略论电子商务发展

电子商务是IT产业的先锋力量，电子商务的发展是必然的。我国电子商务的发展应该走自己的路，让有条件的一部分城市借鉴国外电子商务发展的模式，摸索适合我国国情的发展道路，带动全国的发展。     

An examination of the antecedents and consequences of organizational IT innovation in hospitals

The healthcare industry is widely recognized as information-intensive and IT is considered to be an intrinsic component of the success of healthcare organizations such as hospitals. While both researchers and practitioners have argued that hospitals should aspire to be IT innovators, most tend to be IT laggards. An understanding of the factors that drive hospitals to become IT innovators remains an important phenomenon of interest. However, there is a lack of theory-driven empirical research that systematically investigates the factors that influence a hospital’s strategic choice to be an IT innovator and the influence of IT innovation on hospital performance. This study bridges the extant gaps in the literature by developing and testing an integrated model that seeks to understand why certain hospitals are IT innovators. Using IT innovation theory as our theoretical foundation, we examine three antecedents, including the chief information officer (CIO) strategic leadership, the top management team’s (TMT) attitude toward IT, and the hospital’s climate. Further, we examine the influence of IT innovation on the impact of IT within the hospital and the influence of IT impact on the hospital’s financial performance. The research model was tested using both survey and archival data from 70 matched pairs of hospital CIOs and executives. The quantitative analysis is supplemented with by interviews with 10 participating CIOs to further examine the relationship of the CIO to hospital IT innovation. The results suggest that the CIO strategic leadership and the TMT’s attitude toward IT are key factors that influence IT innovation; however, the influence of a hospital’s climate on organizational IT innovation is contingent upon the CIO’s level of strategic leadership. The results also suggest that hospitals that are IT innovators can generate greater impact from IT, which in turn results in greater performance for the hospital. Theoretical and practical implications as well as future research directions are discussed.     

IT Management and Governance in Equal Parts

To be most effective, companies must manage their IT resources and use them in their governance structure. So there is a defined difference between IT management and IT governance. If a company wants to grow and be successful, it must not only manage its IT resources, but also use those resources throughout the company as part of the governance structure. IT governance implies a system in which all stakeholders, including the board, internal customers and related areas such as finance, have the necessary input into the decision making process, thus preventing a single stakeholder, typically IT, [from] being blamed for poor decisions. It also prevents users from later complaining that the system does not behave or perform as expected.     

The impact of industry contextual factors on IT focus and the use of IT for competitive advantage

Only limited empirical evidence has confirmed the effectiveness of strategic information systems planning (SISP) and there is no evidence that investment in mission-critical systems leads to improved performance under conditions of environmental uncertainty and information intensity. This study tests the extent to which such contextual factors impact business dependence on IT and two SISP practices: IT participation in business planning and the alignment between the IT and the business plans. It also examines the influence of IT dependence and SISP on the use of IT for competitive advantage. Using structural equation modeling on postal survey data from 161 firms, it found a positive and significant impact of the contextual factors on business dependence on IT and the two SISP practices and between these factors and the use of IT for competitive advantage. Data also revealed significant differences between industry types and environmental uncertainty but not information intensity. Implications are discussed.     

Measuring enterprise IT capability: A total IT capability perspective

The information technology (IT) capability of an enterprise is very important for the efficient execution of its management activities and to improve task performance in an IT environment. Appropriate measures are necessary for a firm to gauge, manage and improve enterprise IT capability. This research presents a 17-item scale that can efficiently measure enterprise IT capability, and verifies its validity and reliability. The theoretical and practical applications of the measure are discussed, including how it can be effectively utilized to improve enterprise IT capability.     

