Senior IT Executives Research Articles

An empirical assessment of enterprise information systems success in a developing country: the Jordanian experience

PurposeThe paper discusses the assessment of enterprise information systems (EIS) success in an organizational context is one area that is not sufficiently researched. This lack of theoretical attention prompted the authors to measure EIS success in the organizational setting of Jordanian listed firms.Design/methodology/approachBased on the DeLone and McLean success model and by adopting a quantitative approach, survey data were collected through questionnaires. The established questionnaires were distributed to 250 senior IT executives who use EIS and a total of 134 valid questionnaires were empirically tested via the Smart-PLS technique.FindingsThe investigation findings indicate that information and system quality had a positive impact on user satisfaction and individual impact. User satisfaction had a positive influence on individual impact, both of which eventually lead to organizational impact. The results also showed that the model used has adequate convergent and discriminant validities, as well as sufficient reliability.Practical implicationsThe outcomes can help managers and practitioners more effectively understand the factors influencing EIS success among Jordanian listed firms.Originality/valueThis research paper is the very first in assessing EIS success from an organizational perspective in developing country such as Jordan.

The role of big data analytics capabilities in bolstering supply chain resilience and firm performance: a dynamic capability view

PurposeBig data analytics capability (BDAC) can affect firm performance in several ways. The purpose of this paper is to understand how BDA capabilities affect firm performance through supply chain resilience in the presence of the risk management culture.Design/methodology/approachThe study adopted a cross-sectional approach to collect survey-based responses to examine the hypotheses. 167 responses were collected and analyzed using partial least squares in SmartPLS3. The respondents were generally senior IT executives with education and experience in data and business analytics.FindingsThe results show that BDA capabilities increase supply chain resilience as a mediator by enhancing innovative capabilities and information quality, ultimately leading to improved firm performance. In addition, the relationship between supply chain resilience and firm performance is influenced by risk management culture as a moderator.Originality/valueThe present study contributes to the relevant literature by demonstrating the mediating role of supply chain resilience between the BDA capabilities relationship and firm performance. In this context, some theoretical and managerial implications are proposed and discussed.

Achieving Dynamic Capabilities with Cloud Computing

Although many organizations use cloud computing to improve their operational capabilities, only a few use it to pursue dynamic capabilities. Dynamic capabilities refer to the firm's ability to integrate, build, and reconfigure organizational competences to address business challenges posed by rapidly changing environments and achieve competitive advantage. Based on a study involving senior IT executives in 14 organizations that are engaged in novel uses of cloud computing, the authors present recommendations on the use of cloud computing to achieve dynamic capabilities. This article is part of a special issue on advancing cloud computing.

Ramifications of the Sarbanes Oxley (SOX) Act on IT governance

Purpose– In most firms, accounting and financial information and reporting systems are either incorporated or embedded in computer-based information systems (IS). Despite the important roles that these computer-based IS play in facilitating the SOX Act compliance initiatives, the act is silent on the roles of the CIOs, although it does stipulate specific functions for the CEOs, CFOs, and the auditors. Based on a detailed analysis of the extant literature, this article argues that IT units, under the leadership of the CIOs, contribute significantly in the procurement, design, implementation, and the governance of these computer-based IS. The paper aims to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approach– The researchers generate and empirically test hypotheses using a panel data set obtained from press releases issued by firms following the hiring of CIOs between 1999 and 2005.Findings– The results reveal that, after the enactment of the SOX Act in 2002, many firms hired new CIOs in the post-SOX Act period. Also, many of these executives were hired to fill newly created Chief information officer (CIO) positions. The results support the argument that the SOX Act has influenced the roles of senior IT executives and IT governance.Research limitations/implications– Although this study focused on hiring trends, there are other characteristics associated with CIOs that might have an impact on corporate IT governance. Future studies could investigate whether or not, for instance, firms reported fewer IT material weaknesses before or after the hire of the CIOs.Originality/value– This research presents the argument and detailed discussion that while the SOX Act does not explicitly require the CIOs to sign off on the accounting/financial statements and reports, their role is fundamental in making the firm meet the SOX Act compliance standards.

Information Systems (IS) Strategy: Antecedents and Pursuit in Organizations in Ghana

The relevance of Information Systems (IS) in organizations is evidenced by its increasing adoption and usage to shape and drive business goals. The pursuit of appropriate IS Strategy is therefore imperative for the effective utilization and management of the enterprise IS and related infrastructure. But what perceptions and understanding do organizations in Ghana have about IS Strategy and how do these antecedents (organizational understanding and perceptions) influence the choice and pursuit of a particular IS Strategy? The study adopts a quantitative design and a cross-sectional approach with responses from senior IT executives of Ghana Club 100 companies in Accra to examine the above phenomenon from an IS Strategy Conceptions perspective investigating the antecedents of IS Strategy in organizations. Results suggest that the choice of particular IS Strategy is greatly influenced by the organizational understanding and perceived role of IS Strategy. The conception of IS Strategy as a shared view of IS role in the organization drives organizations to adopt more definite IS Strategy (IS Innovator and IS Conservative). It is noted further that, organizations in their quest to stay competitive while maintaining operational efficiency tend to be ambidextrous - adopting a blend of innovative and conservative strategies.

