Product quality strategy in charity retail: a case study

Advocated by auditors and regulators, information systems (IS) controls can mitigate risk and improve performance. But controls can just as easily lead to problems, slowing processes with unnecessary bureaucracy or overwhelming checks and balances. Managers can avoid these problems by understanding how to design and implement IS controls that align with important factors within the settings that they operate, such as organizational structure, staff expectations, and technical innovations. We address this challenge by operationalizing a method to evaluate control alignment within IS processes. The results can aid in determining the degree of complementarity between IS controls, organizational, staff, and process characteristics.

은행업에 있어서 정보시스템의 중요성은 다른 산업에 비해서 매우 높다. 본 논문에서는 한 은행의 사례를 토대로 은행에서 실시하고 있는 정보시스템 감사 제도의 전반적인 현황을 분석하여 문제점 및 발전 방향을 제시한다. 주요한 문제점은 다음과 같다. 전반적으로 정보시스템 프로세스의 수행 정도가 미흡하고, 감사 실시 정도는 전반적으로 중요한 프로세스에는 적절히 대응하고 있으나 금융 및 전산사고 예방에만 초점을 맞추어 전략적인 측면의 대응이 미흡한 것으로 나타났다. 또한 감사 활동이 프로세스 수행에 긍정적인 영향을 미치지 못하고 있어서 감사 사후 관리를 개선할 필요성이 제기되었다. 감사 인력/조직적인 측면에서는 인력의 충원이 필요하고, 전략 기획 분야와 연구·개발 활동이 미흡하고, 감사인의 적격성 및 독립성 분야에서 기준 대비 미흡한 면이 있는 것으로 분석되었다. 여기에 대한 발전 방향으로는 내부 감사 부서들간의 적절한 감사 분담, 외부 감사의 활용, 감사 자동화 도구 도입, 자가통제평가 제도 도입, 감사인력에 대한 경력개발 제도 실시, 위험 기반 감사 제도 도입 등이 있다. 본 연구의 결과는 은행업, 더 나아가서 다른 산업의 기업들이 참고할 수 있는 사시점을 제공하고, 본 연구에서 활용한 분석 프레임워크는 향후 정보시스템 감사 분야의 학술적인 연구에서 활용될 수 있을 것이다. Importance of Information Systems in banking industry is higher than that of other industries. This study, based on a case study of a bank, analyzes the current status of information systems (IS) audit and proposes future directions in the area of IS control and audit. Major problems identified in the study include deficiency of IS and audit process, and inability of audit function to improve IS process. In addition, deficiency of staffing level and investment in R&D, and lack of competency and independence of audit staff are identified. In order to solve the problems, the following directions were proposed proper division of functions among audit related departments, utilization of outside audit function, and adoption of CSA, CAAT, career path program, risk-based audit approach. The results of the studs will provide valuable implications to banks and companies in other industries. Also the research framework employed in the study can be utilized in the future research in IS control and audit.

Little attention has been paid to the evolution of charity retailing. A recent upturn in interest results from an increase in the number of charity shops in operation and their increasingly professional management. Charity retailing has expanded and developed over the past decade and the rapid expansion in numbers in the 1980s has heightened interest in them, although they do not feature as a sector in their own right in retail statistics. Explores the development of charity shops and suggests a three‐fold category classification. The definition of charity trading relies largely on the mix of the merchandise being sold and this mix determines the three categories of charity retailing. The classification highlights trading implications of technology and competition which in turn affect volunteers, customers, other charities and established retailers alike.

This article forms part of research-in-progress aimed toward creating a comprehensive graduate development framework that will assist Information Systems (IS) departments in increasing the quality and quantity of their enrollments and graduates. In this article, we present the IS Graduate Development Framework (ISGDF). This framework combines concepts from four related fields of IS study into a single framework for identifying the graduate development potential of IS institutions, courses, and development projects. These four fields of study are: (i) Information and Communication Technology for Development, (ii) economic labor market theory that relates to IS labor, (iii) a study of IS education concepts and course structures, and (iv) a study of IS labor within the creative industries. We present the ISGDF based on literature from these fields of study and show how this framework can be applied by means of a comprehensive case study example. The case study gives a detailed account of how the framework was used to identify, and improve, the graduate development potential of an IS graduate development project. Findings from the case study include several areas for possible improvement of IS curricula to increase the graduate development potential of IS departments. Although the case study was conducted in a South African context, we suggest that the ISGDF, and case study findings report in this article, can be useful for informing IS departments toward increasing graduate quality and quantity in their own contexts.

