High-quality Information Technology Research Articles

The effect of high-quality information technology on audit quality

Information Technology (IT) is changing the working environment and working process of clients and auditors. High-quality IT can enhance data accuracy, completeness and security, and automate data collection procedures. These attributes are important to auditors as their work highly relies on the quality of data. Using data from 2005 to 2013, this study provides empirical evidence showing that high-quality IT significantly enhances audit quality and reduces audit efforts. This study contributes to the stream of literature on IT quality and audit efficiency and can help managers understand how IT investments improve their data quality and audit quality.

Research on Effective Supply Strategies of Informationization Teaching Resources under the Background of "Double Reduction"

The quality of education after the "double reduction" needs to be guaranteed by deepening education and teaching reform. In order to better implement the "double reduction", it is necessary to apply information technology teaching methods to promote educational reform. At the same time, deepening information technology teaching reform is also an effective measure to promote the common and balanced development of compulsory education. In the society where information technology teaching is constantly developing, information resources are everywhere. In the context of "double reduction", the study of effective supply strategies for high-quality information technology education resources is conducive to the realization of reducing burden, increasing efficiency, and improving the quality of education environment. On the basis of explaining how information technology education resources can empower the implementation of "double reduction", this study proposes effective supply strategies for information technology education resources from the perspectives of precise promotion of teaching resources and teaching services, hierarchical supply of after-school service resources, big data resources to assist school work, and transformation of service models for off campus institutions.

FORMATION OF A RECOMMENDATION SYSTEM FOR THE "SMART REGION" FOR THE PURPOSE OF CHOOSING INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES AND THEIR IMPLEMENTATION WHEN CREATING APPLICATIONS

An analysis of the possibility of implementing the most promising methodologies aimed at creating the infrastructure of a "smart" region was carried out. A detailed study of research-relevant scientific intelligence allows us to highlight the best developments. Many researchers focus only on the theoretical aspect of the issue. The authors of the article analyzed the principles of creating an information technology platform designed to facilitate the process of interaction of a resident of the region with the surrounding infrastructure. The formation of a "smart region" is designed to ensure active communication between representatives of various spheres of the agglomeration, i.e. local government bodies and various branches of the region’s functioning. It is the cooperation of these important life support links of the conglomeration of settlements that allows the development of a strategy aimed at improving living conditions and efficient use of resources. Today, there are already a number of successful examples of the formation of a certain basis and the laying of successful foundations for the development of "smart regions". It is the analysis of the best methods with the goal that becomes the basis of the application for the implementation of the "Smart Region of Zakarpattia" concept and the development of its own innovative information technology platform for the implementation of "smart" environment technologies. It is through the development of a high-quality information technology platform that the smart region is managed in order to improve the quality of services offered to citizens and make all management processes more efficient. In order to find the most optimal way of designing and meeting the community’s requirements, a recommendation system for selecting information technologies and their implementations is being developed, and as a result, we should get a balanced, optimal application model for the "Smart Region of Transcarpathia" information technology platform.

Security of Higher Vocational Student Management Information Platform Based on Internet IP Cross-Validation Algorithm

The algorithm first uses the improved PSO optimized K-means algorithm (IPMeans) to cluster the intrusion data and increase the aggregation degree of the same data type. The promotion of education management informatization construction requires cooperation between higher vocational colleges and information technology companies, and cooperation with information technology companies. Brother colleges and universities cooperate and build together; at the same time, a high-quality information technology talent team is formed; the construction of information resources co-construction and sharing system is accelerated; the original unreasonable education management mechanism is reformed. Then the processed data is divided into 10-CV, and then use the cross-validation method to further improve the BP algorithm. The simulation results show that the BP algorithm based on cross-validation is better than the traditional BP algorithm.

Designs, facilitators, barriers, and lessons learned during the implementation of emergency department led virtual urgent care programs in Ontario, Canada.

