Exploiting benefits from IS/IT investments: an IT culture perspective

Despite huge global spend on IS/IT, empirical evidence shows many of these investments do not deliver expected benefits. Benefits are realized when organizations attend to contextual factors surrounding the implementation of IT and not just its technical implementation. Culture, as a contextual factor, has been shown to have a strong influence on the way IS/IT is adopted, used and exploited. We draw from IS organizational culture studies to show how individual/group IT cultures (IT culture archetypes) offer a user-centric perspective on benefits exploitation from IS/IT investments. The majority of benefits are achieved later into the lifecycle of an IS/IT investment, after implementing the IS/IT resource. Thus, this study investigates post adoption experience of an organization's IS/IT investment, an important systems lifecycle stage that has received less attention in the IS literature. We adopt a single in-depth case study approach incorporating a three stage mixed data collection strategy. From a theoretical perspective, IT culture offers an intuitive approach to address IS/IT benefits management challenges during the post-adoption stage. From a practitioner perspective, we believe findings from this study, will offer several managerial implications for business and IT managers on specific actions to realize greater benefits from their IS/IT investments

Building consumers’ trust in electronic retail platforms in the Sub-Saharan context: an exploratory study on drivers and impact on continuance intention

Lack of trust can have a negative influence on consumers’ willingness to use electronic retail (e-tail) platforms especially in countries with weak regulations and poor consumer rights. This paper examined factors that can be employed to build consumer trust and continuance intention to use e-tail platforms in Sub-Saharan Africa. Data were collected from 207 respondents and analyzed using structural equation modelling with the PLS software. The results show that information quality, perceived usefulness, hedonic motivation and perceived risk have a significant influence on consumers’ trust in e-tail platforms. The study contributes to the existing body of knowledge that guides efforts for implementation of actions in weak institutional contexts characterized by institutional voids such as those experienced in Sub-Saharan African countries. Finally, the study provides insights that can help managers of e-tail platforms to effectively foster the development of trust in their communities

Let beholders behold: can banks see beyond oil booms and mitigate the Dutch disease?

While the potential role of oil booms in crowding out the tradable sector is well documented in the Dutch disease literature, the potential contribution of bank lending behaviour to the oil resource curse syndrome remains largely unexplored. In this paper, we investigate contrasting variations in bank credit flows to the tradable (manufacturing) and non-tradable (service) sectors, across 14 oil-rich economies during 1994-2017, in order to shed light on whether bank lending behaviour mitigates or accentuates the syndrome. We uncover new evidence of significant contraction in the manufacturing sector share of bank credit during oil booms, while the service sector share of bank lending expands. Overall, our results are robust to alternative tests and unequivocally reject the hypothesis that banks can see beyond oil booms by allocating credit across sectors in a manner that mimics countervailing monetary policy to intermediate oil windfalls and mitigate the Dutch disease. Rather, bank sectoral credit allocation accentuates the Dutch disease by crowding out the tradable sector

Knowledge management in smart city development: a systematic review

The notion of ‘smart cities’ has gained the attention of policymakers, urban developers and government authorities around the world and is emerging as a major response to urbanization, economic regeneration and other environmental challenges faced by cities globally. Smart cities depend not only on a city's endowment of hard infrastructure (physical capital), but also and increasingly so, on the availability and quality of knowledge communication and social infrastructure (human and social capital). This emerging role of cities as information hubs and knowledge repositories is particularly decisive for urban competitiveness. Arguably, many smart city projects die after the pilot stage and the lessons learned from previous projects never scale up to inform subsequent implementations. This is a major impediment in the future development of smart cities, particularly around facilitating successful technological and procedural replication. In line with recent calls for a cautious rethink of the very rationale and relevance of the smart cities debate pointing to new avenues of research into interdisciplinary aspects, this paper reviews the extant smart city literature in an attempt to identify current theoretical streams and provide further insight into the role of Knowledge Management in smart city development. It also explores how cities can realise the full benefits of tacit knowledge, learning and collaboration. A review of forty-eight peer-reviewed articles is conducted. The findings suggest the lack of Knowledge Management models for smart city replication and reveal how socio-technical approaches can help to support collaboration and knowledge sharing. Policy recommendations for local and national governments on how cities can benefit from a shift towards collaborative knowledge-making are also provided

Stimulating employee ambidexterity and employee engagement in SMEs

Purpose: This study contributes to the emerging theory of ambidexterity by developing measures to assess employee ambidexterity. Specifically, it identifies and tests the importance of the relationship between the organisational context and employee ambidexterity within Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). Design/methodology/approach: The research used a survey method to investigate small-and medium sized enterprises in Nigeria. 200 Small and Medium-sized Enterprises were selected from across Nigeria to participate in the study and 72 companies responded, representing a 36% response rate. The study sample comprised 398 shop-floor employees from 72 Small and Medium-sized Manufacturing and Service Organisations. Findings: The paper tests a model that sheds insight into the linkages between the organisational context, employee ambidexterity and employee engagement. Specifically, our model portrays significant relationships that exist between organisational context, employee ambidexterity, and employee engagement. The results show that understanding the appropriate organisational contexts improves employee ambidexterity. Therefore, SMEs with the appropriate organisational contexts for employee ambidexterity and employee engagement will increase their potential for growth and survival. Originality/value: The paper develops a conceptual model of the organisational context that improves employee ambidexterity and employee engagement

Oil price booms, Dutch disease and the crowding out of tradable sectors: new insight from bank lending behavior

The Dutch disease phenomenon is front and centre in explaining the poor economic performance of resource-rich economies. While it is well documented in the literature that resource discoveries or booms have adverse effects on manufacturing, little is known about the role of sectoral credit allocation in accentuating or mitigating this phenomenon. Using monthly sectoral loan data across 13 oil-rich countries over the period 1994-2017, we find the pattern of credit allocation to be consistent with the Dutch disease: oil price booms are associated with contraction (expansion) in manufacturing (services) sector share of credit. These findings are robust to a battery of robustness tests. Consequently, we argue that sectoral credit allocation is a channel through which productive resources are shifted toward the non-tradable sector at the expenses of the tradable sector. To the extent that financial systems in oil-rich economies efficiently intermediate resource windfalls, it could potentially countervail the Dutch disease syndrome

A telephone survey of cancer awareness among frontline staff: informing training needs

Background: Studies have shown limited awareness about cancer risk factors among hospital-based staff. Less is known about general cancer awareness among community frontline National Health Service and social care staff. Methods: A cross-sectional computer-assisted telephone survey of 4664 frontline community-based health and social care staff in North West England. Results: A total of 671 out of 4664 (14.4%) potentially eligible subjects agreed to take part. Over 92% of staff recognised most warning signs, except an unexplained pain (88.8%, n=596), cough or hoarseness (86.9%, n=583) and a sore that does not heal (77.3%, n=519). The bowel cancer-screening programme was recognised by 61.8% (n=415) of staff. Most staff agreed that smoking and passive smoking ‘increased the chance of getting cancer.’ Fewer agreed about getting sunburnt more than once as a child (78.0%, n=523), being overweight (73.5%, n=493), drinking more than one unit of alcohol per day (50.2%, n=337) or doing less than 30 min of moderate physical exercise five times a week (41.1%, n=276). Conclusion: Cancer awareness is generally good among frontline staff, but important gaps exist, which might be improved by targeted education and training and through developing clearer messages about cancer risk factors