Honggeng Zhou

The relationship of strategic business alignment and enterprise information management in achieving better business performance

Four constructs are developed and five research hypotheses are tested in a structural equation model focused on the role of strategic business alignment and information management in achieving business performance. The data to develop the constructs and test the model are based on a survey of 226 manufacturing firms in the US automobile components industry. The research is interdisciplinary in nature with a focus on building theory in an under-researched area of study by testing a causal model. The structural equation model analysis supports the general theory that ‘the degree of business strategy alignment affects enterprise information management and time-related operating performance, and through these two intermediate constructs, improves business performance’. Enterprise information management is the key mediating variable in the causal model. Other insights based on statistical evidence are presented such as strategic business alignment, which do not directly improve time-related operating performance but must act indirectly through enterprise information management (the mediation construct) to improve performance.

Toward Risk Reduction for Mobile Service Composition

The advances in mobile technologies enable us to consume or even provide services through powerful mobile devices anytime and anywhere. Services running on mobile devices within limited range can be composed to coordinate together through wireless communication technologies and perform complex tasks. However, the mobility of users and devices in mobile environment imposes high risk on the execution of the tasks. This paper targets reducing this risk by constructing a dependable service composition after considering the mobility of both service requesters and providers. It first proposes a risk model and clarifies the risk of mobile service composition; and then proposes a service composition approach by modifying the simulated annealing algorithm. Our objective is to form a service composition by selecting mobile services under the mobility model and to ensure the service composition have the best quality of service and the lowest risk. The experimental results demonstrate that our approach can yield near-optimal solutions and has a nearly linear complexity with respect to a problem size.

The impact of enterprise systems on process flexibility and organisational flexibility

In light of the current dynamic business environment, companies nowadays need to respond rapidly to changes. Companies often invest heavily in enterprise systems in the hope that these can improve their flexibility in coping with such changes. However, previous studies have shown that the impact of enterprise systems on flexibility can be either positive or negative. To resolve this inconsistency in the existing research, this paper suggests that a companys flexibility should be distinguished between process level and organisational level. Specifically, this paper proposes that enterprise systems will affect process flexibility negatively but affect organisational flexibility positively. The analysis results show that enterprise systems have different effects on process and organisational flexibility. Furthermore, industry clockspeed sets a boundary for the effect on process flexibility but not for that on organisational flexibility. Research and practical implications of this study are discussed.

An Empirical Test of the Information Processing Theory

According to the propositions in the information processing theory, this study tests the relationship between task uncertainty and three organizational design strategies, i.e., creation of lateral relationships, investment in information systems, and creation of self-contained tasks. Data from 125 North American manufacturing firms are used and business environment uncertainty is employed to measure task uncertainty. Sourcing practice and delivery practice measure the creation of lateral relationships, while Information quality measures the investment in information systems. Also, just-in-time production and human resource management measure the creation of self-contained tasks. Regression analysis shows that business environment uncertainty has significant positive influence on sourcing practice, delivery practice, information quality, just-in-time production, and human resource management. While the information processing theory was proposed more than thirty years ago, this study empirically extends the relevance of information processing theory to today’s supply chain environment.

Is being connected to leaders always beneficial? Instrumental interaction and the development of social capital within organisational networks

ABSTRACT Individuals not only have a natural tendency to interact with those who are demographically similar, but also have instrumental motives to contact diverse others and those of a higher status. This study investigates two kinds of instrumental interaction – horizontal diversity (the tendency to socialise with diverse others) and upper reachability (the tendency to socialise with high-status leaders) – in the development of social capital within organisations. The empirical results suggest that horizontal diversity predicts higher network centrality, but upper reachability has an inverted U-shaped effect. It is theoretically postulated that the mechanism by which instrumental interaction creates social capital. The results also suggest that the effect of upper reachability within organisational networks is much more complex than in general social networks, due to higher interdependence and competitiveness.

Sharing Production Progress Information in Supply Chains

Many companies are interested in sharing production progress information with their supply chain partners. While some conceptual studies have addressed the importance of sharing production progress information in supply chains, the literature does not show how to quantify the benefits of sharing production progress information. This paper uses a simulation model to estimate the expected value of information. Our results show that (1) the expected supply chain system cost saved from sharing progress information is substantial and increases as the information sharing frequency increases, (2) the percentage of cost saved increases as the number of suppliers sharing information increases, (3) the expected value of sharing progress information increases as the uncertainty in suppliers production lead times decreases, (4) sharing production progress information provides more cost savings than sharing only the production starting time and lead time distribution, and (5) allowing suppliers to synchronize their deliveries when suppliers production progress information is shared results in significantly lower supply chain system cost than using fixed order due dates.