Enterprise Information Systems VII

Enterprise Information

Systems VII

edited by

Chin-Sheng Chen

Florida International University,

Miami, FL, U.S.A.

Joaquim Filipe

Setúbal, Portugal

Isabel Seruca

Universidade Portucalense,

Porto, Portugal

and

José Cordeiro

Setúbal, Portugal

INSTICC/ EST,

INSTICC/ EST,

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface.................................................................................................................................................. ix

Conference Committee......................................................................................................................... xi

EIS IMPLEMENTATION RESEARCH: AN ASSESSMENT AND SUGGESTIONS FOR

THE FUTURE

Henri Barki.............................................................................................................................................. 3

CHANGING THE WAY THE ENTERPRISE WORKS - OPERATIONAL

TRANSFORMATIONS

Thomas J. Greene .........................................................................................................................................................11

ENTERPRISE ONTOLOGY – UNDERSTANDING THE ESSENCE OF

ORGANIZATIONAL OPERATION

Jan L. G. Dietz ...........................................................................................................................................................19

BUILDING SUCCESSFUL INTERORGANIZATIONAL SYSTEMS - IT AND

CHANGE MANAGEMENT

M. Lynne Markus .......................................................................................................................................................31

PART 1 – DATABASES AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS INTEGRATION

THE HYBRID DIGITAL TREE - A NEW INDEXING TECHNIQUE FOR LARGE

STRING DATABASES

v

INVITED SPEAKERS

Qiang Xue, Sakti Pramanik, Gang Qianand Qiang Zhu............................................................................................45

vi

MUSICAL RETRIEVAL IN P2P NETWORKS UNDER THE WARPING DISTANCE

Ioannis Karydis, Alexandros Nanopoulos, Apostolos N. Papadopoulos and Yannis Manolopoulos ..............................53

CHANGE DETECTION AND MAINTENANCE OF AN XML WEB WAREHOUSE

Ching-Ming Chao.........................................................................................................................................................61

CHOOSING GROUPWARE TOOLS AND ELICITATION TECHNIQUES

ACCORDING TO STAKEHOLDERS' FEATURES

Gabriela N. Aranda, Aurora Vizcaíno, Alejandra Cechich and Mario Piattini..........................................................69

ANALYTICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL EVALUATION OF STREAM-BASED JOIN

Henry Kostowski and Kajal T. Claypool.......................................................................................................................77

PART 2 – ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS

CONSTRUCTION OF DECISION TREES USING DATA CUBE

Lixin Fu......................................................................................................................................................................87

AN APPLICATION OF NON-LINEAR PROGRAMMING TO TRAIN RECURRENT

NEURAL NETWORKS IN TIME SERIES PREDICTION PROBLEMS

M. P. Cuéllar, M. Delgado and M. C. Pegalajar .........................................................................................................95

INTELLIGENT SOLUTION EVALUATION BASED ON ALTERNATIVE USER

PROFILES

Georgios Bardis, Georgios Miaoulis and Dimitri Plemenos..........................................................................................103

Ramón Alberto Carrasco, María Amparo Vila and José Galindo .............................................................................113

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANISATIONS:

A PARTNERSHIP FOR THE FUTURE

José Braga de Vasconcelos, Paulo Castro Seixas, Paulo Gens Lemos and Chris Kimble..............................................121

TOWARDS A CHANGE-BASED CHANCE DISCOVERY

Zhiwen Wu and Ahmed Y. Tawfik ...........................................................................................................................131

PART 3 – INFORMATION SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND SPECIFICATION

EARLY DETECTION OF COTS FUNCTIONAL SUITABILITY FOR AN E-PAYMENT

CASE STUDY

Alejandra Cechich and Mario Piattini ........................................................................................................................141

PRESERVING THE CONTEXT OF INTERRUPTED BUSINESS PROCESS

ACTIVITIES

Sarita Bassil, Stefanie Rinderle, Rudolf Keller, Peter Kropf and Manfred Reichert ......................................................149

THE “RIGHT TO BE LET ALONE” AND PRIVATE INFORMATION

Sabah S. Al-Fedaghi..................................................................................................................................................157

Table of Contents

USING dmFSQL FOR FINANCIAL CLUSTERING

PERSPECTIVES ON PROCESS DOCUMENTATION - A CASE STUDY

Jörg Becker, Christian Janiesch, Patrick Delfmann and Wolfgang Fuhr......................................................................167

vii

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND INVESTMENT IN INFORMATION

TECHNOLOGIES - A SOCIO-ECONOMIC ANALYSIS

Manuel João Pereira, Luís Valadares Tavares and Raquel Soares .............................................................................179

QUALITY OF SERVICE IN FLEXIBLE WORKFLOWS THROUGH PROCESS

CONSTRAINTS

Shazia Sadiq, Maria Orlowska, Joe Lin and Wasim Sadiq ......................................................................................187

REAL TIME DETECTION OF NOVEL ATTACKS BY MEANS OF DATA MINING

TECHNIQUES

Marcello Esposito, Claudio Mazzariello, Francesco Oliviero, Simon Pietro Romano and Carlo Sansone.....................197

PART 4 – SOFTWARE AGENTS AND INTERNET COMPUTING

GENERIC FAULT-TOLERANT LAYER SUPPORTING PUBLISH/SUBSCRIBE

MESSAGING IN MOBILE AGENT SYSTEMS

Milovan Tosic and Arkady Zaslavsky........................................................................................................................207

BOOSTING ITEM FINDABILITY: BRIDGING THE SEMANTIC GAP BETWEEN

SEARCH PHRASES AND ITEM INFORMATION

Hasan Davulcu, Hung V. Nguyen and Viswanathan Ramachandran.......................................................................215

INTEGRATING AGENT TECHNOLOGIES INTO ENTERPRISE SYSTEMS USING

WEB SERVICES

Eduardo H. Ramírez and Ramón F. Brena...............................................................................................................223

PART 5 – HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION

OPENDPI: A TOOLKIT FOR DEVELOPING DOCUMENT-CENTERED

ENVIRONMENTS

Olivier Beaudoux and Michel Beaudouin-Lafon..........................................................................................................231

WHY ANTHROPOMORPHIC USER INTERFACE FEEDBACK CAN BE EFFECTIVE

AND PREFERRED BY USERS

Pietro Murano ............................................................................................................................................................241

DISTANCE LEARNING BY INTELLIGENT TUTORING SYSTEM.

AGENT-BASED ARCHITECTURE FOR USER-CENTRED ADAPTIVITY

Antonio Fernández-Caballero, José Manuel Gascueña, Federico Botella and Enrique Lazcorreta...............................249

A CONTROLLED EXPERIMENT FOR MEASURING THE USABILITY OF WEBAPPS

USING PATTERNS

F. Javier García, María Lozano, Francisco Montero, Jose Antonio Gallud, Pascual González and

Carlota Lorenzo .........................................................................................................................................................257

Table of Contents

AUTHOR INDEX................................................................................................................................................265

PREFACE

Systems (ICEIS 2005), held in Miami (USA) and organized by INSTICC (Institute for Systems and

Technologies of Information, Communication and Control) in collaboration with FLORIDA

INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY, who hosted the event.

