Scholars @Bentley (Bentley University)
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The Use of Complexity Theory and Strange Attractors to Understand and Explain Information System Development
Get PDFIn spite of the best efforts of researchers and practitioners, Information Systems (IS) developers are having problems getting it right . IS developments are challenged by the emergence of unanticipated IS characteristics undermining managers ability to predict and manage IS change. Because IS are complex, development formulas, best practices or development guides simply will not work. The difficulties in these system developments stem from the complexity of IS arising from the inter-relationship, interaction, and interconnectivity of the elements in the system and its environment. This research uses complexity concepts to help solve the problem with IS development and explain why so many IS developments fail. It uses Complexity Theory to understand and explain IS development as an emergent phenomenon where the system is attracted to certain configurations.
This research derives and validates a detailed IS change model and method enabling IS developers to understand the unpredictable and unanticipated outcomes of information systems and avoid failures. The model uses Complex Adaptive Systems concepts, the Chaos Theory strange attractor, and state space analysis to identify when IS states are susceptible to failure rather than trying to identify the myriad causes that may or may not contribute to failure. The method uses structured case study analysis and grounded theory techniques fitting a general model to specific IS producing the best possible model for the system.
This research extends previous work in the application of Complexity Theory to IS and is the first to apply these theories to Public Safety Network information systems. In practice this research can help managers understand the impact and temporal validity of their decisions on IS development and their organization. Findings generalize to a broad range of cross-agency intergovernmental collaborations employing IS. This research should spur further studies utilizing Complexity Theory for both public and private sector IS and lead to improvements and better understanding of the development and evolution of Public Safety Networks, an increasingly common and important component of homeland security and emergency management
Exploring the Development Chain – An inquiry into the linkages between new product development and supply chain management
Get PDFThis dissertation conducts an inquiry into the linkages between new product development and supply chain management. Simchi Levi, Simchi-Levi and Kaminsky (2008) coined the term Development Chain for the area where product development and the supply chain intersect. The first chapter of this research (Chapter 2) contributes to a more thorough understanding of the Development Chain (DC) and its impact on financial success with new products. We expand the term Development Chain and provide precise definitions for its scope and its activities. We develop a conceptual view of the DC at the single product/project level which can be understood and applied by academics and practitioners. Chapter 3 studies the impact of the intensity of linkages between sub-processes of the DC on performance. We conceptualize linkages between sub-processes in Product Development (PD) and the Supply Chain (SC) as key problem-solving enablers and we postulate that more intense or participative linkages improve problem solving as they equate to a higher, more diverse exchange and application of vital problem-solving inputs (ideas, knowledge and information). Using a network perspective, we measure the intensity of linkages at three different levels: (1) at the dyadic level between sub-processes, (2) at the level of interwoven, complex linkages between multiple sub-processes that are problem-solving sites and (3) at the aggregate-level where the two domains connect. We find support that, at the aggregate level, more intense connections is not always better (i.e., does not lead to financial success), confirming the tension between PD productivity and higher levels of problem solving. However, we also empirically detect the presence of 5 critical dyadic linkages and 2 complex problem-solving sites that improve product success. Chapter 4 is concerned with a product centric view of DC linkages and alignment of decisions during product development. We develop a conceptual model and conduct empirical tests on three hypotheses for alignment. We find that alignment between product architecture and sourcing or order fulfillment strategies can raise the probability of product success by 55 and 69 percent, respectively. Additionally, we find that the firm-level product success rate positively correlates with alignment between clock-speed and product architecture
Changes in Auditing: A Three Part Investigation
Get PDFThis dissertation consists of three studies investigating changes in auditing. This abstract summarizes each study, including purpose, methodology, and findings.
The first study synthesizes the extant literature examining geographically distributed work arrangements in other disciplines such as management and social psychology. Focusing on communication and coordination, knowledge sharing, work design, and social identity in geographically distributed teams, I identify opportunities for future research to expand our understanding of how geographically distributing audit work impacts auditors, the audit process, and audit quality.
My second paper explores a key contributor to the success of geographically distributed work highlighted in my literature review: the design of the work. Due to the global distribution of audit work, staff auditors are likely to possess limited experience with tasks performed abroad. Specifically, staff auditors are likely to gain experience with such tasks primarily through review and follow up responsibilities. I investigate this issue using an experiment in which task identity (the degree to which an auditor performs a whole task from beginning to end) and perceived task significance vary between participants. Results show that auditors who complete tasks that they did not start perform at a significantly lower level when they perceive the work to be of lower significance. I also find that auditors perform at consistently higher levels when they either complete a task from start to finish or perceive the task to be of greater significance.
