In recent years, companies are facing fierce competition and fast advancement of information technology (IT); thus, how to enhance corporate performance and obtain competitive advantage through IT investment in this dynamic environment has become an important issue for academia and businesses. Investigating the impact of corporate IT investment strategy on business performance need an effective performance measurement tool that help organization on the correct objective. We suggested that evaluate business performance through human development, customer management and benchmark management could improve the shortcomings of traditional evaluation tools. This paper referred intellectual capital and included a review of the latest literature on performance measurement and consolidated these findings, examining the interrelationships and the interaction effects among intellectual capital components and organizational performance. Based on intellectual capital and complementary assets theory, we proposed a model with regard to how IT investment strategy impact to business performance. This paper used data envelopment analysis comparing the efficiency of IT investment in information-intensive service industries and used path analysis investigating the relationship of measurement indicators; these analysis is used as the basis of research model of this paper. Since there is time delay in the transfers from IT investment to the market performance, the impact of IT investment on market performance is a problem involving dynamic complexity. Thus, from the perspective of long-term, non-linear, closed-loop causality, this study developed a computerized system dynamics model to analyze the dynamic relationships between corporate IT investment strategy and business performance in information-intensive service industries. The results of this study provided several important implications for IT investment management research and practice. The paper helps managers understand better the dynamic interrelationships in organization design and, in particular, the interrelationships between an organization¡¦s profitability (both short-term and long-term) and investment in human competence, internal process and innovation and relationship building measures with customers. The proposed system dynamics model also provided IT managers with a useful decision support tool for evaluating different IT investment strategies.

Title from PDF of title page. / Document formatted into pages; contains 83 pages. / Thesis (M.S.I.E.)--University of South Florida, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. / Text (Electronic thesis) in PDF format. / ABSTRACT: Software industry is getting very competitive in the wake of recession. In most cases, an organization that quotes a lower price and promises to deliver the product at the earliest walks away with the project. But the factor of quality of the product delivered is also very important because that in turn determines the reputation of an organization, which also plays an important role in getting the next project. Interactions in a software development are dynamic in nature and involve human factors. Models are built taking into account all possible factors so as to present a realistic picture of the development process. System dynamics methodology is used to build these models in Vensim. / ABSTRACT: Three models have been proposed to help manager estimate an approximate time and cost of the project, monitor the project once the timeline is set and monitor the project development to change various factors as the development process goes through various phases of development and testing. / System requirements: World Wide Web browser and PDF reader. / Mode of access: World Wide Web.

This study analyses the process that an IT refurbishing organisation used to socialise 15 IT graduates to the norms of the working world. In addition, 5 IT industry and 2 governmental agency interviews were used, and 60 online job advertisements were analysed to develop a System Dynamic model. The main motivation for this study was to develop a system dynamics model of the graduate socialisation process, in an attempt to understand the cause and effect of practical exposure, to bridge the IT skill-expectations gap. The main source of data for the model was from a-priori coding and content analysis of job adverts, online blogs and reports created by the students, supported by a review of the existing literature. System dynamics modelling and simulation uses computer generated software to test the behaviour of real world cross discipline problems over time (Sterman 2000). System dynamic studies have been conducted in project management, education, engineering, geography, sustainable fuel development and agriculture, etcetera. System dynamics is a flexible approach, as it uses both qualitative and quantitative data to model and address a problem situation, gathering data from intellectual and observation experiences, as well as written and verbal databases. This research advises on the successful integration of IT graduates into industry by identifying the relevant casual relationships. It recognises that graduates are genuinely interested in a career in IT, despite initial difficulties of adapting to a new career. The study was further strengthened by showing that organisational and governmental requirements vary and that they occasionally recruit based on these varying requirements. Primary and secondary data was combined to model a casual loop diagram as well as a stock and flow diagram, which could benefit curriculum advisors in academia, professors, human resource managers in industry and most importantly recently graduated IT graduates. / Magister Commercii - MCom

This thesis aims to fill the gaps in the literature of the theory of constraints (TOC) in publicly funded health systems. While TOC seems to be a natural fit for this resource-constrained environment, there are still no reported application of TOC’s drum-buffer-rope tool and inadequate customizations with regards to defining system-wide goal and performance measures. The “Drum-Buffer-Rope for an Outpatient Cancer Facility” chapter is a real world case study exploring the usefulness of TOC’s drum-buffer-rope scheduling technique in a publicly funded outpatient cancer facility. With the use of a discrete event simulation model populated with historical data, the drum-buffer-rope scheduling policy is compared against “high constraint utilization” and “low wait time” scenarios. Drum-buffer-rope proved to be an effective mechanism in balancing the inherent tradeoff between the two performance measures of instances of delayed treatment and average patient wait time. To find the appropriate level of compromise in one performance measure in favor of the other, the linkage of these measures to system-wide performance measures are proposed. In the “Theory of Constraints’ Performance Measures for Publicly Funded Health Systems” chapter, a system dynamics representation of the classical TOC’s system-wide goal and performance measures for publicly traded for-profit companies is developed, which forms the basis for developing a similar model for publicly funded health systems. The model is then expanded to include some of the factors that affect system performance, providing a framework to apply TOC’s process of ongoing improvement in publicly funded health systems. The “Connecting Low-Level Performance Measures to the Goal” chapter attempts to provide a framework to link the low-level performance measures with system-wide performance measures. It is claimed that until such a linkage is adequately established, TOC has not been fully transferred to publicly funded health systems.

