The alignment of Business and IT is still an important concern of IT managers. Alignment, as most others organization challenges, is essentially promoted by people. So, adequate people´s incentives... Show More

The alignment of Business and IT is still an important concern of IT managers. Alignment, as most others organization challenges, is essentially promoted by people. So, adequate people´s incentives should be accordingly designed with that purpose in mind. A framework that enhances alignment through an incentive policy is proposed, relating incentive initiatives with alignment criteria. Framework uses Luftman instrument, where its dimensions represents alignment opportunities that should be explored. The used incentive instrument is based on the WorldatWork model. An incentive policy should consider five areas; compensation, benefits, work-life, performance/recognition and development/career opportunities. Strategic alignment dimension is composed by six areas; communications, competency/value measurements, governance, partnership, technological scope and skills. The framework supports the definition of an incentive policy enhancing general and specific alignment dimensions. Theorization about some possible direct relations between the dimensions of an incentive policy and alignment is made, helping the incentive policy definition.

The information systems and technologies (IS/IT) are a decisive platform in the response capacity of organizations to the new management imperatives through new solutions that permit to improve... Show More

The information systems and technologies (IS/IT) are a decisive platform in the response capacity of organizations to the new management imperatives through new solutions that permit to improve their competitive position. As information management is a highly differentiating area, the present study compares several enterprises of different sectors, located (headoffice or branch) in the Algarve region, with the aim of systematising the main differentiating issues related with adoption, restructuring and implementation of information systems and supportive technologies. Every organization should define an accurate and in time plan which, in case of adopting and implementing information systems, has to analyse results within the same plan and on a yearly basis of the system’s activity always aligned with the business strategy. Given the potential of ERP and CRM as powerful tools to guide customer-oriented understanding, greater attention is required on their economic viability for sustainable business dynamics.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, such as SAP, feature a rich set of integrated business applications. However, to maximize the long term benefits from ERP implementations, organizations... Show More

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, such as SAP, feature a rich set of integrated business applications. However, to maximize the long term benefits from ERP implementations, organizations need to careful manage the post-implementation phase and focus on supporting end users to achieve better fit between their business processes and the ERP system features. This study develops a research model based on the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm and finds support for a positive and complementary relationship between continuous training resources, functional fit capability and business process success. An increase in continuous training resources increases the functional fit capability for the organization and is seen to improve business process success. The results support the need to focus on continuous end user training throughout the post implementation phase as a key contributor to ERP systems success for any organization.

The traceability links existing between a business process and the supporting software systems s is a critical concern for the organizations, as it directly affects their performance. Methodologies... Show More

The traceability links existing between a business process and the supporting software systems s is a critical concern for the organizations, as it directly affects their performance. Methodologies and tools are needed for detecting these kinds of relationships and keeping an evidence of the existing connections. This paper proposes an approach for modelling a business processes evidencing the links existing between their activities and the components of the supporting software systems. The approach described in this paper is concerned with the use of information retrieval techniques to software maintenance and, in particular, to the problem of recovering traceability links between the business process models and the components of the supporting software system. An information retrieval approach is introduced based on two processing phases including syntactic and semantic analysis. The application of the approach is explored through a case study.

Complex service-oriented organizations (such as IT customer service or the hospital emergency) deal with many challenges due to incoming request types that we characterize as non-routine. Each such... Show More

Complex service-oriented organizations (such as IT customer service or the hospital emergency) deal with many challenges due to incoming request types that we characterize as non-routine. Each such request reflects significant variations in the environment and consequently requirements, which drives discovery of processing needs. At the same time such organizations are often challenged with sharing high-cost resources and satisfying multiple stakeholders with different expectations. Performance improvement in this context is particularly challenging and requires new methods. To address this, the authors present an ontology designed for highly dynamic service organizations where traceable workflow data is difficult to obtain and there are many stakeholders. The ontology provides the contextual framework by with useful knowledge can be successfully extracted from mined performance data obtained from scattered sources. Specifically the service ontology 1) obtains tacit knowledge as explicit in-the-micro feedback from workers performing Roles, 2) provides the structure for organizing in-the-small execution data from evolving process and instances, and 3) aggregates process instances metrics into a performance and decision-making facility to align to in-the-large goals of stakeholders. Using actual customer service requests they illustrate the benefits of the ontology for relating aggregated goals to feedback from individual roles of workers. The authors also illustrate the benefits in terms of identifying actionable improvement targets.

Currently there is no veritable role for design, designers, or design methodology associated with ‘organizational design’. Rather, the design of an organization is a byproduct of tactics and... Show More

Currently there is no veritable role for design, designers, or design methodology associated with ‘organizational design’. Rather, the design of an organization is a byproduct of tactics and management bureaucracy. In postmodern, post-industrial, and post-capitalist organizational entities the role of design is subordinate and residual at best. In this concept paper the authors demonstrate that (a) an entrepreneurial and organic perspective on design is challenged by the paradigmatic and transformational effects of information and information technology on firm; and (b) that the apparent problematic absence of a design theory and the existence of the firm can be reconciled via the involvement of design managers with their presumed design-methodological grounding. They advocate substituting the anachronistic evolutionary speciation of organizational design with a perspective based on ‘intelligent design’.