IT in teacher education in Scotland

Abstract This paper outlines the consensual approach to the formulation of curriculum policy in general, and in relation to information technology (IT) in particular, in Scotland. It outlines the approaches to IT that have emerged as a result. These are founded on the premises that all children should develop knowledge and understanding about IT and skills in using IT; that IT should influence both content and delivery of the curriculum; and that IT (computing studies in Scotland) should be an elective for secondary school pupils. Against this background, the paper describes the evolution of policy and practice relating to IT in teacher education. It appraises the strategies which institutes are using for developing the professional skills necessary to deliver IT in the Scottish curriculum. It notes significant progress but highlights the need to develop strategies which integrate IT more deeply with other professional studies so that student teachers develop deeper, more reflective approaches to IT.     

An E-Business Audit Service Model in the B2B Context

This research studies E-business audit as a specialized service rendered in an information technology intensive environment. A service model is used to research the E-business audit context. Here auditing is viewed as a specialized technical service conducted in the context of E-business technologies, business processes, and people involved in E-business transactions. The specialized audit service is provided to the E-Business transacting firms that in most cases involve transactions between customers and suppliers. A field study of information technology auditors showed that both knowledge of the business processes and of the technologies were critical for them to render reliable and accurate E-business audit findings. The results showed the need for higher training levels in advanced IT methods and tools for technology auditors in rendering IT audit judgments for the business-to-business (B2B) context. Thus, these results provided support for the service model that calls for the appropriate knowledge and use of technologies, business processes, and people in providing service.     

An Empirical Analysis of the Relationship Between IT Training Sources and IT Value

Information technology (IT) training has been identified as a key factor for the success of IT applications and the most frequently applied coping mechanism to handle changing IT. However, there is a question as to how IT training has to be conducted to obtain desired outcomes (higher levels of IT value). This paper analyses the presence of IT training sources used by firms and examines the influence on IT business value. Here, IT training is studied according to three IT training sources: in-house IT training, outside IT training, and self IT training by employees. In addition, differences in IT training sources are analysed according to two contingency factors: business size and business industry. Results show a positive relationship between IT training sources (outside and self IT training) and IT business value and confirm that IT training sources are positively related to business size and differ moderately by business industry.     

新一代电子商务技术

在信息技术蓬勃发展的今天,应用于电子商务的IT新技术屈出不穷,电子商务开展的深度和广度在进一步拓展,呈现了面向整体解决方案的发展趋势。在此背景下,新一代电子商务系统的建设正在成为极受关注的热点。本文结合电子商务的历史与现状,依据信息技术的发展现状和趋势,阐述了新一代电子商务技术的主要内容及其发展趋势;总结归纳出了建设新一代电子商务的主要技术问题,根据电子商务未来的发展方向,提出了我国新一代电子商务建设和发展的思路。     

Status quo geschäftsprozessorientierter Architekturintegration

Today large companies often have to cope with complex and heterogeneous IT infrastructures. The main target of IT architects being responsible for those architectures is to align IT to business needs at the lowest costs possible. A recent approach to this issue is Enterprise Application Integration (EAI). Our study examines how EAI is used in large-scale companies and which effects it has on the organizational architecture of those companies. The results illustrate that EAI is a major component in complex IT infrastructures which has a significant influence on business processes. But the study also shows that there is a considerable gap between the importance of EAI in enterprise architecture and the way it is used in companies today. Eventually this article points out what has to be done to come closer to an internally sustainable enterprise architecture.     

IT capabilities and firm performance: A contingency analysis of the role of industry and IT capability type

Previous empirical studies examining the relationship between IT capability and accounting-based measures of firm performance reported mixed results. We argued that prior work has relied on aggregate overall measures of the firm's IT capability, ignoring the specific type and nature of IT capability; and also has not fully considered important environmental conditions that influence the relationship. Drawing on a resource-based view, we advanced a contingency perspective and proposed that IT capabilities’ impact on firm resources was contingent on the “fit” between the type of IT capability/resource a firm possesses and the demands of the industry in which it competes. Specifically, using publicly available rankings as proxies for two types of IT capabilities (internally and externally focused), we empirically examined the degree to which three industry characteristics (dynamism, munificence, and complexity) influenced the impact of each type of IT capability on measures of financial performance. After controlling for prior performance, we found there was general support for the posited contingency model. The implications of these findings are also discussed.     

