bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Organization, Strategy and Business Value of Electronic Commerce
Authors: Scupola Ada
Published: May 2011

Many corporations are reluctant to adopt electronic commerce due to uncertainty in its profitability and business value. This chapter introduces a business value complementarity model of electronic commerce. The model relates high level performance measures, such as business value, first to intermediate performance measures, such as value chain and company strategy, and then to the e-business performance drivers as business processes and complementary technologies. The model argues that complementarities among the different activities of the value chain, corresponding business processes and supporting technologies should be explored to reach a better fit among strategy, business model and technology investments when entering the electronic commerce field. The exploration of such complementarities should lead to investments in electronic commerce systems that best support the company strategy, thus minimizing failures. From a practical point of view, managers could use this framework as a methodology to increase the business value of electronic commerce to a corporation.
Continuous Demand Chain Management
Authors: Warkentin Merrill , Bajaj Akhilesh
Published: May 2011

The demand side of supply chain management has drawn considerable research attention, with focus on disintermediation and syndication models. In this chapter, we evaluate new business models for establishing a continuous demand chain structure to streamline the logistics between the vendor and its direct consumers. The Continuous Demand Chain Management (CDCM) model of E-Commerce is one in which the physical products for sale are delivered directly to the customer without the use of a third party logistics provider, such as a common carrier, and in which the physical product may be continuously “pulled” from the seller. We present three submodels of CDCM. The CDCM Model A applies to business-to-consumer (B2C) online sellers of physical goods who own or control their own delivery vehicles, and may provide further services to extend the value proposition for the buyer. The online grocer is a typical example of businesses in this category. The CDCM Model B applies to business-to-business (B2B) sellers of physical goods, who also own a significant portion of their delivery fleet and deliver goods on demand to local distributors or business customers. Office supply E-Merchants provide an example of this model. The CDCM Model C applies to businesses that typically provide virtually instantaneous delivery of third party goods to consumers or businesses. Businesses in this category own or control their own delivery fleet and add value by delivering items within very short periods of time, usually one-hour delivery. In order to analyze these models, we conducted structured interviews with key senior managers of one representative business each in the CDCM Model A and Model B categories. We extensively surveyed recent literature on companies in the CDCM Model C category. We use the results of our study to analyze different aspects, such as revenue streams, cost structure, and operational peculiarities of businesses following the CDCM model and, finally, discuss the long-term viability of the sub models.
Web-Based Supply Chain Integration Model
Authors: Al-Hakim Latif
Published: May 2011

This chapter discusses various business process supply-chain models and emphasizes the need for organizations to apply CRM concepts and to integrate the Internet within the functions of the supply chain in order to be able to gain good customer expectations in the era of e-commerce. This chapter outlines a framework for developing a Web-based supply chain integrating model based on SCOR and key features of CPFR, and attempts to link this model with Business Process Reengineering, and with traditional productivity improvement programs. The development of a Web site at two levels is suggested. The first level is within the public domain and the other is limited to supply chain partners. The chapter incorporates fuzzy set theory into the dynamic of production scheduling to allow the integrating model to deal with vague constraints, and to enable conflicting multi-criteria objectives to be managed effectively in the production environment.
Supporting Mobility and Negotiation in Agent-Based E-Commerce
Authors: Kowalczyk Ryszard , Alem Leila
Published: May 2011

This chapter presents recent advances in agent-based e-commerce, addressing the issues of mobility and negotiation. It reports on selected research efforts, focusing on developing intelligent agents for automating the e-commerce negotiation and coalition formation processes and mobile agents for supporting deployment of intelligent e-commerce agents and enabling mobile e-commerce applications. Issues such as trade-off between decision-making in negotiation and mobility capabilities of the agents are also discussed in this paper.
Intrinsic and Contextual Data Quality
Authors: Borchers Andrew S.
Published: May 2011

This chapter introduces the concepts of intrinsic and contextual data quality and presents research results on how individual perceptions of data quality are impacted by media (World Wide Web versus print) and personal involvement with the topic. The author advances four hypotheses, which are tested with a randomized experiment (n=127), dealing with information on cancer. First, subjects perceive reputable information sources as having higher data quality than non-reputable sources. Second, subjects perceive web-based material to be more timely, but less believable and of lower reputation, accuracy and objectivity than printed material. Third, individuals with greater personal involvement will be better discriminators of data quality in viewing reputable and non-reputable cancer information. Fourth, women are better discriminators of data quality in viewing reputable and non-reputable information than men. The first hypothesis was supported and limited support was provided for the second hypothesis.
Integrating Patterns into CASE Tools
Authors: Peckham Joan , Lloyd Scott J.
Published: May 2011

Software patterns are used to facilitate the reuse of object-oriented designs. While most Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) tools support the use of Unified Modeling Language (UML) (Alhir & Oram, 1998) to extract the design from the software engineer and assist in development, most do not provide assistance in the integration and code generation of software patterns. In this chapter, we analyze the Iterator software pattern (Gamma et al., 1995) for the semantics that would be used in a CASE-design tool to help the software engineer to integrate this pattern into a design and then generate some of the code needed to implement the pattern. This work is based on semantic data modeling techniques that were previously proposed for the design of active databases (Brawner, MacKellar, Peckham & Vorbach, 1997; Peckham, MacKellar & Doherty, 1995).
How to Elaborate a Use Case
Authors: McDermid D. C.
Published: May 2011

This paper challenges established wisdom with respect to use cases. Use cases are classically elaborated by directly identifying objects, methods and data. The research reported in this paper indicates that there are other better constructs for modeling use cases, at least initially, and that objects are not a particularly good medium for discussing requirements with users. This paper rehearses the arguments leading up to these conclusions and identifies some implications of these conclusions.
A Quantitative Risk Assessment Model for the Management of Software Projects
Authors: Shoemaker Dan
Published: May 2011

This chapter presents a comprehensive quantitative management model for information technology (IT). It is assessment based and can be easily implemented without imposing an unacceptable organizational-change solution. It supplies detailed information about the functioning of processes, which will allow managers to both effectively oversee operations, as well as assess their prospective and ongoing risks of execution.
Temporal Interaction Diagrams for Multi-Process Environments
Authors: Chen T. Y. , Rahwan Iyad , Yang Yun
Published: May 2011

This chapter introduces a novel notion of temporal interaction diagrams for distributed and parallel programming. An interaction diagram is a graphical view of computation processes and communication between different entities in distributed and parallel processes. It can be used for the specification, implementation and testing of interaction policies in distributed and parallel systems. Expressing interaction diagrams in a linear form, known as fragmentation, facilitate automation of design and testing of such systems. Existing interaction diagram formalisms lack the flexibility and capability of describing more general temporal order constraints. They only support rigid temporal order, and, hence, have limited semantic expressiveness. We propose an improved interaction diagram formalism in which more general temporal constraints can be expressed. This enables us to capture multiple valid interaction sequences using a single interaction diagram.
A Service-Based Approach to Components for Effective Business-IT Alignment
Authors: Stojanovic Zoran , Dahanayake Ajantha
Published: May 2011

Although Component-Based Development (CBD) platforms and technologies, such as CORBA, COM+/.NET and Enterprise Java Beans (EJB), are now de facto standards for implementation and deployment of complex enterprise distributed systems, the full benefit of the component way of thinking has not yet been gained. Current CBD approaches and methods treat components mainly as binary-code implementation packages or as larger grained business objects in system analysis and design. Little attention has been paid to the potential of the component way of thinking in filling the gap between business and information technology (IT) issues. This chapter proposes a service-based approach to the component concept representing the point of convergence of business and technology concerns. The approach defines components as the main building blocks of business-driven service-based system architecture that provides effective business-IT alignment.
One Method for Design of Narrowband Lowpass Filters
Authors: Jovanovic-Dolecek Gordana , Diaz-Carmona Javier
Published: May 2011

This chapter describes a design of a narrowband lowpass finite impulse response (FIR) filter using a small number of multipliers per output sample (MPS). The method is based on the use of a frequency-improved recursive running sum (RRS), called the sharpening RRS filter, and the interpolated finite impulse response (IFIR) structure. The filter sharpening technique uses multiple copies of the same filter according to an amplitude change function (ACF), which maps a transfer function before sharpening to a desired form after sharpening. Three ACFs are used in the design, as illustrated in the accompanying examples.
A Survey of Internet Support for Knowledge Management/Organizational Memory Systems
Authors: Jennex Murray E.
Published: May 2011

Studies of organizational memory/ knowledge management, OM/KM, systems have found that using a common infrastructure to facilitate access to and utilization of knowledge and memory increases the usability and success of these systems. The solution to this is for organizations to have an integrated network. This paper discusses using the Internet as the integrated network. Several systems are described that use the Internet for the OM/KM infrastructure. Theoretical support from case study research for using the Internet as a common knowledge infrastructure is provided through DeLone and McLean’s IS Success Model modified and analyzed for knowledge/memory based systems.
Developing Business Aligned Knowledge Management Strategy
Authors: Abou-Zeid El-Sayed
Published: May 2011

With the growing awareness of the crucial role that knowledge can play in gaining competitive advantage, several issues with regard to knowledge management (KM) initiatives have challenged executives. The articulation of the relationship between an organization’s competitive strategy and its knowledge strategy is the most eminent. This chapter addresses the issue of how to align knowledge strategy with enterprise business strategy. Based on the premise that the realization of business value from KM investments requires alignment between business and knowledge strategies, the issue is addressed by developing a strategic alignment model for KM. This model, which is based on the Henderson-Venkatraman strategic alignment model, includes the external domains (opportunities/threat) and internal domains (capabilities/arrangements) of both business (B-) and knowledge (K-) strategies and the relationships between them. Furthermore, it provides alternative strategic choices. The model is used to study a KM initiative at Buckman Laboratories.
Some Implementation Challenges of Knowledge Management Systems
Authors: Bygstad Bendik
Published: May 2011

The promise of knowledge management systems is challenged by implementation problems. This CRM case illustrates that technology-driven approaches are not likely to succeed. It also indicates some limitations of top-down managerial interventions, arguing that we need a deeper understanding of learning processes to be able to implement KM systems successfully. A more experimental implementation strategy is suggested.
The Process of Converting Consultants' Tacit Knowledge to Organisational Explicit Knowledge
Authors: Laupase Ricky
Published: May 2011

Management consulting firms are typical examples of knowledge-intensive organisations in which the consultants’ knowledge, in particular tacit knowledge, is critical to the success of the firms. The firm’s success depends on its continuous effort to retain the consultant’s tacit knowledge. This chapter will explore the conversion processes of consultants’ tacit knowledge to the organisational explicit knowledge by focusing on how organisational structure, culture and information technologies support the conversion processes. For the purpose of this study, Nonaka and Takeuchi’s (1995) spiral evolution knowledge conversion model will be revisited. To address the issue, three case studies on management consulting firms in Australia were conducted. Findings of research will report on the respondents’ perception of the importance of tacit knowledge and conversion of consultants’ tacit knowledge to organisational explicit knowledge with reference to organisational structure, culture and information technology. From the findings, the researcher will establish the so-called guidelines for converting such knowledge and, hence, propose a suggestion for future research.
Communicated Knowledge in Electronically Enabled Business Interactions
Authors: Ratcheva Violina
Published: May 2011

Virtual teams have been increasingly cited as an efficient and flexible novel form of organisational arrangements affected by the emergence of the electronic business space. The purpose of forming such teams is a new ‘knowledge creation’. The paper argues that unraveling the mystery of knowledge creation processes in virtual partnerships requires an in-depth understanding of the complex interaction processes involved in forming computer-mediated business relationships. The focus, therefore, is on the process of collective ‘knowing’, defined as the team’s actions and interactions embedded in unique social activities in virtual teams, rather than on knowledge being a pre-given resource possessed by the team members. The paper presents the preliminary results of a qualitative research study on seven virtual partnerships and proposes an initial conceptual framework of the knowledge creative processes taking place in virtual business relationships.
The Readiness of IDSC to Adopt Knowledge Management
Authors: Hussein Ahmed A.K. , Wahba Khaled
Published: May 2011

Over the last two years Knowledge Management has become the latest hot topic in the business world. Companies are realizing that their competitive edge is mostly the brain power or intellectual capital of their employees and management. Many organizations are drowning in information, but starving for knowledge. In order to stay ahead of the pack, organizations must leverage their knowledge internally and externally to survive. Knowledge management is believed to be the current savior of organizations. Creative and innovative people form the core of any organization. In turn, those people form the corporate memory. The Information Decision Support Center for the Cabinet of Ministers for the Egyptian Government (IDSC) faces a problem of employees’ high turnover rate (17%), which threatens to cause IDSC to lose its memory. One common mistake many organizations make when they implement KM initiatives is to place too much emphasis on the technological aspect of KM and ignore the human resources aspects. IDSC developed a knowledge management system called the Organizational Memory (http://www.home.idsc.gov.eg/), but ignored the human factor of KM. The purpose of this chapter is to test the readiness of employees and managers working at IDSC to adopt knowledge management. Human issues were clearly shown to outweigh any technology constraints, and views of managers and employees differed to some extent. It is recommended that these human and managerial concerns be addressed if KM is to be successful in organizations.
Building a Custom Client-Side Research Tool for Online Web-Based Experiments
Authors: Westin Stu
Published: May 2011

This chapter describes a general software-based approach to conducting online Web research through the development of a custom research tool. Specifically, the tool is an Internet Explorer-like Web browser that can be designed to deliver experimental treatments and to collect experimental data with great precision and flexibility. The purpose of the manuscript is to introduce this approach to Web-based research, and to discuss the most salient issues, techniques, and problems that are involved in the development and use of such a research instrument. Programming custom event handlers, for a preexisting software object called the WebBrowser Control, constitutes a major part of the research approach. Event handling techniques having to do with downloading and navigation, with browser interface emulation, and with window and session control are presented. Other relevant issues such as cache management, keyboard handling, and accessing HTML page elements through the Document Object Model are also presented.
Belief, Inquiry, Argument and Reflection as Significant Issues in Learning about Information Systems Development Methodologies
Authors: Banks David A.
Published: May 2011

This chapter examines some of the issues that are driving the development of a master’s course designated as “Information Systems Development Methodologies.” The course takes a “reality as a social construct” view of the world, the purpose of the approach being to encourage students to challenge assumptions and enhance their abilities to research, reflect, critique, and develop strong arguments to support their understanding of the subject area. An interpretive approach such as this can challenge those students whose experiences of previous educational settings have been more strongly oriented toward rote or positivistic teaching and learning styles. The chapter outlines a number of approaches that have been adopted to help students deal with interpretive approaches to learning and to introduce them to issues of belief, inquiry, argument, and reflection.
Education for a Technology-Based Profession
Authors: Turner Rodney , Lowry Glenn
Published: May 2011

This chapter reports some further findings of an ongoing investigation into conceptual, academic, and “soft” skills that IS/IT practitioners regard as important in new graduates. There has long been agreement that the IS curriculum should be comprised of some combination of technical subjects and nontechnical business subjects, and that graduates also need “soft” business skills. There is far less agreement about what the mix between these should be and how best to prepare students in some areas, notably in the development of “soft” business skills. The research findings reported here present some evidence that traditional “business subjects” such as marketing, economics, or finance do not equate to the business skills that employers of IS graduates are seeking in new hires. The chapter concludes with a discussion of IS curriculum reform issues and strategies for reducing confusion, overcoming tradition and inertia, finding resources, and neutralizing vested interests
Literature Review
Authors: Ratnasingam Pauline
Published: May 2011

In chapter 2, we discussed the findings of an initial exploratory survey. In this chapter we undertake an in-depth literature review of business-to-business e-commerce and the importance of trust. The task of undertaking a literature review is challenging, especially when it involves theories from multiple disciplines. The chapter begins with a discussion of e-commerce from two perspectives: a technological perspective (including technology trust mechanisms), and a social perspective (discussing trust behaviours in business relationships). Incorporated into the analysis are previous theories that focus on organizational behaviour (inter-organizational relationships), economic perspective (transaction-cost-economics theory), and political perspective (resource dependency theory). The rest of the chapter is organized as follows. First, we discuss the literature pertaining to the need for inter-organizational trust and provide definitions of trust from multi-disciplines, as well as characteristics and the development of trust in business relationships. This is followed by a discussion of the perceived benefits, perceived risks, and technology trust mechanisms in e-commerce leading to outcomes of e-commerce participation. Then, we examine the organizational, economic, and political theories leading to the evolution of inter-organizational systems to inter-organizational trust. Finally, we conclude the chapter with the development of the conceptual model of inter-organizational trust in e-commerce participation, leading to a justification of the research propositions derived from the model.
Research Model
Authors: Ratnasingam Pauline
Published: May 2011

In chapter 3, we reviewed the current literature from theories in multi-disciplines leading to the development of the conceptual model of inter-organizational trust in e-commerce participation. In this chapter, we first discuss different research methods in information systems followed by analysis of quantitative and qualitative research approaches. Then we provide the reasons for selecting a case study research method followed by a description of the research process, design, and instrumentation of the conceptual model, leading to a semi-structured questionnaire, data collection, and data analysis procedures that take into consideration the validity of data.
Enterprise Information Infrastructure (EII)
Authors: Targowski Andrew
Published: May 2011

The American business in the Information Wave in the 21st century increasingly relies on computer and information networks for the conduct of vital operations. The computerized telecommunications networks, customer interfaces, services, applications, and related technologies create the Enterprise Information Infrastructure (EII). The industry which supports the development of EII and other information infrastructures (NII – National Information Infrastructure, GII – Global Information Infrastructure, and Local Information Infrastructure) is valued domestically at about $1 trillion in 2000. Not surprisingly, with this kind of money at stake, the emerging technologies that will define information infrastructures in the future have become the subject of much discussion and many grand schemes. But suppliers are not the only ones anticipating benefits from the new information infrastructure. Business users also hope to increase their productivity and quality of life through the application of technologies and services in a wide variety of contexts. But despite all the great expectations of industry insiders and technology users, the general business practitioners remain largely unaware of exactly what is taking place because the majority of these services are invisible to the naked eye.
Enterprise Electronization and Integration
Authors: Targowski Andrew
Published: May 2011

The goal of the electronic enterprise is to implement all major applications to build the extended enterprise that functions as a paperless organization, whose units and workers process information and communicate via all layers of the Enterprise Information Infrastructure (look at Chapter 3). The strategy of the e-enterprise development is the integration of all business and application components via the Internet or intranet/extranet environment (“electronization”). The e-enterprise evolves from the net-commerce, based on EDI (1980’s/1990’s), the e-commerce stage (1997) and its follower - the e-business stage (1999), as a result of the electronization and integration of all enterprise applications.
Creative E-Transitions
Authors: Hunt Lynne
Published: May 2011

The creative use of e-learning to facilitate the transition to and from university is the subject of this chapter. It describes a pilot, online transition to university project entitled Click Around ECU (Edith Cowan University) and an online, generic skills and career planning project called Careering Ahead in Health Promotion. Both projects are informed by authentic learning pedagogy that seeks to engage students in problem solving and learning by engaging in purposeful activities. The projects also seek to empower students to decide for themselves what they need to know about the transition process. Each project is described in the context of its implications for e-learning. The core thesis is that e-learning produces creative outcomes when embedded in appropriate pedagogy.
Distributed Construction through Participatory Design
Authors: Zaphiris Panayiotis , Zacharia Giorgos , Rajasekaran Meenakshi Sundaram
Published: May 2011

We present the implementation of Distributed Constructionism (DC) through a Participatory Design (PD) methodology of an Online Learning community. The students collaborate on the content and functionality development of an online Modern Greek language course, peer review and publish content contributions, and participate in participatory design teams. Participatory design was implemented as a four step process (a) Build bridges with the intended users, (b) Map user needs and suggestions to the system, (c) Develop a prototype, (d) Integrate feedback and continue the iteration. Distributed Constructionism was implemented to enhance the learning experience and community development. Finally Social Network Analysis is employed to quantitatively measure the strength of the online community established and the key role our participatory design team participants played in sustaining this online community.
Toward Predictive Models for E-Learning
Authors: Rentroia-Bonito Maria Alexandra , Pires Jorge Joaquim Armando
Published: May 2011

Currently, developing courseware for e-learning initiatives remains much of a black art. While we are mastering the process of authoring interactive media, we know little about the many factors that affect the e-learning experience. This can drastically limit return on invested efforts for organizations. Indeed, authoring multimedia content is a very expensive endeavor as compared to the traditional approach. A better understanding of the process could yield new approaches and insights to achieve a more ambitious goal: predictive models for e-learning. The reviewed literature highlights a lack of reliable results describing the interplay between e-learning context, web usability, cognitive styles, motivation, learner performance and satisfaction. Clearly, more research is needed to better understand and predict learner performance during an e-learning experience. The expected results of such an integrated approach would assist developers to design better e-learning experiences. This chapter proposes a holistic framework covering the interplay among Business-Process, People and Information-Systems issues. This could serve to guide future research.
Knowledge-Based Systems as Database Design Tools
Authors: Lo W. Amber , Choobineh Joobin
Published: May 2011

Database design process is a knowledge intensive task that requires expertise, practical experience, and judgment. It is not surprising, therefore, that over the last few years many research prototype database design expert systems have been reported in the literature. This paper is a survey of such tools. These tools are compared with respect to four major aspects: database design support, tool flexibility, expert system features, and implementation characteristics. This study reveals that, in general, there is lack of 1) support for all the phases of the design, 2) support for group database design, 3) graphic support, 4) empirical verification of effectiveness of the tools, 5) long-term maintenance of the tool and database schemata, and 6) specialized knowledge representation schemes, inference, and learning techniques.
Policy-Agents to Support CSCW in the Case of Hospital-Scheduling
Authors: Czap Hans
Published: May 2011

Computer Supported Co-operative Work encircles collaboration of different parties in order to achieve a common goal. Human beings or organizations made up of human beings are conducted by preferences, goals, aims, intentions, etc., which in general are not consistent, i.e., they cannot be summed up to a common goal without conflicting individual preferences. For the case of hospital scheduling, we show the concept of a policy-agent that is able to represent individual preferences and goals, and thus, may act as a personal assistant to support solution of standard problems like scheduling of operating room activities. The main focus of the chapter lies in the representation of preferences and goals, such that adaptations to changed environments may be done easily. In addition, we show how interaction will work. Not within the scope of the chapter are questions of optimality of any scheduling algorithm. Rather, we focus on negotiation processes and acceptable negotiation results. The implementation of the concepts shown takes place at time. My thanks go to the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) for its support.
Building an Agent
Authors: Darbyshire Paul
Published: May 2011

Since the emergence of agent technology, there have been many papers and articles written on the advantages and use of the technology. In particular, in the last two years, the number of papers discussing the use of agent systems seems to have risen exponentially. Whether this rise in the interest of agent technology corresponds to the emergence of eCommerce, Internet banking and the explosion in Web-based systems, or the maturity of the technology and programming languages used to develop them is another matter. For people interested in the technology and wanting to build their own agents, most of the material provides little insight in how to actually build an agent. This chapter discusses the problem of actually building an agent using an example of an “email helper” agent.
Stickiness
Authors: Ingsriswang Supawadee , Forgionne Guisseppi
Published: May 2011

The past few years have borne witness to a revolution in business with acceleration in the use of the World Wide Web to support or, in many cases, supplant traditional modes of marketing and selling products and services. The Internet consumer base is continually growing. According to a report conducted by Computer Industry Almanac, Inc. (www.c-i-a.com, 1999), 490 million people around the world will have online access by the year 2002. With the rapid increase in the number of online consumers, the managers and marketers are moving to exploit this opportunity to reach millions of customers worldwide. Between 1997-1999, Internet hosts grew from 16 million to over 72 million worldwide (www.isc.org, 2000). The explosive growth of websites raises the question to the Web designer and marketer about how to attract consumer attention to their sites and how to differentiate their sites from other sites.
Not is Not "Not" Comparisons of Negation in SQL and Negation in Logic Programming
Authors: Jones James D.
Published: May 2011

Logic programming presents an excellent paradigm within which to develop intelligent systems. In addition to the routine sorts of reasoning we would expect such a system to perform, the state of the art in logic programming allows one to reason explicitly about false information, to reason explicitly about unknown or uncertain information (the subject of this chapter), and to reason introspectively in spite of holding multiple competing ways of viewing the world. Each of these abilities are necessary forms of reasoning, and each are lacking from current technology. Needless to say, each of these abilities are also lacking from relational databases. In this chapter, the focus is upon the expressive power of weak negation in logic programming. Weak negation is not well understood and can be easily confused with negation in SQL. In particular, some may falsely equate weak negation with the “not exists” clause of SQL. It is true that both forms of negation do have some similarity. However, the expressive power of weak negation far exceeds that of “not exists” in SQL. To a much lesser extent, we shall also consider strong negation in logic programming.
Experiences in SIS Implementation in UK Healthcare
Authors: Barnes Stuart J.
Published: May 2011

Implementing large strategic IS in the UK health sector has recently become the subject of much debate, as hospitals have undergone wide-reaching government-led institutional reforms involving the introduction of IT. Many of the developments have followed the patterns in the U.S. One such example is that of Case Mix, introduced strategically as part of the Resource Management Initiative and aimed at the facilitation of both clinical and financial audit. Moreover, Case Mix was implemented alongside significant changes in hospital structure and culture, requiring clinicians to get involved in management tasks and decision making within the structure of the hospital, supported by a new information infrastructure. Case Mix was implemented blanket-fashion throughout many UK hospitals, and the success of such systems has varied significantly. A number of lessons can be learned from the way that the implementation was approached. This chapter stems from a research project focusing longitudinally on the implementation of Case Mix in four UK hospitals. It draws a number of findings from the cases, and importantly, explicates a framework for strategic IS implementation, as generated from the cases and supported by the extant literature. Such a framework has implications for both theory and practice, and assists in the understanding of what is often a dynamic and poorly understood situation.
Experiences from Health Information Systems Implementation Projects Reported in Canada Between 1991 and 1997
Authors: Lau Francis , Hebert Marilynne
Published: May 2011

