Editorial

Citation

Irani, Z. (2007), "Editorial", Journal of Enterprise Information Management, Vol. 20 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/jeim.2007.08820caa.001

Editorial

Editorial

Dear Readers

Another exciting issue of the Journal of Enterprise Information Management (JEIM) has arrived!

The journal’s contribution to our understanding of Information Technology (IT) and Information Systems (IS) is evident again in this issue, with international contributions that analyze the results of multi-disciplinary research in relation to the intersection of theory, method and empirical findings.

We kick off this issue with a paper from Paul Beynon-Davis, “Personal Identity Management and Electronic Government: the Case of the National Identity Card in the UK”. After many years of discussion through successive governments, the then British Home Secretary David Blunkett in 2003 announced that the Government intends to introduce a British national identity card linked to a national identity database, the National Identity Register (NIR). The NIR database is planned to perform a key role in the delivery of Government services over the internet. However, personal identify management and associated technologies have been locked in a debate about the introduction of a national identify card. The author argues that identify management comprises of three inter-related elements with associated processes. The aim of this paper is to unpack some of the socio-technical relationships inherent in contemporary notions of personal identify management and in doing so, to reflect these elements against a recent case in which such relationships are being enacted. It is interesting to note here that the author reports that the issue of identify management (although developing a burgeoning literature within Computer Science), appears to have been largely ignored by information systems and management literature. The authors argue that this is precisely why issues examined in this paper need careful consideration. The socio-technical examination of identify management is clearly critical to the processes of authentication, identification and enrolment, associated with the use of e-Government and potentially e-Democracy systems.

From North America, Steven R. Gordon and Monideepa Tarafdar describe their research that explores “How do a company’s information technology competences influence its ability to innovate?” This paper draws on prior research to describe stages of the innovation process and to identify several IT competences that have been linked to innovation success. The authors examine innovation at three case study sites, and demonstrate how IT competences can influence the success of innovation at various stages of the innovation process. The findings show that certain IT competencies in the areas of information and knowledge management, collaboration and communication, and business involvement positively affect an organisations’ ability to innovation. This is a very important finding for managers, as it can be used to build IT competences that can then be cultivated to support the process of innovation.

The next paper by Michael Amberg and Manuela Schröder from Germany, reports on “E-Business Models and Consumer Expectations for Digital Audio Distribution”. The research in this paper is based on two empirical studies. The first study examines the suppliers’ perspective by evaluating 15 e-business models in the German music market, classifying them according to type of compensation and dependency of the supplier or its technology and analysing them with regard to type and volume of content, price of content, rights of use and additional services. To identify the identified e-business models, the authors analysed consumer expectations for digital audio distribution in a second study by using a web-based questionnaire. The study systematically identified gaps between the demand and the supply of digital audio content and concluded that to reach more consumers, existing e-business models have to be modified with new perspectives proposed.

Following on the business strategies strand, Philip O’Reilly and Patrick Finnegan report on the “B2B Marketplaces Sharing IS/IT Infrastructures: An Exploration of Strategic Technology Alliances”. The study explores co-operative partnerships and strategic alliances, in doing so identifying the applicability of technology alliances to business-to-business (B2B) electronic marketplaces. The paper explains a model developed by Eutilia, through which a leading B2B marketplace in the utilities sectors is explored to justify a technology alliance. The case study illustrates how Eutilia operationalised this model and entered a technology alliance with a competing B2B marketplace. The analysis shows how both marketplaces benefited from the technology alliance within a competing marketplace. The paper concludes by proposing determinants of technology alliances for B2B electronic marketplaces.

From Helsinki, Sanna Laukkanen, Sami Sarpola and Petri Hallikainen contribute to the discussion of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) adoption by investigating the relationship of enterprise size and associated constraints, with regards to ERP adoption, in their paper “Enterprise Size Matters – Objectives and Constraints of ERP Adoption”. Survey data based on the responses of 44 companies is analyzed by dividing the companies into small, medium-sized, and large enterprise and comparing these groups using statistical manipulation. The findings are very interesting, as they highlight significant differences that exist between small, medium-sized and large enterprises regarding the objectives and constraints of ERP system adoption. While small enterprises experience more knowledge constraints, large enterprises are challenged by the changes imposed by ERP adoption. The authors note that larger and medium-sized enterprises are more outward-oriented in ERP adoption than small enterprises. Business development is considered especially important by medium-sized enterprises, and less so in the others. The Finnish study’s findings suggest that that instead of considering small and medium-sized enterprises as one homogenous group of small enterprises, differences between these two groups of companies should be acknowledged explicitly in information system adoption.

Marianna Sigala, from Greece, reports on “Investigating the internet’s Impact on Interfirm Relations: Evidence from the Business Travel Management Distribution Chain”. This study investigates inter-firm relations amongst Business Travel Management (BTM) firms and their clients by examining the impact of online BTM solution on the creation and reinforcement of relational bonds. The study examines two major approaches to exploring inter-firm relations: economics (transaction costs economics) and socio-psychological (social exchange; inter-organisation and industry network) theories. A model illustrating the interrelations amongst the use of online BTM solutions was proposed for investigating the impact of online BTM solution of BTM-clients relations. Data were gathered from a sample of BTM managers in the UK, Greece and Cyprus, with 194 usable responses then analysed using structural equation modelling. Mariana reports that the impact of online BTM solutions on trust, satisfaction and dependence was not confirmed. However, the hypotheses reflecting the interactions between structure and social bonds was supported, which confirmed the mediating impact of internet enabled communication of fostering inter-firm relations.

We conclude this issue with a technical paper from Patrik Spieβ, Christof Bornhövd, Tao Lin, Stephan Haller, Joachim Schaper. In “Going Beyond Auto-ID: A Service-oriented Smart Items Infrastructure” the authors propose a service-oriented infrastructure that enabled the integration of RFID, wireless sensor networks and embedded systems technologies with existing business processes. In this paper, the authors give a technical architectural overview of planned middleware and outline a customer pilot that evaluates their system architecture. Their Smart Items Infrastructure has been designed with scalability, flexibility and usability in mind. By introducing five layers of abstraction, the infrastructure will be able to provide business software systems a uniform, event-based, and timely view of the real world that supports a wide range of hardware from simple, read-only RFID cheap to wireless sensor networks and even to full-blown embedded PC-scale systems. In undertaking this challenging task, they point out some of the open research issues in the area, like the executive of business logic on the devices themselves.

We hope you enjoy reading this issue of the Journal of Enterprise Information Management and look forward to receiving your papers.

Zahir Irani(Editor in Chief)

Omiros D.Sarikas(Editorial Assistant)