Evaluating Alternative Service Delivery Methods and the Role of Performance Measurement in Defining Service Level Agreements for IT Infastructure Services

As more and more organizations adopt a services-orientation towards maintaining and managing their information technology (IT) infrastructure, IT service management emerge as an area of immense academic and practitioner interest. Service orientation to IT makes it imperative that some standard guidelines are developed to provide insights towards different forms of service design and delivery, contract structure, performance metrics, and their inter-relationships. In this context, this dissertation aims to address issues arising from demand heterogeneity and service interactions in provisioning IT infrastructure services. Demand heterogeneity refers to the fact that requests for the same service may have varying levels of significance across users and user groups. Service interaction arises due to the interdependence of different components included in a service package. Demand variation impacts the resource allocation and subsequent pricing decisions of the provider; whereas service interaction results in correlated performance measures, making performance evaluation difficult. A dynamic price-penalty scheme is proposed as an alternative to the traditional fixed-price service models as a response to demand variance. The second phase of the research aims to investigate the nature of the relationship between different incentive designs and performance measures, and their impact on provider’s effort allocation and customer’s use of performance measures

RELEVANCE OF BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT (BPM) COURSE IN BUSINESS SCHOOL CURRICULUM & COURSE OUTLINE

As increasing number of organizations are embracing Business Process Management (BPM), the need for including it in business school curriculum is ever-growing. In particular IS (Information Systems) programs face this challenge even more because of potential new skill sets that its graduates require to compete in the changing job market. While some of the programs in business schools have stood up to take the challenge, there are many who are yet to follow suit. In this respect, we discuss how different aspects of BPM are relevant to various organizational functions, and their subsequent impact on business school curriculum; especially IS programs. We provide a brief assessment of the relevance of BPM with different IS courses and present a proposed course content that can possibly be included in a graduate/undergraduate BPM course

Information Buried in B2B Contracts: Towards Identifying Interdependencies in IT Service Processes

A key aspect of Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) is the monitoring and evaluation of service performance – a task that is complicated by the presence of interrelationships among different service processes in a multiservice contract. While success in the service arrangement requires participant organizations’ knowledge about the nature of service dependency and their subsequent effect on performance measures; such information is often tacitly present in the service level agreement/contract documents. In this context, the aim of our research is extracting information that might be hidden in the service contracts to assist in better process management and contract (re)negotiation. We propose an information extraction driven framework for analyzing Service Level Agreements (SLA) for IT services. Our framework consists of three stages – 1) Service Entity Recognition, 2) Service Entity Context Recognition, and 3) Service Interdependency Analysis. In this article the focus is on stage 1, where we identify interrelationships by using domain ontology on a set of annotated industry-standard SLAs. Our ongoing research is aimed towards the creation and subsequent validation of process models from the information extracted from SLAs that will help both customer and service provider organizations in contract and compensation formulation, resource allocation, and SLA life cycle management

ONTOLOGY-BASED INFORMATION EXTRACTION FOR ANALYZING IT SERVICES

Service Level Agreements (SLA) for multi-service Information Technology (IT) outsourcing contracts contain vast amounts of textual information. The SLAs provide details about a specific service, Key Performance Indicators (KPI) to measure its performance; as well as process elements, such as activities, events, and resources that are integral in achieving performance goals. However, KPIs and the process elements may be interrelated. The knowledge of such interrelationships is often tacitly present in the SLAs. The aim of our research is to extract this hidden information from IT service contracts and analyze them to empower customers of IT services to make better performance management and incentive decisions. We apply an Ontology- Based Information Extraction (OBIE) approach in developing a prototype decision support framework, named SLA-Miner. The results, obtained from analyzing a set of Industry SLAs, demonstrate the utility of SLA-Miner in identifying KPI interrelationships, deficiencies, and impacts of various process elements on individual KPIs

Impact of Using Online Health Management Tools on Patient Perception of Healthcare Quality: A Multiple Chronic Conditions and Generational Perspective

While access and adoption issues related to online health management tools (OHMT) have been studied in healthcare contexts, questions remain about whether and how their use impacts patients’ perceptions of healthcare. Drawing on technology affordance and media synchronicity frameworks, we explore how the existence of multiple chronic conditions (MCC) and differences in usage pattern due to patient’s generation impact these relationships. Utilizing HINTS data, this study provides empirical support for a positive relationship between utilization of electronic personal health records (e-PHRs) and healthcare quality perceptions, albeit with a caveat that patients with greater healthcare needs as well as millennial and younger generations do not seem to enjoy the same benefits from increased use of e-PHRs. Furthermore, asynchronous patient-provider electronic communication is yet to achieve positive perceptions of better healthcare quality for most users. This research bears implications for personalization and customization of OHMT to account for variations in patients’ healthcare needs and usage patterns

How the AIS can Improve its Contributions to the UN’s Sustainability Development Goals: Towards A Framework for Scaling Collaborations and Evaluating Impact

In June, 2019, the Association for Information Systems (AIS) adopted a new approach to addressing global sustainability issues by establishing the AIS Sustainability Task Force (AIS STF). This initiative focuses on building on the outcomes from the United Nations (UN) Millennium Development Goals (MDG, 2000-2015) and applying them to address the challenges associated with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG, 2016-2030). In this paper, we review the challenges and outcomes from the UN sustainability programs with their potential relevance to IS in general and the AIS in particular to inform and assist increased efforts to achieve the global sustainability goals. The initial event, the AIS Sustainability Summit held at ICIS 2019, provided a forum for AIS groups and communities to share their current interests, plans, activities, and experiences relevant to the MDG and SDG. The event primarily focused on facilitating opportunities to scale the AIS’s sustainability activities through multi-disciplinary collaboration across the AIS and its communities. Members from four AIS special interest groups and the STF’s Education Workgroup presented exemplary projects at the summit that demonstrated how one can apply applied IS and research capabilities to address sustainability challenges. The sustainability summit’s also explored opportunities to achieve positive impact in addressing the SDG’s global challenges through applying AIS members’ knowledge, skills, and capabilities in relevant ways in collaboration with suitable organizations outside the AIS. Potential organizations include business, government, societal groups, and UN bodies. We presented and discussed the AIS STF’s aims, plans, outcomes, and impact. By analyzing details and options for cross-organizational collaboration, the representatives of organizations at the sustainability summit developed a proposed framework for scaling contributions and evaluating impact. Finally, they drew conclusions about the proposed activities, approaches, and framework for the AIS to improve the scope and scale of its contributions in addressing the SDG. Critically, the AIS needs to ensure that its proposed activities, contributions, and impact are examined by an internationally recognized independent process. We propose a model for the AIS to realize this requirement for evaluation in 2021

Configurational Paths to Quality and Efficiency in Healthcare: Role of Policies, Incentives, Process, and IT Capabilities

The main objective of this research in progress is to investigate the combined impact of external and internal factors on healthcare service delivery in terms of quality and efficiency. External factors such as government policies encourage adoption of common standards through regulations as well as incentive programs. Internally, a care provider must possess a certain level of process maturity and technology capability in order to achieve operational efficiency. We propose to use a configurational (asymmetric) approach as opposed to a net effects (symmetric) approach to understand the paths of the combined conditions’ presence or absence to achieve the outcome condition. The final product of our research would be a typology of healthcare providers based on a combination of empirical and qualitative case analysis