Doctor of Philosophy / Curriculum and Instruction Programs / Lawrence C. Scharmann / Bradley A. Shaw / Spanish instructors are not neo-phobic of instructional technology (IT), and they will affirm they are not afraid of IT just to avoid being labeled as ‘living dinosaurs.’ Most of them just do not have the know-how to explore and use IT in-depth. Regardless, they are more familiar with the diverse IT world available. In this study the main factors influencing Spanish language educators to use IT (or not) in their Second Language Acquisition (SLA) teaching methodology were discussed. Data from Spanish instructors in eight Kansas universities was analyzed to understand their perceptions and attitudes regarding the use of IT in their classrooms. Mixed methodologies were used: A quantitative survey targeting 80 instructors from the Modern Language Departments was developed. The survey had one section on demographic information and a second with 43 items dealing with perceptions related to IT. Afterwards, a case study with four in-depth interviews was conducted to elucidate richer descriptions and potentially corroborate patterns identified from the survey data. Data analysis revealed that most Spanish instructors have positive perceptions and attitudes towards IT. From the survey, nine themes emerged. Six of them formed a super-ordinate category showing that instructors consider IT useful for teaching culture in the target language, and in facilitating general knowledge. In this super-ordinate category, the six emergent themes are considered subordinate themes. The other three emergent themes formed another super-ordinate category with three subordinate themes: faculty require more time, training and technical resources to be able to integrate IT in their teaching. The four interviews explored what perceptions (or characteristics) stand out among faculty along a continuum of non-users to users with respect to the integration of IT; this allowed the researcher to confirm the instructors’ perceptions and attitudes on the nine emerging themes. Spanish instructors would integrate more modern tools in their teaching if they had more opportunities and support to be better informed; received appropriate training in their specific field; and were advised of available technology. As the findings showed, educators are no longer afraid of technology. Finally, conclusions of the findings were offered as well as recommendations for future research.

Since the 1990 the use of Electronic Patient Records (EPR) in health services has become increasingly prevalent world wide. EPR has become an important aspect of the continuous improvement of patient care. Transferring all patient records from paper based to electronic is now a priority for many health services. The research reported in this thesis is sponsored by Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) to provide opportunity to explore the potential role for EPR in the Medical Records Department. The study has been designed to gain better understanding of the users perspectives with regard to the use of patient records. In order to analyse and understand the complex dynamic involved in the management and use of patient records, it was recognised that systems thinking offered an appropriate framework for this research. Soft System Methodology (SSM) was therefore applied to the analysis of the data and used to inform the development of a conceptual model. Using SSM in combination with the structured questionnaire survey and telephone semi-structured interview, triangulation of methods was achieved. Use of these generated rich data revealing for example the general dissatisfaction expressed with the existing manual patient records system, the lack of confidentiality, poor legibility, shortage of space and the frequent misfiling of records. The need to address these problems has informed the strategic plan for the development and implementation of EPR for HMC. The research has successfully addressed the stated aims and research questions and guided the formulation of proposals for improvements.

This research builds on the literature about power and performance, offering new theory that extends the literature by accounting for the transformational effects of information technology. The role of information technology in the relationship between organizational power and performance is unclear in the literature. Management literature offers theories describing the relationship between power and performance. IS literature investigates the relationship between information technology (IT) and power and between information systems technology and performance, but is silent on the impact of IT on the relationship between power and performance. The nature of this relationship – direct, moderating, or indirect – is unknown. Due to the ubiquity of information technology in organizations and society, it is necessary to theorize on the relationship between IT, power and performance. This study evaluates the implementation of Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) solutions in two case study organizations. The use of the IT portion of the EPM is the event of interest. In one case, the EPM implementation is considered a success. In the other, the EPM implementation is considered unsuccessful. Findings from each organization are compared and used to determine the overall research findings. The findings demonstrate the transformational potential of IT on the relationship between power and performance and provide insights that may lead to a deeper understanding of each. The findings of this case study point the way toward development of more detailed constructs and propositions that are testable, measurable, and refutable.

