Graham Pervan

The practice of IS/IT benefits management in large Australian organizations

Information systems and technology investments in organizations are substantial and growing. While formal methodologies and techniques for computing investments are generally used, relatively less formality is applied to managing and realizing their benefits. Part of an ongoing research programme, this paper examines a number of aspects of information systems/information technology (IS/IT) benefits realization in large Australian organizations and reveals issues of identifying and structuring benefits, planning benefits realization, delivering, evaluating and reviewing these benefits, with some success and some failure. The results show some value in the use of formal methodologies, benefits measurement, formal reviews, and allocation of specific responsibilities, but a lack of uniformity in their formality. These results, however, are generally consistent with findings in related studies outside Australia.

A review of research in group support systems: leaders, approaches and directions

Abstract Research into Group Support Systems (GSS) is still in its early stages but there is great worldwide interest in the area of research. The study has addressed these developmental issues through a thorough examination of literature from thirteen core IS and GSS journals in the period from the first published GSS journal articles (1984) until the end of 1996. A small number of institutions and authors at or from these institutions have dominated GSS research. Perhaps because of their dominance, most GSS research has been on EMS (particularly GroupSystems) and so more work needs to be done on other EMS software and non-EMS approaches. The study shows there is a clear need for more field work where studies involving actual stakeholders with their own problem(s) may reveal ways of improving technologies, methodologies and models, or suggesting where new approaches may be needed. Further, theory development has been limited and more conceptual work is needed along with empirical studies which extend current theories and previous research studies. The effect of time and experience with GSS needs to be studied, and more emphasis should be placed on the development and refinement of new models and methodologies. While the literature review carried out has some limitations, it still provides an interesting view of the field and may help researchers focus on the directions they wish to take in their research in GSS. A complete bibliography of the GSS literature for this study is available on the web at http://www.cbs.curtin.edu.au/is/staff/pervan.htm.

Factors Influencing the Extent of Deployment of Electronic Commerce for Small-and Medium Sized Enterprises

This study surveys the perceptions and experiences of Australian small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the implementation of Internet-based Electronic Commerce (EC) as seen from the perspective of the extent of deployment. With a sample of 115 small businesses in Australia, this article uses regression modelling to explore and establish the factors that are related to the extent of deployment in EC. A multiple regression analysis shows that seven factors: perceived relative advantage, trialability, observability, variety of information sources, communication amount, competitive pressure, and non-trading institutional influences, significantly influence the extent of EC deployment by SMEs in Australia. The managerial implications are discussed.

Issues and recommendations in evaluating and managing the benefits of public sector IS/IT outsourcing

Purpose – The main purpose of this paper is threefold: to understand public‐sector outsourcing in Australia; to examine the linkage between IS/IT outsourcing and the use of evaluation methodologies; and to identify issues that are critical in evaluating and managing IS/IT outsourcing contracts in public‐sector organizations.Design/methodology/approach – A survey of the top 500 Australian organizations and two in‐depth case studies of two Australian public‐sector organizations were conducted.Findings – Several key issues for IS/IT outsourcing were identified – problems in evaluating outsourcing contracts, embedded contract mentality, ability to manage contracts, and staff transition management.Practical implications – Outsourcing organizations need to implement changes carefully and assess their in‐house capabilities. They also need to fully understand and apply the IS/IT investment evaluation and benefits realization processes. In order to reach the magnitude of improvements ascribed to IS/IT outsourcing ...

The adoption and use of collaboration information technologies: international comparisons

Information technology (IT) applications to support group decision processes have been of considerable interest over the years. With the emergence of virtual team arrangements and the advent of emerging information and networking technologies, an increasing amount of attention is now being aimed at understanding collaboration among group members, as they make decisions to accomplish tasks. Effective and efficient collaboration is critical from a decision quality and decision timeliness standpoint. Commonly known as collaborative information technologies (CITs), many technology solutions have the capability to enhance collaboration and facilitate group decisions in task accomplishment by enabling better communication, sharing of information, ideas, expertise, and evaluating alternatives, irrespective of time and distance barriers. Many studies have investigated such individual CIT solutions in different regional settings. However, despite the fact that no single medium can support collaboration in different types of tasks, there is a scarcity of research investigating the adoption and use of multiple CIT options across regions. This paper builds upon innovation diffusion theory and tests a research model to validate five antecedents of collective adoption and use of seven CITs in the US, Australia, and Hong Kong. Sub-sample analyses of data collected from 344 organizations in these three regions suggest that not only do adoption and use patterns of some CIT solutions vary across regions but so do the antecedents that explain their proliferation. Implications of our findings are discussed for practitioners and researchers.

