External Service Providers Research Articles

The use of email in a child and adolescent mental health service: are staff ready?

All staff members of a child and adolescent mental health service were invited to participate in a survey about the use of email. Sixty-two of the 105 staff members responded to the survey, a participation rate of 59%. Of the respondents, 32 were allied health staff, 10 were nurses, seven were administrative staff, six were medical staff, three were operational staff and four were acting in a combination of these roles. The respondents reported extensive work-related email usage and considered that they were confident in using email despite low levels of training. However, they did not feel that they understood the legal and ethical issues involved. Furthermore, there was limited incorporation of email into standard record keeping. The majority of respondents thought that increased use of email would lead to a greater workload, a consequence they considered would probably increase over time. Many commented on the quick and practical use of this medium, but were wary about using email with individuals outside the service organization, especially if it were to contain clinical material. There was low use of email directly with clients, and clinicians were ambivalent about incorporating email into therapy. The results suggest that it is timely to consider the utility and appropriateness of email communication with clients and external service providers, and to formulate guidelines and procedures to ensure the confidentiality of client information and the safety of clients and staff.

Modeling and assessing inference exposure in encrypted databases

The scope and character of today's computing environments are progressively shifting from traditional, one-on-one client-server interaction to the new cooperative paradigm. It then becomes of primary importance to provide means of protecting the secrecy of the information, while guaranteeing its availability to legitimate clients. Operating online querying services securely on open networks is very difficult; therefore many enterprises outsource their data center operations to external application service providers. A promising direction toward prevention of unauthorized access to outsourced data is represented by encryption. However, data encryption is often supported for the sole purpose of protecting the data in storage while allowing access to plaintext values by the server, which decrypts data for query execution. In this paper, we present a simple yet robust single-server solution for remote querying of encrypted databases on external servers. Our approach is based on the use of indexing information attached to the encrypted database, which can be used by the server to select the data to be returned in response to a query without the need of accessing the plaintext database content. Our indexes balance the trade-off between efficiency requirements in query execution and protection requirements due to possible inference attacks exploiting indexing information. We investigate quantitative measures to model inference exposure and provide some related experimental results.

Understanding Outsourcing Partnership: A Comparison of Three Theoretical Perspectives

In recent years, increasing attention has been paid to building a successful partnership between the customer and supplier of the information systems (IS) outsourcing services. The sources of influence in successful information services outsourcing partnerships were explored by means of a study of Korean firms involved in such activity. Six major partnership-related variables were identified, and three alternative models were formulated based on 1) a behavioral-attitudinal theory which considered mutual benefits, commitment, and predisposition as intervening variables between the action-based factors of shared knowledge, mutual dependency and organizational linkage, and outsourcing success; 2) a simple direct effects model without such intervening variables; and 3) a model is based on a theory of reasoned action where the roles of the need-based psychological factors and the action-based factors were reversed. The three models were compared using a survey of 225 organizations in Korea that have outsourced their IS functions to external service providers. The findings indicate that the first model built on the behavioral-attitudinal theory best explained outsourcing success.

Sustainable homeservices? Toward household services that enhance ecological, social and economic sustainability

The idea of services replacing products is increasingly offered as a solution to making the production and consumption patterns of the affluent consumers more sustainable. However, the discussion about ‘sustainable services’ or ‘sustainable product–service systems’ tends to emphasize the eco-efficiency perspective, rather than explicitly capture all sustainability aspects. Social or socioeconomic considerations are often forgotten or by-passed without scrutiny. This paper argues that there is the need for a concept of sustainable services in which the social sustainability aspect is also recognized with equal attention. Since a major part of private consumption occurs in the household context-living at home and moving to and from it—this paper will put forth the concept of sustainable homeservices and will suggest a way to assess sustainability of services directed to households. For assessing the sustainability of services directed to households, a set of indicators relating to the ecological, social and economic dimensions of sustainability is proposed. With the aim of giving an idea of how to assess homeservices in practical terms, the paper will also exemplify how one could operationalize these indicators on an ordinal rating scale. The conclusion is that it is possible to assess the sustainability of a homeservice in a relative fashion, using ‘no service’ or the ‘product alternative’ as the point of comparison. Households alone have a limited capacity to influence their consumption choices, because other actors set the frame. For this reason, institutional arrangements for making services easily available to households are outlined. It appears that housing organizations have a central role in the alternative option for organizing the supply of service provision. They are involved in five of the seven alternative ways of supplying services that could be identified. The role of the housing organization can vary from direct supply to lighter forms, such as cooperative arrangements with external service providers, or resident involvement.

