Empirical study of attributes and perceived benefits of applications integration for enterprise systems

This research investigates the very essence of integration by focusing on the integration of applications for enterprise systems. Integration is a large and complex topic recognized as a key concept in a wide variety of IT domains that dates back to the dawn of the computer era. The evolution of IT integration has included integration of sub-routines of computer programs, integration of separate islands of data to create common databases, and integration of disparate applications to form enterprise systems. Perhaps the most touted characteristic and principal goal of enterprise systems is integration although virtually no research is available regarding this phenomenon. The value of integration is rarely defined either in abstract or practical terms. We generally assume that the value of integration is obvious although there is no evidence that supports this implicit view. To address the lack of evidence, this investigation began by examining the perceptions of three practitioner stakeholder groups about the characteristics and benefits of integration. These groups were senior managers, IT professionals, and end-users. In part I of the two-part study, interviews of 51 practitioners revealed 15 major themes related to practitioner perspectives of the characteristics, benefits, and downsides of applications integration. For part II, a new measure was created based on the literature and the analysis of the phase I interviews. 926 people in three organizations were surveyed. Contributions of the research included a new partially validated instrument to assess attributes and benefits of applications integration, taxonomies were created for integration attributes and perceived benefits, and a model was proposed to frame and study IT integration infrastructures. A foundation was established to evaluate the degree of applications integration for enterprise systems. Several downsides to applications integration were documented. Two new high order constructs (attributes and benefits) were established, along with four attribute dimensions and six benefit dimensions

Unanticipated Software Use by Adolescents Following Mandatory Adoption

This research proposes a model to predict unanticipated use of software by high school students after mandatory adoption. We define unanticipated use as voluntarily extending the use of a software product to new tasks and new settings after mandatory adoption for a specific task in a specific setting. We are basing our model on TAM2 (Venkatesh and Davis 2000), which is an extension of the original technology acceptance model (TAM) (Davis 1986). Typically, research in this area investigates technology acceptance in voluntary settings. However, a few studies have looked at acceptance in mandatory settings (Rawstorne et al. 2000). Our research involves actual behavior so we have removed the intention to use construct from the original TAM2 model. Due to the nature of our subjects and the educational setting, we have also removed the following original TAM2 constructs: output quality, voluntariness, and job relevance. We have added personal innovativeness in the domain of information technology (PIIT) (Agarwal and Prasad 1998) and computer self- efficacy (CSE) (Compeau and Higgins 1995)