Contractual and Consensual Profiles for an Interorganizational Governance of Information Technology

Two profiles of interorganizational governance of IT were obtained from interviews conducted with leaders involved in setting the governance mechanism needed to support successful IT collaboration with their business partners. Three attributes, based on literature from network governance streams, were used to uncover those profiles. They are the IT governance structure, the processes put in place to make decisions, and the roles of participants involved in setting the interorganizational governance mechanisms. Observed profiles share a continuum where the Contractual profile is at one end, and the Consensual profile is at the other end. Some performance variations among the two profiles exist, yet both profiles contribute to successful interorganizational relationships. These profiles were uncovered from seven case studies conducted in Canadian organizations. Through fifteen interviews with senior interorganizational IT governance committee members and IT executives, the critical IT governance mechanisms they employed were identified. Two cases are reported in this article, each one illustrating respectively the Contractual and the Consensual profiles.

Enhancing the Business Value of Business Intelligence: The Role of Shared Knowledge and Assimilation

ABSTRACTBusiness intelligence (BI) systems have attracted significant interest from senior executives and consultants for their ability to exploit organizational data and provide operational and strategic benefits through improved management control systems. A large body of literature indicates that organizations have largely failed to use their business intelligence investments effectively to exploit the wealth of data they capture in their ERP systems. As a result, BI has too often failed to support organizations' managerial decision making at both the strategic and operational levels and, thus, failed to enhance business value. Whether and how organizations achieve business benefits from their BI investments remains unclear. This study draws on the strategic alignment and IT assimilation literature to develop a research model that theorizes the importance of BI systems assimilation, and the need for shared knowledge among the strategic and operational levels as the drivers of BI business value. Results from the study confirm the crucial role of BI assimilation in translating organizational resources into capabilities that enhance the business value of BI. The findings also contribute evidence on the importance of shared domain knowledge and the interrelations between senior business, IT executives, and operational-level managers for enhancing BI assimilation.

Reciprocity between Senior IT Executives and IT-Capable Firms: A Source of Competitive Advantage

This study introduces a causality-based framework of antecedents and consequences in order to examine the positive reciprocity between senior IT executives (sITes) and IT capable firms. More specif...

The Impact of Senior IT Executives on IT Capability

This study introduces a causality-based framework of antecedents and consequences in order to examine the positive reciprocity between senior IT executives (sITes) and IT capable firms. More specifically we propose that: 1. There is a positive association between accrued sources of managerial power of sITes, such as structural and expert power, and a firm's ability to develop superior IT capability. 2. Firms that achieve such superiority are more likely to signal their appreciation and reward (promote) their sITes. 3. If sITes value this reward, they are more likely to stay longer with their firm. There is a positive association between continuity of an already successful IT leadership and a firm’s ability to sustain its IT superiority. Results based on panel data of 1326 large US firms from a wide spectrum of industries over a 13-year period (1997-2009) support our propositions. Empirical evidence validates our position that firms that want to achieve and sustain IT superiority need to create an organizational climate of positive reciprocity. Such an organization climate can only be developed over time and there is no short cut that competitors can take in order to replicate it

Role of IT executives in the firm's ability to achieve competitive advantage through IT capability

Contrary to prior studies that have tried to examine the role of IT capabilities (ITC) on firm performance in isolation from the role of senior IT executives, we propose that the two are linked. More specifically we argue that there is a positive relationship between the structural power of senior IT executives and the likelihood that the firm will develop superior ITC. Furthermore, the contribution of ITC to a firm's competitive advantage is much stronger in firms with powerful senior IT executives as they are the driving force that may ensure the continuous renewal of ITC. We develop a two-stage econometric model designed to test this chain hypothesis that the structural power of senior IT executives will affect a firm's ability to achieve superior ITC, in turn driving firm performance. Empirical evidence based on a sample of large US firms strongly supports both of our hypotheses.

Strategic information systems planning: A case study from the financial services industry