IntroductionVirtual patient care has seen incredible growth since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. To provide greater access to safe and timely urgent care, in the fall of 2020, the Ministry of Health introduced a pilot program of 14 virtual urgent care (VUC) initiatives across the province of Ontario. The objective of this paper was to describe the overall design, facilitators, barriers, and lessons learned during the implementation of seven emergency department (ED) led VUC pilot programs in Ontario, Canada.MethodsWe assembled an expert panel of 13 emergency medicine physicians and researchers with experience leading and implementing local VUC programs. Each VUC program lead was asked to describe their local pilot program, share common facilitators and barriers to adoption of VUC services, and summarize lessons learned for future VUC design and development.ResultsModels of care interventions varied across VUC pilot programs related to triage, staffing, technology, and physician remuneration. Common facilitators included local champions to guide program delivery, provincial funding support, and multi-modal marketing and promotions. Common barriers included behaviour change strategies to support adoption of a new service, access to high-quality information technology to support new workflow models that consider privacy, risk, and legal perspectives, and standardized data collection which underpin overall objective impact assessments.ConclusionsThese pilot programs were rapidly implemented to support safe access to care and ED diversion of patients with low acuity issues during the COVID-19 pandemic. The heterogeneity of program implementation respects local autonomy yet may present challenges for sustainability efforts and future funding considerations.

AN INTEGRATIVE AGILE ITSM FRAMEWORK OF TENETS AND PRACTICES – ITS DESIGN AND EXPLORATORY UTILIZATION

ABSTRACT The modern business environment and global covid-19 pandemic effects have led to any relevant business organizational activity, like e-commerce, to rely on on-premise and cloud information technology (IT) services. To deliver high-quality IT services, plan-driven IT Service Management (ITSM) frameworks and standards have been used in business organizations in the last two decades. Nowadays, new and claimed agile ITSM frameworks and standards have emerged but there is a scarcity of studies on their extent of agility coverage. This research addresses this knowledge gap. First, we elaborated a plausible Integrative Agile ITSM Framework of Tenets and Practices from a selective review of the main related SwE and ITSM literature. Second, we populated the integrative framework with all available evidence about the agile tenets and practices reported in the official publications of the new five ITSM frameworks and standards. Third, we explored its utilization with a Panel of ITSM Experts for ranking how much the new five ITSM frameworks and standards fit the integrative framework. Exploratory results revealed high concordance among experts to qualify ITIL v4 and VeriSM as agile, and FitSM, and the two ISO/IEC standards as lightweight but not agile. This research contributes to the ITSM literature with an Integrative Agile ITSM Framework of Tenets and Practices, and the ITSM practice with an exploratory evaluation from ITSM experts on the adherence to it from the new five ITSM frameworks and standards. Given the critical dependence of any business activity on IT services, further theoretical and empirical research is worthy to be pursued.

Teaching Reform and Practice of "Tax Law" in Applied Undergraduate Colleges under Rurriculum Ideological and Political Concept

Tax law is an important core course for finance and economics majors in applied universities. With the rapid development of information technology, it is more and more important in social and economic life. However, because the current teaching of tax law is not sensitive to the characteristics of the tax law course, the teaching method is backward, and the students are not active in learning the tax law, the teaching quality of tax law needs to be improved. There are many problems in the course teaching of tax law in application-oriented universities, such as unitary teaching material content, unitary course content, and imperfect practical of teaching system and poor direct ability of students. Suggestions on reforming the classroom teaching in the information technology era are put forward from the aspects of teachers, teaching content and teaching method, training program setting, laboratory construction, etc. The introduction of practical courses into the teaching of tax law is to combine the knowledge of tax law with the current information technology education, to realize the organic combination of value management and knowledge transfer, ability building and quality training, and to cultivate high-quality information technology talents with international vision and social responsibility. Starting from the academic perspective of tax law, this paper constructs an effective way of tax law curriculum reform from the teaching purpose of applying information technology to practice.

Antecedents and mediating role of IT service climate in IT service quality: A mixed methods study

Developing a strong and positive information technology (IT) service climate is important to ensure high-quality IT services. The influence of job resources and personal resources on the IT service climate and the mediating effect of the IT service climate on IT service quality were explored in this study qualitatively and quantitatively. Among the various job resource factors, we found that training, reward, and information system (IS) support can improve the IT service climate. Coworker support shows a non-significant effect on IT service climate. Among the personal resource factors, self-efficacy and hope have significantly positive effects on the IT service climate. Optimism and resilience do not appear to significantly affect the IT service climate. Our results confirm that the IT service climate is an important mediator in enabling certain antecedents to properly impact IT service quality. The IT service climate was found to fully mediate the effects of training, reward, IS support, and hope while partially mediating the effect of self-efficacy. The effect of the IT service climate on IT service quality is also strengthened by a high customer contact frequency. The results presented here may provide scholars and practitioners with a comprehensive, workable understanding of the IT service climate.