Following the route started in 1999, ICEIS has become a major point of contact between research

scientists, engineers and practitioners on the area of business applications of information systems. This

conference, which is now one of the largest annual conferences in the Information Systems area, has

received an increased interest every year, especially from the international academic community. This

year, five simultaneous tracks were held, covering different aspects related to enterprise computing,

including: “Databases and Information Systems Integration”, “Artificial Intelligence and Decision Support Systems”,

“Information Systems Analysis and Specification”, “Software Agents and Internet Computing” and “Human-Computer

Interaction”. The sections of this book reflect the conference tracks.

ICEIS 2005 received 459 paper submissions from 41 different countries, in all continents. 89 papers

were published and orally presented as full papers, i.e. completed work, 110 position papers reflecting

work-in-progress were accepted for short presentation and another 90 for poster presentation. These

numbers, leading to a “full-paper” acceptance ratio below 20%, show the intention of preserving a high

quality forum.

As usual in the ICEIS conference series, a number of invited talks, including keynote lectures and

technical tutorials were also held. These special presentations made by internationally recognized experts

have definitely increased the overall quality of the Conference and provided a deeper understanding of

the Enterprise Information Systems field. Some of these contributions have been included in a special

section of this book.

The program for this conference required the dedicated effort of many people. Firstly, we must thank

the authors, whose research and development efforts are recorded here. Secondly, we thank the

members of the program committee and the additional reviewers for their diligence and expert

reviewing. Thirdly, we thank the invited speakers for their invaluable contribution and for taking the

time to synthesise and prepare their talks. Fourthly, we thank the workshop chairs whose collaboration

with ICEIS was much appreciated. Finally, special thanks to all the members of the local organising

committee, especially Ron Giachetti, whose collaboration was fundamental for the success of this

conference.

Chin-Sheng Chen, Florida International University, USA

Joaquim Filipe, INSTICC / EST Setúbal, Portugal

Isabel Seruca, Universidade Portucalense, Portugal

José Cordeiro, INSTICC / EST Setúbal, Portugal

ix

This book contains the best papers of the Seventh International Conference on Enterprise Information

CONFERENCE COMMITTEE

Conference co-Chairs

Joaquim Filipe, INSTICC / EST Setúbal, Portugal

Chin-Sheng Chen, Florida International University, USA

Programme co-Chairs

Isabel Seruca, Universidade Portucalense, Portugal

José Cordeiro, INSTICC / EST Setúbal, Portugal

Organising Committee

Marina Carvalho, INSTICC, Portugal

Bruno Encarnação, INSTICC, Portugal

Ronald Giachetti, Florida International University, USA

Vítor Pedrosa, INSTICC, Portugal

Senior Programme Committee

Luís Amaral, Portugal Peter B. Andersen, Denmark Ricardo Baeza-Yates, ChileJean Bézivin, France Enrique Bonsón, Spain João Alvaro Carvalho, Portugal Albert Cheng, USAMiguel Delgado, Spain Jan Dietz, The Netherlands Frank Dignum, The Netherlands António Figueiredo, Portugal Göran Goldkuhl, Sweden Thomas Greene, USA Nuno Guimarães, Portugal Jeet Gupta, USA Jean-Paul Haton, France Alberto Laender, BrazilMaurizio Lenzerini, Italy Michel Léonard, Switzerland Kecheng Liu, UKPeri Loucopoulos, UK Paul Luker, UK Kalle Lyytinen, USA

Yannis Manolopoulos, Greece José Legatheaux Martins, Portugal Masao Matsumoto, Japan James Odell, USA George Papadopoulos, Cyprus Luís Moniz Pereira, Portugal Alain Pirotte, Belgium Klaus Pohl, Germany Matthias Rauterberg, The Netherlands Colette Rolland, FranceAbdel-Badeeh Salem, Egypt Bernadette Sharp, UK Alexander Smirnov, RussiaRonald Stamper, The NetherlandsReza Torkzadeh, USA Miguel Toro, Spain José Tribolet, PortugalFrançois Vernadat, LuxembourgFrank Wang, UK Merrill Warkentin, USAHans Weigand, The Netherlands Roel Wieringa, The Netherlands

xi

xii

Programme Committee

Jesus S. Aguilar-Ruiz, SpainPatrick Albers, France Salah Al-Sharhan, KuwaitAndreas Andreou, Cyprus Pedro Antunes, Portugal Joaquim Aparício, Portugal Juan Carlos Augusto, UKBart Baesens, UK Cecilia Baranauskas, Brazil Balbir Barn,UK Senén Barro, SpainRemi Bastide, France Nadia Bellalem, France Peter Bernus, Australia Peter Bertok, AustraliaRobert Biddle, Canada Oliver Bittel, Germany Fernando Boavida, Portugal Luis Borges Gouveia, Portugal Djamel Bouchaffra, USA Danielle Boulanger, FranceJean-Louis Boulanger, France José Braga de Vasconcelos, Portugal Miguel Calejo, PortugalCoral Calero, Spain Luis M. Camarinha-Matos, PortugalJorge Cardoso, PortugalFernando Carvalho, BrazilJose Jesus Castro-Schez, Spain Luca Cernuzzi, Paraguay Maria Filomena de Castro Lopes, Portugal Elizabeth Chang, AustraliaLaurent Chapelier, France Nian-Shing Chen, Australia William Cheng-Chung Chu, Taiwan Rodney Clarke, UK Chrisment Claude, France Francesco Colace, Italy Bernard Coulette, FranceSharon Cox, UK Mohamed Dahchour, Morocco Sergio de Cesare, UKAndrea De Lucia, Italy

Nuno de Magalhães Ribeiro, Portugal José Javier Dolado, Spain Jean-Christophe Dubois, France Schahram Dustdar, Austria Alan Eardley, UK David Emery, UK Jean-Max Estay, France João Faria, PortugalJesus Favela, USA Eduardo Fernández-Medina, Spain Edilson Ferneda, Brazil Paulo Ferreira, PortugalFilomena Ferrucci, Italy Andrew Finegan, AustraliaAndre Flory, France Donal Flynn, UK Ulrich Frank, Germany Ana Fred, PortugalLixin Fu, USA Juan Garbajosa, SpainMarcela Genero, Spain Joseph Giampapa, USARaúl Giráldez, Spain Pascual González, Spain Robert Goodwin, Australia Silvia Gordillo, Argentina John Gordon, UK Feliz Gouveia, PortugalVirginie Govaere, France Jan Gulliksen, SwedenRune Gustavsson, SwedenSissel Guttormsen Schär, Switzerland Lamia Hadrich Belguith, Tunisia Thorsten Hampel, Germany Michael Heng, Australia Francisco Herrera, Spain Colin Higgins, UK Peter Higgins, AustraliaErik Hollnagel, SwedenJun Hong, UK Nguyen Hong Quang, Viet Nam Jiankun Hu, Australia Kaiyin Huang, The Netherlands

