering managers can better face the increasingly competitive environment in which they operate

Human Resource and Employment Practices in Telecommunications Services, 1980-1998

[Excerpt] In the academic literature on manufacturing, much research and debate have focused on whether firms are adopting some form of “high-performance” or “high-involvement” work organization based on such practices as employee participation, teams, and increased discretion, skills, and training for frontline workers (Ichniowski et al., 1996; Kochan and Osterman, 1994; MacDuffie, 1995). Whereas many firms in the telecommunications industry flirted with these ideas in the 1980s, they did not prove to be a lasting source of inspiration for the redesign of work and employment practices. Rather, work restructuring in telecommunications services has been driven by the ability of firms to leverage network and information technologies to reduce labor costs and create customer segmentation strategies. “Good jobs” versus “bad jobs,” or higher versus lower wage jobs, do not vary according to whether firms adopt a high- involvement model. They vary along two other dimensions: (1) within firms and occupations, by the value-added of the customer segment that an employee group serves; and (2) across firms, by union and nonunion status. We believe that this customer segmentation strategy is becoming a more general model for employment practices in large-scale service | operations; telecommunications services firms may be somewhat more | advanced than other service firms in adopting this strategy because of certain unique industry characteristics. The scale economies of network technology are such that once a company builds the network infrastructure to a customer’s specifications, the cost of additional services is essentially zero. As a result, and notwithstanding technological uncertainty, all of the industry’s major players are attempting to take advantage of system economies inherent in the nature of the product market and technology to provide customized packages of multimedia products to identified market segments. They have organized into market-driven business units providing differentiated services to large businesses and institutions, small businesses, and residential customers. They have used information technologies and process reengineering to customize specific services to different segments according to customer needs and ability to pay. Variation in work and employment practices, or labor market segmentation, follows product market segmentation. As a result, much of the variation in employment practices in this industry is within firms and within occupations according to market segment rather than across firms. In addition, despite market deregulation beginning in 1984 and opportunities for new entrants, a tightly led oligopoly structure is replacing the regulated Bell System monopoly. Former Bell System companies, the giants of the regulated period, continue to dominate market share in the post-1984 period. Older players and new entrants alike are merging and consolidating in order to have access to multimedia markets. What is striking in this industry, therefore, is the relative lack of variation in management and employment practices across firms after more than a decade of experience with deregulation. We attribute this lack of variation to three major sources. (1) Technological advances and network economics provide incentives for mergers, organizational consolidation, and, as indicated above, similar business strategies. (2) The former Bell System companies have deep institutional ties, and they continue to benchmark against and imitate each other so that ideas about restructuring have diffused quickly among them. (3) Despite overall deunionization in the industry, they continue to have high unionization rates; de facto pattern bargaining within the Bell system has remained quite strong. Therefore, similar employment practices based on inherited collective bargaining agreements continue to exist across former Bell System firms

Information Systems Skills Differences between High-Wage and Low-Wage Regions: Implications for Global Sourcing

Developing Information Systems (IS) skills for a company’s workforce has always been challenging, but global sourcing growth has caused the determination of needed IS skills to be more complex. The increased use of outsourcing to an IS service provider and from high-wage regions to low-wage regions has affected what IS skills are required globally and how to distribute the workforce to meet these needs. To understand what skills are needed in locations that seek and those that provide outsourcing, we surveyed IS service provider managers in global locations. Results from 126 reporting units provide empirical evidence that provider units in low-wage regions value technical skills more than those in high-wage regions. Despite the emphasis on commodity skills in low-wage areas, high- and low-wage providers value project management skills. Low-wage regions note global and virtual teamwork more than high-wage regions do. The mix of skills and the variation by region have implications for domestic and offshore sourcing. Service providers can vary their staffing models in global regions which has consequences for recruiting, corporate training, and curriculum

Defrauding the Public Interest: A Critical Examination of Reengineered Audit Processes and the Likelihood of Detecting Fraud

In the past few years, most of the major international public accounting firms have reengineered their audit processes to improve the cost effectiveness of completing an audit and to focus on value-added services for clients. The reengineered audit processes generally focus on a client’s business processes and the information systems used by the client to generate financial information. In essence, the new audit approaches deemphasize direct testing of the underlying transactions and account balances. Such an approach emphasizes analytical procedures as the main source of substantive evidence. During this same time period, however, the profession (through the AICPA) explicitly acknowledged the profession’s responsibility for fraud detection. The main premise of this paper is that the increased emphasis on systems assessments is at odds with the profession’s position regarding fraud detection because most material frauds originate at the top levels of the organization, where controls and systems are least prevalent and effective. As such, the profession may be paying lip service to fraud detection, while at the same time changing the audit process in a manner that is less effective at detecting the most common frauds

Consumption of management publications, The

This paper focuses on the consumption phase of the process of Production-Diffusion-Consumption of management knowledge. We argue that consumers play an important role in that process, one we feel has been overlooked in most of the existing literature. The first part of the paper is mostly theoretical. In it we first situate our contribution within the existing literature on management knowledge, and then approach the issue of the selection of knowledge sources by knowledge consumers. We sustain that manager-consumers have a strong impact on the success or failure of management ideas (selection), and also shape their content. The second part of the paper is mostly empirical. It consists of an analysis of a questionnaire that is intended to help us gain a better understanding of knowledge consumers' behaviour. Finally, we offer our conclusions.Management knowledge; knowledge consumers