Focusing on IS Skills for the Middle and Senior Level Manager: A New Approach to the MBA Core IS Course

The core information systems (IS) course in an MBA program (the foundations IS course required for all students) is typically one of the hardest to teach. The wide range of student skills and the differing opinions on the content make this course a perennial problem. Who is the target audience? What should be the focus of the course? What is the appropriate course content? What is the proper balance between technical and managerial topics? To help answer these questions this paper investigates the problematic issues surrounding the core IS course and the current pedagogical approaches. An examination of past studies on IS skills seems to suggest academia should consider redesigning the MBA level core IS course. The paper proposes a new IS managerial approach to the course that may better fit the needs of middle and senior managers. This approach differs from previous approaches by making the central focus of the course the skills/knowledge needed by management, particularly general management, for exploiting information technology. A detailed description of a course example following this proposed new approach is provided along with a discussion of the flexibility that this approach offers MBA level IS instructors in achieving various pedagogical objectives. The paper concludes with some limitations associated with the approach and how these limitations can be overcome

Theoretical and Pragmatic Framework For Outsourcing Of IT Services

Since previous research in the information technology (IT) field focused on successes and failures of IT outsourcing (ITO) by organizations, this paper investigates the critical success factors (CSF) for IT outsourcing in the existing global environment. It is intended to provide assistance for the consideration of business professionals and IT managers when they make, examine or evaluate ITO decisions. Fifty four IT outsourcing CSFs were identified through an extensive literature review research. Some of the factors were utilized more frequently than others, while some CSFs have been given more importance than other by IT researchers. A 2-part theoretical framework (conceptual and pragmatic) was developed to aid the process of ITO decision making by IT managers in the global environment. The theoretical framework was developed based on existing research focusing on information technology, information systems, ERP, and IT outsourcing research

Η εξωτερική ανάθεση (OUTSOURCING) της εργασίας και η σχέση του με τη διοίκηση ανθρωπίνων πόρων

Διπλωματική εργασία--Πανεπιστήμιο Μακεδονίας, Θεσσαλονίκη, 2018.Απόφοιτος Νομικής το 2015. Ξεκίνησα την πρακτική μου και πλέον εργάζομαι ως δικηγόρος. Κάπου ανάμεσα στις σπουδές και στη δικηγορική καθημερινότητα συνειδητοποίησα πως η πράξη κρύβει θεωρία και η νομική κρύβει διοίκηση και οικονομικά. Για το λόγο αυτό επέλεξα το μεταπτυχιακό στη Διοίκηση των επιχειρήσεων. Πλέον, βρίσκομαι στην ολοκλήρωση των μεταπτυχιακών μου σπουδών και το θέμα της παρούσας εργασίας αφορά το outsourcing. Το θέμα αυτό εμπλέκει και Διοίκηση Ανθρωπίνων Πόρων και Εργατικό δίκαιο. Θεωρώ πως το outsourcing της εργασίας, το να επιλέγει δηλαδή, μια επιχείρηση να αναθέτει σε μια άλλη εξωτερική εταιρεία τη στελέχωση με προσωπικό του τμήματος της ΔΑΠ είναι ένα φαινόμενο έντονο στους καιρούς μας. Πώς οι επιχειρήσεις θα γίνουν ανταγωνιστικές εάν εν μέσω οικονομικής κρίσης δεν κάνουν περικοπές ; Όταν οι περικοπές αυτές όμως αφορούν ζητήματα προσωπικού και εργασιακά θέματα θίγουν τόσο το ατομικό όσο και το συλλογικό εργατικό δίκαιο. Σκοπός της παρούσας διπλωματικής εργασίας είναι να ερευνηθούν οι αιτίες που οδηγούν τις επιχειρήσεις στην εξωτερική ανάθεση εταιρικών δραστηριότητων και ειδικότερα το θέμα της εξωτερικής ανάθεσης της εργασίας και πως μια τέτοια απόφαση επηρεάζει συνολικά το τμήμα της Διοίκησης Ανθρωπίνου Δυναμικού. Επομένως, οι έννοιες της εξωτερικής ανάθεσης, το νομικό καθεστώς που την διέπει, οι εργασιακές σχέσεις και το τι συμβαίνει στην Ελλάδα αλλά και σε διεθνές επίπεδο θα μας απασχολήσει σε ερευνητικό επίπεδο παρακάτω