Design of Logistics Information Management System Based on Information Technology

With the advancement of the times, network technology has gradually replaced manual operations; intelligent management has saved time and effort, and can ensure the efficient operation of enterprises. Information agencies We must be proficient in the application of logistics management information technology, which is also an inevitable result of the development of society to a certain historical stage. The arrival of the conference changed the face of the whole society. People have long been inseparable from smartphones and computers, and industries are increasingly dependent on information technology. As an important part of social and economic development, logistics enterprises bear the responsibility of freight transportation. Under such a development background, only by adopting scientific management methods scientifically and continuously making progress can we promote the sustainable development of enterprises. This article uses modern logistics and logistics information methods to explain the role of information technology in logistics information management. Introduce some design requirements of logistics information management system. Analyzing the problems of logistics management informatization and the reasons for the lack of modern logistics management informatization, it is concluded that logistics enterprises must pay more attention to logistics management informatization and apply it widely. Improve the relevant standards and levels of information technology, strengthen the supervision and management of information construction, and high-quality information technology.

Lithuanian case study on evaluating suitability, acceptance and use of IT tools by students – An example of applying Technology Enhanced Learning Research methods in Higher Education

The aim of the paper is to present application of the methodology (i.e. model and method) to evaluate suitability, acceptance and use of information technology (IT) tools for particular students as well as a case study of evaluating two IT tools widely used while studying human-computer interaction (HCI) design at Lithuanian Universities. These IT tools are “Axure” and “Balsamiq Mockups”. High-quality IT tools should be optimised to particular students according to their personal needs, e.g. learning styles. In the paper, optimised IT tools should have the highest probabilistic suitability indexes for particular students according to Felder-Silverman learning styles model. Personalised IT tools' evaluation methodology presented in the paper is based on (1) well-known principles of Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis for identifying quality evaluation criteria; (2) Educational Technology Acceptance & Satisfaction Model (ETAS-M) based on well-known Unified Theory on Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model, and (3) probabilistic suitability indexes to identify technology's suitability to particular students' needs according to their learning styles. In the paper, there is also a case study of implementing the methodology in Lithuania. This methodology is applicable in real life situations where teachers have to help students to apply IT tools that are most suitable, acceptable and useable for their needs and thus to improve students' motivation, which in its turn creates the conditions for better and more efficient education. The case study aims at analysing the results of evaluating HCI tools using this novel methodology. The methodology is one of the examples of application of Technology Enhanced Learning Research in Higher Education.

High-Quality Information Technology and Capital Investment Decisions

ABSTRACTWe examine the effect of high-quality information technology (IT) on management's capital investment decisions. Evaluating capital investment decisions with contemporary investment efficiency and long-term measures of investment effectiveness, we document a positive relation between high-quality IT and capital investment decision quality. In particular, we find high-quality IT is associated with more optimal levels of investment as well as fewer future fixed asset write-downs. We also disaggregate investment efficiency and find the relation with IT quality holds for investment decisions related to capital expenditures and acquisitions, but not research and development expenditures. Overall, our results suggest managers equipped with better internal information from higher-quality IT are able to make superior capital investment decisions. Our study contributes to the literature by providing evidence of a significant determinant of capital investment decision quality and documenting a specific mechanism that mediates the indirect effect of IT quality on future performance.JEL Classifications: D83; E22; G31; M15; M41.Data Availability: We thank InformationWeek for providing annual rankings that were previously published. All other data are publicly available from regulatory filings; we obtained data from the Compustat, Execucomp, and I/B/E/S databases.

The Impact of Audit Committee Information Technology Expertise on the Reliability and Timeliness of Financial Reporting

ABSTRACT We examine whether information technology expertise on audit committees impacts the reliability and timeliness of financial reporting. We find a reduction in the likelihood of material restatement, a reduction in the likelihood of information technology-related material weaknesses (which account for 55 percent of all reported material weaknesses), and more timely earnings announcements at firms with audit committee information technology expertise. These findings are robust to controlling for a firm's other information technology attributes, as well as when using entropy balanced samples, and we mitigate endogeneity concerns with evidence that our findings hold in a subsample of firms that all possess overall high-quality information technology. Finally, a difference-in-differences analysis, inclusion of firm fixed effects, and a falsification test largely support our assertion that the quality of financial reporting is significantly improved by the presence of an audit committee information technology expert. JEL Classifications: M41; M15. Data Availability: All data used in the study are publicly available.