In this paper, the role of participation within the domains of information system (IS) research and social development is analyzed. Specifically, we examine how the process of IS development, and the IS itself, can reflect and shape the status of social development. Traditionally, participatory design (PD) research in IS has focused on business contexts in the Western world, with minimal application to developing country settings, especially in the context of social development. This paper seeks to contribute to developing these understandings and bases its analysis on a case study of a community-based health IS in South Africa. The case study involved the design and development of a community-based child health IS in a rural area of South Africa. Nationally, the formal district health IS in South Africa includes data only on those people who access health services through the health facilities. The premise behind developing a community-based child health IS was to include all the people living in that district in the district health IS. Analysis of the case study reveals three ways in which traditional PD needs reconceptualization. First, it is not only the users of the IS who should participate, but also those individuals who are affected by the IS, even when those individuals have no direct interaction with the system itself. Second, whereas there is some recognition in PD literature of the need for the participation of people at different levels vertically distributed within an organization, there has been little recognition of the value of involving actors outside the organization or sector. Third, the capacity of the users and those impacted by the system needs to be developed to ensure effective participation in the IS design and development processes. These three approaches to PD in IS, whose purpose is to contribute to social development, are essential components of a participatory strategy. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The information systems (IS) audit in public sector organisations is generally conducted to provide assurance about the effectiveness of IS controls, processes, resources, operations, and value for money in the IS investment. Public sector organisations are being confronted with various new demands from businesses, the public and other stakeholders because of the high level of IS investment, which takes long to complete and involves uncertainty of performance. This research argues that the current IS audit practice does not take a broad enough view in assessing the overall system. Hence, it is particularly challenging for an IS auditor not only to identify how well the IS supports the overall business objectives, but also to justify the continuity of IS operation and to produce an effective IS audit report. There have been several cases in which IS were unsuccessful and did not perform as the users expected. Due to the current IS audit practice, IS auditors are unable to recognise any inherent limitations that may exist in the design, development and implementation of application systems that will impact on the organisation’s objectives and operational activities. Sustainability is a relevant and practical way to deal with limitations found in IS audit practice. Sustainability is future oriented and concerned with holistic and integrated systems consisting of humans, nature, social and technology infrastructure. This research is conducted with the goal of incorporating sustainability within the IS audit framework as a strategy to minimise IS control risk, to reduce inherent risks faced by the IS auditors and to produce effective IS audit reports. This research found that the proposed framework known as the Sustainability Driven Information System Audit (SISA) is an appropriate alternative that can overcome these shortcomings, and effectively address risks associated with IS controls. SISA is also considered to reduce uncertainties in decision making by reviewing results, processes and input. It facilitates coordination and communication to produce an audit report that provides effective value to the key stakeholders and the public. This research also studies the appropriate method for IS auditors to make audit judgements, particularly in measuring IS controls. The applicability of the SISA framework to a real case study has been found to be very promising. The result showed that a systematic and numerical approach is suitable for prioritising audit criteria and in order to emphasise the key areas of concern for the audit purpose. The results indicate that the sustainability approach is a practical and reasonable method that can be employed at any public sector organisation. This research contributes theoretically, methodologically and practically to the IS audit body of knowledge.

