THE ROLE OF MANAGEMENT CONSULTANTS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: THE INDISSOLUBLE NATURE OF SOCIO-POLITICAL AND TECHNICAL SKILLS*

This paper explores the role of management consultants in the development of information technology (IT) in organizations. Contending that the process of IT systems development is characterized by the exercise of power, the central theme of the argument concerns the indissoluble nature of the technical and socio-political skills inherent in IT consultancy practice. IT consultancy practice is not just socio-political when winning a contract - the sales pitch - and technical when developing an IT system. Rather, socio-political skills centred on the mobilization of discursive and symbolic resources are an inherent part of the construction of such systems.     

计算机信息系统安全技术的研究及其应用

随着计算机的普及和发展,人们的生活和工作越来越依赖于计算机,与此同时计算机信息系统的安全问题也随之呈现出来。本文首先分析了计算机信息系统常用的安全技术:数据加密技术,防火墙技术,VPN技术,然后讨论了计算机信息系统安全技术能解决的实际问题。     

Knowledge Stocks and Information Flows in New Product Development*

Although firms increasingly invest in systems (e.g. ISO, knowledge centres, IT systems) for utilizing stored knowledge and acquiring market information during new product development, few manage to benefit from these investments. To explore this issue, we suggest that firms rely on two distinct types of knowledge stocks– procedural and declarative memory – that affect new product short‐term financial performance and creativity in distinct ways. Additionally, we suggest that internal or external information flows can have distinct moderating impact on the memory types–product outcomes relationship. Our empirical study of product development activities indicates that there is an inverted U‐shaped relationship between procedural memory and product outcomes as well as a positive relationship between declarative memory and financial performance. Also procedural and declarative memory may work in a complementary fashion enhancing both outcomes. Finally, procedural memory is found to reduce the value of internal or external information flows for product creativity. These findings have important implications for the organizational knowledge, capabilities, and product development literatures as well as for practice and they open ways for future research.     

THE ORGANIZATION OF INNOVATION IN THE UNITED STATES AND JAPAN: NEOCLASSICAL AND RELATIONAL CONTRACTING*

This article discusses the role of intermediate governance structures between vertically related industries in the specific context of technological innovation. In the United States, relations between firms in vertically related industries correspond closely to the neoclassical contracting model, characterized by arms-length, spot contracting on the open market. In Japan, inter-firm relations are more likely to involve relational contracting, characterized by stable bonding mechanisms and a dense historical network of economic ties between the parties to the exchange. We focus upon the kinyu keiretsu type of relational contracting between firms of unequal size and power in vertically related industries, which is a special case of the more generally studied kigyo shudan, or inter-market financial group. For illustrative purposes, we compare the contractual arrangements used to manage the development of new technology by 46 US and 27 Japanese semiconductor equipment firms. We conclude by speculating that the organization of innovation in the Japanese semiconductor equipment industry has accelerated their development of new technology and led to their extraordinarily rapid worldwide market penetration.     

COMPUTER USE AND STRUCTURAL CONTROL: A STUDY OF AUSTRALIAN ENTERPRISES

This article investigates underlying relationships between the extent of use of computers and dimensions of organization structure. Empirical tests on a sample of 149 Australian work-units show strong associations between computer use and structural characteristics. Specifically, greater computer use is found to be related to less centralization and greater formalization and departmentalization. Further tests show that these associations are to some extent moderated by size. However, this moderating effect is most apparent in small organizations for formalization and departmentalization while the relationships involving centralization are more prominent in larger work-units. Factor analysis led to the diagnosis of two major types of computer use (i.e., informational and operational use). Tests on these categorized effects and the factor-analysed structural dimensions revealed that: (1) the effects on centralization are more strongly explained by the impact of operational use on the ‘centralization of operational decisions’ sub-measure and that of informational use on ‘financial decisions’; (2) formalization and departmentalization are found to be most strongly influenced by greater informational use. Here again, significant relationships were found between sub-measures, the most important of which is the relationship involving the informational factor of formalization with the informational use of computers and the relationship between departmentalization of core functions and the operational use of computing technology.     

