The interplay between structural rigidity and uptake of innovation-a critical examination of infusion of innovation in the stockbroking sector

In the studies concerned with the uptake of innovation, the process of diffusion and subsequent uptake of technological innovations is seen as a direct outcome of communication between users of an innovation and the potential adopters. Rogers (1995) explains that innovation spreads across a population of organisations beginning with the initial awareness of the innovation, and progressing to its formal adoption and full scale development. Diffusion of innovation theory (DOI) was employed to explore the adoption of information systems (IS) technologies in the listing, sales and clearance processes in the Australian stockbroking sector. The research revealed that in rule-bound industries such as the stockbroking sector, the adoption of IS technologies occur in the context of two dimensions: (1) a wave of standardisation perpetuated by the sector’s governing bodies followed with (2) individual firms’ strategic differentiation. The differentiation phase initiates after strict adherence to the overall rules and regulations devised by the sector’s governing bodies. In addition, the demands of the customer groups influence the direction of change in the composition of the sector

Enterprise Application Integration: An Emerging Technology for Integrating ERP and Supply Chains

During the last decade, the adoption of ebusiness applications and practices has transformed enterprises and changed the way of doing business. As a result, the competition among companies has increased and organisations are focusing on supply chain co-ordination and collaboration to increase their business benefits. For many years, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems supported supply chain management. However, the limitations of ERP systems on integrating disparate systems have led organisations to seek for new approaches to integrate their systems and supply chains. Thus, the intention of this paper is to explain why ERP systems have failed to support integrated supply chains and to introduce a new approach on systems integration, which can be adopted by organisations to overcome their integration problems

An Exploratory Study of Psychological Adjustment and Coping Among Information Technology Personnel in Australia

Practitioners who work with information technology (IT) are reported to be experiencing rising levels of worked related stress. The origins of the stress coming from increasing demands from system users, advances in technology, and the growing use of information and communication technologies to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of intra and inter-organizational business activities. While a considerable amount of research has been undertaken on work-related stress in the information systems literature, a void has appeared and centres on the need to explore how IT personnel cope with stress. The research presented in this paper investigates whether coping and affect (both negative and positive) influence adjustment (anxiety, depression and stress) among IT personnel. A sample of 100 IT personnel from Australia completed a questionnaire, which contained measures for adjustment, affect state, and coping strategies. The use of hierarchical regression analyses demonstrated that specific individual characteristics influenced the psychological adjustment of the IT personnel sampled. Information technology personnel who engaged in a more problem-focused style of coping, such as active coping were found to be better adjusted than those who engaged in a more emotionfocused styles of coping, such as cognitive avoidance coping, social coping, accepting responsibility, and self-controlling coping. The research concludes that the psychological adjustment of IT personnel is influenced by the types of coping strategies they use, specific individual demographics, and their affect state

Information Systems Evaluation Mini-track Introduction

This is the sixth year of the AMCIS Information Systems Evaluation mini-track and once again a significant number of papers have been submitted. In this year’s introduction the track chairs address two areas of continuing need for evaluation research. First there is the question of understanding the full range of mechanisms that lead to systems failure – that is systems that do not meet expectations. Identification, evaluation and management of these risks is an important area with room for further work. Second there is the rapid and pragmatic growth of systems in the public (e-Government) sector. The different notions of value within this area demand reappraisal and revision of systems evaluation methods. The track chairs also introduce the 12 papers selected for this year’s mini-track. They cover issues ranging from conventional ex-ante and expost project evaluation to the assessment of modelling languages and organisational readiness

Model server enabled management of collaborative changes in building information models

The issues and challenges involved in controlling the collaborative changes in a Building Information Modeling (BIM) data repository, in a multi-model collaboration environment, are discussed. It is suggested that managing iterative changes in BIMs is a database problem, exacerbated by the long transaction times needed to support collaborative design progression. This is yet to be resolved in the construction industry and better solutions are needed to support the underlying workflows and computing operations for seamless collaboration on BIMs. With this in mind, this paper proposes the use of the structural and semantic characteristics of BIM objects as a mechanism for tracking changes across co-developed solutions. The creation of object signatures, using hash codes derived from their characteristics, provides a potential mechanism for object comparison and effective change recognition and management

