Power, politics and legitimacy in information systems implementation : an ethnographic study

Systems implementation is inherently a political process. However, the majority of the literature in the area of systems implementation takes a simplistic look at factors attributed to success. These studies provide empirical evidence that “human factors” such as “top management support” contribute to a successful implementation. Rather than accept this, we challenge this view and explore two “human” issues – power and legitimacy inside systems implementation. By exploring the implementation of a learning management system at the University of New Zealand, issues such as power and legitimacy affect the way an implementation team collaborates. Systems implementation is a complex and messy process and we need to understand the implementation process, acknowledging that top management support is not always necessary to “successfully” implement a system.

Financial fraud and the use of ratios in corporate collapse prediction models

This paper highlights the prevalence and extent of financial fraud amongst collapsed corporations. In doing so, it examines the recent spectacular corporate collapses of Parmalat in Europe, Enron and WoridCom in the USA and HIH in Australia. A new methodology that provides empirical evidence to the financial fraud claims found in the literature, is then put forward. The proposed methodology argues that if financial fraud was a possibility amongst collapsed corporations, then two premises ought to be observed in the literature on ratio based multivariate modelling for predicting corporate collapse. First, in the absence of financial fraud, we expect the models to consistently predict corporate collapse with a high degree of accuracy; particularly, as one approaches the incident of collapse. Second, if financial fraud takes place and statement figures are distorted, then we expect the financial ratios, which are the predictor variables in these models, to lose relevance and therefore their use in models will be short-lived. Empirical support from Hossari and Rahman (2004) and Hossari and Rahman (2005) is presented as evidence to the two premises.

Antecedents of brand credibility under asymmetrical information

This study focuses on the antecedents of brand credibility and validates part of the model presented by Erdem and Swait (1998). Following the signalling literature, we argue that under asymmetrical information, the importance of brand credibility stems from the capability of brands to inform consumers who are uncertain about product attributes. Indeed, firms may use brands to notify consumers about product positions and to assure that their product claims are credible. Using information economics as theoretical background, the proposed perspective determines how credibility is shaped. Data was collected across a number of consumers in Australia via a self-report survey and a structural equation model (SEM) was estimated. The results provide empirical evidence and support the work of Erdem and Swait (1998).

Explaining I.T. outsourcing purchasers' dissatisfaction

Outsourcing of IT is a popular strategy, argued by proponents to deliver a range of benefits including cost savings, increased service quality, and strategic advantages. However, empirical evidence of the success of outsourcing is limited, and several recent studies have suggested widespread dissatisfaction exists amongst purchasers. This paper analyses one such study to determine predictors of outsourcing satisfaction (and
dissatisfaction). The analysis reveals that, for purchasers, IT outsourcing satisfaction and perceived value (which are highly correlated) depend on whether strategic benefits are obtained, and on the technical service quality provided by vendors. Both in turn depend on whether expected cost savings are obtained. The implications of these findings for both vendors and purchasers are discussed.

Measuring wellness through interdisciplinary community development: linking the physical, economic and social environment

The aim of this study is to answer the question: Is there evidence that the quality of life of residents in a community that has had community development intervention is different as compared to the quality of life of residents in a nearby community that did not have community development initiatives? This was done by administering community development initiatives in a local area and comparing it to a similar community that did not receive this intervention. The residents of these communities rated the quality of their lives and communities in two purposively selected suburbs in Perth, Western Australia using the Australian Unity Wellbeing Index to measure individual and neighbourhood well-being. The quality of life of residents in both communities is then compared to national averages for quality of life or well-being. Answering this question provides empirical evidence of variation between ratings of quality of life of residents in different communities and highlights the utility of the Wellbeing Index for the evaluation of interdisciplinary community development

The relative importance of landscape properties for woodland birds in agricultural environments

1. Studies of landscape change are seldom conducted at scales commensurate with the processes they purport to investigate. Landscape change is a landscape-level process, yet most studies focus on patches. Even when landscape context is considered, inference remains at the patch-level. The unit of investigation must be extended beyond individual patches to whole mosaics in order to advance understanding of faunal responses to landscape change.

2. In this study, we aggregated data from multiple sites per landscape such that both the response and explanatory variables characterized 'whole' landscapes, allowing for landscape-level inference about factors influencing species' incidence.

3. We used hierarchical partitioning and Bayesian variable selection methods to develop species-specific models that examined the influence of four categories of landscape properties – habitat extent, habitat configuration, landscape composition and geographical location – on the incidence of 58 species of woodland-dependent birds in 24 agricultural landscapes (each 100 km2) in south-eastern Australia.

4. There was strong evidence for a positive effect of habitat extent for 27 species. Thirty species were related to at least one of the four landscape composition variables, and geographical location was important for 19 species. Habitat configuration was influential for 13 species and where important, the impacts of fragmentation per se were detrimental.

