Developing information systems strategies : a model

Cranfield School of Managemen

A study of subsidiaries views of information systems strategic planning in multinational organisations

This research examines information systems strategic planning (ISSP) in multinationals from the perspective of the subsidiaries. The research was carried out through interviews with the IT and business managers in subsidiaries of nine large American, European, and Japanese multinationals. The evidence from this study reveals that, in the majority of these organisations, IS planning is either centralised or moving towards centralisation. The main focus of IS planning, in many of these organisations, is to control cost and achieve scale economies. As centralisation increases IT tends to control the planning process and, as a result, IS planning becomes more tactical than strategic and is dominated by IT infrastructure planning. Project implementation was the main criterion used to measure IS planning success. However, due to the dominant role of IT, the subsidiary business managers are often less satisfied with the IS planning approach compared with the subsidiary IT managers. The level of involvement of business managers and their satisfaction with ISSP was related to the degree of decentralisation of responsibility for IS planning

Enterprise portals: addressing the organisational and individual perspectives of information systems

Enterprise portals are being viewed as the next generation application platform of choice, offering benefits over both client/server and thin client arrangements. By providing a mediating layer between the information applications and resources of the organisation and the individuals using them, enterprise portals appear to provide a unique context to allow both the organisational and individual perspectives of information systems to be addressed. This study seeks to examine these often competing perspectives of information systems by using an exploratory empirical survey to investigate the actual deployment of enterprise portals within a range of different organisations. It is found that both the individual and organisational benefits that enterprise portals can offer appear to have been recognised, and coherent sets of services addressing each of these perspectives are being developed. Consistent with diffusion and acceptance of technology models, organisations appear to be commencing their portal developments with services that will ensure utilisation by individuals, and are subsequently seeking to realise organisational level benefits

A Generalisation of the Nielsen-Olesen Vortex: Non-cylindrical strings in a modified Abelian-Higgs model

We modify the standard Abelian-Higgs model by introducing spatially-dependent couplings for the scalar and vector fields. We investigate static, non-cylindrically symmetric solutions of the resulting field equations and propose a pinch solution which interpolates between degenerate vacua along the string, labelled by $\pm |n|$. This configuration corresponds to a vortex which shrinks to Planck scale before re-emerging as an anti-vortex, resulting in the formation of a bead pair with one bead at either side of the intersection. The solution is then topologically stable. A key assumption is that quantities such as phase and winding number, along with those which depend on them like the magnetic flux, become undefined at the Planck scale so that regions of opposite winding may be joined via a Planck-sized segment of neutral string. Similarities between this solution and the extra-dimensional windings of strings in type IIB string theory are discussed and a correspondence between field theory and string theory parameters is suggested. The spatial-dependence of the field couplings is found to have a natural interpretation in the dual string picture and results from the variation of the winding radius, giving rise to a varying (effective) string coupling. An interesting result is an estimate of the Higgs mass (at critical coupling) in terms of the parameters which define the Klebanov-Strassler geometry and which, in principle, may be constrained by cosmological observations.Comment: 35 pages, 2 figures, published versio

The Bioeconomic Implications of A Bycatch Reduction Device as a Stock Conservation Management Measure

The proposed regulation to reduce bycatch and discarding of finfish in the southeastern region is a gear modification that excludes finfish from shrimp trawls. This regulation is analyzed using a simple theoretical model of a multispecies fishery whose bycatch is harvested in a directed fishery consisting of commercial and recreational fishermen. The costless reduction in bycatch fishing mortality imposed on the multispecies fishery does not result in an increased stock size for the bycatch fish species or a substantial increase in its level of harvest. Instead, the fish stock is reallocated from the multispecies fishery to the fishery directed at the bycatch species causing fishing effort to expand in the bycatch species fishery that drives the stock size down to the previously existing equilibrium level. Recreational harvest and effort levels remain unchanged since the model is linear in effort and the commercial fishery is given access to the fishery first.Bycatch, policy analysis, bioeconomic model, Environmental Economics and Policy, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

U.S. GRAPEFRUIT EXPORTS AND JAPANESE TRADE RESTRICTIONS

International Relations/Trade,