Conference Committee

xiii

Patrick C. K. Hung, Canada Hamid Jahankhani, UK Arturo Jaime, Spain Luis Jiménez Linares, Spain Luis Joyanes, Spain Nikos Karacapilidis, GreeceDimitris Karagiannis, Austria Stamatis Karnouskos, Germany Hiroyuki Kawano, JapanNicolas Kemper Valverde, Mexico A. Rahman Khan, USA Manuel Kolp, Belgium John Krogstie, Norway Stan Kurkovsky, USA Yannick Lallement, Canada Chul-Hwan Lee, USA Carlos León de Mora, SpainHareton Leung, ChinaTherese Libourel, FranceJohn Lim, Singapore Matti Linna, Finland Jan Ljungberg, Sweden Stephane Loiseau, France João Correia Lopes, PortugalMaría Dolores Lozano, Spain Jianguo Lu, Canada Christopher Lueg, Australia Edmundo Madeira, Brazil Laurent Magnin, CanadaSam Makki, USA Mirko Malekovic, Croatia Nuno Mamede, PortugalJoão Mangueira Sobral, BrazilEsperanza Marcos, SpainFarhi Marir, UK Maria João Martins, PortugalHerve Martin, France Johannes Mayer, Germany Andreas Meier, Switzerland Emilia Mendes, New Zealand Engelbert Mephu Nguifo, France Miguel Mira da Silva, Portugal Ghodrat Moghadampour, Finland Paula Morais, PortugalFernando Moreira, Portugal

José Moreira, Portugal Hector Munoz-Avila, USA Mietek Muraszkiewicz, Poland Ana Neves, Portugal Jose Angel Olivas, Spain Luis Olsina Santos, ArgentinaPeter Oriogun, UKMarcin Paprzycki, USA José R. Paramá, Spain Oscar Pastor, Spain Maria Carmen Gramaje, Spain Gabriel Pereira Lopes, PortugalLaurent Péridy, FranceAntonio Pescapé, Italy Steef Peters, The Netherlands Paolo Petta, Austria José Adriano Pires, PortugalJacek Plodzien, Poland Geert Poels, Belgium Macario Polo, SpainBhanu Prasad, USA Ed Price, USAPedro Ramos, Portugal Ulrich Reimer, Switzerland Marinette Revenu, FranceSimon Richir, France António Rito-Silva, PortugalDavid Rivreau, France Pilar Rodriguez, SpainAgostinho Rosa, Portugal Gustavo Rossi, ArgentinaNarcyz Roztocki, USA Francisco Ruiz, SpainHenryk Rybinski, Poland Henry Samier, France Manuel Santos, Portugal Daniel Schang, France Arno Scharl, AustraliaMareike Schoop, Germany Hanifa Shah, UK Jianhua Shao, UK Timothy K. Shih, Taiwan Charles Shoniregun, UKAlberto Silva, PortugalMaria João Ferreira, Portugal

Conference Committee

xiv

Janice Sipior, USA Hala Skaf-Molli, France Liz Sokolowski, UK Chantal Soule-Dupuy, France Chris Stary, Austria Vijayan Sugumaran, USA Lily Sun, UKDavid Taniar, AustraliaSotirios Terzis, UK Philippe Thiran, The Netherlands Claudine Toffolon, France Robert Tolksdorf, Germany Ambrosio Toval, Spain Gulden Uchyigit, UKAntonio Vallecillo, Spain Luminita Vasiu, UK Christine Verdier, France

Maria-Amparo Vila, Spain HO Tuong Vinh, Viet Nam Aurora Vizcaino, Spain Hans Weghorn, Germany Gerhard Weiss, Germany Graham Winstanley, UK Wita Wojtkowski, USA Robert Wrembel, PolandBaowen Xu, ChinaHaiping Xu, USA Hongji Yang, UK Yoneo Yano, Japan Kokou Yetongnon, France Liping Zhao, UK Shuigeng Zhou, China Lin ZongKai, China

Invited Speakers

Richard Soley, Object Management Group, Inc., USA

Jan Dietz, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

Thomas Greene, MIT, USA

Rosalind W. Picard, MIT, USA

Henri Barki, HEC Montreal, Canada

Daniel Schwabe, Catholic University in Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), Brazil

M. Lynne Markus, Bentley University, USA

Raghavan N. Srinivas, Sun Microsystems, USA

Eduardo B. Fernandez, Florida Atlantic University, USA

Conference Committee

Invited Speakers

EIS IMPLEMENTATION RESEARCH: AN ASSESSMENT AND

SUGGESTIONS FOR THE FUTURE

Henri Barki Canada Research Chair in Information Technology Implementation and Management

HEC Montréal, 3000 chemin de la Côte-Ste-Catherine

Montréal, Québec, Canada H3T 2A7

Email: henri.barki@hec.ca

Keywords: Systems implementation, Acceptance and diffusion of innovations, Behavioral research.

Abstract: The implementation of information systems in organizations is a long standing research topic that has

preoccupied researchers ever since computer-based information systems started being used in businesses in

the early 1960s. However, despite more than 40 years of research, the implementation phenomenon

continues to present both practical and research difficulties. The present paper presents a broad overview

and assessment of past and current research on implementation, and provides suggestions for future research

that will help address some of the challenges implementation researchers currently face.

1 INTRODUCTION

The implementation of information systems in

organizations is a long standing research topic that

has preoccupied researchers ever since computer-

based information systems started being used in

businesses in the early 1960s. The initial motivation

for researching implementation phenomena

stemmed from the need to address the practical

difficulties that plagued most information system

development projects that organizations were

implementing at the time. While today’s information

system projects are less about development

conducted in-house, and more on configuring

integrated systems purchased from a vendor and

installed by a third party, they continue to suffer

from similar difficulties such as budget and schedule

overruns, and the frustration and lack of satisfaction

on the part of the users. For example, according to

Barki et al. (2005), ERP implementations are more

than 200% late and more than 170% over budget,

with 50% of ERP projects failing to achieve their

expected benefits and delivering less than 60% of

what is expected.

The objective of the present paper is to provide a

broad overview and assessment of past and current

research on the implementation of information

systems, and to provide suggestions for future

research that will help address some of the

challenges implementation researchers currently

face. It is important to note that the present paper’s

focus is on implementation research that adheres to

what Hevner et al. (2004) refers to as the behavioral

science paradigm. Research following this approach

is typically driven by the practical concerns and

difficulties encountered in practice. Its broad

objective is the improvement of organizational

efficiency and effectiveness via the introduction and

use of IT-based solutions. As such, it views

implementation broadly to include all stages of IT

adoption, diffusion, and use stages, from initial idea

to roll out and afterwards (Cooper and Zmud 1990;

Markus and Tanis 2000; Swanson and Ramiller

2004). It is concerned with the study of individual,

organizational, technological, and societal factors

that influence the introduction and use of IT-based

solutions in organizations. As such, behavioral

science implementation research is different from

research that follows the design science paradigm

(Hevner et al. 2004) whose focus is the creation of

intellectual and computational tools.

