An empirical investigation of information technology adoption behaviour in banks in Bahrain

This thesis is an empirical investigation of information technology (IT) adoption behaviour within the banking industry in a developing country, which is Bahrain. It aims to provide an understanding of IT strategy formation processes, the drivers of the adoption behaviour, the influence of vendors and others on the adoption process, the characteristics of these banks' cultures and their effects on the banks' adoption approach, and the banks' approach to collective IT projects. The nature of the research questions mentioned above suggests the necessity of qualitative research. There are eleven case studies presented in the thesis based on semi structured and unstructured interviews with representatives of top management and IT units within the banks. Other informants from other non-banking organisations were interviewed as well, to further clarify some of the topics raised by these banks. The IT strategy formation process within the banks went into different phases. During the early phases they were more ad hoc in nature. In later phases new patterns emerged amongst the banks. The incursion of the strategic discourse within these banks and subsequently their adoption behaviour were influenced by the changes that occurred within the banks' external and internal environments. Three forms of strategy formation patterns were identified. The first was amongst two of the small local banks. The strategies were informal, ad hoc in nature, and driven by a 'one man show'. The political influence of the sole product champions was essential for the adoption of the strategy and IT within these banks. The second form of strategy formation pattern was identified with three local banks: two big banks, followed thereafter by one small bank. The strategy formation was formal, influenced by the consultants who set the path to formalise the process, and the process took place within systems steering committees which included the top management and representatives from the support units. By virtue of their power and authority, the views of the top management dominated within the systems steering committees; however, input from the IT units was essential as the top management lacked the knowledge to take informed decisions without them. The board of directors was involved in the process of approving the IT strategies. We have termed this process "formal-rational", although in some cases it was not remote from the micro-political struggle. The third form of strategy formation process was identified with branches of foreign banks. These banks' strategies were 'imposed strategies' from their groups outside Bahrain, were global in nature, had a 'trickle-down' effect, and were less responsive to local changes and needs in Bahrain. (Abstract shortened by ProQuest.)

Driving and sustaining culture change in professional sport performance teams: A grounded theory

Objectives As part of the recent upsurge of work on management and organizational factors in elite sports teams, researchers have focused on the team management-led creation and regulation of high performing cultures. The purpose of this study was to therefore add to a recently developed model of culture change best practice in Olympic sports teams, as led and perceived by incoming performance directors, and conceptualize culture change best practice in professional sports teams, as led and perceived by incoming team managers. Design and method A pragmatic research philosophy and corresponding grounded theory methodology were used to generate a practically-meaningful model of this culture change process from the perspective of UK-based professional team managers. Results Perceived best practice in team manager-led culture change was found to involve a finite phase of initial evaluation, planning, and impact adjoined to the enduring management of a holistic, integrated, and dynamic social system. With the former process acting as the catalyst for successful change, this model revealed that optimal change was felt to primarily rely on the constant acquisition, negotiation, and alignment of internal and external stakeholder perceptions. Conclusions Based on the model's principles, the optimization of professional team culture is defined by a manager's initial actions and never definitively achieved but rather constantly constructed and re-constructed in complex social and power dynamics. Beyond providing a conceptual backdrop for continued research in this area, the model is also a tool on which the practice of professional team managers and their supporting sport psychologists can be based

An action research approach to develop a framework for the development of dot-com ventures for SMEs

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel UniversityInternet adoption and e-business has been of particular interest amongst researchers and practitioners, however, most of the studies focus on large organisations and only recently there has been a shift of interest to e-commerce/business adoption by Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) with little or no reference to dot-com initiatives. It is well documented that SMEs have significant and different challenges in comparison to large organisations in the brick and mortar domain. Therefore, investments in the e-business domain (such as dot-com start-ups) present even more challenges to SMEs. Consequently, this research offers an in-depth study of the start-up process of a dot-com company by examining the stages, phases, and components that are key for this process. The empirical contexts of this research are three projects with three different SMEs that have actively participated in the creation of a new dot-com venture. These were analysed using an action research approach with interpretative and qualitative analysis. The main component of the action research approach covers a longitudinal study (2 years) divided in four cycles, followed by two case studies used for the evaluation of the findings of this research. These results of all research cycles, which in turn, can be considered the contributions to theory and practice of this research, can be seen in two ways: the development of a start-up framework for SMEs, and a Business Information Database (BID) that supports the implementation of the framework. The framework is designed to visualise, from a strategic perspective, the stages that an organisation have to go through in order to initiate a new dot-com venture. Is proved that organisations have, directly or indirectly, followed specific steps related to the phases described in the framework. Hence new entrepreneurs can use the phases of the framework to facilitate and ease their start-up process looking at the main features of each phase. The BID was constructed under two premises: a) to structure the main documents and corresponding building blocks used in industry and in the proposed framework, such as the Strategic Plan, Business Model, Business Plan, and Business Case, and b) to identify the relationships among the building blocks of all the aforementioned documents. The BID and related documents can be used to identify how a particular piece of information (e.g. building block) affects other aspects of the dot-com initiative. The BID can be also be used as an independent artefact to assist organisations through the structure of the business documents in the start-up process, even if the organisation is not following a specific framework. Hence the BID itself can assist entrepreneurs to start-up firm without the need to have an overarching framework. Last but not least, practical recommendations are offered to practitioners and stakeholders interested in developing new ventures within the dot-com domain

