Crowdsourcing Software Requirements and Development: A Mechanism-based Exploration of ‘Opensourcing’

Many commercial software firms rely on open source software (OSS) communities as a source of innovation and skilled labor. One specific form of interaction with OSS communities, termed ‘opensourcing’, involves firms collaborating with an OSS community by ‘crowdsourcing’ software production. However, beyond the existence of the phenomenon, little is known about how opensourcing, as a model of software production, works. The objective of this study is to explore opensourcing arrangements in a vertical software domain with a view to delineating enabling mechanisms that explain how firms can collaborate with communities to crowdsource the production of software. Using an in-depth case study of the production of hospital software in Thailand, this study explores how opensourcing is used to determine requirements, identify bugs, and provide user-to-user support in addition to the more traditional approach of crowdsourcing software code. The analysis reveals the operation of six high-level mechanisms (motivation, coordination, effective communication, filtering, integration, and nurturing) and reveals how they operate in conjunction with each other to facilitate opensourcing

ERP-ORE: A Framework to Measure Organizational Risk during ERP Systems Evolution in a Distribution Business

Enterprise Resource Planning systems evolution initiatives often represent the single largest investment (and therefore risk) for distribution corporations yet there exist few management frameworks in the literature to help decision makers measure risk during this organization-wide change process. We have customized our original ORE framework as a multi-criteria, relative risk, condition consequence management decision framework enabling executive decision makers in distribution businesses to calculate and compare risk evolution at fixed points of the ERP change cycle. The framework emphasizes the political and process dimensions of evolution and utilizes the Analytic Hierarchy Process to enable management to make structured and balanced risk mitigation decisions. This paper describes the development of ORE into ERP-ORE and illustrates the application of the framework through a case study description of a medical supplies distributor implementing an ERP system

Customer Relations Management in Information Systems Research

Customer Relations Management (CRM) involves attracting and keeping “Economically Valuable” customers while repelling and eliminating “Economically Invaluable” ones. CRM involves changing relationships and improving return-on-investment from customer relationships (ROI-CR.) We are experiencing a shift from a transaction-based economy to a relationship-based one (Keen 1999.) Two important business relationship types exist: those between enterprises and customers; and those between and among enterprises (Kalakota 1996.) This paper addresses the former. However, a there is a significant amount of research into traditional “Market Channels” (See (Bowersox 1990; Ganesan 1994; Syed Saad 1996; Cannon 1999; Geyskens 1999) for examples) as well as into eCommerce (EC) Market Channels (See (Kim 1999; Menon 1999; Son 1999)) Recent and upcoming scholarship and professional activities illustrate the importance the IS Research Community places on CRM. This paper presents a framework for IS CRM Research Topics, a discussion of IS CRM scholarly and professional research directions and activities

Analyzing interactions in a healthcare network: first step for the design of a flexible information system

Healthcare network is an emergent organization mode which we were able to observe via RPM (“Réseau Pôle Mémoire” in French, which means memory pole network), dedicated to the medicopsycho- social coverage of people suffering from memory confusions. We define this collective as a community of action and we describe its functioning in order to suggest computer features allowing to support cooperative work between the professionals engaged in this network. In this article, we first position our work towards other researches on computer-supported medical activities. Then, we present RPM and suggest an analysis framework. We expose our first results after one year of observation, and we finally suggest improvements of the design of the cooperative information system

Why are Women Underrepresented in IT? The Role of Implicit and Explicit Gender Identity

This study demonstrates that gender identity is an important factor affecting female university students’ decisions to major in IT and join the IT profession. It introduces the concept of implicit gender identity, defined as the degree to which people unconsciously, automatically, and uncontrollably associate themselves with their biological sex. Data were obtained from 185 students by means of a survey and the Implicit Association Test. The findings reveal that gender identity plays different roles between men and women in its influence on IT major and career choices. Implicit gender identity is a strong predictor of IT major and career choices for women but not for men. Explicit gender identity influences IT career choice only for women. Males’ and females’ IT major and career choices are influenced by normative pressures to the same degree. This study shows that gender identity can be a reason driving women away from the IT field

