Waleed A. Muhanna

Information technology and the performance of the customer service process: a resource-based analysis

Delivering quality customer service has emerged as a strategic imperative, one that is increasingly tied to a firms information technology resources and capabilities. This paper presents an empirical study that examines the extent to which IT impacts customer service. More specifically, this study investigates the differential effects of various IT resources and capabilities on the performance of the customer service process across firms that compete in the North American life and health insurance industry. The paper builds on (1) information systems work that suggests that the effects of IT are best documented at the level of processes within a firm, (2) information systems work that suggests that the performance effects of IT are likely to be contingent in nature, and (3) developments in the resource-based view, which describes the kinds of IT resources and capabilities that are likely to enable a process in one firm to outperform the same process in competing firms. The findings suggest that tacit, socially complex, firm-specific resources explain variation in process performance across firms and that IT resources and capabilities without these attributes do not. Of particular interest to IS scholars, it is found that shared knowledge between IT and customer service units-an important driver of how IT is implemented and used in the customer service process-is a key IT capability that affects customer service process performance and moderates the impacts of explicit IT resources such as the generic information technologies used in the process and IT spending, which-consistent with resource-based predictions-were not found to be directly and positively associated with relative process performance. The implications of the findings for research and practice are discussed.

User resistance and strategies for promoting acceptance across system types

Understanding the factors that contribute to the success of systems implementation efforts is a central concern in the field of information systems (IS). One key factor to which many implementation problems have been attributed is user resistance to change. Different types of systems tend to be associated with different organizational functions and classes of users, and thus may be resisted for different reasons. This paper reports the results of a study investigating the link between resistance reasons and system types and assessing managerial perceptions of the relative importance of various strategies for promoting acceptance in the context of those types. Surveying 66 managers in a variety of organizations, our results suggest that decision support systems (DSS) and transaction processing systems (TPS) are resisted for different reasons, and that promotion strategy effectiveness also differs. Additionally, our study attempts to make explicit, based on system type, key reasons for user resistance and the remedies designed to promote acceptance. This improves our overall understanding of the resistance phenomenon and guides analysts in selecting an appropriate strategy for a given system type.

Information Technology and Process Performance: An Empirical Investigation of the Interaction Between IT and Non‐IT Resources

Drawing on the resource-based view, we propose a configurational perspective of how IT assets and capabilities affect firm performance. Our premise is that IT assets and IT managerial capabilities are components in organizational design, and, as such, their impact can only be understood by taking into consideration the interactions between those IT assets and capabilities and other non-IT components. We develop and test a model that assesses the impact of explicit and tacit IT resources by examining their interactions with two non-IT resources (open communication and business work practices). Our analysis of data collected from a sample of firms in the third party logistics (3PL) industry supports the proposed configurational perspective, showing that IT resources can either enhance (complement) or suppress (by substituting for) the effects of non-IT resources on process performance. More specifically, we find evidence of complementarities between shared business-IT knowledge and business work practice, and between the scope of IT applications and an open communication culture in affecting the performance of the customer-service process; but there is evidence of substitutability between shared knowledge and open communications. For decision making, our results reinforce the need to account for all dimensions of possible interaction between IT and non-IT resources when evaluating IT investments.

The performance of multiversion concurrency control algorithms

A number of multiversion concurrency control algorithms have been proposed in the past few years. These algorithms use previous versions of data items in order to improve the level of achievable concurrency. This paper describes a simulation study of the performance of several multiversion concurrency control algorithms, investigating the extent to which they provide increases in the level of concurrency and also the CPU, I/O, and storage costs resulting from the use of multiple versions. The multiversion algorithms are compared with regard to performance with their single-version counterparts and also with each other. It is shown that each multiversion algorithm offers significant performance improvements despite the additional disk accesses involved in accessing old versions of data; the nature of the improvement depends on the algorithm in question. It is also shown that the storage overhead for maintaining old versions that may be required by ongoing transactions is not all that large under most circumstances. Finally, it is demonstrated that it is important for version maintenance to be implemented efficiently, as otherwise the cost of maintaining old versions could outweigh their concurrency benefits.