[pt] No atual ambiente de negócios, onde um dos poucos fatos imutáveis é que a mudança neste ambiente é constante e cada vez mais acelerada, as empresas necessitam adequar-se às novas situações rápida e continuamente, pela redefinição e adaptação de suas estratégias. Neste cenário, de competição acirrada, as empresas buscam concentrar suas atividades no que elas têm de maior valor e que seja único para seus clientes, ou seja, suas competências essenciais. Isto explica em grande parte porque elas formam redes de relacionamentos com outras empresas, notadamente de alianças estratégicas: as suas competências são complementadas com as das outras empresas parceiras destas redes. Um dos principais fatores organizacionais internos de apoio à estratégia de uma empresa é a Tecnologia de Informação e Comunicação (TIC). Aspectos como infra-estrutura, aplicações, equipe e processos de TIC precisam operar de forma coordenada e coerente, de modo a possibilitar a existência de processos integrados entre as empresas de uma rede, e contribua para que as informações necessárias possam fluir entre elas, de forma rápida, automática e controlada. Do ponto de vista da empresa focal, o alinhamento entre sua estratégia de TIC e sua estratégia de negócios, na sua Rede de Alianças Estratégicas (RAE), precisa ser flexível, com rápida adaptação às novas necessidades definidas por estes relacionamentos. Argumenta-se que é necessário que haja um alinhamento com margem. Para tanto, acredita-se que TIC deve não somente atender às necessidades atuais do negócio e de seus relacionamentos, assegurando o alinhamento estratégico requerido, mas também deva estar preparada para atender, parcial ou totalmente, às necessidades futuras. A presente pesquisa propõe um arcabouço analítico que provê subsídios para definição e implementação de uma estratégia de TIC de uma empresa específica, inserida em uma RAE, que seja alinhada à sua estratégia de negócios e que tenha a necessária eficiência e flexibilidade para a operacionalização e sustentação bem sucedida desta estratégia, considerando os diferentes stakeholders envolvidos. Esta pesquisa foi essencialmente empírica e qualitativa. As etapas de pesquisa foram: i) o desenvolvimento do referencial teórico; ii) a proposição do arcabouço analítico; iii) a avaliação do arcabouço analítico proposto. Na primeira etapa realizou-se um levantamento bibliográfico fundamentado em rankings de periódicos nacionais e internacionais. Na segunda etapa realizou-se uma pesquisa preliminar (investigação quantitativa da percepção de gestores de TIC), seguida de entrevistas de confirmação da pesquisa (investigação qualitativa da percepção de gestores de TIC). Ao final desta etapa foi proposto o arcabouço analítico de gestão estratégica dinâmica da TIC das empresas que atuam em RAEs. Na última etapa realizou-se um estudo de casos múltiplos, para aprimorar e ilustrar o arcabouço analítico proposto. Os resultados dessa pesquisa sugerem que as RAEs influenciam a TIC das empresas, e que esta influência se manifesta de várias formas. O arcabouço analítico proposto sugere que há fatores intervenientes que moderam a força destas influências. Por fim, sugeriu-se que, uma vez compreendida as possíveis influências de uma RAE, os gestores de TIC podem antecipar-se a estas influências e planejar melhor a TIC das suas empresas para dar sustentação à sua competitividade. / [en] In the current business environment, where one of the few unchangeable facts is that change in this environment is constant and more and more accelerated, firms need to adapt quickly and continuously to new situations, by redefining and adapting their strategies. In this scenario, of tough competition, firms strive to concentrate their activities in what is of greater value and unique for their clients, that is, their core competencies. That explains, by and large, why they create relationship networks with other firms, in particular strategic alliances: their competencies are complemented by their network partner firms` ones. One of the main internal organizational factors that support a firm`s strategy is Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Aspects such as infrastructure, applications, teams and processes must operate coordinately and coherently, so that integrated processes between firms of a network may exist, and that the needed information may flow among them, in a quick, automatic and controlled way. From the focal firm`s point of view, the alignment between its ICT strategy and its business strategy, in its Strategic Alliance Network (SAN), must be flexible, with fast adaptation to the new needs established by these relationships. What is argued is that there is need for an alignment with margin. In order to have this, ICT must not only respond to the current business and relationships needs, assuring the required strategic alignment, but should also be prepared to respond, partially or totally, to the future needs. This research proposes an analytical framework that provides resources to definition and implementation of the ICT strategy of a firm participating in a SAN, that is aligned with its business strategy and that has the necessary efficiency and flexibility, in order to implement and sustain this strategy, considering the different stakeholders involved. This research was essentially empiric and qualitative, and had the following steps: i) theoretical framework development; ii) analytical framework proposal; iii) proposed analytical framework evaluation. On the first step a ranking-based bibliographic research of national and international journals was prepared. On the second step, a preliminary investigation (quantitative analysis of ICT managers perceptions) was prepared, followed by confirmatory interviews (qualitative analysis of ICT managers perceptions). At the end of this step, an analytical framework for dynamic ICT strategic management for firms that act in SANs was proposed. In the last step, a multiple case-study was developed to enhance and illustrate the proposed analytical framework. The results suggest that SANs influence ICT at firms, and that this influences manifest its self in multiple ways. The proposed analytical framework suggests that there are intervenient factors that moderate the strength of these influences. Finally it was suggested that, having understood the possible influences of a SAN, ICT managers can anticipate these influences and better plan the ICT of their firms, in order to sustain their competitiveness.