5. Variation among species in the influential landscape variables indicates that different species respond to different sets of cues in land mosaics. Thus, although all species were grouped a priori as 'woodland-dependent', expectations based on general ecological characteristics may prove unreliable.

6. Synthesis and applications. These results underscore the value of moving beyond the fragmentation paradigm focused on the spatial pattern of habitat vs. non-habitat, to a greater appreciation of the composition and heterogeneity of land mosaics. Landscape-level inference will enable improved conservation outcomes by recognizing the influence of landscape properties on biota and devising strategies at this scale to complement patch-based management. We provide strong empirical evidence that biodiversity management in agricultural landscapes must focus on habitat extent. Complementary management of other landscape attributes, such as habitat aggregation and intensity of agricultural land-use, will also enhance the value of agricultural landscapes for woodland birds.

School, parent, and student perspectives of school drug policies

Background: Schools use a number of measures to reduce harmful tobacco, alcohol, and drug use by students. One important component is the school's drug policy, which serves to set normative values and expectations for student behavior as well as to document procedures for dealing with drug-related incidents. There is little empirical evidence of how policy directly or indirectly influence students' drug taking. This study compares how effectively schools communicate school drug policies to parents and students, how they are implemented, and what policy variables impact students' drug use at school and their perceptions of other students' drug use at school.

Methods: Data were obtained from 3876 students attending 205 schools from 2 states in the United States and Australia, countries with contrasting national drug policy frameworks. School policy data were collected from school personnel, parents, and students.

Results: Schools' policies and enforcement procedures reflected national policy approaches. Parents and students were knowledgeable of their school's policy orientation.

Conclusions: When delivered effectively, policy messages are associated with reduced student drug use at school. Abstinence messages and harsh penalties convey a coherent message to students. Strong harm-minimization messages are also associated with reduced drug use at school, but effects are weaker than those for abstinence messages. This smaller effect may be acceptable if, in the longer term, it leads to a reduction in harmful use and school dropout within the student population.

The impact of Porter's strategy types on the role of market research and customer relationship management

Purpose – This paper seeks to investigate the influence of Porter’s strategy types on the use of customer relationship management (CRM) techniques and traditional market research, against theoretical and empirical evidence that differences in strategy types may result in variation in favoured marketing information sources and procedure.

Design/methodology/approach – Depth interviews generated a series of scale items, which were combined with others derived from the literature in a questionnaire measuring strategy types, the roles of market research, and the characteristics of CRM systems. Responses were obtained from 240 senior marketing managers in Australia, and applied to the testing of five research propositions.

Findings – ANOVA found no differences in CRM usage among the strategy types. Variation was widespread, however, in four roles of traditional market research: enhancing strategic decision making, increasing usability of existing data, presenting plans to senior management, and achieving productivity and political outcomes.

Research limitations/implications – Future researchers using the Porter strategic types should separate “marketing differentiators” from “product differentiators” because they function and compete differently.

Practical implications – All organisations can benefit from CRM systems, but “marketing differentiators” exhibit a relatively higher usage of traditional market research. This is likely to be because they compete by creating softer product differences, while others do so on harder characteristics such as price or product functionality.

Originality/value – This is the first study to use the Porter types to explain differences between the roles and uses of market research and CRM within organisations.

A heuristic framework for ratio-based modelling of corporate collapse

This paper draws on empirical evidence to demonstrate that a heuristic framework signals collapse with significantly higher accuracy than the traditional static approach. Using a sample of 494 US publicly listed companies comprising 247 collapsed matched with 247 financially healthy ones, a heuristic framework is decisively superior the closer one gets to the event of collapse, culminating in 12.5% more overall accuracy than a static approach during
the year of collapse. An even more dramatic improvement occurs in relation to reduction of Type I error, with a heuristic framework delivering an improvement of 66.7% over its static counterpart.

Out-of-home food outlets and area deprivation: case study in Glasgow, UK

Background
There is a popular belief that out-of-home eating outlets, which typically serve energy dense food, may be more commonly found in more deprived areas and that this may contribute to higher rates of obesity and related diseases in such areas.

Methods
We obtained a list of all 1301 out-of-home eating outlets in Glasgow, UK, in 2003 and mapped these at unit postcode level. We categorised them into quintiles of area deprivation using the 2004 Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation and computed mean density of types of outlet (restaurants, fast food restaurants, cafes and takeaways), and all types combined, per 1000 population. We also estimated odds ratios for the presence of any outlets in small areas within the quintiles.

Results
The density of outlets, and the likelihood of having any outlets, was highest in the second most affluent quintile (Q2) and lowest in the second most deprived quintile (Q4). Mean outlets per 1,000 were 4.02 in Q2, 1.20 in Q4 and 2.03 in Q5. With Q2 as the reference, Odds Ratios for having any outlets were 0.52 (CI 0.32–0.84) in Q1, 0.50 (CI 0.31 – 0.80) in Q4 and 0.61 (CI 0.38 – 0.98) in Q5. Outlets were located in the City Centre, West End, and along arterial roads.

