The book chapter is named “IT Governance in the Public Sector: A Case Study in a Developing Country” and is written by Edephonce Nfuka and Lazar Rusu based on the results of the research done in the last two years in analyzing the IT Governance maturity from Tanzanian Public Sector. The analysis is a usefully one for both researchers and practitioners interested in this subject and is providing an overview of the current IT Governance practices, typical problems encountered and their implications and is outlining the impact of IT Governance in facilitating the improvement of service delivery in the Tanzanian public sector.
For more information about this book please access the following link: http://www.igi-pub.com/reference/details.asp?ID=34416&v=tableOfContents

For those who are interested please access the following link: http://sunsite.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/Publications/CEUR-WS/ where you could download without any fees the papers from over 400 workshop proceedings volumes online.

I invite my colleagues to contribute with a paper to WSKS 2009 conference. The deadline for paper submission is March 24, 2009. For more information about this conference please access the following link: http://www.open-knowledge-society.org/summit.htm

This year was till now a very good one from the scientific point of the research papers accepted for publication in the volumes of the conferences proceedings of different international conferences for the seven members of the IT Management research group (Group Leader – Dr. Lazar Rusu, PhD students: Edephonce N. Nfuka and Georg Hodosi and four potential PhD students from autumn 2008: Johnny Flores, Anayanci Lopez, Norman Vargas and Mohamed El Mekawy). Moreover a book chapter named “IT Governance in the Public Sector: A Case Study in a Developing Country” having as authors: Edephonce N. Nfuka and Lazar Rusu has been developed in this year and has been submitted for the final evaluation to the reviewers of the “Handbook of Research on ICT-Enabled Transformational Government: A Global Perspective”, in order to be published by IGI Global (formerly Idea Group Inc. www.igi-global.com). A list of the main conferences and the research papers accepted for publication in the volumes of the conferences proceedings in 2008 and 2009 are described below.

To the WSKS 2008 – 1st World Summit on Knowledge Society (http://www.open-knowledge-society.org/summit.htm) that will be held in Athens, Greece, 24-28 September 2008 we have two papers accepted for publication in Springer Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Springer Communications in Computer and Information Science. Moreover both papers are considered for publication in 2010 in a special issue in the International Journal of Technology Management (IJTM). The final decision about the publication of our papers in IJTM will be taken after the WSKS 2008 conference in Athens. The title of the papers, authors and the abstract of these papers are following below.
The first paper is named “Strategic IT Alignment in Swedish Public Healthcare System” and the authors of the paper are: Lazar Rusu, Yu Huang (former KTH/EMIS student) and Ali Turab Rizvi (former KTH/ICT Entrepreneurship student).
Abstract. Information and communication technology (ICT) is not only beneficial for the business sector but has a lot to offer for the public sector as well. In fact, the public sector can benefit the most by the advancement of ICT that it offers numerous potential benefits in terms of improvements for patients, health and elderly care professionals and decision makers. In this context this research paper has studied the healthcare sector in Stockholm and has analyzed if their IT strategy is aligned with the government strategy. During this analysis we have found a lot of models developed for the alignment of business and IT strategy but we haven’t found any model for the alignment of IT with the government strategy. Therefore in the analysis we have done in this paper we have proposed an integrated model and used the Swedish healthcare system as a case study in order to see if their IT strategy is aligned with their government’s strategy.
The second paper is named “Strategic Use of Information Technology in Profit and Non-Profit Organizations from Tanzania and Sweden” and the authors of the paper are: Johnny Flores, Anayanci Lopez, Norman Vargas and Lazar Rusu.
Abstract. Organizations have to deal with a dynamic environment such as new technologies, entrepreneurial ideas, strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions, and regulatory change. A key for a well-functioning company is an efficient and effective strategic use of Information Technology (IT) supporting the business strategies, goals, and needs. It is also referred as Strategic Business and IT Alignment which is interpreted as a continuous process of conscious and coherent interrelation of all components and personnel of the business and the IT in order to contribute to the organization’s performance over time. This paper reports an analysis of the Business and Information Technology Alignment by using Luftman’s Strategic Maturity Assessment Model in case of a Tanzanian Profit Company and a Swedish Non-profit Company where both organizations have an intensive use of Information Technology.

