Information technology and social cohesion : a tale of two villages

Acknowledgements: This research was carried out through a grant from the EPSRC: Communities and Cultures Network+ EP/K003585 and forms part of the dot.rural Rural Digital Economy Research Hub EP/G066051

Information technology and social cohesion : a tale of two villages

Acknowledgements: This research was carried out through a grant from the EPSRC: Communities and Cultures Network+ EP/K003585 and forms part of the dot.rural Rural Digital Economy Research Hub EP/G066051

Using Information on Unconstrained Student Demand to Improve University Course Schedules

We examine how using information on unconstrained demand can improve operational decisions. Specifically, we examine the widespread problem of developing course schedules in not-for-profit university settings. We investigate the potential benefit of incorporating, into the scheduling process, information on the unconstrained demand of students for courses. Prior to this study, the status quo in our college, like that in a large proportion of university settings, was building the course schedule to avoid time conflicts between required courses and to minimize time conflicts between designated groups of courses, such as electives in a particular area. Compared to the status quo approach, we find that, based on three semester's worth of actual data, an approach that explicitly considers students’ course preferences improves a student-based metric of schedule quality on the order of over 4% (which is the equivalent, in our setting, of improving service for over 20% of students).

A MODEL FOR EVALUATING IMPACT OF BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT IN ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE

Business Process Management (BPM) is able to organize and frame a company focusing in the improvement or assurance of performance in order to gain competitive advantage. Although it is believed that BPM improves various aspects of organizational performance, there has been a lack of empirical evidence about this. The present study has the purpose to develop a model to show the impact of business process management in organizational performance. To accomplish that, the theoretical basis required to know the elements that configurate BPM and the measures that can evaluate the BPM success on organizational performance is built through a systematic literature review (SLR). Then, a research model is proposed according to SLR results. Empirical data will be collected from a survey of  larg and mid-sized industrial and service companies headquartered in Brazil. A quantitative analysis will be performed using structural equation modeling (SEM) to show if the direct effects among BPM and organizational performance can be considered statistically significant. At the end will discuss these results and their managerial and cientific implications.Keywords: Business process management (BPM). Organizational performance. Firm performance. Business models. Structural Equation Modeling. Systematic Literature Review.

Learning Management Systems (LMS) and e-learning management: an integrative review and research agenda

Information Technology (IT) can be an important component for innovation since enabling e-learning it can provide conditions to which the organization can work with new business and improved processes. In this regard, the Learning Management Systems (LMS) allows communication and interaction between teachers and students in virtual spaces. However the literature indicates that there are gaps in the researches, especially concerning the use of IT for the management of e-learning. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the available literature about the application of LMS for the e-learning management, seeking to present possibilities for researches in the field. An integrative literature review was performed considering the Web of Science, Scopus, Ebsco and Scielo databases, where 78 references were found, of which 25 were full papers. This analysis derives interesting characteristics from scientific studies, highlighting gaps and guidelines for future research.

Impact of Information Technology Investments on Firm Productivity in Peripherals Countries: The Case of Portugal

IS/IT investments are seen has having an enormous potential impact on the competitive position of the firm, on its performance, and demand an active and motivated participation of several stakeholder groups. The shortfall of evidence concerning the productivity of IT became known as the ‘productivity paradox’. As Robert Solow, the Nobel laureate economist stated “we see computers everywhere except in the productivity statistics”. An important stream of research conducted all over the world has tried to understand these phenomena, called in the literature as «IS business value» field. However, there is a gap in the literature, addressing the Portuguese situation. No empirical work has been done to date in order to understand the impact of Information Technology adoption on the productivity of those firms. Using data from two surveys conducted by the Portuguese National Institute of Statistics (INE), Inquiry to the use of IT by Portuguese companies (IUTIC) and the Inquiry Harmonized to (Portuguese) companies (accounting data), this study relates (using regression analysis) the amounts spent on IT with the financial performance indicator Returns on Equity, as a proxy of firm productivity, of Portuguese companies with more than 250 employees. The aim of this paper is to shed light on the Portuguese situation concerning the impact of IS/IT on the productivity of Portuguese top companies. Empirically, we test the impact of IT expenditure on firm productivity of a sample of Portuguese large companies. Our results, based on firm-level data on Information Technology expenditure and firm productivity as measured by return on equity (1186 observations) for the years of 2003 and 2004, exhibit a negative impact of IT expenditure on firm productivity, in line with “productivity paradox” claimants.

Creative urban regions : harnessing urban technologies to support knowledge city initiatives

In the rapidly growing knowledge economy, the talent and creativity of those around us will be increasingly decisive in shaping economic opportunity. Creativity can be described as the ability to produce new and original ideas and things. In other words, it is any act, idea, or product that changes an existing domain or transforms an existing domain into a new one. From an economic perspective, creativity can be considered as the generation of new ideas that is the major source of innovation and new economic activities. As urban regions have become the localities of key knowledge precincts and knowledge clusters across the globe, the link between a range of new technologies and the development of ‘creative urban regions’ (CURs) has come to the fore. In this sense, creativity has become a buzz concept in knowledge-economy research and policy circles. It has spawned ‘creative milieus,’ ‘creative industries,’ ‘creative cities,’ ‘creative class,’ and ‘creative capital.’ Hence, creativity has become a key concept on the agenda of city managers, development agents, and planners as they search for new forms of urban and economic development. CURs provide vast opportunities for knowledge production and spillover, which lead to the formation of knowledge cities. Urban information and communication technology (ICT) developments support the transformation of cities into knowledge cities. This book, which is a companion volume to Knowledge-Based Urban Development: Planning and Applications in the Information Era (also published by IGI Global) focuses on some of these developments. The Forward and Afterword are written by senior respected academic researchers Robert Stimson of the University of Queensland, Australia, and Zorica Nedovic-Budic of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. The book is divided into four sections, each one dealing with selected aspects of information and communication technologies and creative urban regions.

Geek goddesses go to school : A study of female pre-service teachers in information technology courses

Various reasons have been proffered for female under-representation in tertiary information technology (IT) courses and the IT industry with most relating to cultural moirés. The 2006 Geek Goddess calendar was designed to alter IT’s “geeky image” and the term is used here to represent young women enrolled in pre-service IT teaching courses. Their special mix of IT and teaching draws on conflicting stereotypes and represents a micro-climate which is typically lost in studies of IT occupations because of the aggregation of all IT roles. This paper will report on a small-scale investigation of female students (N=25) at a university in Queensland (Australia) studying to become teachers of secondary IT subjects. They are entering the IT industry, gendered as a “male” occupation, through the safe space of teaching a discipline allied to feminine qualities of nurturing. They are “geek goddesses” who – perhaps to balance the masculine and feminine of these occupations - have decided to go to school rather than into corporations or government.