Finding e-commerce strategies for businesses

Mestrado em Gestão de Sistemas de InformaçãoE-commerce plays an increasingly important role in providing companies with the requized competitiveness, thus making it critical to analyze and evaluate the key aspects to have in mind when designing an e-commerce strategy. Today, companies face the challenge of deciding the levei of investment and commitment dedicated to the Internet channel and its degree of sophistication as well as its scope and functionalities. This study addresses issues such as how deep should an organization's Internet strategy go, and which factors determine the adequate levei of resources to commit to the Internet presence. It examines the relationship between the main drivers for a successful e-commerce strategy and the ecommerce implementation stages that should be adopted. In order to assess those relationships, a research framework was developed, based on Varadarajan and Yadav [2002] work. These authors considered four main driver categories that will influence a company's Internet positioning: product characteristics, buyer and buying environrnent characteristics, firm characteristics, skills and resources, and industry structure. Also, a web based survey was deployed to collect the opinions of scholars and marketing and information systems professionals from the largest corporations operating in Portugal. The empirical testing provided strong support for the proposed theoretical framework. Study results suggest that characteristics of product, industry, buyer and buying environment, and finn-specific slcills and resources, are relevant for the e-commerce strategy definition, and the factors that compose each of those drivers have non-homogeneous importance for the ecommerce strategy definition. Findings also suggest that some of the drivers' values inhibit the selection of a given e-commerce implementation stage, while others actually promote the stage selection.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

IS Continuance, Team Ambidexterity and Team Performance: A Multilevel Approach

Information systems and teams are essential for organizations achieve competitive advantages. In fact, the team’s ability to adapt to continuous changes in the organizational environment may depend on IS and consequently in their usage. In the post-adoption stage, user behavior can assume a routine or an innovative nature. In routine usage, IS is used in a standardized way with small variations whereas in innovative usage, the user search for novel ways to perform work tasks. These distinctive usage behaviors may have different effects on task and team performance. Also, may affect the ability of a team to be aligned and be adaptable to organizational context. This paper proposes a multilevel conceptual model for IS usage behavior and the role of team ambidexterity in the usage-performance relationship. This multilevel perspective opens new research areas and guides organizations to focus on different approaches to deal with IS use, team ambidexterity and performance

The right to spatial development for human flourishing

This paper explores the literature on spatial development for people’s multifaceted well-being and the rights to the city, and argues for people’s right to live with dignity in cities. Nature and people-friendly spatial developments are fundamental to nourishing capabilities of human beings and realising their well-being. However, in reality, spatial developments are determined by legal planning and development regimes and socio-cultural discourses. These allocate different ‘claims, privileges and power rights’ to different stakeholders, and the results may not contribute to human flourishing. This paper attempts to synthesise an evaluation framework to achieve flourishing life with dignity in cities

The role of organizational competence on information security job performance

Organizations invest manpower and resources to ensure that sensitive corporate data is secure in the hands of its employees. Information security policies of these organizations explicitly state responsibilities for employees. But there is a massive gap between employee security performance and understanding of their information security requirements. In this study, we explore the factors that can enhance information security job performance of employees within organizations. We argue that employee information security performance can be enhanced by developing organizational security competencies. We conduct the argument through a case study of a public sector bank in India. The in-depth case study allows us to develop a theoretical understanding of how different aspects of organizational competence allow organizations to come together to enhance information security performance

Phase Equilibria Relationships of High-Tc Superconductors

As an integral part of a R&D program partially supported by the Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability Office of DOE, we have determined phase equilibria data and phase diagrams for the three generations of superconductor materials: 1st generation, (Bi,Pb)-Sr-Ca- Cu-O systems; 2nd generation, Ba-R-Cu-O systems (R=lanthanides and yttrium); and 3rd generation, MgB2 systems. Our studies involved bulk materials, single crystals and thin films. This report gives a summary of our accomplishments, a list of publications, and 15 selected journal publication

An organizational perspective on m-business : usage factors and value determination

