Information Systems Practitioners Research Articles

The dynamics of information system development in developing countries: From mutual exclusion to hybrid vigor

AbstractThe integration of isolated software components into large‐scale and complex information systems is a topic that attracts the interest of many information systems practitioners and researchers. However, less attention is given to the intricate processes by which these infrastructures are built using multiple independent software components. Different actors introduce these components, which can lead to a “battleground of functional roles” where components are replacing and blocking each other. To better understand this phenomenon, we conducted multiple case studies involving the development of a large‐scale information system for communicable disease detection, prevention, and control in Vietnam. We collected empirical data through various methods, including interviews, focus groups, and participation observation. We identified different strategies employed by actors to block, remove, or replace other software components, protect their position, and find a way to join the existing and established systems. This paper contributes to this topic by theorizing a strategy called “hybrid vigor,” which allows for the combination of the strengths of individual software components and enables sustainable evolution.

Role of Emerging Technologies in Accounting Information Systems for Achieving Strategic Flexibility through Decision-Making Performance: An Exploratory Study Based on North American and South American Firms

Nowadays, accounting departments highly rely on accounting information systems to make decisions based on current, updated, and contemporary data. And, most accounting practices can be enhanced by emerging technologies coupled with accounting information systems. Therefore, contemporary accounting information systems (AIS) coupled with emerging technologies is the highest priority in organizations to make decisions that can contribute to strategic flexibility and performance of the organizations. The objective of the study is to identify the role of information systems infrastructure integration (ISII) on strategic flexibility and innovation (SFI) through the mediated role of information systems (IS)-enabled strategic enterprise management (IS-SEM) practices and decision-making performance (DMP). The study is based on contemporary literature in the field of emerging technologies in accounting information systems particularly business intelligence and analytics (BI &A). Resource-based view had been applied to create novel constructs to test the research framework and hypothesis. The research framework and hypothesis are tested based on 388 organizations from Brazil and USA. The results reflect that information systems infrastructure integration impacts strategic flexibility and innovations in organizations. Further, there is no difference observed between North American and South American organizations. The results of the research suggest that accounting information systems (AIS) practitioners and researchers should look beyond emerging technologies investments and shift their attention to how information systems infrastructure integration (ISII) and information systems-enabled strategic enterprise management (IS-SEM) practices can leverage decision-making performance (DMP) and impact on strategic flexibility and innovation.

Unraveling the Key Factors of Successful ERP Post Implementation in the Indonesian Construction Context

Aim/Purpose: This study aims to evaluate the success of ERP post-implementation and the factors that affect the overall success of the ERP system by integrating the Task Technology Fit (TTF) model into the Information System Success Model (ISSM). Background: Not all ERP implementations provide the expected benefits, as post-implementation challenges can include inflexible ERP systems and ongoing costs. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate the success after ERP implementation, and this research integrates the Task Technology Fit (TTF) model into the Information System Success Model (ISSM). Methodology: For data analysis and the proposed model, the authors used SmartPLS 3 by applying the PLS-SEM test and one-tailed bootstrapping. The researchers distributed questionnaires online to 115 ERP users at a construction company in Indonesia and successfully got responses from 95 ERP users. Contribution: The results obtained will be helpful and essential for future researchers and Information System practitioners – considering the high failure rate in the use of ERP in a company, as well as the inability of organizations and companies to exploit the benefits and potential that ERP can provide fully. Findings: The results show that Perceived Usefulness, User Satisfaction, and Task-Technology Fit positively affect the Organizational Impact of ERP implementation. Recommendations for Practitioners: The findings can help policymakers and CEOs of businesses in Indonesia’s construction sector create better business strategies and use limited resources more effectively and efficiently to provide a considerably higher probability of ERP deployment. The findings of this study were also beneficial for ERP vendors and consultants. The construction of the industry has specific characteristics that ERP vendors should consider. Construction is a highly fragmented sector, with specialized segments demanding specialist technologies. Several projects also influence it. They can use them to identify and establish several alternative strategies to deal with challenges and obstacles that can arise during the installation of ERP in a firm. Vendors and consultants can supply solutions, architecture, or customization support by the standard operating criteria, implement the ERP system and train critical users. The ERP system vendors and consultants can also collaborate with experts from the construction sector to develop customized alternatives for construction companies. That would be the most outstanding solution for implementing ERP in this industry. Recommendation for Researchers: Future researchers can use this combined model to study ERP post-implementation success on organizational impact with ERP systems in other company information systems fields, especially the construction sector. Future integration of different models can be used to improve the proposed model. Integration with models that assess the level of Information System acceptance, such as Technology Acceptance Model 3 (TAM3) or Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology 2 (UTAUT2), can be used in future research to deepen the exploration of factors that influence ERP post-implementation success in an organization. Impact on Society: This study can guide companies, particularly in the construction sector, to maintain ERP performance, conduct training for new users, and regularly survey user satisfaction to ensure the ERP system’s reliability, security, and performance are maintained and measurable. Future Research: It is increasing the sample size with a larger population at other loci (private and state-owned) that use ERP to see the factors influencing ERP post-implementation success and using mixed methods to produce a better understanding. With varied modes, it is possible to get better results by adding unique factors to the research, and future integration of other models can be used to improve the proposed model.