This thesis draws on techniques from Management Science and Artificial Intelligence to explore organisational aspects of asset management in electricity transmission enterprises. In this research, factors that influence policies and practices of asset management within electricity transmission enterprises have been identified, in order to examine their interaction and how they impact the policies, practices and performance of transmission businesses. It has been found that, while there is extensive literature on the economics of transmission regulation and pricing, there is little published research linking the engineering and financial aspects of transmission asset management at a management policy level. To remedy this situation, this investigation has drawn on a wide range of literature, together with expert interviews and personal knowledge of the electricity industry, to construct a conceptual model of asset management with broad applicability across transmission enterprises in different parts of the world. A concise representation of the model has been formulated using a Causal Loop Diagram (CLD). To investigate the interactions between factors of influence it is necessary to implement the model and validate it against known outcomes. However, because of the nature of the data (a mix of numeric and non-numeric data, imprecise, incomplete and often approximate) and complexity and imprecision in the definition of relationships between elements, this problem is intractable to modelling by traditional engineering methodologies. The solution has been to utilise techniques from other disciplines. Two implementations have been explored: a multi-level fuzzy rule-based model and a system dynamics model; they offer different but complementary insights into transmission asset management. Each model shows potential for use by transmission businesses for strategic-level decision support. The research demonstrates the key impact of routine maintenance effectiveness on the condition and performance of transmission system assets. However, performance of the transmission network, is not only related to equipment performance, but is a function of system design and operational aspects, such as loading and load factor. Type and supportiveness of regulation, together with the objectives and corporate culture of the transmission organisation also play roles in promoting various strategies for asset management. The cumulative effect of all these drivers is to produce differences in asset management policies and practices, discernable between individual companies and at a regional level, where similar conditions have applied historically and today.

Although land is abundant, biophysical constraints on Gunung Sewu Karst in Java, Indonesia, limit soil fertility and water availability. Gunung Sewu farmers depend heavily on the land for their survival yet they have a scarcity of the resources needed for productivity. Faced with the need to survive, they have developed cultural, physical and social self-insurance strategies to increase the return from those resources available to minimise the risks to their food security and income. Strategies for land use choices are driven by socio-economic circumstances (social, economical and cultural needs), while strategies for income are driven more by the physical environment. The study confirms that human adaptation strategies are as important as environmental circumstances in determining the consequences of people’s interaction with the land. The rocky desertification that occurs in the area reflects the unsustainability of current rural practices, although this cannot be blamed entirely on current practices. Historical analysis of Gunung Sewu land use shows that environmental degradation is often triggered by external social factors such as population growth, politics and economic problems as much as, or more than, by the limitations imposed by biophysical factors. Therefore, the sustainability of current resource management in the area cannot be measured by the current extent of land degradation. Instead, there is a need to focus on the causes that underpin the dynamics of a system, not the effects (impacts), i.e. the underlying causes of people’s motivation and behaviour with respect to resource management must be considered. In effect, sustainability indicators for resource management in Gunung Sewu should be addressed through causal indicators portraying the interactions between people and environment. A system dynamics approach coupled with steps from PICABUE methodology are used to develop sustainability indicators. From a system dynamics perspective, five interacting sub-systems make up the resource management system of Gunung Sewu, i.e. water, demography, food production, economy and culture (where water is treated as exogenous factor). Out of these subsystems, culture is the most influential but the least influenced. The sustainability indicators for the system are soil conservation effort, interest in traditional farming, education level, births, onfarm income, outmigration, rice consumption and crops consumption, each crammed with sensitive parameters, most of which belong to the culture sub-system. This suggests the important of cultural indicators in an evaluation of the resource management sustainability of a resource-poor area.

