Editorial

Citation

Irani, Z. and Kamal, M. (2013), "Editorial", Journal of Enterprise Information Management, Vol. 26 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/JEIM-07-2013-0055

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of Enterprise Information Management, Volume 26, Issue 6.

It gives us great pleasure to welcome our readers to the sixth issue of the 26 volume of Journal Enterprise Information Management (JEIM), and express our appreciation to them for their continuous support.

The sixth issue of volume 26 commences with a conceptual paper by Saleh Bukhari, Ahmad Ghoneim, Charles Dennis and Bothina Jamjoom, entitled “The antecedents of travellers’ e-satisfaction and intention to buy airline tickets online: a conceptual model”. This research is about the airline industry and based on the literature review conducted in this paper, airline companies are facing significant challenges in covering running costs. Furthermore, with increasing competition between travel agencies, traditional airlines and low-cost carriers, innovation is being encouraged to help drive down costs. To gain greater insight to this research area, the authors utilise the existing theories (e.g. Jeong et al., 2003; Ahn et al., 2007; Lau et al., 2011; Bai et al., 2008) on consumer behaviour and scales within web quality to develop a conceptual framework (based on nine constructs: information quality, system quality, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, e-trust, airline reputation, price perception, e-satisfaction and intention to purchase) for measuring travellers’ web satisfaction and willingness to purchase tickets through airlines’ web sites. This research is broad, based on the analysis and synthesis of literature relating to e-consumer behaviour, web quality and travel and tourism streams. The authors claim that the proposed conceptual framework can measure consumers’ electronic satisfaction and intention to purchase tickets from airlines’ web sites. Moreover, this framework may support decision makers to enhance and or modify their present marketing strategies and web site presence. As a whole, this research attempts to fill the void in the literature on e-consumer behaviour and web quality within the airline industry.

The above literature review paper is followed by a research by Azadeh Pishdad and Abrar Haider, entitled “ERP institutionalisation: exploring the influential factors”. In this research, the authors argue that considering ERP implementation through the lens of institutional theory, provides fresh insight that may help organisations better understand and manage ERP systems. In doing so, this research aims to explore the connexion of external and internal factors that contribute to ERP assimilation through the processes of adapting, routinising and institutionalising the technology within the organisation. Through this empirical research, the authors attempt to contribute to the ERP system implementation literature by applying a stage-based model that takes into account the pre-implementation, implementation and post-implementation stages of ERP assimilation into an integrated structure. As this research is still on-going; the paper presents the results of the field study conducted hitherto along with the instrument used for data collection. Primarily, this research follows a qualitative interpretive approach and aims to conduct four to five case studies in Australian organisations with different ERP implementation arrangements, such as:

• fully owned ERP solution;

• partly outsourced ERP; and

• cloud-based ERP.

One of the major finding of this study, reported thus far, is that ERP implementation is a process of aligning technology with organisational, social, cultural, economic, technical and other organisational environmental institutions.

The above paper is followed by Janice C. Sipior, Burke T. Ward and Regina Connolly, entitled “Empirically assessing the continued applicability of the IUIPC construct”. According to the literature findings, online sales (i.e. blockbuster sales) totalled US$35.3 billion between 1 November and 26 December 2011, an increase of 15 per cent compared to 2010 (comScore Inc). By contrast, overall US retail sales grew 3.8 per cent, according to the International Council of Shopping Centres. Recognising the significance of maximising consumer online purchase behaviour, web retailers are increasingly conscious of the need to reduce any consumer concerns that might negatively impact consumer trust in web sites and consequently impact online purchase behaviour, such as concerns regarding online information privacy. In further investigation, the paper attempts to evaluate internet privacy concerns by applying a research model, hypotheses and the internet users’ information privacy concerns (IUIPC) construct, to explore the role of privacy, trust and risk in online transactions. In order to validate the IUIPC research model, a paper-based survey questionnaire was disseminated across 63 part-time graduate students of a private university in the mid-Atlantic US region. The authors assert that this research methodology was employed as it increases generalisability, facilitates reliability and offers statistical power. The respondents are members of the online population, the vast majority (88.9 per cent) having over seven years of experience of using the internet. The findings indicate consistency such that the higher the trust a consumer holds for an online company; the less likely that consumer is to view providing personal information as risky.

