Australian Computer Society: ACS Digital Library
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Sharing a Vision: comparing business and IS managers' perceptions of strategic alignment issues
Get PDFThis paper compares the perceptions of business and IS managers regarding the issues known to affect the achievement of alignment of IS with the business. Previous work has identified the status of IS managers, the nature of the IS and business managers' reltionship, and IS managers' levels of business knowledge, as being critical to attaining IS alignment. On these issues, the findings of this research are encouraging, and suggest that progress has been made in this area in the past fifteen years. The paper's main contribution is in identifying a new focus for alignment research - the exploration of three, interrelated issues: the extent to which the business and IS managers share a vision of the business advantages of strategic alignment; the extent to which they have a common understanding of the time lags required to achieve these advantages; and the specific requirements for educating business managers in these areas
Power Relationships that Lead to the Development of Feral Systems
Get PDFThis research identifies factors affecting the operation of a supply chain in a large, asset rich transport utility, and how a recent Enterprise Resource Planning System (ERP) implementation was perceived with respect to its usability for the task. A lack of trust in the ERP, ineffective training methods and complexity in extracting the data from the ERP were identified as a problem which lead to the development of “Feral Systems” (systems outside the accepted ERP or corporation condoned information systems – sometimes called skunkworks). This research uses an interpretative case study approach to gain insights into the human sense-making within the study organisation. The research argues that power relationships between operational managers and financial managers and processual power relationships between operational managers led to the development of these systems
Generating a Gender Balance: making introductory information systems courses a positive experience
Get PDFThere is a growing shortfall of graduates entering the IT profession. The situation is exacerbated by the continuing decline in the number of women undertaking IT related degrees. However, there are an increasing number of students taking business degrees that have a small information systems component, although few students choose to major in IS. Using a qualitative reflective approach we identify the perceptions and experiences of female undergraduates taking introductory IS courses in two universities, one in Australia and one in New Zealand. We discuss ways of improving the delivery of introductory IS courses in order to make information systems more interesting to women undergraduates, thus enhancing their learning experiences and encouraging further uptake of IS majors. The paper concludes with some reflections on other influences that impact on the ability of IS departments to deliver appropriate introductory courses
Project Management Effectiveness: the choice - formal or informal controls
Get PDFDevelopment failures and runaway projects in the information systems (IS) area can result in substantial losses to organizations, either financially or to a company’s reputation. One important strategy in mitigating risk is the use of effective controls over IS projects. This research investigates the effectiveness of control mechanisms in IS projects, i.e., how they have been established, applied, and how they have evolved throughout the project. We conducted an in-depth study of six information systems projects with six different project managers. We found that formal controls were adopted on project elements with clearly defined project outcomes and informal controls were adopted mainly on project elements that were unclear and often related to people. Furthermore, formal controls were dominant at project initiation and in most cases these controls became less dominant over the project duration. These formal controls were more rigorously applied in external IS projects while informal controls increased in importance throughout the project duration in internally developed projects. We found the existence of informal controls to be very important in helping ensure successful project outcomes
A Ranking List for Information Systems Journals
Get PDFThere has been an increasing focus internationally on the quality and impact of research outputs in recent years. Several countries, including the United Kingdom and New Zealand have implemented schemes to base the funding of research on research quality. The Australian government is planning to implement a Research Quality Framework (RQF) in the next few years that will impact greatly on funding of research in Australian universities. A key issue for Australian researchers is how the quality and impact of research is defined and measured in their discipline areas. Although peer review is widely used to assess the quality of research outputs, it is expensive and labour intensive. Other surrogate quality measures are often used. This paper focuses on measuring the quality of research outputs in the information systems discipline. We argue that measures such as citation indexes are inappropriate for information systems and that the publication outlet is a more suitable indicator of quality. We present a ranking list of journals for the information systems discipline, and discuss the approach we have taken in developing the list. We discuss how the ranking list may be used in defining and measuring the quality of information systems research outputs, the limitations inherent in the approach and discuss lessons we have learned in developing the list
Explaining Intention to Use an Information Technology Innovation: an empirical comparison of the perceived characteristics of innovating and technology acceptance models
Get PDFThis study examines the issue of technology acceptance in a multi-campus secondary college in Sydney, Australia. Seventy-five teachers across two campuses were surveyed as to their perceptions regarding technology acceptance. Regression analysis was used to compare the explanatory power of the perceived characteristics of innovating model (PCIM), and the technology acceptance model (TAM). Both models explained a substantial amount of variation in technology acceptance. However, our findings suggest that it is preferable to use the PCIM, rather than the TAM, to explain intention to use an information technology innovation. Implications for both future research and practice are discussed
The Value of Mentoring in Facilitating the Retention and Upward Mobility of Women in ICT
Get PDFThe low employment and poor retention of women in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) work force remains a serious issue at a time when there is a shortage of skilled ICT workers. Effective intervention strategies such as mentoring have been found to contribute to the retention and promotion of ICT women to senior decision making positions. Using a family of concepts inherent in organisational and the ICT occupational cultures as a framework of analysis this paper presents the results from interviews with 90 professional women in the New Zealand ICT workforce regarding their mentoring experiences. Only the large Government and international organisations provided formal mentoring programs, in which 12 of the women had participated. Forty of the women had developed mentoring relationships serendipitously, usually with senior male colleagues. These relationships definitely contributed to their career advancement. A number of women wanted mentors but were unable to find them. If the industry is concerned about the lack of women in ICT then it is recommended that where formal programs are not available access to external mentoring programs should be a part of the human resources policies for ICT workers
Australian Women in Information Technology
Get PDFIn 1992 the first Australian Women in Information Technology (AusWIT) conference took place in
Launceston Tasmania with the theme ‘Women in Computing – Keeping the Doors Open’. AusWIT
formed with the mission of informing, sharing, community building, and re-energising those
involved in the recruitment and retention of women in information technology. Since then the
conference has successfully run every two to three years in different states across Australia. As the
conference has grown it has attracted women from Europe and elsewhere reflecting the ongoing
need for such dialogue to continue. As well, the conference now attracts funding from sponsors
such as IBM and Google suggesting a growing recognition of the issues and the field