Contest based learning with blending software engineering and business management: for students' high motivation and high practice ability

Business–information technology (IT) initiatives in pedagogy are no longer a novelty. Still, some of the best known music examination boards seem reluctant to change, and continue to adopt a system largely bereft of it to run their business. Aligning business and IT in music examination boards is proving to be a theoretical challenge, and an unresolved issue at the corporate level. Involuntarily participation in the increasingly prevalent reliance on new technologies to augment business opportunity, as part of a wider process of globalization, is no longer a viable option. Although some boards are seeing this alignment as an enabler of business goals, others see it as an inhibitor. Who is right? Which strategy reaches the business goal of maximum enrollments? This paper opens a discussion on possible best-aligned business–IT decisions to enable best business activity and uses a case study to examine the underutilization of business–IT alignment adopted by one of the most successful music examination board in the world. This paper questions whether the use of IT in music examination defines being a market leader or not. By using a survey, in-depth interviews and a pilot study, this paper presents an IT alignment fit between the board and its IT platforms. Finally, the paper leverages the value of an initiative composed of thoughtful business strategy and IT to open up new business opportunities, and raises unanswered questions for the reader.

Information technology (IT) is a competitive path and offers the entrepreneurial opportunity of accumulating business knowledge in capturing consumer behavior. This study employed a conceptual framework to investigate the information processing facet of IT–business alignment under the impact mechanism of transactional leadership in the manufacturing sector of Yunnan Province, China. Specifically, organization culture is taken as a moderating factor extracted from situational theory and has been highlighted as important in previous organizational research. This study aimed at investigating the impact of transactional leadership on IT–business process alignment and studying the moderating effect of organizational culture on the relationship between transactional leadership and IT–business process alignment. The empirical findings reveal that contingent reward and management by exception behaviors of entrepreneurs are significant drivers of IT–business process alignment. Furthermore, market culture had a moderating effect on the relationship between entrepreneurs’ transactional behaviors and IT–business process alignment. Similarly, hierarchy culture exerts a moderating effect on the path between contingent rewarding behavior and IT–business process alignment. Here, it exerts an insignificant moderating effect on the management by exception behavior and IT–business process alignment path. The study findings mainly reveal the association of transactional leadership with IT–business process alignment, along with the moderating role of organizational culture. This study contributes to the literature on business knowledge by showcasing empirical evidence—how information processing aids entrepreneurial behavior to capture market opportunities and consumer behavior.

With the development of extended enterprise and information technologies (IT), a new business pattern with its infrastructure, cloud computing, is emerging. More and more small and medium enterprises do not implement significant parts of their information systems (IS) in-house. Instead, they prefer to use the software services and even infrastructure services provided by professional information service companies. Their business strategy, IT strategy, business processes and information technologies shall be re-aligned. Furthermore, no cloud computing service vendor can satisfy the complete functional information system requirements of an enterprise. Sometimes, enterprises have to simultaneously use software services distributed in different clouds in conjunction with their intra-IS. These bring great challenges for business–IT alignment of an enterprise in the cloud computing environment (CCE). This study reviews business–IT alignment problems and models in CCE. The concept of collaboration point (CP) is proposed, and a CP-based business processes collaboration modelling technique is developed to improve the feasibility of IS in CCE. A framework to integrate applications and services deployed in public clouds and intra-IS is designed and a run-time platform with the collaboration agent technique is developed to realise the concept of CP. The case study illustrates the implementation of techniques developed in this article.

The main responsibility of Information Technology (IT) in business is to acquire, implement and maintain technology investments, which belonged within the Information Systems. In order to achieve successful IT planning and implementation, shared knowledge becomes an important enabler of the alignment of business and IT objectives. This research evaluates how cross-functional competence in business and IT people provides the basis for effective partnership to develop. The objective is to conceptually define and empirically measure the variables of IT competence in business managers and of business competence in IT professionals, and test the measurements for validity and reliability. A Simple Percentage Method, chi-square tests, Tables and weighted average were used to get clear picture of analysis with results showing how both IT knowledge and IT experience are instrumental in defining IT competence of business people. The results of these showed that IT service delivery dimensions, IT system dimensions (quality, delivery, trustworthy and management) and IT core characteristics have statistical significant influence on effective IT competences among IT business people and IT cognitive dimensions which included knowledge, skills and experience.