Distance Matters, Except When It Doesn\u27t: Discontinuities in Virtual Work

Virtual work has become an increasingly common phenomenon in today\u27s organizations. Substantial and continuing changes in organizational processes and IT infrastructure have increased the pace and intensity of working across traditionally impermeable boundaries, enabling diverse forms of collaboration. However, our understanding of the consequences and implications of virtual work still lags and research results have been contradictory. We suggest that some of these inconsistencies have been because the boundaries that characterize virtual work-time, space, culture, organization, and so forth-are objective demarcations that are not uniformly problematic. It is only when those working in virtual settings perceive a boundary to be a discontinuity that it hinders work processes. We develop a model of virtual work that differentiates between boundaries and discontinuities, which helps account for contradictory findings. By examining the process of virtual work in more detail, we can uncover issues that are the underlying cause of problems, rather than deal with the more obvious symptoms that can mask underlying problem. Our model has implications both for research and for those working in virtual environments

Towards a Rosetta Stone for translating data between information systems

Information systems are an important organizational asset and offer numerous benefits. However, organizations face continued challenges when upgrading ageing information systems, and the data contained within, to newer platforms. This article explores, through conversations with information systems professionals in four organizations, the potential development of a ‘Rosetta Stone’, which can translate data between systems and be used to help overcome various challenges associated with their modernization. Despitemixed feedback regarding theRosetta Stone concept from interviewees, solutions highlighted in literature combinedwith participant feedback presented theories for its development, primarily as a tool to enable meaningful interpretation of data, rather than direct translation. The conclusion reflects on data collected to recommend a framework for how the tool might be developed and has the potential to be of significant interest to practitioners, open-source communities and organizations

Career orientations and turnover intentions of information systems professionals in South Africa

Bibliography: leaves 93-103.Managing Information Systems (IS) personnel has frequently been cited as a major challenge for organisations, particularly with respect to reducing and controlling the high rate of turnover that IS personnel have historically displayed. In the past, with demand for qualified IS personnel outstripping supply, alternative job openings were plentiful and organisations found it difficult to attract and retain sufficient staff. However, the last few years have seen significant cutbacks in IS spending, resulting in declining growth rates and a reduced demand for IS personnel. Although the South African IS job market does not appear to be as severely affected as in other parts of the world, and there are still pockets of high demand worldwide, it seems unlikely that the IS industry will return to its former glory in the foreseeable future. Despite these stringent market conditions, organisations continue to be plagued with high, and even more surprisingly, increasing turnover rates. This trend is particularly perturbing for organisations that are highly dependent on IS because of its negative implications. Employee turnover is costly and disrupting, often leading to delays in project completion, there is a loss of valuable expertise and productivity of the IS department is reduced. Although, this research project only considered IS personnel turnover at the individual level, there are many other factors related to the work and external environments that are believed to affect IS personnel turnover in South Africa. However, these factors which include organisational structure, perceived job market and government policy, are very difficult to measure and are often beyond the control of organisations endeavouring to reduce and control turnover; and as such were not explicitly studied

The Development of a User Self-Help Knowledge Management System for Help Desk: Deployment of Knowledge Management Approach and Software Agent Technology

Most help desks have admitted their call volume has increased in the past decade while “help unavailable when needed” is the major reason for service delivery failure and user dissatisfaction. The habit of calling help desk for simple problems has prompted the investigation of transferring part of first-level troubleshooting duty from help desk to user. This research proposes the development of user self-help knowledge management system that allows user to solve simple and routine technical enquiries. The proposed approach incorporates software agent to allow autonomous handling of enquiries so that the most appropriate solution and user communication can be facilitated

Characterising Information Systems in Australia: a theoretical framework

The study reported in this volume aims to investigate the state of the Information Systems academic discipline in Australia from a historical and current perspective, collecting evidence across a range of dimensions. To maximise the strategic potential of the study, the results need to be capable of integration, so that the relationships within and across the dimensions and geographical units are understood. A meaningful theoretical framework will help relate the results of the different dimensions of the study to characterise the discipline in the region, and assist in empowering the Australian IS research community. This paper reviewed literature on the development of disciplines, before deriving a theoretical framework for the broader study reported in this volume. The framework considered the current and past state of IS in Australian universities from the perspective of the development of a discipline. The components of the framework were derived and validated through a thematic analysis of both the IS and non-IS literature. This paper also presents brief vignettes of the development of two other related disciplines. The framework developed in this paper, which has been partly guided by Whitley's Theory of Scientific Change, has been used to analyse data collated from the Australian states and the Australian Capital Territory. The degree of variation in Australian IS as an indication of its professionalisation, the nature of its body of knowledge and its mechanisms of control, will be used to frame the analysis. Research reported in several of the papers that follow in this volume has drawn upon the theoretical framework presented below