Editorial

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of Enterprise Information Management, Volume 29, Issue 1.

It gives us great pleasure to welcome our readers to the first issue of the 29th volume of JEIM, and express our appreciation to all our readers and contributors over the past year.

The first issue of volume 29 commences with a viewpoint by Ashish Rathore, P. Vigneswara Ilavarasan, and Yogesh Dwivedi, entitled “Social media content and product co-creation: an emerging paradigm”. Advocates argue that the current design approach in product development is under transition from top down traditional one to more user-centred designing, as the users of products are more aware, networked, and expressive. Thus, incorporating user reviews and opinions as input into product design processes may result in a more effective design (e.g. Helander and Khalid, 2006). Customers are more willing to give their reviews and opinions about products in social networking sites than completing a survey or taking part in group discussion (Li et al., 2014). Businesses are realising that customer online opinions and experiences have potential to improve their product features by analysing user-generated content because of the high usage of social media (Allan, 2005). In line with these discussions, in this viewpoint, the authors review, conceptualise, and discusses the role of user-generated content available on social media platforms for developing new products and their features (e.g. appearance and shape). It also explores the directions in which the relationship between social media content and customer-oriented concepts would evolve in developing successful new products. The review and arguments presented in this paper suggest that the social media approach adds more value than the traditional approaches for obtaining insights about the products. Availability of users’ opinions and information about existing products provide insights for the improvement in the product design process. Co-creation and self-construal are important components that are based on costumer engagement and customer behaviour, respectively, in the product design and development.

The above viewpoint is followed by a research paper by Saeed Rouhani, Amir Ashrafi, Ahad Zare, and Samira Afshari, entitled “The impact model of business intelligence on decision support and organizational benefits”. In this paper, the authors study the relationship between business intelligence functions, decision support benefits, and organisational benefits in context of decision environment and propose a conceptual model. The model supports in determining the direct impact of business intelligence functions on both decision support and organisational benefits and also shed light on to adopt more appropriate function in regard to firms’ requirements. Based on the literature findings, 11 components such as analytical and intelligent decision support, enhanced decision making tools, reasoning, providing experiments and environmental environments, optimisation and recommended model, better knowledge processing, reduced decision time, reduced decision cost, effective decision, competitive advantage, and stakeholders’ satisfaction were identified as the constitutes of those model layers. Specifically, the paper seeks to address the following research questions:

RQ1. What is the relationship between different business intelligence functions and decision support benefits?

RQ2. What is the relationship between different decision support benefits and organisational benefits?

The model was tested using a quantitative-based survey research approach. On this basis, the partial least squares technique was employed a sample of 228 firms’ chief information officers from different industries located in middle-east countries. The authors claim that the findings of this study may enable managers to better understand the application of each business intelligence functions in the process of achieving the specified managerial support benefits and finding the most suitable business intelligence functions with high compatibility to the requirements. Through this research, the authors claim to offer insightful understanding about which functions of business intelligence have strongest impact on the outcome benefits.

Shu-Mei Tseng presents his research entitled “The effect of knowledge management capability and customer knowledge gaps on corporate performance”. As we know that knowledge is the core competence required to face business challenges of organisations. As a result, businesses should not only acquire critical knowledge from both the external market and from their own internal organisations (e.g. Lee and Sukoco, 2007), but should also effectively and efficiently manage the knowledge stored within both the organisation and individuals in order to enable the firm to generate, communicate, and leverage its intellectual properties (Gao et al., 2008). Essentially, organisations should equip the ability to accumulate critical knowledge resources and manage their assimilation and exploitation (Miranda et al., 2011). This research therefore explores the influence of knowledge management capability and customer knowledge gaps on corporate performance, as well as proposing concrete suggestions for filling customer knowledge gaps and enhancing corporate performance. In doing so, it proposes the following research hypothesis:

H1. The degree of KMC will have an effect on corporate performance.

H2. The association between the degree of KMC and corporate performance is mediated by customer knowledge gaps.

