Accounting, Management and Information Technologies最新文献

{"title":"Amethodical systems development: the deferred meaning of systems development methods","authors":"Duane Truex ,&nbsp;Richard Baskerville ,&nbsp;Julie Travis","doi":"10.1016/S0959-8022(99)00009-0","DOIUrl":"10.1016/S0959-8022(99)00009-0","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This paper contributes a deeper understanding of the concept of methodical information systems development. The method concept is an assumption underlying much of the research into systems analysis, design and implementation. A postmodern deconstruction technique is used to discover a deferred concept: amethodical systems development. The methodical and amethodical views are developed in terms of their assumptions and their ideal characteristics. Our understanding of these two opposing views of systems development is important as a means to refocus our aims in research, practice and education in information systems development.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":100011,"journal":{"name":"Accounting, Management and Information Technologies","volume":"10 1","pages":"Pages 53-79"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2000-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1016/S0959-8022(99)00009-0","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76971196","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Barriers to learning: on organizational defenses and vicious circles in technological adaptation","authors":"Ola Henfridsson ,&nbsp;Anders Söderholm","doi":"10.1016/S0959-8022(99)00012-0","DOIUrl":"10.1016/S0959-8022(99)00012-0","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>On the basis of an interpretive case study, the authors explore the learning implications of introducing First Class in a social services department. The investigated case illustrates how learning efforts easily result in “vicious circles”; the more learning is sought after, the more solid are the barriers to learning. In this case, the existence of certain organizational virtues — the learning organization and the notion of the professional social worker — were observed to have negative learning implications. Paradoxically, at the espoused level, these two virtues can be understood as healthy signs, although their existence as only virtues makes them basically opposed to learning. The results of this study contribute to existing theory about discontinuity in technological adaptation.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":100011,"journal":{"name":"Accounting, Management and Information Technologies","volume":"10 1","pages":"Pages 33-51"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2000-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1016/S0959-8022(99)00012-0","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87676854","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Software stories: three cultural perspectives on the organizational practices of software development","authors":"Line Dubé ,&nbsp;Daniel Robey","doi":"10.1016/S0959-8022(99)00010-7","DOIUrl":"10.1016/S0959-8022(99)00010-7","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Postindustrial organizations have come to depend upon the steady production and modification of software products to meet their competitive needs. This study reports insights into software development practices that were revealed through a cultural interpretation of organizational stories told by members of SWC, a company engaged in software development. Through interviews with 38 members of SWC, 83 stories were extracted and analyzed to identify their main themes. By grouping these content themes, we produced nine broader cultural themes that represented the organization's cultural context. Two management practices applied in SWC—development team organization and outsourcing—were subjected to an analysis in which cultural themes were interpreted from each of three perspectives proposed by Martin, J. [(1992) <em>Cultures in Organisations; Three Perspectives</em>. New York: Oxford University Press]: integration, differentiation, and fragmentation.</p><p>The interpretation provides a rich reading of SWC's cultural context. Despite management attempts to develop a unified culture based on collaboration and communication among development groups, the team approach to software development was problematic. Imposing teamwork upon groups that manifested distinct subcultural differences disturbed the work life of group members, and the change was only partially successful. SWC's management also sought survival and tighter strategic focus through an outsourcing arrangement. However, our interpretation identified significant difficulties created by the partnership between two organizations with very different cultures. The presence of the outsourcing partner also brought greater uncertainty and ambiguity because work priorities and practices were subject to constant renegotiation. Members from both organizations dealt with contradictions between their previous norms, values and work practices and those required by the new relationship.</p><p>Overall, our analysis demonstrates the importance of understanding the cultural foundation of management practices used in software development. These practices evoke interpretations from members of a culture, who collectively redefine what might have been intended. A cultural analysis may prepare management to move more gradually or to introduce special approaches to managing change.