An exploratory study of information technology evaluation and benefits management practices of SMEs in the construction industry

While the number of articles on IT evaluation and benefits management has been substantial, limited attention has been given to these topics in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), particularly the construction industry. This paper presents findings from a questionnaire survey that sought to examine the approaches used by 126 construction organisations to evaluate and justify their IT investments, as well as the benefits and costs that they have experienced due to IT implementation. The analysis of their responses identified three key findings. Firstly, different organisation types significantly differ in the amount they invest in IT and their firm size (in terms of turnover and number of employees) does not influence investment levels in IT. Secondly, the evaluation process adopted by construction SMEs is used as for both control and learning. Thirdly, a major barrier to justifying IT investments was attributed to having no strategic vision. While organisations experienced no significant differences in the tactical and operational benefits incurred after the adoption of IT, differences were found with respect to the strategic benefits. If construction SMEs are to leverage the benefits of IT, then this should form an integral part of their business strategy. Considering this, recommendations for IT evaluation for construction SMEs that are also pertinent for SMEs operating in other industry sectors, are presented

The impact of enterprise application integration on information system lifecycles

Information systems (IS) have become the organisational fabric for intra-and inter-organisational collaboration in business. As a result, there is mounting pressure from customers and suppliers for a direct move away from disparate systems operating in parallel towards a more common shared architecture. In part, this has been achieved through the emergence of new technology that is being packaged into a portfolio of technologies known as enterprise application integration (EAI). Its emergence however, is presenting investment decision-makers charged with the evaluation of IS with an interesting challenge. The integration of IS in-line with the needs of the business is extending their identity and lifecycle, making it difficult to evaluate the full impact of the system as it has no definitive start and/or end. Indeed, the argument presented in this paper is that traditional life cycle models are changing as a result of technologies that support their integration with other systems. In this paper, the need for a better understanding of EAI and its impact on IS lifecycles are discussed and a classification framework proposed.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Grant Ref: (GR/R08025) and Australian Research Council (DP0344682)

Evaluating cost taxonomies for information systems management

The consideration of costs, benefits and risks underpin many Information System (IS) evaluation decisions. Yet, vendors and project-champions alike tend to identify and focus much of their effort on the benefits achievable from the adoption of new technology, as it is often not in the interest of key stakeholders to spend too much time considering the wider cost and risk implications of enterprise-wide technology adoptions. In identifying a void in the literature, the authors of the paper present a critical analysis of IS-cost taxonomies. In doing so, the authors establish that such cost taxonomies tend to be esoteric and difficult to operationalize, as they lack specifics in detail. Therefore, in developing a deeper understanding of IS-related costs, the authors position the need to identify, control and reduce IS-related costs within the information systems evaluation domain, through culminating and then synthesizing the literature into a frame of reference that supports the evaluation of information systems through a deeper understanding of IS-cost taxonomies. The paper then concludes by emphasizing that the total costs associated with IS-adoption can only be determined after having considered the multi-faceted dimensions of information system investments

Evaluating the integration of supply chain information systems: A case study

Supply chain management (SCM) is the integrated management of business links, information flows and people. It is with this frame of reference that information systems integration from both intra- and inter-organisational levels becomes significant. Enterprise application integration (EAI) has emerged as software technologies to address the issue of integrating the portfolio of SCM components both within organisations and through cross-enterprises. EAI is based on a diversity of integration technologies (e.g. message brokers, ebXML) that differ in the type and level of integration they offer. However, none of these technologies claim to be a panacea to overcoming all integration problems but rather, need to be pieced together to support the linking of diverse applications that often exist within supply chains. In exploring the evaluation of supply chain integration, the authors propose a framework for evaluating the portfolio of integration technologies that are used to unify inter-organisational and intra-organisational information systems. The authors define and classify the permutations of information systems available according to their characteristics and integration requirements. These, classifications of system types are then adopted as part of the evaluation framework and empirically tested within a case study