http://ejise.com EJISE News en © 2012, EJISE Mon, 12 Mar 2012 12:01:23 +0000 Mon, 12 Mar 2012 12:01:23 +0000 EJISE EJISE EJISE RSS generator http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss The purpose of this paper is to explore how small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) perceive data and data governance and investigates whether current data governance frameworks are applicable to SMEs. Enterprises of all sizes and complexity have had to learn how to operate in an increasingly digital business environment. Such an environment demands that an enterprise equips itself with the ability to use its data effectively both internally and when dealing with external partners such as suppliers and customers. Enterprises now recognise that both their survival and success requires taking control of all aspects of their data as a critical business resource. In recognition of the demands placed on enterprises in this digital age, a discipline has emerged called data governance. Although the definition of data governance is still evolving, current usage describes this discipline as being a facilitator for enterprises to take control over all aspects of their data resource from the setting of integrity constraints for data quality to the creation of enterprise-wide policies on data access and security. Large enterprises are often better placed to absorb the necessary demands that data governance places on resources. However, for the resource-poor SME, the investment in data governance is far more challenging but nevertheless critical in the digital business environment. This paper reviews examples of published data governance frameworks to establish whether these frameworks are applicable to SMEs. A data governance framework (Khatri & Brown, 2010) is assessed using ten SMEs that have differing data requirements. This research is further enhanced by reviewing the results of a project which audited technology use in SMEs. This paper finds that although many data governance frameworks claim to be adaptable and scalable, there is little published evidence by industry or academics on the application of data governance to SMEs. Furthermore, our research revealed that the optimal use of data governance frameworks requires that those with authority and responsibility over enterprise data must have knowledge and some understanding of the terminology that describes data, data-related issues, and data-based technology and this requirement may not be met for many SMEs. The initial reflections on the reality of data governance for SMEs reveal that they do not recognise the inherent value of their data nor view their data as having an independent existence from the systems that support their business processes. The paper concludes, amongst other things, that SMEs are poorly served by the data governance community and that further research fully appreciate their data governance needs. http://www.ejise.com/volume15/issue1/p1 Carolyn Begg and Tom Caira http://www.ejise.com/volume15/issue1/p1 Sun, 01 Jan 2012 01:01:01 +0000 This paper derives a theoretical framework for consideration of both the technologically driven dimensions of mobile payment solutions, and the associated value proposition for customers. Banks promote traditional payment instruments whose value proposition is the management of risk for both consumers and merchants. These instruments are centralised, costly and lack decision support functionality. The ubiquity of the mobile phone has provided a decentralised platform for managing payment processes in a new way, but the value proposition for customers has yet to be elaborated clearly. This inertia has stalled the design of sustainable revenue models for a mobile payments ecosystem. Merchants and consumers in the meantime are being seduced by the convenience of on-line and mobile payment solutions. Adopting the purchase and payment process as the unit of analysis, the current mobile payment landscape is reviewed with respect to the creation and consumption of customer value. From this analysis, a framework is derived juxtaposing customer value, related to what is being paid for, with payment integration, related to how payments are being made. The framework provides a theoretical and practical basis for considering the contribution of mobile technologies to the payment industry. The framework is then used to describe the components of a mobile payments pilot project being run on a trial population of 250 students on a campus in Ireland. In this manner, weaknesses in the value proposition for consumers and merchants were highlighted. Limitations of the framework as a research tool are also discussed. http://www.ejise.com/volume15/issue1/p13 Fergal Carton, Jonas Hedman, Jan Damsgaard, Kay-Ti Tan and J. B. McCarthy http://www.ejise.com/volume15/issue1/p13 Sun, 01 Jan 2012 01:01:01 +0000 It is well known that Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME) suffer from a lack of IT proficiency and therefore depend heavily on external IT expertise. The acquisition of a strategic IT artefact by an SME is mainly initiated in a market where Independent Software Vendors (ISV) and customers meet. This complex process is dominated by information asymmetry and leads to the ‘lemons’ problem, where low-quality vendors drive out high-quality vendors as predicted by the Lemon Market Theory (LMT). The diversity in quality makes it difficult for prospective buyers to evaluate a product or service with complete certainty and makes the decision to acquire risky. According to LMT, there is incentive for vendors selling poor quality, where quality of services is linked to an entire group rather than to an individual vendor. Although many scholars refer to this phenomenon in their work, empirical evidence is scarce. In this paper, we present the results of an enquiry into the ‘lemon’ problem within a group of 484 Belgium ISVs that target the SME market. A survey of the websites of the selected ISVs was conducted, in which we examined the way the products and services were presented. This was followed by six case studies, in which Chief