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User identifiers/passwords are an integral part of the first line of defence of a computer system. Ideally, each user should have a unique logon assigned to him or her but because of work demands, the practice of sharing logons in user groups is now emerging. A study of security officers in a large Australian organization examined the security awareness of these officers and the reasons for, and current management practices of, shared logons. It was found that work flow efficiency was more important than access control and that policies for user group access control are urgently needed.

Knowledge maps (KMaps) are a relatively new concept. The purpose of this paper is to identify the factors that encourage or impede the adoption of KMaps by computer software maintenance professionals.

In total, six prototypes were developed for a muti‐national software organisation and demonstrated during 19 semi‐structured interviews conducted to establish adoption factors. Data were analysed qualitatively through NVivo^TM software, according to the steps in Carney's Ladder of Analytical Abstraction.

Encouragement factors were found to be those that organisational management has direct control over such as communicating and promoting KMaps and appointing a management champion. Impeding factors were those under the control of software maintenance management and are more difficult to manage. They focused on personal factors (staff's perception of the usefulness and ease of use of KMaps), subjective norms (peer influence and culture), behavioural control (training) and the design of the KMap itself.

While the research has provided an exploratory KMap Adoption (KAM) Model, it has done so through the lens of innovation adoption and diffusion theories. There are opportunities to examine the topic in a wider manner to provide a more holistic view of KMap adoption.

From adoption factors, the study's explanatory framework, named the KAM, was synthesized and recommendations are made for push and pull strategies to maximise encouragement and minimise impediment factors identified in KAM.

KMaps are ideally suited for resolving many of the traceability problems in computer software maintenance. They improve the ability to find the right “expert” to help solve a software problem quickly when it arises.

The aim of this paper is to benchmark the quality of web sites of major public accounting (PA) firms by seeking the opinions of potential clients and analysing the data to establish best quality practice for PA web sites.

The study was conducted in a controlled laboratory setting in which potential clients of PA firms used a modified version of the WebQual™ questionnaire to evaluate the web sites of six leading PA firms. Design science provided the guiding paradigm but its weaknesses were ameliorated by drawing on constructivism and pragmatism to provide context and practicality for the research.

The study established web site quality profiles of six leading PA firms. The interpretation of findings is influenced by axiology and rhetoric and are both unbiased (determined by statistical means) and biased (influenced by the researchers' values). Data analysis clearly showed that the usability construct reflected the highest quality at all levels while riskiness was the construct with the lowest quality level.

The use of multiple paradigms (design science, constructivism, and pragmatism) produced the desired insights to determining web site quality issues for the PA sector for the key reason that they complemented each other rather than being in conflict. However, the usefulness of the approach is dependent on follow‐up research to confirm the findings with the PA firms concerned and to monitor any action taken by them in response to the study's findings.

By benchmarking a number of PA web sites, practices within the sector will be able to learn from the findings and be able to improve the quality of their web sites thereby retaining the competitive edge to meet their clients' needs.

The paper reflects on the value of the multi paradigm approach to web site quality research design and conduct and discussion of findings. It was concluded that design science provided the necessary research rigour while the other two paradigms enabled the researchers to bring their worldviews on ontology, epistemology, axiology and rhetoric to the research.

The twenty‐first century knowledge driven economy has seen increasing importance being placed on maximising the organisation's intellectual capital (IC). At the same time knowledge management (KM) systems are being developed. The paper establishes similarities between the two and proceeds to develop a systematic approach to linking them through the intellectual capital web (ICW). There are six components with the ICW: strategic objectives, management systems, measurement systems, knowledge workers, catalysts and reward and incentive systems. The integration of IC and KM requires alignment of KM processes with IC assets to meet the organisation's strategic needs. A theoretical conjecture is developed in which the components of elements of ICW are interweaved to achieve strategic objectives. The systematic approach outlined in the paper should offer organisations valuable guidelines to maximising their IC assets and managing their knowledge management processes.

The business benefits that can be achieved have dominated the considerations as to whether or not to outsource information systems (IS). Very little attention appears to have been given to the compromises in IS security and control that follows such a move. Evaluates the loss in IS security and control when IS outsourcing occurs and proposes a new security framework for such a situation. Under IS outsourcing the emphasis changes from the physical protection of assets to the recovery of these resources, and application controls become less important relative to general controls. To be successful, the security and control framework for IS outsourcing needs to be integrated into the broader relationship that exists with the outsourcing vendor.

The need to measure organisational effectiveness has become increasingly accepted. Performance measurements can readily be developed but need to be further defined as performance metrics. The paper's aim is to show how the use of the decomposition technique enables the development of electronic commerce (e‐commerce) metrics.

In the approach to value decomposition, value constructs are identified at the highest level, decomposed into the next levels, referred to as value variables, which are further broken down into value metrics. During decomposition, proper splicing has to occur. This implies that values (constructs, variables and metrics) should be carefully specified and that their interconnections should be controlled. Furthermore, functional integrity is required so that a succinct statement can be made for each metric.

The paper identified value constructs and value variables for six e‐commerce applications. They are aggregated into corporate performance management measures so that the various lower level value metrics can be made to work seamlessly together.

Although there is large agreement on the key values obtained from e‐commerce, it is difficult to achieve the degree of integrity required by the decomposition technique. Further research is required.

Performance measures provide a factual representation of important business activities and enable greater preciseness in their execution. The paper provides insight into values and associated measures in important activities of e‐commerce, namely VRM, B2C, B2B, CRM, EP, and ERP.

