Alessandro Zardini

The Role of ECM and its Contribution in Decision-Making Processes

The aim of this paper is to investigate the correlation between competitive advantage, associated with the improvement of the decision-making process, and knowledge management through Enterprise Content Management (ECM) platforms. As a result of our study we found that ECM platforms can be seen, as Decision Support Systems as they increase the quantity and the quality of the information needed by the decision makers and the decision processes. This study also analyses how organizations tend to modify their processes according to their capability in managing information.

Value Assessment of Enterprise Content Management Systems: A Process-oriented Approach

Organisations are facing an incredibly increasing amount of content to be efficiently captured, organised and archived. As a result, Enterprise Content Management (ECM) has emerged as a top business priority during the past years. However, only a few academic reports present common guidelines for evaluating and justifying the choice for a certain ECM solution in terms of economic benefits. This paper is based on the perception that such guidelines particularly should take an organisation’s business process structure into account, since an ECM adoption causes significant changes in work procedures. Consequently, we consider an established business process-oriented framework for profitability analysis of IS and apply it to the context of ECM. An application example serves as an illustration of the concept.

Developing Municipal e-Government in Italy: The City of Alfa Case

The paper aims to analyze the new trends in the public administration’s way of doing government business. Specifically, it takes stock of the various actions developed to modernize the administrative and management structures of public companies (PA) and their outcomes. The modernization effort is the result of two macro actions: public administration reforms and the successive pervasion of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). The e-Government process is driven by ICTs and the search for a new way to govern. Given that many aspects of the reforms highlight the PA’s multifaceted nature, the outcome of the phenomenon also needs to be defined and studied by taking into account how it straddles the technological, organizational, managerial, informatics, relational and cultural dimensions. The paper analyzes a case study of e-Government implementation in a mid-sized municipality in Northern Italy; the aim is to understand how Italy’s new reforms and the advent of ICTs have shaped the City of Alfa’s route to change.

Enabling Factors for SaaS Business Intelligence Adoption: A Theoretical Framework Proposal

The research question of this study attempts to identify which are the enabling factors for the adoption of a sourcing SaaS (Software as a Service) model for Business Intelligence applications. The objective of this paper is to propose a model containing enabling factors for the adoption of BI solutions. We seek to expand on the Benlian et al. model [1] which is based on a theoretical framework including axioms from Transaction Cost Theory, Resource Based View and Theory of Planned Behavior. It is a theoretical research in progress which provides a first step towards a qualitative approach, based on case study, for the practical evaluation of the proposed model. The new model will consider all the three categories of factors: organizational, economic and technological and their relationships with the hypotheses explained in the paper.

The implementation of a Performance Management System in the Italian Army

The last reform program in the Italian public sector was realized by legislative decree 150/2009 that introduced the performance cycle, to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the public organizations. The performance and its evaluation is one of new public management (NPM) pillars [1]. Control and accountability play an invaluable role in the institutional and organizational change [2]. The Italian Army is involved in this changing process, as well as the other public organizations, by implementing a performance management system (PMS), in order “to do more with less” [3]. By now, the army is in the middle of this process, several steps have been made, but furthers and more critics are going to be done to implement an effective Decision Support System (DSS). This article aims to respond to the following question: How is the Italian Army implementing PMS and what is its impact on the organization?

When the Law Shapes Nonprofit Boards The Key Role of Local Stakeholders

The study investigates how governance mechanisms can affect community representation within nonprofit organizations, focusing on Italian Bank Foundations where the community is on board by law. To investigate what governance arrangements increase substantive and symbolic representation, the study adjusts Guo and Musso’s framework by considering several formal mechanisms for appointing board members and the residence of board members as a new aspect of descriptive representation. A content analysis of the statutes and an email survey show that formal mechanisms contribute to substantive representation, whereas descriptive and participatory arrangements enhance symbolic representation. In addition, this study explores the moderating influence of local stakeholders in appointing board members, offering a wider point of view on the relationships among the five dimensions of representation.

E-Health and Value Co-creation: The Case of Electronic Medical Record in an Italian Academic Integrated Hospital

The objective of the paper is to study the use of service science to create a systematic service innovation in the health environment. Starting from the basic abstraction of service science, which is considered as value co-creation when people, technology and value propositions are connected by internal and external service systems and shared information [1], the paper aims to explain the benefits of the electronic medical record (EMR) and its business and organizational impacts in an Italian Academic Integrated Hospital. The research method is based on a case study and on connected semi-structured interviews. The qualitative study shows the co-created value, i.e. the impacts of introduction and development (consolidation) of EMR on efficacy and efficiency of the organization, on data collection and processing, error reduction, sustainability of SSN (national health service) and especially the better quality of services to the citizens.

The relational capital of the IT department

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to shed light on how the relational capital of the information technology (IT) department creates value in organizations. In addition, the paper presents a multi-dimensional scale to measure and manage relational capital in the IT department. Design/methodology/approach – In the first, explorative phase of the study, interviews and focus groups were conducted in order to develop a new measurement scale, which was subsequently tested through a survey questionnaire (212 respondents). Findings – This research suggests that the relational capital of the IT department is a very important resource for the creation of strategic value. The statistical analysis conducted for this study confirmed the validity and reliability of the novel scale developed to measure this resource. Finally, thanks to factor analysis, five dimensions for the scale were identified. Research limitations/implications – Data were collected in northern Italy only. Further studies are advisable to confi...

Improving the Introduction of Electronic Health Record: Lessons from European and North American Countries

The Electronic Health Record (EHR) has many advantages and its introduction is, at the moment, in different stages of progress in various European countries. Reasons such as historic paths, elements and procedures of her affect the progress stages, including issues of law, politics and economics strengths and weakness of national systems. A shared observation among countries underscores the value that can be co-created by the interaction between doctors, nurses, and patients. Certainly the technology has an important role in this value co-creation, facilitating the exchange of information, reducing errors, and enabling more effective and appropriate treatments. We present finally the concrete case of Kaiser Permanente, showing how the interaction between the healthcare providers, patients and demonstrating the ensuing value in improved health for people.

The Impact of the Implementation of the Electronic Medical Record in an Italian University Hospital

In the last years the use of the information communication technology (ICT) has become a leading driver of managerial reform in the public sector [1] and in particular in the healthcare system [2]. In particular, the Electronic Medical Record (EMR) is one of the most studied ICT systems in the healthcare management literature. Using the Zaharia et al. model [3], in this study we investigate the implementation of a core element of the EMR, in an university hospital, the deployment of which is expected to spur internal efficiency and pave the way for the development of the principles in other departments and/or hospitals. It then analyses the organizational impacts of EMRs on the healthcare provider’s structure.