Factors Of Erp Perceived Value And Organizational Performance At The Pre-Implementation Phase: Organisational Learning Capability As A Moderator

Higher education institutions (HEIs) are challenged to sustain the high-level information systems to generate complex real-time reports. Also, their need for digital transformation to stay competitive. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, through its integration characteristic, can provide tailored solutions for effective resource allocation and better decision making. Even though ERP systems increase organisational innovation, most Egyptian HEIs have not implemented ERP, showing ERP is not perceived as innovation capability. Therefore, this study aims to develop a model of ERP perceived value at the pre-implementation phase. This study explored the insights of 112 Egyptian HEIs. Based on the previous studies, this study predicts the factors of ERP perceived value among HEIs through linking three prominent frameworks; Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) framework, technology readiness index (TRI), and resource-based view (RBV). The TOE factors include relative advantage, technological capability, top management support, perceived technical competence, and competitive pressure. The research investigates the factors of ERP perceived value, further examines the impact of ERP perceived value on organizational performance and the moderating effects of organisational learning capability (OLC)

Modelling Intention to Use ERP Systems among Higher Education Institutions in Egypt: UTAUT Perspective

Firms strive to achieve the sustainable competitive advantage in diverse and changing marketplaces. Coping with such circumstances has required firms to align information technology with business strategy in order to exploit their capabilities and change business practices. In this regard, an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system has become increasingly important for organizations to build strong capabilities, improve operational performance, enhance business decision making and compete in a global business context. In other words, an ERP system integrates an organizations resources and also involves business processes and organizational changes. With the ubiquitous growth of IS investment, implementation of ERP systems has grown strongly. Recently, Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have started to adopt ERP systems. An example is Egypt, where they have done so to increase their competitiveness in the global market. However, historically, ERP implementation has been shown to have a high failure rate, which is one of the main reasons users resist using the ERP system. Conversely, users acceptance of the ERP system is the key to the ERP implementation. Thus, this study attempts to find out the important factors that affect end users intention to use the ERP system during the pre-implementation phase of the ERP lifecycle in the higher education context. The Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) with minor adjustments is the basis of this study. Ultimately, the findings of this research could enrich employees' experience by giving HEIs a tool for better understanding those factors affecting their ability to effectively utilize ERP systems. The proposed model has the ability to enhance the current level of the motivating factors influencing employees motivation to utilize ERP systems

Currency Crises And Export Behavior Of Foreign Affiliates

This paper argues that following a currency crisis, foreign firms may increase their exports and reduce their local sales to mitigate the effect of the crisis. In so doing, foreign firms escape the effect of the crisis on local demand and capitalize on increased competitiveness due to currency devaluation and lower domestic input prices. Using data on sales by US majority owned affiliates in 41 countries spanning over 19 years, we show that US firms redirect their sales from domestic markets to exports. We also find that currency crises have a positive effect on developing countries merchandise exports

Life-Cycle Management of Civil and Marine Structures under Fatigue and Corrosion Effects

Infrastructure systems are under continuous deteriorating effects due to various environmental and mechanical stressors. These effects can be generated by sudden threats such as earthquakes, tornadoes, blast, and fire, or gradual deterioration due to fatigue and corrosion. Moreover, as indicated in the 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Report Card of America\u27s Infrastructure, the United States\u27 infrastructure systems are highly deteriorating with a required estimated investment of 3.6 trillion USD to improve their condition within the next seven years. Given the limited financial resources, rational methodologies are required to support the optimum budget allocation while maintaining maximum possible safety levels. Uncertainties associated with the performance prediction, damage initiation and propagation, damage detection capabilities, and the effect of maintenance and retrofit on the structural performance add more challenges to this allocation process. In this context, life-cycle engineering provides rational means to optimize budget allocation and manage an infrastructure system starting from the initial design and construction to dismantling and replacing the system at the end of its service life.This study provides novel management methodologies which support the decision-making process for civil and marine large-scale structural systems under fatigue and corrosion deterioration. Multi-objective optimization models that seek the optimal trade-offs between conflicting life-cycle management (LCM) aspects such as the life-cycle cost and the projected service life are proposed. These models provide the optimum intervention schedules (e.g., inspections and maintenance actions) which fulfil the LCM goals. For the first time in the field of life-cycle management, an approach capable of establishing the optimum inspection, monitoring, and repair actions simultaneously is proposed. Maximizing the expected service life, minimizing the total life-cycle cost, minimizing the maintenance delay, and maximizing the probability of damage detection are examples of the considered optimization goals. It is shown that the implementation of optimum solutions resulting from the proposed management plans can significantly reduce the life-cycle cost. A methodology for planning inspection actions for bridges with multiple critical fatigue details is proposed. This is considered a step forward from the traditional approaches which are only capable of considering one critical fatigue detail. Additionally, this study provides methodologies for the reliability-based performance evaluation of structures under fatigue deterioration. Furthermore, rational approaches which make use of structural health monitoring (SHM) and non-destructive inspection information for the near real-time decision making for deteriorating structures are proposed. Specifically, an approach to obtain the fatigue reliability of aluminium high-speed naval vessels based on SHM information is proposed. By using the proposed approach, the effect of individual operational conditions encountered by the ship on the overall fatigue damage accumulation can be quantified. This quantification is not possible by using the traditional fatigue life estimation methods. Probabilistic reliability methods and Monte Carlo simulation are implemented to account for uncertainties associated with different aspects of the LCM process. Existing large-scale structural systems are analysed to demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed methodologies

Life-cycle of fatigue sensitive structures under uncertainty

Fatigue is the one of the main contributors to problems related to structural safety of civil and marine structures. Life-cycle management (LCM) techniques considering various uncertainties can be used to predict the safe service life of fatigue sensitive structures, plan for their future inspections and support the decision making process regarding maintenance and repair actions. This paper provides a brief overview of the LCM of fatigue sensitive civil and marine structures under uncertainty. Probabilistic performance prediction, inspection scheduling and maintenance optimization for such structures are discussed

