Procedural justice, not absorptive capacity, matters in multinational enterprise ICT transfers

This paper empirically tests the effectiveness of information and communications technology (ICT) knowledge transfer and adoption in the multinational enterprise (MNE) as an issue of critical importance to contemporary MNE functioning. In contrast to mainstream thinking on absorptive capacity, but in line with prevailing international business theory, our research supports the proposition that perceptions of procedural justice, rather than absorptive capacity, determine effectiveness, especially in cases of high tacit knowledge transfers. Data was collected from senior ICT representatives in 86 Canadian subsidiaries of foreign owned MNEs. Each of these subsidiaries recently experienced a significant ICT transfer imposed by the parent organization. Support was found for the main propositions: Procedural justice significantly predicted successful ICT transfer and adoption, while absorptive capacity was not significant. These findings are consistent even when knowledge tacitness was high. The perceived success of the ICT transfer as well as its adoption varied widely across these firms. The potential reasons for this divergence in effectiveness are manifold, but our findings suggest that in situations of substantial knowledge tacitness, a higher level of procedural justice, rather than a higher level of absorptive capacity, is critical to effective transfer and adoption.

The synergies between goal sketching and enterprise architecture

This paper introduces a pragmatic and practical method for requirements modeling. The method is built using the concepts of our goal sketching technique together with techniques from an enterprise architecture modeling language. Our claim is that our method will help project managers who want to establish early control of their projects and will also give managers confidence in the scope of their project. In particular we propose the inclusion of assumptions as first class entities in the ArchiMate enterprise architecture modeling language and an extension of the ArchiMate Motivation Model principle to allow radical as well as normative analyses. We demonstrate the usefulness of this method using a simple university library system as an example.

Ungulate behavioral responses to the heterogeneous road-network of a touristic protected area in Africa

Understanding how wildlife responds to road and traffic is essential for effective conservation. Yet, not many studies have evaluated how roads influence wildlife in protected areas, particularly within the large iconic African National Parks where tourism is mainly based on sightings from motorized vehicles with the consequent development and intense use of roads. To reduce this knowledge gap, we studied the behavioral response and local spatial distribution of impala Aepyceros melampus along the heterogeneous (with variation in road surface type and traffic intensity) road-network of Kruger National Park (KNP, South Africa). We surveyed different types of roads (paved and unpaved) recording the occurrence of flight responses among sighted impala and describing their local spatial distribution (in relation to the roads). We observed relatively few flight responses (19.5% of 118 observations), suggesting impalas could be partly habituated to vehicles in KNP. In addition, impala local distribution is apparently unaffected by unpaved roads, yet animals seem to avoid the close proximity of paved roads. Overall, our results suggest a negative, albeit small, effect of traffic intensity, and of presence of pavement on roads on the behavior of impala at KNP. Future studies would be necessary to understand how roads influence other species, but our results show that even within a protected area that has been well-visited for a long time, wildlife can still be affected by roads and traffic. This result has ecological (e.g., changes in spatial distribution of fauna) and management implications (e.g., challenges of facilitating wildlife sightings while minimizing disturbance) for protected areas where touristic activities are largely based on driving.

Scalable model-based configuration management of security services in complex enterprise networks

Security administrators face the challenge of designing, deploying and maintaining a variety of configuration files related to security systems, especially in large-scale networks. These files have heterogeneous syntaxes and follow differing semantic concepts. Nevertheless, they are interdependent due to security services having to cooperate and their configuration to be consistent with each other, so that global security policies are completely and correctly enforced. To tackle this problem, our approach supports a comfortable definition of an abstract high-level security policy and provides an automated derivation of the desired configuration files. It is an extension of policy-based management and policy hierarchies, combining model-based management (MBM) with system modularization. MBM employs an object-oriented model of the managed system to obtain the details needed for automated policy refinement. The modularization into abstract subsystems (ASs) segment the system-and the model-into units which more closely encapsulate related system components and provide focused abstract views. As a result, scalability is achieved and even comprehensive IT systems can be modelled in a unified manner. The associated tool MoBaSeC (Model-Based-Service-Configuration) supports interactive graphical modelling, automated model analysis and policy refinement with the derivation of configuration files. We describe the MBM and AS approaches, outline the tool functions and exemplify their applications and results obtained. Copyright (C) 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An Architectural Description Language for Enterprise Computing

Architectural description languages (ADLs) are used to specify high-level, compositional view of a software application. ADLs usually come equipped with a rigourous state-transition style semantics, facilitating specification and analysis of distributed and event-based systems. However, enterprise system architectures built upon newer middleware (implementations of Java’s EJB specification, or Microsoft’s COM+/ .NET) require additional expressive power from an ADL. The TrustME ADL is designed to meet this need. In this paper, we describe several aspects of TrustME that facilitate specification and anlysis of middleware-based architectures for the enterprise.