The Impact of Audit Committee Information Technology Expertise on the Reliability and Timeliness of Financial Reporting

We examine whether information technology expertise on audit committees impacts the reliability and timeliness of financial reporting. We find a reduction in the likelihood of material restatements and information technology-related material weaknesses (which account for 55 percent of all reported material weaknesses), and more timely earnings announcements at firms with audit committee information technology expertise. These findings are robust to controlling for a firm’s other information technology attributes as well as when using entropy balanced samples, and we mitigate endogeneity concerns with evidence that our findings hold in a sub-sample of firms that all possess overall high-quality information technology. Finally, a difference-in-differences analysis, inclusion of firm fixed effects, and a falsification test largely support our assertion that the quality of financial reporting is significantly improved by the presence of an audit committee information technology expert.

High-Quality Information Technology and Capital Investment Decisions

We examine the effect of high-quality information technology (IT) on management’s capital investment decisions. Evaluating capital investment decisions with contemporary investment efficiency and long-term measures of investment effectiveness, we document a positive relation between high-quality IT and capital investment decision quality. In particular, we find high-quality IT is associated with more optimal levels of investment as well as fewer future fixed asset write-downs. We also disaggregate investment efficiency and find the relation with IT quality holds for investment decisions related to capital expenditures and acquisition but not research and development expenditures. Overall, our results suggest managers equipped with better internal information from higher quality IT are able to make superior capital investment decisions. Our study contributes to the literature by providing evidence of a significant determinant of capital investment decision quality and documenting a specific mechanism that mediates the indirect effect of IT quality on future performance.

An empirical investigation of botnet as a service for cyberattacks

AbstractDuring the last years, cloud computing has emerged and imposed itself as a cost‐effective solution for providing high quality Information Technology services. However, beyond a legitimate usage, the benefits of cloud computing are being exploited by attackers in nefarious ways and botnets are among the greatest beneficiaries of this malicious use. This botnet trend is a major issue because it strongly increases the power of massive distributed attacks when leveraging the capabilities of cloud service providers that do not have appropriate detection approaches in place to detect botnets exploiting cloud resources (also referred to as botclouds). We developed a free experimental intra–Cloud Service Provider (CSP) botnet that exploits CSPs' trial versions. We used this intra‐CSP botnet to execute numerous TCP SYN flood and UDP flood attacks during one week. Our empirical results demonstrate that, contrary to what CSPs claim, all the CSPs (with the exception of one) we have tested still cannot detect or issued no warnings when malicious activities were launched from their cloud computing platforms. Besides, CSP's trial versions can easily be exploited to perpetrate large scale cyberattacks. We argue that efficient, cost‐effective, scalable detection approaches that can detect botclouds need to be developed in the future to address this challenge.

Getting back on track: change management at AfrobitLink Ltd

Synopsis AfrobitLink Ltd was an information technology (IT) firm with headquarters in Lagos, Nigeria. AfrobitLink started as a very small IT firm with less than two dozen staff. Within a few years of its founding, AfrobitLink established itself as a dependable organization known for delivering high-quality IT services. However, starting in 2004, AfrobitLink experienced rapid growth as it expanded to serve the telecommunications firms taking advantage of the deregulated market. This rapid expansion resulted in many challenges for AfrobitLink. The firm rapidly expanded into all 36 states in Nigeria, hiring a manager to oversee the company’s operations in each of the states. Poor hiring practices, inadequate training, excessive spans of control, low accountability, a subjective reward system, and other cultural issues, such as a relaxed attitude to time, resulted in low motivation, high employee turnover, poor customer service, and financial losses. By 2013, the firm was operating at a loss and its reputation was in shambles. Generally, the culture was toxic: employees did not identify with the firm or care about its goals, there were no performance standards, employees were not held accountable, self-interest and discrimination prevailed. The organization was in a downward spiral. Consultants were hired to help sort out the firm’s problems but these efforts yielded few results. Ken Wilson, the founder’s son, was hired in 2014 as VP of Administration to help get the firm back on track. As a change agent, Ken had to decide how to address the issues facing the firm and how to achieve profitable growth. Research methodology Primary sources included interviews with the company CEO, his wife, his son, and a volunteer staff member. Secondary sources included the company website. The names of the people and the firm in the case have been changed to provide anonymity. Relevant courses and levels This case is intended for use in graduate courses (although it can also be used in upper level undergraduate courses) in change management/organization development, organizational behavior, leadership, or international management. For graduate courses, students may focus on application or integration of several theories or concepts. For upper level undergraduate courses, students may focus on application of a single theory or concept. Below are suggested texts or readings for each type of student by subject. Theoretical bases Change management theories (e.g. Lewin’s force field analysis (Schein, 1996), Kotter’s eight-step change management process (Kotter, 2007), The change kaleidoscope approach (Balogun and Hailey, 2008)), social identity theory (Tajfel, 1981), attribution theory (Kelley, 1972), leadership theories (e.g. Hersey and Blanchard, 1969), intercultural/international management theories (e.g. Hofstede, 1980, 1991).

