Clicks and Mortar: Balancing Brick and Mortar Business Strategy and Operations with Auxiliary Electronic Commerce

Balancing business strategy and operations between electronic commerce and brick and mortar channels (clicks and mortar) is an ongoing challenge for many businesses. A group of traditional brick and mortar firms were examined in order to understand how they balance strategy and operations between electronic commerce and traditional (brick and mortar) business channels. Results of the study indicated several distinct approaches to achieving this balance. Most of these approaches belie the idea that it is uniformly beneficial to deploy electronic commerce to mirror all of a firm's primary value chain activities. Instead, the study indicated that firm involvement with electronic commerce is often best minimized for the sake of successful business strategy and operations. Despite the necessarily limited and auxiliary role of electronic commerce for traditional firms, it still can help in supporting these firms' business to consumer operations in some surprising ways.     

Encoding of Multiple Inheritance Hierarchies and Partial Orders

Efficient implementation of type inclusion is an important feature of object oriented programming languages with multiple inheritance. The idea is to associate to each type a subset of a set S ={1,..., k } such that type inclusion coincides with subset inclusion. Such an embedding of types into 2 ^S (the lattice of all subsets of S ) is called a bit‐vector encoding of the type hierarchy. In this paper, we show that most known bit‐vector encoding methods can be inserted on a general theoretical framework using graph coloration, namely the notion of a simple encoding . We use the word simple because all these methods are heuristics for the general bit‐vector encoding problem, known as the 2‐dimension problem. First we provide a correct algorithm for partial orders based on simple encoding, improving the algorithm of Krall, Vitek, and Horspool (1997). Second we show that finding an optimal simple encoding is an NP‐hard problem. We end with a discussion on some practical issues.     

On Negotiations and Deal Making in Electronic Markets

Negotiation has traditionally been an important element in all types of commerce. As electronic commerce systems become generally available on the Internet, there is a need to support negotiation in the context of deal making. However, as in the physical world, the type of negotiation mechanism required is context dependent. In particular, we distinguish between the support required in the context of single deal and support required in coordinating negotiations across multiple deals. A framework is presented to describe deal making and negotiation in the context of a single deal. It is used to illustrate four representative Internet-based automated trading scenarios and to help understand the success of the scenario featuring online auctions. While popular, online auctions are limited in that they permit negotiation only along a single dimension such as price. We present ongoing work on multi-attribute negotiation mechanisms, and outline important new concepts relevant to supporting coordination across multiple deals.     

The Next Generation Enterprise: A CIO Perspective on the Vision, its Impacts, and Implementation Challenges

This article presents a senior-executive perspective on the grand vision of a Next Generation Enterprise (NGE), its organizational and individual impacts, and the organizational and technological challenges associated with implementing this vision. It is based upon discussions that took place at a CIO Panel, consisting of nine senior executives from a wide cross section of organizations and organized during the Academia/Industry Working Conference on Research Challenges 2000 (AIWoRC '00 Conference) to address the central theme of the conference: The Next Generation Enterprise: Virtual Organizations and Mobile and Pervasive Technologies. The paper first presents theoretical notions about virtuality, virtual organizations, pervasive and mobile information technologies (PMITs), and authors' conceptualization of a prototypical NGE. This is followed by a synthesis and summary of the panel discussion under five major thematic areas: (1) the shaping of the emerging NGE vision as enabled by modern-day PMITs, (2) the significant organizational impacts and changes occasioned by the NGE vision, (3) the crucial impacts that the NGE model may have on individual work and personal lives, (4) the critical organizational issues and challenges in implementing the NGE vision, and (5) the major technological issues that, if left unattended, may hamper translation of the NGE vision into a reality. The paper concludes with remarks about the crucial requirements for making the NGE vision a reality.     

ICT for development in the context of the closure of Chernobyl nuclear power plant: an activity theory perspective

This paper provides an analysis of a broadband implementation in the town of Slavutych, Ukraine. Slavutych was purposefully built 50 km from Chernobyl shortly after the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (ChNPP) disaster in 1986 to house personnel of ChNPP and their families evacuated from the city of Prip'yat. Drawing on activity theory, and in particular the notion of activity systems, we demonstrate how an activity system approach can be used to frame Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICTD) intervention. We highlight the tools used to mediate the activity, the activity motivation and the relevant stakeholders and examine the role of ‘contradictions’. Using the notion of connected activities, we also provide some theoretical basis for understanding the emergence of activities and conceptualising the impact of development projects, arguing that the outcome of an activity leads to/is consumed by other related activities. This paper contributes to scholarship in the field of ICTD using an empirical case in a complex setting and furthers theoretical development by advancing an activity system perspective for understanding and theorising ICTD interventions.     

