Impact of Telework on Work Practices in Accounting
ABSTRACT The introduction of advanced capabilities in information and communication technology (I... more ABSTRACT The introduction of advanced capabilities in information and communication technology (ICT) has enabled organisations to support work activities and collaborate effectively between geographically separated workplaces. Through this usage, ICT has also enabled the introduction of new organisational structures and business process designs that offer previously unavailable flexibility in when and where work is performed. The accountant's role has typically been one that relies on individual work in the preparation of accounts, accounting reports, audit work, or audit reports, and communication with colleagues and clients. ICT has facilitated the transportation of accounting work between workers, colleagues, and the firm. Depending on the capabilities of the ICT deployed, accounting work can be done in the office, at the client's premises, at home, or across the world. However, issues do arise for accountants who telework and our survey revealed seven major factors that need to be considered when firms establish telework programs and policies: (1) Effectiveness, (2) Professionalism, (3) Collegiality, (4) Work pressures, (5) Physicality, (6) Self-assurance and (7) Work-task complexity. This research builds on earlier conceptual work in the Systems- Based Framework for Telework and the Telework Behaviour Model. In so doing the results further our understanding about the impact of telework on work practices and outcomes in accounting.
Organisations devote substantial resources to acquire information technology (IT), and explaining... more Organisations devote substantial resources to acquire information technology (IT), and explaining the important issue of how IT can affect performance has posed a significant challenge to information system (IS) researchers. Owing to the importance of expanding our understanding on how and where IT and IT-related resources impact organisational performance, this study investigates the differential effects of IT resources and IT-related capabilities, in the presence of platform-related complementarities, on business process performance. We test these relationships empirically via a field survey of 216 firms. The findings suggest that IT resources and IT-related capabilities explain variance in performance. Of interest is the finding that IT resources and IT-related capabilities ability to explain variance in business process is further enhanced by the presence of the platform-related complementarities. Our findings are largely consistent with the resource-based and complementarity arguments of sources of IT-related business value.
Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems, 2013
Software piracy has been a serious problem for decades and continues to cost software industry so... more Software piracy has been a serious problem for decades and continues to cost software industry some billions of dollars each year. In this study we examine the Normative and Informational Social Influences that affect an individual's decision to buy or use pirated software. Based upon previous research about ethical decision making in software adoption, and consumer susceptibility to social influence, we develop a research model designed to test the moderating effects of social influence on the ethical decision making process. An online survey is conducted to collect data. Our research extends the knowledge about software piracy and provides valuable and important insights for researchers, practitioners and policy/strategy makers in government.
The concept of cloud computing services is appealing to the small and medium enterprises (SMEs), ... more The concept of cloud computing services is appealing to the small and medium enterprises (SMEs), with the opportunity to acquire modern information technology resources as a utility and avoid costly capital investments in technology resources. However, the adoption of the cloud computing services presents significant challenges to the SMEs. The SMEs need to determine a path to adopting the cloud computing services that would ensure their sustainable presence in the cloud computing environment. Information about approaches to adopting the cloud computing services by the SMEs is fragmented. Through an interpretive design, we suggest that the SMEs need to have a strategic and incremental intent, understand their organizational structure, understand the external factors, consider the human resource capacity, and understand the value expectations from the cloud computing services to forge a successful path to adopting the cloud computing services. These factors would contribute to a model of cloud services for SMEs.
Understanding the business value of IT has mostly been studied in developed countries, but becaus... more Understanding the business value of IT has mostly been studied in developed countries, but because most investment in developing countries is derived from external sources, the influence of that investment on business value is likely to be different. We test this notion using a two-layer model. We examine the impact of IT investments on firm processes, and the relationship of these processes to firm performance in a developing country. Our findings suggest that investment in different areas of IT positively relates to improvements in intermediate business processes and these intermediate business processes positively relate to the overall financial performance of firms in a developing country.
Because organizations are making large investments in Information systems (IS), efficient IS proj... more Because organizations are making large investments in Information systems (IS), efficient IS project management has been found critical to success. This study examines how the use of incentives can improve the project success. Agency theory is used to: identify motivational factors of project success, help the IS owners to understand to what extent management incentives can improve IS development and implementation (ISD/I). The outcomes will help practitioners and researchers to build on theoretical model of project management elements which lead to project success. Given the principal-agent nature of most significant scale of IS development, insights that will allow for greater alignment of the agent's goals with those of the principal through incentive contracts, will serve to make ISD/I both more efficient and more effective, leading to more successful IS projects.
In this research, we suggest appropriate information technology (IT) governance structures to man... more In this research, we suggest appropriate information technology (IT) governance structures to manage the cloud computing resources. The interest in acquiring IT resources a utility is gaining momentum. Cloud computing resources present organizations with opportunities to manage their IT expenditure on an ongoing basis, and are providing organizations access to modern IT resources to innovate and manage their continuity. However, cloud computing resources are no silver bullet. Organizations would need to have appropriate governance structures and policies in place to ensure its effective management and fit into existing business processes to leverage the promised opportunities. Using a mixed method design, we identified four possible governance structures for managing the cloud computing resources. These structures are a chief cloud officer, a cloud management committee, a cloud service facilitation centre, and a cloud relationship centre. These governance structures ensure appropriate direction of cloud computing resources from its acquisition to fit into the organizations business processes.