Business Models in Fine Chemical Engineering

AbstractChemistry and pharmaceutical companies are increasingly awarding assignments for plant planning and construction to external engineering service providers. Both national and international companies with various business models are active in this growth market. A number of variously oriented engineering companies have specialized in the specific demands of planning plants for the production of fine chemicals and active ingredients for pharmaceuticals. Customers as well as the service‐providers themselves ask which companies or company models meet customer needs best in this segment. Which assignment form is the most efficient? Is it an award to a general contractor, possibly with a lump‐sum turnkey assignment? Or is the customer better off with individual planning assignments? A study with focus on the Central European fine chemical and pharmaceutical industries shows: there is no standardized engineering solution. Each business model has specific advantages and disadvantages; as a result, the partners must design their individual model. The respective contract form depends on many components – on product, time and cost pressure and, last not least, on the customer's remaining engineering competence.

Collaborative energy partnerships in relation to development of core business focus and competence – a study of Swedish pulp and paper companies and energy service companies

AbstractSeveral aspects of the growing market for energy‐related collaboration between pulp and paper industries (PPIs) and energy service companies (ESCOs) in Sweden were investigated through in‐depth interviews with PPI and ESCO managers. Aspects of concern are the different forms of co‐operation established, the managers' views on the recent changes made regarding competence and business focus, the managers' views on the opportunities and risks with energy related co‐operation and the implications for sustainable industrial energy management. The study shows that there is a mutual belief among PPI and ESCO managers that co‐operation can provide opportunities for improved competitiveness through a more rational distribution of competences between companies. The main two barriers against the utilization of this potential are that ESCOs must prove that they can bring added values other than capital to pulp and paper mills, and the lack of competition between external energy service providers. Furthermore, we argue that adding aspects related to competence and inter‐firm partnering can improve the existing theory surrounding barriers and opportunities for sustainable industrial energy management in manufacturing industries. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

Generic integration infrastructure for IP-based design processes and tools with a unified XML format

In the field of IP-based design, a SoC designer usually searches for IPs and after he has purchased some, he needs to further process them before they can be included in existing designs. Since IP providers use different formats and design tools require different parts of the IP for their services it is hard to find an IP description format that satisfies and is exchangeable between all parties. This paper presents such a unified format. It can be used to search for, deliver and exchange IPs between the designer and external IP service providers. An integration infrastructure based on the format was implemented and evaluated. The results prove its applicability.

Customer Switching Patterns in Competitive and Noncompetitive Service Industries

This article is about behavioral change in customer relationships. Changes in customer switching behavior are compared in five different service industries. Switching barriers and the competitive industrial situations in the comparison between industries also revealed changes in behavior in an industrial monopoly in which switching to alternative external service providers was not an option. This kind of switching was articulated as internal switching. The behavioral change was therefore assessed in terms not only of frequency but also of type of change. The switching ability to cause change, called configuration energy, even caused a change in behavior at the highest level in a noncompetitive industry in which there was a lack of switching alternatives. Total change was considered to be a result of the higher energy level driving the switching configuration than when the change was partial.

A case analysis of business process outsourcing project failure profile and implementation problems in a large organisation of a developing nation

As is the case for many developing economies, internationally published research on information systems (IS) practice in Kuwait is in short supply. The few reports of Kuwaiti IS/information technology (IT) practice highlighted in studies of Middle Eastern or Arab computing, have also largely discussed them in terms of these broader regional identities rather than their specific national context. Business process outsourcing (BPO) is becoming a widely‐accepted management practice throughout the world. In recent years, outsourcing of information services has become a pervasive phenomenon. Increasingly, organisations rely on external service providers for IS/IT services. Kuwait has been used as an example of a developing country where the data collection for this study was done there. This study employed case study methodology because the author was interested in answers for “how” and “why” questions and because the study was partly exploratory. The primary data on IS/IT outsourcing practices, obtained for the first time in Kuwait, were collected by means of semi‐structured interviews supported by organisational documentation. The case study discussed in this paper brought to the surface critical elements missing in the contract that led to the demise of the BPO project. Studying failure is preventive because it helps organisations reduce the probability of failure in the future. A central argument of this paper concerns the need to understand the complex cultural and political implications of outsourcing within a global context (perspectives), a policy that is becoming increasingly important. The case study findings are crucial as they provide a careful diagnosis of failed IT outsourcing project.

