Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Epistemology|Business Administration, Management|Information Science'

The purpose of this qualitative study with a modified Delphi research design was to understand the reasons human resource (HR) leaders are slow to implement Cloud-based technologies and potentially identify how Cloud-Based Computing influences human resource management (HRM) and HR effectiveness, and potentially the overall performance of the organization. Business executives and HR leaders acknowledge the effect of technology on business processes and strategies, and the leader's influence on technology implementation and adoption. Cloud-Based Computing is fast becoming the standard for conducting HR processes and HR leaders must be prepared to implement the change effectively. Study findings revealed characteristics demonstrated by HR leaders successfully implementing cloud technology, best practices for successful implementation, factors championing and challenging Cloud-Based Computing adoption, and effects on HRM and organizational performance as a result of using Cloud-Based Computing. The outcomes of this study may provide the foundation of a model for implementing Cloud-Based Computing, a leadership model including characteristics of technology early adopters in HR, and identify factors impeding adoption and may assist HR leaders in creating effective change management strategies for adopting and implementing Cloud-Based Computing. Findings and recommendation from this study will enable HR professionals and leaders to make informed decisions on the adoption of Cloud-Based Computing and improve the effectiveness, efficiency, and strategic capability of HR.

A major initiative in the U.S. healthcare care industry is to establish a nationwide health information network securing the sharing of information between all involved U.S. healthcare stakeholders. However, implementing an interoperability solution is a massive, complex, and enduring effort with significant challenges such as inconsistent technology and data standards, as well as complex privacy and security issues. The purpose of this qualitative, case study is to examine the impacts of interoperability initiatives involving the U.S. government and to provide an understanding of the information governance and security risk as standards that are vendor-neutral and trustworthy. This qualitative case study was conducted using federal participants who are health information management (HIM) and health information technology (HIT) professionals working in the Washington DC metropolitan area. The participants' interview data revealed nine major themes; patient identification matching, payment claims and auditing, information sharing, data stewardship, regulatory compliance, technology enhancements, training and certification, standards optimization, and value-based care. The implication of the study's themes showed interoperability is beneficial to the healthcare industry, but there is a greater need for technology and data standardization, information governance, data stewardship, and a greater understanding of federal and state data privacy and security laws. Future recommendation for practices discussed; policy and regulatory adjustments to enhance auditing and compliance, establish a healthcare data ecosystem to improve data and information governance, and technology alternatives such as master data management and white space data. Recommendation for further research included expanding the sample population to compare other federal organizations or the United Kingdom's HIT interoperability project initiative.

Automated workflows are used to assist petroleum engineers in maximizing the productivity of oil reservoirs. However, for a workflow to be successful, end users must adopt the workflow. The purpose of this quantitative, ex post facto, correlational study was to determine the relationship between acceptance of automated workflow technology and attitudes toward automated workflow adoption. Participants included a cluster sample of 100 randomly selected petroleum engineers from five randomly chosen companies in the oil industry in the Middle East. Predictor variables were measured with a version of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) modified to address the issue of workflow adoption. The outcome variable was user attitude to automated workflow adoption, as measured with the Attitude subscale of the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) scale. A single multiple linear regression model was computed to answer all research questions. The results for the overall model were significant, adjusted R ² = .43, F(6, 93) = 13.28, p < .001. After correcting for the number of years of engineering experience of the participants, attitudes toward using automated workflows were predicted by perceived ease of use, β = 0.30, p = .01; perceived usefulness, β = 0.24, p = .03; and computer self-efficacy, β = 0.20,p = .02. The level of automation, β = 0.12, p = .17, and perceived level of support, β = 0.08, p = .32, did not predict attitudes. The number of years of engineering experience was unrelated to attitudes to automated workflow adoption. These findings indicated three factors that have an effect on adoption of automated workflows: perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and the level of computer self-efficacy of the end-user. Areas for future research included confirmation of the reliability of the Level of Automation and the Perceived Level of Support subscales designed for this study. There is also a need for future research regarding how the level of automation and level of support affect the adoption of other technologies.

