Successful Knowledge Management Implementation in Global Software Companies

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop and evaluate a concise framework to examine how global software companies with successful knowledge management (KM) programs create KM-enabled value. Design/methodology/approach: The framework was evaluated at three global software companies with successful KM programs. Data were generated based on 20 interviews with various individuals involved with the KM programs of three companies. Interviews were content analyzed by four coders who sorted the data into meaningful categories. Inter-coder agreement was significant. Findings: The paper provides evidence of various strategic, technological, and cultural issues influencing the success of KM programs in global software firms. Firms with successful KM programs typically develop three specific capabilities to address these issues. These capabilities, namely, Articulating the KM Strategic Intent, Facilitating the Knowledge Flows to Enable Innovation, and Assessing KM Value, when developed simultaneously, help firms create KM-enabled value. Research limitations/implications: Interviews were limited to three companies in the software industry. Future interpretivist studies would benefit from a larger and more diverse sample. Practical implications: It is suggested that software firms develop specific capabilities to create KM-enabled value. To provide clear benchmarks for developing these capabilities, a “KM implementation worksheet” is provided. Originality/value: KM-enabled value creation is discussed from a unique perspective developed by integrating literature on knowledge-based view and knowledge management. The paper conducts initial evaluation of the new perspective and provides a roadmap for future research endeavors. Also provided is practical help in the form of a worksheet for practitioners

“You Feel The Threat From Asia”. Onshore Experiences of IT Offshoring To India

This article investigates the experiences of employees and managers in Swedish companies that offshore IT services to India, focusing on how implementation of offshoring is changing the work organization and working conditions for software developers onsite. Our analysis highlights the fact that the working conditions have been significantly redesigned in several different ways because of offshoring, most obviously due to the need for knowledge transfer between the onshore and the offshore working sites. The study illustrates how employees and managers onsite utilized different strategies for knowledge transfer and how these strategies were more or less successful, sometimes due to resistance from employees. The article concludes that, although offshoring contributed to a separation of conception from execution in these companies, there were few signs of routinization of daily work tasks for onsite employees. Instead, it was the routinized and noncore tasks that were offshored while project management tasks were taken over by onsite staff, which meant that they ended up in a superior position vis-à-vis their Indian colleagues as new global hierarchies were created. Power relations at work, both within firms and between firms, are thus brought to light

SMEs COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE AND ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING IMPLEMENTATION: FINDING FROM CENTRAL JAVA

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is an integrated application software for widespread use in the organization. The aim of this study is to determine factors that affect the successful implementation of ERP in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Central Java in order to build competitive advantage. To test the hypothesis, this study utilized data from 107 SMEs in Central Java. The results revealed that variable Business Process Reengineering have the greatest influence toward the successful implementation in Small and Medium Enterprises. It is suggested that SMEs should gain knowledge and solidify its business process reengineering before implementing ERP

What role does corporate governance play in the intention to use cloud computing technology?

This paper aims to investigate the factors which promote the adoption of cloud-based technology. It strives for a better understanding of the impact of corporate governance on the adoption of this technology. This study concentrated on executives in companies where the use of cloud computing may give a competitive advantage. The main contribution of this work is to propose a model for the influence of corporate governance and other factors that determine the adoption of this technology. A questionnaire was prepared after taking into consideration the reviewed literature. The sample consisted of 164 technology companies from Southern Spain that already use the new economic models for digital solutions. The methodology used to analyze the structural model was the Structural Equation Model (SEM). The results of the survey showed the influence of Corporate Governance and the procedures and practices of the organization on the adoption of cloud computing and the associated business model. This study aims to point out the importance of corporate support and Knowledge Management for the correct and successful adoption of this technology and to show the effects on the new business model of billing for the use of available resources. View Full-Tex

Crossing the death valley to transfer environmental decision support systems to the water market

Environmental decision support systems (EDSSs) are attractive tools to cope with the complexity of environmental global challenges. Several thoughtful reviews have analyzed EDSSs to identify the key challenges and best practices for their development. One of the major criticisms is that a wide and generalized use of deployed EDSSs has not been observed. The paper briefly describes and compares four case studies of EDSSs applied to the water domain, where the key aspects involved in the initial conception and the use and transfer evolution that determine the final success or failure of these tools (i.e., market uptake) are identified. Those aspects that contribute to bridging the gap between the EDSS science and the EDSS market are highlighted in the manuscript. Experience suggests that the construction of a successful EDSS should focus significant efforts on crossing the death-valley toward a general use implementation by society (the market) rather than on development.The authors would like to thank the Catalan Water Agency (Agència Catalana de l’Aigua), Besòs River Basin Regional Administration (Consorci per la Defensa de la Conca del Riu Besòs), SISLtech, and Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation for providing funding (CTM2012-38314-C02-01 and CTM2015-66892-R). LEQUIA, KEMLG, and ICRA were recognized as consolidated research groups by the Catalan Government under the codes 2014-SGR-1168, 2013-SGR-1304 and 2014-SGR-291.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