The next two sections of the paper provide a

broad summary and assessment of behavioral

implementation research of the last 40 years,

grouped into two categories labeled the Early Years

and the Middle Ages. This is followed by a

discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of past

research on implementation, as well as three

3

C.-S. Chen et al. (Eds.), Enterprise Information Systems VII, 3–10.

© 2006 Springer.

suggestions for improving the current state of research on this topic. Finally, the paper presents a summary of a presently ongoing research project as an example of one way in which two of these suggestions were operationalized.

2 BEHAVIORAL

IMPLEMENTATION

RESEARCH: THE EARLY

YEARS (1970S)

The beginnings of behavioral IS implementation research can be traced to the 1960s and the early studies that investigated the implementation failures of operations research and management science (OR/MS) solutions in organizations (Schultz and Slevin 1975). The main impetus for this line of research was the fact that many OR/MS solutions proposed by OR/MS researchers and practitioners were not being adopted or used by managers. In an effort to explain why managers were not interested in adopting solutions that seemingly could help organizations operate more efficiently, researchers began to identify and investigate the factors that influenced outcome variables such as adoption and use of OR/MS recommendations (Schultz and Slevin 1975). As most implementations of OR/MS solutions required the use of computers and entailed extensive programming, implementations of OR/MS solutions and computer-based information systems had many parallels and shared similar difficulties. What later came to be known as “factor studies” of IS implementations (Lucas 1981) were essentially an outgrowth of factor studies in OR/MS implementation.

The theoretical foundations of many IS implementation factor studies of the late 1960s and early 1970s can be traced to Churchman and Schainblatt (1965) who identified a lack of understanding between managers and the implementers (or the researchers) as a root cause of many implementation problems, and to Ackoff (1967) who identified the assumptions and myths surrounding these implementations as a root cause of implementation failures. As a result, early IS implementation studies typically tried to identify the factors that significantly influenced managers’ reactions to the introduction of IS in organizations and investigate their impact on outcomes such as system use, satisfaction, and system quality. Largely based on case studies and questionnaire-based field

studies, a key practical objective of these studies was to provide recommendations regarding how to manipulate different factors, such as user participation and user training, so as to achieve greater implementation success.

While no comprehensive study has examined the legacy of the early years of IS implementation research, three factors identified in that era stand out in terms of the consensus that has existed over the years regarding their importance. These factors are, top management support (Ginzberg 1981; Lucas 1981; Thong et al. 1996), user participation (Hartwick and Barki 2001; Ives and Olson 1984), and user training (Olfman and Pitsatorn 2000). While the general consensus regarding the significant influence these factors have on implementation success (however defined) has been relatively constant, even today these factors remain as disconnected elements with no meaningful theoretical linkages between them. In part as a response to the largely atheoretical nature of the implementation studies of the 1970s, beginning with the 1980s many researchers sought to study implementation phenomena by more strongly grounding their research in theory. However, given the dearth of theories in the IS field, and heeding the calls of senior researchers (Dickson et al. 1982), they borrowed established theoretical frameworks and models from reference disciplines.

3 BEHAVIORAL

IMPLEMENTATION

RESEARCH: THE MIDDLE

AGES (1980 TO NOW)

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the focus of implementation research began to shift from the study of the development and installation of transaction processing applications in organizations to the study of issues that were faced with the introduction of different system types, such as management information systems, decision support systems, and expert systems in the 1980s. Later, in the 1990s, the objects of implementation studies became more recently created technologies such as Case tools, EDI, data warehousing, and MRP/ERP systems. Note that, while the IT types being studied did change over the years, the implementation problems experienced had not: high project costs and scheduling delays, low usage and satisfaction

4 Henri Barki

levels continued to plague most implementation

projects (Kirsch 2000; Saga and Zmud 1994).

To address these recurrent IS implementation

concerns, and to base their inquiries on solid

theoretical footing, researchers borrowed existing

theories from related disciplines, and applied them

to the IT implementation context. One such theory

that has had considerable influence on

implementation research is the Theory of Reasoned

Action (Fishbein and Ajzen 1975) and its derivative,

the Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen 1991). TRA

and TPB were modified to better fit IT contexts via

the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) (Davis et

al. 1989) and later via UTAUT (Venkatesh et al.

2003), with TAM being studied by a large number

of researchers (Lee et al. 2003). Other theories that

have been borrowed include Social Cognitive

Theory (Bandura 1977) which was employed to

study the impact of self-efficacy on individual

behaviors, Diffusion of Innovations (Rogers 1983)

and Media Richness Theory (Daft et al. 1987) which

helped investigate the characteristics of IT that

influenced adoption decisions and behaviors,

Information Processing Theory (Galbraith 1974;

1977) and Control Theory (Ouchi 1979; Kirsch

1996) which were used to explain implementation

outcomes at the project and organizational levels.

In addition to grounding their studies on stronger

theoretical foundations, IS researchers also began to

recognize and increasingly adopt different

epistemologies and methodologies (Orlikowski and

Baroudi 1991; Walsham 1995). As noted by Markus

and Robey (1988), IS implementation phenomena

can be examined with at least three different visions

which they labeled technological imperative (a

deterministic view of technology and its impacts),

organizational imperative (a contingent view of

technology whereby its organizational impacts

depend on what humans do with it), and emergent

(an interaction view according to which it is the

mutual interaction of the technology and its context

that leads to difficult to predict impacts). An

increasing number of IS researchers thus began to

study implementation phenomena via such

alternative research paradigms, using both variance

and process approaches.

From a theoretical standpoint, the efforts of IS

implementation researchers of the last 25 years has

resulted in the development of several theoretical

models. Investigating the antecedents of users’

technology acceptance and usage behaviors has

attracted a lot of research effort (Agarwal 2000).

Originally derived from the Theory of Reasoned

Action (Fishbein and Ajzen 1975) and its later

version, the Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen

1991), these efforts have led to a variety of research

models which have recently been integrated in

UTAUT (Venkatesh et al. 2003), proposed as a

synthesis of past research on user acceptance.

According to this model, perceived usefulness,

perceived ease of use, social influences, and

facilitating conditions are four key constructs that

influence individuals’ usage of technology with their

respective effects being moderated by individual

difference variables such as experience, gender, and

age.

In addition to these integration efforts,

researchers have also tried to bridge the gap between

different research streams by integrating research on

technology acceptance, which typically focused on

usage behaviors, with research investigating

antecedents of user attitudes and satisfaction

(Wixom and Todd 2005). Other constructs have also

been identified as important influences on users’

acceptance of technology including computer self-

efficacy (Compeau and Higgins 1995), cognitive

absorption (Agarwal and Karahanna 2000), and trust

(Gefen et al. 2003).

