Catherine Usoff

The importance of intellectual capital and its effect on performance measurement systems

The first objective of this paper is to provide evidence concerning the relationship between selected organizational characteristics and the perceived importance of intellectual capital. The second objective is to relate the relative importance of intellectual capital to characteristics of the organization’s performance measurement systems. Due to their in‐depth knowledge of their entities’ business operations, internal auditors are used to provide the data for this study. The results of a survey administered to 54 internal auditors indicate that the industry of a company is not related to that company’s attitude about intellectual capital. The size of the internal audit department is related to a company’s attitude about intellectual capital. Companies with larger internal audit departments believe that intellectual capital is very important. Finally, the evidence suggests that business performance measurement systems are being implemented to a larger extent at entities that place a greater emphasis on intellectual capital.

A longitudinal study of applicable decision aids for detailed tasks in a financial audit

This paper reports on changes in the extent to which decision aids are perceived to be useful for performing detailed financial audit tasks. The decision aids investigated were automation (AU), decision support systems (DSS), and knowledge-based expert systems (KES). Data were collected from highly experienced mangers and partners from various international accounting firms in 1988 and 1996. The participants were asked to select the decision aid they viewed as applicable for each task in a comprehensive inventory of audit tasks. While the data indicate an increase in the choice of tasks for decision aids use between the two years, the fact remains that a majority of the responses (79% in 1988 and 69% in 1996) indicated human processing (HP) only. We present a list of detailed tasks for which at least 50% of the responses indicated some form of an applicable decision aid in 1996. We also discuss implications for practice and research. Copyright

Modelling physical barriers to interorganisational system implementation success

For interorganisational systems to provide benefits to all partner organisations typically requires well designed internal systems and processes and integration between enterprise systems and the IOS. Organisations frequently do not make these investments and the resulting physical implementation details, such as duplicated data storage, manual reentry of data and other workarounds, lead to less than optimal benefits. This paper describes an approach to modelling interorganisational business processes that can be used by process and system designers to diagnose and correct physical barriers to the success of interorganisational system. The modelling approach is illustrated with an example of an actual interorganisational system that exhibited less than optimal benefits owing to physical implementation barriers.

Pilot-Testing Inter-Organizational Systems to Reveal Relational Feasibility Issues

Abstract: Pilot test projects often examine technical, operational, and economic feasibility of new systems. When inter-organizational systems are pilot-tested, it is helpful to also examine relational feasibility. We report on relational feasibility issues identified in two IOS pilot tests in the context of emergency medicine. Lessons learned and implications for using pilot tests to assess relational feasibility in health care and other domains are discussed.