Business processes and information systems mutually affect each other in non-trivial ways. Frequently, the business process design and the information system design are not well aligned. This means that business processes are designed without taking the information system impact into account, and vice versa. Missing alignment at design time often results in quality problems at runtime, such as large response times of information systems, large process execution times, overloaded information systems or interrupted processes. Aligning business process quality and information system quality at design time requires to
\nsolve the following problems (P). Business process quality and information system quality have to be characterized. P1: In contrast to information system quality, which is specified in the ISO/IEC 9126 standard, for example, there is no common and comprehensive understanding of business process quality. P2: Beyond that, current business process
\nmodeling notations do not aim to represent quality aspects. The impact of a business process on the quality of an information system, and vice versa, is unknown at design
\ntime. P3: The mutual impact between business processes and information systems must be predicted at design time.
\nIn this thesis, the Business Process Quality Reference-Model (BPQRM), a quality model for business processes, is introduced. The model allows for a comprehensive characterization of business process quality (P1). The BPQRM is applied successfully in a case study to
\nidentify potential for process quality improvement in practice. Based on the BPQRM an existing process modeling notation is extended by model elements to represent quality
\naspects (P2). Simulation is a powerful means to predict the impact of a business process on the quality of an information system, and vice versa, at design time. This thesis proposes two simulation approaches to predict the mutual impact between business processes and information systems, in terms of performance (P3). The approach Business
\nIT Impact Simulation (BIIS) defines interfaces between the business process simulation and the information system simulation. Performance-relevant information is exchanged
\nvia the interfaces between both simulations. Using business process simulation and information system simulation in isolation, workload burstiness is not adequately reflected.
\nThis is especially true for occasional, volatile peak loads. Workload burstiness can significantly affect the performance of business processes and information systems. The approach Integrated Business IT Impact Simulation (IntBIIS) for the integration of business processes and information systems in a single simulation allows for reflecting workload burstiness correctly. The simulation approaches support the comparison of design alternatives and the verification of a certain design against requirements. A case study confirms the feasibility in practice and the acceptance from practitioners’ point of
\nview.

Sutirtha Chatterjee) join the editor-in-chief (Robert Davison) to craft a position statement regarding the ISJ's view on theory. It is applicable, with sensitivity, to the empirical research articles that we consider for publication.

Digital development for a progressive networked society

agile information systems, flexible information systems development, distributed information systems development, global software development, software development, special issue

The next three chapters will discuss information requirements and information systems for software engineering control. This chapter describes the search for reference information systems and the assessment of the reference systems with respect to software engineering control in the software factory. The description of control in the software factory given in section 5.7 will be used as a starting point. The reference systems that will be explored first are information systems for software engineering control as they are proposed in the literature. Three systems will be described in section 7.2. They are the Project Management Data Base (Penedo 1985), The TAME system (Basili 1988, Jeffrey 1987) and the experience base as described by Noth (1987). They have been selected because we consider them to be important information systems for software engineering control which have been described in the literature. The three systems will be compared with one another and will be assessed with respect to control in the software factory in section 7.3. An information system for engineer-to-order production control, as described in (Bertrand 1990), will also be considered as a reference system. This system will be described in section 7.4. It will be compared to the reference systems already discussed and will be assessed with respect to control in the software factory in section 7.5. Section 7.6 contains the summary and conclusions of the seventh chapter.

