Search results

This paper develops a global information technology model that captures the main drivers of a firm's IT applications in multiple markets with two illustrative company cases. The paper develops a global information technology model by drawing from consulting experience and the relevant literature. The bases for the model are – a firm's environment, level of technological diffusion within a firm, and prospective technology applications based on the existing inventory of IT applications that support the firm's operations. The paper provides a description of the model dimensions and furnishes an illustrative mapping on an Indian firm and an American firm's operations.

The paper addresses the contemporary and very important area of electronic information (EI) management – the ethical dimension and implications. Specifically, this paper aims to analyze EI activities and management practices, the ethical dilemmas and implications; to relate effectiveness in EI ethics activities in the context of organizational ethics policy and practice, and to suggest a framework for handling ethical dilemmas in managing the major EI activities.

A survey of mid‐ and first‐level managers in six industries was conducted. Subjects were asked to describe organization practices in 11 areas of ethics policy application. Respondent firms were compared according to high and low numbers of ethical safeguards: an ethics code, a credo or values statement, written ethics policies – general and specific, ethics training and development, ready access to ethics guidelines at all levels, and a cohesive, supportive ethical culture.

EI ethics need to be addressed in the context of the organization's policies and practices. This extends to specific EI activities as well, where the ramifications of misbehavior – or upright behavior – are magnified.

The organization that invests in ethics safeguards provides the needed supports and reaps substantial returns in employee morale, performance and ultimately, the bottom line – profits. In this area of EI management, the atmosphere of trust that results lightens the burden for all involved.

This research has a value that is relevant to the current issues related to the privacy and security of information.

Assesses the extent to which organizational ethics codes, credos and policies are implemented by managers and supervisors in their work. Further identifies and assesses the principal factors that determined the level of consonance between stated ethical policies and values, and their actual practice. Supports and extends previous observations that simply having ethical codes and policies does not guarantee ethical practices throughout the organization. To become a genuinely ethical organization – an important success factor in today's environment – a comprehensive approach and investment in ethical safeguards is needed and should be regarded as a dimension of decision making alongside quality standards, performance, profitability and other strategic considerations.

The rapid growth of the Internet and the number of online consumers have resulted in increased fears from privacy advocates, legislators and consumer groups regarding the guarantees of privacy when using e‐commerce and the Internet. Some companies collect marketing information on consumers’ Internet habits without their knowledge or consent. This study looks at stated policies appearing on the Web sites of a number of major e‐commerce companies regarding Internet privacy. This was accomplished by the examination of information related to current Internet policies posted on these firms’ Web sites. Also examined was whether these policies have been changed over a three‐year time period. Five policy categories were examined over this three‐year period using a consistent rating scale. These categories were privacy, returns, shipping, warranty, and security.

The present research is an updated and expanded continuation of an article by Parayitam et al. from 2008. The purpose of this study is to examine several internet policies and whether the communication of these policies to the customer has significantly changed during a ten year period.

The study defines published policies of how a company operates with respect to different factors. The policies examined are privacy, security, shipping, returns, and warranty. Each of the policies described above were then rated as per the rating scale defined by the authors. The 525 e‐commerce sites studied were divided into service and product sites, respectively. The e‐commerce sites were also separated into 28 industry groups. The data were also collected on some of the other factors that were important in this study.

E‐commerce companies do not fully inform their customers. The results showed no significant relationships between the policy ratings and any of the other factors taken into account.

The net incomes collected were the companies' entire income, not exclusively from online sales. The present study used an unbalanced sample size consisting of more product sites than service sites.

People doing business over internet with e‐commerce companies need to read the privacy policy carefully and should be aware of how their information will be used by the e‐commerce companies.

The study provides valuable information about e‐commerce companies in communicating their customer service policies and very little changes have taken place in the last ten year period.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a framework that serves as a guide to develop a curriculum and instructional strategy that is systems oriented and student-centric.

The framework is based on the theories in the field of education by prominent researchers. The framework is divided into four sub-systems, input, process, output, and feedback. While the input, process, and output sections discuss basic elements critical in students’ learning, the feedback section suggests how the learning environment can be controlled and corrected based on student learning outcomes.

The paper presents a framework for the student to graduate transformation process in institutions of higher education based on fundamental premise that this process is an ecosystem consisting of several interlinked and interacting sub-systems. A key driver of the transformation process should be a feasible set of expected competencies that the global market place for talent expects of college graduates. These market-valued competencies can be used to define the success of the curriculum, course design, and instructional techniques and determine the sufficiency of the resource allocation by the institution of higher education to specific academic and supporting programs.

