Alan R. Peslak

The impact of personality on information technology team projects

Information technology projects are almost always team efforts. Many factors influence the way that teams can successfully accomplish their objectives. One of these influences is the personality of the individual team members. This report explores some of the relationships between personality and information technology (IT) team issues and outcomes. A pilot study of university students reviews the role of personality in two major areas - team processes and overall success of the team project. A simplified classification based on MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) is used to categorize personality types. One of the dependent variables is success on team projects as measured by the team outcome. In addition, a comprehensive construct measuring team processes is studied. A third area studied is the personality diversity within a team. Preliminary findings and relationships from the study are reviewed.

Enterprise resource planning success: An exploratory study of the financial executive perspective

Purpose – To explore the views of top corporate financial executives on the success of implementation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems as well as the variables associated with ERP project success. Specifically, relationships between dependent variables cost and budget performance on the independent variable overall project success are studied. Variables influencing cost and time performance are also explored.Design/methodology/approach – An analysis of secondary data obtained from the 2003 financial executives international comprehensive survey‐based research on technology issues for financial executives. Multiple regression analysis and other statistical methods are used.Findings – The findings indicate that ERP implementations are generally viewed as moderately successful by top financial executives. In addition, both cost and time were significantly correlated with an overall view of success with cost performance holding higher influence. Several variables were found to significantly corre...

Internet Privacy Policies of the Largest International Companies

This article is a review of Internet privacy policies of the world’s largest companies. The report begins with a background on the right to privacy and privacy issues arising out of Internet usage. Attempts to regulate Internet privacy and self-regulatory effectiveness also are reviewed. The methodology for this study is to update and extend Internet privacy analysis by analyzing Web sites of the largest international companies (Forbes International 100) for inclusion of fair information practices. In addition, a collection of consumer-centered practices is defined and studied. The general finding is that within Forbes International 100, fair information practices and consumer-centered privacy policies are not being followed closely. It is also found that large U.S. firms are more likely to publish a privacy policy on their Web site. Finally, if a large international firm does publish a privacy policy on its Web site, the level of compliance with fair information practices and consumer-centered policies is not significantly different between U.S. and non-U.S. firms. Implications of the study for researchers and practitioners are reviewed.

Internet Privacy Policies: A Review and Survey of the Fortune 50

Privacy on the Internet has been of increasing concern with the explosive growth of electronic commerce. A series of past surveys by the Federal Trade Commission and other organizations measured the implementation of fair information practices and industry self-regulation of privacy. This report includes two important additional factors in the review-enforcement and simplicity. Using this more comprehensive analysis, this article reviews the current Internet privacy polices of the 50 largest US companies.

Organizational information systems: Rate of return and influencing variables as viewed by top financial executives

Purpose – The overall purpose of this paper is to analyze variables that influence how top financial executives view their return on information technology (IT) investment in their organizations. Specifically, relationships between a series of independent variables are measured against the dependent variable overall return on its technology investment. The goal is to determine what contributes to IT success in an organization so that all organizations can focus attention where needed and improve their IT operations.Design/methodology/approach – An analysis of secondary data obtained from the 2003 Financial Executives International (FEI) comprehensive survey‐based research on technology issues for financial executives was conducted. The study was carried out by the FEI and Computer Sciences Corporation. Regression analysis and other statistical methods were used.Findings – The findings suggest that overall information return is rated medium to high by top financial executives. Variables that significantly ...

Information technology team achievement

Purpose – This paper sets out o determine influences on team performance processes and develop an overall team success model (TSM).Design/methodology/approach – A total of 55 individual students grouped in 18 teams, ranging in size from two to five, were measured at several stages in semester‐long team projects. Forty‐four separate questions were studied in each measurement stage. These 44 questions were reduced to five factors through exploratory factor analysis (EFA). Structural equation modeling (SEM) was then used to determine the significance and interrelationships of these factors, as well as the influence of gender and grade point average (GPA).Findings – This research develops and validates a series of factors that lead to IT team success. The factors include emotions, personal processes, and team processes. The overall R2 of the final model was high at 0.601. Significant relationships were found between many factors. GPA had a positive impact on team processes, while negative emotions showed a ne...