During the past two decades, both business managers and academic researchers have shown considerable interest in understanding how information technologies (IT) help to create competitive advantage for a firm. While recently the idea of competitive differentiation through IT has been challenged, this study contrasts the traditional thinking about competitive advantage with the resource-based view. Specifically, it is argued that by demarcating specific types of capabilities, we can contribute to better understanding of the sources of IT-based competitive advantage. Conceptually, we distinguish here between value, competitive, and dynamic capabilities as three distinct types of capabilities. Within each type, we identify specific capabilities, such as quality of the IT infrastructure, IT business experience, relationship infrastructure, and intensity of organizational learning, and present a model that describes relationships between these capabilities and competitive advantage. We then empirically test the model using data collected via a national mail survey from chief IT executives from 202 manufacturing firms. While the quality of the IT infrastructure is hypothesized as a value capability and expectedly did not have any significant effect on competitive advantage, the quality of IT business expertise and the relationship infrastructure (competitive capabilities) did. The results of the study also indicate that the intensity of organizational learning (dynamic capability) was significantly related to all of the capabilities. These results point to the importance of delineating capabilities such as relationship infrastructure that can facilitate differentiation in the marketplace, and dynamic capabilities such as organizational learning as an important antecedent to IT capability building.

Competition in industry of software production as well as in IT sector has special features. Understanding current trends and complex connections between software industry and world economic development gives new ideas about competition in the IT domain. One of the key trends is digital transformation. It is supported by software, but it also has a strong impact on the software development industry and provides the new opportunities in software production and IT business change management. The main idea of the paper is total automation and a focus on measurable processes that give a continual flow of digital data that should be used on different levels of a company's management, business development, production processes, and even client's perception of the software product. Management of those core activities, based on such digital data flows, is becoming sophisticated and more flexible, based on relevant and estimated indicators. In this article, there is a multifactor analysis of digitalization in software engineering and IT business management with a focus on change management. The main results of research are demonstrating how the influence of digitalization could be used in competition.

In recent years, information technology (IT) has become a critical tool for the execution of business strategy and a driver of business strategy. The alignment of business strategy and IT strategy has emerged as a critical issue for organizations. Using a case study approach, this research study identifies the reasons why alignment gaps exist between business strategy and IT strategy and suggests methods which can be used to minimize those strategy alignment gaps. Senior executives at a large Fortune 50 financial services company were interviewed in order to examine whether alignment gaps between business strategy and IT strategy existed at this organization, the reasons why the strategy alignment gaps exist, and how the strategy alignment gaps could be minimized. The results suggest that improving the business strategy and vision, and communication of the business strategy and vision has the greatest potential for improving the alignment of business strategy and IT strategy. The degree of alignment between various business areas was found to have a major impact on the alignment of business strategy and IT strategy. Two effective methods of aligning IT strategy and business strategy were identified: (i) developing a robust, business architecture, and, (ii) establishing a separate, centralized IT department.

Software engineers have always been experimenting with various models in an endeavor to improve upon software processes. Recently, a new area of software process improvement through experience management has got attention of the software engineering community. Software developers are experimenting with experience management to improve software process. This chapter explores the role of experience management in mitigating the effects of software crisis and investigates the current state of EM in Indian software engineering environment. The chapter discusses the need and integration of knowledge and experience management practices in software engineering environments. The chapter begins with the discussion of the ills of software engineering, classically referred to as “software crisis,” like late delivery of the systems, ill-functionality, and cost overruns, and justifies how managing the knowledge and experience of software engineers and practitioners can ward off these evils. The chapter then discusses the models and methodologies for knowledge and experience management in software engineering. Finally, the chapter sheds light on the major works carried out in this area and suggests possible future research avenues in this domain.