Although land is abundant, biophysical constraints on Gunung Sewu Karst in Java, Indonesia, limit soil fertility and water availability. Gunung Sewu farmers depend heavily on the land for their survival yet they have a scarcity of the resources needed for productivity. Faced with the need to survive, they have developed cultural, physical and social self-insurance strategies to increase the return from those resources available to minimise the risks to their food security and income. Strategies for land use choices are driven by socio-economic circumstances (social, economical and cultural needs), while strategies for income are driven more by the physical environment. The study confirms that human adaptation strategies are as important as environmental circumstances in determining the consequences of people’s interaction with the land. The rocky desertification that occurs in the area reflects the unsustainability of current rural practices, although this cannot be blamed entirely on current practices. Historical analysis of Gunung Sewu land use shows that environmental degradation is often triggered by external social factors such as population growth, politics and economic problems as much as, or more than, by the limitations imposed by biophysical factors. Therefore, the sustainability of current resource management in the area cannot be measured by the current extent of land degradation. Instead, there is a need to focus on the causes that underpin the dynamics of a system, not the effects (impacts), i.e. the underlying causes of people’s motivation and behaviour with respect to resource management must be considered. In effect, sustainability indicators for resource management in Gunung Sewu should be addressed through causal indicators portraying the interactions between people and environment. A system dynamics approach coupled with steps from PICABUE methodology are used to develop sustainability indicators. From a system dynamics perspective, five interacting sub-systems make up the resource management system of Gunung Sewu, i.e. water, demography, food production, economy and culture (where water is treated as exogenous factor). Out of these subsystems, culture is the most influential but the least influenced. The sustainability indicators for the system are soil conservation effort, interest in traditional farming, education level, births, onfarm income, outmigration, rice consumption and crops consumption, each crammed with sensitive parameters, most of which belong to the culture sub-system. This suggests the important of cultural indicators in an evaluation of the resource management sustainability of a resource-poor area.

Although land is abundant, biophysical constraints on Gunung Sewu Karst in Java, Indonesia, limit soil fertility and water availability. Gunung Sewu farmers depend heavily on the land for their survival yet they have a scarcity of the resources needed for productivity. Faced with the need to survive, they have developed cultural, physical and social self-insurance strategies to increase the return from those resources available to minimise the risks to their food security and income. Strategies for land use choices are driven by socio-economic circumstances (social, economical and cultural needs), while strategies for income are driven more by the physical environment. The study confirms that human adaptation strategies are as important as environmental circumstances in determining the consequences of people’s interaction with the land. The rocky desertification that occurs in the area reflects the unsustainability of current rural practices, although this cannot be blamed entirely on current practices. Historical analysis of Gunung Sewu land use shows that environmental degradation is often triggered by external social factors such as population growth, politics and economic problems as much as, or more than, by the limitations imposed by biophysical factors. Therefore, the sustainability of current resource management in the area cannot be measured by the current extent of land degradation. Instead, there is a need to focus on the causes that underpin the dynamics of a system, not the effects (impacts), i.e. the underlying causes of people’s motivation and behaviour with respect to resource management must be considered. In effect, sustainability indicators for resource management in Gunung Sewu should be addressed through causal indicators portraying the interactions between people and environment. A system dynamics approach coupled with steps from PICABUE methodology are used to develop sustainability indicators. From a system dynamics perspective, five interacting sub-systems make up the resource management system of Gunung Sewu, i.e. water, demography, food production, economy and culture (where water is treated as exogenous factor). Out of these subsystems, culture is the most influential but the least influenced. The sustainability indicators for the system are soil conservation effort, interest in traditional farming, education level, births, onfarm income, outmigration, rice consumption and crops consumption, each crammed with sensitive parameters, most of which belong to the culture sub-system. This suggests the important of cultural indicators in an evaluation of the resource management sustainability of a resource-poor area.

Although land is abundant, biophysical constraints on Gunung Sewu Karst in Java, Indonesia, limit soil fertility and water availability. Gunung Sewu farmers depend heavily on the land for their survival yet they have a scarcity of the resources needed for productivity. Faced with the need to survive, they have developed cultural, physical and social self-insurance strategies to increase the return from those resources available to minimise the risks to their food security and income. Strategies for land use choices are driven by socio-economic circumstances (social, economical and cultural needs), while strategies for income are driven more by the physical environment. The study confirms that human adaptation strategies are as important as environmental circumstances in determining the consequences of people’s interaction with the land. The rocky desertification that occurs in the area reflects the unsustainability of current rural practices, although this cannot be blamed entirely on current practices. Historical analysis of Gunung Sewu land use shows that environmental degradation is often triggered by external social factors such as population growth, politics and economic problems as much as, or more than, by the limitations imposed by biophysical factors. Therefore, the sustainability of current resource management in the area cannot be measured by the current extent of land degradation. Instead, there is a need to focus on the causes that underpin the dynamics of a system, not the effects (impacts), i.e. the underlying causes of people’s motivation and behaviour with respect to resource management must be considered. In effect, sustainability indicators for resource management in Gunung Sewu should be addressed through causal indicators portraying the interactions between people and environment. A system dynamics approach coupled with steps from PICABUE methodology are used to develop sustainability indicators. From a system dynamics perspective, five interacting sub-systems make up the resource management system of Gunung Sewu, i.e. water, demography, food production, economy and culture (where water is treated as exogenous factor). Out of these subsystems, culture is the most influential but the least influenced. The sustainability indicators for the system are soil conservation effort, interest in traditional farming, education level, births, onfarm income, outmigration, rice consumption and crops consumption, each crammed with sensitive parameters, most of which belong to the culture sub-system. This suggests the important of cultural indicators in an evaluation of the resource management sustainability of a resource-poor area.

Zugl.: Hohenheim, Univ., Diss., 2009