Information And Communication Technology Companies Research Articles

Trust levels within categories of information and communication technology companies.

The arguable claims of levels of trust in politics and business situations motivated this study, which investigates the degree of trust within micro, small, and medium categories of Hungarian Information and Communication Technology (ICT) companies. Different sizes of companies have varying interactions between internal members and their business partners. This study concentrated on exploring Hungarian ICT companies due to their significant role in supporting Industry 4.0. The study population are active Hungarian ICT companies. This research implemented random cluster selection related to the location of ICT firms. It exploited 100 samples, including micro, small, and medium-sized companies, and implemented discriminant analysis to examine the description and hypotheses. First, this study found that the level of trust in institutions within micro, small, and medium-sized companies varies significantly. The level of trust in institutions proliferates within corporations due to the capability of the formal institution to provide fair public services. This research additionally underlined that the performance of the Hungarian government would improve trust amongst the companies. Second, this study concluded that the level of interpersonal trust within three categories of companies was similar. A high level of interpersonal trust would expand internal engagement among the members of companies. Finally, the level of trust in business partners varied significantly within the distinct sizes of Hungarian ICT companies. A high level of trust in corporate associates improves business collaboration, reduces uncertainty, and supports long-term business connections. Levels of institutional trust and inter-organizational trust differed amongst different categories of companies. However, the level of interpersonal trust remained similar within companies of the various sizes.

The effect of talent management practices on employee turnover intention in the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) sector: case of Jordan

This research aims to examine the intention of talented employees to leave an organization and discover how talent management practices could affect employee intention to leave an organization. This paper`s framework intends to outline the relationship between variables to present the idea of talent management practices and employee retention. The hypothesis was tested using a survey data set of 210 questionnaires collected from employees working in 82 ICT companies in Jordan to attain the research objectives. The collected data were analyzed using the SPSS program, and EMOS program, and basic and initial statistical techniques were applied. The results show that talent management practices significantly affect employee intention to leave an organization. Accordingly, whenever firms applied talent management practices, employee intention to leave decreases. The results demonstrated that attracting talented employees has emerged to have the strongest effect on decreasing employee intention to leave; however, developing and rewarding talented employees was revealed to have the lowest effect. Thus, the ICT firms’ managers have to generate specific training programs to reward and develop talented employees. AcknowledgmentThe publication is supported by the EU-funded Hungarian grant EFOP-3.6.3.-VEKOP-16-2017-00007 for the project entitled “From Talent to Young Researchers” – Supporting the Career-developing Activities of Researchers in Higher Education”.

EVOLUTIONARY STAGES OF THE LIFE CYCLE OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY COMPANIES: EVIDENCE FROM BRAZIL

This research aims to identify the factors that characterise the evolutionary stages of the development cycle of information and communication technology (ICT) companies, based on Brazilian evidence. A data collect was done and the analysis shows the factors related to the companies’ success. In addition, the results show factors related to the evolutionary stages of the ICT companies and demonstrate the differences in the characteristics of each stage of the company: nascent, in consolidation and mature. The results of this research provide information to entrepreneurs to improve the performance of their enterprises and, consequently, contribute to the development of the ICT sector in Brazil and other countries with similar characteristics. Furthermore, based on the results found in the different characteristics of companies at each evolutionary stage, this research provides information to policy-makers to develop really effective mechanisms to contribute to the technology sector and, subsequently, to a better economic and social development of their countries.

Knowledge cannibalism in the European ICT sector

PurposeBased on the sample of the European information and communications technology (ICT) companies, this paper aims to identify which strategy of knowledge generation is most beneficial for companies: internal knowledge development or absorption of knowledge external to the company through corporate acquisition or merger.Design/methodology/approachIn this study, a longitudinal analysis of European ICT companies was conducted, contrasting internal knowledge creation, in the form of patent accumulation and research and development (R&D) efforts, with external learning through merger-and-acquisition (M&A) activities to uncover the best strategies for performance maximization.FindingsResults suggest that the two knowledge generation strategies are not complementary and demonstrate only marginal impact on organizational performance. However, intriguing patterns in combining the two became apparent. It was found that patent accumulation improves learning achieved through M&A activities, while also acting as a protection against corporate takeover. At the same time, the internal knowledge generation strategy was found to have a negative impact on financial performance, with external knowledge generation demonstrating somewhat mixed results.Practical implicationsThis paper provides practical insights into the patterns of internal and external knowledge generation activities. The two strategies were found not to be complementary, implying that companies must carefully choose their preferences.Originality/valueThis large-scale study tackles the interplay between internal and external knowledge generation strategies, which are mostly studied separately. It reveals new patterns in corporate acquisition and divestment strategies as sources of new knowledge. It also ties the knowledge paradigm to organizational performance.