Strategic Information Systems Planning (SISP) is an important topic for managers and researchers alike. However, there is evidence of a gap between SISP research and practice. Taking this situation as a motivation, we conducted an in depth case study on SISP to investigate this gap. The study was carried out in a German financial services company (FSC) over a period of five months in summer 2003. During this time, the enterprise situation and the information system (IS) practices situation of FSC were studied with respect to the SISP approach in place. Our findings confirm the hypothesis that practitioners largely ignore academic literature and do not use it in support of their SISP endeavours. This is all the more striking since FSC extensively used guidance from IS research in other fields such as systems analysis and software development. Our case study examines in detail two possible explanations for the gap: firstly a lacking transfer of academic knowledge to practice, and secondly deficiencies in the academic knowledge base itself. In fact, our observations highlight a disconnect between academic discussion and practical conduct. However, we found that the ignorance of academic literature on SISP is not primarily caused by a constrained knowledge transfer. In order to exclude communication barriers, we filtered the academic discussion according to the specific situation and the needs of FSC and translated it into practical recommendations. Nevertheless, the academic arguments we put forward hardly had any impact, either on IT managers’ thinking or on SISP practice at FSC. Though academic literature was partly perceived as inspiring, it was not regarded as a touchstone for SISP practice. Academia, in the eyes of FSC’s practitioners, ignores the “real problems” and thus is not accredited as a relevant source of advice. Moreover, in a final discussion with FSC’s senior IT executives we got the impression that the professional identity of FSC’s IT management – and more specifically the CIO’s role – was different from interpretations prevalent in academia. The academic discussion assumes the CIO to be an initiator of organisational innovations and driver of business strategy on the board. In contrast, we found that FSC’s CIO basically perceives her role as that of a service provider to business. While the different perceptions might be due to idiosyncrasies of FSC, related research provided additional empirical support for the conjecture of misleading academic assumptions about the role of IT management in practice.

Key Dimensions of Inhibitors for the Deployment of Web-Based Business-to-Business Electronic Commerce

There has been a rapid increase in the number of firms undertaking business-to-business (B2B) electronic commerce (e-commerce) initiatives. Although there are various benefits to B2B e-commerce, there are also inhibitors to its deployment. This study empirically investigates the inhibitors for deploying Web-based B2B e-commerce applications in organizations. A field survey of senior IT executives was conducted to examine the key problems that inhibit the deployment of Web-based B2B e-commerce. A comprehensive list of inhibitors was derived from an extensive review of the literature and pretested with senior IT executives. Data from 249 firms were factor analyzed to yield the underlying structural dimensions of inhibitors impacting the deployment of Web-based B2B e-commerce. Univariate <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$ t$</tex> -test and multivariate discriminant analysis were carried out on the resulting ten dimensions to compare B2B (i.e., firms who have deployed B2B) and non-B2B firms (i.e., firms who have not deployed B2B). The results suggest that key inhibitors in B2B deployment are the lack of top management support, unresolved technical issues, the lack of e-commerce strategy, and the difficulties in cost-benefit assessment of e-commerce investments. Implications of the results for researchers and IT/engineering management executives are discussed.

Development of an IT Balanced Scorecard

There is a generally acknowledged dearth of metrics for effectively measuring organizational performance. This is particularly true of the IT function, whose contribution to a firm's bottom line has been frequently called to question. This paper describes the development of a performance measurement tool called the Balanced Scorecard, which can be used to assess IT performance within the cordetU of overall corporate strategy and financial performance. Data for the scorecard was obtained via a sur^'ey of senior IT executives in various organizations. The paper concludes with a set of guidelines for successfully implementing an IT Balanced Scorecard, as well as potential pitfalls to avoid in the process.

Rationality in Strategic Information Technology Decisions: The Impact of Shared Domain Knowledge and IT Unit Structure*

ABSTRACTRationality is a fundamental concept to several models of IT planning and implementation. Though the importance of following rational processes in making strategic IT decisions is well acknowledged, there is not much understanding on why discrepancies occur in the IT decision‐making process and what factors affect rationality. Drawing upon structural and resource‐based perspectives of strategy, this study examines the influence of shared domain knowledge and IT unit structure on rationality in strategic IT decisions. Data were gathered from 223 senior IT executives using a survey to examine the relationships among the research constructs. The results suggest a positive impact of shared domain knowledge and formalization of IT unit structure on rationality in strategic IT decisions. Further, a highly centralized IT unit structure was found to negatively influence shared domain knowledge. On the other hand, formalization of IT structure positively influenced shared domain knowledge. The implications of the findings for research and practice are presented.

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.

Organizational adoption of open systems: a ‘technology-push, need-pull’ perspective

The growing popularity of open systems in organizational computing has made it important to understand the key determinants of open-systems adoption. Existing innovation diffusion theories, however, have been criticized for their inability to provide an adequate explanation for diffusion of complex organizational technology. This study used the ‘technology-push’ (TP) and ‘need-pull’ (NP) concepts, borrowed from the engineering/R&D management literature to examine the key factors in the adoption decision. Based on this theory, a research model was developed and tested by collecting data from senior IT executives in 89 organizations. The results generally offered support for the model and for the usefulness of applying the TP-NP theory to explain the adoption decision. Organization size had the largest impact on the decision. Migration costs was the next greatest influence. We also found that the organization would be less likely to adopt the new technology, unless the existing systems appeared to be unsatisfactory.

Reenergizing People after Downsizing

The bottom line demands placed on severely downsized IS organizations require that CIOs and senior IT executives restore the trust and empowerment necessary to excellent internal and external customer service. Guidelines are provided for this reenergizing process, which marks the first step in transforming the IS organization into a flexible learning organization that is responsive to the changing business environment.