A crescente importância do mercado de serviços terceirizados de TI no Brasil e o interesse por pesquisas nesse tema no Brasil e em nível mundial, são os principais argumentos que justificam a realização deste estudo. Este trabalho teve por objetivo entender questões que envolvem os aspectos considerados em decisões de terceirização de funções de TI em empresas brasileiras, visão ainda pouco explorada na literatura. Para que o objetivo fosse atingido, foram propostas quatro questões de pesquisa respondidas utilizando-se de uma revisão bibliográfica, simulação e dois surveys. Os resultados encontrados permitiram identificar um modelo final que facilita um melhor entendimento sobre como a decisão de terceirização é tomada em empresas brasileiras. Tal modelo engloba seis aspectos de decisão usualmente considerados pelas empresas, o inter-relacionamento entre estes aspectos e mostra fatores externos que contribuem para a definição do nível de importância de cada aspecto na decisão. Como produto secundário, a discussão dos resultados encontrados frente à literatura que trata do tema terceirização em TI validou resultados já apresentados por outros autores e, gerou a necessidade de estudos futuros ao encontrar divergências. Do ponto de vista prático, o trabalho apresenta importante contribuição, pois ajudou a estruturar o processo de decisão de terceirização de funções de TI. / The growing importance of IT service market in Brazil and the interest for researches in this area in Brazil and worldwide are the main arguments that justifies the development of this study. The objective of this work was to understand the issues that involve the aspects considered on IT outsourcing decisions in Brazilian companies, theme that is not well explored in the literature. To achieve this objective, it was proposed four research questions answered by a bibliographic revision, simulation and two surveys. The founded results allowed the identification of a final model that facilitates a better understanding about how outsourcing decision making process occurs in Brazilian companies. This model considers six decisions aspects usually considered by the companies, the inter-relationship between this aspects and shows external factors that contributes to the definition of the importance level of each of these aspects in the decision making process. As secondary product, the discussion of the founded results against the literature that covers IT outsource theme, validated the results already presented by other authors and created the need of future researches by presenting some different results. From practicing stand point, this work presents an important contribution, by helping to structure the IT outsourcing decision making process.

Submitted by JOSIANE SANTOS DE OLIVEIRA (josianeso) on 2018-08-06T16:17:05Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Leandro Henrique de Assis_.pdf: 840472 bytes, checksum: 9a874dc8fd9a7aec5e4141ef457499ba (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-06T16:17:05Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Leandro Henrique de Assis_.pdf: 840472 bytes, checksum: 9a874dc8fd9a7aec5e4141ef457499ba (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-03-13 / Nenhuma / Cada vez mais, as empresas multinacionais de Tecnologia da Informação (TI) têm requerido a participação de seus departamentos jurídicos em suas tomadas de decisão. Acontece que as inovações tecnológicas promovidas por elas acarretam em inúmeros desafios, com destaque para aqueles de natureza jurídica, uma vez que o Direito, por suas especificidades, é incapaz de acompanhá-las. Tal incapacidade é particularmente verificada nos países emergentes; isso porque eles não são, em regra, aptos a promover a estabilidade de suas instituições, incluindo os seus sistemas jurídicos. As referidas organizações, então, conferem aos seus departamentos jurídicos o papel de conduzi-las por meio do emaranhado de indeterminações que daí decorre, donde a importância deles para o seu desempenho (eficácia). Dada essa quebra de paradigma do papel corporativo dos departamentos jurídicos - que passaram a ser, pois, constantemente demandados a abdicar de sua vocação consultiva para se tornarem também propositivos - bem como as peculiaridades da TI, torna-se importante a identificação de qual seja a capacidade dinâmica essencial para que eles atinjam o seu objetivo: gerar vantagens competitivas para as empresas nas quais inseridos. / Multinational Information Technology (IT) companies are requiring more and more the participation of its legal departments on its decision-taking process. It happens that the technological innovations promoted by them leads to several challenges, especially legal ones, considering that Law, due to its specificities, is not able to keep up with them. This inability is particularly verifiable in emergent countries; this is because they are not, as a rule, able to promote the stability of its institutions, including the legal systems. Those organizations then trust their legal departments to lead them through the maze of uncertainties that comes from this,= and that is the reason why they are so important to its performance (effectiveness). Due to this paradigm break of the corporate role of legal departments - that became constantly demanded to abdicate its consultive aptitude to be propositive too - as well as the IT peculiarities, it is important to identify what dynamic capability is essential for them to achieve its main goal: create competitive advantages to the companies they are part of.

