Success factors for ICT shared services in the higher education sector

Shared services is a prominent organizational arrangement for organizations, in particular for support functions. The success (or failure) of shared services is a critical concern as the move to shared services can entail large scale investment and involve fundamental organizational change. The Higher Education (HE) sector is particularly well poised to benefit from shared services as there is a need to improve organizational performance and strong potential from sharing. Through a multiple case study of shared services experiences in HE, this study identifies ten important antecedents of shared services success: (1) Understanding of shared services; (2) Organizational environment; (3) Top management support; (4) IT environment; (5) Governance; (6) Process centric view; (7) Implementation strategy; (8) Project management; (9) Change management; and (10) Communication. The study then develops a preliminary model of shared services success that addresses the interdependencies between the success factors. As the first empirical success model for shared services, it provides valuable guidance to practice and future research.

Critical success elements for the design and implementation of organisational e-learning

Organisations are engaging in e-learning as a mechanism for delivering flexible learning to meet the needs of individuals and organisations. In light of the increasing use and organisational investment in e-learning, the need for methods to evaluate the success of its design and implementation seems more important than ever. To date, developing a standard for the evaluation of e-learning appears to have eluded both academics and practitioners. The currently accepted evaluation methods for e-learning are traditional learning and development models, such as Kirkpatrick’s model (1976). Due to the technical nature of e-learning it is important to broaden the scope and consider other evaluation models or techniques, such as the DeLone and McLean Information Success Model, that may be applicable to the e-learning domain. Research into the use of e-learning courses has largely avoided considering the applicability of information systems research. Given this observation, it is reasonable to conclude that e-learning implementation decisions and practice could be overlooking useful or additional viewpoints. This research investigated how existing evaluation models apply in the context of organisational e-learning, and resulted in an Organisational E-learning success Framework, which identifies the critical elements for success in an e-learning environment. In particular this thesis highlights the critical importance of three e-learning system creation elements; system quality, information quality, and support quality. These elements were explored in depth and the nature of each element is described in detail. In addition, two further elements were identified as factors integral to the success of an e-learning system; learner preferences and change management. Overall, this research has demonstrated the need for a holistic approach to e-learning evaluation. Furthermore, it has shown that the application of both traditional training evaluation approaches and the D&M IS Success Model are appropriate to the organisational e-learning context, and when combined can provide this holistic approach. Practically, this thesis has reported the need for organisations to consider evaluation at all stages of e-learning from design through to implementation.

ICT shared services in the higher education sector : foundations, benefits, success factors and issues