Strategic alignment of information technology (IT) is required to be included in the firms’ core activity in today’s business environment. The purpose of this study is to understand the impact of ‘IT connectivity, IT infrastructure and IT human resources’ on ‘IT business strategic alignment’ by developing a model, in public and private organizations in India. A questionnaire was used to measure the constructs after its validity and reliability. The findings discovered that firms’ IT strategic alignment was significantly impacted by three IT dimensions, that is, IT connectivity, IT infrastructure and IT human resources (combined as IT capability). The IT investments and expenditures of a firm are aligned with its business objectives and priorities. Furthermore, the significant role of these dimensions in public and private organizations in India was examined.

The influence of firm specific context on realizing information technology business value in manufacturing industry

<p>This study aims to examine and analyze "The effect of business capital, skills training and information technology on MSME income (Case Study of MSMEs fostered by Jakpreneur )". The results of this study used purposive sampling method. The number of samples in this study amounted to 92 people. The dependent variable in this research is the income of MSMEs while the independent variables are business capital, skills training and information technology. This study uses a quantitative approach. The results of this study indicate that partially (t test) Business Capital (X1) has a positive effect on Income (Y) supported by the value of tcount > ttable (4.540 > 1.987) and the significance level is 0.000. Partially (t test) Skills Training (X2) has a positive effect on Income (Y) supported by the value of tcount > ttable (8.024 > 1.987) and the significance level is 0.000. Partially (t test) Information Technology (X3) has a positive effect on Income (Y) supported by the value of tcount > ttable (4.984 > 1.987) and the significance level is 0.000. Simultaneously (f test) Business capital (X1), Skills Training (X2) and Information Technology (X3) have a positive effect on Income (Y) with a value of fcount > ftable (29.456 > 2.71) with a significant value of 0.000 < 0.05 . The magnitude of the influence of Business Capital, Skills Training and Information Technology on Income is 50.1% while the remaining 49.9% is influenced by other variables not examined in this study.</p><p><strong>Keywords</strong> : Venture capital, skills training, information technology and MSME income</p><p> </p>

PurposeIn the current digital business landscape, businesses heavily rely on their information technology (IT) departments to drive digital transformation initiatives. However, firms often face challenges in obtaining sufficient backing from their IT departments for such initiatives. This research explores the influence of IT departments’ intellectual capital, referred to as IT intellectual capital, on digital transformation under varying degrees of market turbulence.Design/methodology/approachA survey was employed to collect data from 296 IT managers and business managers from 148 firms in China. We used the seemingly unrelated regression to test hypotheses.FindingsThis study indicates that each category of IT intellectual capital – namely, IT human capital, structural capital and social capital – contributes positively to digital transformation. IT social capital mediates the effects of IT human and structural capital on digital transformation. Besides, market turbulence amplifies the effect of IT human capital on digital transformation, whereas it diminishes the influence of IT social capital on digital transformation.Practical implicationsPractitioners need to recognize the strategic role of IT intellectual capital in advancing digital transformation and develop appropriate IT intellectual capital according to the market environments in which the firm operates.Originality/valueThe study introduces novel perspectives on the antecedents of digital transformation and enhances the intellectual capital literature by revealing the influence of different types of IT intellectual capital on digital transformation under various levels of market turbulence.

Research related to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on business strategy, information technology, and supply chain agility on firm performance in the medical device industry in Indonesia. The analysis used is the Structural Equation Model (SEM) with the AMOS program. The study had 171 respondents. The findings in this study are that business strategy, information technology, and supply chain agility have a positive and significant influence on firm performance during the COVID-19 pandemic. The practical implication is that business strategies and information technology save companies and society by involving supply chain agility in securing the supply of medical devices in Indonesia. It is recommended that further research consider not only focusing on medical devices but also larger or different areas to elicit different responses. The practical implications provide direction for adopting business strategies, information technology, supply chain agility in improving firm performance.

The transformational dimension in the realization of business value from information technology

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