Adoption of open source software in organizations: A socio-cognitive perspective

Open source software (OSS) is an important trend in the information technology adoption landscape. It has received considerable attention in the scientific literature, but mostly in the professional press. In fact, there is much debate over its actual commercial and organizational value. Since the public discourse accompanying an IT may influence adoption decisions, it is important to consider IT specialists’ perceptions of the discourse on OSS. In this study, we investigated the relationship between IT specialists’ profiles, IT specialists’ reception of the public discourse on OSS, and their organizations’ receptivity to OSS. Drawing on the socio-cognitive perspective of IT innovation adoption and the organizing vision theory, a survey of 271 IT specialists was conducted to examine these issues. Our results indicate that a majority of IT specialists in our sample are rather neutral about the OSS concept conveyed in the public discourse. However, our sample also comprises respondents with more extreme perceptions who can be classified as either supporters or detractors. Our results indicate that detractors have more years of experience but have been less exposed to OSS than supporters, and that IT specialists’ perceptions of the OSS concept are positively associated with their organizations’ openness to OSS adoption and, to a lesser extent, with the existence of an organizational policy that favors OSS adoption. Altogether, our findings provide strong support for the organizing vision theory and the idea that the popularity of an IT innovation concept favors the adoption of the material IT innovation in organizations. By providing a preliminary test of a nomological network of IT specialists’ perceptions of the OSS concept, our study offers insights as to why organizations may or may not take OSS into account in their software procurement decisions.     

The enigma of evaluation: benefits,costs and risks of IT in Australian small–medium-sized enterprises

The evaluation of information technology (IT) is fraught with misconception and there is a lack of understanding of appropriate IT evaluation methods and techniques. The benefits, costs and risks of IT need to be identified, managed, and controlled if businesses are to derive value from their investments. This paper presents findings from an exploratory study that used a questionnaire survey to determine the benefits, costs and risks of IT investments from 130 small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Australia. The analysis revealed that organizations from different industry sectors significantly differ in the amount they invest in IT but that firm size (in terms of turnover and number of employees) does not influence IT investment levels. Second, strategic benefits vary across different industry sectors. Third, the way employees adapt to change as a result of IT implementation depends on the size of the organization. Based upon the findings, a series of benchmark metrics for benefits, costs, and risks of IT are presented. It is posited that these can serve as a reference point for initiating a quality evaluation cycle in which benchmarking forms an integral component of the strategic process.     

IT危机预警管理系统初探

随着互联网应用的深入,计算机系统安全受到的威胁日益增加,IT危机预警变得日益重要。从IT危机内涵出发,指出建立IT危机预警管理系统的必要性,之后给出IT危机预警管理系统的流程。重点讨论了预警分析的内容及危机预控对策。力求建立可操作性的IT危机预警管理系统,为计算机系统的防护措施提供理论上和对策上的指导。     

The conundrum of IT management

This paper presents a robust argument as to why it can be difficult for chief information officers (CIOs) to generate business value from investments that their organizations make in information technology (IT) with contemporary organizational structures, authority patterns, processes and mindsets. This argument is built on the subtle premise that organizations should not seek to merely manage IT but to manage the delivery of business value through IT. It takes the view that this latter quest is knowledge-based and that the knowledge resources to successfully deliver this value are distributed throughout the organization. Crucially, this knowledge is not located solely within the IT function, presenting a challenge for the CIO for its integration and coordination. With the CIO having little or no jurisdiction over all required knowledge, its deployment will therefore be fragmented. The conundrum of IT management is how to generate value through IT without having access and authority over necessary resources. Research and practitioner implications of this analysis are highlighted.     