With the advent of cloud computing and the success of the cloud computing industry, organisations are beginning to adopt this service model and technology at an increasing rate. As the rate and level of use increases, organisations are faced with how best to govern these investments and obtain maximum benefit from the services offered by providers. This includes measuring the performance of these services, the corresponding organisational performance and the associated business value generated. In investigating these areas, this study compares cloud computing and IT outsourcing. It is found that while cloud measures relate, to a great extent, to the operational level of an organisation, IT outsourcing measures are concerned more with the strategic level. This highlights that cloud computing lacks strategic measures and that measures from IT outsourcing may be adopted to fill this gap.

The worldwide software project failure rate, based on a survey of information technology software manager's view of user satisfaction, product quality, and staff productivity, is estimated to be between 24% and 36% and software project success has not kept pace with the advances in hardware. The problem addressed by this study was the limited information about software managers' experiences with data-driven decision making (DDD) in agile software organizations as a tool to improve software development productivity. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore how agile software managers view DDD as a tool to improve software development productivity and to understand how agile software development organizations may use DDD now and in the future to improve software development productivity. Research questions asked about software managers', project managers', and agile coaches' lived experiences with DDD via a set of interview questions. The conceptual framework for the research was based on the 3 critical dimensions of software organization productivity improvement: people, process, and tools, which were defined by the Software Engineering Institute's Capability Maturity Model Integrated published in 2010. Organizations focus on processes to align the people, procedures and methods, and tools and equipment to improve productivity. Positive social change could result from a better understanding of DDD in an agile software development environment; this increased understanding of DDD could enable organizations to create more products, offer more jobs, and better compete in a global economy.

This quantitative correlational research explored the potential association between the levels of organizational trust and the software testing estimation. This was conducted by exploring the relationships between organizational trust, tester’s expertise, organizational technology used, and the number of hours, number of testers, and time-coding estimated by the software testers. The research conducted on a software testing department of a health insurance organization, employed the use of the Organizational Trust Inventory- Short Form (OTI-SF) developed by Philip Bromiley and Larry Cummings and revealed a strong relationship between organizational trust and software testing estimation. The research reviews historical theories of organizational trust and include a deep discussion about software testing practices and software testing estimation. By examining the significant impact of organizational trust on project estimating and time-coding in this research, software testing leaders can benefit from this research to improve project planning and managing process by improving the levels of trust within their organizations.

According to Markus's theory of reuse, when digital repositories are deployed to collect and distribute organizational assets, they supposedly help ensure accountability, extend information exchange, and improve productivity. Such repositories require a large investment due to the continuing costs of hardware, software, user licenses, training, and technical support. The problem addressed in this study was the lack of evidence in the literature on whether users in fact reused enough digital assets in repositories to justify the investment. The objective of the study was to investigate the organizational value of repositories to better inform architectural, construction, software and other industries whether repositories are worth the investment. This study was designed to examine asset reuse of medical images at a health information publisher. The research question focused on the amount of asset reuse over time, which was determined from existing repository transaction logs generated over an 8-year period by all users. A longitudinal census data analysis of archival research was performed on the entire dataset of 85,250 transaction logs. The results showed that 42 users downloaded those assets, including 11,059 images, indicating that the repository was used by sufficient users at this publisher of about 80 employees. From those images, 1,443 medical images were reused for new product development, showing a minimal asset reuse rate of 13%. Assistants (42%), writers (20%), and librarians (16%) were the primary users of this repository. Collectively, these results demonstrated the value of repositories in improving organizational productivity—through reuse of existing digital assets such as medical images to avoid unnecessary duplication costs—for social change and economic transformation.

