Infusion of information systems in the stockbroking sector

The Australian stockbroking sector has been at the forefront of integrating information systems (IS) in its daily operations. Trade and clearance account for a large percentage of processes undertaken in a brokerage house. Upon integration of IS, the trade and clearance processes of the sector were centralised and the institutional arrangements of the sector were transformed. Centralisation also meant that this large percentage of processes was directly controlled by the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) and the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC). Although the integration of IS was intended to rationalise the trading regime and make the process of brokerage identical across the industry, there are many types of brokerage houses - each catering to a specific group of customers. This interplay between the intent to homogenise the sector by the regulatory authority and the move by the brokerage houses to strategically differentiate from peers motivated this research to explore the dynamics of the diffusion of IS adoption and its resultant structural changes in the stockbrokerage sector

A Reflection on the Use of Structured Case Analysis: Infusion of Information Systems in a Regulated Sector

The objective of this paper is to reflect on the conception, development and implementation of structured case analysis in examining the infusion of the Information Systems (IS) in a regulated industry sector; the Australian Stockbroking Sector. The research revealed that in rule-bound industries such as the stockbroking sector, the adoption of IS technologies occurred through a wave of standardisation perpetuated by the sector’s governing bodies followed with individual firms’ strategic differentiation. The reflection on the research methodology involves explanation and justification of the development and use of the research methodology. In addition, the philosophical basis of the methodology adopted for the research, its validity and how the research has built upon the work of others is explained and justified. Finally, the limitations of the research methodology are outlined

Diffusion of Innovation: An institutional perspective

A review of the Diffusion of Innovation (DOI) literature is carried out. This review is later applied to the uptake of the Internet amongst stock brokers in Australia. A framework is proposed where organizational uptake of the Internet and Internet-based trading is embedded in an institutional context encompassing an industry as well as brokerage level of analysis. It is anticipated that the industry’s governing body establishes the overall legal and professional boundaries. Within these boundaries individual stock brokers differentiate themselves through selective adoption of components of the new technology. This is to incorporate the initial setting of industry level protocols and regulations in addition to the semi-autonomous differentiation at the brokerage level. Following the proposed framework, a comparative analysis of traditional and institutional approaches to DOI is carried out

An Ex-Ante Information Technology Evaluation Framework for Construction Organizations: The First Step Toward Gaining a Competitive Advantage

Within the construction industry issues surrounding the IT investment process remain largely unexplored. To address this aforementioned deficiency, a questionnaire survey was undertaken to examine the approaches used by construction organizations to evaluate and justify their IT investments. The analysis of 126 responses revealed the following key findings: different types of organization significantly differ in the amount they investment in IT; investment levels in IT were not influenced by organizational size; and the scope of purpose of ex-ante IT evaluation was considered broader than a financial control mechanism. Instead, the organizations sampled used ex-post evaluation as an opportunity for learning and thus regenerated knowledge. Based on these findings a pragmatic ex-ante IT evaluation framework is proposed which can be used by construction organizations to ameliorate their investment decision-making process

Technology and structure - explaining the consequences of infusion of the Information Systems in the Stockbroking Sector

The current dominant theory concerning the diffusion of innovation (DOI) was proposed by Rogers (1995). Its ontological basis is Social Constructivism (SC). This paper suggests that SC leads to explanations that are not valid in some industry environments. This paper further suggests that these limitations can be overcome by adopting a Critical Realist ontology (CR). Social constructivism does not allow for the possibility that external forces can determine how a business operates but lead one to believe that that management, independent of these external forces, determines the structure and mode of operation of its business. Research was conducted into the uptake of the IS-enabled listing, sales and clearance systems and the resultant structural changes in the stockbroking sector of the finance industry. It was found that, in this industry-sector, government and professional and regulatory bodies have had an overwhelming influence on the form of, extent and the technological requirements that stockbrokers needed to adopt should they wish to operate in the sector. It was also observed that these regulatory bodies affected the extent to which the firms could use the Internet to transform the business and the procedures firms could use. In addition the compulsory use of the trading systems imposed on the then present and prospective brokers acted as a barrier to entry thus maintaining a balance based on the predefined criteria designed and implemented by the sector’s regulatory bodies. The paper disputes the condition, stated by Rogers(1983), that technology adoption can be examined independently of the role of these important external impositions. Hence a critical realist lens was employed as an underlying philosophy to help explain the observed technology adoptions. The benefits of such a philosophical grounding are highlighted

Infusion of the Internet and Indigenous Tourism: An Australian Framework

IT management focuses on planning and developing new IT solutions. The importance of production (operation, support, maintenance) and further development of existing solutions is often neglected, although these tasks are responsible for the majority of today’s IT costs. The paper presents the results of a survey of the life cycle costs of 30 IT application systems. Within the survey, the distribution of costs over the application life cycle was recorded and evaluated. The results show the central importance of recurring costs for production and further development. For a production time of 5 years these costs amounted to 79% of all life cycle costs, whereas only 21% of the costs were incurred during the planning and initial development stages. Further findings include an evaluation of the poor quality of the cost data and the important role of business units as service providers

The interplay between structural rigidity and uptake of innovation-a critical examination of infusion of innovation in the stockbroking sector

In the studies concerned with the uptake of innovation, the process of diffusion and subsequent uptake of technological innovations is seen as a direct outcome of communication between users of an innovation and the potential adopters. Rogers (1995) explains that innovation spreads across a population of organisations beginning with the initial awareness of the innovation, and progressing to its formal adoption and full scale development. Diffusion of innovation theory (DOI) was employed to explore the adoption of information systems (IS) technologies in the listing, sales and clearance processes in the Australian stockbroking sector. The research revealed that in rule-bound industries such as the stockbroking sector, the adoption of IS technologies occur in the context of two dimensions: (1) a wave of standardisation perpetuated by the sector’s governing bodies followed with (2) individual firms’ strategic differentiation. The differentiation phase initiates after strict adherence to the overall rules and regulations devised by the sector’s governing bodies. In addition, the demands of the customer groups influence the direction of change in the composition of the sector