Achieving IT diffusion within the fragments: an IT culture perspective

Many organizations still fail to make a return from the huge investments they make in implementing complex Information Technology (IT). This is usually due to cultural forces that inhibit the level of usage required to facilitate IT Diffusion. An emerging stream of research highlights the IT culture perspective, a perspective vital for understanding individuals’ social practices when they interact with IT. This paper adopted a case study approach to explore how the IT culture perspective may explain how organizational diffusion of an IT may happen despite opposing cultural forces causing a stalemate to the diffusion process. This study identified three IT culture archetypes - embracing, rejecting and confused, depicting a fragmented IT culture during the adaption, acceptance and routinization stages of diffusion of an IT. This study highlights how a salient element of a fragmented IT culture-embracing IT culture archetype could explain how diffusion of an IT happened despite the manifestations of negative IT culture archetypes - ‘confused’ and ‘rejecting’ during the diffusion process

The influence of organizational culture on the outcome of an IS implementation

A number of information system (IS) studies have adopted organizational culture (OC) theory to investigate IS implementations. The studies highlight that members will reach consensus or agreement in the use of an IS but also experience inevitable tensions and ambiguities in the use of the IS. However, literature related to IS implementation/OC has rarely examined the influence that the saliency of specific cultural practices may have on the success or failure of IS implementations. Using a case study approach, we adopted the “soft positivism” research philosophy to collect data, underpinned by Martin’s (1992) integration and differentiation perspectives of OC to study organizational implementation of an IS. These perspectives served as interpretive lenses through which to explain how members’ salient behaviors towards an IS evolved during the implementation process. Our study augments the IS implementation/OC literature by demonstrating how salient cultural practices influence the outcome of IS implementatio

Local Maximum Entropy Shape Functions Based FE-EFGM Coupling

In this paper, a new method for coupling the finite element method (FEM)and the element-free Galerkin method (EFGM) is proposed for linear elastic and geometrically nonlinear problems using local maximum entropy shape functions in theEFG zone of the problem domain. These shape functions possess a weak Kroneckerdelta property at the boundaries which provides a natural way to couple the EFGand the FE regions as compared to the use of moving least square basis functions.In this new approach, there is no need for interface/transition elements between theEFG and the FE regions or any other special treatment for shape function continuity across the FE-EFG interface. One- and two-dimensional linear elastic and two-dimensional geometrically nonlinear benchmark numerical examples are solved by the new approach to demonstrate the implementation and performance of the current approach

Learning the lessons from the developed world: e-banking security in Nigeria

In the past decade banks invested heavily in internet technology so as to engage in e-business and e-commerce activities. However, this development exposed banks to threats, such as online fraud. Consequently, there was a need to adopt security measures and controls to mitigate such threats. Banks in developed countries have developed a level of ‘best practice’ to reduce such online threats. The objective of this study was to explore the extent to which banks in the developing world were benefitting from the experiences of banks in the developed world in terms of how they address online security threats. Case studies of two Nigerian Banks were undertaken using interviews and short questionnaire. The findings show respondents perceived the level of threats to e-banking in Nigeria to be low. When adopting e-banking security controls, the case study banks placed more emphasis on the technical dimension than the human dimension. Senior management commitment is a significant barrier to adopting best practice, which is highlighted in limited financial resources being provided for new investment in training or customer education. The study concludes that senior managers need to change their perceptions and priorities towards IT security to reduce the vulnerability of their e-banking services

A Third Parallel Primrose Path: The Supreme Court\u27s Repeated, Unexplained, and Still Growing Regulation of State Courts\u27 Criminal Appeals

Recently the United States Supreme Court has ruled, in a series of cases beginning with Ornelas v. United States, that decisions of certain mixed questions of federal constitutional law and fact, arising under various amendments, must be reviewed de novo on direct appeal. The Court has not specified that state courts are bound by these rulings, but has used conflicting language relevant to that issue. Faced with this ambiguity, the courts of a number of states have departed from their prior practices by following these rulings, at least some because they consider themselves bound to do so, and have extended the perceived requirement of de novo review far beyond the Court\u27s specific holdings. This Article presents an original challenge to the Supreme Court\u27s power to require state-court de novo review, reminds readers of Professor Meltzer\u27s analogous critique of the Court\u27s power to require states to use the harmless-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt test, as it did in Chapman v. California, and supports the Article\u27s challenge to the Court\u27s recent decisions with an original attack on the Court\u27s power to require state courts to apply new rules of federal constitutional law retroactively to criminal cases pending on direct review, as it did in Griffith v. Kentucky. The Article concludes that for nearly four decades the Supreme Court has failed even to attempt to identify the source of its power to regulate state appellate proceedings in criminal cases in the two established ways and the one nascent way, and calls upon state courts, unless and until the Court expressly holds them bound by the requirement of de novo review, to interpret it as inapplicable to state courts

Unique critical state single-surface anisotropic hyperplasticity

This paper presents the theoretical development and algorithmic implementation of a single surface anisotropic hyperplasticity model. The model extends the isotropic family of models developed by Coombs and Crouch (2011) through (i) intro- ducing anisotropic shearing into the yield surface and (ii) using a more physically realistic pressure sensitive elastic free energy function. This model overcomes the difficulty of determining the constants of the isotropic two-parameter surface by analytically relat- ing them to a single experimentally measurable physical quantity, namely the normalised hydrostatic position of the Critical State. This link results in a unique Critical State surface, invariant of the level of anisotropy inherent in the yield envelope. The model is compared with experimental data on Lower Cromer Till and contrasted against the SANIclay model