Editorial

Citation

Irani, Z. and Kamal, M. (2013), "Editorial", Journal of Enterprise Information Management, Vol. 26 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/JEIM-07-2013-0054

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of Enterprise Information Management, Volume 26, Issue 5.

It gives us great pleasure to welcome our readers to the fifth issue of the 26 volume of Journal Enterprise Information Management (JEIM), and express our appreciation to them for their continuous support in growing the reputation of the journal. The update of the journal's scope to promote theory and practice has led to an increase in submissions that has allowed us to further the quality of the journal. This issue incorporate excellent “quality” submissions that focus on providing a mixture of conceptual, critical literature review(s) and practical contributions.

The fifth issue of volume 26 commences with a literature review paper by Anjum Razzaque, Tillal Eldabi and Akram Jalal-Karim, entitled “Physician virtual community and medical decision-making: mediating role of knowledge sharing”. This research highlights that despite healthcare and its infrastructures being costly to develop and administer (e.g. USA alone spends $2 trillion annually) and a complex service-oriented industry, it still suffers from quality service provision challenges, often manifesting in recurrently medical errors. The authors argue that to reduce the number of repeatedly occurring medical errors, decision-making processes at all levels need to be improved. The current research contributes in this effort by exploring social capital theory within a virtual community of practice, healthcare knowledge management process – knowledge sharing quality and medical decision-making quality. The authors comprehensively analysed the conventional and modern healthcare-related theoretical as well as empirical literature – to hence support the inter-relationships between theoretical constructs: social capital theory, knowledge sharing quality and medical decision-making quality, presented within a conceptual framework (supporting literature underpinning the conceptual framework include Bate and Robert, 2002; Huysman and Wulf, 2006; Nicolini et al., 2008; Willis et al., 2010; Birasnav et al., 2011). This research identified that the social capital theory has the potential to facilitate medical decision making within a virtual community of practice, as well as, knowledge sharing quality playing a mediating and facilitating role between social capital theory and medical decision-making quality.

The above literature review paper is followed by a research conducted by Ahmed Elragal and Nada Elgendy, entitled “Trajectory data mining: integrating semantics”. This research highlights that due to the widespread availability of positioning technology, trajectory data has rapidly augmented. The authors argue that as with all data, trajectory data requires modelling, processing and mining in to find and understand patterns and relationships behind the data. Trajectory data mining has thus gained recognition in extracting useful information and knowledge from the said data. Through this research, the authors examine how data mining can be applied to moving object trajectories. Within the context of the research, trajectories are described as the path, which an object traveling through space and time follows. This research aims to supplement trajectories with semantic interpretations, for example identifying the location name where the trajectory has stopped, to accomplish quality decisions. So as to adequately investigate such a topic and answer the research question (i.e. why semantics are needed while undertaking trajectory data mining tasks/projects?), an experimental quantitative approach is adopted in this research. The findings of this research indicate that some essential patterns and knowledge discovery is only attainable by understanding the semantics underlying the position of each point.

Vatcharaporn Esichaikul, Win Myint Aung, Clemens Bechter and Mariam Rehman present their research entitled “Development and evaluation of wiki collaboration space for e-Learning”. This research study discusses wikis – a type of collaborative software that enables one to edit, delete or modify web site content using a browser interface. The authors argue that wiki systems are adopted to offer the collaboration in and e-Learning environment; achieved without following any standard guidelines or procedures to develop a wiki collaboration space for e-Learning. Having justified the research gap in this research, the authors aim to define standard guidelines for the development of a wiki collaboration space for e-Learning. The authors assert that this will provide collaborative activities among students and between instructors and students. This research is carried out by following three steps (of the research design):

• first, to determine the general requirements and extended features of wiki collaboration space by conducting a requirement study and discussion with major stakeholders;

• second, to develop wiki collaboration space; and

• third, wiki collaboration space was evaluated for usability and collaboration efficacy.

The empirical findings highlight that the effectiveness of collaboration and usefulness of wiki collaboration space(s).

Then we have a research paper focusing on in Information Technology and Infrastructure Librarys (ITILs) by Norita Ahmad, Noha Tarek Amer, Faten Qutaifan and Azza Al Hilali, entitled “Technology adoption model and a roadmap to successful implementation of ITIL”. In this paper, the authors intend to contribute to the technology adoption literature by proposing the use of technology adoption model UTAUT as an adoption model of IT governance frameworks, explicitly ITIL (i.e. ITIL is a set of service management standard libraries that focuses on the IT industry, which was developed by the Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency). The authors aim to:

• support the decision makers to better understand and map ITIL processes with organisational performance;

• make appropriate decisions on the type of processes to implement; and

• the procedure/method to implement them.