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore senior librarians’ perceptions of successful leadership skills in the 21st century. Library organizations in the postindustrial environment of the 21st century operate in a new context involving digitization, global libraries, cultural diversity, cultural intelligence, and cross-cultural management. This new context requires a postindustrial paradigm of leadership emphasizing influence and collaboration as defined by Rost (1991). The purposive sample used for this case study consisted of 10 senior library leaders. The data gathered consisted of demographic information and responses to six open-ended interview questions. Data were entered, coded, and analyzed for themes and patterns using NVivo 10 software. The analysis revealed significant emergent themes relating to successful library leadership skills. Results from this case study suggest successful library leadership skills in the 21st century involve two levels: foundational level and interpersonal level. At the foundational level are technical and knowledge skills, which are the building blocks for the next level of interpersonal skills. Interweaving these interpersonal skills are persuasion skills and collaborative skills, both at the core of the postindustrial paradigm of leadership. These two levels of skills, with an emphasis on persuasion skills, should form the basis of succession planning programs for next generation librarians. Implementing such programs could lead to increased leadership diversity, greater job satisfaction, improved job performance and effectiveness, helping the retention of librarians, and easing staff shortage. Further studies are recommended.

Organizations that depend on the use of IT in their business models must maintain their systems and keep their systems current to survive (Filipek, 2008; Kulkarni, Kumar, Mookerjee, & Sethi, 2009; Unterkalmsteiner et al., 2012). As most IT departments allocate as much as 80% of their budget to maintain stability while leaving only the other 20% to allow improvements (Telea et al., 2010), high cost of stability may be a reason many IT organizations cannot afford efficient staffing and even jeopardize the existence of the organization (Filipek, 2008; Talib, Abdullah, Atan, & Murad, 2010). The purpose of this exploratory mixed methods study was to discover the IT programming standards used in IT departments that predict a decrease in project maintenance costs. This study employed an exploratory mixed methods data collection and analysis to develop and test a collection of universal programming standards. The qualitative portion of the study resulted in a list of IT programming standards from the Fortune 20 companies of 2011. Surveyed from IT departments in the Fortune 500 companies of 2011, the quantitative portion of this study correlate the degree of enforcement of each IT programming standard to a decrease in average project maintenance costs using a backward stepwise regression. Using a 95% confidence interval and a 5% margin of error (α = .05), the backward stepwise regression discarded 18 of the 22 IT programming standards. The remaining correlations give evidence that a) the more the department enforces waiting for feedback the higher the maintenance costs, b) the more the department enforces having the architectural team develop coding guidelines the lower the maintenance costs, and c) the more the IT department enforces the following of change management procedures, the higher the maintenance costs.

The current research used grounded theory methodology (GTM) to construct a conceptualization of personal knowledge within a knowledge management (KM) perspective. The need for the current research was based on the use of just two categories of knowledge, explicit and tacit, within KM literature to explain diverse characteristics of personal knowledge. The construct of tacit knowledge has often been explicated and debated in KM literature. The debate over tacit knowledge arose from the complex epistemological roots of tacit knowing and the construct of tacit knowledge popularized by organizational knowledge creation theory. The ongoing debate over tacit knowledge in KM literature has shed little light on personal knowledge within a KM perspective. The current research set aside the debate over tacit knowledge and pursued the construct of personal knowledge from the perspective of the knower using GTM. Thirty-seven interviews were conducted with fourteen participants. Interviews were audio recorded and coding was accomplished with the qualitative data analysis software MAXQDA.

A total of eight categories were identified. These were organized into two groups. The core category being overwhelmed represented the absence of personal knowledge. The categories questioning self, seeking help, and microthinking fit under being overwhelmed. Together these categories were inverse indicators because they all decreased as knowledge acquisition progressed. The core category being confident represented the presence of personal knowledge. The categories remembering, multitasking, and speed fit under being overwhelmed. Together these categories were direct indicators because they all increased as knowledge acquisition progressed.

Three significant conclusions were drawn from the current research. These conclusions led to the conceptualization of personal knowledge from a KM perspective. The first significant conclusion was the conceptualization of a process of knowing as Integrated Complexity: From Overwhelmed to Confident (ICOC). The second significant conclusion was personal knowing as first-person epistemology is a universally lived experience that includes commitments to internal and external requirements as well as a bias toward integration. The third significant conclusion was personal knowledge can be viewed as a complex adaptive system. Finally, the current research concluded that personal knowledge within a KM perspective is a complex adaptive system maintained through acts of first-person epistemology.

