Multiple Personalities: the Case of Business Process Reengineering

BPR can be deconstructed into four different identities. In the first place it is a product of the management fad industry. In the second place it is part of a neo-Taylorist movement because of the following characteristics: a top-down streamlining of operations, unproblematic acceptance of typical Taylorist solutions and the prevalence of assertions that the outcome for workers is an upgraded work content. In the third place BPR is a euphemism for downsizing. Downsizing is much more at the core of BPR than some of its proponents would have it. Finally, BPR functions as a non-normative, descriptive label for process oriented change. The paper seeks to show how the different identities of BPR interact and get into one another’s way

The uptake and application of workflow management systems in the UK financial services sector

Workflow management systems (WFMSs) are an important new technology, which are likely to have a significant impact on the way in which clerical and administrative operations are organised and executed. This paper seeks to investigate how WFMSs are being exploited and utilised commercially by UK-based organisations operating in the financial services sector. In-depth interviews were conducted with fourteen project managers to explore the development, application and commercial implications of this powerful, yet flexible, technology. The results indicate that workflow technology has the potential to facilitate significant changes to the way in which an organisation conducts its business, through the automation of a wide range of document-intensive operations. Furthermore, when applied in a well-focussed manner it has the potential to realise significant increases in an organisation’s flexibility, and productivity, as well as delivering major improvements to the quality, speed and consistency of customer service

Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Facing Dilemmas in IT Risk Management

In this paper we extend IT risk management theory using evidence gleaned from IT-enabled process management in a Swedish pulp and paper factory. Our analyses of risk management practices in the factory’s core process revealed surprising insights. As organizational actors managed process related IT risks to ensure that the core production process was running 24/7, they generated strategic IT risks that threatened the sustainability of the process infrastructure. However, they could not manage these strategic risks without jeopardizing the 24/7 operation. Hence, they inadvertently found themselves between a rock and a hard place where they could not mitigate one high priority risk without generating another. Drawing on practice theory, we explain the observed risk management practices, introduce the notion of risk dilemmas, and discuss the practice-based view of risk as a useful approach to advancing IT risk management theory

Are Better Security Breach Notification Laws Possible?

This Article will evaluate the provisions of California\u27s pioneering security breach notification law (SBNL) in light of better regulation or smart regulation criteria in order to highlight the costs of taking a narrowly focused, piecemeal approach and the benefits of taking a more comprehensive perspective to the problems of identity theft and information security. Just as the basic structure of SBNLs was borrowed from environmental law, this Article will borrow from decades of analysis of the impact of environmental regulation to evaluate the likely impact of SBNLs. Just as environmental laws can be used to reduce externalities created through the mismanagement of common pool resources found in the natural environment, information security laws can be used to reduce externalities created through the mismanagement of common pool resources found in the virtual environment. If the analogy to environmental law is well drawn and the problem of identity theft is recognized as only a symptom of larger underlying systemic problems—including inadequate information system security— then a narrow, piecemeal regulatory strategy will be no substitute for an integrated, multi-faceted regulatory strategy. To provide a framework within which the provisions of SBNLs can be analyzed, Part II of this Article provides a general overview of academic and political better regulation initiatives undertaken in recent decades. While the Clinton Administration\u27s emphasis on reinventing government was displaced by the Bush Administration\u27s emphasis on deregulation in the United States, outside the United States interest in smart regulation strategies continued to grow during the 2000s and are likely to enjoy a new vogue under the Obama Administration. In Part III, California\u27s pioneering SBNL is analyzed in light of better regulation principles, which spotlights some obvious shortcomings of the legislation. The business, technological, and regulatory challenges posed by any effort to reduce the volume of security breaches are analyzed in Part IV. Given the enormity of those challenges, it should come as no surprise that a regulatory scheme as limited in scope as SBNLs is having only a modest impact on the information security policies of database owners. Because information security problems are complex and multi-faceted, they may defy any attempt to resolve them with simple solutions. If achieving a significant reduction in the volume of data breaches is taken seriously as a policy goal, then there may be no alternative but to face the challenges of developing and enacting not just better SBNLs, but a better general information security regime

An analysis of the impact of IT software architecture on business transformation strategy.

