Successful DSS Development with Traditional Tools and Techniques

Traditional tools and techniques have been considered inappropriate for the design and development of individualized decision support systems (DSSs) because these tools only apply to very simple situations and produce a basic model to support only one product. This is quite the opposite, however, with organizational DSSs, which support organizational decision making in complex environments. This article presents a case study of the successful development of a complex organizational decision support system using traditional IS tools, techniques, and personnel.     

New Trends in Microcomputer Support

Traditional tools and techniques have been considered inappropriate for the design and development of individualized decision support systems (DSSs) because these tools only apply to very simple situations and produce a basic model to support only one product. This is quite the opposite, however, with organizational DSSs, which support organizational decision making in complex environments. This article presents a case study of the successful development of a complex organizational decision support system using traditional IS tools, techniques, and personnel.     

The relationships between organizational and individual variables to on-the-job driver accidents and accident-free kilometres

Highway fatalities are the leading cause of fatal work injuries in the US, accounting for approximately 1 in 4 of the 5900 job-related deaths during 2001. The present study focused on the contribution of organizational factors and driver behaviours to on-the-job driving accidents in a large Western Canadian corporation. A structural equation modelling (SEM) approach was used which allows researchers to test a complex set of relationships within a global theoretical framework. A number of scales were used to assess organizational support, driver errors, and driver behaviours. The sample of professional drivers that participated allowed the recording of on-the-job accidents and accident-free kilometres from their personnel files. The pattern of relationships in the fitted model, after controlling for exposure and social desirability, provides insight into the role of organizational support, planning, environment adaptations, fatigue, speed, errors and moving citations to on-the-job accidents and accident-free kilometres. For example, organizational support affected the capacity to plan. Time to plan work-related driving was found to predict accidents, fatigue and adaptations to the environment. Other interesting model paths, SEM limitations, future research and recommendations are elaborated.     

The relationships between organizational and individual variables to on-the-job driver accidents and accident-free kilometres

Highway fatalities are the leading cause of fatal work injuries in the US, accounting for approximately 1 in 4 of the 5900 job-related deaths during 2001. The present study focused on the contribution of organizational factors and driver behaviours to on-the-job driving accidents in a large Western Canadian corporation. A structural equation modelling (SEM) approach was used which allows researchers to test a complex set of relationships within a global theoretical framework. A number of scales were used to assess organizational support, driver errors, and driver behaviours. The sample of professional drivers that participated allowed the recording of on-the-job accidents and accident-free kilometres from their personnel files. The pattern of relationships in the fitted model, after controlling for exposure and social desirability, provides insight into the role of organizational support, planning, environment adaptations, fatigue, speed, errors and moving citations to on-the-job accidents and accident-free kilometres. For example, organizational support affected the capacity to plan. Time to plan work-related driving was found to predict accidents, fatigue and adaptations to the environment. Other interesting model paths, SEM limitations, future research and recommendations are elaborated.     

Types and Timing of Inter–organizational Communication in New Product Development

Managing the communication between the participants involved in inter–organizational product development is complex. The traditional models of new product development are not sufficient to gain insight in effective management practices in this respect. Our study explored the inter–organizational communication in a research and development project. Our results confirm Gersick’s model that looks upon new product development as being punctuated by periods of rapid change. In these periods, including the start–up, explorative prototype stage, and completion of the project, inter–organizational communication is essential about design objectives and project planning, contextual factors and the required resources, skills and knowledge.     

Measuring dimensions of perceived e-business risks

The risks to e-business from breaches of security and privacy are well known. However, research has given very little attention to other important e-business risks. Using a socio-technical approach, in this study we survey a diverse sample of almost 200 participants to rate their perception of 16 e-business risks, compiled from the research and practitioner literature. Strategic risks, organizational risks and e-business policy risks emerged as the three underlying dimensions of e-business risk. In terms of the socio-technical model, strategic risks focus on the actor-structure component, and policy risks focus on the task-structure component. Organizational risks cover a wide spectrum of socio-technical components such as technology, actor-technology, technology structure and task-actor. The main contribution of this study is a multi dimensional scale of e-business risk perception. Practitioners can benefit by focusing their risk management efforts on the three dimensions of e-business risk, which are easier to manage than a long checklist of unrelated risks. Researchers benefit from a raised awareness on the importance of strategic and organizational risk factors in addition to policy risk factors for e-business risk management. A model that incorporates the three dimensions of e-business risks and shows theoretically based relationships with control mechanisms, trust, perceived uncertainty and profitability is proposed for testing in future research.     