The situation above, in which direct experience with a task is limited, is comparable to audit professionals\u27 lack of direct experience with actual material statement fraud. Given that knowledge is a fundamental contributor to performance, the lack of experiential knowledge may make it difficult for auditors to make high quality judgments in areas where experience is limited. My third study investigates the usefulness of a knowledge tool, consisting of an industry-specific fraud scenario, in improving auditors\u27 risk assessments and planning judgments related to fraud. The findings of this experiment suggest that auditors who are supplied with a fraud story assess overall engagement and fraud risk more conservatively, in line with experts, relative to the two other competing interventions and control conditions
Practicing Technology Implementation: The Case of An Enterprise System
Get PDFDrawing on four theories of practice – Communities of Practice (CoP), Bourdieu\u27s theory of practice, Pickering\u27s mangle of practice, and Actor Network Theory (ANT), the study provides an in-depth understanding about technology implementation practice. Analysis of an Enterprise System implementation project in a software manufacturing company reveals five stories of practice that relate to the major challenges faced. The story of mentoring related to the challenge of developing skilled analysts, and is examined by focusing on episodes about newly hired staff members. The story reveals the inhibiting impact of past habits and the role of occupational status. The second challenge related to the conflicts between IT and business. The story reveals the importance of visualization in relation to goal alignment and assembling efforts in user testing practices. The challenge of project managing is presented as a story about how the ambiguity of the project was negotiated. The story illustrates how a technology implementation project involves a project team\u27s bricoleur-like skills, which include leveraging the symbolic, political, and infomercial aspects of meetings. The challenge about how project participants were attempting to gain and sustain knowledge about the project is presented as a story of remembering. The story reveals the project members\u27 efforts to develop a working project memory through collective remembering. Finally, the challenge about the difficulties in decision making for globally distributed project participants is presented as a story of scenario-sharing. The story illustrates how design decision-making involved imagination practice among project participants supported by a material object. In the discussion, the four chosen practice theories\u27 contributions, weaknesses and strengths are considered. An integrative view of these theories is proposed and later this is extended by incorporating some new findings regarding agency, emergence, and assemblages. The study contributes to research in terms of project management, stakeholder and end-user perspectives, and knowledge management. The study contributes to managerial practice by helping practitioners understand how the so-called critical success factors (CSFs) are actually practiced to facilitate ES implementation
Academic should heed industry\u27s scientific plea
No full textCreative problem solving demands critical thinking and science literac
Essays on the Digital Divide - Explorations through global, national and individual lenses
Get PDFThe Digital Divide has emerged as an important research and policy issue during the past thirty years. The divide exists at different levels, such as global, regional and individual levels. While extensive research already exists on this subject, the complexity of the issue presents opportunities for further research. In particular, there is ample scope for significantly contributing to the literature by leveraging recent analytics techniques, all the more since most of the literature on the Digital Divide relies on descriptive methods or on simple or multiple regression models. Therefore, the motivation for this study is two-fold. First, the Digital Divide is an important problem and contributing to its knowledge base is important in order to provide reliable information to policymakers. Second, the issue of the Digital Divide provides interesting opportunities to apply and evaluate advanced analytic techniques that have not been previously used in the Digital Divide literature.
I make a contribution to existing literature by analyzing an evolution of the global Digital Divide and by providing a clearer and more complete understanding of the relationship between the Digital Divide and its predictors by using novel methodologies not previously used in Digital Divide studies. The second part of my dissertation addresses the regional and individual Digital Divide, particularly the Digital Divide in Russia, and methodological challenges arising from its research. Russia is a very large and diverse country which presents an interesting case of intra-country Digital Divide. While some research addressing the issue of the Digital Divide in Russia exists, no past studies address the issue of the evolution of the regional divide and no quantitative studies address the issue of the individual Digital Divide in Russia. We make a contribution by addressing these two issues and by extending the methodologies employed in the Digital Divide studies
Smilansky, Arneson, and the Asymmetry of Desert
Get PDFDesert plays an important role in most contemporary theories of retributive justice, but an unimportant role in most contemporary theories of distributive justice. Saul Smilansky has recently put forward a defense of this asymmetry. In this study, I argue that it fails. Then, drawing on an argument of Richard Arneson’s, I suggest an alternative consequentialist rationale for the asymmetry. But while this shows that desert cannot be expected to play the same role in distributive justice that it can play in retributive justice, it does not fully vindicate the asymmetry, since desert can still play an important role in the former
Fair value measurements
Get PDFThis dissertation consists of two empirical studies that investigate fair value measurement issues currently facing the accounting profession--one from the perspective of the auditor, and the other from the perspective of the financial statement user. The results of each study are described below.