A Study of Strength of Relationship Between Music Groups and Their External Service Providers

Very little academic research exists on the marketing and management of musical groups. Music is a service industry, but it has some special characteristics in terms of its relationship with external service providers that make this study particularly critical. What are the relationships between music groups and their external service providers like? Are these service providers doing a good job in the eyes of the musicians? The purpose of this paper is to examine the attitudes of musical groups toward external service providers, and test whether more successful musical groups share the same attitudes with less successful groups.

The Outsourcing of Corporate Tax Function Activities

This study investigates the factors associated with firms' decisions to outsource corporate tax-planning and -compliance activities. The results indicate that transaction costs relating to human-asset specificity, proprietary technology, and economies of scale, along with the status of firms' top tax professionals and recent growth, are factors that help explain variation in the proportion of 1997 tax-planning expenditures made to external service providers. In contrast, only firm size and growth help explain variation in the proportion of tax-compliance activities outsourced. Finally, the results indicate that firms with more of a tax-planning focus outsource greater (lesser) proportions of their tax-planning (-compliance) activities. These results provide the first empirical evidence relating to the economic motivations behind tax function outsourcing.

Understanding Professionals' Reasons for Participating in Continuing Professional Education

The demand for continuing professional education (CPE) programs has dramatically increased during the past decade. According to various reports, U.S. employers increased employee education spending by 24 to 32 percent in the past decade. Many of these employers seek external service providers to meet their employees' education needs. One cause for the increase in demand is the trend toward professionalization in various career fields. As those fields seek professional recognition, they are requiring their practitioners to become licensed, certified or accredited. For the practitioners to maintain their licenses, certifications or accreditation, they must participate in CPE programs. Career fields such as medicine, dentistry, law, social work, teaching, accounting and real estate require continuing education for their professionals. From the professionals' perspective, CPE also helps practitioners to keep current in their fields, maximize their competence, advance in their careers and enjoy greater job security. Universities are in an excellent position to become the prime service providers of continuing professional education. Most have the resources, facilities, finances, content experts, and technology to market and conduct continuing professional education programs effectively The only element that they lack is market information on factors that lead individuals to participate in CPE programs. Without this information, universities risk losing their CPE business to for-profit firms who already have access to this information. To develop effective continuing professional education programs, the following questions must be considered: 1. What professional and personal factors lead individuals to participate in CPE programs? 2. Are these factors internal or external? 3. How can these factors be helpful in recruiting and retaining CPE participants? Once universities have the necessary information, they can better market existing continuing professional education programs to the public, create future programs and restructure current programs to better meet learner goals. There are both extrinsic and intrinsic motivators for learning. Extrinsic motivators would include expected financial benefit and status such as bonuses, promotions, and rewards. One way for universities to attract extrinsically motivated professionals to their programs is to offer a certificate program with recognition of successful completion granted after participation in a select group of courses. Professionals take pride in having certificates with a university name on them. Another type of extrinsic motivation that is common in CPE is awarding credentials. Many career fields require their practitioners to be certified, licensed or accredited to ensure they are recognized as members of the profession. …

Outsourcing corporate real estate asset management in New Zealand

The outsourcing of non‐core business activities has recently mushroomed throughout the world as organisations seek reduced cost and strategic business advantage in an increasingly competitive marketplace. A component of this overall trend has been a dramatic increase in the extent to which real estate asset management functions of non‐property investment organisations have been taken over by ‘external service providers’. This study is the first in New Zealand to examine current practice and emergent trends and to identify outsourcing issues and problems in detail. Via a survey of 457 organisations, the reasons behind the trend to outsourcing are identified, as are the types of services outsourced; the basis of selection of service providers; the skills and attributes required of real estate professionals; and the success or otherwise of outsourcing experiences.

