Senior IS Executives Research Articles

Financial Closing Time And Cost Of Equity: The Role Of Senior Information Systems Executives

Financial closing time is the time lag between a firm’s fiscal year end and earnings announcement. In this study, we first find an association between longer financial closing time and higher implied cost of equity. Improving financial closing time can help firms raise equity capital more efficiently. We posit that senior information executives can help improve firms' IT capabilities and reduce financial closing time. The empirical result suggests that firms having senior information executives (as measured by executive compensation) can reduce financial closing time for more than four days. We contribute by showing that senior IS executives are important for a public company to satisfy investors' information needs in the fast and competitive modern capital markets.

The application of information security policies in large UK‐based organizations: an exploratory investigation

Despite its widely acknowledged importance, the information security policy has not, to date, been the subject of explicit, empirical scrutiny, in the academic literature. To help fill this gap an exploratory research project was initiated that sought to investigate the uptake, content, dissemination and impact of information security policies. To this end, a questionnaire was mailed to senior IS executives, in large UK‐based organizations, and 208 valid responses were received. The results of this research have indicated that, while policies are now fairly common, at least amongst the sample, there is still a high degree of variety in terms of their content and dissemination.

An investigation of the factors affecting the successful treatment of organisational issues in systems development projects

A review of the relevant literature confirms the importance of treating organisational issues in order to avoid information systems development failures. To investigate how such issues are treated in practice and the factors associated with their successful treatment, a large-scale survey was conducted. A questionnaire was mailed to senior IS executives and over 600 responses were received. A majority of the respondents (60%) perceived that organisational issues were more important than technical issues and a similar proportion reported treating these issues explicitly, although there was noticeable variation in the frequency with which specific types of issues were treated. However, only 50% felt that organisational issues were successfully dealt with in more than 30% of the projects for which they were responsible. This proportion seems to be independent of the type of organisation or the general development approach adopted, but the results also indicate that using an approach to treating organisational issues which is explicit, frequent and covers a wide range of specific issues is associated with higher levels of success. These results suggest that senior IT executives need to go further in ensuring that the treatment of organisational issues is given greater time, resource and level of priority.

An examination of major IS planning problems

Knowing what problems to expect in an IS planning exercise enhances the probability of a successful outcome. This study identifies the major IS planning problems associated with the three phases of IS planning: the launching phase, the plan development phase, and the implementation phase. Data were collected using a questionnaire survey mailed to senior IS executives in 600 firms. Of the 175 responses received, 138 responses (comprising firms practising IS planning) were used for data analysis. In all the three phases, failing to secure top management support for the IS planning effort is the most serious problem. Not having free communication flow, and not being able to obtain sufficiently qualified personnel are the other two major problems in the planning phase. In the plan development phase, respondents reported ignoring business goals and failing to translate these goals/strategies into action plans as major problems as well. Neglecting to adjust the IS plan to reflect major environmental changes is the other major problem in the implementation phase. Probable explanations were provided for these and other problems.

Realizing IT Value at Air Products and Chemicals, Inc.

How can senior IS executives successfully shepherd IT initiatives through complex organizations? This paper prescribes an integrated IT investment management process incorporating four recommended activities: • strategic planning, • quality function deployment, • activity analysis, and • responsibility assignment. The process, tools, methods, and organizational learning were drawn from two projects at Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. The integrated process for IT investment management can help senior IS executives prioritize projects and align responsibility and accountability for IT initiatives that require complementary organizational changes to activities across the entire value chain to realize full benefits.

Integration Between Business Planning and Information Systems Planning: Validating a Stage Hypothesis

ABSTRACTThis paper proposes and empirically validates a stages of growth model for the evolution of Information Systems Planning (ISP). A questionnaire survey of senior IS executives is used to gather information pertaining to the stages of growth model, which includes measurement of the nature and level of integration between business planning (BP) and ISP. The del test is used to validate empirically benchmark variables for each stage of BP‐ISP integration. The results support the stages of growth model of BP‐ISP integration and the benchmark variables are generally found to be successful in predicting the stage of integration.

Key information systems issues: An analysis of MIS publications

Reports of key MIS issues based on the perceptions of senior IS executives appear periodically in the MIS literature. In this article, we provide another perspective on key MIS issues by examining published MIS articles. A content analysis of MIS articles appearing between 1989 and mid-year 1993 in prominent academic and practitioner journals has been conducted in order to: identify, classify, and prioritize by meta-categories the key issues in MIS publications; to perform a trend analysis of the various meta-categories; and to examine the relevance of issues by providing a comparison with the issues that emerged out of previous key issue studies. Twenty-six key issues are ranked according to their frequency of occurrence as the topic of inquiry in the 630 articles surveyed. Further, a year-by-year analysis of publications from 1989 to 1992 provides some visible trends. The study also reveals differences that exist between the issues that appeared as important in MIS publications and those that appeared significant to the top executives in key issue studies. Reasons for and implications of these differences are offered.

An empirical study of IS planning characteristics among industries

In recent times, there has been an increased awareness among organizations of the potential of information technology and the use of information systems planning to exploit this potential and use information systems effectively. Prescriptive studies indicate that some industries have greater potential for exploiting information technology than others and therefore differ in their planning characteristics. In this study we explore the differences in IS planning characteristics among various industry groups. The study collected data on 12 IS planning variables in various industries using a large scale field survey of senior IS executives. The results indicate that some IS planning characteristics such as IS planning resources, IS resources, role of IS in the organization, extent of business domain analysis, contribution to organization's performance, and implementation success vary significantly among industry groups. Other planning variables such as top management and user involvement, planning effectiveness, information input to planning, and the use of a steering committee do not significantly differ among industry groups. On an overall basis, it was found that firms in insurance, banks, retail, and publishing tend to lay greater emphasis on most IS planning characteristics, and firms in utilities and oil industry do not lay much emphasis on IS planning characteristics.

Information Systems Management Issues for the 1990s

This three-round delphis urvey of senior IS executives is the third ain a series designed to determine the most critical issues in IS management. Analysis focuses on respondents' assessments of specific issues as well as emerging trends. Key findings include: (1) continued concern for traditional issues such as strategic planning and organizational alignment; (2) only six of the top issues from 1986 remained in the top 10; (3) one new issue, technology infrastructure, made the top 10: (4) three issues from previous studies rejoined the top 10-IS human resources, software development, and telecommunication systems; and (5) data-related issues now occupy the top two slots. This research reveals two important trends as the field enters the 1990s. First is the rising importance of technology infrastructure issues. Technology infrastructure issues now occupy three of the top 10 slots including the highest position. Second, it appears that internal effectiveness issues have made a strong comeback after being virtually ignored in 1986. IS human resources, software development, and the applications portfolio-issues that make up the core of the IS function-all increased in importance.

Information architectures: Methods and practice

The concept of an information architecture is explored as a fundamental building block underlying the development of effective information systems. An information architecture is a personnel-, organization- and technology-independent profile of the major information categories used within an enterprise. The profile shows how the information categories relate to business processes and how the information categories must be interconnected to facilitate support for decision makers. Much of the material presented is based on the results of work with a panel of experts. The panel was made up of senior IS executives who have developed, implemented and maintained global/corporate information architectures. The paper describes what an information architecture is, why it is important and how it fits into the overall IS planning process. Methodologies for building such an architecture are discussed. The problems involved in developing, implementing and maintaining an information architecture and the benefits that can accrue are discussed citing several case examples. Finally, prescriptive recommendations based on the experience of members of the panel are offered.