The case study describes the experience of one of the top companies operating in the business to business office forniture industry. It describes the market peculiarities and their impact on the... Show More

The case study describes the experience of one of the top companies operating in the business to business office forniture industry. It describes the market peculiarities and their impact on the eBusiness strategy, the different IT solutions adopted (from the improvement of the information exchange to the development of customer relationship management applications), and the future challenges and opportunities.

The case study presents the experience of the New York Theatre Group (NYTG), a nonprofit performing arts organization, in integrating e-commerce in its operational practices. In particular, its... Show More

The case study presents the experience of the New York Theatre Group (NYTG), a nonprofit performing arts organization, in integrating e-commerce in its operational practices. In particular, its strategic positioning and integration of its web presence into its business model is detailed, along with the consequences and lessons learned from this integration.

Online compliance and financial settlement engine was launched in 2000. TradeCard incorporated a number of partners into its service network: financial institutions, credit insurance, inspection and... Show More

Online compliance and financial settlement engine was launched in 2000. TradeCard incorporated a number of partners into its service network: financial institutions, credit insurance, inspection and logistics companies. TradeCard quickly grasped market share in footwear and textile industries. TradeCard mainly serves buyers in the US and suppliers in Asia, but is expanding in Europe and transactions are supported worldwide. During the years 2000-2005 TradeCard’s business has been growing exponentially. TradeCard platform connects buyers, sellers, and service providers in an online environment, where they can manage the whole documentary process of international trade transaction quickly, visibly, and cost-effectively. In other words, TradeCard is changing the international trade practices. Traditionally companies use banks’ services—letter of credit or open account—but TradeCard solution is replacing these services. Although TradeCard is more a substitutor than a complementor to banks’ international trade departments, some banks are now trying to use Web-based solutions to gain their customers back. In other words, for survival and growth the banks are adopting e-commerce solutions to letter of credit and open account transactions in order to stay in the financing business. Accordingly, how TradeCard retains its edge in the provision of a financial supply chain solution while expanding the reach of new markets beciomes an important question to tackle. This case is a study of the TradeCard system, electronic solution development in international trade, and the relationship between TradeCard and banks.

The case examines the strategic positioning of BizE (disguised) an eCommerce start-up that serves small online businesses via an Internet portal. During an economic downturn BizE encounters... Show More

The case examines the strategic positioning of BizE (disguised) an eCommerce start-up that serves small online businesses via an Internet portal. During an economic downturn BizE encounters difficulties with its new private-label strategy. With cash running dangerously low, executives reassess the new strategy and consider what they can do to ensure the company’s survival.

In this article, organizational and policy aspects of two national clearing house concepts are compared and discussed. In social security, Belgium has witnessed the emergence of the so called Cross... Show More

In this article, organizational and policy aspects of two national clearing house concepts are compared and discussed. In social security, Belgium has witnessed the emergence of the so called Cross Point Bank and the Netherlands have produced the RINIS initiative. Although both countries are rather comparable, they differ in terms of their politico-administrative structures. From the comparison of the antecedents of both initiatives and their form and shape, it is concluded that e-government is not a universal, necessarily converged concept and that institutions and institutional matter, not so much as to how e-government is talked about (rhetorical convergence), but especially for the ways in which e-government technologies are implemented in the real world of public administration. From the case study, there is little support for decisional and operational convergence of the e-government phenomenon.

Traditionally, government agencies are organized vertically around functional structures and there are almost no processes spanning departments and agencies. In such an environment, the coordination... Show More

Traditionally, government agencies are organized vertically around functional structures and there are almost no processes spanning departments and agencies. In such an environment, the coordination of business processes and integration of underlying information systems presents a significant challenge. Using case studies in three European countries, this research explores process and systems integration challenges in the European public sector and highlight opportunities for service improvement in the context of e-government implementation. While cross-organizational process and information systems integration barriers are seen in the literature as presenting the main technical challenge for realizing fully integrated e-government services, this research found that a legacy of rigid bureaucracy, established illogical routine tasks and lack of coordination of different information systems in the public sector were preventing the respective governments from expediting their e-government initiatives in Europe.

The State Technology Agency (STA) is accountable for delivering e-government services for a state in the United States. One of its major responsibilities is to develop and maintain the state portal.... Show More

The State Technology Agency (STA) is accountable for delivering e-government services for a state in the United States. One of its major responsibilities is to develop and maintain the state portal. As the result of challenges that it has encountered, the STA has developed a holistic view of state portal applications evolution and management. The case examines the three perspectives of Web application evolution — applications, processes, and services — and illustrates how application evolution dynamics are impacted by their interplay. The STA case also reinforces the importance of defining and applying processes to manage application evolution; it is the execution of application evolution processes that determines whether the services delivered fulfill customers’ expectations, and it is only through monitoring the outcomes of application evolution processes and quality of delivered services that opportunities for improved/enhanced applications are identified. The case also illustrates the importance of integrating tools with evolution processes to deliver/monitor better services and portal applications.

