Cultural impact on e-service use in Saudi Arabia : results from focus groups

This paper reports the results of focus groups obtained as part of a full study that uses a mixed method approach to answer the following question: what are the cultural values that impact on e-service use in Saudi Arabia? In order to answer this question we reviewed culture theories, dimensions, and models that have been identified in the literature. Four focus groups interviewing experts and general users (customers) of online services in Saudi Arabia have been completed aiming at the end to identify the uncovered elements of Saudi culture in the literature, which hopefully will result in developing a framework of cultural values that affect e-service use in Saudi context. This paper will firstly, introduce the importance of culture and define the aspects of Saudi culture. It will then describe the method used, and finally discussing the findings of the focus groups. Findings revealed four factors that have not been covered in the literature and need to be investigated namely: nepotism, the lack of human interaction, services oriented culture, and the career path.

Green Business Process Management

In managing their operations, organizations have traditionally focused on economic imperatives in terms of time, cost, efficiency, and quality. In doing so, they have been a major contributor to environmental degradation caused by re-source consumption, greenhouse emissions, and wastage. As a consequence, or-ganizations are increasingly encouraged to improve their operations also from an ecological perspective, and thus to consider environmental sustainability as an additional management imperative. In order to lessen their impact on the natural environment, organizations must design and implement environmentally sustainable processes, which we call the challenge of Green Business Process Management (Green BPM). This chapter elaborates on the challenge and perspec-tive of Green BPM, and explores the contributions that business process management can provide to creating environmentally sustainable organizations. Our key premise is that business as well as information technology managers need to engage in a process-focused discussion to enable a common, comprehensive understanding of organizational processes, and the process-centered opportunities for making these processes, and ultimately the organization as a process-centric entity, “green.” Through our review of the key BPM capability areas and how they can be framed in terms of environmental sustainability considerations, we provide an overview and introduction to the subsequent chapters in this book.

An exploratory study into audit challenges in IT governance : a Delphi approach

Information technology (IT) has been playing a powerful role in creating a competitive advantage for organisations over the past decades. This role has become proportionally greater over time as expectations for IT investments to drive business opportunities keep on rising. However, this reliance on IT has also raised concerns about regulatory compliance, governance and security. IT governance (ITG) audit leverages the skills of IS/IT auditors to ensure that IT initiatives are in line with the business strategies. ITG audit emerged as part of performance audit to provide an assessment of the effective implementation of ITG. This research attempts to empirically examine the ITG audit challenges in the Australian public sector. Based on literature research and Delphi research, this paper provides insights regarding the impact of, and required effort to address these challenges. The authors also present the ten major ITG audit challenges facing Australian public sector organisations today.

Improving remote collaborative process modelling using embodiment in 3D virtual environments

Identifying, modelling and documenting business processes usually require the collaboration of many stakeholders that may be spread across companies in inter-organizational settings. While modern process modelling technologies are beginning to provide a number of features to support remote, they lack support for visual cues used in co-located collaboration. In this paper, we examine the importance of visual cues for collaboration tasks in collaborative process modelling. Based on this analysis, we present a prototype 3D virtual world process modelling tool that supports a number of visual cues to facilitate remote collaborative process model creation and validation. We then report on a preliminary analysis of the technology. In conclusion, we proceed to describe the future direction of our research with regards to the theoretical contributions expected from the evaluation of the tool.

A framework for cost-aware process management : generation of accurate and timely management accounting cost reports

Organisations are constantly seeking efficiency improvements for their business processes in terms of time and cost. Management accounting enables reporting of detailed cost of operations for decision making purpose, although significant effort is required to gather accurate operational data. Business process management is concerned with systematically documenting, managing, automating, and optimising processes. Process mining gives valuable insight into processes through analysis of events recorded by an IT system in the form of an event log with the focus on efficient utilisation of time and resources, although its primary focus is not on cost implications. In this paper, we propose a framework to support management accounting decisions on cost control by automatically incorporating cost data with historical data from event logs for monitoring, predicting and reporting process-related costs. We also illustrate how accurate, relevant and timely management accounting style cost reports can be produced on demand by extending open-source process mining framework ProM.

Promotion and succession management and associated retention issues in Australian law firms