Discriminant Function Analysis to Distinguish the Performance of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Companies (A Study of U.S. Companies Listed in U.S. Stock Market)

The growing important role of ICT companies in digital era has attracted many institutions and researchers to conduct studies to measure the value creation created by digitalization. However, not many of them emphasize the importance of financial information as a performance measurement for ICT companies that are useful for their sustainability in the rapid pace of technology. Therefore, this study aims to find the importance of financial ratios in assessing the performance of ICT companies. This study uses discriminant function analysis to find the best financial ratios that distinguish the ICT companies’ performance based on their grade in the credit ratings. The scope of this study is 70 US-based companies listed in US stock market within ICT groups with 35 companies in each group of Investment Grade and Non-investment Grade. There are 4 financial ratios that best discriminate the performance between the two groups which are ROA, CFO to current liabilities, total debt to EBITDA, and CFO to net sales. This model has a predictive accuracy or early warning ability of 87.1% in the latest full-year financial statements prior to rating date and 80% in the longer period (up to 3rd last full-year financial statements prior to rating date).Keywords: Discriminant function analysis, financial ratio, performance, information and communication technology

МАРКЕТИНГ ТЕЛЕКОМУНІКАЦІЙНИХ ТА ІНФОРМАЦІЙНИХ ТЕХНОЛОГІЙ: СВІТОВИЙ ТА НАЦІОНАЛЬНИЙ ВИМІРИ

Introduction. The development of the information and communication technologies (ICT) market creates the conditions for further growth of other sectors of the economy. ICT companies provide companies, individuals and government with software, Internet, mobile and fixed communications, and so on. The purpose of the article is to study the current state of the ICT market in the world and in Ukraine, to identify major trends and threats for further development of the ICT market. Results. The ICT market is one of the largest dynamically developing markets in the world. Research conducted by leading consulting companies in the world shows that after 2020, the market can grow from 13 to 33 trillion and the blockchain market to 3.1 trillion $. International Data Corporation emphasizes that digital technologies and solutions can reach 60% of global GDP by the end of 2022. The world leader in the number of ICT corporations is the United States, with headquarters of the 65 world's largest companies, 20 in China, Taiwan - 17, Japan - 14, South Korea - 6, India - 5 companies. The IT services market accounts for 0,5% of the global IT services market. In Ukraine there are 125 registered self-employed individuals that are used by large companies to optimize their tax burden. Income of such American ICT companies such as Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft significantly exceeds the size of the state budget of Ukraine, and part of the revenues from the ICT market occupies only 4,5% of GDP, which is clearly insufficient and is evidence of an economic development lag. Conclusions. The imperfection of domestic legislation, the lack of incentives for ICT organizations, the possibility to monopolize the market, the insecurity of the interests of individuals and private companies do not stimulate foreign investments in this sector of the economy. In spite of this, Ukraine has a great potential for its growth, for which it is necessary to develop a national concept and model for the development of the ICT market, to restrain the departure of specialists abroad, to ensure the implementation of the business-state partnership strategy, etc. Keywords: telecommunications market, IT market, telecommunications market and IT services, marketing research, investments, ICT companies.

Designing a realistic ICT closed loop supply chain network with integrated decisions under uncertain demand and lead time

In supply chain networks, pricing is a fundamental aspect of the economic modeling, which affects the obtained revenue and profit. Integrating pricing with facility location and inventory control decisions helps the companies to gain the appropriate insight for competing with their rivals. In this study, a mixed integer nonlinear programming model is proposed to consider the mentioned issues in a closed loop supply chain network in information and communications technology (ICT) industry in order to maximize the total profit obtained by selling the new ICT products or collecting the used ICT products. The structure of this network includes suppliers, collection–distribution centers (C–D centers), disassembly centers and customer regions. A continuous review inventory policy is applied in the C–D centers and it is assumed that the orders’ lead time is stochastic. In addition the C–D centers face shortage and there is the correlated demand among the customer regions. Two meta-heuristic algorithms are applied for solving this problem: an imperialist competitive algorithm (ICA) and a genetic algorithm (GA). Also the encoding and decoding procedures of these algorithms are presented. For analyzing the performance of the proposed model and solution approaches, a real case of an ICT closed loop supply chain is studied in Iran. A sensitivity analysis is implemented to investigate the impact of the parameters of the model on the optimal decisions and profit. The numerical results show the way of assigning the facilities to each other, managing the inventory and determining the ICT products’ price. Thus the suggested model and solution methods could help the ICT companies in determining their policies to reach the maximized profit.