To the MCIS 2008 – Mediterranean Conference in Information Systems (http://www.mcis2008.org/) that will be held in Hammamet, Tunisia, 23-26 October 2008 we have a paper accepted for publication in the conference proceedings (and indexed in AIS-eLibrary http://aisel.aisnet.org/search.asp). The title of the paper, authors and the abstract of this paper is following below.
The paper is named “Information Technology Outsourcing: A Case Study of Best Practices in two Swedish Global Companies”and the authors of the paper are: Georg Hodosi and Lazar Rusu.
Abstract. The paper describes the research approach for defining of a new set of best practices for IT Outsourcing (ITO) that will help the Swedish global companies to improve their ITO performance. To define a new set of best practices we have done a research investigation in two Swedish global companies and we have compared their practices versus the recommendations from the research literature review of IT outsourcing. As we have seen till now the best practices for IT outsourcing are underrepresented in the research literature however there are fairly well represented in the ITO practitioners’ world. From the research literature of ITO, we have selected about 88 best practices and from this set, we have compiled and reduced them to 18 best practices by eliminating the duplicates and removing the generic best practices that are not exclusively related to ITO. Furthermore, we have asked the companies part of our case study about their opinion about these 18 best practices and how they have implemented. The results of this research have shown that 57% of the best practices have been accepted and practiced by these global companies. On the other hand, we have also found a new best practice that has not been mentioned in the research literature and which the companies from our case study recommended. Moreover the results of our research have shown up that 26% of the best practices have been rejected by these global companies and we argue that the reason for this high discrepancy in fact is caused by “The buyer-seller dilemma”.

To the itAIS 2008 – 5th Conference of the Italian Chapter of AIS (http://www.itais2008.org/) that will be held in Paris, France on 13-14 December 2008 we have a paper accepted for publication in the conference proceedings. The title of the paper, authors and the abstract of this paper is following below.
The paper is named “The Strategic Role of IT: A Case Study in Retail Companies from Sweden” and the authors of the paper are: Lazar Rusu and Mohamed El Mekawy.
Abstract. Information technology (IT) has become today more important that it was before for the business strategy. As we see now the current business environment is a dynamic, fast-changing and highly competitive one. Therefore in such an environment, it is essential that business managers understand the potential use and critical role of IT. According to McKeen and Smith (2009) strategic alignment is only one of the problems that are facing IT managers in developing of an IT strategy and in the authors opinion IT is more important today in the development and delivery of the business strategy. In this context the goal of our paper has looked to investigate, through a case study research approach, two successful Swedish retail companies and the strategic role of IT in their business. The selection of the retail companies has been done based upon the fact that both companies are competing in the same marketplace and in this way we could compare and analyse the differences between them regarding the strategic role of IT.

To the HICSS-42 – Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (http://www.hicss.hawaii.edu/hicss_42/apahome42.htm) that will be held in Waikoloa, Hawaii on January 5-8, 2009 we have a paper accepted for publication in the conference proceedings published by the IEEE Computer Society. The title of the paper, authors and the abstract of this paper is following below.
The paper is named: ”The State of IT Governance in Organizations from Public Sector in a Developing Country” and the authors of the paper are: Edephonce N. Nfuka, Lazar Rusu and Paul Johannesson.
Abstract. Today in many organizations in the public sector the use of IT has become crucial in sustaining and extending the organizations’ strategies and objectives. This pervasive use of technology has caused a critical dependency on IT that calls for specific focus on IT Governance. This paper discusses the current state of IT Governance practices in five public sector organizations from a developing country, like is Tanzania. The results of this research approach are looking to the IT Governance mechanisms in place in terms of structures, processes and relational mechanisms. It also includes a discussion on the problems and consequences inherent to inadequate IT Governance practices and inhibitors to effective IT Governance for the further improvement of public service delivery in this environment.

On April 15, 2008 I have submitted together with Georg Hodosi and Harald Kjellin a project proposal to the Swedish Research Council having the title: “A methodology for assessing the risk exposure to support IT outsourcing decisions”.

