Computer Services Industry Research Articles

Research on the Firm Spatial Distribution and Influencing Factors of the Service-Oriented Digital Industry in Yangtze River Delta

Exploring the spatial distribution and influencing factors of firms’ location choices in the service-oriented digital industry is of great significance for achieving a new round of rapid development for the digital economy in the context of a post-epidemic situation. Based on the micro perspective of firms, this paper explores the spatial distribution and influencing factors of the location choice of the service-oriented digital industry in the Yangtze River Delta of China. The research shows that the number of the service-oriented digital industry firms varies greatly among cities in the Yangtze River Delta region of China, showing an obvious core–periphery structure. There are many firms in municipalities directly under the central government and provincial capitals, which are the core areas; the number of firms in non-provincial capital cities is small and they are marginal areas. The influencing factors include: per capita GDP, industrial structure upgrading, whether it is a municipality directly under the Central Government or a provincial capital city, whether it has opened high-speed rail, information transmission, number of employees in the computer service industry, number of patent applications, Internet infrastructure level, and scientific fiscal expenditure have a significant positive impact on its location choice, while the per capita total social consumer goods have a significant negative impact on its location choice.

Making IT Work: A History of the Computer Services Industry by Jeffrey R. Yost

Reviewed by: Making IT Work: A History of the Computer Services Industry by Jeffrey R. Yost Paul Ceruzzi (bio) Making IT Work: A History of the Computer Services Industry. By Jeffrey R. Yost. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2017. Pp. x + 376. $37. Jeffrey R. Yost, associate director of the Charles Babbage Institute at the University of Minnesota, makes a valuable contribution to the literature on the history of information technology since the dawn of the electronic age. There is no shortage of studies of electronic computers and of the companies that manufactured and sold them. But once the equipment was installed at a customer’s site, the real work began: how to get the computers working well enough to justify the expense of purchasing and installing them. That was not just a matter of getting the hardware to run reliably, although that was an issue. Nor was it only a matter of training customers to use computer languages including FORTRAN and COBOL, although that, too, was important. Also critical was analyzing the customer’s specific needs and matching those needs with the capabilities of the electronic computer. The computer is, by its nature, a general-purpose machine. But every customer has a unique set of requirements, which the user can meet only with some effort. Yost’s book chronicles the rise of a variety of approaches to address that need. In the book’s subtitle, Yost calls the industry “computer services.” In succeeding chapters, he elaborates on this term, describing firms that entangled themselves to varying degrees with the users. Initially the computer manufacturer “bundled” these services into the cost of the equipment. Large-scale Defense Department projects could not be handled that way due to their complexity and scale, leading to the creation of “Federally Funded Research and Development Centers” (FFRDCs), including MITRE and the System Development Corporation. At the other end of the spectrum, Automatic Data Processing (ADP) began processing payrolls well before the computer era, using at mechanical calculators and punched card machinery. Small- and medium-sized businesses were happy to let ADP handle this routine but critical task. Under the leadership of Frank Lautenberg, later a U.S. Senator from New Jersey, ADP flourished and grew. In between these extremes were firms that took over varying degrees of data processing and programming. The most well-known was Electronic Data Systems (EDS), founded by H. Ross Perot, whose company managed the complexities of handling Medicare payments, fees, and regulations after passage of Medicare legislation in 1965. Yost makes heroic efforts to differentiate among these varying entities, and at times the reader has difficulty parsing the definitions. What they all have in common is their place in between the general-purpose computer and its high-level programming languages on one side, and the customer’s specific needs on the other. [End Page 377] With the invention of the microprocessor and personal computer, this world began to fall apart. As the PC acquired more processing power and large capacity disk storage, users found that they could do a lot of work using databases and spreadsheets without turning to outside consultants. That shock was later compounded by the advent of local area networking from Novell, followed by the incorporation of Ethernet into PCs. Then came the Internet and the World Wide Web. The latter sections of Yost’s book chronicle the struggle of established services firms to adapt. The author also describes several new entities that arose in the new environment of computing in the Internet age. Some of the new entrants provided opportunities for women entrepreneurs, as Yost describes. Currently the trend is to outsource one’s IT needs onto the “cloud,” with firms supplying “software as a service.” The evolution of IT work continues. The title of the book, Making IT Work, is deliberately ambiguous. These firms were critical in fulfilling the promises of automation made by the early computer pioneers. But customers were unpleasantly surprised at how much the computer “made work” for an army of employees, who had to be brought into the customer’s offices, and who had to be paid. Ross Perot was not the only member of this group who amassed extraordinary wealth...

