Samo Bobek

Service orientation in transitional markets: does it matter?

Firms with a strong service orientation – that is, those whose organizational policies, practices, and procedures support service excellence – often have a competitive edge in mature Western markets. In transitional economies, however – such as within the newly opened markets of Central and Eastern Europe – the impact of service orientation on current and future firm performance is largely unknown. Particularly, in areas where service quality has lagged, enhancing service orientation might catapult a firm’s competitive standing ahead of the pack. On the other hand, boosting service orientation in markets where demand continues to outpace supply may add unnecessary cost, and little visible short‐term gain. In this study, the SERV*OR scale, a measure of organizational service orientation, was administered to 105 employees from two Slovenian banks – a newly established private bank and a large, older, state‐supported bank. The private bank outperformed the state bank in service orientation and in financial performance, lending support to the idea that service orientation may enhance rather than detract from firm performance in transitional markets.

Critical Success Factors (CSFs) for Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Solution Implementation in SMEs: What Does Matter for Business Integration

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution implementation is a complex process, that requires substantial resources and efforts, and yet the results are very uncertain. The ERP hype has already reached SMEs, so the authors have examined the strategies, methods and critical success factors from SMEs point of view. The results of our survey in SMEs in Slovenia have shown that SMEs have to pay attention to different critical success factors in different phases of the implementation process. Moreover, there are differences in implementation process as opposed to large companies. Case studies of two SMEs have shown similar results. Recommendations for future SME implementations and comments of our findings can be found in conclusion.

A bibliometric retrospective of the Journal Computers in Human Behavior (19912015)

This study aims to create a bibliometric profile of the Journal Computers in Human Behavior employing bibliometric analysis, bibliometric mapping and thematic analysis to identify its document types, the dynamics and trends of research literature production, impact factor, most cited articles, and large contributing institutions and countries. Additionally, the authors were interested in finding the established patterns of cooperation among countries and institutions and the most productive research themes and their evolution through time. We were also interested in finding out if there are any sleeping beauties among articles published in the Journal. The study revealed a positive trend of scientific literature production and that the average number of references is increasing contrary to the number of pages per publication, which is decreasing, although it has remained stable in recent years. The most productive countries and institutions are from the United States, and the majority of the literature production is done by economically and scientifically fit and well developed countries. The identified research themes correspond with the Journals aims and scope. The rising number of publications, increasing number of citations and, consequently, the Journal impact factor, together with the existence of sleeping beauties, shows that the editorial policy is well thought out and future oriented. The first bibliometric profile of the Journal Computers in Human Behavior.The trend of scientific literature production and impact factor of the journal is positive.The majority of the literature production is done by economically developed countries.Identified research themes correspond with the journals aims and scope.Five sleeping beauties were identified.

Evaluating probability of default

Research highlights? Active process management prevents decrease of analytic models accuracy over time. ? Content dependent unification of results is required in a multi-model system. ? Reasoning enabled knowledge management structures provide a content framework. ? Dynamic intelligent agents manage processes upon content rules and environment data. ? Probability of the default evaluation results accuracy is managed over time. For the successful probability of default (PD) evaluation with the application of multiple prediction models two issues should be addressed: the accuracy of the analytic models which decreases over time and the evaluation of results which must be presented in a uniform shape. To deal with these two issues, a multi-agent system (MAS) and knowledge management systems (KMS) based process management system is proposed. The proposed system has two goals: to prevent the PD information quality deterioration by active management of analytical processes and to provide a universal access point allowing the simultaneous use of multiple prediction models.

An Agent Model in BI Knowledge Intensive Environment

The Business Intelligence (BI) traditional goals still stay: provide the right information users in organization with right information at the right time and place. The BI systems by their nature demonstrate as heterogeneous, while all plans to unify them eventually fail. Moreover the expectations of R&D of proactive BI let us conclude, the heterogeneity may become chaotic. We claim that, for mastering such a heterogeneous and dynamic system, a programmatically accessible and self managed knowledge management system, capable of storing and representing the whole content of a BI system is required. The properties of Knowledge Management Structures (KMS), combined with intelligent agents (IA) and Multi-agent systems (MAS) show great capabilities, and have, in limited scope, proved their strengths, acting in heterogeneous svstems. In the following paper we synthesized the state of the art research in the fields of BI, KMS, IA and tried to fill a gap disabling successful application of IA for management of KMS in a dynamical environment. To do so, a model of an IA, capable of reasoning and acting in a dynamic KMS environment and sharing its knowledge is presented.