After six years of challenges and learning pushing forward the e-Government agenda in Mexico, the Presidential succession brought an opportunity for assessing the current progress, recognizing the... Show More

After six years of challenges and learning pushing forward the e-Government agenda in Mexico, the Presidential succession brought an opportunity for assessing the current progress, recognizing the main unsolved problems, and planning the vision for the future of e-Government in Mexico. This case provides a rich description of the e-Mexico system, including its main objectives and goals, governance structures, IT infrastructure, collaboration processes, main results, and current challenges. Some background information about Mexico is also provided at the beginning of the case. Playing the role of a consultant working for the new Mexican CIO, the reader is asked to evaluate the current situation and help in the design of a work plan, including a proposal for organizing the ICT function, the main strategic objectives, and some specific lines of action for the next six years.

This case describes the development of information technology (IT) and electronic government (e-Government) projects of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government (the HKSARG) from the... Show More

This case describes the development of information technology (IT) and electronic government (e-Government) projects of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government (the HKSARG) from the late 1990s to 2005. During this period, the HKSARG launched its first IT Strategic Plan, Digital 21 IT Strategy, which provides the roadmap for the IT development for the city. In this eight-year period, the HKSARG committed about US$1,100M on various types of e-government projects. New e-Government applications and portals, such as Electronic Service Delivery (ESD) and Central Cyber Government Office (CCGO), were developed and rolled out from 2000 onwards to facilitate electronic transactions between the HKSARG and its external (business firms and citizens) and internal (government departments and employees) customers.

This is an eGISE network article. It is motivated by a concern about the extent to which trust issues inhibit a citizen’s take-up of online public sector services or engagement with public decision... Show More

This is an eGISE network article. It is motivated by a concern about the extent to which trust issues inhibit a citizen’s take-up of online public sector services or engagement with public decision and policy making. A citizen’s decision to use online systems is influenced by their willingness to trust the environment and agency involved. This project addresses one aspect of individual “trust” decisions by providing support for citizens trying to evaluate the implications of the security infrastructure provided by the agency. Based on studies of the way both groups (citizens and agencies) express their concerns and concepts in the security area, the project will develop a software tool—a trust verification agent (TVA)—that can take an agency’s security statements (or security audit) and infer how effectively this meets the security concerns of a particular citizen. This will enable citizens to state their concerns and obtain an evaluation of the agency’s provision in appropriate “citizen friendly” language. Furthermore, by employing rule-based expert systems techniques, the TVA will also be able to explain its evaluation.

This is an eGISE network article which aims to justify the need for a holistic approach (the CARE framework) to the evaluation of e-government projects and to outline a programme of research for its... Show More

This is an eGISE network article which aims to justify the need for a holistic approach (the CARE framework) to the evaluation of e-government projects and to outline a programme of research for its delivery. It is argued that existing methods of evaluation are too limited in terms of scope, perspective, and application and do not offer the necessary potential for learning in an environment characterised by enormous change and considerable investment. Developing the CARE framework addresses these limitations by providing a method of collaborative inquiry which involves relevant stakeholders in the appraisal of both ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ aspects of an e-government system. It is also intended that the research project also produces supporting software tools for the framework. The proposed project is based on previous work in the construction industry that developed a cross organisational learning approach (COLA). Developing a similar strategy for Knowledge Management is likely to be effective because the ‘silo’ culture of local government organisations has parallels with the segmented organisational structures within the construction industry.

A significant area within e-government is concerned with systems to support democratic policy formation and decision making processes. In modern government, both local and national, consultation... Show More

A significant area within e-government is concerned with systems to support democratic policy formation and decision making processes. In modern government, both local and national, consultation with interested parties is an important element in maintaining the democratic process. To date, online consultation tools have used existing software tools, which are simple text based tools that were not tailored to the process. This project proposes to investigate to what extent a model building tool can be developed to support group deliberation and consensus building in consultation. Using discourse analysis, computer supported argument visualisation, and ontological engineering it will create argument maps that will serve not only to inform participants but also act as an archival record of the consultation. We hypothesise that a model building tool can be designed to constructively encourage informed debate and deliberation on policy issues by a broad public.

