The Dual Role of IS Specificity in Governing Software as a Service

This study addresses the theoretically neglected role of information system (IS) specificity for application governance, by referring to the allocation of application-related decision authority and task responsibility between business and IT units. Based on the premise of organizational and technical ‘embedding’ and employing a transaction cost theoretic (TCT) lens, we develop the idea that customization and greater functional specificity of an IS lead to both more business unit governance through higher human asset specificity and more IT unit governance through higher technical specificity. Survey data from 76 organizations using different types of Software as a Service provide support for these ideas. Our results unveil a new dualism for explaining IT governance phenomena on the application level. Furthermore, we demonstrate a relevant appropriation of the frequency construct from TCT to this context. Besides practical implications, we outline contributions to IT governance, transaction cost, and IT artifact theories in the IS field

The Legal Issues Surrounding Free and Open Source Software: Challenges and Solutions for the Government of Québec

The Government of Québec is slowly but surely turning its attention to the issue of free and open source software in response to the interest shown by Québec’s software industry and the attention paid to the phenomenon by governments around the world. This openness is easy to understand given an environment in which online service provision to citizens must be enhanced while minimizing expenditures on technology, curtailing service providers’ control over the administration, and promoting the development of the information society in Québec. Nonetheless, as we see in the news, adoption of this new attitude toward to software development is not always immune to legal challenges. Consequently, the manner in which Québec law interacts with free and open source software, as well as the associated risks, assume a particular significance. The analysis we present here reveals that the law, as it currently stands in Québec, appears adequate to effectively address the various legal issues inherent in the use of free and open source software. First of all, no legal rule seems to be incompatible with the validity of free and open source licences, despite that fact that few of them were designed with the Québec legal system in mind. Moreover, both federal copyright rules and Québec regulations affecting contractual liability allow the authors and users of free and open source software to effectively preserve the freedom of computer code, which is typically the purpose of free and open source licences. Nonetheless, it remains the case that some legal risks are associated with free and open source software. These risks may arise from the formalism requirements included in the Copyright Act, prior violations of intellectual property rights by third parties, or simply from the broader contractual protection afforded to licensors. Consequently, integrating free and open source software into the technology strategy of the Government of Québec requires setting up some initiatives to allow these risks to be mitigated as much as possible and to enable the management of those risks that cannot be completely eliminated.

A National Typology of Health Service Regulation in Assisted Living

Background and Objectives State regulating agencies use 350 different licenses and certifications to govern assisted living (AL), resulting in significant variation in regulations governing health services, the scope of practice, and capacity. This lack of standardization makes it difficult to compare and contrast AL operations and residents’ outcomes across similarly regulated communities. Research Design and Methods We used qualitative and quantitative methods to empirically develop and describe a typology of state AL regulations that captures inter and intra-state variation. Based on the rules governing health services, we created regulatory specificity scores for five thematic dimensions: medication administration, third-party care, skilled nursing, medication review, and licensed nurse staffing. With these scores, we conducted a K-means cluster analysis to identify groups of AL license types. To differentiate the regulatory types, we calculated standardized mean differences across structure, process, outcome, and resident characteristics of the AL communities licensed under each type. Results We identified six types of AL differentiated by the regulatory provisions governing health services: Housing, Holistic, Hybrid, Hospitality, Healthcare, and Health Support. The types align with previous work and reflect tangible differences in resident characteristics, health service structures, processes, and outcomes. Discussion and Implications This typology effectively captures differences across regulated dimensions and can inform and support quality of care. Researchers, policymakers, and consumers may benefit from using this typology and acknowledging these differences in AL licensure when designing research studies, developing policies, and selecting an AL community

Evolution of Supply Chain Collaboration: Implications for the Role of Knowledge

Increasingly, research across many disciplines has recognized the shortcomings of the traditional “integration prescription” for inter-organizational knowledge management. This research conducts several simulation experiments to study the effects of different rates of product change, different demand environments, and different economies of scale on the level of integration between firms at different levels in the supply chain. The underlying paradigm shifts from a static, steady state view to a dynamic, complex adaptive systems and knowledge-based view of supply chain networks. Several research propositions are presented that use the role of knowledge in the supply chain to provide predictive power for how supply chain collaborations or integration should evolve. Suggestions and implications are suggested for managerial and research purposes

Free Software’s Market-Oriented Aspects:The Example of Free Software Service Companies in France

Considering the french case of Free Software Service Companies (FSSCs), this paper analyses Free software’s market-oriented aspects. We try to answer a fundamental question for free software: is the software industry have room for an alternative economic model based on the communities’ ethic? Analysing FSSCs’ competition with traditionnal IT Service Companies (ITSCs) and regarding the integration of free software in the ITSCs’ product offer, we show how the software sector’s strutures could explain both FSSCs and ITSCs recent changes.Free software, Organisational production, Software industry