From a practical standpoint, the findings of

earlier studies regarding the positive impact of user

participation, top management support, and user

training have also been generally confirmed (Larsen

2003). In addition, the significant positive impacts of

having a project champion (Beath 1991; Howell and

Higgins 1990), of adequately managing conflicts

(Barki and Hartwick 2001; Robey et al. 1993; Smith

and McKeen 1992), and of appropriate management

of project risks (Barki et al. 2001) have also been

empirically shown.

4 TAKING STOCK AND

SUGGESTIONS FOR THE

FUTURE

First, it is important to note that the constructs and

theoretical models that have emerged in the

implementation studies of the last 40 years are, for

the most part, independent on the nature of the IT

artifact being examined. While some factors may

have greater importance in certain contexts, many of

them such as top management support, user training,

conflict management, and risk management are

applicable to many implementation contexts,

ranging from the increasingly diminishing in-house

5An Assessment and Suggestions for the Future

IS development environments to the increasingly

more popular enterprise system implementations by

consultants. Thus, future research on implementation

stands to benefit more from focusing on theoretical

relationships between constructs than trying to

reinvent success factors of each new technology that

emerges over time.

Second, it can be noted that the behavioral IS

implementation studies of the last 40 years form a

research stream that today is characterized by strong

theoretical foundations, methodological rigor as well

as methodological multiplicity, and findings that

provide some useful guidelines to practitioners.

However, despite these advances, implementation

problems still continue to occur frequently and at

great cost, especially in the implementation of many

enterprise systems (Barki et al. 2005). The

continuing nature of technology implementation

problems suggests that, while our knowledge and

expertise in this domain may have increased over the

years, there is still a lot that we do not know and that

more research needs to be done. However, this

research needs to adopt a new stance if it is to yield

greater insight into technology implementation

phenomena.

Looking at the present state of our knowledge,

and the types of research articles that are being

published, one can not help but wonder whether our

current approaches to studying technology

implementations have reached their limits. In terms

of research methodology, both the variance and

process approaches of studying implementation

phenomena appear to have reached a stage where

they seem to be stagnating. For example, when

TAM was introduced in 1989 it provided a fresh

start for studying usage behaviors as a form of

system acceptance. Since then, however, a large

number of papers have been published to test, in

different contexts or with different IT types, the

original TAM model or slightly modified versions of

it that basically added one or more constructs to the

initial model. It is interesting to note that, after

synthesizing past research efforts on user

acceptance, the integrative UTAUT model proposed

by Venkatesh et al. (2003) is not very different from

Ajzen’s TPB. Thus, after 17 years of research on

user acceptance, we seem to have essentially

returned back to square one, which is not a very

encouraging sign of progress.

The introduction of Structuration Theory and

interpretivism to IS implementation research

(Orlikowski 1992; 1996; Orlikowski and Baroudi

1991; Walsham 1995) provided a qualitative

approach that enabled the study of implementation

phenomena with greater realism and by taking all its

complexities into account. The increased use of

positivist case study methods (Dubé and Paré 2003)

and other qualitative approaches have also enabled

researchers to examine IS implementations in

greater depth and detail (e.g., Beaudry and

Pinsonneault 2005; Lapointe and Rivard 2005).

However, the lessons learned from such process

approaches, while interesting in their own right,

have been generally difficult to mold into theories

that can be subjected to empirical testing. This is

especially difficult when most researchers who

adopt process approaches shun the adoption of

variance approaches in their research and stay

largely within their own theoretical and

epistemological silos. Note that many variance

researchers are guilty of the same given their

reluctance to conducting process studies. While

conceptually and methodologically more

challenging, efforts that combine both approaches

are also likely to help IS implementation research to

significantly advance from its current state.

In essence, the new stance that future

implementation research needs to adopt includes: 1)

Better conceptualizations of key constructs in

variance models so that they better reflect the

realism and richness inherent in actual IS

implementations. A potentially useful source for

doing so is the data and findings that are currently

available in past process research on

implementation; 2) As IS implementations involve

actions and outcomes at individual, project, and

organizational levels, we need to construct multi-

level theories that span all three levels. For example,

presently, most researchers theorize within a single

level, with same-level constructs in their research

models. By ignoring the significant constraints and

influences that variables at higher levels have on

lower level constructs, such single-level approaches

to theory building leave out an important part of

typical implementation contexts out of the research

equation; 3) IS implementations occur over a

relatively long period of time during which the

relationships between the constructs of a research

model may vary. For example, users’ satisfaction

with a system a year following roll out and after all

corrections and adjustments to the system have been

made may be different from their satisfaction right

after go live. More importantly, different constructs

and different model relationships may be needed to

explain what happens in the two time periods. Until

now, many researchers have ignored such time-

dependent relationships between their model

6 Henri Barki

constructs, with many of them using a static variance

model to explore relationships between constructs

that exist or occur at different time periods of an

implementation. Given the potential inaccuracy and

confound threats of such approaches, IS

implementation researchers need to explicitly take

into account the timing aspects of their model

constructs into their future modeling efforts.

5 A RESEARCH PROGRAM FOR

STUDYING A MULTI-STAGE

MODEL OF AN EXPANDED

CONCEPTUALIZATION OF

SYSTEM USE

This section of the paper provides an outline of an

ongoing research program that was undertaken to

address some of the shortcomings discussed in the

above paragraphs. The program focuses on the

development of a broad conceptualization and

assessment of the system use construct, and an

examination of its antecedents at different time

periods in IS implementations.

Information system use is a key dependent

variable when assessing various information

technology development and implementation

phenomena such as IT adoption, acceptance, and

diffusion (Agarwal 2000; Brancheau and Wetherbe

1990; DeLone and McLean 1992; Straub et al.

1995). The construct of individual-level IS use is

generally operationalized in terms of frequency,

duration, or variety of system functions used,

providing quantitative measures that are useful in

testing complex multivariate relationships. However,

this approach has important limitations including

their failure to consider the multidimensional nature

of IS use (Doll and Torkzadeh 1998), their lack of

relevance in mandatory use contexts (DeLone and

McLean 1992; 2003), their difficulty in specifying

what is "… the ideal, or at least sufficient, level of

use for a successful or effective IS?" (Szajna 1993,

p. 148), the fact that "Simply measuring the amount

of time a system is used does not properly capture

the relationship between usage and the realization of

expected results." (DeLone and McLean 2003, p.

16), and the fact that they miss "[...] much of the

richness present in organizational utilization

contexts." (Lassila and Brancheau 1999, p. 65)

These limitations indicate that "[…] prior measures

of system usage […] are inadequate from a

conceptual point of view." (Straub et al. 1995, p.

1339), and that "The problem to date has been a too

simplistic definition of this complex variable."

(DeLone and McLean 2003, p. 16)

Viewing individual-level IS use as a multi-

dimensional, behavioral construct can address some

of these shortcomings. Indeed, recently it has been

suggested that researchers adopt a comprehensive

conceptualization of users’ post-adoptive behaviors

by focusing on “…factors that influence users to

continuously exploit and extend the functionality

built into IT applications.” (Jasperson et al. 2005, p.