A thorough analysis of the relevant literature was conducted to extract critical success factors influencing the implementation of ITIL. The proposed model (as underpinned by Venkatesh et al., 2003) was then implemented by applying it to a case study of a UAE-based company where the ITIL implementation project failed. The findings lead the authors to propose a roadmap for ITIL implementation. The suggested roadmap offers pragmatic guidance for organisations towards a successful ITIL deployment.

Thereafter, we have a paper from Rasha Abd El Aziz and Rasha Fady, entitled “Business improvement using organisational goals, Riva technique and e-business development stages: a case study approach”. The authors aim to contribute by examining how the organisational goals and vision together with a suitable business process modelling technique determine and shape e-business development, enabling an overall business improvement. In order to get a deeper insight, seven key decision makers were interviewed (through semi-structured interviews) at Incom Egypt – a case study organisation. Through this case study based research, the authors also elaborated and analysed the e-business development stages. According to the empirical findings it is clear that Incom Egypt attempted to automate their business processes to solve their existing problems but was not successful, mainly due to unstructured business processes and employees resistance. Based on these findings, the authors assert that setting clear goals that follow the organisation's mission and vision can direct managers towards making better decisions. Consequently, identification of business processes should be among the first steps to understand business structure, where inefficiencies in current activities could be detected, adjusted and improved.

Finally, we have a paper by Turki Alsudiri, Wafi Al-Karaghouli and Tillal Eldabi, entitled “Alignment of large project management process to business strategy: a review and conceptual framework”. This paper highlights that misalignment between large projects and the business strategy leads to a 30 per cent project failure. In an attempt to identify the issues, this research contributes by investigating the effects of alignment between project management and business strategy. Moreover, exploring its contribution towards enhancements in corporate performances for delivering the required business outcome (e.g. time-to-market, high quality, innovative technology, special feature, superior service and low-cost products). In doing so, this paper presents a framework (as underpinned by Srivannaboon and Milosevic, 2006; Srivannaboon, 2009) has been developed to provide a clear guide to the project management efforts to align large project management process to business strategy. According to the authors, case study is a good approach to explore the alignment deeply and to investigate the effect of alignment on the project success as well as the organisation performance. The authors claim to fill a research void by using stakeholder theory and the strategic management process as the theoretical lenses through which to analyse three case studies of telecommunication projects, and to offer a theoretical strategic framework to align project management in the planning phase with business strategy.

Zahir Irani and Muhammad Kamal

References

Bate, S.P. and Robert, G. (2002), “Knowledge management and communities of practice in the private: lessons for modernizing the national health service England and Wales”, Public Administration, Vol. 80 No. 4, pp. 643-663

Birasnav, M., Rangnekar, S. and Dalpati, A. (2011), “Transformational leadership and human capital benefits: the role of knowledge management”, Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 32 No. 2, pp. 106-126

Huysman, M. and Wulf, V. (2006), “IT to support knowledge sharing in communities, towards a social capital analysis”, Journal of Information Technology, Vol. 21 No. 1, pp. 40-51

Nicolini, D., Powell, J., Conville, P. and Martinez-Solano, L. (2008), “Managing knowledge in the healthcare sector. A review”, International Journal of Management Reviews, Vol. 10 No. 3, pp. 245-263

Srivannaboon, S. (2009), “Achieving competitive advantage through the use of project management under the plan-do-check-act concept’”, Journal of General Management, Vol. 34 No. 3, pp. 1-19

Srivannaboon, S. and Milosevic, D. (2006), “A two-way influence between business strategy and project management”, International Journal of Project Management, Vol. 24 No. 6, pp. 493-505

Venkatesh, V., Morris, M.G., Davis, G.B. and Davis, F.D. (2003), “User acceptance of information technology: toward a unified view”, MIS Quarterly, Vol. 27 No. 3, pp. 425-478

Willis, S., Sarnikar, S., El-Gayar, O.F. and Deokar, A.V. (2010), “Information systems and healthcare XXXIV: clinical knowledge management systems – literature review and research issues for information systems”, Communications of the Association for Information Systems, Vol. 26 No. 26, pp. 565-598