Capturing temporality and intentionality in information systems

Information modelling is a topic that has been researched a great deal, but still many questions around it have not been solved. An information model is essential in the design of a database which is the core of an information system. Currently most of databases only deal with information that represents facts, or asserted information. The ability of capturing semantic aspect has to be improved, and yet other types, such as temporal and intentional information, should be considered. Semantic Analysis, a method of information modelling, has offered a way to handle various aspects of information. It employs the domain knowledge and communication acts as sources of information modelling. It lends itself to a uniform structure whereby semantic, temporal and intentional information can be captured, which builds a sound foundation for building a semantic temporal database.

A conceptual framework for aligning business and information systems from organisational learning perspective

The three decades of on-going executives’ concerns of how to achieve successful alignment between business and information technology shows the complexity of such a vital process. Most of the challenges of alignment are related to knowledge and organisational change and several researchers have introduced a number of mechanisms to address some of these challenges. However, these mechanisms pay less attention to multi-level effects, which results in a limited un-derstanding of alignment across levels. Therefore, we reviewed these challenges from a multi-level learning perspective and found that business and IT alignment is related to the balance of exploitation and exploration strategies with the intellec-tual content of individual, group and organisational levels.

Management compensation systems in MNCs and domestic firms. Cross-national empirical evidence

• This is a study of the relationship between institutional settings and managerial compensation systems, based on extensive cross-national survey evidence. • We compare differences in practices between Multinational Corporations (MNCs) and domestic firms across a range of capitalist archetypes. • We find that MNCs are more likely to promote compensation systems that incentivise managers in line with organisational performance compared to domestic firms. Our findings also reveal persistent diversity reflecting firm type and institutional setting. We find that the gap between MNCs and domestic firms in terms of the usage of incentive-related compensation is less pronounced in Liberal Market Economies than in other settings. This suggests that it is a combination of being an MNC and the specific home locale that moulds approaches to managerial compensation. This reflects considerable hybridisation of practices within and between settings.

Assessing pragmatic interoperability of information systems from a semiotic perspective

Most of studies on interoperability of systems integration focus on technical and semantic levels, but hardly extend investigations on pragmatic level. Our past work has addressed pragmatic interoperability, which is concerned with the relationship between signs and the potential behaviour and intention of responsible agents. We also define the pragmatic interoperability as a level concerning with the aggregation and optimisation of various business processes for achieving intended purposes of different information systems. This paper, as the extension of our previous research, is to propose an assessment method for measuring pragmatic interoperability of information systems. We firstly propose interoperability analysis framework, which is based on the concept of semiosis. We then develop pragmatic interoperability assessment process from two dimensions including six aspects (informal, formal, technical, substantive, communication, and control). We finally illustrate the assessment process in an example.

Pragmatic oriented data interoperability for smart healthcare information systems

Smart healthcare is a complex domain for systems integration due to human and technical factors and heterogeneous data sources involved. As a part of smart city, it is such a complex area where clinical functions require smartness of multi-systems collaborations for effective communications among departments, and radiology is one of the areas highly relies on intelligent information integration and communication. Therefore, it faces many challenges regarding integration and its interoperability such as information collision, heterogeneous data sources, policy obstacles, and procedure mismanagement. The purpose of this study is to conduct an analysis of data, semantic, and pragmatic interoperability of systems integration in radiology department, and to develop a pragmatic interoperability framework for guiding the integration. We select an on-going project at a local hospital for undertaking our case study. The project is to achieve data sharing and interoperability among Radiology Information Systems (RIS), Electronic Patient Record (EPR), and Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS). Qualitative data collection and analysis methods are used. The data sources consisted of documentation including publications and internal working papers, one year of non-participant observations and 37 interviews with radiologists, clinicians, directors of IT services, referring clinicians, radiographers, receptionists and secretary. We identified four primary phases of data analysis process for the case study: requirements and barriers identification, integration approach, interoperability measurements, and knowledge foundations. Each phase is discussed and supported by qualitative data. Through the analysis we also develop a pragmatic interoperability framework that summaries the empirical findings and proposes recommendations for guiding the integration in the radiology context.

Evaluation frameworks for information systems integration: from a semiotic lens

Information systems integration aims at the interaction, information exchange and interoperability between information systems, devices and units. Research efforts have contributed in evaluation of information systems integration on the development of evaluation frameworks. To improve the usability and measurability of evaluation, a review of existing evaluation frameworks including their evolution and classifications of different interoperability levels is conducted. The theory of organisational semiotics is used for a comparative analysis of the frameworks and future work.