Mobile technologies have increasingly become an integral part of individuals’ work and personal lives. Although research exists in this domain, most of it focuses on the customer’s adoption factors rather than assessing the value or the impact of mobile business (m-business) usage on firms. The present study fills this gap in the literature through the analysis of the value m-business can provide for firms. The Technology-Organization-Environment framework, Diffusion of Innovation theory and Resource-Based theory ground this research’s conceptual model for assessing the post-adoption stages of usage and value of mobile business from an organizational perspective. The value of m-business includes the impact on marketing and sales, internal operations, and procurement. This research uses a mixed method research design; interviews are first conducted to develop a model to assess m-business usage, and survey data collected from 180 Portuguese organizations is then used to test the proposed model. The results indicate that seven of the nine proposed antecedents of m-business usage are significant, and that m-business usage has a positive and significant relationship with m-business value. Furthermore, the three dimensions of value (marketing and sales, internal operations, and procurement) are significant, but only two of them have direct positive impacts on firm performance. Implications of these findings for practice and research are discussed.N/

M-business organizational benefits and value: a qualitative study

Mobile technology innovations have allowed organizations to expand the way they conduct business. Organizations are increasingly leveraging the unique value propositions of mobile business (m-business) in terms of convenience, ubiquity, unison, and personalization to improve business performance and support their value chain activities. Building on a process-oriented model of IT business value, we propose that m-business value is derived from its perceived impacts on the value chain activities. This article addresses the following research questions: (i) How does m-business create value for organizations? and (ii) Which are the organizational impacts of m-business? Through qualitative research involving in-depth interviews with experts, this article defines m-business value by clarifying the impacts of m-business usage at the organizational level. While the interview results show that m-business does have impact on marketing and sales and internal operations, its impact on procurement requires further research. The findings extend existing literature by proposing a definition of m-business value, based on a more in-depth understanding of m-business impacts on firm performance, highlighting new m-business value components, and developing a conceptual model of m-business value assessment in which task requirements and business characteristics may play a moderating role. The implications of these findings on future research are discussed.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A Technology–Organisation–Environment (TOE) - based m-business value instrument

Mobile business (m-business) creates new business opportunities. Yet, existing research focuses on customer adoption factors rather than an assessment of the value of m-business for organisations. This study fills this gap through the development of a conceptual model of m-business value at the organisational level, which is grounded in the technology–organisation–environment (TOE) framework and the resource-based view (RBV) theory. The model suggests seven determinants of m-business use and value: technology readiness, firm size, managerial obstacles, competitive pressure, regulatory environment, partner pressure, and mobile environment. M-business value is a second order construct comprising the impact on downstream dimensions (e.g., sales support, customer service, market growth), on internal dimensions (e.g., internal processes, staff productivity), and on upstream dimensions (e.g., procurement, coordination with suppliers). This study develops an instrument to assess m-business usage and value. Data collected from 111 professionals is then used to test the proposed instrument. Implications and contributions are discussed.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The Mediating Role of Psychological Empowerment in Information Security Compliance Intentions

The issue of employee noncompliance with information security policies is universal. Noncompliance increases the possibility of invasive information security threats, which can result in compromised organizational assets. Although research has empirically revealed a relationship between structural empowerment and employee intention to comply with information security policies, the mediating role of psychological empowerment in the relationship has received limited attention. This study conceptualizes the role of psychological empowerment as a mediator between structural empowerment and the intention to comply with information security policy. It suggests that empowerment work structures, which include information security education, training, and awareness (SETA), access to information security strategic goals, and participation in information security decision-making all increase employees’ feelings of being psychologically empowered, which consequently leads to positive intentions to comply with information security policy

How does mobile business create value for firms?

Mobile business is expected to create a large spectrum of business opportunities. There are many studies analyzing the contribution of IT to firm performance and whether IT is capable of creating value. One process-level model of IT business value, defined as the contribution of IT to firm performance, focuses on how IT impacts critical business activities within the firm’s value system (in the context of the firm’s value chain). Building on these concepts, we argue that the m-business value corresponds to the impact of m-business usage on firm performance, which is estimated through the perceived impact on the three major groups of activities on the value chain: (i) downstream dimension, (ii) upstream dimension, and, (iii) internal operations. We claim that m-business leverages the potential of the unique features of mobile technologies to improve business performance. This paper is exploratory and aims at answering the following research questions: (i) How does m-business create value to firms? and (ii) Which are the components of the construct m-business value for firms? Interviews were conducted with experts to explore the construct of m-business value and its components. The interviews’ results show that m-business does have impacts on the organizational downstream and internal dimensions. However, its impacts on upstream dimensions are not clear yet. We discuss the implications of these findings for future research and the limitations of the current study.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio