Editorial

Citation

Dwivedi, Z.I.a.Y. (2014), "Editorial", Journal of Enterprise Information Management, Vol. 27 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/JEIM-08-2013-0064

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of Enterprise Information Management, Volume 27, Issue 2

It gives us great pleasure to welcome our readers to the second issue of the 27th volume of Journal Enterprise Information Management (JEIM), and express our appreciation to them for their continuous support during the past year. The continuous update of the journal's scope to promote theory and practice has led to an increase in submissions that has allowed us to further the quality of the journal. This issue incorporates excellent "quality" submissions from around the world that focus on providing a mixture of conceptual and practical contributions.

The second issue of volume 27 commences with a conceptual paper by Anton Manfreda and Mojca Indihar Štemberger, entitled "Factors causing the relationship gap between top management and IS personnel". The authors report that there been several inadequate and unsuccessful IS investments and only a small proportion of companies have been strategically investing in IS (Tallon et al., 2000; Hawari and Heeks, 2010). It is thus essential to examine the factors and measures of the business-IS relationship and therefore contribute to an efficient relationship between top management and IS personnel. Having said that, the purpose of the research is to:

* enhance the understanding of the relationship between top management and IS personnel with identifying the key factors that are important in this relationship; and

* outlining factors that are causing the business-IS gap.

An active and engaging management will see IS personnel as an asset that supports the deployment of the organisations strategy rather than as a cost. Therefore, the authors stress the need for a responsible management that is aware of the inefficient relationship between the IS function and management, and its consequences. To validate the conceptual research work, the authors developed two similar questionnaires for IS department managers (i.e. 221 CIOs participate) and top management (i.e. 93 CEOs participated) to identify key factors in the relationship from Slovenian companies. This research contributes towards understanding the key factors in the association between top and IS managers as it classifies factors that are instigating the business-IS gap. As a result, it develops the existing literature since it is concurrently focusing on managerial and IS side.

The above conceptual paper is followed by a research paper by Boonlert Watjatrakul, entitled "Vendor selection strategy for IT outsourcing: the weighted-criteria evaluation technique". This experimental research study develops the spreadsheet template to test the weighted-criteria evaluation technique with the two different assessment methods, i.e.:

1. the qualification score plus the lowest bid price as the highest price score (QS-LBHPS); and

2. the qualification score plus the average bid price as the middle price score (QS-ABMPS).

This paper aims to understand whether these two methods provide the same or different results of vendor selection and how the proportional weights of a vendor's qualification and bid price affect the vendor selection results under the two methods. As this is an experiment-based study, the author employed the experimental research method to identify cause-and-effect relationships (Shavelson and Towne, 2002). By applying this method, the author conducted 1,000 experimental tests using the developed spreadsheet template to examine vendor selection results of the two methods (QS-LBHPS and QS-ABMPS) and compare the vendor selection results under three conditions of vendors’ qualification and price weights. Based on these experimental tests, the selected vendor (vendor A, B or C) under the QS-LBHPS method turned out to be significantly associated with those under the QS-ABMPS method (χ2=1,939.887, p<0.000). Concisely, the results of the vendor selection based on the weighted-criteria technique under QS-LBHPS and QS-ABMPS methods are not significantly different. The author claims that there is no empirical research conducted so far that compares the results of vendor selection under the two methods of the weighted-criteria evaluation technique. The findings facilitate a firm's selection team to apply the weighted-criteria evaluation technique effectively and realise that vendor selection results are altered based on the predefined proportions of qualification and price weights.

Then we have Sedigheh Moghavvemi and Noor A. Mohd Salleh presenting their research paper, entitled "Malaysian entrepreneurs propensity to use IT innovation". This research examines and validates the Entrepreneurial Event Model (EEM) as a base model to investigate the key factors of entrepreneurs’ intention, and examine the importance of individual perceptions on the entrepreneurs’ intention to adopt IT innovation. EEM is an intentional model that measures the volitional aspect of behaviours. In addition, the EEM model hypothesises that the intent to take action derives from the perception of perceived desirability, perceived feasibility and the propensity to act upon an opportunity (Shapero and Sokol, 1982). To validate the proposed research model, the authors collected data using a questionnaire survey from 420 entrepreneurs involved in providing professional services in the following sectors in Malaysia:

Manufacturing, telecommunication, education, banking and finance, service and agriculture.

The authors conducted the exploratory factor analysis in SPSS using the principle component method with varimax rotation to verify whether the questionnaire items properly mapped the corresponding construct. The results offer support for the capability of the EEM model to measure the individual perception towards technology acceptance. Moreover, the findings highlight the influence of the propensity to use, perceived desirability and perceived feasibility on the entrepreneur's intention to use IT innovation.

Shu-Mei Tseng and Pei-Shan Lee propose research entitled "The effect of knowledge management capability and dynamic capability on organizational performance". In this paper, Tseng and Lee investigate and verify the patterns of relationship between knowledge management capability (e.g. Prieto and Easterby-Smith, 2006), dynamic capability (e.g. Eisenhardt and Martin, 2000) and organisational performance (e.g. Borman and Motowidlo, 1993), based on how enterprises implement their knowledge management capabilities and dynamic capabilities to enhance organisational performance. In doing so, resulting in the development of a proposed model that offer a further insight. This investigation is in response to the lack of research in the extant literature that appears to only endorse the influence of knowledge management capability and dynamic capability on organisational performance or influence of dynamic capability on organisational performance (such as Hasan and Al-Hawari, 2003). To achieve adequate exploration on knowledge management capability, dynamic capability and organisational performance, the authors employed a questionnaire and statistical analytical techniques whilst focusing on small-medium enterprises that implemented knowledge management as a sampling frame – this research used the purposive sampling method. The results of this study indicate that knowledge management capability is associated with the degree of dynamic capability and organisational performance. This research applies questionnaire methods as the main research tools with the aim of conducting in-depth investigation into the influence of knowledge management capability and dynamic capability on organisational performance.

Then, LeeAnn Kung, Benjamin T. Hazen, Casey G. Cegielski and L. Allison Jones-Farmer presenting their research paper, entitled "Performance expectancy and use of enterprise architecture: training as an intervention". This paper attempts to investigate the underlying causes related to the gaps between the adoption of enterprise architecture and its use in organisations. In this research, the authors examine the mediating role of training in regard to the relationship between performance expectancy and acceptance. The purpose of this study is to examine how organisations can motivate a greater degree of enterprise architecture use. In order to test the research model, the authors employed a survey method. The data were collected from organisations with professionals, senior managers and consultants who support the organisations in adopting enterprise architecture. Research suggests that covariance-based structural equation modelling is preferred when the study is confirmatory in nature (Gefen et al., 2011) and the parameter estimates obtained from covariance-based structural equation modelling are supposed to be less influenced than the estimates obtained through partial least squares path modelling. Considering the decision criteria presented in existing methods such as that in Gefen et al. (2011), the authors considered that a covariance-based structural equation modelling approach would be most appropriate for our study. This study extends the research on information technology training by examining the role of training as an intervention within the technology acceptance paradigm.

The above enterprise architecture research is following by a case study based research by Demosthenes Akoumianakis, entitled "Boundary spanning tactics and ‘traceable’ connections in cross-organizational virtual alliances: a case study". This research expands from the extant research in three directions:

* first, the boundaries in virtual settings should be considered in a relational context accounting for human and material (i.e. technology) agencies (Jonsson et al., 2009);

* second, multiple boundaries types fragment highly specialised and distributed work contexts and their anchoring into human and material agencies (Lindgren et al., 2008; Leonardi, 2011); and

* third, to investigate and understand boundaries and boundary spanning by relying on digital trace data (Howison et al., 2011).

Through this lens, this research seeks to investigate boundary-spanning tactics in a cross-organisational virtual alliance and discuss the analytical value of "digging" into technology for excavating boundaries and understanding their dynamic and emergent features. With regards to the research methodology, the present work relies on data compiled through a virtual ethnographic analysis of a cross-organisational tourism alliance which is revisited, re-formulated as digital trace data and re-analysed using knowledge visualisation techniques.

Finally, John Effah with his research paper, entitled "The rise and fall of a dot-com pioneer in a developing country" examines how dot-com pioneers in the developing world progressed as compared to their counterparts in the developed world. In doing so, this research investigates the experiences of dot-com pioneers in developing countries to complement the experience of their counterparts from the developed world as documented in the dot-com boom and bust literature. Despite attempts by some entrepreneurs to promote dot-com innovation in the developing world, not much is known from empirical research on developing country dot-com pioneers and their successors. The authors therefore argue that this situation has led to a research gap that requires further empirical attention. This study follows interpretive case study methodology and draws on general actor-network theory (Callon, 1986; Latour, 2005) to analyse the formation, initial success and final failure of the developing country dot-com pioneer. The research findings exhibit that the developing country dot-com pioneer existed alongside the developed world pioneers who experienced the dot-com boom and bust from the late 1990s to the early 2000s (Jelassi and Enders, 2005). The author claims that this research is first of its kind to provide insights into the experiences of developing country dot-com pioneers to complement the literature from the developed world.

We would very much like to thank all our contributors for their excellent high-quality contributions and hope JEIM readers will find the submissions invigorating, innovative and valuable. The editorial team would also like to extend their appreciation to the referees that review all submissions made to JEIM.

Zahir Irani and Yogesh Dwivedi

References

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