Adoption and diffusion of knowledge management systems: field studies of factors and variables

The concept of knowledge and knowledge management is not new. Researchers identified the practice of knowledge management as early as 4000 years ago. However, knowledge management systems (KMS), which involve the application of IT systems and other organizational resources to manage knowledge strategically, are a relatively recent phenomenon. While the literature on knowledge management covers various issues, it lacks comprehensive studies of factors and variables of adoption and diffusion of KMS. This paper studies these factors and variables in the context of some Australian organizations. A qualitative field study is undertaken in this research, where six organizations of various sizes, all in various stages of KMS adoption and diffusion, are studied via interviews with key personnel. Content analysis is then performed to extract the factors and variables and a comprehensive model of KMS adoption and diffusion is developed. The results of the interviews identify four major variables affecting KMS diffusion as: organizational culture, top management support, benefits to individuals, and dream of KMS. The paper also highlights the research and managerial implications of the KMS diffusion model.     

Creating an Effective Information Environment: Management Perspectives and Personnel

For an information environment to be truly effective, its resources must be managed so that they are in synch with the overall organizational goals and strategies. the first part in a two-part series, this article lays the foundation for effective resource management as well as the management of the most important IT resource, its personnel.     

Ergonomics guidelines for designing electronic mail addresses

The aim was to design a human-centred electronic mail (e-mail) address system based on networking technology and cognitive ergonomics. Based on the background literature and the results of users' survey, a conceptual model is developed for designing e-mail addresses. This model consists of e-mail address components of formats, domain length, meaningfulness, orientation and information type pertaining to recall, information association and categorization. Five hypotheses were proposed to test the conceptual model, and four experiments were conducted with 85 participants to test the hypotheses. The dependent variables were performance time, error rate and degree of satisfaction, and the independent variables were components of the e-mail addresses. The main results indicate that for a recall task, significantly lower total performance time (26.2%) and error rate (75%) were found for the hybrid formats (digits and letters) than for the letter format, and up to four characters was the best single domain length. For an information association task, embedding both geographical and organizational information significantly decreased the response time (10.9%) in comparison with only embedding organizational information. For a categorization task, embedding both geographical information and organizational information significantly decreased response time (40.7%) in comparison with only embedding organizational information. This research demonstrates the importance of human-centred design and provides guidelines in effectively designing e-mail addresses.     

Ergonomics guidelines for designing electronic mail addresses

The aim was to design a human-centred electronic mail (e-mail) address system based on networking technology and cognitive ergonomics. Based on the background literature and the results of users' survey, a conceptual model is developed for designing e-mail addresses. This model consists of e-mail address components of formats, domain length, meaningfulness, orientation and information type pertaining to recall, information association and categorization. Five hypotheses were proposed to test the conceptual model, and four experiments were conducted with 85 participants to test the hypotheses. The dependent variables were performance time, error rate and degree of satisfaction, and the independent variables were components of the e-mail addresses. The main results indicate that for a recall task, significantly lower total performance time (26.2%) and error rate (75%) were found for the hybrid formats (digits and letters) than for the letter format, and up to four characters was the best single domain length. For an information association task, embedding both geographical and organizational information significantly decreased the response time (10.9%) in comparison with only embedding organizational information. For a categorization task, embedding both geographical information and organizational information significantly decreased response time (40.7%) in comparison with only embedding organizational information. This research demonstrates the importance of human-centred design and provides guidelines in effectively designing e-mail addresses.     