Dynamics of Enterprise Architecture in the Korean Public Sector: Transformational Change vs. Transactional Change

Enterprise architecture (EA) is one of the most important tools for implementing e-government effectively and delivering high-quality information technology services to citizens. To develop a robust EA research model with key success factors, we apply the theory of organizational change proposed by Burke and Litwin, using the concepts of transformational and transactional change. The analysis is conducted by using South Korea’s EA project launched in 2003. This study classifies EA implementation in the South Korean public sector into three stages and explains the characteristics of each stage from the organizational change perspective. We raise the issue of EA application level compounded by the problem of diverse EA definitions and discuss the difficulties of EA implementation based on the framework of organizational change. In addition, 20 EA experts are surveyed to confirm the findings of this study. Finally, we propose a new research model for future empirical study based on the presented findings. We believe that this study, as an in-depth review of EA implementation from an organizational change perspective, will benefit EA experts from a practical point of view, as well as academics from a research perspective.

The Effect of High-Quality Information Technology on Corporate Tax Avoidance and Tax Risk

ABSTRACTWe examine the effect of high-quality information technology (IT) on corporate tax outcomes. Using a measure of IT quality constructed from rankings in InformationWeek magazine, we find that firms with high-quality IT are able to achieve both lower and less volatile cash effective tax rates than are other firms. These results suggest that firms with high-quality IT are able to avoid more taxes while simultaneously incurring less tax risk compared to firms with lesser IT systems. We also perform mediation analyses to investigate the channels through which high-quality IT enables effective tax planning. Results of these tests suggest that the most important driver of our findings is timely, reliable information facilitated by high-quality IT. Our study contributes to both the IT and tax literatures by identifying and quantifying the returns to investments in IT in terms of more favorable corporate tax outcomes.

The Effect of High Quality Information Technology on Corporate Tax Avoidance and Tax Risk

We examine the effect of high quality information technology (IT) on corporate tax outcomes. Using a measure of IT quality constructed from rankings in InformationWeek magazine, we find that firms with high quality IT are able to achieve both lower and less volatile cash effective tax rates than are other firms. These results suggest that firms with high quality IT are able to avoid more taxes while simultaneously incurring less tax risk compared to firms with lesser IT systems. We also perform mediation analyses to investigate the channels through which high quality IT enables effective tax planning. Results of these tests suggest that the most important driver of our findings is timely, reliable information facilitated by high quality IT. Our study contributes to both the IT and tax literatures by identifying and quantifying the returns to investments in IT in terms of more favorable corporate tax outcomes.

IT Service Management Employee Compensation: Determinants and Outcomes

Information technology (IT) service management (ITSM) is a critical function of an IT organization and it is important to recruit, manage, and retain qualified ITSM employees who are responsible for providing IT services to an organization. Organizations rely on their in-house ITSM team and the outsourced IT systems (or business processes) to deliver high quality IT services. While IT outsourcing has become a norm in many organizations, its potential impact on in-house ITSM employee compensation and job outcomes, such as job satisfaction and turnover intentions, has remained under-examined. We develop a model that examines the interplay between human capital factors such as educational qualifications, employee compensation, employee job outcomes, and two organizational factors–IT outsourcing and ITSM size. We conducted a survey of ITSM employees from 423 organizations and found support for the model. Our findings have important theoretical and practical implications.