Summary Integratio na nd implementation of information systems (IS) in healthcare is ac hallenging task. Only am inority of US (as wel la sE uropean )h ospitals have, for example, fully implemente dc omputerised physician order entry (CPOE) in their dail yp ractice (se eH IMSS analytics homepage). The reasons for this situation are many :l ate computer implementation in healthcare compare dw ith othe ri ndustries, resistance by professionals, complex and sometimes unpredictable workflows difficult to model in an IT system, past failures and mistakes in implementation, to mention just af ew. Since th ei mplementation of IC Ti nh ealthcar ei sk nown to be problematic, au niversally applicable framework would be of use. Althoug hm any case studies are published ,o nly af ew publications focus on practicable lists or methodologies supporting the implementation of IS. On the basi so fal iterature review ,t he only generally applicable framework is chose nf or validation. The framework consists of 11 0s ucces sa nd 27 failur ef actor sf or different types of healthcare IS. Va lidation is performed by a retrospective analysis of CPOE implementatio ni nt he hospita lo fT hun (Switzerland). Overall, from our perspective, the framewor ko ffers a valid possibility for planning and implementing CPOE in a hospital, although, on ao ne-off basis, the framework coul db ew idened. In general, it offers ad etailed and usable list of success and failur ef actor sf or implementation of IS in ah ealthcar ei nstitution. Althoug hd istinct differences betwee ne .g. CPOE an do ther IS exist, many of the items indicate di nt he framewor kc an be used in ag enera ls etting. The framewor ku nder stud yc ould thus enable many hospitals or other healthcar ei nstitutions to successfully implement informatio ns ystems, even thoug ht he list of items to be observed can never be complete.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore how localized (organization-level) actors of policy initiatives that are inspired by neoliberal ideologies use management accounting and control practices. Specifically, it addresses the operational stages of a case study Private Finance Initiative (PFI) contract within the United Kingdom's (UK's) transport sector of roads for embedding government objectives in the underlying project road.Design/methodology/approachThis paper adopts Dean's (2010) analytics of government to unpack the accounting-based control practices within the case study contract in order to articulate how, at the micro level, the government's objective of improving road-users' safety is enacted, modified and maintained through such regimes.FindingsDrawing on a content-based analysis of UK government PFI policy and extensive case study-specific documents, together with interviews and observations, this research provides theoretical insights about how control practices, at a distance without direct intervention, function as forms of power for government for shaping the performance of the PFI contractor. The authors find that the public sector's accounting control regimes in the case study project have a constraining effect on “real partnership working” between the government and private contractors and on the private sector's incentive to innovate.Research limitations/implicationsBy analyzing a single road case study PFI contract, the findings may not be generalizable.Originality/valueThis paper provides significant theoretically informed insights about how public service delivery that is outsourced to private contractors is controlled by government at a distance within complex organizational arrangements (e.g. PFI).

This paper advocates for the use of Action Research (AR) approaches in the designing of Information Systems (IS). Following a brief overview of the history of AR as a research methodology and it's use in IS research a framework for describing the AR process is developed. This framework is then used to describe the AR process involved in the design and development of a paper based and orally communicated child health IS. A common criticism of AR in IS design is the focus on the output of the design and the lack of rigour in the description of AR projects. This paper addresses this gap by focusing on the process of the design and development of the IS in the case study, but also contributes to AR by outlining a number of concerns which should be addressed by the IS researcher if AR is to viewed as rigourous. The concerns which need to be addressed are the need: to make explicit the epistemology of the researcher(s) or practitioner(s) in any AR project; to adopt a participatory AR and longitudinal approach to avoid the conflict of 'serving two masters'; to develop networks of action, and; to develop and disseminate generalisations and learnings from the research.

The Common Operational Picture (COP) capability can be defined as the ability to display on a single screen integrated views of the Recognized Maritime, Air and Ground Pictures, enriched by other tactical data, such as theater plans, assets, intelligence and logistics information. The purpose of the COP capability is to provide military forces a comprehensive view of the battle space, thereby enhancing situational awareness and the decision-making process across the military command and control spectrum. The availability of a COP capability throughout the command structure is a high priority operational requirement in NATO. A COP capability for NATO is being procured and implemented in an incremental way within the NATO Automated Information System (Bi-SC AIS) Functional Services programme under the coordination of the NATO Consultation, Command and Control Agency (NC3A) Integrated Programme Team 5 (IPT5). The NATO Initial COP (iCOP) capability project, first step of this evolutionary procurement, will provide an initial COP capability to NATO in a highly pragmatic and low-risk fashion, by using existing operational communications infrastructure and NATO systems, i.e. the NATO-Wide Integrated Command and Control Software for Air Operations (ICC), the Maritime Command and Control Information System (MCCIS), and the Joint Operations and Intelligence Information System (JOIIS), which will provide respectively the Recognized Air, Maritime and Ground Pictures. This paper gives an overview of the NATO Initial COP capability project, including its evolutionary implementation approach, and describes the technical solution selected to satisfy the urgent operational requirement in a timely and cost effective manner.