The quality of group tacit knowledge

Organizational knowledge creation theory explains the process of making available and amplifying knowledge created by individuals as well as crystallizing and connecting it to an organization’s knowledge system. What individuals get to know in their (working) lives benefits their colleagues and, eventually, the wider organization. In this article, we briefly review central elements in organizational knowledge creation theory and show a research gap related to the quality of tacit knowledge in a group. We advance organizational knowledge creation theory by developing the concept of “quality of group tacit knowledge.” Based on this concept, we further develop a comprehensive model explaining different levels of tacit knowledge quality that a group can achieve. Finally, we discuss managerial implications resulting from our model and outline imperatives for future theory building and empirical research.     

Exploring university perceptions of IS implementation and attributes of success: a case study of public universities in Thailand

ABSTRACT

This study aims to gain a better understanding of public university implementation of organizational information systems (IS). Mixed methods research was used, including initial exploration, telephone interviews, and a self-administered mail survey. The data were gathered from university personnel at 40 public universities in Thailand, and the research focused on the university student-registration systems (S-R). The study results highlight the different perceptions between two response groups: administrators and system users. The results show different perceptions of IS implementation and attributes that define IS implementation success. The results also serve as important suggestions that need to be recognized by administrators and practitioners for effectively planning the implementation of organizational IS in public universities.     

Following Routines: A Challenge in Cross‐Sectorial Collaboration

The aim of this study is to examine how personnel from three different organizations create meaning and intend to act in a potentially dangerous situation. The article reports an experiment depicting a bomb at an elderly care center and the participants were to describe the situation and decide how to act. The participants were personnel from the police, rescue services and an elderly care centre. The findings show that participants had different types of understanding of the situation and how to act. The personnel at the elderly care centre were confused by the situation but they were familiar with their work routines. The emergency organizations were familiar with the situation and the task, but not with the work routines.     

Homeland Security Preparedness and Planning in US City Governments: A Survey of City Managers

This article examines homeland security preparedness and planning with the aim of generating some future research themes related to organizational, collaborative, and adaptive management elements of homeland security. It analyzes survey data from city managers in the US and their views on the current state of homeland security. The key results indicate that there is a high level of collaboration between and among city government and other levels of government in homeland security preparedness and planning, supporting an element of the adaptive management theory. However, with regard to using performance systems to gain accountability in homeland security this was not commonly occurring. The federal government's color-coded homeland security advisory system is viewed by 32% of city managers who responded to the survey as being ineffective. The largest administrative/management homeland security concerns were lack of money and personnel limitations.     

Information systems education for development

Abstract

This article uses the social interactionist conceptual framework to analyse computerization in the Volta River Authority, a public corporation in Ghana. It first analyses the initial phase of ICT adoption in the organization, and shows how limited personnel skills, unplanned and uncoordinated innovations, and overwhelming organizational defects resulted in the inability of the technology to produce intended results. The article then proceeds to discuss how these initial problems were dealt within the subsequent phase to produce more positive outcomes. Reasons for this success included comprehensive feasibility studies, departmental representation in planning, and corporate support for the technologies at the highest organizational levels. It suggests, however, that certain socio‐cultural, political and organizational problems continue to hinder effective use of ICTs. Based on these findings the article concludes that institutions should be understood as social systems with contingent configurations of reality that determine the success or failure of technological innovations. The unique contingencies that constitute a particular system should, therefore, be taken into account when designing, adopting, and implementing innovations. This is not only to ensure the sensitivity of the innovations to the social milieux into which they are planted, but also to address any militating factors that might constrain the effectiveness of the innovations.     