Local cooperation for innovation in ICT—Domestic groups with collaborations for innovation abroad and foreign subsidiaries

AbstractOn analysing a sample of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) firms, we ask whether domestic business groups that are engaged in international cooperation for innovation are likely to cooperate for innovation in the home market. We compare these companies with other types of ICT firms. The idea behind our inquiry is that domestic groups involved in international cooperation for innovation are exposed to international information, while they are also well embedded in the home economy. We find that these companies as well as foreign subsidiaries are more prone to cooperating for innovation with domestic partners than are other types of ICT companies, even when size and other characteristics of firms that may influence cooperation are taken into consideration. However, domestic groups with international cooperation for innovation show a systematically higher propensity than foreign subsidiaries to cooperate with domestic partners. These results may be useful regarding policies of foreign direct investment promotion and their alternatives.

Information management – a skills gap?

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore very recent data about how large organizations are dealing with a shortage of information and communications technology (ICT) specialists, in terms of its implications for information management.Design/methodology/approachThis paper is based on qualitative interview-based research with 11 large European companies, with an estimated ICT workforce of around 400,000 (about 14 per cent of ICT professionals in Europe), covering hiring, retention and upskilling of ICT staff, and expectations concerning graduates from European universities. These data are combined with International Data Corporation (IDC) analyst reports on the demand for different categories of ICT products and services, and data from the authors’ consulting work.FindingsLarger organizations expect hiring to be a challenge, with strong competition for talent, whether from existing users or from the many rapidly digitalizing companies – digitalizing their organizations; their products and services; and their relationships with customer, suppliers and business partners. Upskilling and retraining workforces is seen by large organizations as a better approach than hiring, allowing them to create the right skills balance and retain their workers better. However, softer skills, such as communication and problem solving, are seen as just as important. ICT workers will benefit from a lifelong approach to learning, acquiring new skills and adapting existing skills. Many ICT companies have created academies for developing employee skills and certifications related to their own technologies, while the education sector has been working on creating curricula (alone or sometimes in partnerships with vendors) to improve graduate employability.Research limitations/implicationsThe research is based on a small sample of large companies. The situation may be different in other companies and smaller organizations.Practical implicationsOrganizations can cope with the skills shortage by anticipating and working with the market forces rather than trying to oppose them.Social implicationsICT employees will show the way for employees in other sectors where skills are scarce, by demonstrating how to reinvent themselves as the skills needed change.Originality/valueThis paper demonstrates that employers have changed their expectations of universities. They expect less that graduates will be ICT-employment ready, and more that they will have the skills to make and keep themselves employment ready. This has significant implications for university course design.

How Intellectual Property Management Capability and Network Strategy Affect Open Technological Innovation in the Korean New Information Communications Technology Industry

This paper analyses factors in open innovation activity in the Korean new information and communications technology (ICT) industry, with a focus on cooperation network strategy and intellectual property (IP) management capability, by applying multiple regression models with data collected from 300 companies within the industry. The results of this analysis suggested that the intensity and variation of a company’s technological cooperation with a new ICT company has a statistically meaningful impact on its innovation. In particular, the impact depended on the type of cooperation network. Though IP management capability was also shown to have an important influence on a new ICT company’s innovation, the impact of specific actions for IP management varied by the specific type of innovation results. This study suggests that new ICT companies need to construct technological innovation networks using multiple external sources and enhance their IP management capability in order to increase their technological innovation performance. The factors influencing technological innovation are elements of open innovation, indicating the open technological innovativeness of the new ICT Industry.

Enforceability of foreign copyright in Nigeria: a review of the Court of Appeal’s decision in Microsoft v Franike

With globalization and the rise of information and communications technology (ICT), the protection of intellectual protection in software and indeed foreign copyright has never been more paramount. The absence of statutory provisions in Nigeria’s main copyright legislation specifically protecting the intellectual protection in software has not helped. This article examines the Court of Appeal’s recent decision dealing with the protection of copyright in Microsoft’s software. The author is of the considered view that the approach adopted by the courts in the case is not in the overall interest of encouraging foreign ICT companies and the protection of foreign copyrights in Nigeria.