Research exploring Soft ICT Capital is presented by Spyros Arvanitis, Euripidis Loukis and Vasiliki Diamantopoulou, entitled “The effect of soft ICT capital on innovation performance of Greek firms”. In this paper, the authors argue that limited empirical investigation of the potential of ICT to drive innovation has been conducted using large datasets. The authors further argue that few existing empirical firm-level studies of the effect of ICT on innovation performance merely focus on the “hard” ICT capital (i.e. the ICT related hardware/equipment), neglecting the role of the “soft” ICT capital (i.e. ICT knowledge and skills). As a result of such a research gaps, it becomes vital to empirically investigate the effect of various types of soft ICT capital on firms’ innovation performance in various national contexts. This research thus contributes by investigating the effects of four “soft” ICT capital types:

• ICT knowledge and skills;

• ICT personnel;

• ICT training of ICT personnel and users; and

• ICT unit on the innovation performance of Greek firms.

To empirically validate this research findings (as underpinned by Gujarati and Porter, 2009; Greene, 2011), a quantitative methodology has been adopted, based on the estimation of regression models. Using data collected through a survey based on a structured questionnaire from 271 Greek firms, innovation models have been estimated, having independent variables measured as hard ICT capital, examining four types of soft ICT capital and also the above traditional innovation determinants.

Ibraheem Alharbi, Suzanne Zyngier and Christopher Hodkinson, present their work entitled “Privacy by design and customers’ perceived privacy and security concerns in the success of e-commerce”. This research proposes a general conceptual model that aims to provide a deeper understanding of customers’ perceived privacy and security concerns in general and in relation to the success of e-commerce web sites, in particular. The proposed model is underpinned by research studies conducted by Ajzen (1991). The authors report that the potential of privacy and security concerns in e-commerce technologies has caused a number of organisations to heavily invest in implementing e-commerce systems. Nevertheless, this research also highlight that evaluating organisational practices and user's concerns in the success of e-commerce systems is therefore a significant issue for both practitioners and researchers. The existing models are subject to substantial discussion regarding the benefit of using e-commerce and user satisfaction constructs that is consistent with the technology acceptance and marketing literature. In this context, the proposed general conceptual model will provide a better understanding of customers’ perceived privacy and security concerns, particularly in relation to the success of e-commerce web sites. To validate the conceptual model, data were collected from six organisations across different industry sectors through in-depth interviews through four focus groups of a high-user demographic segment. The research identified privacy by design in the area of organisations’ practices and identifying the main areas of customers’ perceived privacy and security concerns. These themes were used as the basis for an analysis of customer concerns instrumental to the success of e-commerce.

Finally, we have a research paper by Nicolaos Basias, Marinos Themistocleous and Vincenzo Morabitto, entitled “SOA adoption in e-banking”. This research aims to investigate and analyse:

• factors influencing SOA adoption in e-banking environment; and

• to provide a methodological framework that explains these factors.

The authors argue that one of the fundamental reasons why banks fail to accomplish the benefits from service-oriented architecture (SOA) adoption is attributed to the lack of a framework that takes multiple perspectives (e.g. strategic view, IT infrastructure integration) of crucial factors (e.g. financial benefits, return on investment, costs, IT agility, etc.) into account. For this motive, the lack of such a methodological framework forms a significant research problem that necessitates thorough enquiry. In order to investigate this area the authors used keywords such as: “e-banking” and “SOA adoption” to identify and select from a large amount of 183 literatures for deeper investigation and analysis. A review with a procedure outlined by Webster and Watson (2002) downsizes literature to 66 e-banking or SOA literature sources, used in this paper. Having justified the rationale for conducting this research, the authors propose a framework that they believe will improve the decision-making process and support the banking sector in realising SOA adoption benefits. This research is based on:

• a critical review and analysis of the normative literature;

• the development of a conceptual framework for SOA adoption in e-banking; and

• the examination of this through a case study in a real environment.

Various data collection methods such as personal interview, archival records, documentation and observation were also used in this paper. The authors argue that due to a lack of thorough studies on analysing the factors influencing SOA adoption in e-banking environment, the current research findings provide new insights related to influential factors of SOA adoption in e-banking and extend the body of knowledge.

Zahir Irani and Muhammad Kamal

References

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