Geospatial analysis of patients' social determinants of health for health systems science and disparity research.

Geospatial analysis of patients' social determinants of health for health systems science and disparity research.

Information systems as a nexus of information technology systems: A new view of information systems practice

The close relationship between the concepts of information systems and information technology creates issues for researchers. Usefully distinguishing between the concepts is problematic. We investigate the use of the systems concept in practice, finding a pragmatic distinction between an information system (IS) and an information technology system (IT system). In a practice view, an IS incorporates an emphasis on both a technical and a social subsystem, while an IT system predominantly emphasizes the technical elements. This distinction becomes useful in practice because contemporary IS practitioners are often involved in acquiring and integrating IT systems into an organizational IS. This involvement leads to a viewpoint on the organizational IS (including the social subsystem) as a nexus of multiple IT systems. This nexus creates issues in practice for not only integrating IT systems into the organizational IS, but also integrating multiple IT systems with each other in the context of the organizational IS. These issues lead to research opportunities such as the need for new methodologies for IT system acquisitions and new theories that accommodate the social integration of IT systems and IS.

Big Data Guided Unconventional Digital Reservoir Energy Ecosystem and its Knowledge Management

Abstract Background: In shale basins, petroleum systems are complex; they hold data sources in Big Data scales. The motivation of research lies with the facts of exploring effective inherent connectivity between unconventional petroleum systems. The connectivity between energy reservoir systems is ambiguous within a distinctive petroleum ecosystem. Heterogeneity and multidimensionality of unstructured data sources are additional challenges, precluding systematic modelling of diverse petroleum systems and their data integration process, including growing demand for storage systems. The research aims to establish the knowledge-based connectivity between petroleum systems through Information System (IS) articulations, visual analytics and data management. Method: We investigate the knowledge-based IS guided exploration and production systems to explore the connectivity between diverse unconventional petroleum systems and forecast the reservoir energy. We articulate Design Science Information System (DSIS), bring various IS artefacts, unify multiple domains of petroleum provinces and analyze the associativity between petroleum systems. In addition, use, reuse, effectiveness and interoperability are utility properties of IS artefacts that we evaluate. We implement IS solutions in the oil and gas industries to facilitate database management and reservoir energy exploration. Results: We simulate DSIS as an Unconventional Digital Petroleum Ecosystem (UDPE) as it allows us to investigate and ascertain the interplay between petroleum systems’ elements and processes. Metadata cubes are computed for data views to visualize, interpret, and implement IS articulations in energy systems. We compute the structure and reservoir attribute views for interpreting energy-driven petroleum systems, prospect evaluation and business-knowledge management with a viable DSIS solution. Conclusions: The DSIS emerges as a knowledge-based digital ecosystem innovation, demonstrating how it can effectively interconnect geographically controlled petroleum systems. Its development, in the exploration of unconventional shale basins, is a knowledge-based reservoir-energy management solution. This research is beneficial to IS practitioners who wish to pursue energy research in reservoir ecosystem contexts.