Investigating the Relationship among Fit Organization, Organization Commitment and Employee’s Intention to Stay: Malaysian Context

Retaining employees in the organization has become very crucial especially in tough times. Losing skilled and experienced employees affect the overall productivity, profitability and product quality. While numerous studies have been carried out on this subject and the majority centre on turnover due to organizational approach, only a few studies have been done on intention to stay. Thus, the main purpose of this article is to examine the relationship among fit organization, organizational commitment and employee’s intention to stay in information and communication technology (ICT) industry in Malaysia. Quantitative method with self-administered questionnaire approach is followed targeting information technology (IT) managers of ICT with stratified random sampling of 105 IT professionals of ICT companies in Malaysia, based on the analysis using partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) (PLS 3.0) to establish both measurement and structural model. From the empirical findings, it was revealed that there is a strong relationship between organizational commitment and intention to stay. The result also found that religiousness in the employees makes them to stay in the organization. This shows that while remunerations are crucial for the intention of employees, employee’s commitment is much higher than the intention initiatives.

Developing and implementing circular economy business models in service-oriented technology companies

The service sector has the potential to play an instrumental role in the shift towards circular economy due to its strategic position between manufacturers and end-users. However, there is a paucity of supporting methodologies and real-life applications to demonstrate how service-oriented companies can implement circular economy principles in daily business practice. This paper addresses this gap by analysing the potential of service-oriented companies in the information and communication technology (ICT) sector to build and implement circular economy business models. To this end, the Backcasting and Eco-design for the Circular Economy (BECE) framework is applied in an ICT firm. BECE, previously developed and demonstrated for product-oriented applications, has been developed further here for applications in the service sector. By shifting the focus from a product-oriented approach to a user-centred eco-design, the paper shows how ICT firms can identify, evaluate and prioritise sustainable business model innovations for circular economy. The two most promising business model innovations are explored strategically with the aim of designing circular economy models consistent with the company's priorities of customer satisfaction and profitability. The findings suggest that ICT companies may be able to support the deployment of a circular economy in the service-oriented technology sector. Importantly, micro and small organisations can play a fundamental role if provided with macro-level support to overcome company-level barriers. Finally, the BECE framework is shown to be a valuable resource to explore, analyse and guide the implementation of circular economy opportunities in service-oriented organisations. Further research to verify the application of the findings to other service-oriented organisations is recommended.

Leader member exchange as a mediator of the relationship between servant leadership and job satisfaction: A research on Turkish ICT companies

Servant leadership (SL) is a theoretical framework that defines a leader’s primary motivation and role as service to others. It introduces a holistic approach to work, advocates a sense of community, and promotes the sharing of power in decision making by showing humility, authenticity, and stewardship. Servant leader also develops and empowers employees by standing back, encouraging to be autonomous, and by forgiving mistakes. On the other hand, the Leader Member Exchange (LMX) Theory explores the one-on-one relationship between a leader and the individual follower independently, instead of focusing on the general relationship between the leader and the group as a whole. The objective of this study is to test the effect of SL on job satisfaction (JS) in Turkish business context and to identify the mediator effects of LMX on the relationship between SL and JS by quantitative data obtained from Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Sector companies in Turkey. The multidimensional leadership measure developed by Van Dierendonck and Nuijten (2011), four-dimension LMX Measure of Liden and Maslyn (1998), and short form of Minnesota Job Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ) developed by Weiss, Dawis, England, and Lofquist (1967) were used as assessment tools on questionnaire. Research results show that there is a partial mediator effect of LMX on the relationship between SL and JS.

Digital natives: the engagement experience to online protection

PurposeThis study aims to center on understanding how stakeholder engagement processes improve online child protection in telecom companies. The literature review and findings shed light on the management of networks to identify, prevent and mitigate the adverse impacts of information and communication technologies (ICTs)[1] and to find opportunities in terms of new policies and services development.Design/methodology/approachThree multinational telecom companies were analyzed with a qualitative focus combining three research tools: the analysis of 81 corporate reports, self-administered questionnaires and semi-structured interviews.FindingsFirms establish a collaborative network with a large number of stakeholders such as public authorities, non-governmental organizations, educational institutions, representatives of families and expert researchers. The outcomes of these networks range from the development of new products and services (filters, child safety software and protection apps) to the co-creation of new corporate policies with a high social impact (self-regulation, sectorial codes, awareness initiatives and reporting).Practical implicationsThis study outlines guidelines for the industry in identifying, engaging and making decisions in a collaborative way when managers have to engage with multiple stakeholders regarding child protection. The academic debate and the empirical findings have many practical implications for ICT companies whose users are children and teenagers.Originality/valueDespite its significance, stakeholder management is underexplored in the literature of protection for young people. The academic field and the professional arena appear to have little to say regarding how executives manage engagement processes.