Information Officers (CIOs) of SMEs were interviewed about the way they perceive the services of the ISVs. Our findings suggest that there are elements of a ‘lemons’ market present. However, there are also indications of a self-cleaning mechanism present in the market within the group of ISVs, leading to a globally higher degree of quality and leading to positive filtering from ‘the buy side’. However, the strongest conclusion is that some SMEs are encouraged by ISVs to withdraw from progressing further with their software acquisition process due their inferior IT capabilities and practices. http://www.ejise.com/volume15/issue1/p25 Jan Devos, Hendrik Van Landeghem and Dirk Deschoolmeester http://www.ejise.com/volume15/issue1/p25 Sun, 01 Jan 2012 01:01:01 +0000 This paper analyses the relation between two well-known business concepts. It clarifies how business models, as an implementation of a company’s strategy, can be aligned with business cases, as an abstraction of a company’s operations. The relations are analyzed from a static as well as a dynamic point of view by means of inductive reasoning and literature review. Based on the understanding of the relations, a continuous business model-business case alignment approach is proposed. Further, managerial guidelines are presented supporting the approach. Finally, two software tools, business case framework and business model composer, are presented indicating how the proposed conceptual alignment could be implemented. This paper contributes to research and practice. Both can benefit from the conceptual relation between two well-known concepts that have hardly been linked so far. Practitioners can apply the proposed alignment approach and the managerial guidelines to review their business. For research, we contribute to the body of knowledge of business model concepts. Researchers can build upon this fruitful ground by validating the proposed concept in empirical settings or by implementing software solutions supporting this approach. Consequently, the agility of companies can be increased when implementing merged or changed business models in the organization and when using business cases to determine if it is time to change the business model. http://www.ejise.com/volume15/issue1/p36 Jorge Ferreira, Paulo Joao and Jose Martins http://www.ejise.com/volume15/issue1/p36 Sun, 01 Jan 2012 01:01:01 +0000 This paper summarises experiences of empirical research carried out to evaluate information and communication technology (ICT)-based services that aim at supporting older people in independent living. Over the course of four years, we have explored several different ICT-based service concepts in field trials. The goal of the field trials has been to expose innovative ICT-based service concepts to the everyday life of older users through the adoption of services in real-life use. As a result, rich data about user experience and the value of the service for different stakeholders has been collected and analysed. Conducting the field trials has exposed practical issues about how to conduct research with older users. In this paper, the experiences are summarised. In addition, a conceptual framework for conducting user experience research is presented in order to understand the research approach that has been used in the individual case studies presented. The findings show that older participants differ from other user groups in several ways. Researchers faced challenges with research procedures during the field trials. These challenges were sometimes caused by their exploratory nature and the limited duration of the field trial; the participants of field trials did not always want to invest in adopting the services as part of their everyday routines, but instead restricted their use to testing technology and related services as objects isolated from their everyday lives. Often, this also led to situations where participants judged the value of the service to "someone else", and were not willing to adopt it themselves. http://www.ejise.com/volume15/issue1/p50 Marja Harjumaa and Minna Isomursu http://www.ejise.com/volume15/issue1/p50 Sun, 01 Jan 2012 01:01:01 +0000 Even if outsourcing is a well-researched phenomenon, it can be stated that evaluation studies on IS outsourcing relationships are scarce. From a description of two IS outsourcing relationship cases, a set of lessons learned are presented. A boundary spann ing perspective is then used when evaluating these lessons learned in the client-supplier outsourcing relationships and thereby adding a newŽ theoretical perspective on outsourcing relationships. The evaluation is concluded in a set of propositions that present the boundary spanning perspective of the lessons learned. The aim of these propositions is to act as both a guiding tool for how to further develop boundary spanning roles in outsourcing relationships and to act as a base for future research on ou tsourcing relationships. http://www.ejise.com/volume15/issue1/p63 Bjorn Johansson and Linda Bergkvist http://www.ejise.com/volume15/issue1/p63 Sun, 01 Jan 2012 01:01:01 +0000 Effective Knowledge Management (KM) is an important process for handling information which is essential for implementing successful projects and making improvement to the knowledge-based economy. KM deals with how knowledge is produced, shared in a secure manner, and used by organizations or individual for the benefit of the economy. Sharing of information and knowledge as well as providing the relevant financial support are among the main success factors for creating innovations, while protecting the Intellectual property (IP) satisfies the requirement for sharing of knowledge fairly and preserving the right of the inventors. In order to achieve an effective KM that contributes to the overall knowledge economy, there should be a proper way to measure it according to well known set of criteria. In this paper an analytical method has been devised based on different performance indicators to verify the availability of useful knowledge which is linked to successful knowledge investment and its business