Investigating project management practice in Nigerian government construction organisations: a systems thinking approach.

The differences between management in government organisations and private ones are well recognised in the literature, and these variances reflect in how project management is practiced in both organisations. Consequently, the difficulties of developing Project Management in government organisations have been acknowledged. Specifically, in African developing countries where socio-economic and political nuisance prevails, these difficulties are far from being resolved. Although a number of challenges confronting management of government projects in developing countries have been identified in the literature, no significant solution or initiative has been implemented by way of resolving the problem. In Nigeria, public sector projects are activities or projects administered by government in order to provide amenities to the general public. The Nigerian government has positioned itself to advance the nation's economy, by increasing the country's GDP through the execution of adequate and enduring building construction projects. A key component of this positioning is the intervention Vision 20:20, with one of its objectives being to provide housing facilities that will meet the demands of the increasing population and urbanization. Vision 20:20 introduced the project management concept to government organisations so as to improve management capabilities, with the purpose of enabling the public sector to efficiently manage projects and realise developmental objectives. However, the inadequate management and administration of government projects in Nigeria have resulted in a pool of abandoned, poorly developed and failed projects. From a review of previous studies, it was observed that various components have been identified as hindrances to the development of project management practice in African developing countries. However, the reductionist approach applied in these investigations means that components were defined in terms of a singular aspect in relation to the organisation. Such a singular focus on the challenges of developing project management practice has not been sufficient to guarantee a properly developed project management system in these contexts. Consequently, systems thinking theory is used as the basis for this study, in order to explore and explain the causal relationship of components impacting on project management practice in construction government organisations. A critical realism methodology is the philosophical approach adopted for this research, which is underpinned by the use of qualitative methods to explore existing mechanisms. Semi-structured interviews were the primary source of data, while secondary methods (literature review) served a crucial role in verifying the findings from the interview data. The study uncovered the significance of structure and agency on project management practice development in Nigerian government construction organisations. It reveals how the external environment, governance, middle management and project execution systems interact to influence project management practice. Another significant finding is the autopoietic nature of the middle management system, which demonstrates the capability of organising, reproducing and maintaining itself. Identification of this feature indicates that the middle managers in Nigerian government construction organisations have a relatively important role to play in influencing the development of project management practice. The developed framework highlights the relevance of the different systems towards the development of project management practice in Nigerian government construction organisations. It reveals that the project execution system is impacted by several elements within the external environment, middle management system and the governance system; the middle management system is influenced only by elements within the governance system; the governance system is influenced only by elements within the external environment, and the external environment is influenced by elements within the governance and project execution systems

Theorizing about Standardization: Integrating Fragments of Process Theory in Light of Telecommunication Standardization Wars

Standards play an important role within information and communication technology as it becomes networked and complex. No single model has yet been developed to address how successful standards emerge. We propose a dynamic process model of standardization that integrates separate lines of inquiry to standardization activities including Simon\u27s theory of artifact design (D), Weick\u27s concept of sense-making (S) and Latour\u27s concept of negotiation in socio-technical networks (N), and organizes them into a hierarchically organized web of standardization events. We investigate three standardization processes in the telecommunication industry with the D-S-N model to explain the progression of these standardization processes

How Strategy and Governance Choices Influence Innovation Success in Software Products and Services

This research studies the effect of key strategy and governance choices on chances of success of innovation in software products, and we test our hypotheses based on data from more than 150 professionals in the United States who are responsible for new software product development. We find the right balance of onshore and offshore team members to be more salient in influencing innovation success than decisions related to insourced versus outsourced development. Our findings suggest a greater likelihood of innovation when business executives make technical decisions, particularly if firms compete by selling high price margin software products or services

