E-Markets and Changing Trends

This paper discusses the role of e-markets as intermediaries in the Australasian B2B e-space. The discussion and findings of this paper are from a research project that investigated the business and operational issues of these intermediaries as highly volatile business entities in 2002 and an evaluation of these same e-markets in 2005 to determine the changing trends. This paper presents business opportunities, revenue models from intermediary services, factors contributing to success and the challenges e-markets faced in 2002 and in 2005

Cost Control in the Age of Health-Care Reform

The U.S. is spending approximately $800 billion a year on health-care. To combat the rising increase in expenditures, the President has proposed a plan of "pay or play." The plan is based on the theory of "managed competition." The goal of the theory to "foster the purchase of thrifty health plans ... " The plan would require all employers to provide health insurance to their full time employees or to pay a portion of the cost of obtaining coverage for workers and their dependents through newly created purchasing pools. The President will also appoint a National Health Board to set an annual "global" budget governing health expenditures and devise a standard health-care package that all insurers will be required to provide. Even though employers will be required to insure their full-time employees, there are ways that they could reduce their health-care expenditures. They could be more selective and hire healthy employees, start a preventive medicine program, and/or implement an early retirement program. Employers could increase their product prices to cover the expenditures. They could also reduce the amount of full-time individuals. Employers could pick inexpensive insurance programs or help their employees become more aggressive and knowledgeable purchasers of medical services. In addition, they could start an incentive program to reward individuals who stayed healthy.B.A. (Bachelor of Arts

Online Dating Sites: A tool for romance scams or a lucrative e-business model?

Online dating sites are a new lucrative B2C e-business model, however, these sites are increasingly used by felons and scammers to exploit vulnerable customers. Although the impact of online dating scams on victims is vast, and online dating sites are a growing e-business, research on this topic is almost non-existent. The few studies on online dating sites are generally from Psychology addressing user issues. The aim of this research is to explore online dating sites as an e-business model, types of scams carried out via these sites, and regulations required to protect users of online dating sites. Using document analysis, this research will establish the current business models of online dating sites, the types of online dating scams, the impact of these scams on victims, and will develop a typology of these issues for the protection of users and for reducing this new type of cybercrime. Findings of this research will contribute to knowledge on online dating sites as an e-business model which unfortunately is misused by some users for criminal activities to provide future research directions

Chicago’s 2013 School Actions: An investigation of post-2008 racial neoliberal policy

Under the threat of a $1billion budget deficit, the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) declared a utilization crisis and in 2013 closed 50 public schools, slated five schools to be turned around and declared the co-location of 23 schools in 11 buildings. This utilization crisis model, marketed by politicians as a cost cutting effort, has been implemented in many large cities across the United States. There are two commonalities across cities closing public schools deemed underutilized. First, these cities have gradually increased charter schools over the last decade. Second, the closing of schools deemed underutilized disproportionately impacted low-income, African American students. This thesis argues that such policies are reflective of post-2008 neoliberal reform, both in its characteristics of consolidation and the heightened targeting of the policy\u27s repercussions. Drawing from critical urban theory, this place-based analysis considers one of two zones of underutilized school actions of Chicago\u27s 2013 school actions, Englewood/West Englewood, and creates a moving map of the neoliberalization of the school landscape of this zone. First, it considers the historical circumstances that influenced the development of the school landscape of Englewood/West Englewood prior to neoliberal reform through a historical analysis of the interconnection of race, class, capital, space and education policy in Chicago. Second, it maps the first wave of neoliberal education reform under Renaissance 2010, the 2013 school actions and the school landscape for Englewood/West Englewood as of June 2015. Finally, it considers how the extra-local competition in the public school marketplace of the Englewood/West Englewood zone has drawn and continues to draw students and thus resources from district run neighborhood schools to privately run charter schools

An Overview of Reverse Logistics Management in the Australian Manufacturing Industries

This paper is a discussion of reverse logistics management literature, a conceptual model showing the recovery processes and their relationships, preliminary research data, analysis and implications for the manufacturing organisations. A discussion of the findings and their implications highlighting the important role of information technologies for efficient data collection and processing of recovery operations lead to capturing value from effective management of reverse logistics

Alignment of Global Business Operations with ERP Systems Capabilities for Improved Business Performance

The number of organizations operating on a global scale is continuously increasing in recent years to exploit business opportunities in the global arena. At the same time, enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are being increasingly adopted to support global businesses. However, how well these systems are aligned with business operations of global businesses is not very well established. Thus, research on the alignment of global business operations with ERP systems capabilities is imminent. This paper presents an alignment model to address this research gap. The model predicts that if ERP systems capabilities are effectively aligned with global business operations, improved business performance outcomes will be achieved. Control variables such as organization size and globalization history will have some influence on performance as well. This paper makes an original contribution to information system (IS) research, extending the information technology (IT) alignment concepts to a specific IS application (ERP system) in the global business arena

E-Business Evaluation in Australia: A Discussion Of Some Preliminary Findings

This paper reports on research carried out into e-business evaluation in an Australian context. The main research instrument was a questionnaire based on a similar study in the United States, which was adapted to give an Australian dimension. The survey was sent to e-business managers in a random sample of Australian companies. The paper reports some preliminary results from the analysis of the survey data. The results identify the more important ebusiness drivers, transaction capabilities, impacts on financial performance and improvement; and problems experienced during implementation

Aligning global business information with ERP systems for improved performance

This paper is a discussion of research on the co-alignment of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems capabilities and global business information requirements for improved performance. It is based on Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) analysis to establish that if these two constructs (ERP systems capabilities and global business information requirements) are co-aligned, improved global business performance is achieved. Research undertaken in this paper is based on a survey of global businesses that have implemented ERP systems. It extends the extant IT/IS alignment theories to ERP/Global business information requirements alignment. It makes an important contribution to the global business management information literature, by identifying and validating a set of important global business information requirements. This research also makes a novel contribution to the ERP systems literature by establishing a set of ERP systems capabilities that are useful for managing global business information requirements.<br /

Meeting Global Business Information Requirements with Enterprise Resource Planning Systems

The number companies operate on a global scale is on the rise seeking profitable business opportunities in the global arena. Global businesses have unique information requirements due to the integrated businesses activities in geographically dispersed business units, sourcing up to date consolidated information from numerous business processes, operating in different time zones and managing globally dispersed supply chains. Enterprise resource planning systems (ERP) are widely adopted by global businesses to meet their information requirements. This research explores the co-alignment of ERP systems capabilities to global business information requirements for improved financial, customer, learning & growth and internal business process performance outcomes. It also identified that the organization size and globalization history have an impact on global business performance