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The waste management industry is changing dramatically as a result of new legislation and commercial pressures. Examines the current situation and looks at the future of the industry throughout Europe.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how and why information systems (IS) enhance firm performance (FP) from a knowledge management perspective. Drawing upon the knowledge-view of the firm and organizational learning theories, we develop and empirically test a theoretical model where knowledge sharing (KS) plays a mediating role between IS maturity (ISM) and FP.

Data were collected through a survey of business managers in China. The model was tested by using the partial least squares structural equation modeling approach.

The results provide support for the propose research model and confirm that ISM is positively associated with FP, and KS partially mediates the effects of ISM.

This study contributes to the IS literature by reconceptualizing the ISM construct and testing the mediating effect of KS and, thus, offers some answers to the “how-and-why” question about the value of IS.

The case briefly describes the history of Electronic Data Systems (EDS) under Ross Perot and GM before turning to the beginning of a tumultuous decade in the late 1990s. As the turn of the century approached, EDS made critical strategic missteps such as missing opportunities in the Internet space, overlooking the onset of client-server computing, and failing to obtain major Y2K-related projects. The company attempted a turnaround by replacing the CEO with Dick Brown, whose leadership helped streamline the sprawling company. Despite initial successes, Brown's tenure ultimately ended in failure, due largely to his failure to recognize the growing Indian market and his willingness to buy business at the expense of the company's margin. The disastrous multibillion-dollar Navy & Marine Corp Intranet contract typified the type of high-profile transactions that Brown pursued, often boosting EDS's stock price in the short term while eroding its cash flow short term and its profitability over the long term. EDS management went through several stages of the turnaround process: the blinded phase, the inactive phase, and the faulty action phase, until Michael Jordan replaced Brown as CEO and enacted a three-tiered operational, strategic, and financial turnaround.

EDS's near-decade of turnaround efforts takes students through every phase of the turnaround process and demonstrates that even initially successful turnaround efforts can become distracted, rendering them ineffective. The case will show both a failed turnaround and a subsequent successful one, while adding an international component with respect to EDS's overlooking an important, growing Indian market.