Types Of Information Technology Research Articles

Selecting IT applications in manufacturing: a KBS approach

The use of the right type of Information Technology (IT) applications or manufacturing systems is expected to usher in a competitive advantage. Selection of the right type of IT application is, however, a challenging task. When a company, with a given dominant process structure, emphasizes two or more competitive priorities, such as quality, product flexibility, etc., an unaided manager faces a complex decision problem in choosing from alternative IT applications available in the areas of product design through distribution. In this paper, we present a Knowledge Based System (KBS) that would assist managers with the identification of IT applications that are consistent with both the competitive priorities and the process structure. Validation of the system illustrates that its performance is consistent with the human experts, and it has the potential to facilitate effective and swift decision-making in the selection of appropriate IT applications that best match an organization's manufacturing strategy.

Communication media choice by workers in distributed environment

Information technology (IT) is the facilitator for successful implementation of distributed-work. However, research on the implication of different types of IT in distributed-work in an organization is limited. The aim of our research was to study the distributed-worker’s media use empirically, and determine the influential factors that affect the media selection and its effect on distributed-work. To achieve the objectives of the research, a hypothetical model that shows the relationships between media use and contextual factors, individual characteristics, media richness, and social influence was developed and validated. Distributed-workers’ day-to-day, job related, communication information was collected through log-sheets. Data analysis showed that simple communication media, such as telephone and e-mail, is effective enough for carrying out job related activities from remote sites. Contextual, individual, and social level factors were found to influence the media selection of distributed-workers. Though, e-mail is thought to be a lean medium in media richness theory, this study shows that e-mail oriented workers use it effectively even for complex communication tasks, such as discussion.

Innovation and Information Technology in Services

The missing effect of investments of firms in information and communication technologies on productivity is studied by various recent papers. Several explanations are given for this missing link. Our paper deals with two of them, using two newly available data sets for the German service sector. Using data from a survey of innovative activities in services we show that investment in information technology (IT) has a stronger effect on the quality of services than on the productivity of the IT-using firm. IT investment seems to be especially effective when innovations enhance the delivery speed and the spatial or temporal availability of service. Moreover, data of the German IT survey point towards the need to differentiate between types of IT investment. It is shown that especially the most recent generation of IT as indicated by the number of PCs used is the source of productivity growth whereas traditional IT like mainframes exhibit only minor productivity effects. We conclude from our results that mismeasurement of the quality of new products and processes is one important reason for our inability to uncover the productivity effect of IT. Moreover, dividing IT-investment by the type of IT clarifies that the kind of IT a firm uses is more important for productivity growth what than its quantity. In any case we expect that the bulk of the IT-related productivity growth is still to come. In order to realize the benefits from IT investment entirely, firms have to undergo a large restructuring of business functions.

Electronic Meetings to Support a University's Transformation, Education, Research and Professional Service.

The University of Dar es Salaam's (UDSM's) corporate strategic plan sets the long-term plan and concepts that guide the transformation processes at the University. In this paper, we discuss a support environment UDSM can apply to facilitate the execution of the UDSM-2000 Transformation Program. This environment consists of a particular type of Information Technology that support electronic meetings, namely Group Support Systems (GSS). We will illustrate that the application of this technology and research not only supports the reshaping of the University's administrative processes and structures, but will also offer an excellent opportunity to improve the educational and professional services that it offers. It will help UDSM to build a reputation as a center of excellence in the region. African Journal of Finance and Management Vol.8(1) 1999: 65-74

Factors in Acceptance of Advanced Information Technology Among Social Workers

Summary Advanced information technology such as diagnostic programs, decision support systems or therapeutic computer games are likely to have far-reaching effects on the nature of social work practice, on the condition that they can be accepted by rank and file workers in human services organizations. This exploratory study was designed to develop a valid instrument that can test the extent to which social workers are willing to use the three most common types of advanced information technology: (1) computerized assessment package (CA), (2) decision support system (DSS), and (3) therapeutic computer games (TG). The instrument was field-tested with 74 Israeli social workers. Social workers clearly differentiated between the types of information technology with preference for therapeutic computer games (TG, DDS, CA, mean acceptance = 4.14, 3.91, 3.47, respectively). The differences between TG and CA, and between DDS and CA were statistically significant in paired t-tests (p = .000 and .003 respectively).

