Technology in the Global Perspective

Assignment -1 Ravi kumar Meduri 1.)Describe the key IS management issues in developing countries and the underlying causes for these issues. What other issues do you see emerging in the advanced countries in the next few years? Ans) There have been periodical studies on key IS management issues facing the IT industry in North America; however, an empirical investigation on key IS management issues in developing countries has been largely ad hoc and inadequate. This identifies and analyzes important issues faced by CIOs in the developing country of China. The results of this study are based on two national wide CIO surveys in China, where the first was conducted in 2004 and followed by a more recent survey in 2008. The authors provide insight for both IS practitioners and researchers who have interests in developing countries. Data analysis indentified key IS management issues and demonstrated similarities as well as differences between the two rounds of surveys. Although some strategic IS issues were still within the top 10 on both the 2004 and 2008 lists, their importance ratings were different. Implications of the findings are also discussed. the key concerns of IS executives in these areas, focusing on identifying and explaining regional similarities and differences. Internationally, there are substantial differences in key issues. Possible reasons for these differences--cultural, economic development, political/legal environment, and technological status--are discussed. The analysis suggests that national culture and economic development can explain differences in key issues. In the context of competition between local and multinational corporations as well as how the diffusive interactions between technologies affect their dominance in electronic markets. Drawing on existing theories of innovation diffusion, and competitive dynamics, the authors adopted a new diffusion model that incorporates the influence of one technologys adoption on the diffusion of other technology. The authors then validated the model using longitudinal field data of the two pairs of Internet technology products in Chinese electronic markets. The findings of this investigation suggest that Internet product diffusion can be better predicted by a competitive dynamic model than by an independent-diffusion-process model. Further, results indicate that the diffusive interaction between local and multinational corporations technologies can be a two-way asymmetric interaction. Such a pattern supports a conclusion of significant second-mover advantage for local online vendors in fast-growing emerging markets. The authors also examine the policy implications of these results, specifically with respect to how asymmetric interaction effects can help domestic online vendors gain second-mover advantage facing the entry of multinational corporations. As multinational firms increasingly adopt collaborative technology with supply chain partners in other countries, their implementation strategies need to accommodate cultural differences. This paper draws upon Hofstedes framework for understanding national cultural characteristics to propose differences in implementation timing and strategy. These propositions are tested with a case study involving a large U.S. based multinationals implementation of Collaborative Planning, Forecasting and Replenishment (CPFR) with

partners in four different countries: U.S., Germany, China, and Poland. This research suggests that cultural differences impact the rollout life cycle for CPFR. The authors recommend that (1) implementation strategies should match national culture, (2) implementation timing can be a function of national culture, and finally (3) customer readiness assessments for CPFR rollout should include an assessment of national cultural differences. Decision making at the national level in both developing and developed countries requires the integrated use of information from a multitude of sources. Both local and national governments in many developed countries have found geographic information systems (GIS) to be a critical tool in resource management, regional planning, and economic development. Unfortunately, the practical use of GIS in many developing countries is hampered by the lack of accurate and detailed spatial and demographic data, political considerations, and management issues. To highlight importance of these issues, we present a framework for GIS adoption in less developed countries and discuss these and other constraints in the context of this framework. We also offer ideas for technical, managerial, and policy initiatives that should be helpful in addressing impediments to GIS adoption. These ideas are summarized in a set of propositions and a related framework that shows our expectations about the impact of these initiatives on implementation success Information sharing has recently received considerable academic interest because of the importance knowledge management plays in the creation of sustained competitive advantage for global firms. The interest is attributed to the need for achieving higher levels of worker empowerment and effectiveness. However, the existing research in the area lacks an examination of how national differences impact information sharing activities. This study responds to this need by presenting a structured yet exploratory inquiry into factors impacting information sharing and the adoption of Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS) by examining key national differences. Assessing national differences is extended beyond the examination of national culture by including institutional contexts in the study. Using a 22-country sample from the CRANET database, the study suggests there is a significant and predictable variation in the level of information sharing and HRIS adoption in firms from different countries, and that national differences, including cultural and institutional contexts, have an impact on information sharing. The study also indicates that the level of HRIS adoption is positively associated with information sharing. The authors discuss these findings, their implications for research and practice, and address limitations along with opportunities for future research. Individuals have to disclose personal information in order to utilize the manifold options of the Internet. Online users frequently trade data for benefits (privacy calculus). Trust in both the Internet and the vendor has been identified as an important antecedent to disclosing personal information online. The authors introduce the perceived risk of disclosing specific data types as an additional factor in the field of study. The results from a survey in three countries (Austria, Australia, and Hong Kong) show that the perceived risk of disclosing personal information is a stronger stimulus for the intention to provide personal information than having trust in the Internet or in the online vendor. Several significant differences are found in the relationships between the perceived risk of disclosing personal information, trust, and the willingness to disclose personal information.