Making IT Work: A History of the Computer Services Industry

Making IT Work: A History of the Computer Services Industry

The Politics of Commoditization in Global ICT Industries: A Political Economy Explanation of the Rise of Apple, Google, and Industry Disruptors

The global Information and Communications Technologies industry has experienced a rapid, radical reorganization of industry leaders and business models—most recently in mobile. New players Apple and Google abruptly redefined the industry, bringing a wave of commoditization to carriers and equipment manufacturers. Technologies, corporate strategies, and industry structures are usually the first places to look when explaining these industry disruptions, but this paper argues that it was actually a set of political bargains during initial phases of telecommunications liberalization, which differed across countries, that set the trajectories of development in motion. This paper shows how different sets of winners and losers of domestic and regional commoditization battles emerged in various ICT industries around the world. Carriers won in Japan, equipment manufacturers in Europe, and eventually, computer services industry actors rather than communications firms emerged as winners in the US. These differences in industry winner outcomes was shaped by the relative political strength of incumbent communications monopolies and their will to remain industry leaders, given the political system and political dynamics they faced during initial liberalization. The US computer services industry, which developed independently of its telecommunications sector due to antitrust and government policy, eventually commoditized all others, both domestically and abroad. This paper contends that a political economy approach, tracing how politics and regulatory processes shaped industry structures, allows for a better understanding of the underlying path dependent processes that shape rapidly changing global technological and industry outcomes, with implications beyond ICT.

Jean Carteron

Born in Paris in 1926 and educated as a telecom engineer, Jean Carteron created the scientific computing department of Electricité de France in 1952. He then moved to the computer service industry, first within SEMA, then as founder and chairman of STERIA. He was also active in learned societies, as cofounder of the French computing society (AFCET) and as general secretary of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP).

Object technology software selection: a case study

The goal of this paper is to present a case study focusing on object technology assessment in a computer service industry. We develop decision models to give proper recommendations for object-oriented software projects. The assessment uses a quantitative approach, in which a mixed-integer linear programming model and a multi-objective model were formulated and applied. By reducing the element of subjectivity, these formal models led to consistent tool selection. By separating the data and models, the models can be reused in subsequent software development projects. Finally, by allowing users to specify their objectives and requirements and by providing a sensitivity analysis of the results, this approach also increases customer orientation.

Do Regional and Non‐regional Knowledge Flows Differ? An Empirical Study on Clustered Firms in the Dutch Life Sciences and Computing Services Industry

In the literature on innovation and geographical proximity, inter‐organizational knowledge flows are increasingly acknowledged to take place at multiple spatial levels. Furthermore, the knowledge flows within and between regions are assumed to have different characteristics. Until now, hardly any study has examined those latter assumptions empirically. This study aims to provide empirical insights by analysing whether there are differences in the characteristics of regional and non‐regional inter‐organizational knowledge flows in the Dutch computing services and life sciences industry. The results indeed show significant differences. Confirming the assumptions in the literature, regional knowledge flows are characterized by a higher number of face‐to‐face contacts, while the knowledge exchanged through non‐regional knowledge flows is more valuable. The relations between the duration and the social base of the knowledge flow and its spatial scale are less straightforward.

The Push-Pull Effects of the Information Technology Boom and Bust

This article examines the inflow and outflow of workers to different industries in Georgia during the information technology (IT) boom of the 1990s and the subsequent bust. Workers in the software and computer services industry were much more likely to have been absent from the Georgia workforce before the boom but were no more likely than workers from other industries to have exited Georgia's workforce during the bust. Consequently, Georgia likely experienced a net gain in worker human capital as a result of being an area of concentration of IT-producing activity during the IT boom.

Economic Perspectives on the History of the Computer Time-Sharing Industry, 1965-1985

The history of the computer time-sharing industry is one of the unwritten chapters in the overall history of computing. In this article, we show that the time-sharing industry constituted a major sector of the computer services industry until the early 1980s, when time-sharing was made obsolescent by the personal computer.