How chief executive officers in large organizations view the management of their information systems

As part of a research programme on key information systems (IS) management issues, a survey of Australasias largest organizations was conducted to identify which issues were perceived by their chief executive officers (CEOs) as being important, problematic and critical over the next 3–5 years. The results reported are based on a moderate response rate (though perhaps reasonable for the target group) but formal testing showed an absence of non-response bias. The most critical issues were revealed to be a mix of technology management issues (managing and measuring the effectiveness of the information technology (IT) infrastructure, and disaster recovery), strategic management issues (business process redesign, competitive advantage, and information architecture), people and support management issues (organizational learning, and executive and decision support) and systems development and data management issues (effective use of the data resource and effectiveness of software development). This reflects their interest in a wide range of issues, but all with an organization-wide focus. The non-critical issues were mostly related to the individual technologies and the place and role of IS in the organization. While the CEOs showed some agreement with their chief information officers (CIOs) on issues such as the IT infrastructure, competitive advantage and organizational learning, some distinct differences exist, particularly in relation to the quality and effectiveness of systems and processes and also how CEOs and CIOs perceive the IT knowledge of the CEOs.

Factors in the Global Assimilation of Collaborative Information Technologies: An Exploratory Investigation in Five Regions

The diffusion of innovation theory is deployed to investigate the global assimilation of collaborative information technologies (CITs). Based on the concepts of IT acquisition and utilization, an assimilation framework is presented to highlight four states (limited, focused, lagging, and pervasive) that capture the assimilation of conferencing and groupware CITs. Data collected from 538 organizations in the United States, Australia, Hong Kong, Norway, and Switzerland are aggregated and analyzed to explore assimilation patterns and the influence of decision-making pattern, functional integration, promotion of collaboration, organization size, and IT function size on the assimilation of CITs. Although most of these factors influence assimilation of CITs from nonadoption to a state of limited assimilation, and from limited assimilation to a state of pervasive assimilation, they may not be critical when assimilation of CITs deviates from the expected path. The implications of our findings are discussed for practice and research on assimilation of CITs.

A Critical Analysis of Decision Support Systems Research Revisited: The Rise of Design Science

In 2005 the Journal of Information Technology article ‘A critical analysis of decision support systems research’ analyzed 1020 decision support systems (DSS) articles from 1990 to 2003. Since 2003 business intelligence (BI) and business analytics have gained popularity in practice. In theory and research the period since 2003 has seen a change in the decision-making theory orthodoxy and the codification and acceptance of design science. To investigate the changes in the DSS field, a number of expectations were derived from previous literature analyses. These expectations were assessed using bibliometric content analysis. The article sample to 2010 now includes 1466 articles from 16 journals. The analysis of the expectations yields mixed results for the DSS field. On the negative side, there has been an overall decline in DSS publishing, the relevance of DSS research published in journals to IT professionals has declined, and the rigor of DSS research designs has not improved. On the positive side, there has been improvement in relevance to managers, grant funding of DSS research has increased, there has been a positive shift in judgment and decision-making foundations, BI publishing has increased, and group support systems publishing has reduced to a more balanced level. An important result from the analysis of the last 7 years of DSS research is the significant increase in DSS design-science research (DSR) to almost half of published articles. It is clear from the analysis that DSS is undergoing a transition from a field based on statistical hypothesis testing and conceptual studies to one where DSR is the most popular method.

An investigation of factors affecting technology acceptance and use decisions by Australian allied health therapists

The research reported in this paper describes the development, empirical validation and analysis of a model of technology acceptance by Australian occupational therapists. The study described involved the collection of quantitative data through a national survey, with over 2000 responses and a longitudinal case study within the community health sector. Results provide qualitative and quantitative support for the proposed model and demonstrate the inadequacy of traditional models of technology acceptance when applied to the health sector. This work extends technology acceptance studies into new realms of the health sector and highlights the need for a broadening of health IT research, and particularly technology acceptance studies, to encompass a more holistic and inclusive view of those who work in healthcare in order to gain a greater understanding of its complexities and how IS implementation success can be enhanced in this arena

Adoption of collaboration information technologies in Australian and US organizations: a comparative study

Collaboration to accomplish tasks has taken on a new meaning over the past few years. The majority of organizations are viewing information technology (IT) as a key enabler to transcend time and distance barriers to collaborate efficiently and effectively. Despite this, we know very little about the macro level adoption of IT to support collaboration. This paper assesses the pattern of adoption of seven IT clusters to support task-oriented collaboration in US and Australian organizations. Data collected from one hundred and forty Australian organizations and one hundred and nineteen US organizations is analyzed to compare adoption patterns. Our results suggest that stand-alone e-mail systems, audio teleconferencing systems, and videoconferencing are the most widely adopted technologies to support collaboration in both countries while Web-based tools and electronic meeting systems are the least commonly adopted. A further analysis of data suggests that promotion of collaboration, mode of collaboration, and the adoption of some IT clusters are affected by region. Implications of these findings are discussed along with some directions for practice and research.