Submitted by Silvana Teresinha Dornelles Studzinski (sstudzinski) on 2016-06-14T15:26:55Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Robson Luis Meneguzzi Lazzari_.pdf: 2737794 bytes, checksum: 9dadff38c69edaabec05da0277f10c14 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-14T15:26:55Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Robson Luis Meneguzzi Lazzari_.pdf: 2737794 bytes, checksum: 9dadff38c69edaabec05da0277f10c14 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-03-15 / UNISINOS - Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos / O objetivo deste estudo foi analisar como os processos de TI contribuem para o disclosure da informação contábil. Esta investigação foi realizada com relação ao disclosure das informações contábeis para a gestão da empresa, envolvendo os principais agentes internos nesse processo. A metodologia de pesquisa baseia-se em um estudo de caso realizado no segundo semestre de 2015, em uma empresa atuante no setor moveleiro do Rio Grande do Sul. Os dados coletados foram analisados por meio de análise de conteúdo. Os resultados encontrados indicam como os processos de TI contribuem para o disclosure da informação contábil, identificando e analisando os principais aspectos de disclosure que devem ser priorizados pelos processos de TI para disponibilizar informações mais assertivas e de qualidade para a gestão da organização. Neste contexto, no caso investigado, os aspectos prioritários são os de acessibilidade – acesso às informações por qualquer recurso de TI e em qualquer lugar –, garantia da segurança – dos dados e informações –, assegurar a integridade, agilidade (tempestividade) na disponibilização, alinhamento com a estratégia do negócio, disponibilização de controles e recursos de monitoramento de despesas e receitas, transparência dos processos de negócio de TI, criação de confiança – nos recursos de TI e no disclosure de suas informações – e alinhamento com fatores externos (como leis). / The objective of this study was to analyze how IT processes contribute to the disclosure of accounting information. This research was conducted with a relation of the disclosure of accounting information for management of the company, involving the main internal actors in this process. The research methodology is based on a case study realized in the second half of 2015 in a furniture industry of Rio Grande do Sul. The collected data were analyzed using content analysis. The results indicate how IT processes contribute to the disclosure of accounting information, identifying and analyzing the main aspects of disclosure that should be prioritized by IT processes to deliver information more assertiveness and quality to management of the organization. In this context, in the investigated case, the priority aspects are accessibility - access to information by any IT resource in anywhere - ensuring security – of Data and information - to ensure the integrity, agility (timing) in disclosure, alignment with the business strategy, providing control and monitoring capabilities of revenue and expenditure, transparency of IT business processes, creating confidence - the IT resources and disclosure of your information - and alignment with external factors (such as laws).

<p>Risk management has become an important topic for financial institutes, especially since the business sector of financial services is related to conditions of uncertainty. The turmoil of the financial industry emphasizes the importance of effective risk management procedures. Consequently, this thesis studies<em> “</em><em>What are the critical success factors for effective risk management procedures in financial industries?</em><em>”</em> This research question was formulated in order to gain a better understanding of risk management procedures and to examine the critical success factors for effective risk management procedures.</p><p>To explore the importance of critical success factors in a practical context, we used the quantitative method of a self-completion questionnaire in order to collect data from a selection of financial institutions in Thailand. Financial institutions include banks, the stock exchange, insurance, stock securities, asset management and so on. Due to the fact that top-level management is directly responsible for risk management, the target groups included a range of positions from supervisors to board of directors.</p><p>This research found a set of seven critical success factors which can be used as a guideline on how to increase the effectiveness of risk management procedures. These factors are (1). Commitment and support from top management, (2) Communication, (3) Culture, (4) Information technology (IT), (5) Organization structure, (6) Training and (7) Trust. Because risk management is an important part of the financial industry, effectiveness is vital to increase project success. These seven factors can increase the effectiveness of risk management procedures from the perspective of the financial industry in Thailand.</p>

Risk management has become an important topic for financial institutes, especially since the business sector of financial services is related to conditions of uncertainty. The turmoil of the financial industry emphasizes the importance of effective risk management procedures. Consequently, this thesis studies “What are the critical success factors for effective risk management procedures in financial industries?” This research question was formulated in order to gain a better understanding of risk management procedures and to examine the critical success factors for effective risk management procedures. To explore the importance of critical success factors in a practical context, we used the quantitative method of a self-completion questionnaire in order to collect data from a selection of financial institutions in Thailand. Financial institutions include banks, the stock exchange, insurance, stock securities, asset management and so on. Due to the fact that top-level management is directly responsible for risk management, the target groups included a range of positions from supervisors to board of directors. This research found a set of seven critical success factors which can be used as a guideline on how to increase the effectiveness of risk management procedures. These factors are (1). Commitment and support from top management, (2) Communication, (3) Culture, (4) Information technology (IT), (5) Organization structure, (6) Training and (7) Trust. Because risk management is an important part of the financial industry, effectiveness is vital to increase project success. These seven factors can increase the effectiveness of risk management procedures from the perspective of the financial industry in Thailand.

Thesis (M.Ed.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2009.