The study uses Trauths (2000) Influence-Impact Model as a sensitizing device to examine the influence of four key socio-cultural factors policy, infrastructure, economy, and cultureon information economy development efforts in Thailand. Our assessment shows that progress has been made but gaps remain. Thailands infrastructure challenges include unequal development across regions, a small skilled workforce, and low R&D expenditures in the ICT sector. Future economic growth of Thailand will depend on an increase in investments and improvement in technology and innovation. The authors cultural analysis reinforces the need to develop a synergy between Thai cultural systems and development needs. To highlight strategies that Thailand might follow, the authors compare their findings to the lessons learned from the case of Ireland, India, and China. These include facilitating ICT sector work, ensuring a supply of qualified workers, exploiting the countrys distinctive capacities, and reconfiguring policy to adapt to changes in the global ICT market. The performance of Chinese small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) on Business-toBusiness (B2B) electronic marketplaces (EMs). Based on a content analysis of 155 cases of high performing online Chinese vendors, this paper explains the success of SME online B2B vendors within a Motivation-Capability framework. This first generation of SME B2B online vendors proved highly motivated to increase sales and developed a set of Internet leveraged organizational capabilities to compete online, including capabilities for online marketing, product innovation, eCommerce management, etc. This study differs from traditional wisdom that online marketplaces will render Guanxi (a Chinese cultural phenomenon defined as close and pervasive interpersonal relationships, Yang, 1994) irrelevant since online marketplaces are perceived to be impersonal. In fact, Guanxi still matters online, but it takes new forms. This research offers important managerial implications for B2B SME online vendors on how to leverage EMs for higher performance. This study is to review current research activities concerning information systems (IS) in mainland China. When we examined Chinese IS research with reference to discipline, research topic, research method, and units of analysis, identifying and reviewing a total of 604 research papers, published in 18 leading Chinese academic journals from 1999 to 2003. The results show that: (1) IS itself represents the major theoretical reference of the studies; (2) the IS research in China has clearly focused on organizational and system/software issues; (3) non empirical studies were dominant in the field of IS research in China; and (4) the majority of studies were conducted at an organizational or systemic level. Evidence to address the earlier question, and move beyond the threshold estimations just offered, is very limited. In addition to poor recognition of subjectivity and timing of evaluation, the constraints on Evidences are several. . Lack of literature in general: Until very recently, the entire literature on IS and developing countries would struggle to. ll a single bookshelf. The attention of writersfrom researchers to consultants to journalistshas been focused elsewhere. . Lack of evaluation: Those who have the will to evaluatesuch as academicsoften lack the Resources and capacity. Those who have the resourcessuch as aid donor agencies often lack the will to evaluate.

. Focus on case studies: The literature on IS in DCs has grown, but it is a literature dominated by case studies of individual IS projects. Taken alone, these provide no basis for estimation of overall failure/success rates. Despite these limitations, there are some glimpses of evidence. A few more specific multiple-case studies have been conducted, with examples summarized here:. Health information systems in South Africa: Braa and Hedberg (2002) reported widespread partial failure of high cost systems with little use of data. . IS in the Thai public sector: Kitiyadisai (2000) reported failure cases seem to be the norm in Thailand at all governmental levels. . Donor-funded IT projects in China: Baark and Heeks (1999) reported that all were found to be partial failures. . World Bank-funded IT projects in Africa: Moussa and Schware (1992) reported almost all as partialoften sustainabilityfailures. In summary, the evidence base is not strongand it urgently needs strengtheningbut it all points in one direction: toward high rates of IS failure in developing countries. Information systems in Knowledge Management:Knowledge management is more a methodology applied to business practices than a technology or product. Nevertheless, information technology is crucial to the success of every knowledge management system. Information technology enables KM by providing the enterprise architecture upon which it is built. Knowledge management systems are developed using three sets of technologies: communication, collaboration, and storage and retrieval. Communication technologies allow users to access needed knowledge, and to communicate with each otherespecially with experts. E-mail, the Internet, corporate intranets, and other Web-based tools provide communication capabilities. Even fax machines and the telephone are used for communication, especially when the practice approach to knowledge management is adopted. Collaboration technologies provide the means to perform group work. Groups can work together on common documents at the same time (synchronous) or at different times (asynchronous); in the same place, or in different places. This is especially important for members of a community of practice working on knowledge contributions. Collaborative computing capabilities such as electronic brainstorming enhance group work, especially for knowledge contribution. Additional forms of group work involve experts working with individuals try-in to apply their knowledge. This requires collaboration at a fairly high level. Other collaborative computing systems allow an organization to create a virtual space so that individuals can work online anywhere and at any time. Storage and retrieval technologies originally meant using a database management system to store and manage knowledge. This worked reasonably well in the early days for storing and managing most explicit knowledge, and even explicit knowledge about tacit knowledge. However, capturing, storing, and managing tacit knowledge usually requires a different set

