IS/IT resources and business value: Operationalization of an information oriented framework

Several studies have highlighted the importance of information and information quality in organisations and thus information is regarded as key determinant for the success and organisational performance. In this paper, we review selected contributions and introduce a model that shows how IS/IT resources and capabilities could be interlinked with IS/IT utilization, organizational performance and business value. Complementing other models and frameworks, we explicitly consider information from a management maturity, quality and risk perspective and show how the new framework can be operationalized with existing assessment approaches by using empirical data from four industrial case studies. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.

An information oriented framework for relating IS/IT resources and business value

Several studies have highlighted the importance of information and information quality in organisations and thus information is regarded as key determinant for the success and organisational performance. At the same time, there are numerous studies, frameworks and case studies examining the impact of information technology and systems to business value. Recently, several studies have proposed maturity models for information management capabilities in the literature, which claim that a higher maturity results in a higher organizational performance. Although these studies provide valuable information about the underlying relations, most are limited in specifying the relationship in more detail. Furthermore, most prominent approaches do not or at least not explicitly consider information as important influencing factor for organisational performance. In this paper, we aim to review selected contributions and introduce a model that shows how IS/IT resources and capabilties could be interlinked with IS/IT utilization, organizational performance and business value. Complementing other models and frameworks, we explicitly consider information from a management maturity, quality and risk perspective. Moreover, the paper discusses how each part of the model can be assessed in order to validate the model in future studies.

The pursuit of academic excellence and business engagement: Is it irreconcilable?

Universities currently need to satisfy the demands of different audiences. In light of the increasing policy emphasis on "third mission" activities, universities are attempting to incorporate these into their traditional missions of teaching and research. University strategies to accomplishing its traditional missions are well-honed and routinized, but the incorporation of the third mission is posing important strategic and managerial challenges for universities. This study explores the relationship between university-business collaborations and academic excellence in order to examine the extent to which academic institutions can balance these objectives. Based on data from the UK Research Assessment Exercise 2001 at the level of the university department, we find no systematic positive or negative relationship between scientific excellence and engagement with industry. Across the disciplinary fields reported in the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise (i. e. engineering, hard sciences, biomedicine, social sciences and the humanities) the relationship between academic excellence and engagement with business is largely contingent on the institutional context of the university department. This paper adds to the growing body of literature on university engagement with business by examining this activity for the social sciences and the humanities. Our findings have important implications for the strategic management of university departments and for higher education policy related to measuring the performance of higher education research institutions. © 2013 Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, Hungary.

The use of Th in HTR: State of the art and implementation in Th/Pu fuel cycles

Nowadays nuclear is the only greenhouse-free source that can appreciably respond to the increasing worldwide energy demand. The use of Thorium in the nuclear energy production may offer some advantages to accomplish this task. Extensive R&D on the thorium fuel cycle has been conducted in many countries around the world. Starting from the current nuclear waste policy, the EU-PUMA project focuses on the potential benefits of using the HTR core as a Pu/MA transmuter. In this paper the following aspects have been analysed: (1) the state-of-the-art of the studies on the use of Th in different reactors, (2) the use of Th in HTRs, with a particular emphasis on Th-Pu fuel cycles, (3) an original assessment of Th-Pu fuel cycles in HTR. Some aspects related to Thorium exploitation were outlined, particularly its suitability for working in pebble-bed HTR in a Th-Pu fuel cycle. The influence of the Th/Pu weight fraction at BOC in a typical HTR pebble was analysed as far as the reactivity trend versus burn-up, the energy produced per Pu mass, and the Pu isotopic composition at EOC are concerned. Although deeper investigations need to be performed in order to draw final conclusions, it is possible to state that some optimized Th percentage in the initial Pu/Th fuel could be suggested on the basis of the aim we are trying to reach. Copyright © 2009 Guido Mazzini et al.

bridge the gap between software test process and business value: a case study

Chinese Academy of Sciences (ISCAS)

The architecture of influence: Paul Rudolph's Art and Architecture Building at Yale

Focussing on Paul Rudolph’s Art & Architecture Building at Yale, this thesis demonstrates how the building synthesises the architect’s attitude to architectural education, urbanism and materiality. It tracks the evolution of the building from its origins – which bear a relationship to Rudolph’s pedagogical ideas – to later moments when its occupants and others reacted to it in a series of ways that could never have been foreseen. The A&A became the epicentre of the university’s counter culture movement before it was ravaged by a fire of undetermined origins. Arguably, it represents the last of its kind in American architecture, a turning point at the threshold of postmodernism. Using an archive that was only made available to researchers in 2009, this is the first study to draw extensively on the research files of the late architectural writer and educator, C. Ray Smith. Smith’s 1981 manuscript about the A&A entitled “The Biography of a Building,” was never published. The associated research files and transcripts of discussions with some thirty interviewees, including Rudolph, provide a previously unavailable wealth of information. Following Smith’s methodology, meetings were recorded with those involved in the A&A including, where possible, some of Smith’s original interviewees. When placed within other significant contexts – the physicality of the building itself as well as the literature which surrounds it – these previously untold accounts provide new perspectives and details, which deepen the understanding of the building and its place within architectural discourse. Issues revealed include the importance of the influence of Louis Kahn’s Yale Art Gallery and Yale’s Collegiate Gothic Campus on the building’s design. Following a tumultuous first fifty years, the A&A remains an integral part of the architectural education of Yale students and, furthermore, constitutes an important didactic tool for all students of architecture.

Examining Relationships between Culture, Creativity and Business Stage in an Emerging Market: A Categorical Data Analysis of Vietnam’s Data Set

In this article, we offer a new way of exploring relationships between three different dimensions of a business operation, namely the stage of business development, the methods of creativity and the major cultural values. Although separately, each of these has gained enormous attention from the management research community, evidenced by a large volume of research studies, there have been not many studies that attempt to describe the logic that connect these three important aspects of a business; let alone empirical evidences that support any significant relationships among these variables. The paper also provides a data set and an empirical investigation on that data set, using a categorical data analysis, to conclude that examinations of these possible relationships are meaningful and possible for seemingly unquantifiable information. The results also show that the most significant category among all creativity methods employed in Vietnamese enterprises is the “creative disciplines” rule in the “entrepreneurial phase,” while in general creative disciplines have played a critical role in explaining the structure of our data sample, for both stages of development in our consideration.

Neurology and psychiatry: waking up to opportunities of sleep. State of the art and clinical/research priorities for the next decade.

In recent years, evidence has emerged for a bidirectional relationship between sleep and neurological and psychiatric disorders. First, sleep-wake disorders (SWDs) are very common and may be the first/main manifestation of underlying neurological and psychiatric disorders. Secondly, SWDs may represent an independent risk factor for neuropsychiatric morbidities. Thirdly, sleep-wake function (SWF) may influence the course and outcome of neurological and psychiatric disorders. This review summarizes the most important research and clinical findings in the fields of neuropsychiatric sleep and circadian research and medicine, and discusses the promise they bear for the next decade. The findings herein summarize discussions conducted in a workshop with 26 European experts in these fields, and formulate specific future priorities for clinical practice and translational research. More generally, the conclusion emerging from this workshop is the recognition of a tremendous opportunity offered by our knowledge of SWF and SWDs that has unfortunately not yet entered as an important key factor in clinical practice, particularly in Europe. Strengthening pre-graduate and postgraduate teaching, creating academic multidisciplinary sleep-wake centres and simplifying diagnostic approaches of SWDs coupled with targeted treatment strategies yield enormous clinical benefits for these diseases.