Managing the implementation of business intelligence systems : a critical success factors framework

The implementation of a BI system is a complex undertaking requiring considerable resources. Yet there is a limited authoritative set of CSFs for management reference. This article represents a first step of filling in the research gap. The authors utilized the Delphi method to conduct three rounds of studies with 15 BI system experts in the domain of engineering asset management organizations. The study develops a CSFs framework that consists of seven factors and associated contextual elements crucial for BI systems implementation. The CSFs are committed management support and sponsorship, business user-oriented change management, clear business vision and well-established case, business-driven methodology and project management, business-centric championship and balanced project team composition, strategic and extensible technical framework, and sustainable data quality and governance framework. This CSFs framework allows BI stakeholders to holistically understand the critical factors that influence implementation success of BI systems.

Teaching in the iWorld: developing a repertoire of pedagogical discourse around the usage of touch screen devices in early years classrooms

 Touch-screen devices have been enthusiastically adopted by schools across Australia and Canada. Their ease of use means that they are accessible by very young children, and these children often have free access to these devices in their home, however the devices tend to be ‘domesticated’ in the school context (O’Mara and Laidlaw, 2011). In the short period of their availability, a plethora of educational applications have been developed for these devices. This paper addresses emergent themes from our 2011-2013 Canadian/Australian project, Literacy learning in playful spaces: using multi-modal strategies to develop narrative with young learners, funded by the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Insight Development Grant). In our analysis of the discourse around the introduction of portable touch screen devices into school literacy classes (published texts, teacher interviews, classroom observations), we noted that much of the public discourse is slanted towards the idea of “teacher-proofing” the curriculum. Initially the teachers we have been working with saw the apps themselves as complete, as doing all the work and the discourse around the devices was around what apps are “best”, and “is there an app for that?” It was only with more experience and time that teachers were able to harness the range of affordances of the devices—their capacity for recording audio, video, pictures etc., and start to categorise the apps themselves. In this paper we suggest ways in which current literacy models might be used to develop a repertoire of pedagogical discourse around these devices, providing language and framings for teachers to think about how these new tools might best be used to enhance literacy teaching and learning. O’Mara, J. & Laidlaw, L. (2011). Living in the iWorld: Two literacy researchers reflect on the changing texts and literacy practices of childhood. English Teaching: Practice and Critique 10 (4): 149-159. Available: http://edlinked.soe.waikato.ac.nz/research/journal/view.php?article=true&id=754&p=1

The geo-historical legacies of urban security governance and the Vancouver 2010 Olympics

In 2004, the discourse of ‘legacy’ was woven into the constitutional fabric of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Bidding for Olympic events is now premised on procuring post-event legacies that will resonate through local communities and host countries long after the flame is extinguished. Given vast expenditures in security, policing, and emergency management operations at major sporting events, it is notable that the IOC and its official partners have disproportionately under-represented security and policing legacies. This paper addresses research into security and policing legacies of major events by turning much needed empirical attention towards institutional level geographies of security and policing – particularly on legacies of policing and militarisation in Olympic host cities. Accordingly, the paper traces the institutional trajectory of the Military Liaison Unit (MLU) in the Vancouver Police Department who were heavily involved in coordinating the joint civilian–military effort throughout the lifecycle of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games. Theoretically, the paper furthers Stephen Graham’s (2010) New Military Urbanism that considers the circulation of military expertise between neo-colonial frontiers of military intervention with Western urban spaces. In doing so, this paper unpacks an empirically guided temporal approach that discerns key drivers of militarisation as localised, empirical-based ‘trajectories’ of development of security and policing institutions, which are linked to, and circumscribed by, critical juncture episodes in the context of mega event security. The paper traces processes of the MLU to explain how conditions underpinning the civil–military divide in urban policing, as a series of jurisdictional, institutional, and by extension, geographical configurations have continued, changed or been abandoned in the context of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. As such, this paper contributes to much needed debate on the controversies and opportunities inherent in security legacies and major events, which implicate the wider securitisation and militarisation of Western cities.

Critical analysis of the use of absorptive capacity theory in IS research

This paper critically analyzes the use of Absorptive Capacity (ACAP) theory in information systems (IS) research. Drawing on a comprehensive review of the evolution of ACAP theory and models for the construct, we empirically investigate a number of ACAP-related papers published in reputable IS journals. The analysis involves four main areas: 1) summary analysis of ACAP in IS papers; 2) domains of ACAP usage; 3) analysis of hypotheses to show how ACAP is being used to explain various organizational phenomena in IS research; and 4) analysis of measures to gain insights into the operationalization of ACAP in IS research. This research advocates that organization-level ACAP should be applied as the dependent variable in studying the impact of IS. Furthermore, ACAP should be conceptualized as a “capability,” rather than an “asset.” This paper contributes to IS and ACAP studies by investigating and clearly specifying the utility of ACAP in IS research.

A critical ethnography of communication processes involving the management of oral chemotherapeutic agents by patients with a primary diagnosis of colorectal cancer: study protocol.