Imbrication of Representations: Risk and Digital Technologies*

abstract Though emerging from different venues and backgrounds, risk management and digital applications are both based on sophisticated techniques of representation. This paper tracks the multiple overlappings and convergence between these two streams of representations. Initially digital technologies play a background role, as a tool to execute the algorithms of risk calculus. Then, they are useful in managing surveys and data analysis for those areas where risk management needs to store data on, for example, accidents. With the extension of markets for trading risk, computers and networks (or Information and Communication Technologies, ICT) become the tools of choice to allow the efficient functioning of industries like insurance. In other industries, like banking, where ‘the business’ is a vast archipelago of applications running on systems and networks, it is apparent that these integrated systems are inherently exposed to risk. Hence, these humble tools become both the infrastructure of the risk industry, and also the source of new, often incalculable risks; they move from a clear‐cut subordinate relationship (as tool) to that of imbrication. Risk representations become more calculable and formalized, but this is obtained at the price of an incalculability of the risks of the infrastructure itself. The analysis of the multiple patterns of imbrication of representations between risk and digital technologies is applied to a range of empirical domains: from software engineering and information systems (the subservient infrastructure); to operational risk in banking; and finally to the future scenario of the democratization of finance, whereby Global Risk Information Databases (GRIDs), become gigantic machines to represent, compute, and trade all sorts of individual and social risks. ^[1] Overall, the paper seeks to characterize the multiple links between risk and digital technologies in organizations and draws in part on the phenomenology of representation and Heidegger's studies of Care and Concern and his later work on the essence of modern technology.     

ANALYSING MANAGEMENT DECISION-MAKING: FURTHER THOUGHTS AFTER THE BRADFORD STUDIES

Despite the vast range of contributions, the study of decision-making has remained highly fragmented. Early writers adopted a psychological perspective, viewing the individual as an information processing system, and this detracted from a consideration of political aspects such as conflict and power. The subsequent move towards an approach that saw decision-making more as a political process was to be welcomed, and this article argues that this owed much to the work of Thompson and Tuden (1964). Their matrix model was extended further by Astley et al. (1982) and Hickson et al. (1986) in what became known as the Bradford Studies, and the author believes that this lineage in theoretical development can be taken further by focusing upon the ‘flow’ of management decisionmaking. Two explanatory case studies are used to show how, in the specific case of computer installations, different decision-making processes can move along alternative routes through the matrix. The hypothesis put forward is that a particular process flow depends primarily on the nature of organizational power (i. e. whether it is specialist or structural), and consequently upon the level of management involved, and the stage at which they become involved.     

Automobile insurance ratemaking in the presence of asymmetrical information

Automobile insurance is an example of a market where multi-period contracts are observed. This form of contract can be justified by asymmetrical information between the insurer and the insured. Insurers use risk classification together with bonus-malus systems. In this paper we show that the actual methodology for the integration of these two approaches can lead to inconsistencies. We develop a statistical model that adequately integrates risk classification and experience rating. For this purpose we present Poisson and negative binomial models with regression component in order to use all available information in the estimation of accident distribution. A bonus-malus system which integrates a priori and a posteriori information on an individual basis is proposed, and insurance premium tables are derived as a function of time, past accidents and the significant variables in the regression. Statistical results were obtained from a sample of 19,013 drivers.     

SCIENTIFIC COMMUNICATION, INNOVATION NETWORKS AND ORGANIZATION STRUCTURES*

This article examines changes in the relation between the organization of social power, the production of advanced scientific knowledge, and the position of scientific and technical personnel, from an institutionalist perspective. This is undertaken largely, but not exclusively, by mapping an exemplar of such inter-institutional and intra-disciplinary changes, i.e. the transformation in high-energy physics associated with the development of the atomic bomb. the contrast between the social imperatives of dominant sponsoring institutions and the organizational preconditions for cognitive efficacy is seen as regulated through the emergence of innovation networks. the article concludes with a brief consideration of the relation between the strategies of knowledge workers and the structure of such networks.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed: Castells, Manuel, The rise of the network society Castells, Manuel, The power of identity. Volume 2 of the information age: economy, society and culture Castells, Manuel, End of the millenium. Volume 3 of the information age: economy, society and culture Chiu, Stephen W. K., K. D. Ho and Tai-Lok Lui, City-states in the global economy: industrial restructing in Hong Kong and Singapore Tait, John, From self-help housing to sustainable settlement: capitalist development and urban planning in Lusaka, Zambia Terhorst, P. J. F. and J. C. L. van de Ven, Fragmented Brussels and consolidated Amsterdam: a comparative study of the spatial organization of property rights     