Canada’s Health Informatics Association has been hosting annual conferences since the 1970’s as a way of bringing information systems professionals, health practitioners, policy makers, researchers and industry together to share their ideas and experiences in the use of information systems in the health sector. This paper describes our findings on the outcome of information systems implementation projects reported at these conferences in the 1990s. Fifty implementation projects published in the conference proceedings were reviewed and the authors or designates of 24 of these projects were interviewed. The overall experiences, which are consistent with existing implementation literature, suggest the need for organizational commitment; resource support and training; managing project, change process and communication; organizational/user involvement and teams approach; system capability; information quality; and demonstrable positive consequences from computerization.
The Role of User Ownership and Positive User Attitudes in the Successful Adoption in Information Systems within NHS Community Trusts
Authors: Coombs Crispin R. , Doherty Neil F. , Loan-Clarke John
Published: May 2011

The factors that influence the ultimate level of success or failure of systems development projects have received considerable attention in the academic literature. However, despite the existence of a ‘best practice’ literature many projects still fail. The record of the National Health Service has been particularly poor in this respect. The research reported in this paper proposes that two additional factors; user ownership and positive user attitudes warrant further development and investigation. The current study investigated these two factors in a homogenous organizational sector, Community NHS Trusts, using a common type of information system, in order to eliminate the potentially confounding influences of sector and system. A multiple case-study design incorporating five Community Healthcare Trusts was utilized. The key results from the analysis indicated that both user ownership and positive user attitudes were important mediating variables that were crucial to the success of a CIS. In addition, it was also identified that the adoption of best practice variables had a dual role, directly influencing the level of perceived success but also facilitating the development of user ownership and positive user attitudes. These results will be of particular interest to practising IM&T managers in the NHS and also to the wider academic research community.
Introducing Computer-Based Telemedicine in Three Rural Missouri Counties
Authors: Harris Kimberly D. , Donaldson Joseph F. , Campbell James D.
Published: May 2011

This study investigated predictors of utilization of the computer-based telemedicine in three rural Missouri counties. Participating health care agencies were given computers and access to an Internet-based workstation that provided e-mail and World Wide Web (WWW) services. Utilization data for e-mail messages sent and WWW pages accessed were collected through proxy servers. A survey was distributed to those employees who are enrolled in the Rural Telemedicine Evaluation Project (RTEP), which addressed perceptions of the Internet-based RTEP workstation. The results of the survey were analyzed to see how perceptions and demographic variables predicted actual utilization. The findings of the study revealed that for e-mail, behavioral intentions/attitude, age, organizational support, and time were the most significant predictors. For WWW, only the behavioral intentions/attitude subscale predicted utilization. The majority of respondents did not utilize the e-mail technology. Strategies need to be developed through training interventions and organizational policies to address non-utilization.
The Quality of Medical Information on the Internet
Authors: Sellitto Carmine
Published: May 2011

This chapter provides an overview of some of the criteria that are currently being used to assess medical information found on the World Wide Web (WWW). Drawing from the evaluation frameworks discussed, a simple set of easy to apply criteria is proposed for evaluating on-line medical information. The criterion covers the categories of information accuracy, objectivity, privacy, currency and authority. A checklist for web page assessment and scoring is also proposed, providing an easy to use tool for medical professionals, health consumers and medical web editors.
Intermediation Structures in Electronic Healthcare Portals
Authors: Wareham Jonathan , Klein Richard
Published: May 2011

Despite the fact that commercial intermediation accounts for over 15% of the US GDP (Spulber, 1996), it has commanded limited attention from the academic community. Moreover, popular discourse has heralded the Internet’s ability to dis-intermediate supply chains and channels, directing attention away from intermediation. In contrast, this chapter focuses upon a sector of the economy that has witnessed a surge in electronic intermediation, namely, the healthcare industry. Founded on a survey of leading healthcare portals, this paper documents and analyzes four predominant patterns of functional intermediation in this new form of IT-enabled commercial institution. Based upon an historical analysis of healthcare portals, functional, generalizable patterns of intermediation are posited.
CORBAMed and DHE
Authors: Zhang Dongsong , Martinez Ralph
Published: May 2011

The healthcare organizational structure is often naturally distributed. In order to improve the quality of care, the adoption of standards to allow the effective and robust networking of the various centers for clinical, epidemiological, administrative information management purposes has been widely recognized as an urgent and strategic need in the healthcare community. This chapter analyzes the status and challenges that today’s healthcare information systems have, and introduces two middleware service frameworks for information systems, namely CORBAMed and DHE, in detail. The middleware service can address heterogeneous problems and significantly assist interoperability and integrity of information systems by providing common services and a set of standard interfaces that enable different applications to interact with each other.
An Introduction to Information Technology and Business Intelligence
Authors: Kudyba Stephan , Hoptroff Richard
Published: May 2011