Sources and use of marketing information by marketing managers

PurposeThe paper aims to establish which formally and informally published sources of knowledge were mainly used by executives in the computer service industry to obtain knowledge of current developments in the field of marketing and to examine the purposes for which the knowledge gathered from these sources was employed.Design/methodology/approachMarketing managers in 141 large computer services businesses completed a questionnaire concerning the extents to which they used books, marketing magazines, academic journals, and grey literature (GL) for instrumental, conceptual, and symbolic purposes. Four “motivating factors” (e.g. occupational learning orientation) were examined plus three other influences (e.g. length of time in a marketing role). The possible consequences of the extensive use of various sources were explored.FindingsOnly 2 per cent of the sample read academic marketing journals, and just 3 per cent looked at marketing textbooks. However, 89 per cent of the sample accessed (mainly internet‐based) grey marketing literature and 62 per cent read marketing magazines. Nearly, one in six of the respondents stated that they had read practitioner “how to do” marketing books. Several hypothesised independent variables exerted positive and significant impacts on the degrees to which magazines; GL and practitioner books were employed to obtain marketing knowledge.Research limitations/implicationsIt was not possible to examine exactly why a particular knowledge source was preferred for a specific purpose. Potential connections between past academic research outputs and the contents of contemporary grey marketing literature and articles in marketing magazines could not be investigated. The results imply that GL must be recognised as a vital source of marketing knowledge. Issues relating to the codification and wider distribution of GL, copyright, the shortage of specialised GL bibliographies in the marketing area, and the long‐term availability of materials in electronic form need to be addressed.Originality/valueThis was the first empirical study to connect the use of marketing knowledge sources to the purposes (instrumental, conceptual, symbolic) for which the knowledge contained within them was required.

IT Road Warriors: Balancing Work-Family Conflict, Job Autonomy, and Work Overload to Mitigate Turnover Intentions

This study examines the antecedents of turnover intention among information technology road warriors. Road warriors are IT professionals who spend most of their workweek away from home at a client site. Building on Moore's (2000) work on turnover intention, this article develops and tests a model that is context-specific to the road warrior situation. The model highlights the effects of work family conflict and job autonomy, factors especially applicable to the road warrior's circumstances. Data were gathered from a company in the computer and software services industry. This study provides empirical evidence for the effects of work family conflict, perceived work overload, fairness of rewards, and job autonomy on organizational commitment and work exhaustion for road warriors. The results suggest that work family conflict is a key source of stress among IT road warriors because they have to juggle family and job duties as they work at distant client sites during the week. These findings suggest that the context of the IT worker matters to turnover intention, and that models that are adaptive to the work context will more effectively predict and explain turnover intention.

The Push-Pull Effects of the Information Technology Boom and Bust: Insight from Matched Employer-Employee Data

This paper examines the inflow and outflow of workers to different industries in Georgia during the information technology (IT) boom of the 1990s and the subsequent bust. Workers in the software and computer services industry were much more likely to have been absent from the Georgia workforce prior to the boom but were no more likely than workers from other industries to have exited the workforce during the bust. Consequently, the Georgia workforce likely experienced a net gain in worker human capital as a result of being an area of concentration of IT-producing activity during the IT boom.

The History of the Internet: The Missing Narratives

Most histories of the Internet, both scholarly and popular, focus on its origins in the ARPANET network built by the U.S. Advanced Projects Research Agency in the late 1960s. In this paper it is shown that the ARPANET was just one of many private and public initiatives that helped shape the Internet of today. For example, the early 1960s saw the deployment of numerous defense networks (such as the $8 billion SAGE program), the first airline reservation systems, and the beginnings of the remote computer services industry. The 1970s saw the development of computerized networks for banks and the rise of the Electronic Data Interchange movement, which established business-to-business communications across many industry sectors. The 1970s also saw the first online information providers, such as Lexis and Dialog, and the first global data communications networks to connect users to these services. With the rise of the personal computer in the 1980s, a vista of computer networking services opened up: the first consumer networks such as CompuServe and Prodigy, the first commercial email services, and Videotext services that became the basis for national information infrastructures in many countries. In the 1990s, the embryonic Internet was popularized by the World Wide Web - a technology that was rooted in information-science research that long predated networked computers.

Maximization and Marginalization: a Brief Examination of the History and Historiography of the U.S. Computer Services Industry

Résumé Le secteur des SSII aux Etats-Unis a joué un rôle critique et multidimensionnel qui a facilité et développé l’utilisation des ordinateurs par les administrations, les entreprises et les autres organisations depuis la Deuxième Guerre mondiale. Dans les années 1950 et 1960 les services informatiques sont devenus une activité importante des constructeurs informatiques (IBM, General Electric, etc.), mais en général davantage comme outil au service de la vente du matériel que comme métier à part entière. Des SSII indépendantes ont émergé et ont défini la structure de la branche : d’abord une quantité de fournisseurs des administrations et de PME pionnières ayant des compétences étendues ; ensuite des firmes spécialisées recentrées sur leurs métiers principaux et capitalisant les économies d’échelle. Pendant les deux dernières décennies de grands fournisseurs de systèmes intégrés ont pris une part croissante des marchés. En contribuant à ce mouvement, les producteurs de matériel (notamment IBM et HP) se sont redéployés dans les quinze dernières années vers les services, d’abord pour mieux servir leurs clients, mais aussi pour améliorer leurs marges dans une période où le matériel informatique est devenu une commodité. L’article donne une caractérisation de ces transformations, situe les services et l’ingénierie informatiques dans l’historiographie plus générale des technologies de l’information et s’efforce d’expliquer pourquoi les SSII ont été marginalisées jusqu’ici par l’histoire, contrairement aux producteurs de logiciels et surtout de matériels.