Antecedents and consequences of information system usage: an empirical investigation

This research tests the information system usage (ISU) among the four listed telecommunication companies in Sudan. The proposed model analyses the effect of antecedents on ISU and the effects of the subsequent ISU on consequences. Through a purposive sampling technique, a total of 335 completed questionnaires from end-users were collected and analysed. The findings indicate that antecedents and consequences ISU model display a good fit. The study revealed that top management support, training, business IT alignment, information centre services were significant antecedents that affect ISU while information system investment was not significant. ISU has a significant effect on product differentiation, product innovation, process innovation, organisational performance, and strategy formulation but has no effect on competitive advantage. The study findings provide information system practitioners and managers with guidelines that can encourage ISU more efficiently and effectively. The study also discusses these findings and concludes with the limitations and future recommendations.

A machine learning approach for performance-oriented decision support in service-oriented architectures

Enterprise IT performance can be improved by providing reactive and predictive monitoring tools that anticipate problem detection. It requires advanced approaches for creating more agile, adaptable, sustainable and intelligent information systems. Service-oriented architecture (SOA) has been used in significant performance-based approaches by information system practitioners. Organizations are interested in performance-based decision support along the layers of SOA to maintain their sustainability for service reuse. Reusability is a very important aspect of Service-based systems (SBS) to analyze service or process reuse. This helps in achieving business agility to meet changing marketplace needs. However currently, there are many challenges pertaining tothe complexities of service reuse evolution along SBS. These challenges are related to the sustainability of service behavior during its lifecycle and the limitations of existing monitoring tools. There is a need for a consolidated classified knowledge-based performance profile, analytical assessment, prediction and recommendation. Therefore, this paper provides a semantic performance-oriented decision support system (SPODSS) for SOA. SPODSS provides recommendations for suggesting service reuse during its evolution. SPODSS is supported by five building blocks. These blocks are data, semantic, traces, machine learning, and decision. SPODSS classify data, validate (analytical assessment, traces, semantic enrichment) at different time intervals and increased consumption and prediction based on consolidated results. It handles the dynamic evolution of SBS and new or changed user requirements by ontology development. Finally, SPODSS generates recommendations for atomic service, composite service, and resourceallocation provisioning. To motivate this approach, we illustrate the implementation of the proposed algorithms for all the five blocks by a business process use case and public data set repositories of shared services. Sustainability and adaptability of service-based systems areensured by handling new business requirements, dynamicity issues and ensuring performance. Performance criterion includes functional suitability, time behavior, resource utilization, and reliability in terms of availability, maturity, and risk.

Lean Principles for Developing Information Systems: Evidence from Health Crisis Management

Up to 70% of all organizational undertakings to realize information systems (IS) turn out as failures or at least flawed. This severely hampers the benefits of IS and thus the IS research disciplines must provide effective remedies. The IS and management communities have advanced practices for the development of IS, such as agile software development. However, they guide development only towards the point of delivery through a development team, while it is not their objective to harmonize the IS in its full socio-technical context of an emergent organization. There is a lack of research about how to conduct IS development in a real-use environment that changes and yet requires stability. These open issues are addressed by this work. Using a mixed-methods approach, we develop principles that support IS practitioners in maneuvering the organizational and technological development process that stretches from making design choices to managing usage of the IS to ensure fit and organizational utility. The principles are inspired by lean paradigms from management practice and regarded through the lens of affordances. This study formalizes them to guidelines for IS development; thus, we call them

Digital development for a progressive networked society

Digital development for a progressive networked society

The complexity of establishing causality in a digital environment: an eye to the future

ABSTRACT Information Systems (IS) researchers and practitioners have to deal with the concept of causality. IS researchers explicitly model and test causal relationships, like Information Technology (IT) investments lead to economic outcomes. IS practitioners implicitly assume that their initiatives (investment, training, strategic initiatives) cause the desirable outcomes they seek. While causality has always been a tricky concept to assess, in the digital world of today, it becomes even more challenging. Below, we describe the changes in “embeddedness” and “agency” due to digitalization that convolute establishment of causality in studying relationships between IT and the social enterprise. We also offer projections into the future based on these changes and some implications for researchers.