525) Other researchers have suggested that

"Technology acceptance outcomes need to be

extended to more formally include the notions of

adaptation, reinvention, and learning" (Agarwal

2000, p.102) Similarly, "emergent use" during IT

infusion has been defined as "[…] using the

technology in order to accomplish work tasks that

were not feasible or recognized prior to the

application of the technology to the work system."

(Saga and Zmud 1994, p. 80). This definition

suggests that the concept of emergent use includes

activities of adaptation and reinvention (Rice and

Rogers 1980), as well as learning behaviors. These

behaviors also constitute key behavioral components

of the individual cognition model of the recently

proposed conceptual model of post-adoptive

behavior (Jasperson et al. 2005).

Based on the above considerations, an initial

longitudinal study was conducted using a grounded

theory approach to examine the behaviors of twelve

users (located in different departments of a large

organization) and what they actually did in their

daily routines over an 18-month period as they used

a recently implemented ERP (Boffo 2005). Based on

the findings of that study, users’ system usage

behaviors were categorized into:

a. Task oriented usage. This category of use

behaviors includes users' interactions with an IS in

the accomplishment of their organizational tasks. It

includes active, hands-on employment of an IS as a

tool that supports the performance of an

organizational task, as well as the employment of an

IS through one or more intermediaries.

b. Adaptation oriented usage. This category

includes all user behaviors directed at changing or

modifying IT and how they will be deployed and

used in an organization. An underlying theme of

such behaviors is reinvention which reflects

deliberate modification-oriented and creative

activities which users of IT engage in (Johnson and

Rice 1987; Nambisan et al. 1999; Orlikowski 1996;

7An Assessment and Suggestions for the Future

Rice and Rogers 1980; Tornatzky et al. 1983; Tyre

and Orlikowski 1994). These can be further

categorized into (a) Technology adaptation: user

behaviors that change an IT that has been

implemented; (b) Operational adaptation: user

behaviors that change the way in which an

implemented IT operates; and (c) Organizational

adaptation: user behaviors that change how an IT is

used in the organization.

c. Learning oriented usage. As they learn how to

use a new technology, users interact with each other

and exchange information in order to adapt to new

ways of performing their tasks (Papa and Papa 1992;

Papa and Tracy 1988). They also engage in self-

directed learning behaviors such as browsing or

scanning a system (Vandenbosch and Higgins 1996).

This type of use can be categorized into (a)

Communication: interactions with other users or

professionals for information exchange; (b)

Independent exploration: information search

behaviors independently undertaken by users to

improve their knowledge and mastery of an IT that

has been implemented.

We think that the above categories of user

behaviors provide a comprehensive and meaningful

framework for conceptualizing the construct of

individual-level IS use. By providing a more

complete and richer representation of what

individual users do in terms of system use activities

and behaviors, this three-dimensional view of

system use can also be useful in explaining the

relationships between different facets of this usage

and other important IT implementation constructs.

For example, each facet of use can be separately

examined with existing models of user acceptance in

order to better explain and understand the

antecedents of users’ adaptation and learning

behaviors. To further explore this idea, we

undertook a longitudinal study to test a two-stage

UTAUT model with IS use conceptualized as the

three-dimensional construct described above, and

measured at two time periods: the first immediately

after go live, and the second after system use

becomes routinized. A key hypothesis of the study is

that users’ task oriented use, adaptation, and learning

behaviors in the first time period will influence their

perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, social

norms, and perceived behavioral control (i.e., the

antecedents of task oriented use in UTAUT) at time

period two. These in turn are hypothesized to

influence users’ task oriented use, adaptation, and

learning behaviors in the second time period.

As can be seen, the above research program

attempts to address the shortcomings of past IS

implementation research by (1) conceptualizing IS

use with an approach that captures its inherent

complexity and realism (a conceptualization made

possible by combining process and variance research

approaches), and (2) a variance model that reflects

the time-dependent nature of the relationships

between implementation constructs. While it

presently does not address the multi-level aspects of

IS implementations, efforts are also being made in

that direction with the hope that the research

program summarized here will provide a first step in

the development of the next stage in IS

implementation research.

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10 Henri Barki

CHANGING THE WAY THE ENTERPRISE WORKS

Operational Transformations

Thomas J. Greene Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory,(CSAIL) at MIT, 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge.MA, USA

E-mail: tjg@csail.mit.edu

Keywords: information revolution, enterprise, operational transformation.

Abstract: The communication and information revolution is caused by a fast changing sets of technologies that have already caused changes in the enterprise. Furthermore the expectations of the "customers" of the enterprise have changed because of personal use of the internet and web. Customers expect the Time of response for any transaction to be instantaneous. Managing the pace of change is today’s big enterprise problem. The technologies of computers, networks, software that enable very fast response are complex and themselves fast changing .To use the new versions of technologies requires both learning new skills and changing internal operational procedures. Operational Transformation is the next frontier of business advantage. Because of global competition in uncertain times, Any enterprise of any size must be configured to change; change the way they conduct business and change basic operations. Failure to do this will mean losing to competitors who do change. These issues will be examined and a possible solution to the problem offered.

1 INTRODUCTION

We can all agree that this new millennium is already characterized by change both on a human level and a technology level. The information explosion continues at a forever-increasing pace. In order for our enterprise systems to be successful in this ever-changing world; we need to look at our systems in a different and more flexible manner. In the following presentation, I would like, with you, to explore what the problems of this accelerated change may be; where we are now in our design of systems; and where we need to be in the near future.

During this presentation we will consider the following:

A short history of people and technologySome abstractions for Enterprise Managers The Forces causing faster change Why your Models need both open design and event monitors Why the enterprise must be nimble in accessing updates and Changes.

I first spoke at an ICEIS conference in 1999 and at that time I spoke of the changes that were occurring, but even then I could not predict the intensity of those changes and the pace at which they would occur. Let us begin by looking at a short history of people and technology.

1.1 People Growth

In the time of Julius Caesar (35 BCE) there were

world. Now in 2000 A.D. the population of the

occur in a straight line or in an even distribution.

It took until 1800 for the first billion people then from that time to the year 2000, the population has increase to the present population of 6 billion, a mere 200 years for the earths population to increase times 6. When we look at the distribution of the population, we see that the US, Canada, and Western Europe have only 17% of the population. Asia has 61%, Latin America; 9%, and Africa; 13%.

11

C.-S. Chen et al. (Eds.), Enterprise Information Systems VII, 11–17.

© 2006 Springer.

said to be a total of 150 million people living in the

world is 6 billion people. This increase did not

Figure 1: Billions of people.

At a critical time during this population boom, it was felt that this world would not be able to sustain this growth because of an inability to feed these numbers. It was because of a scientific discovery that enabled a substantial increase in the amount of grains that could be grown, that this dire prediction did not become a reality. Even with that we continue to live in a world were millions go hungry. In Sept 2002, an article appeared in the HBR on Serving the World’s Poor, Profitably. A novel model proposed by an enterprise to respond to the ever-growing problem of world hunger, while continuing to consider the necessity of profitability of the enterprise.