A framework for the successful implementation of food traceability systems in China

Implementation of food traceability systems in China faces many challenges due to the scale, diversity and complexity of China’s food supply chains. This study aims to identify critical success factors specific to the implementation of traceability systems in China. Twenty-seven critical success factors were identified in the literature. Interviews with managers at four food enterprises in a pre-study helped identify success criteria and five additional critical success factors. These critical success factors were tested through a survey of managers in eighty-three food companies. This study identifies six dimensions for critical success factors: laws, regulations and standards; government support; consumer knowledge and support; effective management and communication; top management and vendor support; and information and system quality

A study of subsidiaries views of information systems strategic planning in multinational organisations

This research examines information systems strategic planning (ISSP) in multinationals from the perspective of the subsidiaries. The research was carried out through interviews with the IT and business managers in subsidiaries of nine large American, European, and Japanese multinationals. The evidence from this study reveals that, in the majority of these organisations, IS planning is either centralised or moving towards centralisation. The main focus of IS planning, in many of these organisations, is to control cost and achieve scale economies. As centralisation increases IT tends to control the planning process and, as a result, IS planning becomes more tactical than strategic and is dominated by IT infrastructure planning. Project implementation was the main criterion used to measure IS planning success. However, due to the dominant role of IT, the subsidiary business managers are often less satisfied with the IS planning approach compared with the subsidiary IT managers. The level of involvement of business managers and their satisfaction with ISSP was related to the degree of decentralisation of responsibility for IS planning

Critical Factors and Multisite Implementation of ERP: A Case Study in the UAE

Despite extensive studies in the ERP literature, little empirical understanding has been reached in relation to ERP implementation experiences in developing markets, particularly in the UAE context. Derived from the notions of critical successful factors and multisite implementation, two of widely researched areas in ERP studies, this paper thus seeks to provide practical insights about organizations’ ERP implementation experiences in the UAE setting. More specifically, it describes and contrasts critical factors and multisite implementation experiences in two case organizations situated in the UAE. These case organizations, one being categorized as a global company and the other local, provide interesting comparison of ERP implementation because of their complementary organizational structure and business strategies. In contrast to traditional ERP frameworks’ suggestions, these case organizations’ experiences reveal that contemporary ERP implementations might be more complex than previously expected since none of these case organizations’ ERP experiences follows suggestions made by frameworks based. Further discussion about how to better understand and examine maturing ERP technology in an increasingly globalized business environment such as the UAE is provided

Operational Infrastructure Enhancing the Supply Chain Management

The widespread implementation of supply chain management induced company to move beyond the national boarder and enticed the global competition in business. It has been proven that the supply chain management enhances the improvement in terms of cost reduction and other competitiveness. Applying supply chain management on overall organizations, companies generally considered themselves successful in managing their supply chains. However, while they have achieved the improvement in organizational performance, they have not reached the magnitude of improvements or the desired results ascribed to supply chain management [12,38,39]. Supply chain concerns and problems were first studied in the year 2002. The results showed that the most concerned items were Supply Chain Coherence such as lack of cooperation among supply chain members, Information Capability such as lack of sophisticated information system, and Geographical Proximity such as customer and supplier geographical distances. All of these concerns, related to some basic infrastructures of the company, the supply chain knowledge and operational skill before implementation [38,39,41], affected the effectiveness of supply chain practices and performances. In this research, we study the infrastructures that enhance the success of supply chain implementation, which influence the supply chain and organization performance. In this work, the author adopts 3 categories of infrastructure as the critical success factors of supply chain implementation. Man is defined as people\u27 s skills and education. Machines or tools are defined as supporting items for instance software and tools. Management refers to the supporting factors that drive the man or employee to work according to the strategies. The EQS is used to analyze the data collection. Total 114 data were completed and the result shows the significant related of operational infrastructures and success of supply chain managemen