Understanding the Relationships Between Requirements Uncertainty and Nature of Conflicts: A Study of Software Development Team Effectiveness

Requirements uncertainty and conflict are the two pervasive phenomena that are currently receiving more attention in the development of information system (IS) projects. The existing literature based on requirements engineering indicates that, as a result of frequent interactions between users and IS practitioners, requirements uncertainty can negatively affect team performance. However, the nature of conflicts and requirements uncertainty have limited exploratory power with regard to software team effectiveness. The main objective of this work is to obtain additional insight into this phenomena by examining the relationships between requirements uncertainty (which comprises both requirements instability and variability) and conflict (i.e. task and relationship conflict). Furthermore, the impact of task and relationship conflict on team effectiveness has also been investigated separately. In order to address these relationships, a theoretical research model was developed and validated through an empirical study based on an online questionnaire survey. We gathered 71 complete responses, mostly from experts within the Indian software industry. The findings of this study indicate that there is a strong positive relationship between requirements instability and variability and relationship conflict; however, task conflict task conflict was not found to have a significant relationship with these dimensions. Additionally, we have observed a strong stronger negative effect of relationship conflict on team effectiveness than that of task conflict during the requirements uncertainty.

Hidden facets of IT projects are revealed only after deployment

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to focus on an information technology (IT) deployment project in the specific field of agricultural cooperatives. It also aims to underline the importance of the IT implementation phase, but also the pre-implementation phase.Design/methodology/approachA four-year canonical action research project was conducted within a network of more than 300 agricultural cooperatives. Research was carried out both during the IT implementation and after deployment. Key information was gathered through unstructured and unofficial interviews, observations, field notes, meetings, focus groups, and documentary analysis.FindingsDespite user resistance behavior, the findings show that information systems (IS) implementation may lead to unexpected results that extend beyond the tool’s initial objectives. Indeed, four hidden facets of the tool were revealed: inductor, symbol, pretext, and reference.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough the research is limited to one single-case study, it puts the emphasis on in-depth research, vs cross-sectional data collection, to analyze the relationship between IT implementation initiatives and organizational intelligence. Furthermore, the authors argue that while IS literature has separately developed related theories (actor-network theory, competitive intelligence), the authors conceptualize a whole theoretic system interrelating the two above-stated theories.Practical implicationsThe implication for IS practitioners is that, by focusing only on experiences that have occurred during IT implementation, one may disregard critical information, behaviors and knowledge from unforeseen effects that have occurred after implementation. In future IT projects, IS managers therefore need to capitalize on post-implementation knowledge, through sociology of translation and competitive intelligence, in order to anticipate potential diversions from the initial objectives. Finally, while most IT implementation methods tend naturally to manage resistance maximize users’ satisfaction and to reduce potential resistance, the authors support an alternative approach. It consists into enhancing resistance in order to anticipate and resolve latent resistance behaviors directly or indirectly related to the project.Originality/valueDespite widespread literature on resistance, appropriation or acceptance during IT projects, there is little research that addresses the impact of IT projects on organizational intelligence, and the kind of behaviors that lead to its failure or success. In the case, the implemented IT tool revealed hidden structural and organizational roles, which were unanticipated by IT designers and managers.

Antecedents of SMMA continuance intention in two culturally diverse countries: An empirical examination

ABSTRACTThe use of social media mobile applications (SMMA) in Asian countries has increased remarkably in the last decade, which demands a better understanding of differences in the adoption of SMMA across cultures, beyond the west. Against this backdrop, the present study developed a research model that incorporates Schwartz’s individual-level values, individual contextual factors, perceived risk and perceived value, and applied it to settings China and Pakistan to better understand continuance intention regarding SMMA in Asian countries. This study specifically examines the role of individual-level values and individual contextual factors in explaining users’ risk perception; the effects of risk perception on perceived value; and, finally, the impact of perceived value on continuance intention regarding SMMA. Our research model holds true for both China and Pakistan. The majority of the proposed relationships were supported by our findings, and we also observed some noteworthy differences during model comparison between both samples. The findings offer suggestions to information system (IS) practitioners and social media marketers considering cross-cultural differences through SMMA use. The authors acknowledge limitations and suggest further research directions to IS scholars.

Evidence-Based Information Systems: A New Perspective and a Road Map for Research-Informed Practice

Despite the increasing sophistication and quality of published work, the development of a cumulative body of knowledge and an evidence-base for information systems (IS) research still represents a major challenge. IS research is still predominantly undertaken by IS researchers for other IS researchers and not utilized to its full extent by IS practitioners or policy-makers. We focus on this problem and express the need for a new evidence-based research perspective. It is argued that it is time to refocus the efforts of IS academics (and practitioners) to develop a new evidence-base for IS research whereby it can more routinely inform, develop, improve and support IS practice. We contribute to this debate by defining evidence-based practice (EBP), its relevance to IS, and the need to develop an evidence-based approach. We look in particular at its brief history, and its subsequent evolution, development and widespread acceptance in Medicine; making reference to recent arguments and critiques of EBP in other disciplines such as software engineering and management. We espouse the need to develop a similar evidence-based movement and infrastructure within the IS research and practitioner communities and then put forward a possible road map for the development of Evidence-Based Information Systems (EBIS) that comprises 9 key initiatives. We conclude our argument by stating that the current extent, severity and impact of IS failures are unacceptable, emphasizing the need for a new perspective for IS research that encourages and incorporates EBP as a guiding principle to inform better IS practice.