As this research aims to provide an understanding of how knowledge management capability bridges customer knowledge gaps, and how it can enhance corporate performance, the basic mode proposed examined the relationship between knowledge management capability and corporate performance. The integrity of collected data can be affected due to low willingness of respondents to participate. Therefore, purposive sampling is used in this study in order to ensure that respondents had high willingness to participate in the research. Samples were restricted to a list of the largest Taiwanese corporations compiled by China Credit Information Service (2013), from which 500 largest firms were selected. The results demonstrate that knowledge management capability is the major factor for enhancing corporate performance, and suggested customer knowledge gaps to be a significant intervening factor between knowledge management capability and corporate performance.

The above knowledge management capability research is followed by a case study-based research by Raafat Saade and Harshjot Nijher, entitled “Critical success factors in enterprise resource planning implementation: a review of case studies”. Through this research Raafat and Harshjot consolidate the critical success factors (CSFs) as published in ERP implementation case studies. The literature on CSFs, in specific, is scattered with no particular distinction in any specific domain. By aggregating all CSFs for ERP implementation, a relatively long list is produced. To that effect, this paper identifies and combines (aggregation and consolidation) these CSFs aligned to reported stages in the ERP implementation process utilising a smaller and a more consolidated list of CFS’s obtained from real world case studies. Therefore, considering the financial, organisational, and human impact of ERP implementation, and seeing that the level of understanding is still in its infancy, this paper is motivated to contribute to the body of knowledge by seeking to answer the following research question:

RQ3. What are the practical CSFs for ERP implementation?

To validate the conceptual findings, the paper follows the eight category coding steps proposed by Carley (1993) and utilises only ERP implementation case studies to identify a distinct set of CSFs. The 37 case studies used in this paper provide a reasonable sample from different countries and contexts. Two methodologies were followed, one for the literature review process and the other for the analysis and synthesis. The authors assert that this paper is the first attempt to present a consolidated list of CSFs and mapping them to the stages of an ERP implementation as reported from the industry. It originality is its focus on utilising rigorous published case studies with the hope that future case studies would utilise our work to report on the same factors. The value is that as the case studies are increased, comparison and differentiation between is enhanced.

Then we have another ERP research by Jose Gavidia entitled “Impact of parent-subsidiary conflict on ERP implementation”. Due to situational and strategic differences between parent companies and their subsidiaries, some degree of parent-subsidiary conflict always arises during the multinational ERP implementation process. Parent-subsidiary conflict has a significant impact on the process and outcomes of the ERP implementation. Although conflict between parent and subsidiary is probably a major success factor in a multinational ERP implementation, Jose asserts that the latter issue has not been addressed in the ERP implementation literature, and no specific guidance for managers has been developed. As a result, this paper fills that void by analysing the impact of conflict between parent and subsidiary on the implementation of ERP systems. Using an interpretive case study methodology, this paper analyses the theoretical frameworks of parent-subsidiary conflict and applies them to interpret an in-depth case study and generate a set of managerial prescriptions. The findings related to theoretical analysis and case evidence suggest that managing parent-subsidiary conflict is a CSF of ERP implementation in multinational enterprises. The author asserts that although parent-subsidiary conflict is clearly a major factor in multinational ERP implementations, this topic covered in this paper has not been analysed in detail in the extant literature. This study breaks new ground applying theoretical frameworks of parent-subsidiary conflict to an implementation case, and providing managerial guidance for implementation decisions.

Following the above EPR paper, we have a research paper by Yogesh Dwivedi, Ali Abdallah Alalwan, Nripendra P. Rana, and Michael Williams, entitled “Consumer adoption of mobile banking in Jordan: examining the role of usefulness, ease of use, perceived risk and self-efficacy”. Influence customers to switch their behaviour from using traditional banking channels to mobile banking is not an easy process, especially as there is a lack of understanding of this phenomenon from the customers’ perspective (Dwivedi and Irani, 2009). Thus, understanding the factors that might be responsible for the sluggish adoption of mobile banking could help the banks speed up the adoption rate of such technology. However, as it is in the early stage of deployment and implementation, mobile banking-related issues are yet to be examined empirically in the Jordanian context. For that reason, this study is driven to fill this gap by proposing a conceptual model presenting the factors influencing mobile banking adoption from the Jordanian customers’ perspective. The proposed conceptual model was based on the technology acceptance model. This was extended by adding perceived risk and self-efficacy as an external factors. Structural equation modelling was conducted to analyse the data collected from the field survey questionnaires administered to a convenience sample of 343 Jordanian banking customers. Based on the empirical findings, the proposed model adequately fits the data as well as being able to account for 58 and 33 per cent of variance in behavioural intention and adoption respectively.