This sequential, mixed methods research addressed emerging social media use practices among IT professionals and explored lived experiences of senior IT leaders relative to successful organizational social media adoption and use. The study was informed by structuration theory and elements from the universal technology adoption and use (UTAUT) model, generation theory, and open leadership theory. In the first, quantitative descriptive research phase, an online survey was administered to describe IT professionals' uses of and attitudes toward social media in the workplace. Survey results based on 406 responses from IT professionals in the greater Seattle area indicated widespread use of different social media applications, and also showed that Millennial IT professionals use social media more extensively and are have more positive opinions about social media as compared to their older colleagues. Survey findings also indicated that an increasing number of employers are developing formal social media strategies and adopting policies and guidelines governing the use of social media in the workplace. The second, qualitative hermeneutic phenomenological research phase built on survey results and involved interviews with 13 senior IT leaders in the greater Seattle area. Findings indicated that despite the inherent user-driven nature of social media, senior leadership plays a key role in driving strategic social media adoption and in ensuring broad participation across generational cohorts and employee groups. Findings from the qualitative research phase further suggested that social media can help employees and stakeholders communicate and collaborate more effectively and efficiently, and that leaders can derive significant benefits from social media without compromising the integrity of their organizations.

In this quantitative quasi-experimental study, correlation and regression analyses were used to test two research hypotheses. The experiment was to examine if a relationship existed between the mode of electoral information dissemination from the election organizing body (EMB) and voters’ behavior and attitudes associated with an electoral process. A Baptist church located in Otta, Nigeria gave permission to conduct the experiment within its premises, and 285 church members took part as participants in the study. Three main elements each of modern and traditional electoral information and communication channels including short message service (SMS), e-mail, surface post, newspaper, posters, and radio/television (TV) were tested to determine the validity of the research assumptions. Results of the study indicated voters’ preference for receiving direct electoral information from the organizer, preferably using mobile direct communication channels. There was an indication of knowledge and attitude changes because the electoral management body disseminated the electoral information directly to voters via direct mail. Knowledge and attitude changes could have implications for subsequent elections and other electoral management decisions. The implication of this study was that proper information system management could be a key remedy for unethical behavior during the electoral process. The suggestion following the result of the study was that if a sustainable, systematic planning and execution of electoral information and communication management is adopted, it could likely lead to improved voter knowledge and informed decision-making ability. It also has the prospect of reducing unethical stakeholder behavior during elections, and election of qualified candidates based on merit would be possible as may be demonstrated through informed participation by the electorates.

This research develops and tests models to predict continuance intention on social networking sites. The models adds new factors which are relevant to social networking sites continuance intention. The social networking site continuance model adds five factors: personal innovativeness, habit, attitude toward alternatives, interpersonal influence, and consumer switching costs to enhance the predictive power of information systems continuance. Interpersonal influence, alternative perceptions and procedural and relational costs are theorized to have a direct effect on continuance intention. Personal innovativeness and habit are theorized to have a direct and moderating effects on continuance intention. The results have a large positive effect of the explanatory power in explaining more of the variance of continuance intention on a social networking site. The information systems (IS) continuance model explains approximately 66.8% of the variance and the social networking site continuance model with the five added factors explains 76.7% of the variance and is considered to have a large effect in the explained variance. All of the factors have statistical significance; the factors with the largest path coefficients are, in order, satisfaction & perceived usefulness (β = 0.3686), consumer switching costs (β = 0.2496), alternative perceptions (β = -0.2069), habit (β = 0.1642), personal innovativeness (β = -0.0589) and interpersonal influence (β = -0.0451). Habit and personal innovativeness, as moderators, were not statistically significant and did not substantially aid in the interpretation of the factors. The research helps explains the relevant factors for why users of social networking sites will continue to use or abandon a site.

Systems engineering teams' value-creation for enterprises is slower than possible due to inefficiencies in communication, learning, common knowledge collaboration and leadership conduct. This dissertation outlines the surrounding people, process and technology dimensions for higher performing engineering teams. It describes a true experiment investigation of opportunities to improve communication, learning and common knowledge collaboration.