continuity. Unlike other methods that focus on descriptive approach, the proposed analytical method relies on qualitative approach that is based on how the probability of the knowledge factors can occur in a certain environment in relation to the set of goals that have been identified for a certain organization. This new method would allow managers to evaluate the performance of knowledge based economy of different organizations and assist them in identifying the reason for lacking economy growth, and therefore plan for improvement. Another way for measuring the effectiveness of a fair partnership model can rely on a direct method using a statistical survey to collect the statistical data that can help in identifying obstacles in reaching the organization's goals. An example for measuring the effectiveness of fair partnership has been described in this paper by using a survey which has been conducted to evaluate projects that are running in Saudi Arabia in order to understand the difficulties in attracting funds through a Venture Capital program, so the proper solutions can be recommended. http://www.ejise.com/volume15/issue1/p74 Ghassan Kbar and Abdul Aziz AlDusari http://www.ejise.com/volume15/issue1/p74 Sun, 01 Jan 2012 01:01:01 +0000 As modern organizations struggle with the complexity and dynamicity of their business environments, they increasingly turn to Enterprise Architecture as a means to organize their capabilities. However, adopting Enterprise Architecture is hardly a straightforward matter as the practical guidance available is plagued by disparity in nomenclature as well as content. The purpose of this paper is to take a first step in remedying the dearth of rational appraisal of approaches to Enterprise Architecture by closer examining a handful of guides and frameworks. Our ultimate aim in this paper is to provide knowledge about the various dimensions of enterprise architectures that demand alignment between its constitutionals parts. Therefore the efforts of our study were focused on elucidating the following issue: How are the various forms and aspects of architectural alignment treated by the investigated approaches to Enterprise Architecture? Due to the lack of commonalities between the assorted approaches, an independent metric is required. We therefore utilize the concept of alignment and analyze how the various forms and aspects of architectural alignment are treated by formalized approaches to Enterprise Architecture. This methodology was applied to the Zachman Framework, The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF), the Extended Enterprise Architecture Framework (E2AF) and the Generalised Enterprise Reference Architecture and Methodology (GERAM). Our investigation clearly demonstrates that: 1) Approaches to Enterprise Architecture provide guidance for structural and functional alignment, but not for infological or socio-cultural alignment. 2) The area of contextual alignment is described in a simplistic manner. 3) None of the investigated approaches discuss the mutual interdependence that exists between the various forms of alignment. Our work serves to further the understanding of multi-dimensionality of Enterprise Architecture in general and architectural alignment in particular. http://www.ejise.com/volume15/issue1/p88 Thanos Magoulas, Aida Hadzic, Ted Saarikko and Kalevi Pessi http://www.ejise.com/volume15/issue1/p88 Sun, 01 Jan 2012 01:01:01 +0000 Batik is a traditional art form whose charm lies in its power of storytelling. Batik making is practiced by various indigenous communities in Asia and Africa and has evolved into a socio-economic uplift existing as a cottage industry. The Malaysian batik industry was revived by the government intervention to emphasize batik as a cultural identity and also to improve the livelihood of batik producers where the majority operates as indigenous microenterprises. However, the batik making tasks and the management of batik microenterprises are currently not supported by the use of ICT. To facilitate batik microenterprises ICT adoption we proposed the development of ICT-based information systems that emphasize the cultural context of batik production. In our work we argued that the facilitation of batik microenterprises ICT adoption can happen by developing an ICT-based information system that emphasize the cultural context of batik production. We argued that a technology conception needs to consider the ecological aspect of batik production that comprises of resources, technology and geography to understand barriers and opportunities of technology. To support our argument, we conducted a batik microenterprise business requirements elicitation to formulate the technology conception for an ICT-based information system. We adopted the framework that considers a cultural diversified practice and focus on the cultural context as a business requirement for ICT adoption. We conducted a contextual inquiry using multi-activity inquiries that include site visits, face-to-face and focus group interviews with an informal batik making community of practice. Our participants are representatives of batik advocators, entrepreneurs, practitioners and apprentices. We strategize the focus group inquiry in a workshop setting using verbal and visual cues to navigate the chaotic and fragmented storytelling of group members. From the contextual multi-analysis conducted we discovered that the technological conception for batik microenterprise is incomplete if we only address the usual business productivity requirements. Our findings reveal that the concern for batik aesthetics and the fear of batik cultural erosion should not be overlooked as these concerns are equally imperative as business productivity. In addition we also discovered that a social structure dimension is an important input to understand the primary and secondary actors within a technological conception. This concept will be useful in defining roles within future socio-technical systems that will be created to support business and knowledge activities of indigenous microenterprise. We formulated this technology