Leading Different Dimensions of Organization Performance through Human Resource Management Practices

The primary purpose of this research work is to find out how human resource management practices including training, staffing, performance appraisal, participation, and reward system can affect the performance of Malaysian Information and Communication Technology (ICT) companies. Company’s performance is identified in this work in terms of innovation, learning and growth, and internal process. The results of analysis of 223 gathered data showed that human resource management practices have significant and positive impact on innovation, learning and growth, and internal process. In addition, this study showed that performance components can affect each other significantly and positively.In this research work, the data is collected through questionnaire and analyzed by Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software. Moreover, the respondents of this research work are the employees of small and medium size ICT companies located in Cyberjaya, Malaysia.

Relationship among Project Management Processes and Knowledge Repository for Project Success

Knowledge repository is becoming a key factor within organizations as it can maximize the probability and impact of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) project success. Therefore, project management (PM) processes and knowledge repository are widely used in ICT projects to improve the degree of project success. The purpose of this paper is to suggest a model that defines how the combination of PM processes and knowledge repository would successfully support project success. This paper adapts the quantitative research approach by using the survey strategy which is conducted through questionnaires collected from 320 people working in ICT companies in Jordan. The researchers utilized the Smart Partial Least Square (PLS) as an analysis technique to test all hypotheses. The findings suggest that there is a positive effect of adapting the PM processes in improving the project success mediation by the knowledge repository.

Sustaining Innovative Success: A Case Study on Consumer-Centric Innovation in the ICT Industry

The phenomenon of innovation growing rapidly and having a shorter lifespan is a structural change due to the development of ICT (Information and Communications Technology), diverse investment methods, and reduced pattern of innovation adoption. For ICT companies to survive and maintain their success in this ever-changing environment, they need to succeed in fulfilling both productivity and accuracy of innovation. To sustain their innovative success, ICT companies should consistently maintain the direction of innovation towards consumers. The present study analyzes various cases of ICT companies which succeeded or failed to maintain their prior innovative success, and suggests consumer-centric innovation as a solution. To create consumer-centric innovations, companies have to (1) predict the dynamically evolving demand of consumers and continuously transform; (2) proactively employ observation method and big data analysis to discover hidden demands; and (3) identify hassles such as wastes, inconveniences, and anxieties, and put effort in solving these hassles.

Moderating Role of the Transformational Leadership in the Relationship between HRM Practices and Performance: A Study of ICT Companies of Malaysia

<p class="a"><span lang="EN-US">This paper primarily aims to highlight that transformational leadership influences the relationship between human resource management (HRM) practices. Extant research studies have revealed that HRM practices have noticeable potential to increase employees and organizations performance. However, this study proposes transformational leadership as moderator of the relationship between HRM practices and organization’s performance. Prime HRM practices of this study consists of training, staffing, performance evaluation, reward system, and participation while transformational leadership have five components namely, vision, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, personal recognition, and supportive leadership. With the purpose of emphasizing on the significance of underlying variables of this study, research problem is linked to Information and Communication Technology (ICT) companies in Malaysia.</span></p>

Slow tech: bridging computer ethics and business ethics

Purpose– This discussion paper focuses on a notion of information and communication technology (ICT) that is good, clean and fair that the authors call Slow Tech. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the Slow Tech approach in order to explain how to create a suitable bridge between business ethics and computer ethics.Design/methodology/approach– The paper’s approach is discursive. It provides a viewpoint. Its arguments are based in an examination of literature relevant to both business ethics and computer ethics. Justification is produced for the use of Slow Tech approach. A number of potential future research and application issues still to be investigated are also provided.Findings– Slow Tech can be proposed, and used, as a bridging mechanism between companies’ strategies regarding computer ethics and business ethics. Three case studies illustrate the kind of challenges that companies have to tackle when trying to implement Slow Tech in concrete business context. Further study need to be undertaken to make progress on Slow Tech in applied, corporate settings.Practical implications– ICT companies need to look for innovative, new approaches to producing, selling and recycling their services and products. A Slow Tech approach can provide such insights.Social implications– Today’s challenges to the production and use of good, clean, and fair ICT, both conceptual and concrete, can act as incentives for action: they can further applied research or encourage social activism. Encouraging the study, and the application, of Slow Tech provides a first step in the potential improvement of a society in which information technology is totally embedded.Originality/value– The value of this paper in not only for academics and researchers, but also for practitioners: especially for personnel working in ICT companies and for those involved with designing, developing and applying codes of conduct at both European and globally.