This first study examines experienced auditors\u27 descriptions of specific client experiences in which auditing fair value measurements (FVMs) was particularly challenging. Based on a field survey of high-level engagement team personnel from several large firms, we identify a number of key issues currently facing the profession in auditing FVMs. First, when asked about challenges faced in auditing FVMs, respondents cited most frequently the difficulties inherent in auditing management assumptions. Second, although 70 percent of respondents identified a range of estimation uncertainty equal to or exceeding materiality, inherent risk assessments for some FVMs are still within the low/moderate range. Lastly, relatively few audit adjustments were proposed. Auditors noted that when management assumptions are subjective and estimation uncertainty is large, it is difficult to prove that their assumptions and estimates are more accurate than the client\u27s. Supplemental regression results also show that auditors are more likely to propose a decreasing audit adjustment when they have developed their own independent estimate, and are less likely to propose decreasing audit adjustments for financial instruments, as compared to other types of FVMs.
In my second study, I examine the extent to which the high degree of inherent risk noted in my first study is effectively communicated to financial statement users under conditions of high and low management aggressiveness. Specifically, I conduct an experiment that investigates which of three disclosure formats most effectively communicates the risk of high-uncertainty FVMs to users--a narrative sensitivity disclosure currently required in the U.S., a standard quantitative disclosure currently required under IFRS, or an enhanced disclosure I propose that also displays the impact of these changes on net income. Results of my study suggest that the standard quantitative sensitivity currently required under IFRS may have the unintended consequence of decreasing users\u27 risk assessments when management aggressiveness is high. Increased perceptions of trust, competence, and reliability upon receiving this disclosure partially explain this relationship. As predicted, however, the enhanced disclosure condition is more effective than the standard condition at communicating risk to users under conditions of high management aggressiveness. Thus, the additional information in the enhanced disclosure condition appears to counteract the tendency to decrease risk assessments, thus providing increased benefit to users at little incremental cost to preparers
User Resistance and Trust in a Clinical RFID Employee Location Tracking Information System
Get PDFUser resistance has been identified as a factor in information systems implementation failures in the health care industry. RFID, radio frequency identification, is being incorporated into new health care information systems in order to effect cost reductions by tracking, identifying and monitoring individuals and medical items. This is the first study to research the relative contributions of vendor trust and IT artifact trust components to user resistance and, as a result, makes a unique contribution to the information systems literature. An understanding of the degree to which technology adoption behavioral beliefs, and particularly system trust, affect user resistance towards information systems implementation is necessary before effective information systems strategies can be created to bolster user trust, reduce implementation failure rates and increase the likelihood of successful information systems adoptions.
The purpose of this research is to study the degree to which medical clinic employees\u27 vendor trust and IT artifact trust components contribute to user resistance, and to determine the relationships between trust beliefs, technology adoption beliefs and user resistance. The Theory of Reasoned Action is used to integrate these factors in a technology adoption framework. A cross-sectional, quantitative, positivist survey research design was chosen to measure the technology adoption behavioral beliefs and user resistance intentions of hospital employees working in medical clinics. Survey data was collected from 59 hospital employees across three clinics. PLS, partial least squares, was used to analyze both the measurement model and structural equation model. The results showed that perceived benevolence/integrity in the IT artifact had the only significant direct effect on user resistance.
The theoretical contributions of this research are determining the extent to which system trust components contribute to user resistance, identifying system trust antecedents, and incorporating technology adoption factors in a user resistance model. Contextual contributions include researching an RFID information system that tracks the location of medical clinic employees, and studying an information system shortly after implementation. This research will help inform information systems stakeholders on where to concentrate resources and efforts, particularly vendor trust and perceived benevolence/integrity in the IT artifact trust, in reducing user resistance towards a new implementation
Detecting Deception in Client Inquiries
Get PDFAuditors frequently gather information by conducting client inquiries (Bennett and Hatfield 2013; Hirst and Koonce 1996; Trompeter and Wright 2010). When clients are attempting to hide frauds and irregularities, auditors need to be alert during inquiries to verbal and nonverbal cues emanating from clients that might be indicative of intentional deception. This dissertation consists of two studies investigating the detection of deception in client inquiries. The first study provides a summary of extant literature examining deception detection, with an emphasis on those studies that have implications for client inquiries. I propose several avenues for future research that will contribute to academic literature as well as practice. In addition, I examine how the use of computer-mediated communication to conduct client inquiries might impact the detection of client deception. The second study of this dissertation examines an important and potentially problematic characteristic of a typical client inquiry; namely, that client inquiries generally involve a single auditor. The use of a single auditor to conduct client inquiries can limit the ability of auditors to detect deception. I examine how behavioral cues indicative of deception (specifically, deceptive clients\u27 levels of discussion and nervousness during inquiries) are affected by the participation of an additional auditor, and whether a dual-auditor team is more likely than a single auditor to detect deception. The results indicate that the presence of an additional auditor during client inquiries has a significant effect on auditors\u27 perceptions of the extent to which a client participates in discussion, as well as client nervousness. In addition, my results suggest that dual-auditor teams are better able to incorporate these deceptive cues into subsequent decisions. This paper contributes to prior studies on client inquiries and interpersonal deception theory (Buller and Burgoon 1996)