1.2 Technology Growth

Figure 2: Technology growth.

Along with the population growth and change, we have also seen consistent change in the rate of growth of technology. In 3000 BCE, we see the abacus being used for calculations. A number of years ago they used to have a competition between someone using an abacus and someone using a calculator to ascertain the amount of time it took for numerical calculation. The abacus always won.

In the 1400’s we saw the invention of the Guttenberg Press enabling the masses access to the written word. The first time a radio wave was used for communication was with the invention of the telegraph in 1837 and then the telephone in 1876. In 1948 the first transistor was manufactured.

The WWW initially was very successful for moving technical text around the world, but it wasn’t until 1994, when graphic capability was established that the Web became the force in society that it is today. In 2000, we had the successful draft of the human genome, which will enable great strides in the understanding of the structure and biology of humankind, which could contribute to the ability to cure some of the most difficult diseases in the world.

As we can see then, the pace of change in population and technology has been extremely fast and continues to accelerate at an every increasing pace today and in the future. The amount of information available to us at this time is often overwhelming, so today’s enterprises must find ways to access and use this information and technology to promote growth.

2 ABSTRACTIONS TO MANAGE

COMPLEXITY

Let us now look at some abstractions for enterprise managers, which will assist in understanding the rate of technological change and respond.

2.1 The Phase Change Metaphor

When we look at information space, let us consider a water molecule as metaphor. A water molecule can exist in different phases, and as it changes phases its world becomes very different. Suppose this molecule is in its solid state. His neighbours are constant and easily found. When this molecule finds itself in a liquid stage, he finds that he still has neighbors, but they are dynamic and many other molecule are flowing by. In the gaseous state, the molecule finds no neighbors, and other molecules are moving away in all directions. That is where we find ourselves at the present time; in a gaseous state.

We all now Moore’s law that states the rate of information doubles every two years. Since the inception of the network, information through the network is doubling every 18 months. The speed of travel of information has also evolved over time from the use of the spoken word; then the ability to

12 Thomas J. Greene

write and send letters; then the move to the use of the horse and then phone which allowed us to transmit information at the speed of sound (600mph) Now with the use of the internet, we send information by the speed of light (186,000mps).

2.2 Change as Transforms

Perhaps thinking of the transformation being caused by transforms. The abstract state can be any set of properties or objects, e.g. color, letters, people.

Let us say that A=blue, or 50 lbs or 10 men and B=red, 20 lbs and 15 women.

A process has occurred that changed A to B. This process may involve ideas, people, machines, or paintbrushes. Call T. That is B = Top A. Some us may consider this as Hibert space or Linear Algebra. However you define it; it is just a powerful picture.

2.3 Business Process Management

Figure 3: Business Process Management.

The processes we are concerned with in the business enterprise has its roots in the:

”

process managed real-time enterprise”, that is you buy an item, add value, and sell it at a profit. Business Process Management takes the islands of knowledge,, data, business rules and applications that represent core enterprise activities and unites then into an information system that is accessable to ordinary business people to help them get work done. This is accomplished through a process-oriented architecture which begins with information services that moves to integration and interaction services which become collaboration services. These processes must be scalable in real time and agile.

The future is in connecting across industries to provide new services from complementary enterprises.

Figure 4: Process Oriented architecture.

3 FORCES CAUSING

ENTERPRISE CHANGES

What are some of the forces that are causing the acceleration of change. The big buzz word at the end of the last century and beginning of this century has been globalization. We became distracted from this process of globalization by a number of events in the beginning of this millennium. One was the famous dot.com “bubble”. Innovation and investment moved at very rapid pace and some companies did not have substancial products and customers.. Start up companies were popping up everywhere and a lot of people were making a lot of money. A university administer was quoted as having said.” There will be no classes today, the faculty has all called in rich!”. Then the “bubble” burst and the energy needed to recover from that was deflected away from the development of globalization. Another factor was “9/11” which brought the entire world to somewhat of a standstill in which the global economy and our concepts of being citizens of the world was truly shaken. Following that, there was a breakdown of trust in large corporations resulting from the scandals in the operation of big business.

However, at the same time, the interconnectedness that continued growing because of the network and the WWW enabled information to flow across all boundries of geography and language.

13Changing the Way the Enterprise Works

3.1 Unconstrained Barriers

Distance, Language, Time

You were now able to innovate without emigrating. Distance is no longer an issue; language is no longer an issue, and design and innovation cant occur anywhere and be instantly available for use everywhere. On the other side of that, any economic incident, legislation, strike , or medical discovery

effect your Enterprise both positively and negatively.

In recent times we can see how information flows freely and instantly around the Globe.

We were witness to the last days of the Pope and were present outside the Sistine Chapel waiting for the results of the election.

The relief effort during the Tsunami disaster was able to be immediately set in motion as we watched in real time a tragedy of epic proportion unfold.

The events of 9/11 galvanized the world. We follow elections in Britain, Iraq, and

Palestine, because they have global impact Technology has made us into a global

community and we must evolve our systems to reflect that reality.

Recently Thomas Friedman has published a book the states that Columbus was wrong…the world is not round, but the world, in respects to the information space at least, is flat…and becoming flatter.

3.2 The Big Changes

Let us look at some of the realities of today’s world that support that concept of a FLAT WORLD. China and India are now on-line. Remember back to the percentages of world populations with Asia having 61% of the population. These countries as they enter the cyber world in a big way, will require new systems and increased resources; The concern of China over the growing economy of Taiwan will only grow. Technology is going to continue to grow and change the face of the world as we know it, and enterprises will have to react in a proactive way or they will not survive. The world’s consumers will continue to look for maximum value in a cheaper, better product. And they will expect it at an ever-faster rate.

Other factors that support the concept of the FLAT EARTH are becoming more and more evident.

Language barriers are down. Computer systems provide translation in multiple languages at the touch of a mouse.

Figure 5: The Google translator.

Translations of small and large amounts of text are easily done. The languages now offered at Google include Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, and Korean, Japanese and Chinese. Native speakers tell me that there is room for improvement in the quality of translations, but a quick peak into the document the scholar or curious layman can reveal whether the material is relevant and worth pursuing. This is a very different world and more languages are being added. Soon Russian will be available.

When I was a graduate student in the 1960’s the translation time from Russian to English was done by the American Physical Society. The time delay was 6 months and many experiments were duplicated because the translation had not been available in time. Now a push of a button and the information is there, to first order.

Figure 6: Some Sample Translations.

14 Thomas J. Greene

anywhere on the Globe can directly and immediately

3.3 Examples of Information Space

Flatness

Information is easily assessable and can be excessive. I saw an ad for a disk containing 10,000 books for $9:00. A whole library at my fingertips. I had to have it. I then found a disk that has instruction in 35 languages. In both those examples, there is more information than I could process in a lifetime.