Organizations today make radical use of the IT resources to sustain or better their existing comp... more Organizations today make radical use of the IT resources to sustain or better their existing competitive position. One such initiative is forming alliances on a shared IT backbone with partners of their value chain. We term these alliances the collaborative organizational structures (COS). Regardless of the nature of engagement with IT resources, organizations will require unique competencies to obtain performance-differentiating value from these IT resources. In a collaborative environment, these competencies would be a result of the synergy between the alliances' unique competences. We call these the inter-firm IT-related capabilities. The resource centric theoretical frameworks suggest a trajectory of competence development and the structure of inter-firm competencies, but they do not inform the nature of these competencies. We employ an interpretive design to suggest three inter-firm IT-related capabilities for IT-backed collaborative alliances. We discuss these capabilities in this research and suggest that their effectiveness be measured directly against the collaborative rent, and indirectly against the firm-level performance of the alliance partners.
This research-in-progress paper utilizes the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to determine wheth... more This research-in-progress paper utilizes the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to determine whether differences exist in the adoption of Instant Messaging (IM) Technologies in Australia, China, Mexico and the USA. Despite significant differences in the technology needed to implement IM (e.g., software supporting Chinese language characters), few barriers exist to the adoption of IM given the environment is in place. We postulate that language interface technology, infrastructure, and culture affect the adoption of IM technology.
Organisations devote substantial resources to acquire information technology (IT), and explaining... more Organisations devote substantial resources to acquire information technology (IT), and explaining the important issue of how IT can affect performance has posed a significant challenge to information system (IS) researchers. Owing to the importance of expanding our understanding on how and where IT and IT-related resources impact organisational performance, this study investigates the differential effects of IT resources and IT-related capabilities, in the presence of platform-related complementarities, on business process performance. We test these relationships empirically via a field survey of 216 firms. The findings suggest that IT resources and IT-related capabilities explain variance in performance. Of interest is the finding that IT resources and IT-related capabilities ability to explain variance in business process is further enhanced by the presence of the platform-related complementarities. Our findings are largely consistent with the resource-based and complementarity arguments of sources of IT-related business value.
International Conference on Information Systems, 2009
We examine the relationship between the effectiveness of IT steering committee-driven IT governan... more We examine the relationship between the effectiveness of IT steering committee-driven IT governance initiatives and firm's IT management and IT infrastructure related capabilities. We test these relationships empirically by a field survey of 216 firms. Results of this study suggest that a firms' effectiveness of IT steering committee-driven IT governance initiatives positively relate to the level of their IT-related capabilities. We also found positive relationships between IT-related capabilities and internal process-level performance, which positively relate to improvement in customer service and firm-level performance. For researchers, we demonstrate that the resourcebased theory provides a more robust explanation of the determinants of firms IT governance initiatives. This would be ideal in evaluating other IT governance initiatives effectiveness in relation to how they contribute to building performance-differentiating IT-related capabilities. For decision makers, we hope our study has reiterated the notion that IT governance is truly a coordinated effort, embracing all levels of human resources.
Australasian Journal of Information Systems, May 1, 2012
Having IT-related capabilities is not enough to secure value from the IT resources and survive in... more Having IT-related capabilities is not enough to secure value from the IT resources and survive in today's competitive environment. IT resources evolve dynamically and organisations must sustain their existing capabilities to continue to leverage value from their IT resources. Organisations' IT-related management capabilities are an important source of their competitive advantage. We suggest that organisations can sustain these capabilities through appropriate considerations of resources at the technology-use level. This study suggests that an appropriate organisational design relating to decision rights and work environment, and a congruent reward system can create a dynamic IT-usage environment. This environment will be a vital source of knowledge that could help organisations to sustain their IT-related management capabilities. Analysis of data collected from a field survey demonstrates that this dynamic IT-usage environment, a result of the synergy between complementary factors, helps organisations to sustain their IT-related management capabilities. This study adds an important dimension to understanding why some organisations continue to perform better with their IT resources than others. For practice, this study suggests that organisations need to consider a comprehensive approach to what constitutes their valuable resources.
Australasian Journal of Information Systems, Nov 1, 2007
Development failures and runaway projects in the information systems (IS) area can result in subs... more Development failures and runaway projects in the information systems (IS) area can result in substantial losses to organizations, either financially or to a company's reputation. One important strategy in mitigating risk is the use of effective controls over IS projects. This research investigates the effectiveness of control mechanisms in IS projects, i.e., how they have been established, applied, and how they have evolved throughout the project. We conducted an in-depth study of six information systems projects with six different project managers. We found that formal controls were adopted on project elements with clearly defined project outcomes and informal controls were adopted mainly on project elements that were unclear and often related to people. Furthermore, formal controls were dominant at project initiation and in most cases these controls became less dominant over the project duration. These formal controls were more rigorously applied in external IS projects while informal controls increased in importance throughout the project duration in internally developed projects. We found the existence of informal controls to be very important in helping ensure successful project outcomes.