Abstract

The decision process for companies to outsource information technology (IT) or not is a substantial business change and in many cases the competence to take such decisions is limited and has major consequences for the company future performance. Therefore in the project we have proposed the development of a methodology that can be used for assessing the risk exposure in support of IT outsourcing (ITO) decisions that will be carried out through:
1. A detailed analyses and a comparative study of different approaches and methods using transaction cost theory for assessing the risk exposure in IT outsourcing decisions.
2. The development of a new algorithm to evaluate the risk exposure in support of IT outsourcing decisions.
3. The empirically validation of the current methodology for evaluating the risk exposure in IT outsourcing decisions through a case study research approach.
In the development of the methodology a preliminary research has been done in 2007 and a software decision tool was developed based on the Transaction Cost Theory (TCT) in order to give us a quantitative measure of the IT outsourcing risks.
The results of this research we believe that it will bring a lot of benefits like a better understanding of the involved decision parameters and their impact on ITO decisions to those who are working in ITO research, and also to IT executives or IT consultants. The new methodology will be based on using TCT for assessing the risk exposure (including the average losses) together with a set of best practices. Moreover the methodology will improve the way how the risk exposure is evaluated now in an area where the loss is unpredictable. Furthermore the implementation of the methodology in a software decision tool could have a high usage in the industry and we believe that this “methodology platform” will enable further the development and optimization of ITO decision process.

As member of the program committee of IADIS conference on “ICT, Society and Human Beings” (part of IADIS Multi Conference on Computer Science and Information Systems 2008 (MCCSIS 2008) I invite my colleagues in case that they might have an interest in some of the topics or subtopics to contribute with a paper. For more information about this conference including the conference topics and the deadline for the papers submission please access the following web page: http://www.ict-conf.org/

Why IT Management is considered an important research area today?

The management of IT in organizations is now a really challenge due to the process complexity and increase in his importance (McNurlin and Sprague 2006). In support of the arguments why IT management is important, Lucas (2005) has mentioned that “the most significant issues with information technology are managerial in nature, not technological” and according to him “acquiring technology is not enough to provide an advantage” therefore the “organization must manage IT to obtain a return from its technology investments”. On the other hand, we have observed that in many major conferences in IS area that are held in US, Europe and around the world (ICIS, AMCIS, ECIS and others) the research topics related to IT management area are a constant presence. In summary as we could see till now the research in IT management area is increasing in his importance and one key argument regarding this issue is the impact in how the business organizations are gaining values through the use of information technologies. Moreover the IT management research area is considered today as a very important one not only by different scholars but also practitioners too.

At this moment within SYSLAB we are a small group of people that are involved in doing research in the IT management area and which is including me and my doctoral students: Georg Hodosi and Edephonce N. Nfuka and about 14 master students that are working at this moment in doing their master theses under my supervision. On the other hand I would like to mention here that the results of our research in the IT management area from December 2005 till now (the year when I have moved to work in SYSLAB from former IMIT department at KTH) are very good (according to Professor Paul Johannesson opinion) based upon the fact that in this period we had accomplished to have 10 master theses completed and a number of 7 papers published in the proceedings of different international conferences (without mentioning the other 3 papers which are at this moment submitted for publication to a international conference and a journal).

The research topics in IT Management area

In the opinion of McNurlin and Sprague (2006) some of the major trends that are having now an impact on IT management are: governance of IT, systems integration and infrastructure development and outsourcing. In this perspective the research in the IT management area within SYSLAB is following this trend and is mainly in the IT outsourcing and IT governance topics but also in other related topics like IT leadership and Strategic Management of IT. Regarding the research group in IT management area (formed in 2007) this is including the following doctoral students: Georg Hodosi (hodosi@dsv.su.se) which is doing his research in “Developing a methodology for assessing the risk and value of IT outsourcing” and Edephonce N. Nfuka (nfuka@dsv.su.se) that is working on “A holistic approach for IT Governance in the Public Sector Organizations mainly in a developing country environment/setting”. Moreover, the research in IT management area is also done together with the master students that at this moment I am supervising and their research is focusing on different topics like are for example: IT outsourcing practices in Sweden, How to build successfully relationships in IT outsourcing, Strategic use of IT in a business organization, A strategic approach for small IT businesses, The role of CIO in management of IT resources in global companies, etc. to mention only a few of them.

Potential research topics in the IT Management area

Regarding the potential research topics which I am looking forward to approach with the doctoral students in the near future these it could be in IT leadership like for example: “The Chief Information Officer role and contribution in effectively management of IT resources”, or in IT infrastructure management like for example: “Developing a framework for reliable network design of an IT infrastructure” and sure it could be in other important topics from the IT Management area.