Universities are more and more challenged by the emerging global higher education market, facilitated by advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). This requires them to reconsider their mission and direction in order to function effectively and efficiently, and to be responsive to changes in their environment. In the face of increasing demands and competitive pressures, Universities like other companies, seek to continuously innovate and improve their performance. Universities are considering co-operating or sharing, both internally and externally, in a wide range of areas to achieve cost effectiveness and improvements in performance. Shared services are an effective model for re-organizing to reduce costs, increase quality and create new capabilities. Shared services are not limited to the Higher Education (HE) sector. Organizations across different sectors are adopting shared services, in particular for support functions such as Finance, Accounting, Human Resources and Information Technology. While shared services has been around for more than three decades, commencing in the 1970’s in the banking sector and then been adopted by other sectors, it is an under researched domain, with little consensus on the most fundamental issues even as basic as defining what shared services is. Moreover, the interest in shared services within Higher Education is a global phenomenon. This study on shared services is situated within the Higher Education Sector of Malaysia, and originated as an outcome resulting from a national project (2005 – 2007) conducted by the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) entitled "Knowledge, Information Communication Technology Strategic Plan (KICTSP) for Malaysian Public Higher Education"- where progress towards more collaborations via shared services was a key recommendation. The study’s primary objective was to understand the nature and potential for ICT shared services, in particular in the Malaysian HE sector; by laying a foundation in terms of definition, typologies and research agenda and deriving theoretically based conceptualisations of the potential benefits of shared services, success factors and issues of pursuing shared services. The study embarked on this objective with a literature review and pilot case study as a means to further define the context of the study, given the current under-researched status of ICT shared services and of shared services in Higher Education. This context definition phase illustrated a range of unaddressed issues; including a lack of common understanding of what shared services are, how they are formed, what objectives they full fill, who is involved etc. The study thus embarked on a further investigation of a more foundational nature with an exploratory phase that aimed to address these gaps, where a detailed archival analysis of shared services literature within the IS context was conducted to better understand shared services from an IS perspective. The IS literature on shared services was analysed in depth to report on the current status of shared services research in the IS domain; in particular definitions, objectives, stakeholders, the notion of sharing, theories used, and research methods applied were analysed, which provided a firmer base to this study’s design. The study also conducted a detailed content analysis of 36 cases (globally) of shared services implementations in the HE sector to better understand how shared services are structured within the HE sector and what is been shared. The results of the context definition phase and exploratory phase formed a firm basis in the multiple case studies phase which was designed to address the primary goals of this study (as presented above). Three case sites within the Malaysian HE sector was included in this analysis, resulting in empirically supported theoretical conceptualizations of shared services success factors, issues and benefits. A range of contributions are made through this study. First, the detailed archival analysis of shared services in Information Systems (IS) demonstrated the dearth of research on shared services within Information Systems. While the existing literature was synthesised to contribute towards an improved understanding of shared services in the IS domain, the areas that are yet under-developed and requires further exploration is identified and presented as a proposed research agenda for the field. This study also provides theoretical considerations and methodological guidelines to support the research agenda; to conduct better empirical research in this domain. A number of literatures based a priori frameworks (i.e. on the forms of sharing and shared services stakeholders etc) are derived in this phase, contributing to practice and research with early conceptualisations of critical aspects of shared services. Furthermore, the comprehensive archival analysis design presented and executed here is an exemplary approach of a systematic, pre-defined and tool-supported method to extract, analyse and report literature, and is documented as guidelines that can be applied for other similar literature analysis, with particular attention to supporting novice researchers. Second, the content analysis of 36 shared services initiatives in the Higher Education sector presented eight different types of structural arrangements for shared services, as observed in practice, and the salient dimensions along which those types can be usefully differentiated. Each of the eight structural arrangement types are defined and demonstrated through case examples, with further descriptive details and insights to what is shared and how the sharing occurs. This typology, grounded on secondary empirical evidence, can serve as a useful analytical tool for researchers investigating the shared services phenomenon further, and for practitioners considering the introduction or further development of shared services. Finally, the multiple case studies conducted in the Malaysian Higher Education sector, provided further empirical basis to instantiate the conceptual frameworks and typology derived from the prior phases and develops an empirically supported: (i) framework of issues and challenges, (ii) a preliminary theory of shared services success, and (iii) a benefits framework, for shared services in the Higher Education sector.

An empirical analysis of the factors and measures of Enterprise Architecture Management success

Enterprise Architecture Management (EAM) is discussed in academia and industry as a vehicle to guide IT implementations, alignment, compliance assessment, or technology management. Still, a lack of knowledge prevails about how EAM can be successfully used, and how positive impact can be realized from EAM. To determine these factors, we identify EAM success factors and measures through literature reviews and exploratory interviews and propose a theoretical model that explains key factors and measures of EAM success. We test our model with data collected from a cross-sectional survey of 133 EAM practitioners. The results confirm the existence of an impact of four distinct EAM success factors, ‘EAM product quality’, ‘EAM infrastructure quality’, ‘EAM service delivery quality’, and ‘EAM organizational anchoring’, and two important EAM success measures, ‘intentions to use EAM’ and ‘Organizational and Project Benefits’ in a confirmatory analysis of the model. We found the construct ‘EAM organizational anchoring’ to be a core focal concept that mediated the effect of success factors such as ‘EAM infrastructure quality’ and ‘EAM service quality’ on the success measures. We also found that ‘EAM satisfaction’ was irrelevant to determining or measuring success. We discuss implications for theory and EAM practice.