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":100011,"journal":{"name":"Accounting, Management and Information Technologies","volume":"9 4","pages":"Pages 223-259"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1999-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1016/S0959-8022(99)00010-7","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80952823","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Index","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/S0959-8022(99)00015-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/S0959-8022(99)00015-6","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":100011,"journal":{"name":"Accounting, Management and Information Technologies","volume":"9 4","pages":"Page V"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1999-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1016/S0959-8022(99)00015-6","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"137161579","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Computer-based technology and the constitution of work: a study on the cognitive foundations of work","authors":"Jannis Kallinikos","doi":"10.1016/S0959-8022(99)00011-9","DOIUrl":"10.1016/S0959-8022(99)00011-9","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The article assumes work cognitivization to be a crucial feature of contemporary organizations and develops a cognitive–linguistic framework for dealing with it. The cognitive orientation of work represents a long historical process, which involves the development and utilization of various symbol systems for representing, recording, indexing and processing information. This process has lately accelerated, due to the deepening embeddedness of computer-based technology in organizations. The cognitive transformation of organizational relations renders the semantic comprehension of codified schemes, underlying software packages, and the attribution of the relationships these schemes bear to the object-world crucial organizational tasks. These theoretical ideas are further elaborated in the empirical context of the computerized control stations of a plant. The empirical observations suggest that semantic comprehensibility and referential attribution describe crucial aspects of current work, though the cognitive complexity of software packages tends to render the issue of semantic comprehension much more insidious than that of reference. They also suggest that reference may be substituted for sense, under ambiguous conditions, producing a skew understanding of the encountered situations.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":100011,"journal":{"name":"Accounting, Management and Information Technologies","volume":"9 4","pages":"Pages 261-291"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1999-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1016/S0959-8022(99)00011-9","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83181648","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Cultural values, media richness and telecommunication use in an organization1","authors":"Frantz Rowe ,&nbsp;Detlef Struck","doi":"10.1016/S0959-8022(99)00007-7","DOIUrl":"10.1016/S0959-8022(99)00007-7","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This paper deals with adapting the telecommunication services of an organization to the diversity of individual value orientations related to culture. After a discussion of the processes linking telecommunication use to cultural values, we show on empirical grounds the relationship between the preference of the individual for organizational cultures and his or her telecommunication use (fax, email (electronic mail), vmail (voice mail) and telephone). The cultural values were measured for 223 individuals in a French company using Q sort with balanced block design while telecommunication use was measured through a diary method. The final analysis was performed on 799 internal communications of 145 individuals having access to the four telecommunication services. In particular we found that the use of new media was more related to an orientation towards innovation or reactivity or entrepreneurship than the telephone. Email appeared as associated to relation-oriented rather than task-oriented value and suggests that the amount of feedback plays a role in the process of telecommunications media choice. We argue that cultural analysis is not only an interesting complementary approach to information richness theory for understanding telecommunication choices, but can also lead to different decisions. As an example, we examine the decision to withdraw either vmail or email in a downsizing situation.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":100011,"journal":{"name":"Accounting, Management and Information Technologies","volume":"9 3","pages":"Pages 161-192"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1999-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1016/S0959-8022(99)00007-7","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88556739","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Organisational champions of IT innovation","authors":"Michael S.H Heng ,&nbsp;Eileen M Trauth ,&nbsp;Sven J Fischer","doi":"10.1016/S0959-8022(99)00008-9","DOIUrl":"10.1016/S0959-8022(99)00008-9","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This paper reports on an investigation of the characteristics of 10 organisational champions of information technology (IT) innovation in The Netherlands. The institutions at which they work are in the financial, transport, government and software sectors. Much of the research in this area has focused considerable attention on the individual personality traits of champions. This research project was positioned to contribute to the literature by broadening the focus of attention beyond individual-level characteristics. Since IT innovations occur within an organisational context, there is also a need to explore the role of organisation-level characteristics. This study explored both the individual- and the organisation-level characteristics exhibited by those promoting IT innovations in their firms. The results of this study show that these organisational champions fall somewhere in between the classic IT champion and the project manager. While personal leadership characteristics are not as much in evidence, organisational characteristics are emphasised more. They use their political skills to obtain resources and organisational acceptance of the IT innovations as they are shepherding the innovation through the organisational bureaucracy. However, these champions seem to place as much emphasis on creativity as classic IT champions. When necessary, they break rules, give veiled threats and find ways to get around the organisational bureaucracy. They seek creative outlets for themselves and those they manage. These findings suggests that a promising way to reduce the rate of information system (IS) project failures is to learn not only from IS projects undertaken by IT champions but also from innovation undertaken by other champions — business champions and champions of other technologies.