Mode I stress intensity factor with various crack types

Presence of cracks in mechanical components needs much attention, where the stress field is affected by cracks and the propagation of cracks may be occurred causing the damage. The objective of this paper is to present an investigation of crack type effect on crack severity in a finite plate. Three cases of cracked plate with three different types of cracks are assumed in this work, i.e., single edge crack, center crack and double edge crack. 2D numerical models of cases of cracked plate are established in finite element analysis (FEA), ANSYS software by adopting PLANE 183 element. Values of FEA mode I stress intensity factor SIF and Von-Mises stress at crack apex are determined for cases of cracked plate under tensile stress with different values. To identify the crack severity, the comparison of FEA results for different cracked cases is made. The comparison showed that, single edge cracked plate (SECP) has the maximum values of mode I SIF and Von-Mises stress at crack apex, i.e. the greatest crack severity is considered. Also, values of FEA Von-Mises stress at crack apex for center cracked plate (CCP) are moderate and for double edge cracked plate (DECP) are the minimum. Besides, in case of high crack lengths, it is found that, FEA results of mode I SIF in case of (CCP) are higher than those of in case of (DECP). Consequently, crack severity is considered as moderate in case of (CCP) and the minimum in case of (DECP). Empirical formulas are used to approximately estimate mode I SIF for all the case studies of cracked plate in this study and the results are compared to those of FEA. A good agreement between analytical and FEA results has been showed by this comparison

Damage severity for cracked simply supported beams

This paper investigated the static and dynamic behaviors of isotropic cracked simply supported beam using finite element analysis (FEA), ANSYS software. Modal and harmonic vibration analysis of intact and damaged beam were performed in order to extract mode shapes of bending vibration, natural frequencies and obtain frequency response diagram. Static finite element analysis of undamaged and damaged simply supported beam was carried out to determine zero frequency deflection, then stiffness of intact and cracked beam was computed using conventional formula. Crack damage severity of damaged beam was calculated and it is noticed that as crack position is increased from left hand support of beam up to central point and crack depth is increased, then crack damage severity increases. The effect of mode shape pattern is investigated and it is found that the amount of decreasing of natural frequency is proportional to the normalized mode shape at position of crack. The exhibited correlation between results for damaged beam revealed that crack damage severity is proportional to zero frequency deflection and inversely proportional to first mode frequency

Nonlinear dynamics and chaos: Their relevance to safe engineering design

As many engineering systems are neither linear nor nearly linear, they are normally modelled by nonlinear equations for which closed-form analytical solutions are unobtainable. However with the advent of powerful computers, equations can be readily integrated numerically, so that the response from a given set of starting conditions is easily established. Unlike linear systems where all initial conditions lead to one type of motion, be it to an equilibrium point or to a harmonic oscillation, nonlinear systems can exhibit chaotic transients which can setlle down to a rich and complex variety of competing steady state solutions. Associated with each steady state solution is its basin of attraction. Under the variation of a control parameter, as the attractors move and bifurcate, the basins also undergo corresponding changes and metamorphoses. Associated with the homoclinic tangling of the invariant manifolds of the saddle solution, basin boundaries can change in nature from smooth to fractal, resulting in regions of chaotic transients. The aim of the thesis is to investigate how the size and nature of the basin of attraction changes with a control parameter. We show that there can exist a rapid loss of engineering integrity accompanying the rapid erosion and stratification of the basin. We explore the engineering significance of the basin erosions that occur under increased forcing. Various measures of engineering integrity are introduced: a global measure assesses the overall basin area; a local measure assesses the distance from the attractor to the basin boundary; a velocity measure is related to the size of impulse that could be sustained without failure; and a stochastic integrity measure assesses the stability of an attractor subjected to an external noise excitation. Since engineering systems may be subjected to pulse loads of finite duration, attention is given to both the absolute and transient basins of attraction. The significant erosion of these at homoclinic tangencies is particularly highlighted in the present study, the fractal basins having a severely reduced integrity under all four criteria. We also apply the basin erosion phenomena to the problem of ship capsize. We make a numerical analysis of the steady state and transient motions of the semi-empirical nonlinear differential equations, which have been used to model the resonant rolling motions of real ships. Examinadon of the safe basin in the space of the starting conditions shows that transient capsizes can occur at a wave height that is a small fraction of that at which the final steady state motions lose their stability. It is seen that the basin is eroded quite suddenly throughout its central region by gross striations, implying that transient capsize might be a reasonably repeatable phenomenon, offering a new approach to the quantification of ship stability in waves. We conclude from this thesis that the stability of nonlinear engineering systems may, in the future, be based on the basin erosion phenomenon relating to chaotic transients and incursive fractals

Tuning the nature of defect states in black TiO2 nanostructures

Black TiO2 is being widely investigated due to its superior optical activity. Herein, the limitations of the hydrogenation process are unraveled by exploiting the fundamental tradeoffs affecting the overall efficiency of the water splitting process. Different reduction rates are applied to sub-100 nm TiO2 highly efficient short nanotubes. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy reveals changes in the stoichiometry of TiO2 with the reduction rate. UV-Vis and Raman spectra reveal that high reduction rates promote the formation of the rutile phase in TiO2, which is inactive towards water splitting. The electrochemical analysis discloses that low reduction rates induce higher concentration of localized electronic defect states that hinder the water splitting performance. Finally, incident photon-to-current conversion efficiency (IPCE) points out to the optimum reduction rate that attains relatively lower defects concentration as well as lower rutile content, thereby achieving the highest conversion efficiency