Virtual team collaboration: building shared meaning, resolving breakdowns and creating translucence

Managing international teams with geographically distributed participants is a complex task. The risk of communication breakdowns increases due to cultural and organizational differences grounded in the geographical distribution of the participants. Such breakdowns indicate general misunderstandings and a lack of shared meaning between participants. In this paper, we address the complexity of building shared meaning. We examine the communication breakdowns that occurred in two globally distributed virtual teams by providing an analytical distinction of the organizational context as the foundation for building shared meaning at three levels. Also we investigate communication breakdowns that can be attributed to differences in lifeworld structures, organizational structures, and work process structures within a virtual team. We find that all communication breakdowns are manifested and experienced by the participants at the work process level; however, resolving breakdowns may require critical reflection at other levels. Where previous research argues that face-to-face interaction is an important variable for virtual team performance, our empirical observations reveal that communication breakdowns related to a lack of shared meaning at the lifeworld level often becomes more salient when the participants are co-located than when geographically distributed. Last, we argue that creating translucence in communication structures is essential for building shared meanings at all three levels.     

Federated databases and systems: Part II — A tutorial on their resource consolidation

The issues and solutions for the interoperability of a class of heterogeneous databases and their database, systems are expounded in two parts. Part I presented the data-sharing issues in federated databases and systems (Hsiao, 1992). The present article explores resource-consolidation issues.Interoperability in this context refers to data sharing among heterogeneous databases, and to resource consolidation of computer hardware, system software, and support personnel.Resource consolidation requires the presence of a database system architecture which supports the heterogeneous system software, thereby eliminating the need for various computer hardware and support personnel. The class of heterogeneous databases and database systems expounded herein is termedfederated, meaning that they are joined in order to meet certain organizational requirements and because they require their respective application specificities, integrity constraints, and security requirements to be upheld. Federated databases and systems are new. While there are no technological solutions, there has been considerable research towards their development. This tutorial is aimed at exposing the need for such solutions. A taxonomy is introduced in our, review of existing research undertakings and exploratory developments. With this taxonomy, we contrast and compare various approaches to federating databases and systems.Editorial note: Portions of the introductory sections of Part II of this artlcle replicate material in Part I (Hsiao, 1992) in order to provide the reader with a self-standing article.     

Temporal Context of Organizational Learning in New Product Development Projects

Faced with the evolution of the competitive environment, firms have to find the delicate balance between two goals that are sometimes contradictory: accelerate the time spent on product development and leave time to the personnel implicated in these projects to develop collective learning. This research shows that the project ‘time’ has an important influence on the realization of collective learning during new product development projects. The commitment of the project team in activities like experimentation, detection and correction of errors, and research of new combinations which constitute organizational learning depends on the two conceptions of the project ‘time’. If the duration of the project and the time spent by the functional personnel on the project constitute the objective time of the project (first conception of time), the project ‘time’ is also a subjective time which corresponds to the project team’s shared vision of the project’s deadlines (second conception of time).     

Organizational climate in air traffic control Innovative preparedness for implementation of new technology and organizational development in a rule governed organization

A positive and innovative organizational climate is of great importance in order to manage and adapt to change. Such a climate seldom evolves in organizations closely governed by rules and regulations. Because of ongoing organizational and technical changes within the Swedish Air Navigation Services Provider, a study concerning the organizational climate for changes and innovations was conducted to investigate the organization's capacity to cope with changes. Study locations were the two Swedish main air traffic control centers and parts of the civil aviation administration headquarters. In the study 390 subjects took part and the CCQ questionnaire was used to measure the organizational climate. The results show that the organizational climate is quite positive despite the rule-governed work. The results also show that administrative personnel assess the organizational climate as more positive than operative personnel. Comparisons between management positions did not result in any differences.     

Opportunities and challenges in improving surgical work flow

Safe and efficient surgical operations depend on a work environment larger than the individual operating room (OR) and on communications at different levels of the hospital organization. Extensive communication is needed before and during surgery to ensure that surgical rooms, equipment, and supplies; patients; surgeons; supporting personnel; and accompanying documentation are all ready at the appropriate times. In this article, we compile the results of three of our studies of communication activities outside ORs, with the goal of identifying opportunities and challenges in the workflow of surgery. The first study demonstrates the amount of communication work performed by OR coordinators. The second study demonstrates the potential functions of a whiteboard in communication. The third study describes an organizational learning strategy of proactive event reporting. We apply computer-supported cooperative work and organizational learning concepts to the findings and suggest ways in which information technology may improve surgical workflow.