System Data Sources Research Articles

Digital sourcing: A discussion of agential, semiotic, infrastructural, combinatorial, and economic shifts

For over four decades, a rich body of information systems (IS) sourcing research has examined topics concerning sourcing decisions, governing relationships and performance in various contexts (e.g., outsourcing, multisourcing and offshoring). The last few years have witnessed a significant change in some of the key assumptions in this literature. Organizations and their sourcing practices have been undergoing significant shifts in the digital era, involving not only human but also technology agency (e.g., artificial intelligence), malleable digital assets that can be flexibly recombined (e.g., in platform ecosystems and low-code development), and digital technology that attenuates bounded rationality (e.g., generative artificial intelligence). Such fundamental changes call for the re-examination of such past assumptions in the IS sourcing literature. In this editorial, we discuss the implications of these agential, semiotic, infrastructural, combinatorial, and economic shifts for digital sourcing, that is, research and practice of IS sourcing in the digital era.

Adding experts’ perceptions to complement existing research on information systems backsourcing

This paper extends the existing literature on information systems (IS) backsourcing by the perception of practitioners. For this purpose, we conducted a series of qualitative, semi-structured interviews with IS sourcing experts. The interview questions focused on the participants’ perceptions and experiences with the topic, on identifying reasons for and against IS backsourcing, and on revealing relevant trends pertinent to IS backsourcing. We then compared those findings with two previously conducted comprehensive literature reviews on academic and practitioner literature on IS backsourcing. By following this approach, we contribute to the existing research by verifying previous findings, for example, the most important reasons why companies decide in favor of IS backsourcing. Additionally, we were able to enhance previous contributions as we highlight the significance of differentiating between the scope of IS backsourcing by looking at the underlying services which are potentially backsourced. Further, we identified the importance of managers’ personal preferences as an additional reason for IS backsourcing, for example, based on personal experiences or a perceived need for change. Based on our findings, we created a comprehensive overview of all aspects connected to the IS backsourcing process and derived opportunities for further research to contribute to the IS backsourcing research agenda.

AN ASSESSMENT OF FUZZY TEMPORAL EVENT CORRELATION TOWARDS CYBER CRIME INVESTIGATION

Event logging and event logs play an important role in modern IT systems criminal investigation which is generated when end user with each other in web environment and stored in various logs like firewall log file at side, network log file at gateway and web log file at server side. But log file is not to be over emphasized as a source of information in systems and network management. Whereas conduct efficient investigation and gathering of use full information need to correlate different log file. Task of analysing event log files with the ever-increasing size and complexity of today’s event logs has become cumbrous to carry out manually. Nowadays latest spotlighted is automatic analysis of these logs files. . This paper presents a bird eye on two basic concepts one is temporal data mining and another is fuzzy association rules. Using log files it is possible to classify the attacker from the normal user.

ANALYSIS END USER BEHAVIOR OVER WEB SCENARIO FOR EFFICIENT PREFETCHING THROUGH BIG DATA ANALYSIS

Web caching and restoration are the most common techniques that play a key role in improving web performance by keeping web objects that are likely to be visited in the near future closer to the custo mer. Web caching can work independently or in combination with Web pre-fetching. Cache and Web fetching can complement each other as the temporary Log file is a crucial part of web application. The log analysis is an important issue for the web application. Log file is not to be over emphasized as a source of information in systems and network management, whereas conduct efficient investigation and gathering of useful information need to correlate different log file. Task of analyzing event log files with the ever-increasing size and complexity of today's event logs has become cumbersome to carry out manually. Nowadays latest spotlight is automatic analysis of these logs files. Analysis of Web log is an innovative and unique domain constantly formed and modified by the convergence of several emerging web technologies. Because of its interdisciplinary nature, the diversity of issues addressed, the variety and the number of Web applications, is subject to many different methodologies. Proposed methodology has been used as effective web pre-fetching technique for frequent page generation by using relative position by inter session gap. The fast and efficient web pre-fetching scheme has improved user response of web page and expedites users visiting speed. Keywords: Web mining, web caching, web prefetching, Clustering, Client server Architecture, Log File.

Sourcing Trends Predictions – An Analysis of Regions and Strategies

This paper aims to highlight historical trends regarding information systems (IS) sourcing, as well as glimpsing into the subject’s future. Depending on economic growth, industrialization and changes in the political climate, certain countries have become either less or more attractive as destination countries for IS sourcing. As outsourcing strategies becomes more mature, especially in the IS sector, organizations are choosing different paths and regions for their endeavours. In the recent years the trend in IS sourcing has been to move IT operations closer to home and nearshoring has been the strategy option of choice for many organizations post termination of their offshore ventures. Regarding sourcing trends will we most likely see an increase of a multisourcing strategy which could be labelled as outsourcing as a service, including multiple vendors for interdependent services. In reality this means that organizations will be using a strategy that combines outsourcing, insourcing, offshoring, nearshoring and cloud services such as software as a service, and that implies that multisourcing and how to configure the multisourcing option will be a crucial task for many organizations in the near future.