Critical factors to be considered when planning the implementation of environmental improvements and energy saving

To identify the critical success factors in the adoption of energy efficiency actions in Brazilian hospitals and describe their behaviour are the objectives of this paper. In order to achieve these goals, a literature review was performed on green management and energy efficiency. This was the basis to define the questions of the interview script applied to two hospitals located in the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil. The interview script application was complemented by secondary data and direct observation. The results showed that: a) the studied hospitals are embracing environmental management actions more often and, whenever possible, energy efficiency actions are taken as well; and b) in the cases analysed top management support, commitment with the environment, green process design and employee empowerment were some of the most relevant critical success factors to the accomplishment of energy efficiency actions. These findings may be of interest to emerging countries, including BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa).

Success factors in a forming strategic positioning of manufacturing operations within global supply chains

Managing supply chains effectively has become a critical element in enhancing company profitability and has been identified as the new frontier of competitive advantage. An important element of effective supply chain management is the strategic positioning of the company. The strategic positioning process is concerned with the choice of production-centred activities a company carries out internally and those provided externally. Strategic positioning within manufacturing supply chains however is a relatively recent research topic with apparently few articles currently available that explicitly address associated issues directly. Moreover there is no previous research working strategic positioning of manufacturing operations in global context. Therefore the purpose of this paper is to explore strategic positioning within global supply chains. This paper is based on three cases drawn from the cross industry sector manufacturing companies. It describes an exploratory analysis which is aimed at gaining insight into the success factor to form a strategic positioning within global supply chains.

Success factors of product innovation:an updated meta-analysis

Assessing factors that predict new product success (NPS) holds critical importance for companies, as research shows that despite considerable new product investment, success rates are generally below 25%. Over the decades, meta-analytical attempts have been made to summarize empirical findings on NPS factors. However, market environment changes such as increased global competition, as well as methodological advancements in meta-analytical research, present a timely opportunity to augment their results. Hence, a key objective of this research is to provide an updated and extended meta-analytic investigation of the factors affecting NPS. Using Henard and Szymanski's meta-analysis as the most comprehensive recent summary of empirical findings, this study updates their findings by analyzing articles published from 1999 through 2011, the period following the original meta-analysis. Based on 233 empirical studies (from 204 manuscripts) on NPS, with a total 2618 effect sizes, this study also takes advantage of more recent methodological developments by re-calculating effects of the meta-analysis employing a random effects model. The study's scope broadens by including overlooked but important additional variables, notably “country culture,” and discusses substantive differences between the updated meta-analysis and its predecessor. Results reveal generally weaker effect sizes than those reported by Henard and Szymanski in 2001, and provide evolutionary evidence of decreased effects of common success factors over time. Moreover, culture emerges as an important moderating factor, weakening effect sizes for individualistic countries and strengthening effects for risk-averse countries, highlighting the importance of further investigating culture's role in product innovation studies, and of tracking changes of success factors of product innovations. Finally, a sharp increase since 1999 in studies investigating product and process characteristics identifies a significant shift in research interest in new product development success factors. The finding that the importance of success factors generally declines over time calls for new theoretical approaches to better capture the nature of new product development (NPD) success factors. One might speculate that the potential to create competitive advantages through an understanding of NPD success factors is reduced as knowledge of these factors becomes more widespread among managers. Results also imply that managers attempting to improve success rates of NPDs need to consider national culture as this factor exhibits a strong moderating effect: Working in varied cultural contexts will result in differing antecedents of successful new product ventures.

Social network structure as a critical success condition for open source software project communities

In recent years, a surprising new phenomenon has emerged in which globally-distributed online communities collaborate to create useful and sophisticated computer software. These open source software groups are comprised of generally unaffiliated individuals and organizations who work in a seemingly chaotic fashion and who participate on a voluntary basis without direct financial incentive. ^ The purpose of this research is to investigate the relationship between the social network structure of these intriguing groups and their level of output and activity, where social network structure is defined as (1) closure or connectedness within the group, (2) bridging ties which extend outside of the group, and (3) leader centrality within the group. Based on well-tested theories of social capital and centrality in teams, propositions were formulated which suggest that social network structures associated with successful open source software project communities will exhibit high levels of bridging and moderate levels of closure and leader centrality. ^ The research setting was the SourceForge hosting organization and a study population of 143 project communities was identified. Independent variables included measures of closure and leader centrality defined over conversational ties, along with measures of bridging defined over membership ties. Dependent variables included source code commits and software releases for community output, and software downloads and project site page views for community activity. A cross-sectional study design was used and archival data were extracted and aggregated for the two-year period following the first release of project software. The resulting compiled variables were analyzed using multiple linear and quadratic regressions, controlling for group size and conversational volume. ^ Contrary to theory-based expectations, the surprising results showed that successful project groups exhibited low levels of closure and that the levels of bridging and leader centrality were not important factors of success. These findings suggest that the creation and use of open source software may represent a fundamentally new socio-technical development process which disrupts the team paradigm and which triggers the need for building new theories of collaborative development. These new theories could point towards the broader application of open source methods for the creation of knowledge-based products other than software. ^