THE SINO-BRITISH JOINT DECLARATION, 1997, AND THE LAND MARKET OF HONG KONG*

In September, 1984, Britain and China concluded the Joint Declaration on the Future of Hong Kong. The Joint Declaration guarantees the continual practice of capitalism and a high degree of autonomy for Hong Kong for a period of 50 years after 1997. It helped to rebuild confidence and caused property prices to rise. However, Annex HI of the Joint Declaration places severe restraints on the present government, limiting its ability to respond to market trends and generate funds from land sales. This paper seeks to look at some of these effects. It is argued that there is very little room for the present government to maneouvre and that even now the constraints imposed by the Joint Declaration are affecting the land market in Hong Kong. Higher land prices, a slower rate of horizontal expansion of the city and a greater intensity of land use are likely consequences of the newly imposed contraints. The recent emphasis on inner city development and redevelopment vis-a-vis a new town development strategy is in part attributable to the Joint Declaration.     

The quest for logia psyche in business leadership: An empirical study of cognitive moral development in construction industry dyads

This research study examines the ageless human debate of the body versus the soul, testing leadership in the industry of building constructors. Based on Kohlbergian theory of cognitive moral development, the multidisciplinary literature review advances the proposition that moral development proceeds in waves of egoism, leading to altruism that is couched in power—“the apple of the eye.” The results from respondents of the Iowa Architects Institute of America (n = 93) indicated that, despite their higher education and aesthetic interests, the sample of architects ranked low on moral maturity level compared to the average of the Defining Issues Test data bank as a whole. Principled scores were 36.4 for architects and 39.1 for the data bank. This research also compared the moral maturity of intra‐industry groups in marketing dyads consisting of architects, contractors, and suppliers using analysis of variance. Again, it was expected that architects with higher education and aesthetic interests would rank highest. Findings of post hoc comparisons revealed no significant difference in moral maturity level between architects and contractors engrossed in the same power paradigm (p = 1.00), yet a significant difference existed between architects and suppliers (p = 0.024). This implication is consistent with the teleological ethical pattern that is prevalent in research studies of salespeople.     

Information systems project management in PMJ: A brief history

The Project Management Institute (PMI) plays an important role in the training, career development, and recognition of information systems (IS) project managers. Indeed, not only do IS professionals account for a large proportion of the PMI constituency, but PMI is also influential in the training of IS project managers. This study explores further the contribution of PMI to IS project management by means of its main publication outlet, the Project Management Journal (PMJ). To do so, the contents of the 39 IS project management articles published in PMJ during 1988–2005 were analyzed. The article focuses on the following dimensions: the relative importance of IS project management articles published by PMJ; the profile of the authors of IS project management articles in PMJ; the main issues, in terms of IS project management, covered by PMJ; and the major gaps, in terms of IS project management, in the coverage of this domain by PMJ.     

RECEIPT OF INFORMATION AND INFLUENCE OVER DECISIONS IN HOSPITALS BY THE BOARD, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER AND MEDICAL STAFF

This article examines relationships between receipt of internal administrative information in hospitals, influence over general management decisions, and the extent to which certain organizational characteristics predict the receipt of information by each of the three major groups in hospitals: the board, the CEO, and the medical staff. Using a US national sample of 287 non-profit community hospitals, CEOs were found to receive the greatest amount of information and had highest influence while medical staffs were lowest on both measures. of five major organizational characteristics, hospital size emerged as the single strongest predictor of receipt of information for both boards (beta =?0.28, p 0.001) and medical staffs (beta =?0.42, p 0.001). Overall, the five dependent variables explained 18 per cent of the variance in receipt of information by boards and 28 percent of the variance for medical staffs.     

