Editorial

Citation

Irani, Z. and Dwivedi, Y. (2012), "Editorial", Journal of Enterprise Information Management, Vol. 25 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/jeim.2012.08825caa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of Enterprise Information Management, Volume 25, Issue 3

It gives us great pleasure to welcome our readers to the third issue of Volume 25 of Journal Enterprise Information Management (JEIM), and express our appreciation to them for their continuous support during the past year. The continuous 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 conjectural and practical contributions.

The third issue of volume 25 commences with a research paper by Hamid Tohidi, Seyed Mohsen Seyedaliakbar, and Maryam Mandegari, entitled “Organizational learning measurement and the effect on firm innovation”. This paper proposes and validates a measurement scale to capture organizational learning capabilities and thereafter, examines how organisational learning capabilities (OLC) affect innovation. The authors argue that there are several models theorised in the normative literature that have been generated by statistical data from manufacturing firms. However, in this paper the authors present a structural equation model to measure OLC in the Iranian ceramic tile manufacturing industry. The proposed model has five dimensions; managerial commitment and empowerment, experimentation, risk taking, interaction with the external environment and openness and knowledge transfer and integration, that is evaluated through 23 items. The survey were sent to the employees of the business session of each factory and a total of 173 valid questionnaires were obtained and used to test the research model, employing Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), a particular analysis of structural equation modelling methods. In the validation process, both the principal components and the confirmatory factor analyses clearly corroborate the existence of the five dimensions mentioned in the theoretical work. Likewise, the scale provides information that could be used by those managers wishing to improve learning capability in their firms. In addition, the results in this paper highlight that the OLC has positive impact on the innovation. The authors assert that this research leads to the fact that organization environments, which facilitate learning are more innovative. In addition, OLC literature exemplifies that OLC has a significant impact on the effectiveness and performance of the organization. Therefore, it is essential to find a valid measurement that can evaluate OLC in an organization. The authors argue that a five-factor model that is introduced in this paper is a practical way to measure OLC.

Then we have a research paper by Debjani Bhattacharya, Umesh Gulla and M.P. Gupta, entitled “E-service quality model for Indian government portals: citizens’ perspective”. The authors in this paper propose a multi item scale for assessing e-service quality of government portals involving transactions. The authors identified the factors influencing e-service quality of government portals from an extensive review of performed by academic scholars and practitioners. A questionnaire was designed based on a review together with interviews of users of e-government applications. Responses were obtained and quantitative analyses were performed on these data to develop a scale. The authors denote that this scale can help in evaluating citizen perceived quality of e-services. From the overall findings, seven constructs i.e.: citizen centricity, transaction transparency, technical adequacy, usability, complete information, privacy and security and usefulness of information; were identified from the analyses which can be used to assess the demand-side service quality of government portals. The authors argue that despite a well-structured National level plan on e-government and adequate funding in India, most of the projects under the scheme are far below expectation levels when seen by citizens. Technology enabled applications have promised easy access to government services with economic gain in certain cases but they have not ensured citizens’ satisfaction. Improved service quality based on citizens’ need and expectation can reduce the gap between design and reality and act as positive trigger for adoption of e-government. The authors accentuate that this study can help government portal developers get an insight of users’ needs to improve design and implementation of online services. The issues are significant and cannot be overlooked in practice. In the end, the authors claim that this research study is original, as it provides an understanding of citizen perceived quality of e-services and adoption behaviour within the framework of web based environment of government services.

Thereafter, we have the paper by Boris Otto, entitled “Managing the business benefit of product data management: the case of Festo”. In this paper, the author investigates the question as to how the business benefits of product data management (PDM) can be assessed and realised. In particular, the author aims at understanding the means-end relationship between PDM and product data on the one hand and a company’s business goals on the other hand. To testify the conceptual claims, the author adopted a case study research approach. The case of Festo is unique and allows for a detailed examination of both the business benefits of PDM and of the interdependencies of various business benefit enablers. Due to the limited amount of scientific knowledge with regard to the management of PDM business benefits, the study is of an exploratory nature. The conceptual framework used to guide the study combines Business Engineering concepts and the Business Dependency Network technique. The overall findings in this paper are threefold:

1. 1.

   The paper explicates and details the understanding of the nature of PDM business benefits.

2. 2.

   It provides insight into the complexity and interdependency of various “means” – such as data ownership, product data standards, for example – and the “ends” of PDM, namely the contribution to a company’s business goals.

3. 3.

   The paper forms the baseline for a comprehensive method supporting the management of PDM business benefits. The author asserts that single-case studies require further validation of findings.

Thus, future research should aim at replicating the findings and at developing a comprehensive method for the management of PDM business benefits. From this research, other companies may take up the results as a “blueprint” for their own PDM activities and may reflect their own business benefits against the case of Festo. The author claims that this paper is one of the first contributions focusing on the means-end relationship between PDM and product data on the one hand and a company’s business goals on the other.

The last paper (a research note) of this issue is a comprehensive exploratory study by Zahir Irani, Vishanth Weerakkody, Muhammad Kamal, Nitham Mohammed Hindi, Ibrahim H. Osman, Abdel Latef Anouze, Ramzi El-Haddadeh, Habin Lee, Mohamad Osmani, and Baydaa Al-Ayoubi entitled “An analysis of research methodologies utilised in e-Government research: a user satisfaction perspective”. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the research design, methodologies and approaches utilised in electronic government (e-Government) research studies published in the last decade (2000-2012). A profiling approach is employed to analyse e-Government publications (with specific focus on user satisfaction) including examining variables such as: country of research, region, sample size, type(s) of respondents, data collection methods, and statistical test employed. Among the research design, methodologies and approaches adopted in the extant e-Government research studies, the authors identified that quantitative research based approach supported by statistical analysis was the most dominant approach applied by authors in the last decade. Few studies were found to use qualitative based approaches such as case studies and interviews. The authors assert that this piece of work will implications for researchers, journal editors, universities, and research institutions. The variables utilised in this study will allow researchers to conduct a comparative analysis between the profile of key e-Government journals and other Information Systems (IS) and Management Science journals. Also, as this is the first profiling research investigating the research design, methodologies and approaches used in e-Government research (by focusing on key e-Government journals); it is thus likely to form the basis and motivation for profiling other journals that have published e-Government research. The authors claim that the prime value and uniqueness of this research lies in presenting the type of research design, methodologies and approaches used in studies that focus on issues surrounding user satisfaction in e-Government research. This has been achieved by synthesising existing publications in Electronic Government: An International Journal (EG), Electronic Journal of Electronic Government (EJEG), International Journal of Electronic Government Research (EJEGR), Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy (TG:PPP), Government Information Quarterly (GIQ), Public Administration Review (PAR), Public Administration: An International Quarterly (PA), Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory (JPART), and Local Government Studies (LGS). These journals were short listed from the Scopus Database.

Zahir IraniEditor

Yogesh DwivediAssistant Editor