How does the application of an IT service innovation affect firm performance? A theoretical framework and empirical analysis on e-commerce

Understanding the effects of IT-related innovations on firm performance is crucial for businesses. Extant research has investigated the implications of IT innovations and provided some important findings, but the varied theoretical approaches have produced results that are often ambiguous: thus there is a need to examine the process further. We attempted to provide a systematic, theoretically informed framework for understanding the conditions that may enhance (or hinder) the potential of IT innovations in a sample of firms. Our model included business and IT resources, both internal and external, that may influence the performance of firms which have applied a pervasive IT service innovation: e-commerce. Our empirical test of the model used a research design that takes into account time-lag effects. The model explained more than half of the variance in the performance of IT innovators and offered several explanations for why some firms succeeded in implementing IT service innovations while others did not. Several theoretical and managerial implications result from these findings.     

Investigating user switching intention for mobile instant messaging application: Taking WeChat as an example

Post adoptive IT use is an important research topic in information systems field, mainly including sustained behaviours and switching behaviours. While there are a great number of studies on users’ continuance intentions for diversified IT, users’ IT switching behaviours are less studied. This research attempts to identify the features of users IT switching behaviours. We introduce a migration theory from social network perspective to explore the intrinsic and extrinsic factors influencing users’ switching intention in the context of mobile instant messaging (MIM) application. In particular, we develop a model that examines the role of networks, deprivations and trusts on MIM users’ switching intentions to WeChat in China. A survey research method is utilized to test this model and hypotheses. We found that functional deprivation, monetary deprivation and personal innovativeness could positively influence users’ switching intentions. Networks of obligation was found to have no significantly direct influence on switching intentions, but fully mediated by functional and monetary deprivations. However, trust transferred from MIMs provider has no significant effect on switching intentions. The findings are believed to theoretically contribute to further understand users’ IT switching behaviours and yield some practical implications for designers and managers in MIM providers and their products propaganda.     

The leveraging influence of strategic alignment on IT investment: An empirical examination

Businesses have invested enormous sums in information technology (IT). The challenge now is to optimize these investments. We empirically examined the influence of the alignment between IS strategy and business strategy (strategic alignment) on the payoff of IT investment. Many studies have been performed on the value of IT investment and strategic alignment separately, in the past, but here we combined them by investigating the moderating affect of strategic alignment on the relationship between IT investment and firm performance for a group of manufacturing firms. The results indicated that there is a synergistic coupling between strategic alignment and IT investment with firm performance. Firms that have aligned IT and business strategies can invest in additional IT resources with some assurance that they will be leveraged substantially. One of our main contributions was in the examination of four differing perspectives of strategic alignment and their relationship with the payoff of IT investment.     

Organizational competence for harnessing IT: A case study

In spite of decades of discussion and research into the benefits of the use of IT in the organization, it has been difficult to prove a positive gain. Literature on IT management has reported more cases of failed implementations than of success. We believed that developing organizational competencies both helped in harnessing IT and also in gaining competitive advantage. Conceptual schema for developing this was based on the theory of strategic competence, which formed the basis of our work. We undertook a case study to prove this. Findings suggested that three broad categories of competence were necessary for harnessing IT. A number of facilitating competencies were also found and are presented.     

Enabling e-business tools and robotics technology for teleconstruction

This paper proposes a comprehensive approach to the development of technology infrastructure for the application of information techology (IT) based solutions in teleconstruction—the performance of on-site construction and related tasks through the use of IT and robotics by a remotely located team of project participants: general contractor, subcontractors, equipment operators, materials suppliers, and project office professionals. The paper proposes that technologies exist that enable both terrestrial and extraterrestrial teleconstruction. Thomas Bock: German-American “Frontiers of Engineering” Symposium Participant, Essen 2001, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation 2004 “CONNECT” Award Recipient Mirosław Skibniewski: German-American “Frontiers of Engineering” Symposium Participant and Member of the Organizing Committee, Essen 2001, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation 2004 “CONNECT” Award Recipient 2–6: Photos copyright, Thomas Bock, TU Munich, Germany. 7–8: Photos and figure copyright, Prof. Masahiru Nohmi, Kagawa University, Japan.