The focus of this research was promotion and succession management in Australian law firms. Two staff retention issues currently faced by the Australian legal industry were identified as suggesting possible failures in this area: 1) Practitioners are leaving law firms early in their careers, 2) Female representation is disproportionally low at partnership level. The research described current Australian law firm promotion and succession practices and then explained their possible relevance to the two retention issues. The overall aim of the research was to uncover key findings and present practical recommendations to law firm managers and partners ready for incorporation into their future promotion and succession planning practice. In so doing the research aimed to benefit the Australian legal community as a whole. Four areas of literature relevant to the topic were reviewed, 1) law firm governance concluding that the fundamental values of the P²-Form remained constant (Cooper, Hinings, Greenwood & Brown, 1996; Morris & Pinnington, 1998) with ownership and strategic control of law firms remaining in the hands of partners; 2) the importance of individual practitioners to law firms concluding that the actual and opportunity costs relating to practitioner turnover were significant due to the transient nature of knowledge as a key asset of law firms (Gottschalk & Khandelwal, 2004; Rebitzer & Taylor, 2007); 3) generational differences concluding with support for the work of Finegold, Mohrman and Spreitzer (2002), Davis, Pawlowski and Houston (2006), Kuhnreuther (2003), and Avery, McKay, and Wilson (2007) which indicated that generational cohort differences were of little utility in human resources management practice; and 4) previous research relating to law firm promotion and succession practices indicating that five practices were relevant in law firm promotion outcomes; 1) firm billing requirements (Gorman & Kmec, 2009; Phillips, 2001; Noonan & Corcoran, 2004; Webley & Duff, 2007); 2) mentoring programs (Phillips, 2001; Noonan & Corcoran, 2004); 3) the existence of female partners (Gorman & Kmec, 2009; Beckman & Phillips, 2005); 4) non-partner career paths (Phillips, 2001; Corcoran & Noonan, 2004); and 5) the existence of family friendly policies (Gorman & Kmec, 2009; Phillips, 2001; Noonan & Corcoran, 2004; Webley & Duff, 2007.) The research was carried out via a sequential mixed method approach. The initial quantitative study was based upon a theoretical framework grounded in the literature and provided baseline information describing Australian law firm promotion and succession practices. The study was carried out via an on-line survey of Australian law firm practitioners. The results of the study provided the basis for the second qualitative study. The qualitative study further explained the statistically generated results and focused specifically on the two identified retention issues. The study was conducted via one-on-one interviews with Australian law firm partners and experienced law firm managers. The results of both studies were combined within the context of relevant literature resulting in eight key findings: Key findings 1) Organisational commitment levels across generational cohorts are more homogenous than different. 2) Law firm practitioners are leaving law firms early in their careers due to the heavy time commitment behaviour demanded of them, particularly by clients. 3) Law firm promotion and succession practices reinforce practitioner time commitment behaviour marking it as an indicator of practitioner success. 4) Law firm practitioners believe that they have many career options outside law firms and are considering these options. 5) Female practitioners are considering opting out of law firms due to time commitment demands related to partnership conflicting with family commitment demands. 6) A masculine, high time commitment culture in law firms is related to the decision by female practitioners to leave law firms. 7) The uptake of alternative work arrangements by female practitioners is not fatal to their partnership prospects particularly in firms with supportive policies, processes and organisational culture. 8) Female practitioners are less inclined than their male counterparts to seek partnership as an ultimate goal and are more likely to opt out of law firms exhibiting highly competitive, masculine cultures. Practical recommendations Further review of the data collected in relation to the key findings provided the basis for nine practical recommendations specifically geared towards implementation by law firm managers and partners. The first recommendation relates to the use of generational differences in practitioner management. The next six relate to recommended actions to reduce the time commitment demands on practitioners. The final two recommendations relate to the practical implementation of these actions both at an individual and organisational level. The recommendations are as follows: 1) "Generationally driven," age based generalisations should not be utilised in law firm promotion and succession management practice. 2) Expected levels of client access to practitioners be negotiated on a client by client basis and be included in client retention agreements. 3) Appropriate alternative working arrangements such as working off-site, flexible working hours or part-time work be offered to practitioners in situations where doing so will not compromise client serviceability. 4) The copying of long working hour behaviours of senior practitioners should be discouraged particularly where information technology can facilitate remote client serviceability. 5) Refocus the use of timesheets from an employer monitoring tool to an employee empowerment tool. 6) Policies and processes relating to the offer of alternative working arrangements be supported and reinforced by law firm organisational culture. 7) Requests for alternative working arrangements be determined without regard to gender. 8) Incentives and employment conditions offered to practitioners to be individualised based on the subjective need of the individual and negotiated as a part of the current employee performance review process. 9) Individually negotiated employment conditions be negotiated within the context of the firm’s overall strategic planning process. Through the conduct of the descripto-explanatory study, a detailed discussion of current law firm promotion and succession practices was enabled. From this discussion, 7 eight key findings and nine associated recommendations were generated as well as an insight into the future of the profession being given. The key findings and recommendations provide practical advice to law firm managers and partners in relation to their everyday promotion and succession practice. The need to negotiate individual employee workplace conditions and their integration into overall law firm business planning was put forward. By doing so, it was suggested that both the individual employee and the employing law firm would mutually benefit from the arrangement. The study therefore broadened its practical contribution from human resources management to a contribution to the overall management practice of Australian law firms. In so doing, the research has provided an encompassing contribution to the Australian legal industry both in terms of employee welfare as well as firm and industry level success.

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.