The framework that is based on integration of well-grounded theories in the field of education. Thus it adds value to the development of curriculum that is needed by the education institutions to excel and compete in the global and dynamic academic environment.

This paper seeks to apply results from the study of bandit processes to cases of information technology (IT) project failures.

This paper examines three published case studies, and discusses whether managerial actions are in accordance with the predictions of bandit process studies.

Bandits are a class of decision‐making problems that involve choosing one action from a set. In terms of project management, the firm selects from several alternative IT projects, each with its own distribution of risks and rewards. The firm investigates technologies one by one, and keeps only the best‐performing technology. The bandit perspective implies that managers choosing a risky IT project with high potential reward before safer ones are behaving optimally. It is in the firm's interest to resolve the uncertainty about the innovative project first. In case of failure, the firm can later choose safer technology. A high proportion of risky projects adopted leads to a high number of project failures.

The bandit approach supports studies that advocate evaluating decision makers on the optimality of their decision process, rather than specific outcomes.

This paper demonstrates how insights from the bandit problem are relevant to studies of IT project failures. Whilst choosing high‐risk, high‐reward projects may be in a firm's interest, some observed project failures are optimal choices that do not work out.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the real option theory is applicable to evaluation of cases of escalation and premature termination of Management Information Systems (MIS) projects.

The paper compares the implications of psychological and economic escalation theories with lessons from the real option theory as applied to MIS projects. Then, it examines published case studies, and discuss when project continuation enhances and reduces value for the manager and the firm.

Escalation of commitment is continuation of an investment project after receiving negative signals. Escalation was identified as a significant problem in MIS projects often explained by the desire of the manager to avoid recognizing mistakes and to protect reputation. The opposite problem of premature termination of certain investment projects was also identified. This study argues that accurate application of real option theory is critical to distinguish between escalation and premature termination. Under the real option theory, an investment project is analogous to a financial option, in that there is an opportunity to continue the project, but no obligation. Continuation has value when there is uncertainty and new information about the project may be revealed. Failure to account for the real options in a project is value‐reducing as it may lead to mistakes in premature termination of projects when projects with real option value are labeled as cases of irrational escalation.

The paper details the implications of real option theory to evaluating project continuation in the MIS setting.

This paper applies insights from real option theory to studies of escalation in MIS. Continuing a project may be seen as escalation when it actually has value for the firm, as new information received by continuing the project reduces uncertainty.

It is posited that information technology (IT) outsourcing unfolds a complex relationship that has the propensity to start with a bang and end in a whimper unless the strategic parameters are identified at the outset. The paper is intended to beacon flash areas open to scholarly research in this relatively nascent area.

The key to long‐term success is the mutually beneficial partnership of the client and the provider. This paper identifies such relationships based on a framework that can lead to strategic success of the outsourcing engagements. The paper develops a set of propositions to build a deeper understanding of the processes that underlie IT outsourcing as a strategic and sustainable enterprise‐wide initiative to further an organization's performance in the competitive market place.

Outsourcing of IT is emerging as a potent business strategy. The statistics compiled by the IT industry watch‐dogs point only to one direction – outsourcing will grow unabated in the foreseeable future. However, their data also reveal a staggering failure rate of outsourcing engagements. The failure may be partly attributed to a lack of formal research available to decision makers contemplating the possibility of outsourcing. The literature review corroborates that there is very little scholarly research available to guide decisions in the pre‐outsourcing phase. This paper suggests a research framework that would fill a void in understanding the relationships among the firm's internal capabilities, the type of engagement, and strategic business values. Understanding of these strategic relationships is vital before an organization decides to outsource, as the decision domain has shifted primarily from cost cutting to engagement of a strategic nature. The outsourcing decision of IT should be considered strategic as the relationship and the knowledge gained during the engagement can be translated into tangible and intangible business values for the organization. An interesting extension of the proposed research would be to investigate the conditions that underlie acceptance of an engagement by the vendor. The proposed research also has the potential to extend to the post‐engagement phase of the outsourcing in terms of identifying the conditions for strategically focused relationship management.

The paper provides a framework and identifies propositions to delve deeper into the understanding and underpinnings of IT outsourcing as a strategic process by studying a majority of research available on the topic.

The firewall is normally an intermediate system between the secure internal networks and the less secure external networks. It is intended to keep corporate systems safe from intruders, hackers, and accidental entry into the corporate system. The primary types of firewalls are screening routers, proxy servers, and stateful inspectors. Before choosing a firewall architecture, a company must have the right mind set regarding the threat. The purpose of this paper is to provide an introduction to firewall concepts and help develop this mind set.