Impacts of information technology on organizational size and shape: Control and flexibility effects

We argue that the study of information technology (IT) impacts on organizations has been hindered by the shortage of formal models from which empirically testable implications of such impacts can be derived. This article demonstrates the feasibility and usefulness of this approach by constructing and analyzing optimization models of the organizational design problem for a restricted class of hierarchical organizations. The literature suggests that two organizational characteristics likely to be affected by IT are organizational “flexibility”; and the nature of organizational control problems. Thus, first, a particular concept of flexibility is defined and parameterized. Second, organizational design is formalized as an optimization problem having parameters for flexibility and control effects. Third, probable effects of four broad classes of IT on the model's parameters are spelled out and then analyzed via comparative statics and numerical experiments. One general result is that some types of IT impacts ...

Information technology for organizational change

The interrelationships between organization structure and information systems have attracted the attention of researchers since the 1950s. We propose three different architectures for organizational decision support systems (ODSS), each of which is tailored to an emerging change in organization structures: Downsizing; a focus on teams; and outsourcing. We argue that no single ODSS architecture can adequately meet the challenges of each structural change. Rather, each proposed architecture relies to a lesser or greater degree on five types of information technology: Communication; co-ordination; filtering; decision making; and monitoring technologies.

EXECUTIVE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Strategic necessities are information systems that have been widely adopted; their use is to maintain parity with competitors rather than to offer strategic advantage. Executive information systems (EISs) exemplify a type of information technology that has become essential to doing business in many organizations. A new and expanded role for EISs is to help managers improve product and process quality and, ultimately, customer service. This article looks at how one organization is using an enterprisewide executive information system to achieve these business objectives.

The Information Technology Payoff: Implications For Investment Appraisal

Substantial business resources are being dedicated to information technology (IT) but little is known about the effects of these investments on the performance of firms. This paper reports the results of a study of 33 manufacturing firms' investments in IT and their subsequent performance. The study analysed six years' data collected from three senior officers of each firm. Three types of IT investment were studied: strategic, informational and transactional. While firms which invested heavily in transactional IT were consistently better performers, this effect was not apparent with the other types of IT. These results have policy implications for the methods used to appraise future IT investments. Standard discounted cashflow methods are not suited to all types of IT investments. This article suggests different approaches to IT appraisal for different types of IT investment.

Design of charging mechanisms according to the interaction between information technology type and diffusion lifecycle phase

The prescriptive literature on charging for information technologies considers two main objectives that are served by access charges and use charges: cost recovery and regulation of computing resource utilization. Recently, researchers in the field have suggested that designers of charging mechanisms must also pay attention to the type of information technology and to the phase of the diffusion lifecycle. Specifically, innovation-oriented organizations have been advised to design liberal low charges either for communication technologies or during the technology initiation phase.The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, it organizes published recommendations under one conceptual framework, whereby charging is adapted according to both the technology type and the phase of the diffusion lifecycle. Second, where diffusion patterns are most sensitive to the charging policy, i.e., for communication technologies during the initiation and perhaps even the adaptation phase of the lifecycle, we go beyond existing recommendations and advocate negative charging. Mini-cases serve to illustrate the various recommended charging options.

The use of information technologies in dutch households

Abstract In 1985 the Department of Household Sciences conducted research on Dutch households that use information technologies for domestic purposes. This research was part of a six‐nation research programme and was supported by the FAST‐II research activities of the EEC, and the Agricultural University of Wageningen. The use of three types of information technology was surveyed: home computer, Videotext, and Teletext. Analysis of the finding indicates the types of households likely to benefit from information technology in the future and groups households into three classes according to their attitudes to information technology—productivistic, hobbyist, and socially committed.