Final Remarks

In conclusion I would like to notice here that an important contribution in the research in IT management area within SYSLAB (apart from the results coming from the work with doctoral students or the work with the students on their master theses) has came also from the work done with the students in their group projects in the following courses: Strategic Management of IT, Management of IT-enabled Change and Global IT Management which I have taught in the master programs at KTH and SU in the last four years. In fact the reason in support of having an IT management perspective view both in teaching and research was obvious (most of the master students from EMIS program they had an education background in computer science or related engineering areas) and as Lucas (2005) has mentioned “effective IT management depends on all employees in an organization”. In this context and for a further development of the teaching and research too in the IT Management area I have developed in 2006, two master programs proposals (both submitted to Professor Paul Johannesson), one that has included an IT management track in the EMIS master program and the other one for a new Executive Master in IT Management. The main argument that I had in mind at that time regarding these master programs proposals was in fact to find a way that our research and education in IT management area it could be better linked with the industry needs and it could make possible a further cooperation in different research projects with Swedish or international industry partners.

Finally, in case that you have an interest in finding more about the research work done in the IT management area within SYSLAB please contact me by email.

References

Henry C. Lucas, Jr. (2005) Information Technology: Strategic Decision Making for Managers, John Wiley & Sons, pp. xii, 2

Barbara C. McNurlin and Ralph H. Sprague, Jr. (2006) Information Systems Management in Practice, 7^th ed., Pearson Education, pp. 3

The results of the work coming from group projects or master theses done in this year with EMIS students has due to submission of two research papers that were accepted to the 8th IBIMA Conference on Information Management in the Networked Economy held in Dublin, Ireland between 20-22 June 2007.

The topics of the research papers and a short abstract about them including the name of students who have contributed are below mentioned.

The first paper accepted to the 8^th IBIMA conference is write together with Mohamed El-Mekawy and Nabeel Ahmad Haseeb and it is about: “ERP Systems Implementation: Characteristics and Critical Success Factors. A Case Study of Electrolux”.

Abstract.

The new era of business information systems promises a sagacity of information flow among different modules and departments within an organization. In this context Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems or enterprise systems are playing today a crucial part and their advantages and benefits gained are noteworthy. Therefore the paper has analyzed and identified which are the key aspects of the ERP systems implementation such as their critical success factors and their characteristics using as a case study Electrolux that has continue to maintain their strategic advantage on the business market in spite that the competitors have implemented global ERP systems versus the local ERP systems implemented by Electrolux. Based upon the review of other ERP systems implementation our research has looked mainly to highlight the processes streamlined by using local ERP systems that are integrated now in Electrolux which is in fact a global organisation. The main research questions addressed in the paper were looking to: (1) Highlight the characteristics of the ERP systems that are essential for any enterprise system and in particular in the case of Electrolux ERP system; (2) The examination of the different critical success factors of an ERP system implementation in order to improve the organization business information flow: (3) The investigation of how can organizations improve their practices in successful implementation of their ERP systems. Finally the research paper it is analyzing why in the designing phase of different processes, it is important to involve both the customers and the users with their needs which in case of Electrolux has due to the increased of their benefits from ERP systems implementation locally.

The second paper accepted to 8^th IBIMA conference is write together with Yi Man and it is about: “RFID Technology Applications in Mobile Payment”.

Abstract. In the last years, the development of information and communication technologies has brought significant changes in the business world. In this perspective Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology is one of the wireless technologies used mainly to control, detect and track objects that have many applications today mainly in retailing, healthcare and security. On the other hand the RFID applications are numerous but as far as we have investigate till now not many studies were done and focus on mobile payment area. In fact in our view we see mobile payment as one of the new services that it could bring a lot of new opportunities to enterprises who are struggling in the drastic competition on the business market and it could also makes people’s life much easier and more convenient than before. Meanwhile, most people still feel confused about how to use RFID technology in mobile payment and how RFID technology it could bring benefits to them. For this reason, this paper is looking to analyze different case studies that are mainly focuses on the applications of RFID technology in mobile payment in different countries. Therefore in our analysis we have selected different kinds of applications of RFID technology, such as Stockholm Congestion Charges Project and i-mode Felica of NTT DoCoMo and we have analyzed mainly their benefits together with the advantages and disadvantages of their use in that particular area of application.