Practitioner pre-adoption perceptions of Electronic Medical Record systems

The objective of this study is to propose and test a theoretical model on pre-adoption views of Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems by Canadian medical practitioners. An empirical investigation was conducted with a sample of Canadian practitioners not currently using EMRs to identify relevant factors favouring or deterring adoption. The results show that positive performance and effort expectancies help while perceived psychological risk hinders adoption in the view of Canadian medical practitioners who are not yet using EMRs. Overall, this study contributes to understanding practitioners’ views on the potential adoption of EMRs with the purpose of increasing the success of this novel eHealth tool.     

Privacy issues in a psychiatric context: applying the ISD privacy framework to a psychiatric behavioural monitoring system

Privacy issues are frequently discussed amongst researchers, practitioners and patients in healthcare. However, psychiatric patients’ privacy issues get less attention in information system development (ISD), whereby they are one of the most important stakeholders. This paper applies Carew and Stapleton’s ISD privacy framework to psychiatric monitoring systems to understand the issues that are related to monitoring psychiatric patients’ behaviour. By understanding the privacy issues amongst patients, the research will be able to provide guidance to system developers to produce a privacy-sensitive system that can contribute to the system engineering for international stability. We will elaborate each factor in the framework (physical, social, psychological and informational) and then explain the relationship to the privacy of psychiatric patient.     

An AHP-based methodology to rank critical success factors of executive information systems

For academics and practitioners concerned with computer-based information systems, one central issue is the study of critical success factors (CSF) of information systems development and implementation. Whereas several critical success factors analyses appear in the literature, most of them do not have any technical background. In this paper, we propose the use of the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to set critical success factors priorities. Results suggest that technical elements are less critical than information and human factors and that an adequate knowledge of the information requirements of users is the most important critical success factors related with executive information systems (EIS).     

Implementing information systems with project teams using ethnographic-action research

Architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) projects are characterized by a large variation in requirements and work routines. Therefore, it is difficult to develop and implement information systems to support projects. To address these challenges, this paper presents a project-centric research and development methodology that combines ethnographic observation of practitioners working in local project organizations to understand their local requirements and the iterative improvement of information systems directly on projects in small action research implementation cycles. The paper shows the practical feasibility of the theoretical methodology using cases from AEC projects in North America and Europe. The cases provide evidence that ethnographic-action research is well suited to support the development and implementation of information systems. In particular, the paper shows that the method enabled researchers on the cases to identify specific problems on AEC projects and, additionally, helped these researchers to adapt information systems accordingly in close collaboration with the practitioners working on these projects.     

Information systems and culture: Applying ‘stages of growth’ concepts to development administration

Abstract

This paper examines how cultural factors influence the rate at which individuals adopt technology to assist them in their duties. In order to achieve this, we review usage of the stages of growth model of information systems development in organisations which has been applied in the context of western and non‐western organisations in various parts of the world. We then apply the model to the context of development administration where information technology interventions are becoming pervasive but where the inherent traditional cultural characteristics are fundamentally at variance with those of information technology practitioners. The case study we present is that of the implementation of information systems in the Karachi Development Authority (KDA). The findings highlight the utility and limitations of the stages of growth model in terms of its ability to accommodate the inherent cultural characteristics of KDA. While such knowledge will have value for information technology practitioners within their own societies, we contend that it will become even more valuable for practitioners from western cultures in applying technology solutions to development administration.     

Web-Based Reputation Management Systems: Problems and Suggested Solutions

Individuals who use the World Wide Web (WWW) to purchase goods and obtain information face a high level of uncertainty as to the quality of those goods and information. Reputation management systems are one way in which information about past transactions can be used to form judgments regarding the quality of goods and information obtained via the WWW. This paper examines current approaches used in reputation management systems and outlines six main problems with them. The paper suggests how these problems can be solved and develops an equation that can handle many of the problems. Implications for practitioners and researchers are discussed.     