Finally, we have Negin Banaeianjahromi and Kari Smolander with their systematic mapping study, entitled “What do we know about the role of enterprise architecture in enterprise integration? – a systematic mapping study”. Constant change is an inseparable and one of the most vital characteristic of today’s enterprises. Thus, to survive in a global competitive era, the enterprises constantly need to integrate themselves into this ever changing environment. Aiming at eliminating the integration challenges, enterprise architecture (EA) is proposed as a solution. The objective of this study is to survey and analyse the available literature on determining the role of EA in enterprise integration (EI) and also to identify gaps and state-of-the-art in research. The objective is to form a background for further research as well as obtain a deeper insight about the topic. This paper presents a systematic mapping study that found 50 papers in the intersection of EA and EI, these papers were surveyed, analysed, and classified with respect to research focus, research method, and paper type. The main questions answered in this study include:

• What research focuses on determining the role of EA in EI?

• What methodologies and paper types are utilised?

• How publication trends changed over time?

The outcomes of this study deliver a comprehensive research approach in determining the role of EA in EI as well as implications and guidelines for both scholars and practitioners. Based on the analyses of the final 50 articles, the authors realised that “EA framework” is the dominating research focus of these studies. “Evaluation Research” is recognised as the most common paper type in this area. However, “Experience Paper” was a rare paper type in this research domain. “Constructive Research” and “Case Study/Multiple Case Studies” are widely applied as the research method. “Survey”, “Delphi Study”, and “Grounded Theory” are the least employed research methods. In concluding the paper, the authors assert that there is a need for empirical research in this area.

We would very much like to thank our contributors for their excellent high-quality contributions to this regular issue and hope JEIM readers will find the papers stimulating, original, and valuable (Table I).

Table I. Schedule

Zahir Irani and Muhammad Kamal

References

Allan, B. (2005), “Social enterprise: through the eyes of the consumer”, Social Enterprise Journal, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 57-77

Carley, K. (1993), “Coding choices for textual analysis: a comparison of content analysis and map analysis”, Sociological Methodology, Vol. 23, pp. 75-126

Dwivedi, Y.K. and Irani, Z. (2009), “Understanding the adopters and non-adopters of broadband”, Communications of the ACM, Vol. 52 No. 1, pp. 122-125

Gao, F., Li, M. and Clarke, S. (2008), “Knowledge, management, and knowledge management in business operations”, Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol. 12 No. 2, pp. 3-17

Helander, M.G. and Khalid, H.M. (2006), “Affective and pleasurable design”, in Salvendy, G. (Ed.), The Handbook of Human Factors and Ergonomics, 3rd ed., John Wiley & Sons, Inc, New York, NY, pp. 543-572

Lee, L.T.S. and Sukoco, B.M. (2007), “The effects of entrepreneurial orientation and knowledge management capability on organizational effectiveness in Taiwan: the moderating role of social capital”, International Journal of Management, Vol. 24 No. 3, pp. 549-573

Li, Y.M., Chen, H.M., Liou, J.H. and Lin, L.F. (2014), “Creating social intelligence for product portfolio design”, Decision Support Systems, Vol. 66, pp. 123-134

Miranda, S.M., Lee, J.N. and Lee, J.H. (2011), “Stocks and flows underlying organizations’ knowledge management capability: synergistic versus contingent complementarities over time”, Information & Management, Vol. 48 No. 8, pp. 382-392