This thesis is submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Commerce in the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.Managers are increasingly aware that they need to leverage their company's resources in order to deal with the challenges of the changing business world in the 90' s and the coming millennium. The aim of this research is to evaluate how organisations are utilising enterprise wide packaged software applications in order to achieve strategic and transformational benefits for their organisations. The relentless change in the business landscape has meant that organisations have needed to respond in increasingly innovative ways to stay in business. This has been more so for South African organisations which have now been accepted back into the world community after years of isolation due the country's political policy of apartheid. The watershed years of the early 1990's opened up once forbidden markets to South African organisations and in doing so launched these organisations into a global competitive environment. To compete effectively in these newly opened and changed markets, companies have sought to reposition themselves. Since information technology is clearly embedded in many of these organisations they are increasingly turning to infonnetion technology to underpin their new businesses strategies. The relevance of the information architecture an organisation chooses will also be explored in this research, as the flexibility and structure of the architecture will determine what strategic options are available to the company. Many organisations are implementing software packages as opposed to writing their own software to fit unique processes. This trend is strengthened by advancements on the technological front, the disappointment of cost overruns with previously in-house written applications, and the critical shortage of experienced IT (information technology) skills ill the country. Business can no longer wait years for a system to be developed. The implementation of enterprise wide packaged software applications facilitates integration and process transformation which many organisations see as fundamental to their new strategies to remain competitive. This research showed that the implementation of enterprise wide packaged software applications forces change on an organisation in that a number of domains within the organisation are challenged. Processes need revisiting, human resources undergo a change and teamwork is facilitated. There is a new sharing of knowledge and information within the organisation, and such information systems are deployed rapidly and with the business objectives firmly in place. Whilst there were strategic and transformational benefits, there were also a number of unexpected benefits. The changes brought about by such implementations were largely underestimated by managers within these organisations.Andrew Chakane 201

