Enterprise Information Systems Integration and Business Process Improvement Initiative: An Empirical Study

Since the mid-and late 80\u27s, business process improvement (BPI) has become one of the leading methodologies to deliver corporations with high quality products and services. Businesses are seeking not simply to automate existing operations, but to improve and redesign business processes and capture customers\u27 expectations for products, and service delivery. Extensive communication and inter-connectivity arising from adoption of standards and integrated services digital networks (ISDN) has become a major force affectingbusinesses in fundamental ways (Madnick, 1990; Boar, 1993). The second avenue through which businesses are identifying new opportunities is the availability of databases (Madnick, 1990). By linking inter-organizational, inter-functional, and inter-personal levels of the processes through IS networks, businesses are not only automating their activities, they are also reshaping and improving their business processes (Hammer and Champy, 1993). By accessing enterprise-wise information from databases, IS integration is providing numerous opportunities to coordinate organizational activities by facilitating communication and information exchange across departments without the need to go up and down the vertical chain of command. The use of information networks to access relevant information from databases has been of enormous importance to eliminate duplicate activities, prevent errors from occurring, cycle time reduction in product development, and customer responsiveness (Davenport, 1993). The need of a well planned database management system is one of the important requirements for BPI. In most organizations, data architecture has evolved as a result of applications databases in various departments rather than as a well planned data management strategy. Therefore, the resolution of data management problems becomes quite difficult (Goodhue, Quillard, and Rockart, 1988). The access to timely, accurate and consistent information is crucial in business process improvement. IS integration, through communication networks and database systems, enables organizations to create and sustain process improvement through timely retrieval of consistent and accurate information. Process improvement can be measured by the extent desired specified results are produced right thefirst time (i.e., outcomes with zero defect), the extent various processes minimize the consumption of the business resources, and the extent business processes are easily modified to meet or exceed customers\u27 expectations for products and service delivery. The current study is aimed at developing and empirically testing the relationships between IS integration and BPI. As presently there are only a handful studies that empirically test the relationship between information systems and BPI, this study is an important step for furthering the scope of present stage of the IS literature

An Empirical Examination of the Relationship Between Information Technology Infastructure, Customer Focus and Business Advantages

During the past two decades, both academic researchers and business managers have attempted to understand the ways through which information technology (IT) can create business advantages. In this paper, we present a model that tests the relationship between IT infrastructure, customer focus, and business advantages. Customer Focus has been categorized into: customer responsiveness and product/service innovation. The data for the study were obtained from 116 executives from a number of business organizations. IT infrastructure is found to have significant effect on customer responsiveness, but does not show any significant relationship with product/service innovation. IT infrastructure, customer responsiveness, and product/service innovation are found to be significantly related business advantages

Integrating IT-Enabled Social Networks with Transaction Cost Economics and the Resource Based View of the Firm

Prior research has mostly focused on transaction cost economics (TCE) to interpret the effect of information systems (IS) on organizational governance structures. A TCE based approach predicts that information technology (IT) will lead to increased use of electronic markets to coordinate economic transactions from electronic hierarchies. However, there is contradictory evidence in the literature regarding the rise and importance of cooperative relationships, joint ventures, and value-added partnerships integrated through information systems. To reconcile these contradictions, this paper analyzes the effect of IT on governance structures based on the TCE, social network theory, and the resource based view (RBV) of the firm. The most important aspect of this paper is that instead of overemphasizing the economic perspective, as has been done in prior IS research, it pays equal attention to economic, social, and knowledge perspectives of the firm. By considering variables such as product demand uncertainty, human specificity, task complexity, and frequency of interaction, the effect of IT on governance structure has been analyzed. In this paper, we suggest that, in knowledge intensive companies, a greater degree of outsourcing will take place, not through markets as hypothesized by earlier researchers, but through an increasing number of social networks. This differentiation can not be understood in simple economic terms because social networks are not based on contracts. Therefore, we suggest that the integration of IT-enabled social networks with the TCE and RBV of the firm leads to a better understanding and improvement of decision-making and corporate governance structures in knowledge intensive firms

Loci influencing blood pressure identified using a cardiovascular gene-centric array

Blood pressure (BP) is a heritable determinant of risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD). To investigate genetic associations with systolic BP (SBP), diastolic BP (DBP), mean arterial pressure (MAP) and pulse pressure (PP), we genotyped 50 000 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that capture variation in 2100 candidate genes for cardiovascular phenotypes in 61 619 individuals of European ancestry from cohort studies in the USA and Europe. We identified novel associations between rs347591 and SBP (chromosome 3p25.3, in an intron of HRH1) and between rs2169137 and DBP (chromosome1q32.1 in an intron of MDM4) and between rs2014408 and SBP (chromosome 11p15 in an intron of SOX6), previously reported to be associated with MAP. We also confirmed 10 previously known loci associated with SBP, DBP, MAP or PP (ADRB1, ATP2B1, SH2B3/ATXN2, CSK, CYP17A1, FURIN, HFE, LSP1, MTHFR, SOX6) at array-wide significance (P 2.4 10(6)). We then replicated these associations in an independent set of 65 886 individuals of European ancestry. The findings from expression QTL (eQTL) analysis showed associations of SNPs in the MDM4 region with MDM4 expression. We did not find any evidence of association of the two novel SNPs in MDM4 and HRH1 with sequelae of high BP including coronary artery disease (CAD), left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) or stroke. In summary, we identified two novel loci associated with BP and confirmed multiple previously reported associations. Our findings extend our understanding of genes involved in BP regulation, some of which may eventually provide new targets for therapeutic intervention.</p