Strategy-focused architecture investment decisions

The thesis considers how a systematic approach for evaluating architecture investments can lead to decisions that are driven by business preferences rather than by personal incentives. A decision to invest in software-architecture requires systematic evaluation of the trade-off between strategic long-term benefits of architecture on the business and short term investment. It typically is a decision that is difficult to explain and quantify. In this sense, it is not surprising that such a decision is often driven by personal incentives or strong leadership of deciders, architects and managers, leading to suboptimal decision-making process in the organization. This PhD thesis proposes a way in which to support the decision to invest in architecture by linking the architecture improvements to the business strategy and taking into consideration the human aspects. We follow the iterative study design process including several real-life case studies, multiple interviews, and an experiment. In the first case study, we investigate how practitioners make a decision on architecture investment with a focus on how the decision process can be improved in industrial practice. To support the decision process in an objective way, we propose to use arguments based on real options theory. The evaluation by practitioners disclosed that including such economics of architecture is necessary but not sufficient for decision making. To better understand the information needs for decision making we conducted field interviews on the kinds of information that architects and managers need. In a subsequent experiment we tested whether which kind of information is actually used in decision making. As expected, the professionals tend to use just a few information types for decision making. However, our results suggest that additional quantified information was used by participants with longer development experience and under time pressure. Based upon the experimental findings we propose a concept to quantify the customer value of architecture. Despite the positive evaluation, the practitioners asked for further improvements to translate the architecture changes directly to the economic value. Ultimately, based on the findings from the preceding studies we propose a comprehensive approach to support objective architecture decision making; we label it Strategy-focused Architecture (StArch). Adopting strategic management tools, strategy map and balanced scorecards, we provide step-by-step guidance to assess the economic benefits of architecture improvements aligned with the strategic business objectives

Managing complexity through integrative tactical planning in engineer-to-order environments: insights from four case studies

Fulfilling customer orders in engineer-to-order (ETO) settings entails customization and, thus, greater complexity: detail and uncertainty. Tactical planning aims at demand–supply (DS) balancing by ensuring cross-functional integration (CFI), which incorporates coordination as one dimension. This study uses a case study approach to identify the key coordination mechanisms applied in the customer order fulfilment processes (COFPs) to mitigate the negative impact of complexity on DS balancing in four ETO-oriented settings. Within-case analyses identify the applied mechanisms, and a cross-case analysis elaborates on how they influence the detail and uncertainty in decision-making and problem-solving activities. Findings suggest a positive effect of formalized activity sequences, balanced team compositions, effective task designs and supportive information systems (ISs); and a positive (but contingent) effect of the other mechanisms. Future research may address other CFI dimensions (collaboration), statistically test the findings, or qualitatively deepen the understanding of the forms and impacts of individual mechanisms

Key account manager's internal selling role : an exploration of interpersonal conflict

Acting in a boundary spanning role within their organisations, the key account manager in representing their customers’ needs internally is required to manage a wide range of complex internal relationships. This can often lead to incidents of conflict between the key account manager and other individuals or groups of individuals within the organisation in non-sales functions. Using the Critical Incident Technique (CIT), (Flanagan, 1954) together with an interpretive framework for data coding (Spiggle, 1994), this research investigates conflict and the key account manager’s internal selling role. This research also explores how the key account manager perceives intraorganisational, interpersonal conflicts and investigates the complex behavioural sequences adopted to manage them. In doing so this research addresses some of the shortcomings of the traditional view of the nature of organisational conflict and how it is managed while extending our understanding of the key account manager’s internal selling role. In contrast to the majority of research into personal selling, this research takes an interpretive approach through the analysis of transcripts from a series of CIT interviews with key account managers in the field. Twenty-nine key account managers from seven participating FMCG, Blue Chip organisations in the U.K. and U.S. participated in the research. From the CIT interviews conducted, 112 critical incidents were described with both positive and negative outcomes. This research provides further insight into the complexity of conflict, suggesting conflict is inherent within the key account management internal selling role, that incidents of conflict do not occur in isolation, that these conflict episodes are complex, having multiple components and that a combination of behaviours can be used in their management. In addressing these issues in the key account management context, this research further develops our knowledge of personal selling and the key account manager’s internal selling role by providing an analysis of the recollections of how conflict is perceived and managed by the key account managers involved

Intranet adoption in Irish organisations: a survey analysis

This paper outlines the findings of an eploratory postal survey, investigating the adoption of Intranets within Irish organisations. We initially explore background literature covering the issues of definitions, applications, advantages, predicted impact on organisations ,information nature and new potential roles of infomation providers. It is clear from this literature that there is a lack of empirically backed evidence of Intranet adoption. This study therefore attempts to address this imbalance and is centred on selective findings of a postal survey, which investigated the use of Intranets in the top 1000 Irish organisations. The main questions addressed by this survey incluted How prevalent are Intranets in Organisations ? What way are they being used ? and what is the profile of organisations that claimed to acquire most benefit ?