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":100011,"journal":{"name":"Accounting, Management and Information Technologies","volume":"9 3","pages":"Pages 193-222"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1999-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1016/S0959-8022(99)00008-9","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87619074","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Spreadsheet development and ‘what-if’ analysis: quantitative versus qualitative errors","authors":"Thompson S.H Teo,&nbsp;Margaret Tan","doi":"10.1016/S0959-8022(99)00006-5","DOIUrl":"10.1016/S0959-8022(99)00006-5","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Past research has shown that errors are relatively common in all types of spreadsheets. As spreadsheets are used widely by executives in analyzing and supporting their decision making, especially in financial analysis, budgeting and forecasting applications, it is important for spreadsheets to be accurate. Errors undetected in spreadsheets may have undesirable consequences. For example, errors may adversely impact the firm's competitiveness or profitability when the costing of projects is prone to incorrect computation. For this purpose, we investigate the types of errors that may occur even for simple domain-free spreadsheet problems. In addition, we also show that spreadsheet errors are difficult to detect during ‘what-if’ analysis (i.e. when some design parameters are changed) when spreadsheets are not properly designed. The results show that most students do not take due care in designing spreadsheets. It appears that the techniques in teaching spreadsheets should really focus on how to design a comprehensive spreadsheet that is both easy to maintain and debug rather than just demonstrating the many features of spreadsheets.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":100011,"journal":{"name":"Accounting, Management and Information Technologies","volume":"9 3","pages":"Pages 141-160"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1999-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1016/S0959-8022(99)00006-5","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73008242","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Sociotechnical networks and information management in health care","authors":"Bill Doolin","doi":"10.1016/S0959-8022(99)00005-3","DOIUrl":"10.1016/S0959-8022(99)00005-3","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In this paper, the notion of a sociotechnical network is used to illustrate the mutuality of technology and organisation. The paper tells the story of the proposed implementation of an executive information system in a newly corporatised hospital. In order to build a coherent and stable network, diverse interests of heterogeneous actors had to be accommodated within the executive information system. Ultimately, the failure to unify the multiplicity of interpretations surrounding the proposed system meant that the project ceased to exist.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":100011,"journal":{"name":"Accounting, Management and Information Technologies","volume":"9 2","pages":"Pages 95-114"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1999-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1016/S0959-8022(99)00005-3","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90198645","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Information systems project escalation: a reinterpretation based on options theory","authors":"Mark Keil ,&nbsp;Jerry Flatto","doi":"10.1016/S0959-8022(99)00004-1","DOIUrl":"10.1016/S0959-8022(99)00004-1","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Escalation of commitment is a well-known phenomenon whereby individuals and organizations continue to invest in what <em>appear</em> to be losing courses of action. Traditional theories of escalation implicitly assume the phenomenon is dysfunctional and results from flawed, or irrational, decision-making. Some have argued, however, that the phenomenon results from equivocal information concerning a particular course of action and does not necessarily represent a flawed or irrational decision process. To shed light on this distinction, we examine prior theories of escalation and introduce a reinterpretation of the phenomenon based on options theory.</p><p>To provide a context for our discussion, we examine information systems (IS) project escalation. While escalation is a general phenomenon, IS investments represent a particularly appealing context of study for several reasons. First, investments in information technology represent a significant and growing fraction of total capital expenditures for most organizations. Second, IS projects exhibit certain characteristics which create ambiguity and may cause them to be especially susceptible to escalation.</p><p>Our analysis suggests that traditional theories of escalation behavior give an incomplete picture because they do not provide a mechanism for distinguishing warranted from unwarranted escalation. Thus, traditional theories provide little explanation for those situations in which escalation behavior is economically prudent. Failure to consider the value of real options means that the perceived benefits of a project are lower than the actual benefits, meaning that managers are apt to reject or prematurely cancel projects that would in fact be economically beneficial to pursue.</p><p>This paper applies options theory to show that some projects that might otherwise be viewed as cases of unwarranted escalation, actually involve situations in which escalation <em>is</em> warranted. The options theory perspective offers new theoretical insights that challenge the traditional assumptions and yet complement existing theories regarding escalation behavior.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":100011,"journal":{"name":"Accounting, Management and Information Technologies","volume":"9 2","pages":"Pages 115-139"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1999-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1016/S0959-8022(99)00004-1","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87289339","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}