The paper examined the nature of information technology (IT) outsourcing decision making and developed a theoretical framework consisting of five phases of decision making. The phases augmented those of Simon and consisted of intelligence, analysis and planning, strategy selection, action, and evaluation and monitoring. Australia's largest organisations and government agencies were surveyed by questionnaire to establish the importance of tasks and subtasks to be performed when completing each of the five phases. Participants possessed high experiences with IT in general and IT outsourcing in particular. When the importance of phases vis‐à‐vis each other were established, the action phase and evaluation and monitoring phase were found to be more significant than the other phases. For the action phase, which was statistically the most significant phase, the tasks of selecting an IT‐outsourcing vendor and determining a suitable IT‐outsourcing contract were dominant and strongly correlated. Findings from the study should help organisations identify and therefore better manage critical decision‐making activities during IT outsourcing particularly those related to vendors and contracts.

This paper seeks to determine attitudes that impact on knowledge transfer between academics (university teaching and research staff) employed in today's competitive, technology‐based university setting.

The study generated a rich set of data by conducting, first, an exploratory, qualitative study followed by a confirmatory, quantitative study. Through this process, an initial list of 402 attitudes to knowledge transfer was derived which was narrowed to 75 for the quantitative survey which, through factor analysis, was further reduced to 24 variables. The 24 variables were grouped into four factors for which trust and motivation are more relevant to the knowledge provider and absorptive capacity and knowledge regeneration for the receiver.

High levels of agreement were found for the propositions that senior academics lacked compensation for mentoring activities, and hence, the motivation to transfer knowledge, and that a heavy teaching load prevented the absorption of transferred knowledge. By contrast, disagreement was found with the propositions that an elderly age impeded the transfer of knowledge or adapting to new ways of transferring knowledge.

From the responses obtained it was possible to identify those rated highly and from which conclusions could be drawn that may assist the university concerned to improve knowledge transfer among its academic staff. Compensation to senior academics for their time and effort was seen as the most important pre‐requisite for knowledge transfer. A reduction in teaching loads and the range of expectations to which academics are subjected would also facilitate knowledge transfer as would increasing academics' use of ICT and ability to assess its effectiveness, as well as recognising that knowledge transfer during social interactions may ameliorate the lack of knowledge transfer in the more formal, technology‐based environment.

The paper identifies key attitudes of academics to transferring knowledge to colleagues in the changing work place at universities in which academics are expected to perform at a high level in diverse activities and use technology to maximise their efficiency and effectiveness.

The paper seeks to overcome previous research limitations by examining both macro (industry, country) and micro (functions, enterprise) level phenomena within the information communication technologies (ICT) use of small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). Australia and Germany were chosen because both recognise the importance of SMEs.

The study adopted an interpretivist philosophy and a qualitative case study method that enables gathering data which are rich in detail. Semi‐structured, on‐site interviews were carried out in eight firms of various classifications.

The study found that, for micro enterprises, ICT is only emerging in the form of systems that have the potential to facilitate the interactions with the outside. Small enterprises rely heavily on personal interactions, which they supplement with the use of ICT. In medium enterprises, ICT is more extensively used in interactions, both internally and with the environment. The differences between Australian and German firms do not significantly affect the extent to which ICT is infused into observed SMEs.

The study used the interpretivist research paradigm which is based on the assumption that reality is socially constructed. Findings indicated the need for increased organisational competencies and greater scope to use ICT to facilitate interaction with the external environment, especially customers and suppliers and forming alliances.

The case studies provided rich stories of ICT infusion in the important SME sector on an international scale and produced context‐aware institutionalised expectations that can help other SMEs understand ICT use. They can use the findings as benchmarks against which to measure their own endeavours.

The aim of this paper is to provide an understanding of information technology (IT) governance, from both a theory and practice perspective, and to identify current theory‐practice gaps within the organisations studied.

This study developed a complementary and collaborative model of IT governance and used a multiple case approach in which IT governance is examined against the model in four major universities. Case study research is qualitative in nature enabling insights into the “how” and “why” of IT governance to be gained.

Based on underlying theory, the study was able to develop propositions regarding IT governance practices, observe current practices within the participating universities and establish gaps between theory and practice. The study identified theory‐practice gaps in each of three IT governance dimensions: structure, process and people. Gaps ranged in significance from small to large. Two large gaps existed which require attention: they are in respect of integrating IT governance mechanisms and raising the awareness and understanding of the concept among senior management.

The model of IT governance developed for the research can be further developed and refined. In addition, the university context may have imposed limitations as different findings could arise in different contexts. Furthermore, the participating CIOs and IT directors could have brought their own values and beliefs to the research when interpreting the IT governance objectives of their university.

The model of IT governance developed for the research enables organisations to assess and map their IT governance against theoretical dimensions. By mapping observed practice against theory, the study was able to provide a mechanism of identifying theory‐practice gaps, where they existed.

IT is ubiquitous in nature because modern IT crosses organisational activities and has become strongly aligned with business activities. Thus IT governance can be viewed as an integral part of corporate governance and requires senior management's attention. However, because of the specialised nature of IT, governance in this domain has unique characteristics. Yet, current literature reflects a lack of maturity and points to diverse and inconsistent concepts of IT governance as well as variations in how IT governance is implemented. The paper reduces uncertainty for corporate executives by systematically synthesising current literature, developing a theoretical model and testing it against current practice.