AIM: To describe the protocol used to examine the processes of communication between health professionals, patients and informal carers during the management of oral chemotherapeutic medicines to identify factors that promote or inhibit medicine concordance. BACKGROUND: Ideally communication practices about oral medicines should incorporate shared decision-making, two-way dialogue and an equality of role between practitioner and patient. While there is evidence that healthcare professionals are adopting these concordant elements in general practice there are still some patients who have a passive role during consultations. Considering oral chemotherapeutic medications, there is a paucity of research about communication practices which is surprising given the high risk of toxicity associated with chemotherapy. DESIGN: A critical ethnographic design will be used, incorporating non-participant observations, individual semi-structured and focus-group interviews as several collecting methods. METHODS: Observations will be carried out on the interactions between healthcare professionals (physicians, nurses and pharmacists) and patients in the outpatient departments where prescriptions are explained and supplied and on follow-up consultations where treatment regimens are monitored. Interviews will be conducted with patients and their informal carers. Focus-groups will be carried out with healthcare professionals at the conclusion of the study. These several will be analysed using thematic analysis. This research is funded by the Department for Employment and Learning in Northern Ireland (Awarded February 2012). DISCUSSION: Dissemination of these findings will contribute to the understanding of issues involved when communicating with people about oral chemotherapy. It is anticipated that findings will inform education, practice and policy.

‘A cataclysm of truth from the crisis of falsehood’: reading Habermas on Calvino

Interest in the possibility of a Habermasian approach to literary criticism has recently been sparked by several book-length contributions from scholars working in the field of Frankfurt School Critical Theory. This article seeks to clarify the conceptual stakes in the current debate, which concern whether literature makes truth claims or merely imaginatively discloses new perceptions with a truth potential, by returning to Habermas’s most extended encounter with a literary work since the 1970s. Against the background of the philosophical issues, I re-read to Calvino’s highly self-reflexive If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller to show that in The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, Habermas has managed to get everything backwards. Literature here reads philosophy alright, but not in the sense of the ludic deconstruction of rational argumentation into rhetorical play that Habermas supposes. Using the notion of an ontological poetics of self-reflexive literature, and with some help from Lacanian psychoanalysis, I interpret Calvino’s novel as a sustained meditation on the connection between authentic literature and the desire to read. In this light, it not only looks like Habermas has missed his polemical target, but, also, and more significantly, it becomes clear that abandonment of the link between literature and truth is misguided.

Gilles Deleuze and the space of education: poststructuralism, critical psychology, and schooled bodies

The editor and contributors to this volume are concerned that these thinkers have been misappropriated on occasions. That is why this volume concentrates on the historical and intellectual background of these philosophers.

The establishment of the Judicial Appointments Commission in Malaysia to improve the constitutional method of appointing the judges of the superior courts : a critical study

The Judicial Appointments Commission was established in Malaysia in 2009 to ensure unbiased selection of judicial candidates for the consideration of the Prime Minister, who has the final say regarding the appointment of judges to the superior courts. But the provisions concerning Prime Minister’s power to appoint the majority of the members of the Commission and his unfettered power of removing four of the five appointed members without assigning any reason, have calculatedly been devised for ensuring the selection of judicial candidates having right political patronage in accordance with the covert wishes of the Prime Minister. Furthermore, the Prime Minister’s power of rejecting the Commission’s recommendations of multiple candidates renders the undertaking of a lengthy process of selection unproductive and useless. Thus the Judicial Appointments Commission has become a superfluous body with an ineffective modus operandi to attain the stipulated objectives of improving and complementing the constitutional method of appointing judges to the superior courts. Since the Federal Constitution of Malaysia has not empowered the Parliament to enact a law providing for the establishment of a Judicial Appointments Commission, it also appears that the Judicial Appointments Commission Act 2009 is an invalid piece of legislation.

The subjectivities of ‘included’ students with disabilities in schools

The contextual precept of this paper is to re-theorise inclusive education beyond technical rational solutions to the ‘problem’ of disability. Drawing on Foucauldian and critical disability theories, I make the case for the analysis of inclusive schooling through the lens of students’ ‘included’ subjectivities – notwithstanding the presence of diagnosed special educational needs. I contend that there is a theoretical mismatch between humanist inclusive schooling and the posthumanist position of disability: an epistemic fissure that impedes inclusive development. Through analysis of the voices of students with disabilities from two different schooling contexts in Australia and Spain, I demonstrate how fragmented virtues of normalcy suffused their subjectivities. I conclude the paper with a discussion of the roles that DisHuman disability studies might play in recasting inclusive schooling by troubling normative discourse.

Failing to see the woods for the trees: in search of critical creative research

Not all examples of creativity can be explained by the functionalist view that creativity is inherent in an artefact and comes about due to a “creative” individual’s efforts within a conducive environment. I build a case for creativity research which overturns assumptions inherent in functionalist research and conceptualises the phenomenon as a context specific, social construction. However, reviewing the limited critical research, I find that there is inconsistency in the theoretical models and the empirical work and ongoing privileging of the individual. It is unsurprising therefore, that, this research has been criticised for causing fragmentation within the field. I argue, to build knowledge, critical creativity research needs to adopt a systemic perspective, focus on social processes and consider collectives.