Openness and information technology: a bibliometric analysis of literature production

Research in the field of openness has become very broad and, unfortunately, also opaque. Thus, the purpose of this paper was to analyse and map the trends by applying bibliometric tools to the scientific literature published between 1990 and 2015, for descriptive bibliometric analysis, and 2011 to 2015, for content analysis.,A bibliometric analysis was used to identify document types, most prolific institutions, countries, source titles and Web of Science categories in the field of openness. Furthermore, bibliometric mapping was performed to discover country and institutional cooperation networks and to be able to understand funding opportunities for openness and information technology research. Additionally, with content analysis, scientific landscape was produced with most prolific terms and their chronological evolution through time.,The first information sources were published in 1990, and production was steady until 1998. After that period, the growth becomes exponential for the total number of information sources, as well as articles and proceedings papers, with a slight decrease in growth between 2009 and 2011. Descriptive bibliometric analysis showed that the most productive countries were the USA, the UK, Germany, China, Italy and Spain.,This paper presents the first holistic bibliometric analysis of the literature production concerning openness in relation to information and communication technology which helps researchers in the field to better understand the relations between themes and outsiders to get an overview of the openness scientific landscape.

Information Systems in Virtual Corporations: Issues for ERP Based E-business Systems

Virtual corporations can be viewed as a network of creative people, resources and ideas connected by inter-organizational information systems and/or by on-line services. Information systems makes virtual corporations more successful, because the communication and collaboration among dispersed business partners are key to making it happen. Virtual corporations can use different information systems on different technological platforms. In the paper we will discuss the possibilities for informational support of the Cupertino between partners within virtual corporations with focus on enterprise resource planning solutions, which became more and more important.

ERP Solution Acceptance by Students

ERP acceptance by its users in companies has been researched by several authors while ERP acceptance by students within study programmes has not been researched so often. For teachers should be important to know which factors have influence on student ERP acceptance. Our study researches student acceptance of ERP solutions while they are exposed to ERP solution and they are involved in ERP actual use. Our research is based on TAM which provides a basis for tracing impact of external factors on internal beliefs (perceived usefulness – PU and perceived ease of use – PEOU), attitudes (AT), intentions (behavioural intention – BI) and actual use. Research model includes additional external factors such as: experience with computer, computer self-efficiency, personal innovativeness toward IT, computer anxiety, user manuals (help), system quality, social influence (environment), training and education etc. Research was conduct within a group of 121 students after short interaction with Microsoft Dynamics NAV ERP solution. Results show that most important external factors for student ERP acceptance are: individual benefits, training and education on ERP system and quality of ERP system.

Factors Influencing Attitudes Towards the Use of CRM’s Analytical Tools in Organizations

Abstract Background and Purpose: Information solutions for analytical customer relationship management CRM (aCRM IS) that include the use of analytical tools are becoming increasingly important, due organizations’ need for knowledge of their customers and the ability to manage big data. The objective of the research is, therefore, to determine how the organizations’ orientations (process, innovation, and technology) as critical organizational factors affect the attitude towards the use of the analytical tools of aCRM IS. Design/Methodology/Approach: To measure the orientation of the organization (process, innovation, and technology), we redesigned the existing scale, which was validated using exploratory factor analysis. In the next phase, we created a model by which we examined the impact of the organization’s stance in relation to the use of the analytical tools of aCRM IS, where we used multiple regression analysis. The model was verified on a sample of Slovenian Organizations (n=105), which use the analytical tools of aCRM IS for analyzing the data they have on their customers and business partners. Results: In the study we found that all critical factors of the organization, specifically process, technology, and innovation orientation, have a positive impact on the attitudes towards using the analytical tools of aCRM IS. Innovation orientation is particularly important and has the strongest influence on the attitude towards using the analytical tools of aCRM IS. We found that innovation orientation on new ideas, methods, and approaches has the strongest effect, followed by the impact of innovation orientation on acceptance of novelty. Conclusion: The more innovation-, technology-, and process-oriented organizations are, the more positive their attitude towards using the analytical tools of aCRM IS. The study is particularly important for organizations that are introducing an aCRM IS into their business system.

ERP Business Solutions Acceptance in Companies

Managing in recovering markets is focused on the improvement of business performance. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) business solutions are key enablers for transforming business processes which lead to better business performance. Companies are facing the challenge of how to improve the use of ERP business solutions by its employees, and therefore, understanding of factors that impact ERP acceptance by employees is very important. Technology acceptance model (TAM) is one of the most widely used models for explaining the behavioural intention and actual usage and can improve understanding of how influence on actual usage could help increase efficiency and effectiveness of business solutions and other solutions use. This paper analyses existing extensions of TAM regarding ERP business solutions acceptance in organisations and proposes further factors which are needed for more comprehensive explanations of ERP business solutions acceptance. The cognitive construct of work compatibility is included in the model and the construct of extended use which replaces the construct of actual use is introduced. Furthermore, the impact of cognitive construct of work compatibility, solutions usefulness and solution ease of use on attitude towards using the solution are explained and the construct of extended use of business solution is discussed. Survey data has been collected from ERP business solutions users in companies where the ERP system has been in use for more than 1 year, and therefore, the solutions use can be defined as a mature one. The research model was analysed by using the PLS approach and some key findings are presented.