The world of commerce has undergone a transformation since the early 1990s, which has increasingly included the utilization of information technologies by firms across industry sectors in order to achieve greater productivity and profitability. In other words, through use of such technologies as mainframes, PCs, telecommunications, state-of-the-art software applications and the Internet, corporations seek to utilize productive resources in a way that augment the efficiency with which they provide the most appropriate mix of goods and services to their ultimate consumer. This process has provided the backbone to the evolution of the information economy which has included increased investment in information technology (IT), the demand for IT labor and the initiation of such new paradigms as e-commerce.
Justification of Data Warehousing Projects
Authors: Jung Reinhard , Winter Robert
Published: May 2011

Project justification is regarded as one of the major methodological deficits in Data Warehousing practice. As reasons for applying inappropriate methods, performing incomplete evaluations, or even entirely omitting justifications, the special nature of Data Warehousing benefits and the large portion of infrastructure-related activities are stated. In this chapter, the economic justification of Data Warehousing projects is analyzed, and first results from a large academia-industry collaboration project in the field of non-technical issues of Data Warehousing are presented. As conceptual foundations, the role of the Data Warehouse system in corporate application architectures is analyzed, and the specific properties of Data Warehousing projects are discussed. Based on an applicability analysis of traditional approaches to economic IT project justification, basic steps and responsibilities for the justification of Data Warehousing projects are derived.
Dysfunctional Development Pathways of Information and Communication Technology
Authors: Kaye G. Roland , Little Stephen
Published: May 2011

This paper argues that there are three factors, which counter the inevitable movement towards globalisation. Firstly the incremental force of technology as illustrated by the growth stage model of the development of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is flawed. This model implies a linearity of development and an inevitability of stage following stage. While this stage model may provide historic explanation for the development in the developed world and amongst the mature users, the model fails when used predictively for the developing nations or for the late adopters. Secondly the imperialism of technology overcoming all barriers fails to reconcile the cultural dimensions of both the developing context or the application domain. Technology is not culturally neutral but is developed in a cultural context and in the case of information rich applications carries that cultural within its design. Applications of culturally developed systems, such as office and management systems assume the user’s compliance with the design culture, but this inevitably leads to cultural clashes as we apply outside the design context. Thirdly the assumption of universality of economic access and development is incompatible with both the reality and development paths in both developed and developing countries. This inevitably will lead to a divided society split between the internationally mobile, technology-supported communities and those communities disadvantaged economically and technologically but culturally rich. The failure to bridge this gap may leave society as a whole weakened through lack of access to ‘variety’. The paper discusses these perspectives and illustrates the case with evidence from NE Asia and the United Kingdom. In particular it focuses on software development and information-rich contexts.
The Context of Introducing IT/IS-Based Innovation into Local Government in Colombia
Authors: Watad Mahmoud M.
Published: May 2011

This paper examines the dynamics of introducing IT/IS into local municipalities in Colombia. It addresses the factors that drive the introduction of geographical information systems into public organizations. The analysis is based on data generated from documents and direct interviews in two local municipalities. The findings indicate that technological innovations are introduced by middle managers. These managers find ways to take advantage of existing information technologies and thereby transform their organizational processes. External catalysts such as new political environments combined with internal factors, such as local champions and technological awareness, were necessary for mobilizing resources and breaking organizational barriers that hinder innovations.
Assessing the Software Industry in Egypt
Authors: Kamel Sherif
Published: May 2011

During the 1960s, computing was introduced for the first time in Egypt. However, the use and applications was limited to the government and the public sector. It was only during the early 1980s that the introduction and diffusion of computing was widespread due to the personal computer evolution worldwide. The introduction of personal computers had different implications on organizational development and growth and was coupled with other developments in the information technology industry that relate to hardware penetration, software development, and the build-up of the telecommunications infrastructure. This chapter demonstrates the current status of information technology in Egypt with a focus on the assessment of the software industry as a major building block of the information technology industry and a possible active contributor to business and socioeconomic development at large.
A Model of a Computer Salary Calculation System in Poland
Authors: Jurkowski Wojciech
Published: May 2011

The model of a salary calculation system in Poland is introduced. Great complexity of the process of salary calculation caused by bureaucracy and many difficult law acts requires a special attention to application designers. In order to calculate salary for different enterprises in Poland, a special model must be implemented. The chapter is divided into four sections in which we characterize the specificity of Polish salary calculation process and propose the model that has been successfully implemented in a commercial system. The model comprises of two components: data structures and methods.