conception as core elements of the community information system requirement specification for the batik microenterprise. Our work will contribute to the literature on systems engineering of ICT-based information systems for indigenous or cultural influenced business. http://www.ejise.com/volume15/issue1/p102 Nor Laila Md Noor and Ariza Nordin http://www.ejise.com/volume15/issue1/p102 Sun, 01 Jan 2012 01:01:01 +0000 In the today's rapidly changing competitive business environment, only flexible and dynamically developing companies are able to meet competition, companies that have managed to reduce costs and improve business efficiency through the introduction of advanced information technologies (IT). The use of information technologies is an essential component of a company's strategy to succeed in a rapidly changing world. Contemporary information technologies make it possible for companies to create information systems for effective communication and mutual understanding among staff members, as well as to support the decision making process at all levels of management. In the future the solutions in the sphere of information technologies, should allow uniting people, information and business processes into an integrated information system as a single complex of technological solutions more effectively. This paper aims at considering the new concept of EIS: transition from traditional internal business process management optimization to the Enterprise Information System which is opened for the all business partners operating in common business interests. Also the main goal of this work is determination of the main tendencies of enterprise information systems development.The paper contains the examples and analysis of the current practices of Enterprise Information Systems (EIS) development and implementation in Russian companies. It is the research based on study and analyzing the contemporary business solutions of the enterprise application software market leaders and the author’s own experience. http://www.ejise.com/volume15/issue1/p116 Elena Serova http://www.ejise.com/volume15/issue1/p116 Sun, 01 Jan 2012 01:01:01 +0000 Many organizations have undergone substantial reorganization in the last decade. They re-engineered their business processes and exchanged proprietary, not integrated applications for more standard solutions. Integration of structured data in relational databases has improved documentation of business transactions and increased data quality. But almost 90% of the information that organizations manage is unstructured, cannot easily be integrated into a traditional database. When used for organizational actions and transactions, structured and unstructured information are records. They are meant and used as evidence. Governments, courts and other stakeholders are making increasing demands for the trustworthiness of records. An analysis of literature of the information, organization and archival sciences illustrates that accountability needs the reconstruction of the past. Hypothesis of this paper is that for the reconstruction of the past each organization needs a combination of three mechanisms: enterprise records management, organizational memory and records auditing. Enterprise records management ensures that records meet the quality requirements needed for accountability: integrity, authenticity, controllability and historicity. They ensure records that can be trusted and enhance the possibilities for the reconstruction of the past. The organizational memory ensures that trusted records are preserved for as long as is necessary to comply with accountability regulations. It provides an ICT infrastructure to (indefinitely) store those records and to keep them accessible. Records auditing researches the first two mentioned mechanisms to assess the possibility to reconstruct past organizational actions and transactions. These mechanisms ensure that organizations have a documented understanding of [1] the processing of actions and transactions within business processes; [2] the dissemination of trusted records; [3] the way the organization accounts for the actions and transactions within its business processes; and [4] the reconstruction of actions and transactions from business processes over time. This understanding is crucial for the reconstruction of the past and for organizational accountability. http://www.ejise.com/volume15/issue1/p127 Geert-Jan van Bussel http://www.ejise.com/volume15/issue1/p127 Sun, 01 Jan 2012 01:01:01 +0000 This paper analyses the relation between two well-known business concepts. It clarifies how business models, as an implementation of a company’s strategy, can be aligned with business cases, as an abstraction of a company’s operations. The relations are analyzed from a static as well as a dynamic point of view by means of inductive reasoning and literature review. Based on the understanding of the relations, a continuous business model-business case alignment approach is proposed. Further, managerial guidelines are presented supporting the approach. Finally, two software tools, business case framework and business model composer, are presented indicating how the proposed conceptual alignment could be implemented. This paper contributes to research and practice. Both can benefit from the conceptual relation between two well-known concepts that have hardly been linked so far. Practitioners can apply the proposed alignment approach and the managerial guidelines to review their business. For research, we contribute to the body of knowledge of business model concepts. Researchers can build upon this fruitful ground by validating the proposed concept in empirical settings or by implementing software solutions supporting this approach. Consequently, the agility of companies can be increased when implementing merged or changed business models in the organization and when using business cases to determine if it is time to change the business model. http://www.ejise.com/volume15/issue1/p138 Bart-Jan van Putten and Markus Schief http://www.ejise.com/volume15/issue1/p138 Sun, 01 Jan 2012 01:01:01 +0000