Internet Enabled Reverse Auctions: A Literature Synthesis

Internet enabled Reverse Auctions (RAs) have been in use for more than a decade. RAs were primarily employed by firms as cost saving measure, but they are now increasingly being used to explore and expand their supply base. The use of RAs is hence multi-faceted and has evolved over years. This evolution has hence attracted wide attention from the research community. Many aspects of RAs including the auction format, visibility type, strategic implications of RAs on buyer-supplier relationship etc., have been well scrutinized. In this paper we put forward a framework which categorizes the empirical findings according to the chain of inherent processes involved in the implementation and conduction the RAs. This framework will assist researchers not only to categorize and map their findings to a proper methodical base, but also it will help them identify the gaps in the current theoretical understanding of RAs

Risks, Controls and Business Value of IT-Enabled Interfirm and Intrafirm Processes

There have been significant advances in the information systems (IS) literature about the business value that can be realized through information technology (IT) investments and the mechanisms through which IT creates different facets of business value. We identify three important gaps in understanding the literature on IT business value. First, it is unclear how risk arising from deficiencies in a firm’s information environment, along with internal and external contextual factors, affects a firm’s IT implementation choices. Second, it is unclear how IT resources in a focal domain need to be combined with knowledge resources in the same domain and IT resources in other domains to develop process capabilities and create process-level benefits. Third, it is unclear what risks IT-enabled process innovations create for different process stakeholders and what controls can be applied to mitigate these risks. My dissertation addresses the above three gaps in three essays. The first essay examines the influence of a firm’s information risk on its prioritization of accounting enterprise systems (AES) relative to complementary enterprise systems and the moderation of this relationship by the weaknesses of internal controls and environmental uncertainty characteristics. The second essay focuses on the impact of AES implementation on a firm’s internal controls process, and the complementary roles of managerial competence and enterprise systems implemented in other domains related to the internal controls process of the firm. The final essay explores the risk factors that can arise for buyers and suppliers due to the use of reverse auctions, and the controls that can be applied to mitigate the key risk factors. In terms of research methods, the first two essays apply econometric analysis to panel datasets constructed from multiple sources and the third essay uses a combination of Delphi studies and semi-structured interviews. Collectively, the essays advance our understanding of (1) the factors underlying a firm’s prioritization of IT investment choices; (2) the mechanisms through which IT resources, in combination with human expertise, create business value; and (3) the risks introduced for different stakeholders by the adoption of IT-enabled process innovations and the controls that can be used to effectively mitigate them

Chains of Control in Agile Software Development

Although extant literature on control in software development provides interesting and rich insights, it also indicates existing constructs are, in some ways, inadequate as intellectual means to support investigation of control practices. Most importantly, current theorizing distinguishes between two types of formal controls (outcome and behavior) and two types of informal controls (clan and self), making it impossible to investigate informal outcome and behavior controls and formal clan and self-controls. We therefore introduce a deconstructed framework for describing management controls and apply it to a holistic examination of controls in a case study of a multi-site agile software development organization. The empirical examination revealed consequent controls across a process and multiple representations of control across hierarchical levels of analysis. As a result, we offer a refined, deconstructed framework for investigating control practices, and the concept of chains of control as a useful tool for examining control practices in software development

What the History of Linux Says About the Future of Cryptocurrencies

Since Bitcoin’s meteoric rise, hundreds of cryptocurrencies that people now publicly trade have emerged. As such, the question naturally arises: how have cryptocurrencies evolved over time? Drawing on the theory of polycentric information commons and cryptocurrencies’ historical similarities with another popular information commons (namely, Linux), we make predictions regarding what cryptocurrencies may look like in the future. Specifically, we focus on four important historical similarities: 1) support from online hacker communities, 2) pursuit of freedom, 3) criticism about features and use, and 4) proliferation of forks. We then predict that: 1) cryptocurrencies will become more pragmatic rather than ideological, 2) cryptocurrencies will become more diverse in terms of not only the underlying technology but also the intended audience, and 3) the core technology behind cryptocurrencies, called blockchain, will be successfully used beyond cryptocurrencies

Buyers’ Perceptions of the Risks of Internet Enabled Reverse Auctions

In addition to reducing the purchasing cost, Internet Enabled Reverse Auctions (RAs) are now being used by buyer firms toexplore new suppliers. The decision to use RAs is increasingly being recognized for its strategic importance to buyer firms.However, such decisions of strategic importance are presumably accompanied by equally serious risks. The first step tomanaging such risks is identifying what they are. Unfortunately, there is no validated check list of buyer risks that can assistfirms when using RAs. We have taken the first step towards addressing this issue by developing an authoritative list of theimportant risks associated with the use of RAs as a sourcing strategy. By employing a rigorous ranking type Delphi surveymethodology, we developed a comprehensive list of the key risks ranked by their relative importance. Implications of ourfindings for both researchers and sourcing professionals are discussed

P-Percent Coverage in Wireless Sensor Networks

Coverage in a Wireless Sensor Network reflects how well a sensor network monitors an area. Many times it is impossible to provide full coverage. The key challenges are to prolong the lifetime and ensure connectivity to provide a stable network. In this thesis we first define p-percent coverage problem in which we require only p% of the whole area to be monitored. We propose two algorithms, Connected P-Percent Coverage Depth First Search (CpPCA-DFS) and Connected P-Percent Connected Dominating Set (CpPCA-CDS). Through simulations we then compare and analyze them for their efficiency and lifetime. Finally in conclusion we prove that CpPCA-CDS provides 5 to 20 percent better active node ratio at low density. At high node density it achieves better distribution of covered area however the lifetime is only 5 to10 percent shorter then CpPCA-DFS. Overall CpPCA-CDS provides up to 30 percent better distribution of covered area

Enterprise System Implementations: Role of Information Risk, Internal Controls and Environmental Uncertainty

We examine how information risk affects firms’ implementation of enterprise systems (ES). We differentiate between firms’ implementation of accounting enterprise systems (AES) that are directly associated with the integration and processing of financial information and their implementation of complementary enterprise systems (CES) that provide operational activity information to AES. We investigate the relationship between information risk and the prioritization of AES and CES and consider two important contextual characteristics: firm’s internal controls, and environmental uncertainty. We test our hypothesis using a five year panel data of 883 firms. We find that with an increase in information risk, firms prioritize implementation of AES when faced with weak internal controls, and prioritize implementation of CES in complex and dynamic environments. The results expand our understanding of how firms’ IS resource allocation is influenced by information risk and how internal controls and external environments affect resource allocation to ES under different conditions

Why Increased Use of IT can be Beneficial or Damaging? Insights from the Puzzle of IT Use and Managerial Expertise for Internal Controls

Motivated by the puzzle that increased use of IT may not always be beneficial, and sometimes can even be damaging, we examine how the use of enterprise systems (ES) in a focal business process can be combined with competence in the business domain and th