Explaining Client Satisfaction with an Employee Assistance Program

ABSTRACT The first objective of this paper is to explore the psychometric qualities as well as the usefulness of an employee assistance program client satisfaction scale. The responses obtained from 82 clients of an external service provider permitted a validation of the satisfaction scale and ultimately the selection of five items showing stronger convergent validity as well as high reliability (alpha = .89). The second objective is to explore the possible relationships between demographic (gender, age), treatment (referral-type, type of problem, urgency, degree of resolution) and organizational variables (unionization, job category, sector, size), and variations in client satisfaction levels. The results of bivariate analysis indicate that the type of referral, the type of problem, and the degree of resolution of the problem are related to client satisfaction. This study provides some support for the inclusion of treatment variables in a comprehensive explanatory model of client satisfaction. It is furt...

TOWARD A COMPREHENSIVE MODEL FOR THE ASSESSMENT AND MANAGEMENT OF INTRAORGANIZATIONAL CONFLICT: DEVELOPING THE FRAMEWORK

This paper presents the theoretical rationale for further development of a model for the assessment and management of intraorganizational conflict. The purpose of such a model would be to assist employees, managers, human resources practitioners, and external service providers in selecting the most appropriate conflict management strategy for a given conflict. The framework presented builds on the previous work of Sheppard (1984) and Elangovan (1995, 1998) in suggesting that a contingency‐based model of strategy selection must include attention to characteristics of the conflict, desired outcomes of the participants, and awareness of available conflict management strategies. By expanding the range of conflicts and conflict management strategies typically included within a single model, the framework presented here forms the basis of a comprehensive model for dealing with intraorganizational conflict.

The role of service level agreements in IT service delivery

Introduces the concept of service level agreements (SLAs) in IT service provision, especially in the case of outsourced service provision. Reports the experience of several consulting engagements and surveys to substantiate suggested frameworks and checklists. Discusses the reasons for exercising rigour around SLAs. Differentiates between SLAs negotiated for internal versus external service providers. Describes the structure of good service level agreements. Outlines the most important elements of measurement for monitoring service level performance. Concludes with the importance of SLAs to the management of commercial relationships in which services are provided.

Building an is Consulting Business

Today's leading CIOs and IS executives are changing how their organizations conduct business. To compete with external consultants and myriad service providers, they are transforming their IS culture and workforce in building an IS consulting business. This article will explain step-by-step how to build such a business, provide examples of what has and has not worked, and highlight what makes change initiatives such as these succeed or fail. Taking IS from an internally focused, technology-driven organization to one that competes with external consultants for the privilege of being the provider of choice is a major cultural initiative. Such an initiative is not for the timid and should not be contemplated unless a company is absolutely, 100% committed to seeing it through to the finish.

External Service Providers in Schools: A Three-State Study

External Service Providers in Schools: A Three-State Study

Measuring user satisfaction in an outsourcing environment

Outsourcing is a term that encompasses a variety of approaches to contracting for information technology (IT) services. It is defined as a transfer of any particular IT activity or a combination of activities from an organization using them to one or more external service providers. IT outsourcing leads to significant changes in the management processes of the IT organization. For example, while IT managers have always had the responsibility for ensuring that users within their organization maintain a high degree of satisfaction, they now have to monitor the quality of service, even though they are no longer the providers of the service. This gets further complicated when only some parts of the IT functions are outsourced while others are provided by an internal IT department. Thus, developing a comprehensive set of measurement tools and mechanisms is an important step toward monitoring the quality of service provided by both an outside source and an IT department. This paper investigates the usefulness of an existing user-satisfaction measurement instrument for identifying problem areas in a multiprovider outsourcing environment, where an external service provider and an internal IT department each has different roles in the system. It discusses the rationale for measuring user satisfaction and the instruments to carry out the measurement procedure. It reports the results of implementing and testing a previously developed, documented, and validated user-satisfaction instrument in an outsourcing environment and draws practical conclusions from the results.

A descriptive study on the outsourcing of information systems functions

A few years ago some major outsourcing contracts were signed by large corporations like Eastman Kodak and General Dynamics. Since then the trade literature in particular has examined the outsourcing of Information Systems (IS) functions as an important and growing trend. This paper attempts to provide a systematic overview of the outsourcing phenomenon. IS outsourcing is viewed from a definitional and an evolutionary perspective. It is argued that outsourcing is not new, but its nature has evolved over decades. An exploratory study of 188 firms is reported; it provides insight into the types of IS functions being outsourced and the relationship between outsourcing and certain demographics: size, industry and information intensity. The results suggest that while system-operations remains the predominant function outsourced, other functions are also being performed by external service providers. Further, industry and information intensity have some influence on the extent of outsourcing of certain functions.