219 research outputs found
Impact of Information Technology on Agricultural Commodity Auctions in India
Empirical research on the value of information technology investments in the information systems literature has primarily focused on the use of IT by businesses and multinational firms. The impact of IT on the global agricultural supply chain has largely been ignored in the IS literature. Auctions to buy and sell large volumes of agricultural commodities are widely prevalent in diverse regions of the world and are an important part of the agricultural supply chain. In an effort to increase efficiency, commodity auctions have been experimenting with online formats in recent years. Such online auctions have generated significant interest in the trade press because of their potential to generate higher commodity prices for producers, reduce unfair trading practices by middlemen, and bridge the digital divide. We analyze transaction data from a recently set up online auction in India that trades in various grades of coffee. We model the impact of lower transaction costs, daily operations, less collusive behavior among buyers, and learning curve effects on the selling price of coffee in the online auction. We estimate the parameters of the model by comparing the prices in the electronic auction with those of the same grade of coffee at physical auctions held weekly. We find that electronic auction prices are 4 percent higher and the difference is statistically significant. Further, we find that the price differential is higher for coffee grades that have higher price volatility and that are traded less frequently in the physical exchange. We also find that the price differential increases over time as buyers become more familiar with the benefits of the electronic trading format
In Search of Software Maintenance Productivity and Quality: Does Software Complexity Matter?
Over the past several decades, sof.twaremaintenance has heen absorbing a large and rising proportion of Information Systcmns (IS) resources wilh expenditures ofteu as high as 80% to 95% of the total IS budget (Nosek and Palvia 1990). On a life-cycle basis, about three-fourths of the investment in software occurs after the system bas been implemented. Thus, support for existing software represents il significant investment of resources for most f m s and there is considerable interest in understaiding and improving productivity and quality in the software maintenance w k
THE BUSINESS CASE FOR AUTOMATING SOFTWARE METRICS IN OBJECT-ORIENTED COMPUTER AIDED SOFTWARE ENGINEERING ENVIRONMENTS
This paper makes the business case for automating the collection of
software metrics for gauging development performance in integrated
computer aided software engineering (CASE) environments that are
characterized by an object-oriented development methodology and a
centralized repository. The automation of function point analysis
is discussed in the context of such an integrated CASE environment
(ICE). We also discuss new metrics that describe three different
dimensions of code reuse -- leverage, value and classification --
and examine the p,ossibility of utilizing objects as means to
estimate software development labor and measure productivity. We
argue that the automated collection of these software metrics opens
up new avenues for refining the management of software development
projects and controlling stra-egic costs.Information Systems Working Papers Serie
MEASURING THE DEVELOPMENT PERFORMANCE OF INTEGRATED COMPUTER AIDED SOFTWARE ENGINEERING (I-CASE): A SYNTHESIS OF FIELD STUDY RESULTS FROM THE FIRST BOSTON CORPORATION
Information Systems Working Papers Serie
QUANTIFYING THE BUSINESS VALUE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND APPLICATION TO ELECTRONIC BANKING
Information Systems Working Papers Serie
AUTOMATED SOFTWARE METRICS, REPOSITORY EVALUATION AND SOFTWARE ASSET MANAGEMENT: NEW TOOLS AND PERSPECTIVES FOR MANAGING INTEGRATED COMPUTER AIDED SOFTWARE ENGINEERING (I-CASE)
Automated collection of software metrics in computer aided software engineering (CASE) environments
opens up new avenues for improving the management of software development operations, as well as
shifting the focus of management's control efforts from "software projectâ to "software assets" stored in a
centralized repository. Repository evaluation, a new direction for software metrics research in the 1990s,
promises a fresh view of software development performance for a range of responsibility levels. We discuss
the automation of function point and code reuse analysis in the context of an integrated CASE (I-CASE)
environment deployed at a large investment bank in New York City. The development of an automated
code reuse analysis tool prompted us to re-think how to measure and interpret code reuse in the I-CASE
environment. The metrics we propose describe three dimensions of code reuse -- leverage, value and
classification -- and we examine the value of applying them on a project and a repository-wide basis.Information Systems Working Papers Serie
QUANTIFYING THE BUSINESS VALUE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: AN ILLUSTRATION OF THE 'BUSINESS VALUE LINKAGE' FRAMEWORK
Senior management's ability to gauge the business value of investments in information technology (IT) has
been seriously hampered by a lack of analytic tools to conduct sound performance assessment. In this
paper, we present a conceptual framework called a "business value linkage" that is used to represent the
processes by which the direct outputs of an IT are transformed within the firm and its operating
environment into enhanced revenues, reduced costs and new strategic opportunities to increase market
share. Utilizing appropriate modeling and econometric methods, we illustrate our approach by analyzing
several hard-to-measure aspects of the business value of automated teller machines (ATMs) in retail
electronic banking. The results show that the hardest to measure impacts in some cases can have the
greatest business value.Information Systems Working Papers Serie
FACTORS AFFECTING SOFTWARE MAINTENANCE PRODUCTIVITY: AN EXPLORATORY STUDYl
Systems developers and researchers have long been interested in the factors that affect software development productivity. Identification of factors as either aiding or hindering productivity enables management to take steps to encourage the positive influences and to eliminate the negative ones. This research has explored the possibility of developing an estimable model of software development productivity using a frontier estimation method. The approach taken is based upon output metrics for the entire project life-cycle, and includes project quality metrics. A large number of factors potentially affecting software maintenance productivity were included in this initial investigation. The empirical analysis of a pilot data set indicated that high project quality did not necessarily reduce project productivity. Significant factors in explaining positive variations in productivity included project team capability and good system response (turnaround) time. Factors significantly associated with negative variations in productivity included lack of team application experience and high project staff loading, The use of a new structured analysis and design methodology also resulted in lower short term productivity. These preliminary results have suggested a number of new research directions and have prompted the data-site to begin a full scale data collection effort in order to validate a model of software maintenance productivity
A SCIENTIFIC APPROACH TO THE MEASUREMENT OF IT BUSINESS VALUE - PART 2: A CASE STUDY OF ELECTRONIC BANKING OPERATIONS AT MERIDIAN BANCORP
Information Systems Working Papers Serie
The Impact of Information Technology Spending on Future Performance
In this study, we investigate the association between information technology (IT) spending and future firm performance. Critics contend that greater expenditures on IT rarely lead to superior financial results, citing studies that compare firm performance to current IT spending. But valuation and stock-return studies have found a positive association between the market value of firms and their current IT spending or announcements of new IT initiatives. These observed relations are interpreted to mean that expected future earnings increased with new IT spending, consistent with a delayed impact of new IT on earnings. If actual future earnings increased with IT spending in a period, then a positive association between IT spending and future earnings should be directly observable. We describe a methodology for studying the association between IT spending in period t and earnings in future periods and evaluate this association for a sample of firms based on their IT spending during the years 1990 through 1996. We divide our sample into firms according to the business role IT played in their industries during this time period. For firms in industries where IT played an informating role (improved information flows throughout organizations), we find a strong positive association between future earnings and IT spending. The magnitude of the association increased during the first three years after the IT spending occurred and then began to taper off. For firms in industries where IT played an automating role (facilitated automation of business processes), we find a smaller but significantly positive association between future earnings and IT spending that lasted at least four years after the year the IT spending occurred
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