The Sourcing of Software Services

Transaction cost economics (TCE) is the most prominent theory for studying questions surrounding information systems (IS) outsourcing. Its most widely tested argument is that client-specific services are rather kept in-house due to the high transaction costs which arise for safeguarding against opportunistic behavior. However, empirical support for this argument has so far been inconclusive. We seek to resolve this inconsistency by following two recommendations in prior literature. First, we extend TCE by considering trust differences between internal employees and vendor staff as a context factor. Second, we explicitly account for TCE's economic rationale by acknowledging that client-specific knowledge influences both transaction cost and production cost differences between in-house and outsourced IS services. Using data from 139 organizations on the sourcing of software development and maintenance services, we found support for our theoretical extension. For IS services requiring client-specific knowledge, in-house transaction cost advantages were particularly high if more trust was put in in-house personnel compared to vendor staff. Production costs were generally lower in-house when knowledge specificity was high. Both in-house transaction and production cost advantages were associated with lower degrees of outsourcing. The results explicate an important boundary condition of TCE and help shed light on the so far inconclusive empirical results regarding the role of asset specificity in explaining IS outsourcing decisions. The insights help decision makers by providing a better understanding of the economics of IS sourcing and the important role of trust.

A Data Predication Model for Integrating Wireless Sensor Networks and Cloud Computing

Cloud computing has been proved to be a promising solution for managing and processing big data by providing a data center centric and efficient algorithms for managing and organizing the data. One of the cloud system's data sources is Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). WSNs present a new way of data-stream sources in which data is received periodically from different sensors; resulting in a large amount of data accumulated over a short period. WSNs have limited resources in which a fine-detailed data streams lead to exhaustive energy consumption. In this paper, we propose a data prediction model that is built within the sensor nodes and used by the cloud system to generate the data. The purpose of the proposed model is to exempt the sensor nodes from sending a large amount of data and thus reduces the energy consumption of the sensor's battery. We manage to formulate the prediction model as a line equation through two n-dimensional vectors in n-space. Initial results showed that the proposed model will be capable to achieve a better error rate as compared to traditional data prediction techniques.

Exploring information systems outsourcing in U.S. hospital-based health care delivery systems

The purpose of this study is to explore the factors associated with outsourcing of information systems (IS) in hospital-based health care delivery systems, and to determine if there is a difference in IS outsourcing activity based on the strategic value of the outsourced functions. IS sourcing behavior is conceptualized as a case of vertical integration. A synthesis of strategic management theory (SMT) and transaction cost economics (TCE) serves as the theoretical framework. The sample consists of 1,365 hospital-based health care delivery systems that own 3,452 hospitals operating in 2004. The findings indicate that neither TCE nor SMT predicted outsourcing better than the other did. The findings also suggest that health care delivery system managers may not be considering significant factors when making sourcing decisions, including the relative strategic value of the functions they are outsourcing. It is consistent with previous literature to suggest that the high cost of IS may be the main factor driving the outsourcing decision.

Foreword to the special issue on IS sourcing

Information systems (IS) sourcing refers to the entire set of processes ranging from initiating and preparing the decision to provide an organization's IS functions. IS sourcing is closely related to the steady change and provides a collection of research studies that have either addressed one or more of the research gaps in traditional IS outsourcing. It gained momentum by the appearance of IS outsourcing megadeals involving clients such as Kodak, Continental Bank, and BP with providers such as Electronic Data Systems and International Business Machines. The IS outsourcing phenomenon has moved beyond the boundaries of the IS function to include entire information technology (IT)-supported business processes.

Determinants of IS sourcing decisions: A comparative study of transaction cost theory versus the resource-based view

Many organizations have employed the concepts of ‘asset specificity’ and ‘uncertainty’ from transaction cost theory (TCT), and ‘strategic resources’ from the resource-based view (RBV) as drivers of their information systems (ISs) sourcing decisions. They, however, face a dilemma when TCT and the RBV suggest different sourcing alternatives. The study identifies contexts where sourcing decisions made based on these two theories differ, and examines which theory accounts better for an organization's sourcing decisions. Results show that a high-specificity asset is a major driver of sourcing decisions. It overpowers the effects of uncertainty on sourcing decisions; while a non-strategic resource has no impact on sourcing decisions. In particular, where the two theories make conflicting predictions, organizations should not always outsource non-strategic resources. Non-strategic resources that involve high specificity should be retained internally. The paper concludes with implications for academics and practitioners, and a discussion of future research directions.

Developing a framework for analyzing IS sourcing

This paper develops a framework for the consideration of internal markets as an alternative to information systems (IS) outsourcing. It is based on an assessment of the pros and cons of both outsourcing and of insourcing based on the internal markets approach. It is formulated in terms of the operational, tactical, and strategic impacts of the choice among the alternatives. The framework, and the propositions that are developed from it, should be useful both for researchers, who can use it for developing testable research hypotheses, and for practitioners, who may use it as a basis for developing a comprehensive set of criteria for the evaluation of these sourcing options.