Information Systems Quality and Success in Canadian Software Development Firms

For years, firms have been investing millions of dollars in information systems (IS) to gain operational and strategic benefits. However, in most cases these expected benefits have not been realized because the software development community has been plagued with the delivery of low quality and unsuccessful information systems. Duggan and Reichgelt's information systems quality model was adapted with minor modifications to explore the impact of process maturity and people on IS quality in Canadian software development firms. The study also investigated the impact of IS quality on IS success. Using PLS-Graph as the statistical tool, it was discovered that people skills and contribution had the greatest impact on IS quality and that IS quality impacted IS success. These findings are important to both IS practitioners and researchers in their desire to deliver high quality and successful information systems in Canada.

International Conference on Research and Practical Issues of Enterprise Information Systems December 13th and 14th 2016 Austrian Computer Society (OCG), Vienna, Austria

The 10th IFIP WG 8.9 Working Conference - CONFENIS 2016 (International Conference on Research and Practical Issues of Enterprise Information Systems) provides an international forum for Enterprise Information System (EIS) researchers and practitioners from all over the world to come together, present and discuss their latest research findings and ideas. The conference is specifically aiming at facilitating the exchange of ideas and advances in all aspects and developments of EIS. On the occasion of its 10th anniversary CONFENIS 2016 will return to its roots and will be held at the Austrian Computer Society (OCG) in downtown Vienna, Austria on December 13th and 14th 2016. CONFENIS 2016 is an event supported by the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) and jointly organized by the Vienna University of Technology (TU-WIEN) and the Austrian Computer Society (OCG).

Engaged Problem Formulation in IS Research

“Is this the problem?”: the question that haunts many information systems (IS) researchers when they pursue work relevant to both practice and research. Nevertheless, a deliberate answer to this question requires more than simply asking the involved IS practitioners. Deliberately formulating problems requires a more substantial engagement with the different stakeholders, especially when their problems are ill structured and situated in complex organizational settings. On this basis, we present an engaged approach to formulating IS problems with, not for, IS practitioners. We have come to understand engaged problem formulation as joint researching and as the defining of contemporary and complex problems by researchers and those practitioners who experience and know these problems. We used this approach in investigating IS management in Danish municipalities. In this paper, we present the approach to formulating problems in an engaged way. We discuss it in relation to ideas and assumptions that underpin engaged scholarship, and we discuss the implications for IS action research, design science research, and mixed approaches.

How information system investment evaluation is being initiated

Determining whether investments in information technology IT have an impact on firm performance has been and continues to be a major problem for information system IS researchers and practitioners....

EXPLORING THE INFLUENCES OF THE USE OF ELEMENTS COMPRISING INFORMATION SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT METHODOLOGIES ON STRATEGIC BUSINESS GOALS

As the competitive pressure of the global market for information systems (IS) continues to increase, IS development enterprises should start to consider if and how the use of IS development methodologies (ISDM) influences their main strategic business goals. More precisely, they should start to consider two different dimensions of the actual use of ISDM: the number of times an opportunity for ISDM use arises and the number of times the ISDM is actually used. Otherwise, they run the risk of mismanaging their ISDM-related investments. The goal of this study is to develop a model that would enable academics and IS practitioners to better examine and understand how different dimensions of the use of ISDM influence strategic business goals of cost leadership, differentiation and cornering niche markets in IS development enterprises. Given the limited literature on the research topic, this study was considered exploratory and theory building in nature. The main result of the presented exploratory study is a clearly defined model for examining how different dimensions of ISDM influence strategic business goals. Exploratory results show that the actual use of ISDM has a significantly positive influence on strategic business goals of differentiation and cornering of niche markets, but not the cost leadership.