Modes of Response to Marketing Communications Failures in the Computer Services Industry

AbstractChief executives of 186 computer services companies participated in a survey designed to establish (i) how firms in this sector were likely to respond to serious failures in their marketing communications programmes, and (ii) the factors affecting the mode of response. Businesses can react to a failure radically or conservatively. Radical responses might involve the dismissal of marketing managers, extensive reorganization of the marketing department and the implementation of radical changes in current programmes. Alternatively, a company could intensify the continuation of existing programmes; support, develop and mentor employees; and slightly modify rather than fundamentally alter its current marketing‐communications activities. A number of variables identified from academic literature concerning general organization decline and innovation were applied to the examination of corporate responses to marketing communications failures. In particular, hypotheses were developed and tested regarding the possible influences of managerial rigidity, internal power diffusion, organizational complexity and degree of formality, resource slack and decision‐making style.

Delivering enterprise resource planning systems through application service providers

This paper presents research findings from an in‐depth study on the global application service provider (ASP) industry. It explores the potential for Web‐enabling enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems for small and medium‐sized companies on a per‐seat, per‐month basis. Findings from field research suggest that, while the ASP business model offers many advantages for customers, few companies are prepared to outsource their mission‐critical ERP systems to ASPs. This situation has led to many large and small ASP vendors to re‐think their strategic business plans, with some high profile failures. Evaluating the situation from a market, organizational and technical analysis of the ASP industry, this paper argues that, while the ASP model is currently immature, the next three years will see the emergence of more clearly defined enterprise ASP offerings from key players in the software and computing services industry.

Exploring the supply-side of IT outsourcing: evaluating the emerging role of application service providers

The paper explores the supply-side of IT outsourcing by focusing upon the emerging role of application service providers (ASPs). It traces the transition from first wave IT outsourcing in the 1960s, to business-centric outsourcing in the 1980s and 90s to application outsourcing in the 21st century. Drawing from empirical research on a taxonomy of ASPs, the paper explores how application outsourcing is currently changing the nature of the outsourcing contract and relationship between client and supplier. This will have significant implications for traditional outsourcing and ERP vendors in the software and computing services industry, in addition to presenting new opportunities to SMEs with little history or experience of outsourcing.

Restatement of In-Process Research and Development Write-Offs: The Impact of SEC Scrutiny

In 1998, SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt voiced his concerns about earnings management, including understatements of earnings. SEC Chief Accountant Lynn Turner communicated his opposition to excessive write-offs of In-Process Research and Development costs (IPRD) in September 1998. We document how the SEC-using channels other than formal standard setting and enforcement actions-affected registrants' reporting of IPRD transactions. We investigate factors associated with large IPRD write-offs in the software and computer services industry, and test whether firms managed their earnings with IPRD, as alleged by the SEC. In addition, we examine factors associated with the resulting IPRD restatements, and assess their valuation impact. IPRD write-offs-as a percentage of assets acquired-shrink by more than half in the period following the SEC's guidance. We observe companies that initially expense large amounts of IPRD faced high investor expectations, and the stock price impact of write-off restatements is reliably negative. The results demonstrate the potent impact the SEC's opinions on proper accounting practice have on companies' financial reporting, even when the agency is not officially setting new standards.

The supply‐side of IT outsourcing: the trend towards mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures

Explores the supply‐side of the global IT outsourcing marketplace. Argues that companies should seek to understand the strategic positioning of IT suppliers. In recent years, the large IT service providers have made inroads into new vertical markets from health care to e‐commerce. They have also expanded their service offerings to include business process outsourcing (BPO), customer relationship management (CRM) and e‐business. Explores some of these changes and presents a conceptual framework which captures some of the dynamic changes in the software and computing services industry. These involve mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures and partnering.

Local Economic Development Strategies for the UK Computer Services Sector

This article considers ways in which local economic policy makers can best proceed with respect to the development of the computer services industry, one of the fastest-growing sectors of the British economy. I suggest that knowledge of the structural and locational dynamics of the industry is necessary before effective interventions can be made. My analysis indicates that while policies focusing on the attraction of investment from outside the local area, or on infrastructural and communications upgrading may well be ineffective, the provision of seed funding and advice for new and recent start-ups, in conjunction with attempts to stimulate the local market for computer services, may have positive impacts.