Organizations today invest in collaborative IT to engage in collaborative alliances to sustain or... more Organizations today invest in collaborative IT to engage in collaborative alliances to sustain or improve their competitive positions. Effective use of this collaborative IT in an alliance requires a deeper understanding of their governance structures. This effort is to ensure the sustainability of these alliances. Through the relational view of the firm, we suggest relational lateral IT-steering committees, relational IT operational committees, and relational IT performance management systems as IT governance structures for collaborative alliances. We then incorporate these structures, develop a model for approaches to governing collaborative IT, and evaluate the effectiveness for such governance structures in the IT-dependent alliances. We suggest that IT governance efforts of an alliance should contribute to their collaborative rent. We also suggest that the collaborative rent of an alliance would relate to the business value of its alliance partners. Field survey data containing 192 responses indicates a positive influence of the suggested IT governance efforts of the alliance on the collaborative rent of the alliance. The results also suggest a positive impact of the collaborative rent of the alliance on the business value of the alliance partners.
International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, Dec 1, 2010
Developing economies accommodate more than three quarters of the world's population. This means u... more Developing economies accommodate more than three quarters of the world's population. This means understanding their growth and well-being is of critical importance. Information Technology (IT) is one resource that has had a profound effect in shaping the global economy. IT is also an important resource for driving growth and development in developing economies. Investments in developing economies, however, have focused on the exploitation of labor and natural resources. Unlike in developed economies, focus on IT investment to improve efficiency and effectiveness of business process in developing economies has been sparse, and mechanisms for deriving better IT-related business value is not well understood. This study develops a complementarities-based business value model for developing economies, and tests the relationship between IT investments, IT-related complementarities, and business process performance. It also considers the relationship between business processes performance and firmlevel performance. The results suggest that a coordinated investment in IT and IT-related complementarities related favorably to business process performance. Improvements in process-level performance lead to improvements in firm-level performance. The results also suggest that the IT-related complementarities are not only a source of business value on their own, but also enhance the IT resources' ability to contribute to business process performance. This study demonstrates that a coordinated investment approach is required in developing economies. With this approach, their IT resources and ITrelated complementaries would help them significantly in improving their business processes, and eventually their firm level performances.
International Conference on Information Systems, 1995
The return on investivent for Information Systems Development projects takes place during the per... more The return on investivent for Information Systems Development projects takes place during the period of stability following the system's implementation. This return on investment can be leveraged by extending the period of stability or reducing the ongoing costs of maintenance and enhancement. Since the usefulness of information systems is dependent on their alignment with the organization's goals and objectives. the abilityofa sy'stem to absorb change directly affects its life span. Given also the risk of failure associated with systems development projects (Gladden 1982; Turner 1982; Hammer 1990, Lyytinen 1990), risk averse organizations are keen to delay such risky expenditure by extending an information system's life span.
Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 2003
This article contains the report of the Ad Hoc Committee on Member Misconduct which was presented... more This article contains the report of the Ad Hoc Committee on Member Misconduct which was presented to the AIS Council at its meeting on December 15, 2002 in Barcelona, Spain. The committee was established in response to an inquiry on plagiarism that was placed before the Council. The report includes an overview of the literature on plagiarism, the views of eight editors of IS journals, and guidelines for dealing with the issue. The Committee makes four recommendations:
The pervasiveness of information systems (IS) in organizations mandates the need for high levels ... more The pervasiveness of information systems (IS) in organizations mandates the need for high levels of IS skills. In recognition, professional bodies impose IS course requirements for accreditation. For both students and employers, performance in IS courses has become important. The tertiary entrance overall performance score accounted for 19.7 per cent of the variance in students' passing grades. Thereafter, proficiency in office automation software and programming accounted for 1.5 and 0.8 per cent of the variance, respectively. Students living in a stable, family homebased environment performed better and it is likely that this environment underpinned other factors affecting performance.
Journal of Software Maintenance and Evolution: Research and Practice, Nov 1, 2002
Management are keen to maximize the life span of an information system because of the high cost, ... more Management are keen to maximize the life span of an information system because of the high cost, organizational disruption, and risk of failure associated with the redevelopment or replacement of an information system. This research investigates the effects that various factors have on an information system's life span by understanding how the factors affect an information system's stability. The research builds on a previously developed two-stage model of information system change whereby an information system is either in a stable state of evolution in which the information system's functionality is evolving, or in a state of revolution, in which the information system is being replaced because it is not providing the functionality expected by its users. A case study surveyed a number of systems within one organization. The aim was to test whether a relationship existed between the base value of the volatility index (a measure of the stability of an information system) and certain system characteristics. Data relating to some 3000 user change requests covering 40 systems over a 10-year period were obtained. The following factors were hypothesized to have significant associations with the base value of the volatility index: language level (generation of language of construction), system size, system age, and the timing of changes applied to a system. Significant associations were found in the hypothesized directions except that the timing of user changes was not associated with any change in the value of the volatility index.
Uploads
Papers by Jon Heales