1,721,145 research outputs found
An integrated theory of causal scenarios and evidential arguments
No full textIn the process of proof alternative stories that explain 'what happened' in a case are tested using arguments based on evidence. Building on the author's earlier hybrid theory, this paper presents a formal theory that combines causal stories and evidential arguments, further integrating the different types of reasoning in a framework for structured argumentation. This then allows for correct reasoning with causal and evidential rules, and further integrates arguments and stories by grounding them both in well-known dialectical argumentation semantics
Business and IT alignment in context
No full textAlready for more than two decades, the necessity and desirability of aligning business needs and information technology (IT) capabilities is considered to be one of the key issues in IT management. However, several studies report quite low scores on business and IT alignment (BIA). The question “Why haven’t we mastered alignment?” remains valid today, both from an academic and from a practical perspective. Based upon our analysis of the reasons why alignment continues to be a challenge for many organizations, we concluded that organizational or situational circumstances influence alignment, and that these influences are not adequately addressed in the available models and frameworks of BIA. Several researches therefore call upon the academic community to take a contingency perspective in further studies on alignment. It is for this reason that we take on a contingency perspective on BIA in the studies in this dissertation. In order to explore and understand the influence of situational factors, the main research question of this dissertation is formulated as follows: How do situational factors influence business and IT alignment maturity? This research question was explored in coordinate studies, that each highlighted how a specific situational factor related to alignment. The situational factors we studied were IT outsourcing, strategic orientation, organizational culture and national culture on alignment. Based on these coordinate studies we can now conclude that Business and IT alignment is a situational phenomenon. Existing conceptualizations, models and studies provide guiding insights for developing or achieving alignment in specific organizations, but they do not provide a prescriptive recipe for success. The studies reported in this dissertation, showed that different situational factors do influence an organization’s maturity, and thereby its capability, to align business and IT. In some studies, the situational factor showed an overall effect on BIA maturity, however, how this influence exactly effected alignment, required a detailed analysis of relationships between the aspects of the situational factor considered, and the variables of BIA maturity. It appeared that different situational factors have different aspects and antecedents, that influence different variables of alignment, thereby creating a complex ‘web’ of influences and effects. The studies, however, also showed that not all variables of alignment maturity are effected equally by the situational factors. An overall observation that can be made from the influences that were found in our studies, is that the situational factors seem to effect the ‘organizational’ variables of alignment maturity most. Organizational variables typically include Governance, Skills and Value measurement. Also the variable Communications partly includes organizable aspects such as structures and processes that liaise between business and IT. A more intangible or ‘softer’ variable, most prominently Partnership, but also the ‘shared understanding’ aspect of the variable Communications, seems to be less directly influenced by situational factors. The observation that the ‘softer’ variables of alignment maturity seem to be less prone to situational influences, brings us to the conclusion that business – IT partnership is key to alignment, in all situational setting
Designing a Serious Game for General Practice Management
No full textGeneral practitioners (GPs) have to professionally manage their practice. Studies on the quality of GP educational programs revealed that the majority of GP students are dissatisfied with what they learn about running an own general practice. They learn mostly theory from textbooks as opposed to hands-on experience. The new-generation GPs are raised digitally and need more modern learning methods. In this paper, we study the use of serious games to bridge this educational gap. First, we present the RIDEVA serious game design framework that expands existing literature and stresses the importance of mapping intended learning outcomes into formal and dramatic game elements. Second, we develop a prototype game for general practice management in the Dutch context to demonstrate and evaluate our design framework. The results obtained indicate that our serious game design has potential to bridge the educational gap, but also show room for improvement
Organizational Characteristics Influencing SME Information Security Maturity
No full textIn the current business environment, many organizations use popular standards such as the ISO 27000x series, COBIT and related frameworks to protect themselves against security incidents. However, these standards and frameworks are overly complicated for Small to Medium sized Enterprises, leaving these organizations with no easy to understand toolkit to address their security needs. This research builds upon the recent ISFAM maturity model for SME information security as a cornerstone in the development of an assessment tool for tailor-made, fast, and easy-to-use information security advice for SMEs. By performing an extensive literature review and evaluating the results with security experts, we propose the Characterizing Organizations’ Information Security for SMEs (CHOISS) model to relate measurable organizational characteristics in four categories through forty-seven parameters to help SMEs distinguish and prioritize which risks to mitigate
Consistent Inconsistency Management: A Concern-Driven Approach
Full text linkDuring the development of a software system, architects deal with a large number of stakeholders, each with differing concerns. This inevitably leads to inconsistency: goals, concerns, design decisions, and models are interrelated and overlapping. Existing approaches to support inconsistency management are limited in their applicability and usefulness in day to day practice due to the presence of incomplete, informal and heterogeneous models in software architecture. This paper presents a novel process in the form of a lightweight generic method, the Concern-Driven Inconsistency Management (CDIM) method, that is designed to address limitations of different related approaches. It aims to aid architects with management of intangible inconsistency in software architecture
A language for multi-perspective goal modelling: Challenges, requirements and solutions
No full textSuccessful implementation of an enterprise strategy, the reorganization of an enterprise, the successful enterprise-wide adoption of a new enterprise resource planning system, or simply being able to manage the daily operations at an enterprise in general are all common examples of organizational actions that are strongly interrelated with the achievement of goals related to these actions. From the research as presented in this paper, it becomes clear that it is not elementary to clearly formulate goals and to understand how to achieve them. In two use scenarios, it is described how the executive board of a mid-sized bank in Germany wants to achieve their overall goal to increase the bank appraisal. The first scenario deals with determining who is responsible for goal creation and accomplishment, while the second scenario deals with describing a concrete goal system. A domain-specific modelling language (DSML) for designing goal models is proposed that provides solutions for requirements that are derived from the described scenarios. This DSML is coined the ‘goal modelling language’ (GoalML), which enables the development of goal models from multiple perspectives in order to relate goals with their context and vice versa
Relating Health to Platform Success: Exploring Three E-commerce Ecosystems
No full textThe market for e-commerce systems is saturated with more than 60 different solutions that compete and try to accommodate different needs. However, it appears that three main platforms account for roughly half of the market share: Magento, PrestaShop, and WooCommerce. This paper evaluates these platforms from a software ecosystems health perspective. By shedding light on the success factors of these ecosystems, we aim at establishing what makes an e-commerce ecosystem healthy. This knowledge provides ecosystem orchestrators with an overview of the current health of these ecosystems, and researchers with an application of ecosystem health assessment
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