OOT: The Tortuous Path to a Bright Future

The gap between the recognition of the importance of Object-Oriented Technologies (OOT) and their wide adoption is still wide. While the practitioner\u27s press has endorsed the common view that the opportunities are ripe for firms adopting the object paradigm, both university higher education systems and the industrial sectors have been slow to fully endorse the shift. The following paper will outline some of the most obvious reasons for the slow transition, locate some of the potential venues for remedy, and highlight a possible path for adoption. The commonly mentioned object-oriented techniques are composed of an eclectic set of techniques, methods, and tools. The short paper is intended to outline their convergence toward a wide transition to objects

Building a capstone WIL experience one pebble at a time: using an E-portfolio to demonstrate development of WIL related competencies

The Faculty of Law, Business and the Creative Art at James Cook University has introduced three common WIL capstone subjects of which students must choose (and be accepted into), one in their final year of study. The subjects include a professional internship, multi-disciplinary industry I community project and independent project. Assessment in each of the capstone subjects requires students to compile job applications addressing the selection criteria (internship) or tender (projects) to demonstrate that the student has acquired the necessary competencies and knowledge throughout their degree to undertake the job or project. In order to prepare for this final year WIL experience, students are introduced to an ePortfolio in their first year of the degree requiring them to collect, reflect and select evidence as they progress through their degree that can be used both in the assessment in the final year WIL subjects and beyond into the world of work. Preparation for these final year WIL experiences therefore begins in a student's first semester of university. This paper will discuss the development, challenges and implementation of the ePortfolio platform for use in a whole of degree WIL program that enables students to engage in and manage their own learning from transition into and out of university

A Global Perspective of Privacy Protection Practices

The global economy of today, boosted by propagation of e-commerce, has elevated the privacy and security issues to a worldwide platform. E-commerce growth is strongest in the US and the European Union. Recently India and China have also become significant players in the global commercial setting. This research is exploratory in nature and attempts to examine privacy protection practices in the United States, Europe, India and China. The results indicate that information privacy protection practices are prevalent in the USA. On the other side of the spectrum is China with a completely different view of personal privacy reflecting the nations’ treatment of information privacy

Market Segmentation of Information Systems Academic Programs

Past Information Systems (IS) curriculum studies recognize the importance of the practitioner’s perspective and attempt to incorporate “real world” IS skill requirements within recommended IS model curriculum guidelines. While recent IS curriculum recommendations move towards a greater customer orientation, many practitioners still feel IS education programs are not producing the types of IS professionals needed on their job sites. This raises an important question: Given the significant role that practitioners have played in recommending new curriculum designs, why are IS practitioners not satisfied with the quality and skill training of IS graduates? While many reasons, such as poor curriculum implementation and the rapid change of technology, may contribute to this problem, a significant contributor may be that blanket adoption of national IS model curriculum fails to recognize the basic marketing concept of segmentation. We posit that understanding the customers of IS academic programs in segmented markets should lead to better designed curriculum and accordingly, deliver students that better meet specific market demands. Rather than simply ranking IS employer skill preferences on a national basis, this study relies on the marketing reference discipline for guidance in introducing a market segmentation model and an implementation approach to help bridge the gap between academia and practitioners

A Second-Order Adaptive Network Model for Organizational Learning and Usage of Mental Models for a Team of Match Officials

This paper describes a multi-level adaptive network model for mental processes making use of shared mental models in the context of organizational learning in team-related performances. The paper describes the value of using shared mental models to illustrate the concept of organizational learning, and factors that influence team performances by using the analogy of a team of match officials during a game of football and show their behavior in a simulation of the shared mental model. The paper discusses potential elaborations of the different studied concepts, as well as implications of the paper in the domain of teamwork and team performance, and in terms of organizational learning.</p

IT Impacts On Performance Of Service Firms Through Operation-Level Dynamic Capability

This study focuses on the strategic value of information technologies in the service industry and examines the relationship between information technology (IT) service competence and firm performance. The proposed relationship is further augmented by investigating the mediating role of operation-level dynamic capability particularly for the service setting. Survey data of medium to large-size enterprises in service industries in the United States were used to validate the proposed model. The results indicate that operational reconfigurability as an operation-level dynamic capability is a significant IT-enabled mediating driving force of firm performance in the service setting. This study is an early attempt to examine the strategic value of information technologies to lead to service firms’ business performance, particularly through the dynamic capability at the operation level

Business Intelligence Capabilities as Facilitators to Achieve Organizational Agility

Today’s business environment is characterized by fast and unexpected changes, many of which are driven by technological advancement. In such environment, the ability to respond effectively and adapt to the new requirements is not only desirable but essential to survive. Comprehensive and quick understanding of intricacies of market changes facilitates firm’s faster and better response. Two concepts contribute to the success of this scenario; organizational agility and business intelligence (BI). As of today, despite BI’s capabilities to foster organizational agility and consequently improve organizational performance, a clear link between BI and organizational agility has not been established. In this paper we argue that BI solutions have the potential to be facilitators for achieving agility. We aim at showing how BI capabilities can help achieve agility at operational, portfolio, and strategic levels

Regulatory Privacy Practices in Europe

In today’s global economy, the flow of information is essential for the growth of international commerce and for the cross border access for both B2B and B2C services. The e-commerce phenomenon has elevated the privacy issue to a global platform. This paper examines the extent to which sample firms in four European countries post privacy notices on their websites. While posted privacy policy does not necessarily mean compliance with privacy protection policy, the absence of it indicates failure to comply with the most basic principle of privacy protection. We also reviewed the posted privacy policies of 425 firms and evaluated them against their corresponding country’s directives as well as fair information policies of the US. Descriptive statistics from the collected data provide a preliminary indication of how privacy practices are observed in our samples of four European countries

User acceptance of second life: An extended TAM including hedonic consumption behaviours

This study examines the relationship between operation-level agility and firm performance in service industries. The study is augmented by investigating the role of IT resources and competence to achieve this specific type of agility. As of to date, most of the published literature in this stream of research has focused on manufacturing industry. This research is an early attempt to examine the strategic value of IT-enabled operational capabilities in service industry. We propose a theory-based model of the positive relationships among IT service competence, operation-level agility, and firm performance. Survey data of medium to large-size enterprises in service industries in the United States were used to validate the proposed model. The results indicate that operation-level agility is a significant driving force of firm performance in the service industries and that IT service competence significantly determines the operation-level agility. The results emphasize that IT-supported operation-level agility significantly leads to a better performance