Conclusion
In Glasgow those living in poorer areas are not more likely to be exposed to out-of-home eating outlets in their neighbourhoods. Health improvement policies need to be based on empirical evidence about the location of fast food outlets in specific national and local contexts, rather than on popular 'factoids'.

A scalable and robust framework for agent-based heterogeneous database operation

How to operate database efficiently and unfailingly in agent-based heterogeneous data source environment is becoming a big problem. In this paper, we contribute a framework and develop a couple of agent-oriented matchmakers with logical ring organization structure to match task agents' requests with middleware agents of databases. The middleware agent is a wrapper of a specific database and is run on the same server with the database management system. The matchmaker is of the features of proliferation and self-cancellation according to the sensory input from its environment. The ring-based coordination mechanism of matchmakers is designed. Two kinds of matchmakers, namely, host and duplicate, are designed for improving the scalability and robustness of agent-based system. The middleware agents are improved for satisfying the framework. We demonstrate the potentials of the framework by case study and present theoretical and empirical evidence that our approach is scalable and robust.

Intersectoral size differences and migration: Kuznets revisited

The empirical evidence on the Kuznets hypothesis ranges from positive or negative support to insignificant relationships. Most studies typically try this hypothesis in domains different than the one conceived by Kuznets, which pertains to the industrialization-led urbanization (i.e., significant rural-urban migration) phase of societies. In this paper, we offer a specific channel on Kuznets' hypothesis in his suggested domain. First, we establish theoretically that intersectoral urban-rural size differences result in an intersectoral income inequality, increasing the national inequality. This, in turn, prompts an intersectoral migration, which works as an equilibriating mechanism in the economy, decreasing the inequality in due course. We then successfully test the predictions of the model. The theoretical predictions yield a recursive triangular system, in which we test, i) how the sectoral size differences influence the agricultural income, ii) how a change in agricultural income acts on migration, and iii) what happens to the income distribution as a result of migration. We find a very strong support for the theoretical predictions and the Kuznets hypothesis in its own domain.

Should nurse academics engage in clinical practice?

The education of nurses has traditionally been conducted in the hospital based setting. This changed over the last few decades, with nursing education now being a tertiary based course in many countries. There were numerous reasons for this move, the main goal being to improve the educational experience of students and thus the competence of graduates. Nurse academics whose role is to educate students are faced with the challenge of ensuring their teaching reflects the contemporary nursing environment. One way of doing this is by actively engaging in clinical practice. However there are arguments for and against (as well as barriers to) them doing so and little empirical evidence to support either argument. Individually, nurse academics must make a decision about whether engaging in clinical practice is beneficial to their career and the students they teach.

Critical care nurses' decision-making activities in the natural clinical setting

• This article reports on observation of 18 nurses in urban and rural based critical care settings.

• The purpose of the study was to observe and describe the decision-making activities of critical care nurses within natural clinical settings.

• During the 2-hour observation, the researcher dictated a detailed commentary on to audio-tape of each nurse's actions. Tapes were transcribed and subjected to content analysis.

• Findings indicated three main categories of decisions. Decision frequencies were linked to nurses' critical care experience, appointment level, and location, as well as nursing shifts.

• The findings are discussed in relation to previous empirical evidence and the implications for practice.

• The author concludes that future research should be directed towards measuring the contextual influences on nurses' decision-making on the outcome of patient care.

Neighborhood road environments and physical activity among youth : the CLAN Study

We examined associations between objective measures of the local road environment and physical activity (including active transport) among youth. There is little empirical evidence of the impact of the road environment on physical activity among children/adolescents in their neighborhoods. Most recent studies have examined perceptions rather than objective measures of the road environment. This was a cross-sectional study of children aged 8–9 years (n = 188) and adolescents aged 13–15 years (n  = 346) who were participants in the 3-year follow-up of the Children Living in Active Neighborhoods (CLAN) longitudinal study in Melbourne, Australia. At baseline (2001), they were recruited from 19 state primary schools in areas of varying socioeconomic status across Melbourne. Habitual walking/cycling to local destinations was parent-reported for children and self-reported for adolescents, while moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) outside school hours was recorded using accelerometers. Road environment features in each participant’s neighborhood (area of radius 800 m around the home) were measured objectively using a geographical information system. Regression analyses found no associations between road environment variables and children’s likelihood of making at least seven walking/cycling trips per week to neighborhood destinations. Adolescent girls residing in neighborhoods with two to three traffic/pedestrian lights were more likely to make seven or more walking/cycling trips per week as those whose neighborhoods had fewer traffic lights (OR: 2.7; 95% CI: 1.2–6.2). For adolescent boys, residing on a cul-de-sac, compared with a through road, was associated with increases in MVPA of 9 min after school, 5 min in the evenings, and 22 min on weekend days. Speed humps were positively associated with adolescent boys’ MVPA during evenings. The road environment influences physical activity among youth in different ways, according to age group, sex and type of physical activity.