SOCIAL SECURITY AND RETIREMENT DECISION: A POSITIVE AND NORMATIVE APPROACH*

Abstract Social insurance for the elderly is judged responsible for the widely observed trend towards early retirement. In a world of laissez‐faire or in a first‐best setting, there would be no such trend. However, when first‐best instruments are not available, because health and productivity are not observable, the optimal social insurance policy may imply a distortion on the retirement decision. The main point we make is that while there is no doubt that retirement systems induce an excessive bias towards early retirement in many countries, a complete elimination of this bias (i.e. a switch to an actuarially fair system) is not the right answer for two reasons. First, some distortions are second‐best optimal. This is the normative argument. Second, and on the positive side, the elimination of the bias might be problematic from a political perspective. Depending on the political process, either it may not be feasible or alternatively it may tend to undermine the political support for the pension system itself.     

Structural-Functional Dynamics in the Analysis of Socio-economic Systems: Development of the Approach to Understanding the Processes of Systemic Change

Theory can be equated with analogy. Both attempt to convey the unfamiliar and/or the complex through use of more familiar and/or simple constructs. The theoretical analogies of “modern” economics have been by and large patterned after a prestigious and powerful Newtonian model, i.e. they have been of the mechanical genre. It has been argued, however, that models of a biological, or evolutionary, nature would be more appropriate to analyzing economic processes and systems. This article is the first of two aimed at suggesting a form for such an evolutionary model. In this article, the analytical concepts of structure and function and their interrelationships are discussed as they apply to non-human biological systems. Resulting feedback effects which produce dynamic change are placed within the context of the evolutionary model of stratified stability. This model explains developmental change as always tending toward more complex but more stable levels of structure, and thus unidirectional. However, the process of societal change is non-teleological in that the particular path of change is not deterministic.     

JUDAISM AND LIBERALISM: ISRAEL’S ECONOMIC PROBLEM WITH ITS HAREDIM

This article argues that, in the arrangements for the public provision of welfare for the poor and a basic education for all in both biblical and post‐biblical times, Judaism is more closely in accord with classical liberalism than it is with those variants of liberalism which favour no more than the minimal night‐watchman state as well as those which favour the extensive welfare states of contemporary Western social democracies. To the extent that Israel's ultra‐orthodox Jews (its Haredim) have been able to secure more by way of state subsidies (through exploiting the leverage their country's national system of proportional representation has given them, which often leaves them holding the balance of power), not only are they endangering Israel's viability as a vibrant, developed liberal democracy, they are also guilty of departing from the religious teachings and tradition of Jewish orthodoxy.     

Alumni Donations and Colleges’Development Expenditures: Does Spending Matter?

Since college development officers supply recognition to alumni and seek donations in return a model is devised wherein this exercise of market power in the exchange is included. Data for three years is used from eighteen universities and colleges-public and private, large and small, research and teaching oriented. The findings indicate that schools with higher development costs generate substantially more donations. Several demographic characteristics of the student body were tested. Schools with higher participation in fraternities and sororities have higher giving, while schools with a higher proportion of part-time students have lower giving. Surprisingly, having an NCAA Division I athletic program has no significant effect on alumni giving. Likewise, alumni donations seem independent of whether a school is public or private, or is or is not a research institution. Finally, the size of a school's endowment has no predictive value, but the level of annual bequests is strongly positively related to alumni giving.     

EMERGENT COMPLEXITY IN AGENT‐BASED COMPUTATIONAL ECONOMICS

Abstract In this paper, we shall review two kinds of emergent complexity in agent‐based computational economics (ACE). The first kind is based on the complex systems initiated in the 1980s or even earlier by mathematicians and physicists, whereas the second kind is based on the idea of complex adaptive systems composed of autonomous agents, for which many representative works have been collected in Rosser. For the latter, we shall go further to examine the two elements which have just recently been incorporated in agent‐based economic modelling, namely, intelligence and modularity. This augmentation leads to the development of neurocognitive software agents, which can guide the generation and direction of future ACE studies with a multistage ‘brain/behaviour‐to‐emergency‐to‐brain/behaviour’ approach.