Causality in the alignment of information technology and business strategy

The need for a link between information technology (IT) use and organizational strategy has been identified and discussed for a number of years. The thrust of this work argues that the motives for investment in IT should derive from firm objectives and, more particularly, from the strategic plan which the organization wishes to pursue. This paper argues that, often, mere lip service is paid to the strategic nature of IT. Further, strategy justification has become a tool for securing investment in IT by circumventing established organizational policy on investments. Many IT investments labelled ‘strategic’ appear to be operational in nature. This paper discusses the nature and evaluation of strategy and relates it to the literature on IT as a strategic tool. The extent to which the relationship between IT and strategy has altered over recent years is subsequently investigated. The implementation process is investigated and evidence of IT investment activities and the returns available to investing organizations are reviewed. The paper argues that there are a number of alternative views on the IT-strategy relationship, some of which are organizationally detrimental.     

The story of socio-technical design: reflections on its successes, failures and potential

Abstract.  This paper traces the history of socio-technical design, emphasizing the set of values it embraces, the people espousing its theory and the organizations that practise it. Its role in the implementation of computer systems and its impact in a number of different countries are stressed. It also shows its relationship with action research, as a humanistic set of principles aimed at increasing human knowledge while improving practice in work situations. Its evolution in the 1960s and 1970s evidencing improved working practices and joint agreements between workers and management are contrasted with the much harsher economic climate of the 1980s and 1990s when such principled practices, with one or two notable exceptions, gave way to lean production, downsizing and cost cutting in a global economy, partly reflecting the impact of information and communications technology. Different future scenarios are discussed where socio-technical principles might return in a different guise to humanize the potential impact of technology in a world of work where consistent organizational and economic change are the norm.     

矿用电子信息系统结构的模块化设计

模块化结构是21世纪电子信息设备结构设计发展的必然趋势。介绍了电子信息系统产品模块化的特点,并给出了模块化结构实例,介绍了结构模块化设计的优点及设计原则,提出了电子信息设备结构模块化设计的一些关键技术。     

New Sealed-Bid Electronic Auction with Fairness,Security and Efficiency

Electronic sealed-bid auction schemes usually have a common drawback, the third party （auction host） can conspire with a malicious bidder to leak all bidding prices before the opening stage. It results in the malicious bidder wining the auction with an optimal bidding price. Recently, Liaw et al. proposed an auction protocol for electronic online bidding in which they designed a deposit deduction certification for government procurement. However, it also has above mentioned flaw. Moreover, we further found that there were some extra security drawbacks in their protocol. First, the bidder can forge a bidding receipt to claim that he/she is a valid auction winner. Second, it may suffer from the third party forging attack. Third, their protocol leaked some bidders＇ private information to the third party, such as the bidder＇s bank account number and the authorization code. Thus, it cannot protect the bidder＇s privacy at all. In this paper, we not only point out the drawbacks from the previous scheme but also propose a new electronic auction scheme to overcome the above mentioned drawbacks. Furthermore, the computational complexity can be decreased in our online sealed-bid auction scheme.     

Colruyt: an organization committed to communication

The perception that organizations are developing very different organizational structures from those identified by Mintzberg (1979) has been steadily gaining ground. For example, the Colruyt Company has been developing a new organizational form since its start-up in 1965, which was distinctly different from any of the five basic forms identified by Mintzberg (1970) a decade later. This article shows how the Colruyt Company differs from its counterparts in terms of corporate core beliefs and values, employee involvement, managerial strategy and the application of information technology. The outcome of our research will be of value to other companies that desire to pursue innovative approaches similar to those followed by the Colruyt Company.     

TOWARD AN ARRAY OF PHENOMENOLOGICAL IDEAL-TYPES FOR THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

Beginning with the isolation of four essentially unique mathematical intervals on a continuum, we show the process by which an array of four phenomenological ideal-types can be generated which carry rather specific analytical and administrative implications. The basic vehicle of the paper is deductive inference, employed to generate successively more specific taxonomies of system types, eventuating in the four felt to be a specific interest as real-world references for the social scientist, with empirical point included wherever they can defend the deductions.     

电子信息系统防雷之我见

随着经济建设的高速发展,计算机网络技术和信息系统技术已经深入国民经济、人民生活和国防建设的各个方面。电子、微电子装备在各行各业中大量使用。但雷电的高电压侵入所产生的电效应、热效应以及雷击电磁脉冲都会对电子、微电子装备和网络系统造成干扰甚至破坏。文章主要介绍了雷电破坏建筑物内电子信息系统的形式和途径,阐述了防止雷害的措施和方法。     

NRC Clients' Perceptions of Electronic Resources and Use of CISTI's Virtual Library

ABSTRACT

This article presents results relating to perception and usage of CISTI's two-year-old Virtual Library in a research environment. Research and technical officers of the National Research Council of Canada were surveyed. The results indicate that research staff are favorably inclined toward the use of electronic resources, with some differences accorded to its use by the two client groups studied. Surprisingly, research staff accept the possibility of serendipity in a digital environment. There is a positive correlation between usage of digital resources and perception and training levels, while a correlation between presence of an onsite traditional library with usage of electronic resources is not supported. Data collected will be used to assist in the redesign of the site and related training efforts.     

