Management Utilization of Computers in American Local Governments

Traditional concepts of management information systems (MIS) bear little relation to the information systems currently in use by top management in most US local governments. What exists is management-oriented computing, involving the use of relatively unsophisticated applications. Despite the unsophisticated nature of these systems, management use of computing is surprisingly common, but also varied in its extent among local governments. Management computing is most prevalent in those governments with professional management practices where top management is supportive of computing and tends to control computing decisions and where department users have less control over design and implementation activities. Finally, management computing clearly has impacts for top managers, mostly involving improvements in decision information. © 1978, ACM. All rights reserved

Theorizing Actor Interactions Shaping Innovation in Digital Infrastructures: The Case of Residential Internet Development in Belarus

This paper focuses on how digital innovation develops in ecologies of distributed heterogeneous actors with contesting logics, diverse technologies, and various forms of orchestrations. Drawing on the insights from emerging theories of digital innovation augmented by an institutional logics perspective, we examine a case study of how residential internet infrastructure was shaped over 20 years by the interplay of self-organized residential communities, corporate internet service providers (ISPs), and a state ISP. Our analysis of this case leads to the identification of four types of interactions that shape the trajectories of digital infrastructure development beyond direct actor interplays and competitive or collaborative relationships. We label these interactions symbiotic generative, symbiotic mutualistic, parasitic complementary, and parasitic competitive and explain the processes and conditions of their development and their innovation outcomes. Drawing on these findings, we develop a model of symbiotic and parasitic interactions shaping digital infrastructure development and identify key characteristics of the ecologies where these emerge. The case study and the model that emerged aim to contribute to the growing field of research on complex and nonlinear paths of digital innovation development constituted by the dynamics of its distributed agency. The article concludes by highlighting avenues for future research

Automated information systems and urban decision making

This paper assesses the value of automated information systems for urban decision making and investigates alternative strategies for enhancing the value of this information. It is based on intensive survey and case study data in 40 U.S. cities with populations greater than 50.000. The findings indicate that although automated information systems are attributed significant usefulness by some types of decision makers for certain arrays of decisions, they are not generally useful to most urban decision makers. However, the findings suggest that they might be made more useful through management strategies which stress sensitive integration of these users with the technology. © 1979

A future cities survey research design for policy analysis

Strategies for the analysis of public policy have been a major focus of interest among social scientists during the last decade. This paper introduces a survey research design and perspective which differ from most current strategies for public policy analysis. The design, which is basically an ex post facto correlational design, employs an unconventional sampling technique to derive policy-impact statements from a small sample. The policy analysis perspective of this research is focused on making prescriptive rather than descriptive statements. The specific research is the "URBIS" project, a study which is evaluating the impact of automated information systems upon the operations of local governments. After briefly discussing the general logic of public policy analysis, this paper details the methods and critical issues of this research design. The paper suggests that the URBIS research strategy might be viewed as one general model for public policy analysis. © 1976

A dispositional approach to psychological climate: relationships between interpersonal harmony motives and psychological climate for communication safety

This study examined the dispositional antecedents of a climate at the individual level, psychological climate for communication safety. The impact of two interpersonal harmony motives, harmony enhancement and disintegration avoidance, on psychological climate for communication safety, innovative performance and the moderated mediated processes associated with job autonomy were examined in a survey study in China. Results showed that harmony enhancement was positively related to innovative performance through psychological climate for communication safety. Moreover, job autonomy moderated the relationship between harmony motives and psychological climate for communication safety. Harmony enhancement was more strongly associated with psychological climate for communication safety when job autonomy was low. The relationship between disintegration avoidance and psychological climate for communication safety was positive when job autonomy was high, but negative when job autonomy was low. Conditional indirect effects consistent with these interaction effects were also found