Risk kavramının toplumsal yansıması : sosyal güvenlik ve sosyal yardımlaşma

06.03.2018 tarihli ve 30352 sayılı Resmi Gazetede yayımlanan “Yükseköğretim Kanunu İle Bazı Kanun Ve Kanun Hükmünde Kararnamelerde Değişiklik Yapılması Hakkında Kanun” ile 18.06.2018 tarihli “Lisansüstü Tezlerin Elektronik Ortamda Toplanması, Düzenlenmesi ve Erişime Açılmasına İlişkin Yönerge” gereğince tam metin erişime açılmıştır.Risk kavramı tarihi süreç içerisinde farklı toplumlarda farklı anlamlarda kullanılmıştır. Risk kavramı günümüzde ağırlıklı olarak ?belirsizlik?, ?güven? ve ?tehlike? kavramlarının keşişim noktasında duruyor. Modernliğin temel nosyonu olan risk kavramı, belirgin olarak 1970?li yıllardan sonra akademik çevrelerde, ekonomi, sigorta, sosyal psikoloji, çalışma ekonomisi, tıp, finans, hukuk, iş yaşamı, ekoloji, sosyoloji v.b. alanlarında ölçülmesi ve tahmin edilmesi gereken bir kavram olarak yaygınlık kazanmıştır. Bütün bu alanlarda risk kavramı birey, şirket ve devletlerin güncel eylemlerine yön vermektedir. Gelecekte de bu yön vermenin bütünüyle katlanarak artacağının işaretleri belirmeye başlamıştır. Bu anlamda risk kavramını sosyo- kültürel zeminde ele alanlar risk toplumu kuramını ortay atmışlardır. Risk toplumu bağlamında yerel ve küresel ölçekte farklı riskler ortaya çıkmıştır. Küreselleşmenin etkisiyle ortaya çıkan riskler eninde sonunda sosyal hayatı etkilemektedir. Bu araştırmada ?risk toplumu? kuramı çerçevesinde var olan ve üretilen risklerin sosyolojik boyutuyla derinlemesine incelenerek, sosyal güvenlik ve sosyal yardımlaşma bağlamında nasıl azaltılacağı konusu bu çalışmanın ana temasıdır.Sosyal risklerin, küreselleşmenin etkisiyle çeşitlenerek ve yoğunlaşarak artması, sigortalanamaz özelliği, sınıf ve nesiller boyu aktarılması küresel eşitsizliği büyütmüştür. Küresel eşitsizlik sonucunda dünyada sosyal risklerin merkezine giderek yoksulluk yerleşmektedir. Bu bağlamda birçok ülkede sosyal yardım ve sosyal hizmet, yoksulluk politikaları çerçevesinde şekillenmektedir. Modern devletin sosyal hayata aşırı müdahalesi, geleceğe dönük ailesizlik, artan ihtiyaç ve küreselleşmenin büyüttüğü riskler, bireyselleşmenin çığ gibi büyümesi hem bireysel sorumluluğun gelişmesini önledi hem de sosyal güvenlik ve sosyal yardımlaşma ekseninde toplumsal kurumları zayıflattı. Günümüzde dünyanın birçok yerinde sosyal risklerin ve belirsizliğin azaltılmasında devletin tek başına yeterli olmayacağı anlaşılmıştır. Sosyal refahın sağlanmasında geleneksel, dini, gönüllü, özel kuruluşlar, işletmeler ve devletin bir araya gelerek ortak noktada bütüncül yaklaşım sergileyerek oluşan refah karması sosyal riskleri minimize edebilir. Anahtar Kelimeler : Risk Toplumu, Sosyal Risk, Sosyal Güvenlik, Sosyal Yardımlaşma Refah Devleti, Refah KarmasıThe term risk has been used for different meanings in different societies throughout the history. Today, the term risk is heavily at the intersection point of ?ambiguity?, ?security? and ?danger?. The term risk which is the main notion of modernity became widespread following the 1970?s in fields such as academic society, economy, insurance, social psychology, labour economics, medicine, working life, ecology, sociology as a term to be anticipated and to be measured. In all these fields the term risk guides the current actions of individuals, companies and governments. It has become clear that this guidance will increase gradually in the future. In this sense, those who handle with the term of risk on socio-cultural ground have suggested the thoery of risk society.In sense of risk society different risks have emerged domestically and globally. The risks emerging from globalization affect social life at last. In this study it has been investigated that how the current and produced risks in sense of ?risk society? will be decreased in terms of social security and social aid by deeply examining them sociologically. The increase of social risks with the effect of globalization, their uninsurable feature, and their transformation throughout the class and generations have grown the global inequality. As a result of global inequality, poverty is becoming at the centre of social risks day by day. In this sense, in many countries social aid and social service are getting shape according to poverty policies. The extreme interference of modern government to socail life, not having a family in future, increasing needs and risks grown by globalization, growing individualism have both prevented the improvement of individual responsility and weakened the social organizations in sense of social security and social aid. Today, in many parts of the world it has been understood that the government itself is not edaquate to decrease the social risks and ambiguity. To set the social welfare religious, volunteer, private organizations, companies and government should come together and they should act cooperatively to minize the social risks. Keywords: Risk Society, Social Risk, : Social Security, Social Aid, Welfare State, Welfare Mi

An "impressionist" ethnography of risk in the development of corporate information infrastructure.

In recent years, a significant body of literature has emerged on the subject of information infrastructure (II) within the IS field. Nevertheless, issues of risk in the development of II have seldom been addressed. This dissertation addresses this important gap by drawing on recent contributions to sociological theories of risk to study the relationship between risk, culture and the occurrence of danger in the development of IT as corporate information infrastructure (CII). The thesis is established on findings from an ethnographic study of risk in the development of II with a multinational banking corporation. This thesis makes several key contributions to the field of IS, firstly to the understanding of risk in the development of II. Secondly, to theory development in IS risk research through the novel integration of sociological theories of risk into a theoretical model for the analysis of risk, culture, and danger in the development of ICT. A further contribution to IS research is achieved through the adoption of the impressionist autoethnographic approach, as a novel means of narrative construction within IS research