An object-oriented framework for model management and DSS development

Abstract Through various studies, a number of model management (MM) issues have been addressed in the literature. There is a need to consolidate the various proposals and the different interpretations of the notion of a model. Towards this end, this paper proposes an object-oriented framework which provides a unifying context for MM research and DSS development. The framework coherently integrates Geoffrions structured modeling together with Muhanna and Picks systems approach, thereby offering a methodology for both modeling-in-the-small as well as modeling-in-the-large. Further, we argue that an overall object-oriented approach can significantly contribute towards the integration of model management, data management, software engineering, and artificial intelligence.

How Do Investors Value IT? An Empirical Investigation of the Value Relevance of IT Capability and IT Spending Across Industries

ABSTRACT: Drawing on the resource-based theory of the firm and using Ohlson’s (1995) residual income valuation framework, this paper investigates the relationships between IT capability and IT spending, and market value. We also assess whether these relationships differ based on the industry type (i.e., high-tech). Using publicly available ratings, and after controlling for firm-specific determinants as well as industry fixed-effects, we find that IT capability is value relevant (i.e., the stock market values of firms with superior IT capability are both economically and statistically higher than the values of a control sample), whereas the level of IT spending did not explain variation in market values. The results are shown to hold using two unique archival data sets representing the immediate pre-Internet (1992–1994) and the post-Internet commercialization (1999–2006) eras and are remarkably robust to variations in the control sample, sampling method, and model specifications. Consistent with these res...

Composite models in SYMMS

SYMMS is a model management system inspired by concepts from systems theory. The coupling of individual models to form composite models is supported. A description is given of the formalism and language used for specifying composite models in SYMMS.<<ETX>>

Competing with IT: the role of shared IT-business understanding

Studying why some firms derive more competitive advantage and value than others using IT resources.

SYMMS: A model management system that supports model reuse, sharing, and integration

Abstract Within the decision support system area of research, there is a growing body of work focusing on the topic of model management. A principal objective of a model management system (MMS) is to increase the productivity in organizational modeling and decision-making activities. This paper describes aspects of a software prototype MMS, called SYMMS, which is designed to provide for model sharing, reusability and integration. Inspired by concepts from systems theory, the system also provides support for data management in the context of modeling. Associate with SYMMS is a language, called MDL, for model description and configuration. MDL provides a high-level, non-procedural, textual means that facilitates both top-down and bottom-up hierarchical construction of composite models. Examples are used to illustrate some of the features of MDL and of the prototype system SYMMS.

IT Internal Control Weaknesses and Firm Performance: An Organizational Liability Lens

The information systems literature and the public press have called for organizations to more closely scrutinize their information technology (IT) controls; however, little more than anecdotal evidence exists on the business value of quality IT internal control, beyond regulatory compliance. In this paper, we (a) advance an organizational liability perspective to the question of IT internal control value; and (b) use the unique setting provided by the enactment of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) to investigate the relationship between IT internal control weaknesses (ICWs) and both accounting earnings (a contemporaneous measure of firm performance) and market value (a forward looking, risk-adjusted measure of firm performance). Using a data set that provides audited annual assessments of the effectiveness of both IT and non-IT internal controls for a cross-section of companies as mandated by SOX, we find that firms that report an IT ICW have lower accounting earnings compared to firms with strong IT internal controls. We also find that IT ICW moderates the association between accounting earnings and market valuation, with firms reporting weak IT internal controls having a lower earnings multiple. These results are sustained even after controlling for non-IT ICWs and firm-specific factors that are known determinants of ICWs, and are reinforced using an inter-temporal changes analysis in which we use each firm as its own control at a different point in time. Overall, our results provide empirical evidence which suggests that IT internal controls are a strategic necessity and that information systems risk is priced by the capital markets. The implications of these findings for theory and practice are discussed.