Analysis of Object-Specific Authorization Protocol (OSAP) using coloured Petri nets

The use of Trusted Platform Module (TPM) is be- coming increasingly popular in many security sys- tems. To access objects protected by TPM (such as cryptographic keys), several cryptographic proto- cols, such as the Object Specific Authorization Pro- tocol (OSAP), can be used. Given the sensitivity and the importance of those objects protected by TPM, the security of this protocol is vital. Formal meth- ods allow a precise and complete analysis of crypto- graphic protocols such that their security properties can be asserted with high assurance. Unfortunately, formal verification of these protocols are limited, de- spite the abundance of formal tools that one can use. In this paper, we demonstrate the use of Coloured Petri Nets (CPN) - a type of formal technique, to formally model the OSAP. Using this model, we then verify the authentication property of this protocol us- ing the state space analysis technique. The results of analysis demonstrates that as reported by Chen and Ryan the authentication property of OSAP can be violated.

Shifting the Airline Business Model - Current Struggles of National Carriers to Become Profitable Passenger Experience Companies

National flag carriers are struggling for survival, not only due to classical reasons such as increase in fuel and tax or natural disasters, but largely due to the inability to quickly adapt to its competitive environment – the emergence of budget and Persian Gulf airlines. In this research, we investigate how airlines can transform their business models via technological and strategic capabilities to become profitable and sustainable passenger experience companies. To formulate recommendations, we analyze customer sentiments via social media to understand what people are saying about the airlines.

PartSS : An efficient partition-based filtering for edit distance constraints

This paper introduces PartSS, a new partition-based fil- tering for tasks performing string comparisons under edit distance constraints. PartSS offers improvements over the state-of-the-art method NGPP with the implementation of a new partitioning scheme and also improves filtering abil- ities by exploiting theoretical results on shifting and scaling ranges, thus accelerating the rate of calculating edit distance between strings. PartSS filtering has been implemented within two major tasks of data integration: similarity join and approximate membership extraction under edit distance constraints. The evaluation on an extensive range of real-world datasets demonstrates major gain in efficiency over NGPP and QGrams approaches.

Public, private, or hybrid? What the upstream oil and gas industry can learn from other sectors about ‘the cloud’

Despite the compelling case for moving towards cloud computing, the upstream oil & gas industry faces several technical challenges—most notably, a pronounced emphasis on data security, a reliance on extremely large data sets, and significant legacy investments in information technology (IT) infrastructure—that make a full migration to the public cloud difficult at present. Private and hybrid cloud solutions have consequently emerged within the industry to yield as much benefit from cloud-based technologies as possible while working within these constraints. This paper argues, however, that the move to private and hybrid clouds will very likely prove only to be a temporary stepping stone in the industry’s technological evolution. By presenting evidence from other market sectors that have faced similar challenges in their journey to the cloud, we propose that enabling technologies and conditions will probably fall into place in a way that makes the public cloud a far more attractive option for the upstream oil & gas industry in the years ahead. The paper concludes with a discussion about the implications of this projected shift towards the public cloud, and calls for more of the industry’s services to be offered through cloud-based “apps.”

Mobile valuations : the Internet's impact on traditional valuation services

Preparing valuations is a time consuming process involving site inspections, research and report formulation. The ease of access to the internet has changed how and where valuations may be undertaken. No longer is it necessary to return to the office to finalise reports, or leave your desk in order to undertake research. This enables more streamlined service delivery and is viewed as a positive. However, it is not without negative impacts. This paper seeks to inform practitioners of the work environment changes flowing from increased access to the internet. It identifies how increased accessibility to, and use of, technology and the internet has, and will continue to, impact upon valuation service provision into the future.

Changing the culture of teaching and learning in ICT and engineering : facilitating research professors to be teaching and learning leaders

This is the project report of a leadership project undertaken jointly by the Queensland University of Technology, University of Technology Sydney, and Monash University. Specific project objectives were to: -To build leadership capacity in teaching and learning, and to improve teaching quality in ICT and Engineering disciplines at three leading Australian universities, and -To facilitate the transference of research leadership to T&L leadership, and disseminate this transference model developed through the project within the Engineering and ICT domains to other disciplines and universities.

A Delphi study into the audit challenges of IT governance in the Australian public sector

Information technology (IT) has been playing a powerful role in creating a competitive advantage for organisations over the past decades. This role has become proportionally greater over time as expectations for IT investments to drive business opportunities keep on rising. However, this reliance on IT has also raised concerns about regulatory compliance, governance and security. IT governance (ITG) audit leverages the skills of IS/IT auditors to ensure that IT initiatives are in line with the business strategies. ITG audit emerged as part of performance audit to provide an assessment of the effective implementation of ITG. This research attempts to empirically examine the ITG audit challenges in the public sector. Based on literature and Delphi research, this paper provides insights regarding the impact of, and required effort to address these challenges. The authors also present the ten major ITG audit challenges facing Australian public sector organisations today.