The Paradoxical Corporate and Securities Law Implications of Counsel Serving on the Client\u27s Board

This Article assumes that dual service will continue to be a practice, but not because it is the socially optimal result. Rather, dual service will continue to exist because it is, and has been, sufficiently pervasive to provide cause to believe no jarring change, such as proscription by the American Bar Association (ABA) or state bar organization, is even likely to occur. This Article provides a new perspective on the topic by examining the junction of a lawyer serving on his client’s board and well-accepted corporate and securities principles. While this inquiry should strike many as natural, the conclusions reached within this Article are paradoxical. As examined below, dual service has the effect of increasing the protection accorded the beneficiaries of the examined corporate and securities law principles. The paradox lies in the fact that the invitation to serve comes from a firm’s managers and the examined principles are those crafted with a special objective of protecting shareholders and investors, even the corporation, from misconduct by the managers. As demonostrated in this Article, dual service results in managers being subject to greater scrutiny and lawyers to a loss of some of the client’s business. Further, dual service even makes it possible for a competing lawyer to get his foot into the client’s door, a result that an attorney who agrees to serve on his client’s board certainly does not seek. Hence, why the invitation? And why the acceptance of the offer to serve on the client’s board

Protein detection using hydrogel-based molecularly imprinted polymers integrated with dual polarisation interferometry

A polyacrylamide-based molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) was prepared for bovine haemoglobin (BHb). A 3 mg/ml solution of BHb was injected over a dual polarisation interferometer (DPI) sensor to form a physisorbed layer typically of 3.5 ± 0.5 nm thickness. Onto the pre-adsorbed protein layer, MIP and NIP (non-imprinted polymer) were separately injected to monitor the interaction of BHb MIP or NIP particles under different loading conditions with the pre-adsorbed protein layer. In the case of NIP flowing of the protein layer, there was negligible surface stripping of the pre-adsorbed protein. When a protein-eluted sample of MIP particles was flowed over a pre-adsorbed protein layer on the sensor chip, the sensor detected significant decreases in both layer thickness and mass, suggestive that protein was being selectively bound to MIP after being stripped-off from the sensor surface. We also integrated thin-film MIPS for BHb and BSA onto the DPI sensor surface and were able to show that whereas BHb bound selectively and strongly to the BHb MIP thin film (resulting in a sustained increase in thickness and mass), the BHb protein only demonstrated transient and reversible binding on the BSA MIP. MIPs were also tested after biofouling with plasma or serum at various dilutions. We found that serum at 1/100 dilution allowed the MIP to still function selectively. This is the first demonstration of MIPs being integrated with DPI in the development of synthetic receptor-based optical protein sensors. © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Governing culture: legislators, interpreters and accountants

Cultural policy has become dominated by questions of how to account for the intangible value of government investments. This is as a result of longstanding developments within government’s approaches to policy making, most notably those influenced by practices of audit and accounting. This paper will outline these developments with reference to Peter Miller’s concept of calculative practices, and will argue two central points: first, that there are practical solutions to the problem of measuring the value of culture that connect central government discourses with the discourses of the cultural sector; and second, the paper will demonstrate how academic work has been central to this area of policy making. As a result of the centrality of accounting academics in cultural policy, for example in providing advice on the appropriate measurement tools and techniques, questions are raised about the role academia might take vis-à-vis public policy. Accounting professionals and academics not only provide technical expertise that informs state calculative practices, but also play a surveillance role through the audit and evaluation of government programmes, and act as interpreters in defining terms of performance measurement, success and failure. The paper therefore concludes by reflecting on recent work by Phillip Schlesinger to preserve academic integrity whilst allowing accounting scholars and academics influence and partnership in policy

Networks in the shadow of markets and hierarchies : calling the shots in the visual effects industry

The nature and organisation of creative industries and creative work has increasingly been at the centre of academic and policy debates in recent years. The differentiation of this field, economically and spatially, has been tied to more general arguments about the trend towards new trust-based, network forms of organization and economic coordination. In the first part of this paper, we set out, unpack and then critique the conceptual and empirical foundations of such claims. In the main section of the paper, we draw on research into a particular creative sector of the economy - the visual effects component of the film industry - a relatively new though increasingly important global production network. By focusing both on firms and their workers, and drawing on concepts derived from global value chain, labour process and institutional analysis, we aim to offer a more realistic and grounded analysis of creative work within creative industries. The analysis begins with an attempt to explain the power dynamics and patterns of competition and collaboration in inter-firm relations within the Hollywood studio-dominated value chain, before moving to a detailed examination of how the organisation of work and reemployment relations are central to the capturing of value. On the basis of that evidence, we conclude that trust-based networks and collaborative communities play some part in accessing and acquiring leverage in the value chain, but do not explain the core mechanisms of resource allocation, coordination and work organisation