Model perjanjian tahap perkhidmatan dalam penyumberan luar perkhidmatan pengurusan fasiliti di universiti awam Malaysia

Service Level Agreements (SLA) are contracts based on performance used in outsourcing facilities management as governance document. In contrast to previous research found SLA focused mostly on the field of information technology, this research focus on facility management to determine the service performance of the appointed contractor. The objectives of this research are to develop the fundamental elements of SLA, to evaluate the effect of these fundamental elements on service performance and lastly to establish the SLA model. Respondents in this study have been chosen among public university in Malaysia. Samples are taken from the university's property management office outsourcing contract to manage the university facility management. Questionnaires were sent to the officer who responsible for facility management outsourcing contract. Development of fundamental elements begin with the method of a systematic literature review and restructured by using Fuzzy Delphi to get expert consensus in building the fundamental elements of SLA. Four fundamental elements consist of the contract information, measurement of service performance, cost of the contract and lastly the terms and conditions of the agreement. In addition, there are ten service performance indicators comprises of customer satisfaction, cost effectiveness, action time period, response time period, reliability of service provided, environmental compliance, employee commitment, client relationship with service provider, health and safety of users and employees and the latter is the use of information technology. Data were analysed by employed Partial Least Square (PLS) Structural Equation Model (SEM) with software SmartPLS version 3.0. The result shows that SLA model developed two fundamental elements that have relationship with service performance namely measurement service performance and terms and conditions of agreement. This SLA model indicates that the measurement of service performance is very important to control and evaluate the performance of the services provided by the contractor. While the terms and conditions of the agreement is aimed to control a contractual governance that affects the performance of the service

A causal comparative factorial analysis of factors affecting service level agreements in a U.S. Navy enterprise information systems network

This paper presents the results of a research study related to the Navy and Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI). This study used MANOVA and one-way ANOVA, including post hoc tests, to analyze data sets corresponding to service level agreement metrics for over 300 Navy sites. Within the NMCI network, factors size, server farm, Network Operations Center (NOC), area, region, and group are affecting the performance metrics as defined in the service level agreements (SLA). Each one of the factors is statistically disparate for at least one SLA. Checks for normality indicate nonnormal behavior for most data sets. The results, conclusions, and recommendations have been provided to Navy service level managers to improve the system

Trust-Based Service Selection

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is an architectural style that builds enterprise solutions based on services. In SOA, the lack of trust between different parties affects the adoption of such architecture. Trust is as significant a factor for successful online interactions as it is in real life communities, and consequently, it is an important factor that is used as a criterion for service selection. In the context of online services and SOA, the literature shows that the field of trust is not mature. Trust definition and the consideration of the essentials of trust aspects do not reflect the true nature of trust online. This thesis proposes a trust-based service selection solution, which requires establishing trust for services and supporting service selection based on trust. This work considers building trust for service providers besides rating services, an area that is neglected in the literature. This work follows progressive steps to arrive at a solution. First, this work develops a trust definition and identifies trust principles, which cover different aspects of trust. Next, SOA is extended to build a trust-based SOA that supports trust-based service selection. In particular, a new component, the trust mediator, which is responsible for trust establishment is added to the architecture. Accordingly, a trust mediator framework is built according to the trust definition and principles to identify its main components. Subsequently, this work identifies the trust information, or metrics, for services and service providers. Accordingly, trust models are built to evaluate trust rates for the applicable metrics, services, and service providers. Moreover, this work addresses the trust bootstrapping challenge. The proposed trust bootstrapping approach addresses different challenges in the literature such as whitewashing and cold start. This approach is implemented through experiments, evaluations, and scenarios