Cumulating Conditions. An Empirical Analysis of the EIS Adoption by European Firms

In this paper we aim to empirically test the relative influence of internal and external conditions for the adoption of Enterprise Information Systems (EIS). For this goal data are used from the EU-initiated E-Business W@tch survey 2002/2003 among more than 10,000 organizations from seven different European countries. It appears that organizational size, sector and country all have significant and cumulative effects on the EIS adoption by organizations. More specifically, national culture matters if we control for size and sector

Sourcing IT Skills in Organizations: A Comparison Among European Countries

Organizations deal with the matter of sourcing and governing their IT skills. This paper provides insights how this is done by firms in different European countries. It addresses the insourcing/outsourcing of IT skills trade-off, and explores the effects of country characteristics. Analyses are based on 1,464 companies extracted from the E-business W@tch dataset, covering two distinct industries in eight European Countries around the year 2003. It appears that European organizations, then, marginally recruited IT personnel on the external labour market (insourcing). Instead, outsourcing and allocating IT training were more popular as a sourcing policy. Also, it appeared that different policies to attain IT skills do not coincide. Sourcing policies significantly vary between countries, taken industry and size effects into account. Suggestions for interpreting these variations between companies and countries are put forward

Cultural Differences in Implementing Business Process Management Systems

In this paper we present the results of an international comparative research conducted through a special web survey, i.e. an online ‘game’ to rate and classify Critical Success Factors (CFSs) for BPMS implementations. The survey was completed by 39 respondents from 11 different countries. Central to the research was the question how BPM-systems success factors are perceived by professionals from different countries (i.e. cultural backgrounds) and how this is related to other characteristics such as their level of experience within the BPM domain. The respondents judged a total of 55 factors in two ways: (1) by allocating them to one of the five domains of BPMS implementation, and (2) by ranking their importance for BPMS implementations. Significant differences were found between respondents from Northern European versus Anglo-American countries, and between respondents with different levels of experience with BPMS implementations

Underemployment in the Netherlands:how the Dutch 'poldermodel' failed to close the education-jobs gap

Although the populations of the richest advanced industrial societies have achieved unprecedented levels of formal credentials, analysts report on the massive scale of underutilisation of knowledge and skills in current market economies. This paper describes the underemployment situation in the Netherlands (1977-1995). We show by different methods that the ‘education-jobs gap’ has increasingly widened. Although the statistical association between employees' level of education and their jobs remained stable over time, employees' return to credentials has diminished for every educational category. Within the total labour population, an increasing share of employees can be considered underemployed and suffering from credential inflation. At the lower levels of education men have suffered from underemployment and credential inflation more than women. At the higher levels of education it is the reverse. It also appears that young people deal with a ‘waiting room effect’: they enter the labour market at relatively low skill levels, given their educational level and gender. A further breakdown of the return on credentials by educational specialisation shows that employees with an educational background in health care or technical studies have suffered relatively more from credential inflation than those in commercial education. We conclude by stating that in spite of much rhetoric about the skill deficiencies of the current workforce, the lack of decent jobs has caused basic allocation problems in the Dutch labour market. From a human resources perspective the growing wastage of employees’ potential should not be underestimated or dismissed. We argue that an effective allocation of knowledge and skills to occupations will be the basic tenet of new forms of work organisation

A European study of e-business maturity and ICT-benefits: Is there a conditional relationship?

The present study explores the relationship between the e-business maturity and the perceived benefits from (Information and Communication Technologies) ICT at the firm level. We aim to debunk this relationship in terms of its strength and stability, and to explore the conditions which may influence it. Taking an economic approach, we hypothesise that the relation between e-business maturity and perceived benefits from ICT adoption will be influenced the costs of intra-organisational adaptations due to ICT. Using data from an European survey on ICT adoption and e-business maturity of the firms (N=7,072) we show that the correlation between the e-business maturity and the perceived benefits from ICT adoption is indeed positive, significant and stable over countries, industries, firm size and age. Further, the findings confirm the hypothesis that intra-organisational adaptations due to ICT moderate the positive correlation between a firms’ e-business maturity and perceived benefits from ICT

Do users go with the new workflow? from user participation to quality of work during wfm deployment

What determines the involvement of users to ‘go with the new workflow’ in the case of workflow management (WFM) deployment, and how is this related to their perceived quality of work? This key question is addressed in this paper. Customized for our empirical case context – a large Dutch social insurance organization that recently deployed a WFM system – we developed a conceptual model based on the models and concepts of DeLone & McLean, Hartwick & Barki, and Kappelman & McLean. Our model subsequently relates user participation, user satisfaction and quality of work, shortly after WFM deployment. The expected relations are tested by survey data collected from 143 end-users. Results of correlation and regression analysis show that (1) the degree of influence is a key determinant for the perceived quality of the system, (2) perceived system quality is a main driver for user satisfaction, and (3) user satisfaction is a main determinant of the users’ perceived quality of work (aut. ref.