Evidence management for compliance of critical systems with safety standards: A survey on the state of practice

ContextDemonstrating compliance of critical systems with safety standards involves providing convincing evidence that the requirements of a standard are adequately met. For large systems, practitioners need to be able to effectively collect, structure, and assess substantial quantities of evidence.ObjectiveThis paper aims to provide insights into how practitioners deal with safety evidence management for critical computer-based systems. The information currently available about how this activity is performed in the industry is very limited.MethodWe conducted a survey to determine practitioners’ perspectives and practices on safety evidence management. A total of 52 practitioners from 15 countries and 11 application domains responded to the survey. The respondents indicated the types of information used as safety evidence, how evidence is structured and assessed, how evidence evolution is addressed, and what challenges are faced in relation to provision of safety evidence.ResultsOur results indicate that (1) V&V artefacts, requirements specifications, and design specifications are the most frequently used safety evidence types, (2) evidence completeness checking and impact analysis are mostly performed manually at the moment, (3) text-based techniques are used more frequently than graphical notations for evidence structuring, (4) checklists and expert judgement are frequently used for evidence assessment, and (5) significant research effort has been spent on techniques that have seen little adoption in the industry. The main contributions of the survey are to provide an overall and up-to-date understanding of how the industry addresses safety evidence management, and to identify gaps in the state of the art.ConclusionWe conclude that (1) V&V plays a major role in safety assurance, (2) the industry will clearly benefit from more tool support for collecting and manipulating safety evidence, and (3) future research on safety evidence management needs to place more emphasis on industrial applications.     

Web-Based Information Systems Requirement Analysis

E-commerce application development is a growing aspect of information systems management activities within many organizations. the increasing amount of E-commerce development carried out in organizations implies that a formal methodology for such development is necessary. This article discusses several E-commerce development methodologies and proposes a customer-oriented user requirement analysis approach. A survey was conducted to examine organizations' current practice on Web-based information systems requirement analysis. Findings and recommendations are provided for information systems researchers and practitioners.     

Obligations of the expert system builder: meeting the needs of the user.

Builders of expert systems have generally accepted the principle that computer software should not be subject to government regulation if health care practitioners can be expected to interpret and apply the systems intelligently. The purpose of this paper is to identify the information that builders must make available to permit health care practitioners to exercise their clinical judgment in interpreting and applying the output of computing systems.     

Rapid adoption of information systems in an organization with poor management: the case of fund-holding in UK primary health care

Abstract. Reorganization of the UK primary health care system to create an internal market for health services depends upon local family doctors (general practitioners) taking on budgetary responsibilities and purchasing services from hospitals. These budgets will be monitored by local committees. The success of the internal market is heavily dependent upon computerized management information systems. This paper investigates the introduction of information systems into an organization that is ill prepared for change.     

Managerial information system success factors within the cultural context of North America and a former Soviet Republic

Due to the magnitude of organizational resource requirements for the development of managerial information systems, both practitioners and researchers have attempted to identify those factors that impact on information system success. This paper presents a cross-cultural analysis of a hybrid model of information systems success within the cultural context of North America and a former Soviet Republic, Latvia. The results of the analysis indicate that some of the factors that impact on managerial information system success have built-in value biases reflecting the value orientations of the culture in which they are developed.     

An analysis of the traditional IS security approaches: implications for research and practice

Scholars have developed several modern information systems security (ISS) methods. Yet the traditional ISS methods – ISS checklists, ISS standards, ISS maturity criteria, risk management (RM) and formal methods (FM) – are still among the most used ISS methods. This study makes sense of these traditional ISS methods by comparing their underlying key assumptions. The main finding is that the traditional ISS methods regurgitate several features and assumptions that are required to be dealt with by traditional ISS methods developers and practitioners.     

Editorial: Introduction to Web Information Systems Engineering

With the recent advances in the World Wide Web development, more and more users have access to web information, and more and more information providers are able to put information of various types on the web. The web has now become one of the most important Internet information systems for various professionals and users. However, owing to the huge amount of information of various types available and various users on the Internet and Web, efficient query and information retrieval as well as the management of Internet information have become a challenging and difficult task. Therefore, systematic research on the design, implementation, and management of Internet and web-based information systems has been increasingly attractive and important. The Web Information Systems Engineering (WISE) Conference Series (see http://www.i-wise.org) has emerged since 2000 as an excellent forum for researchers, professionals, and industrial practitioners to share their rapidly developing knowledge and report on new advances in web-based information systems.     