Social Network Structure as a Critical Success Condition for Open Source Software Project Communities

In recent years, a surprising new phenomenon has emerged in which globally-distributed online communities collaborate to create useful and sophisticated computer software. These open source software groups are comprised of generally unaffiliated individuals and organizations who work in a seemingly chaotic fashion and who participate on a voluntary basis without direct financial incentive. The purpose of this research is to investigate the relationship between the social network structure of these intriguing groups and their level of output and activity, where social network structure is defined as 1) closure or connectedness within the group, 2) bridging ties which extend outside of the group, and 3) leader centrality within the group. Based on well-tested theories of social capital and centrality in teams, propositions were formulated which suggest that social network structures associated with successful open source software project communities will exhibit high levels of bridging and moderate levels of closure and leader centrality. The research setting was the SourceForge hosting organization and a study population of 143 project communities was identified. Independent variables included measures of closure and leader centrality defined over conversational ties, along with measures of bridging defined over membership ties. Dependent variables included source code commits and software releases for community output, and software downloads and project site page views for community activity. A cross-sectional study design was used and archival data were extracted and aggregated for the two-year period following the first release of project software. The resulting compiled variables were analyzed using multiple linear and quadratic regressions, controlling for group size and conversational volume. Contrary to theory-based expectations, the surprising results showed that successful project groups exhibited low levels of closure and that the levels of bridging and leader centrality were not important factors of success. These findings suggest that the creation and use of open source software may represent a fundamentally new socio-technical development process which disrupts the team paradigm and which triggers the need for building new theories of collaborative development. These new theories could point towards the broader application of open source methods for the creation of knowledge-based products other than software.

Steering towards pinnacle of success : the NEC tenets in Australian construction contracting

Contractual relationships have become increasingly strained in recent years in the construction industry result in the use of the judicial system for the settlement of contractual disagreements. Why is this so? Evidence from anecdotes suggest that the lack of capacity amongst owners and contractors to carry out a contract using a good practice approach during the construction of a project contribute to the occurrence of conflicts, losses, deficient contractual relationships and poor performance of the construction work. Recognizing that current forms of contract in use today perpetuate a legacy of construction problems, we are conducting explanatory research to examine whether the widely publicized benefits of New Engineering Contract (NEC) could be realized in the Australian construction industry. This paper outlines a research agenda that will help shed light on how contract forms are able to be used as a mechanism to ensure construction projects are delivered successfully whilst also meeting the goals of multiple stakeholders. Understanding the Critical Success Factors (CSFs), commonly used construction contracts and the NEC system can help us address some of these issues. However, there are gaps in the validation of the benefits of NEC and its link with project success. We identify some of these gaps and propose a methodology by which to gain insights into this phenomenon. Keywords: Project Success, Construction Contracting, New Engineering Contract (NEC)

Assessment of operability and maintainability success factors in provision of extended constructability principles

The concept of constructability integrates individual construction functions and experiences through suitable and timely inputs into early stages of project planning and design. It aims to ease construction processes for a more effective and efficient achievement of overall project objectives. Similarly, the concepts of operability and maintainability integrate the functions and experiences of Operation and Maintenance (O&M) into project planning and design. Various studies suggested that these concepts have been implemented in isolation of each other and thus preventing optimum result in delivering infrastructure projects. This paper explores the integration of these three concepts in order to maximize the benefits of their implementation. It reviews the literature to identify the main O&M concerns, and assesses their association with constructability principles. This provides a structure to develop an extended constructability model that includes O&M concerns. It is anticipated that an extended constructability model that include O&M considerations can lead to a more efficient and effective delivery of infrastructure projects.