The strategic dimension of transactional information systems: some organizational implications

Abstract. Often information systems (IS) are classified in three groups: (a) transactional, used mainly for co-ordination and resource allocation purposes at the operational level of a company; (b) tactical, often employed to support the resource procurement activities typical of middle management; and (c) information systems for strategic decision making, designed to help in the planning and strategy design processes which are the direct responsibility of top management. In general, the amount of care and management attention that companies give to these different types of systems is proportional to their position in this hierarchy: little attention is devoted to the mundane transaction-pushing systems and exquisite care is put into developing the sophisticated decision making aid for the CEO and his/her staff.
The IS/IT literature has been reporting quite commonly cases in which companies have attained or lost great competitive advantages by way of their transactional information systems [for example, Emery Worldwide, Baxter Healthcare ASAP system, and Frontier Airlines]. The aim of this paper is to identify actions that companies can take to realize potential benefits of their IS, in particular from their low-level, transactional IS.
Among other actions, we will conclude that companies would be better off if they: (a) have the IS department at the right place in the organization, staffed with people knowledgeable about the basic nature of the business in which the company is engaged; (b) are sensible to what can be called 'strategic maintenance' of systems, (c) set up a formal procedure for IS planning to ensure coherence between IS plans and business plans, derived, in turn, from business strategy, and (d) keep abreast of the relevant technology.
Several examples taken from European companies are used to illustrate these conclusions.     

基于J2EE的党建信息管理平台设计与开发

首先分析了建立党建信息管理平台的背景及在党建管理中的重要性,并指出当前C／S模式管理信息系统所存在的问题,同时简要介绍了J2EE结构及其优势,然后重点介绍了在J2EE基础上实现的党建信息管理平台的功能模块与体系结构,最后结合具体实例进一步说明该信息管理平台的设计开发过程。     

Event structure: Taxonomy, semantic roles, aspect, causation

The paper describes the database “Lexicographer”, which presents a deep syntactic analysis of the Russian verb. Taxonomy, argument structure, aspectuality and causation are demonstrated to be deducible from semantic decomposition of a lexeme. The database is regarded as a theory of event structure in Russian.     

Context-Aware, Proactive Delivery of Task-Specific Information: The KnowMore Project

From an IT point of view, a key objective of successful knowledge management is to provide relevant and necessary information at the right time to support humans in accomplishing their tasks. This paper presents a prototypical system which meets this objective in an enterprise environment. Based on context information associated with the enterprise's business processes, an integration of workflow engine and information assistant enables active presentation of relevant information to the user. We describe the functionality of the system and elaborate (i) on necessary extensions to the business process models, (ii) the ontologies used for information modeling, and (iii) the integration of workflow engine and active information assistant. The prototype system has been developed in the KnowMore project of the DFKI Knowledge Management Group.     

Organizational Memory as Objects, Processes, and Trajectories: An Examination of Organizational Memory in Use

For proper knowledge management, organizations must consider how knowledge is kept and reused. The term organizational memory is due for an overhaul. Memory appears to be everywhere in organizations; yet, the term has been limited to only a few uses. Based on an ethnographic study of a telephone hotline group, this paper presents a micro-level, distributed cognition analysis of two hotline calls, the work activity surrounding the calls, and the memory used in the work activity. Drawing on the work of Star, Hutchins, and Strauss, the paper focuses on issues of applying past information for current use. Our work extends Strauss' and Hutchins' trajectories to get at the understanding of potential future use by participants and its role in current information storage. We also note the simultaneously shared provenance and governance of multiple memories – human and technical. This analysis and the theoretical framework we construct should be to be useful in further efforts in describing and analyzing organizational memory within the context of knowledge management efforts.     

电子互感与同步技术在电力系统网络安全传输中的研究

随着信息技术的快速发展,同步技术与电子式互感器技术在电力系统安全传输中得到了比较广泛的应用。和传统应用的电肱式互感器相比,电子式互感器具有一系列新的优异特性,如数字化、绝缘性好、体积小、频带宽、重量轻等优点。特别是光纤数字通信技术和同步技术在电子式互感器中的应用大大提高了其通信的质量和信息安全传输保障,其研究具有重要的现实意义和经济价值。