<p> 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.</p>

<p> 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&rsquo;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.</p>

<p> The widespread adoption of smartphone technology in the contemporary United States requires critical reflection on its role within society. This thesis compares the way Apple's television advertising discourse, from 2007 to 2011, frames the iPhone to consumers with the way Apple's iAd promotional material frames the iPhone to advertisers, and considers what the disparity between these two frameworks says about the still-evolving role of smartphone technology in society. It argues that the disparity between these two frameworks is indicative of a fundamental tension within smartphone technology. This tension is reflected in Apple's ability to discursively construct the iPhone as a tool of user empowerment, while at the same time discursively constructing the iPhone as a sophisticated market research and advertising platform. This study shows that user agency is complicated by the iPhone's technical design which produces information about the user in an effort to modify their behavior for commercial purposes.</p>

<p> 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, &amp; 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, &amp; 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 (&alpha; = .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.</p>

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2008. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-11, Section: A, page: 4501. Adviser: Bruce E. Wicks. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 145-158) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

<p> Global online retail sales are on the rise and are predicted to experience a double digit growth annually over the next three years. Given little marginal cost involved in adding new products and brands to their catalogues, online retailers tend to increase product and brand offerings to increase sales by selling products that could not have been sold due to space constraints in physical stores. Frank Urbanowski, Director of MIT Press, attributed the 12% increase in sales of backlist titles directly to increased accessibility to these titles through the Internet. For consumers, the ability to buy products that they would not have otherwise bought increases their consumer surplus. </p><p> Despite preferring a large assortment of products in online retail stores due to product variety and diversity in brand choices, this poses a problem to consumers as the number of alternatives and attributes reduces their confidence in the selection of a product to purchase; product comparison and evaluation also becomes a difficult task. Thus, an online retail store that does not facilitate easy product information search, comparison, and evaluation would cause consumers to make poor purchase decisions. In this thesis, I investigate how the design parameters of online stores such as the presentation of product information, product comparisons, consumer reviews, and recommendations influence consumers' information seeking and decision making process. </p><p> Specifically, the objectives of this thesis are to learn the individual and joint effects of such design parameters on the effort that consumers expend in the shopping process, quality of their purchase decisions, and their satisfaction with the shopping experience. A controlled experiment was conducted online using six variants of an online retail store to understand the effects of such design features. While the result was modest, the study found that presentation of information that allows consumers to have a preview of the subsequent page after clicking on a link has moderate effect on consumer's physical and cognitive effort in seeking product information, the purchase decision they made, and their satisfaction with an online store.</p>

<p> Onboarding ensures learning success through sharing and acquiring knowledge to remain competitive. However, little is known about new Information Technology (IT) hires' learning needs in the absence of onboarding; therefore, the purpose of this case study was to examine, increase, and retain their technical knowledge at the Unified Communications Company (UCC). Following the theoretical model of knowledge management, which holds that knowledge is the key to confirm learning and knowledge sharing, the research questions were used to examine how the company assessed and increased their technical knowledge and how they taught their culture in the absence of onboarding. A qualitative instrumental case study design was employed with a purposeful sample of 4 former employees who were former new IT hires at the UCC. These employees contributed to the study using journals, surveys, and interviews drawn from their experiences as new IT hires at the UCC. Reoccurring themes regarding formal learning were extracted from the data, validated through peer and member checking, and then triangulated with each round of data collection and the themes described in the literature. The themes of culture, onboarding, training, and experience/feedback consistently emerged as areas needing improvement and indicated a need for formalized training. Based on these findings, a job aid was created to provide enhanced performance and learning to offer knowledge throughout training. Companies employing new IT hires can use the results from this study to provide onboarding in addition to their current orientation. The use of these data would positively affect social change by enhancing company competitiveness and job retention while reducing overall unemployment and the skills gap. </p>

<p> Consumers in the United States have three payment options at a point of sale terminal purchase with a merchant: (a) pay with cash, (b) write a check, or (c) swipe and sign for the transaction with a debit or credit card. Consumers may be reluctance to accept changes in their daily routine with respect to payment options, which may impede acceptance of evolving payment methods like mobile and contactless cards (MCC). Hence, the purpose of this qualitative case study using the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was to examine the reasons given by consumers on why they are willing or unwilling to accept this alternative payment system. The selected participants were obtained via a signup sheet at PSCU for of this case study. After signing the informed consent form, the particpants were provided a link to Survey Monkey&trade;. The participants of the case study represented a broad level based off education, age, marriage and work levels. The partcipants provided their responses to questions that gaugued their knowledge and willingness to try new payment technologies such as mobile and contactless card payments. The responses provided by the participants demonstrated that ease of use (PEO) and usefulness (PEOU) were primary factors in using new payment technologies. Security of the financial data was a factor in the use of new new payment technology as cosnumers have become more conscious of data breaches. Future case studies should be conducted to determine the impact on segements such as the underbanked or underserved markets.</p>

The Potential Role of Business Intelligence in Church Organizations

Thesis (M. Soc. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 1980.