The art and practice of Systems Engineering contributes business value by orchestrating large numbers of knowledge-workers as engineering teams in the achievement of complex goals. During the creation of new systems, engineering team performance modulates business efficiencies to realize those complex goals. Higher performing engineering teams share a vision providing purpose, rely on personal knowledge convolved with collaborators knowledge to unleash potential, leverage common knowledge in their team mental models, and execute synergistically. Why do non-high performing teams exist? Culture change is hard. Humans prefer the familiar. Without Leadership and systematic enablement, teams usually do not naturally find the high performing team traits.

This research investigates a unique Information Technology based Systems Engineering Knowledge Asset (SEKA) management mechanism. The selected mechanism integrates multiple techniques for improved collaboration efficacy. The research methodology was a modified true experiment with dual-posttest only, using an A and B group for comparative controls. Research findings reflect, with 99% confidence, that SEKA represented in 3-way Multiple Informational Representations Required of Referent (MIRRoR) knowledge constructs improves systems engineering teams' consumption of a common knowledge base.

Engineering teams can consume a set of information, which generates knowledge common with their collaborators, in a shorter period. More knowledge that is common facilitates increased ability to collaborate. Increased collaboration accelerates team learning, leading to shorter systems delivery schedules, lower cost to produce and earlier actionable intelligence. Shorter delivery times increase customer satisfaction; lower costs improve profit margin potential, and earlier actionable intelligence supports "left of boom" intervention.

Information systems can be used to increase competitiveness by increasing the effectiveness and speed of decision-making. Software as a Service (SaaS) is a subset of cloud computing that provides information systems functionality through a web browser. Organizations that adopt SaaS can receive value over time if they continue to use the SaaS solution after implementation. This study analyzed the extent to which SaaS adoption and continued use factors affect the continued use of SaaS in organizations. The research can help organizations maximize the value of SaaS by identifying success factors for continued use. The study determined the extent to which the independent factors of Rapport, Responsiveness, Reliability, Features, Security, Flexibility, and Marketing Effort affected the dependent variable of the decision makers' intent to continue use of SaaS within their organization. Participants in the study included IT managers and other technologists familiar with the use of SaaS in their workplace. Invitations were sent via email to IT managers and technologists working at a large aerospace organization. There was also an open invitation posted on a social media site used by customers of a large SaaS provider. The invitations resulted in 101 valid responses. The Extended SaaS-Qual model developed in this study is an extension of an earlier model developed to analyze SaaS continuance. The original SaaS-Qual model was extended to understand the effect of marketing on SaaS continuance intention. Statistical analysis including loadings, internal consistency, convergent validity, and discriminate validity showed strong support for the Extended SaaS-Qual model. The Extended SaaS-Qual model will help with the establishment of standardized measures for the benefit of both SaaS providers and SaaS users.

Malicious Insider threats consist of employees, contractors, or business partners who either have current authorized access, or have had authorized access to an organization's critical information and have intentionally misused that access in a manner that compromised the organization. Although incidents initiated by malicious insiders are fewer in number than those initiated by external threats, insider incidents are more costly on average because the threat is already trusted by the organization and often has privileged access to the organization's most sensitive information. In spite of the damage they cause there are indications that the seriousness of insider incidents are underappreciated as threats by management. The purpose of this research was to investigate who constitutes MI threats, why and how they initiate attacks, the extent to which MI activity can be modeled or predicted, and to suggest some risk mitigation strategies. The results reveal that addressing the Malicious Insider threat is much more than just a technical issue. Dealing effectively with the threat involves managing the dynamic interaction between employees, their work environment and work associates, the systems with which they interact, and organizational policies and procedures. Techniques for detecting and mitigating the threat are available and can be effectively applied. Some of the procedural and technical methods include definition of, follow through, and consistent application of corporate, and dealing with adverse events indigenous to the business environment. Other methods include conduct of a comprehensive Malicious Insider risk assessment, selective monitoring of employees in response to behavioral precursors, minimizing unknown access paths, control of the organization's production software baseline, and effective use of peer reporting.

Keywords: Cybersecurity, Professor Paul Pantani, CERT, insider, threat, IDS, SIEMS. FIM, RBAC, ABAC, behavioral, peer, precursors, access, authentication, predictive, analytics, system, dynamics, demographics.