3.3.1 Everyone is a Journalist-BLOGGING

The BLOG where people can tell the story of there lives and you can read it if so moved. Recently BLOGGING directly effected the change in administration at the National lab in Los Alamos. Employees were Blogging to each other regarding the practices of the head administrator. The federal government read these blogs and the administrator was replaced. Pretty powerful stuff.

3.3.2 World Goods

A rather strange example that I came upon recently was an article stating that statues of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico were now being made in China.

We all know that new bad word, “Outsourcing”. Your ‘help’ desk may be anywhere on the globe, and your new payroll program may come from India.

3.3.3 University Courses

A University education is free and instantly accessible. Certification is still the issue , but the information is accessible MIT began putting it’s courses on line 5 years ago. That provides everyone with being able to access the information and use it in any way they choose. They will not receive any certification for that learning, but the material is there for self study by all. Let us consider this again later

3.3.4 Personal Effects

People can make direct phone calls from the Amazon River .On a more personal note, my energy bill has doubled in 12 months because of situations across the world over which I have no control., such

immediately and directly connected to my daily life.

4 OPEN INFORMATION

The trend toward information openness is also a challenge in dealing with the level of available information.

4.1 Open Courses at MIT OCW

We have already mentioned the fact that MIT has made available Open Course Ware about five years ago. At present four new universities are offering their own Open Course Ware.

Figure 7: MIT’s Open Course Ware project.

The traffic on the MIT OSW website shows not only a frequency in the millions, but also a distribution of hits world-wide.

4.2 Open Software – LINUX Plus

More that 25 years ago the concept of Open Source Ware was being developed with the Emacs project. The term used to label the openness of the source ware was that academics held this material by “copyleft” instead of “copy right” and the material was held in the public domain. This enabled other users to actually change the software to better implement it to their needs and the only restriction was that they must give away their improved version, and reference the original.

4.3 DSpace - Open University

Research

More recently there has been a move towards the concepts of “creative commons” and “science commons”. Basically this would enable the Academy to keep the copyright on materials and keep them in the public domain. This would enable

15Changing the Way the Enterprise Works

global events as Wars, weather, elections, etc. are

the public to use these materials for both creative and scientific endeavors. In the past ten years the cost of professional journals has doubled. In response to this, the concept of DSPACE has been developed. The DSPACE Federation would coordinate planning, development, research and distribution of DSPACE in an open source digital repository. They also encourage digital archiving to provide open access to scientific literature.

Figure 8: DSPACE.

5 THE ENTERPRISE -

CHALLENGED

I hope it has become evident to you as we went through these material that there are many challenges to the Enterprise to enable it to remain relevant and timely in new developments. Some of

Extreme competition Globalization Rapidly changing technologies Forces beyond our control (world events are now

directly coupled with your activities)

The Enterprise response must be a flexible, nimble, continuous self-educating, new models. These models now need world monitoring capabilities and open design to be nimble to keep with up new developments and uncontrollable

An article in The McKinsey Quarterly (23 May 2005) described what the responses to these challenges must be:

“Established companies should brace themselves for a future of extreme competition which may make

the pressures of the 1980s and the 1990s look tame in comparison. Incumbents must understand how powerful forces are aggregating the once-distant product and geographic markets, enhancing market-clearing efficiency, and increasing specialization in the supply chain. They should respond by adopting a new approach strategy-one that combines speed, openness, flexibility, and forward focused thinking.

Mature companies must learn to be young at heart. Boundless new opportunities await executives who recognize that days of slow change are over.”

Again the responses must be a flexible, nimble, continuous self- educating, new models. These model now need world monitoring capabilities for timely updates. The enterprise must create almost “real time” operational changes or they will cease to exist.

Every local working enterprise then must be “global in thinking”. An example of a 21st century value network is a project called GLORIAD. Here, the network is the value-delivery system. GLORIAD is the first optical fiber network research and education network encircling the globe.

5.1 Across the Generations

The enterprise must not only integrate its efforts across the space of the globe, but also across the time of the ages in its workforce. The accelerating change effects we have seen above have had significant effects on the generations that are now in our work force. In a recent article in the student paper TECH TALK (2 Feb 2005) results of a study were given. “The generations at work” found that there are four co-existing generations in the workplace today. They divided the workforce into four groups:

“Matures” born between (1909 and 1945) – Matures are the silent generation. They value sacrifice, commitment, and financial and social conservatism. They remember the depression. They are the establishment.

“Boomers” born between (1946 and 1964)-Boomers value themselves. They are competitive and anti-authority. They grew up with Vietnam, Watergate, and Woodstock. They have high expectations. They’re diplomatic, loyal and want validation. And they value privacy.

16 Thomas J. Greene

these challenges are:

Changes.

“Gen Xers” born between (1965 and 1978). Gen Xers were the first latchkey kids. There entrepreneurial, pragmatic, straightforward. They grew up with

“Millennials” born from (1978 and onward)-The Millennials are nontraditionalists, optimistic, and very community centered. They are technologically adept and very busy, busy. They grew up with the OJ Simpson trial, Columbine, and 9/11. They are versatile and they write blogs about their lives.

To the Enterprise this means that co-workers and customers may have fundamentally differentapproaches to work, teamwork, privacy, respect for authority, and values., and customers are not a single collection of people.

5.2 Globalization as a New

Marketplace

When we look at the world population-income distribution, it shows us that a small percentage occupies the top of the pyramid with incomes of over 20, 000. Most companies concentrate on doing business with the very tip of the pyramid and completely ignore the business potential at its base. What they lack in income, could be more than overcome by the sheer numbers-over 4 billion strong.

5.3 The Biggest Challenge

Fifty percent of finding strategic advantages for the Enterprise is learning how to use our technologies.

The other fifty percent is how fast the human component of the Enterprise can absorb change. Not solving both issues can be a problem.

In conclusion, “The World is Flat” in information space and the new enterprise must learn to live with it to be able to survive global competition.

REFERENCES

Diamond J. (1997). Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. New York, Norton,

Friedman., Thomas L. (2000) The Lexus and the olive tree

New York : Anchor Books,Friedman., Thomas L. (2005) The world is flat : a brief

history of the twenty-first century. : Waterville, Me Thorndike Press,

Barabasi, A-L (2002), LINKED: The New Science of

Networks, Perseus, Cambridge, MA Slywotzky, (2000) Adrian and David Morrison How

digital is your business?

New York : Crown Business, Naisbitt., John, (1982) Megatrends : ten new directions

transforming our lives New York : Warner Books, Toffler, Alvin (1980) . The Third Wave / New York :

Morrow, 1980.

17Changing the Way the Enterprise Works

Fingar, Peter and Howard Smith (2003) , Business Process

Management (BPM): The Third Wave

MIT s Open Courseware: http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html Google Translator: http://www.google.com/language_ tools?hl=en

DSpace at MIT: http://libraries.mit.edu/dspace-mit/World population Growth: http://www.prb.org/content/ navigationMenu/PRB/Educators/Human_Population/ population_Growth/Population_Growth.htm

Technology Timeline: http://www.efn.org/~peace/ past/ spiral/

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AIDS, MTV, PCs, divorce.