Emotions and team projects and processes

Purpose – To explore the relationships between emotions and overall team processes and task performance.Design/methodology/approach – The work begins with a literature review of the major studies performed on emotions and their affects on teams. This study then specifically surveys a group of information technology student teams at various stages of a term‐long project to determine their level of feelings in 15 separate emotions at each stage. Also measured are effects of emotions on attitudes towards team processes. Regression analysis was used to measure the significance of several hypotheses.Findings – Overall findings specifically measured the five hypotheses. It was found that team emotions at the start of the project are more positive than negative. Negative emotions grow more than positive over the life of the project. Emotions show increased intensity over the life of the project. Initial emotions did not significantly affect overall team processes. Final emotions somewhat affected overall team pr...

The Phases of ERP Software Implementation and Maintenance: A Model for Predicting Preferred ERP Use

Nearly all information technology educators and practitioners are familiar with the concept of a systems development life cycle (SDLC). The SDLC model is mainly based on new software development. The stages vary based on methodology, but mostly include planning and requirements definition, analysis, design of the new system, implementation, and post-implementation support such as maintenance and security. Less explored and known are the stages involved in commercial off the shelf installation. The actual implementation of commercial off the shelf software ERP (enterprise resource planning) systems is an area that is suggested to have a life cycle of its own. The importance of specific phases of this ERP implementation life cycle is the subject of this study. By surveying SAP enterprise resource planning implementations at two divisions of a major manufacturing company, a confirmatory factor analysis confirms the existence of four distinct phases of ERP implementation — preparation and training, transition, performance and usefulness, and maintenance. In addition, the overall preferred ERP use is studied and compared with these factors. It was found that the two significant phases which directly influenced preferred ERP use were preparation and training phase, and performance and usefulness phase. Neither transition nor maintenance was found to significantly affect preferred ERP use. This suggests to practitioners that more focus needs to be placed on the key determinants of preferred ERP use — preparation and training phase, and performance and usefulness phase.

An analysis of critical information technology issues facing organizations

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore and analyze the views of top financial executives on the information systems (IS) in their organizations and to study the critical information technology issues facing organizations. Specifically, it aims to study critical issues over the period 2006 to 2010, as well as the effect of company size on the criticality of issue.Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses an analysis of secondary data obtained from the 2006 and 2010 Financial Executives International (FEI) comprehensive survey‐based research on technology issues for financial executives. The study was conducted by the FEI and in conjunction with Computer Sciences Corporation in 2006. Factorial analysis of variance (ANOVA) and other statistical methods are used.Findings – The findings confirm critical issues that are facing organizations today. The study also finds that company size generally does not play a significant role in the criticality of information technology (IT) issues and that gene...

Privacy policies of the largest privately held companies: a review and analysis of the forbes private 50

This study reviews the Internet privacy policies of the 50 largest privately held companies in the US as identified by Forbes magazine. The study builds on work of prior researchers who analyzed popular and random e-commerce websites. In this study, the websites of privately held firms were reviewed and analyzed for the inclusion of the Federal Trade Commissions Fair Information Practices as well as a series of other consumer-centered factors. A comparison was also made between the policies of largest US publicly traded companies and the privately held companies. Overall the study finds that privately held companies do not demonstrate consistency in following Fair Information Practices or consumer-centered Internet policies. Also, the 50 largest privately held companies are generally less likely to publicly reveal their policies relative to Fair Information Practices or consumer-centered policies than the 50 largest publicly held companies. This is due to a large extent to lack of any privacy policies for many privately held companies. If only those companies with privacy policies are analyzed, two factors show significant differences between public and private company privacy policies.