Um modelo de EIS - enterprise information system - que identifica características para comportamentos proativos na recuperação de informações

Este documento constitui uma dissertação de mestrado, requisito parcial para a obtenção do grau de Mestre em Administração pela Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul. O tema da pesquisa é o relacionamento existente entre as características técnicas de um projeto de sistema de informação e apoio à decisão e os comportamentos dos usuários no seu uso. O objetivo é desenvolver e apresentar um modelo conceitual de EIS (“Enterprise Information Systems”), a partir da literatura, das tendências tecnológicas e de estudos de caso, que identifique características para comportamentos proativos dos usuários na recuperação de informações. Adotou-se o conceito de comportamento proativo na recuperação de informações como a combinação das categorias exploração de dados e busca focada. Entre os principais resultados, pode-se destacar a definição de categorias relacionadas com as características dos sistemas - flexibilidade, integração e apresentação - e de categorias relacionadas com os comportamentos dos usuários na recuperação de informações - exploração de dados e busca focada, bem como a apresentação de um modelo conceitual para sistemas EIS. Pode-se destacar também a exploração de novas técnicas para análise qualitativa de dados, realizada com o objetivo de buscar uma maior preservação do contexto nos estudos de caso.

Impactos dos enterprise systems na transformação organizacional

A tecnologia de informação e, mais especificamente, os Enterprise Systems (ESs), têm recebido enorme atenção e investimentos maciços nas organizações. Por se tratar de uma tecnologia relativamente nova, os estudos sobre ESs não têm claro os seus impactos na transformação organizacional em termos das pessoas e cultura numa perspectiva sociotécnica, estruturalista e humanista. Por meio de um estudo qualitativo fruto de bricolagem com vários ambientes de análise, características de sujeitos e com a ferramenta de análise do conteúdo do discurso, puderam-se confirmar as hipóteses sobre os impactos dos ESs quanto à melhoria nas relações pessoa/pessoa, pessoa/alta gerência e pessoa/trabalho, base do levantamento "Um Excelente Lugar para se Trabalhar", bem como, impactos em outras variáveis analisadas. O estudo estendeu-se um pouco mais e verificou as habilidades dos implantadores dos sistemas e desenvolvedores dos softwares, as características das empresas com relação à fase de maturidade evolutiva e os objetivos pouco claros de implantação dos ESs como fatores dificultadores de implantação, resultando em sub-utilização e resistência e perda de recursos. O trabalho realiza também uma ampla pesquisa bibliográfica que evidencia que ainda não há um grau médio de clareza sobre as reais características do fenômeno "implantação de ES", suas justificativas, problemas, objetivos, fatores determinantes de sucesso, etc.

O impacto da implantação dos softwares de ERP - Enterprise Resource Planning - na contabilidade gerencial e no papel do contador gerencial

Aborda o impacto da implantação dos sistemas ERP - Enterprise Resource Planning- sobre a Contabilidade e sobre o Papel do Contador Gerencial. Analisa quais foram as alterações estruturais, - funcionais e de responsabilidades ocorridas com a contabilidade gerencial, após a implantação do ERP, bem como as alterações ocorridas no papel do contador gerencial, nas suas funções, na sua importância e no seu papel nas organizações. Identifica, em função desse novo papel, quais são as novas habilidades que o contador gerencial deverá incorporar

Enterprise-wide risk management : um modelo de gestão integrada de riscos

Existem diversos tipos de riscos que uma organização pode correr. Normalmente eles são gerenciados isoladamente em casa unidade ou divisão. Diante do cenário mais volátil da nova economia, é proposto um modelo de gerenciamento de risco que busca integrar todos os diferentes tipos de risco, chamado de Enterprise-Wide Risk Management (EWRM). O modelo organiza a gestão de riscos, sob a ótica de portfolio, interferindo na estratégia da empresa e criando valor ao acionista. O trabalho mostra a evolução dos modelos de gerenciamento de risco até o EWRM, propondo uma metodologia para sua implementação assim como os fatores chave para seu sucesso

Is enterprise value affected by political nominations for a regulatory agency's presidency?

Economists have argued that regulation is the appropriate approach to maintain output in its economically efficient level in a natural monopoly, and that can be achieved by submitting these companies to regulatory agencies’ decisions. The autonomous agencies are, however, not free in an absolute sense, and it is important to ask what the priorities of the new administration are. One answer is that it is designed to give leeway and powers of discretion to unbiased professionals with expertise in their field. In practice, however, professional experts might often be politically motivated. The objective of this study is to investigate whether political nominations to the presidency of regulatory agencies, rather than technical appointments, affect the level of regulatory risk. In order to achieve this purpose, an event study was performed, where the regulatory risk in a political nomination will be compared to a technical nomination, in terms of abnormal return.