E-government is becoming a reality rather than a theoretical ambition; however, achieving the e-government anticipated benefits is still illusive, which is exacerbated by the continuous and ever... Show More

E-government is becoming a reality rather than a theoretical ambition; however, achieving the e-government anticipated benefits is still illusive, which is exacerbated by the continuous and ever changing business processes, IT, and user requirements. This article outlines the current state of e-government research and the challenges emerging from the need to integrate citizen, business, and technology into seamless e-government solutions and services. In addition, the article proposes a semiotics-informed framework for process-oriented e-government services, modeling, and management, which is used and tested on laboratory-based case studies.

This case considers the issues facing local authorities in the UK regarding engaging their citizen’s with online service delivery channels. While these issues are shared with all local authorities... Show More

This case considers the issues facing local authorities in the UK regarding engaging their citizen’s with online service delivery channels. While these issues are shared with all local authorities in the UK, the focus of the work is around the far South West of England, in a region where, given high levels of social and economic exclusion, low incomes, and low population density, local e-government services have great potential to benefit populations. Several datasets highlight the problem that the local authorities face in the region; a disengaged population and a lack of trust in both local and central government. However, we can also demonstrate that once engaged, citizens can appreciate the value of online services and will make use of them. Building upon this data, two approaches to engagement are examined; one a national mass media led campaign whose impact upon the study region is assessed, and another at the grass roots level of local communities, where trusted community volunteers are used as facilitators for engagement. We demonstrate failure with the mass media effort, and some significant success with the grass roots engagement. However, we must conclude that the key challenge facing local authorities is not in the generation of engagement efforts in the short term, but sustaining their impact in the long term.

This case describes a dental supply company’s experiences in the design and implementation of an e-commerce solution. The online store provides dentists with over 16,000 different dental products... Show More

This case describes a dental supply company’s experiences in the design and implementation of an e-commerce solution. The online store provides dentists with over 16,000 different dental products, from alloys to dental instruments to X-ray products. The design choices, process, and challenges of implementing this e-commerce solution are discussed.

Technology leapfrogging by a late adopter of technologies means skipping intermediate technologies and adopting the latest technologies. In this way, this late adopter would be exposed to... Show More

Technology leapfrogging by a late adopter of technologies means skipping intermediate technologies and adopting the latest technologies. In this way, this late adopter would be exposed to unprecedented opportunities offered by the new technologies. This case study focuses on China’s attempt at leapfrogging to mobile phone telecommunications technology. It provides a description of the underlying forces involved in shaping and influencing this leapfrogging attempt. Students or readers are encouraged to analyse this case from their contextual perspective—may it be from the standpoint of a competing country, foreign investor, competing marketing corporation, policy maker, or consumer. Instructors of teaching cases may perhaps consider assigning different roles to students in discussing this case within a group.

This case study describes marketing options, systems architecture, and strategies for an IT company to enter the market for B2B EIPP (business-to-business electronic invoice presentment and... Show More

This case study describes marketing options, systems architecture, and strategies for an IT company to enter the market for B2B EIPP (business-to-business electronic invoice presentment and payment). The organization explores the possibility of developing EIPP software and offering an EIPP service in competition with other EIPP services. The advantages of EIPP to potential customers and to the organization itself are described together with the option of partnering with a bank to offer the service.

This article explores the political relationships, power asymmetries, and conflicts surrounding the development, deployment, and governance of IT-enabled sales and marketing information systems (IS)... Show More

This article explores the political relationships, power asymmetries, and conflicts surrounding the development, deployment, and governance of IT-enabled sales and marketing information systems (IS) at Digital Devices Inc. The study reports on the web of individual, group and institutional commitments and influences on the IS development and implementation processes in an organizational culture that promoted and supported user-led development. In particular, the article highlights the problems the company’s IS function encountered in implementing its ad-hoc strategies and governance policies. It will be seen that the majority of these problems occurred because of the high levels of autonomy and budgetary independence of the IT-literate, engineering-oriented business ‘communities-of-practice’ that constituted Digital Devices. The case therefore provides rare insights into the reality of IS development and IT infrastructure deployment in organizations through its in-depth description of the positive and negative influences on these processes and their outcomes.

In spring 2001, Veropoulos, the third biggest retailer in Greece and three of its top suppliers together with a service provider, started a pilot implementation to experiment with collaborative... Show More

In spring 2001, Veropoulos, the third biggest retailer in Greece and three of its top suppliers together with a service provider, started a pilot implementation to experiment with collaborative store ordering. The pilot involved the ordering from the retailer’s stores to their central warehouse as well as to the direct-storedelivery suppliers. The four companies together with the service provider were starting an ambitious plan to use the Internet technology in order to enable the sharing of daily POS data between retail stores and suppliers with the objective to streamline the store replenishment process. This effort resulted in significant business results but at the same time several pitfalls and challenges as far as the use of technology was concerned.