of tools. Electronic document management systems and specialized storage systems that are part of collaborative computing systems ll this void Technologies Supporting the management system:Several technologies have contributed to signicant advances in knowledge management tools. Articial intelligence, intelligent agents, knowledge discovery in databases, and Extensible Markup Language (XML) are examples of technologies that enable advanced functionality of modern knowledge management systems and form the base for future innovations in the KM eld. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE :In the denition of knowledge management, articial intelligence is rarely mentioned. However, practically speaking, AI methods and tools are embedded in a number of knowledge management systems, either by vendors or by system developers. AI methods can assist in identifying expertise, eliciting knowledge automatically and semi automatically, interfacing through natural language processing, and in intelligent search through intelligent agents. AI methods, notably expert systems, neural networks, fuzzy logic, and intelligent agents, are used in knowledge management systems to perform various functions: They assist in and enhance searching knowledge (e.g., intelligent agents in Web searches), including scanning e-mail, documents, and databases and helping establish knowledge proles of individuals and groups. They forecast future results using existing knowledge. AI methods help determine the relative importance of knowledge, when knowledge is both contributed to and accessed from the knowledge repository, and help determine meaningful relationships in the knowledge. They identify patterns in data (usually through neural networks), induce rules for expert systems, and provide advice directly from knowledge by using neural networks or expert systems. Finally, they provide a natural language or voice commanddriven user interface for a knowledge management system. INTELLIGENT AGENTS:Intelligent agents are software systems that learn how users work and provide assistance in their daily tasks. For example, when these software programs are e told what the user wants to retrieve, passive agents can monitor incoming information for matches with user interests and active agents can seek out information relevant to user preferences (Gray and Tehran, 2003). There are a number of ways that intelligent agents can help in knowledge management systems. Typically they are used to elicit and identify knowledge. Examples are: IBM (ibm.com) offers an intelligent data mining family, including Intelligent Decision Server (IDS), for nding and analyzing massive amounts of enterprise data. Gentia (Planning Sciences International,gentia.com) uses intelligent agents to facilitate data mining with Web access and data warehouse facilities. Convectis (HNC Software Inc.) uses neural networks to search text data and

images, to discern the meaning of documents for an intelligent agent. This tool is used by InfoSeek, an Internet search engine, to speed up the creation of hierarchical directories of Web topics. Combining intelligent agents with enterprise knowledge portals is a powerful technique that can deliver to a user exactly what he or she needs to perform his or her tasks. The intelligent agent learns what the user prefers to see, and how he or she organizes it. Then, the intelligent agent takes over to provide it at the desktop like a good administrative assistant would (King and Jones, 1995). KNOWLEDGE DISCOVERY IN DATABASES:Knowledge discovery in databases (KDD)is a process used to search for and extract useful information from volumes of documents and data. It includes tasks known as knowledge extraction, data archaeology, data exploration, data pattern processing, data dredging, and information harvesting. All of these activities are conducted automatically and allow quick discovery, even by nonprogrammers. Data are often buried deep within very large databases, data warehouses, text documents, or knowledge repositories, all of which may contain data, information, and knowledge gathered over many years. Data mining, the process of searching for previously unknown information or relationships in large databases, is ideal for eliciting knowledge from databases, documents, e-mail, and so on. AI methods are useful data mining tools that include automated knowledge elicitation from other sources. Intelligent data mining discovers information within databases and other repositories that queries and reports cannot effectively reveal. Data mining tools nd patterns in data and may even (automatically) infer rules from them. Patterns and rules can be used to guide decision-making and forecast the effect of these decisions. KDD can also be used to identify the meaning of data or text, using KM tools that scan documents and email to build an expertise prole of a rms employees. Data mining can speed up analysis by providing needed knowledge. Research on information technology (IT) outsourcing adoption has been confined to a single-country perspective. The understanding of how country-specific variables influence the adoption of IT outsourcing is limited. This study uses new institutional economics to build a framework that links country-level factors to the adoption of IT domestic outsourcing. The authors suggest that country-level factors, such as the maturity of the ITrelated legal system, social trust, uncertainty avoidance, Internet penetration, and the maturity of the IT outsourcing market, affect the opportunism costs and coordination costs involved in domestic IT outsourcing and influence its adoption among firms. The results show that the maturity of the IT-related legal system, social trust, and the maturity of the IT outsourcing market are positively associated with IT outsourcing adoption. The authors conclude the paper with a discussion of the studys implications for practice and future research.