Lessons learned from three interorganizational health care information systems

The airline, financial, retail, consumer goods and cotton industries are not alone in their increased use of interorganizational information systems (IOSs). Health care organizations are investing and participating in a growing number of IOSs, such as community health information networks (CHINs) and integrated delivery systems (IDS). This paper examines the experiences of three CHIN systems located in the US — Midwest. Multiple data sources, including executive interviews, memoranda, internal documentation and system demonstrations, provided data for this research. The history of each case provides a better understanding of systems implementation and the underlying determinants that emerged as having significant impact. Not only do these findings provide guidelines and learning tools for practitioners, but they also hold implications to the field and its current position on bipolar streams in the literature. Lastly, our findings suggest that large health care infrastructures will continue to be confronted by the presence of the World Wide Web and electronic commerce.     

An evolutionist approach to information bipolarity: Representations and affects in human cognition

This paper investigates the psychological plausibility of the bipolarity concept, i.e., that positive and negative kinds of information are treated differently. Sections 2 and 3 review relevant investigations of the representational and affective systems in the experimental psychology literature. Section 4 provides new data supporting the idea that even when considering how affective changes occur, a certain level of independence exists between the positive and negative sides of affect. Together the studies reported here strongly support the psychological plausibility of bipolarity: Positive and negative kinds of information are not processed in the same way whichever domain is considered, preferences (affect) or beliefs (mental categories). © 2008 Wiley Periodicals Inc.     

Assessing the impact of quality determinants and user characteristics on successful enterprise resource planning project implementation

As barriers to transnational trade and investment have been lowered due to globalization, and information and communication technologies have improved, multinational firms can conduct operations with increased ease. Enterprises can also utilize cost-advantageous production resources and export products to expand their global market. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems serve the purpose and have become useful instruments for managing multinational operations. Notably, ERP systems integrate information platforms to reflect operations at each operation point in real time and generate information as a basis for decision-making and resource allocations. Thus, ERP systems are essential to global logistics management and collaboration. However, vertical and horizontal evaluations of information systems are necessary to determining the effectiveness and success of project implementation. This study examines the impact of quality determinants from literature in assessing benefits using an information systems success model. The cause-and-effect relationships between model constructs are tested using structural equation modeling. An empirical study of leading manufacturers adopting ERP systems is used to investigate corporate benefits related to information quality, system quality, service quality, system use, and user satisfaction. The analytical results can be a reference for practitioners and researchers evaluating the effectiveness of management information systems.     

MIS research strategies

Different strategies for conducting empirical research in the Management Information Systems (MIS) field are discussed. Strategies employed in 532 MIS articles published in 15 journals during the 1970–1979 time period are analyzed. The trends are analyzed over the ten year period with respect to the differences between articles authored by practitioners and academic, differences between articles that are cited frequently versus infrequently, and the relationship with the type of research conducted.The analysis points out that more than two thirds of published MIS research by either academicians or practitioners had utilized non-empirical approaches and focused on a single variable. Case studies are the most commonly employed empirical strategy and most studies do not measure the impact of independent variables on the process of using developing, or operating information systems. The analysis suggests that MIS journal articles employing empirical research strategies are cited more frequently than nonempirical ones.     

Information systems planning and the challenge of shifting priorities

Establishing and maintaining priorities for information systems (IS) development is a challenge that has made IS planning an enduring issue. During structured interviews, senior IS executives from 20 diverse organizations discussed reasons why it is difficult to establish and maintain priorities. The executives also discussed the ways they are attempting to overcome such problems. An analysis of the interviews provides IS practitioners with insight into the difficulty and some possible actions to deal with it.     

The impact of psychological climate on employees’ innovative use of information systems: The moderating role of goal orientation

The objectives of this study are to investigate climates that could facilitate innovative use of information systems (IS), and to examine how psychological climate and individual goal orientation interact to promote employees’ innovative IS use. A total of 174 questionnaires were collected from enterprise resource planning (ERP) users from nine firms in China. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to test the research hypotheses. The empirical results suggest that (1) psychological climates (psychological autonomy climate and psychological innovation climate) are positively associated with IS users’ innovative use, (2) avoidance orientation weakens the relationship between psychological autonomy climate and innovative use, (3) learning orientation weakens the relationship between psychological innovation climate and innovative use, and (4) learning orientation strengthens the relationship between psychological autonomy climate and innovative use. This study contributes to IS literature by identifying psychological climate as a critical antecedent of innovative use. The findings also fulfil an identified need for more empirical studies of the combined effect of individual and environmental factors on employees’ innovative behaviour in the workplace, especially in the context of IS innovation.