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The need for the improved implementation of information technology (IT) has been identified in both empirical and highly structured research studies as being critical to effective innovation and development at an industry and enterprise level. This need is greater in the construction industry as it has been relatively slow to embrace the full potential of IT‐based technologies. In an attempt to understand why the construction industry lags other industries in the uptake and effective implementation of IT, this study reports on an investigation of the Australian construction industry, which identifies the impediments or barriers to IT implementation and the most effective coping strategies to overcome them. A questionnaire‐based research approach was adopted for this purpose and a total of 134 valid survey responses were received from various architectural, engineering and construction professionals. The questionnaire was designed to identify perceptions of the most significant barriers to IT implementation and to determine the most “practical” and “effective” corresponding coping strategies to mitigate their effects at three decision‐making levels: Industry; Organization; and Project.

The primary purpose of this study is to examine the effect that information system capability had on e‐business information technology (IT) implementation strategy; and to understand how the quality of the implementation process for IT strategy could affect e‐business performance.

This study performed a survey of chief information officers from 1,000 major firms in Taiwan. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to test for the validity of research hypotheses.

Results showed that the capability of information systems could have a direct and significant effect on the quality of IT strategy implementation, and how the quality of this process could affect e‐business performance.

Every organization hopes to improve corporate competitiveness and transform its enterprise through the effective implementation of IT strategy. This study examined how information systems capability could affect the implementation of enterprise IT strategy. However, since large firms in Taiwan are the primary research subjects of this study, the conclusions may not be applicable to enterprises in different countries or cultures. Future studies could examine the subject from the three aspects of technology, organization, and environment to understand the effect that each of these aspects has on e‐business information systems capability.

With the rapid development of information technology, the introduction of innovative strategy dealing with IT has become an important topic of research, and has become a focus in the era of e‐business. As a result, organizations feel it is important to discover the shortcomings in information system capability factors that must be improved from the individual, group, or organization levels, and develop appropriate implementation frameworks for IT strategy based on this foundation.

This study uses empirical analysis to examine the effect that the capability of information systems has on the quality of implementation of IT strategy. A compilation of relevant literature showed that most studies have focused on conceptual frameworks or have examined the question of IT strategy from the level of technology. Few studies have examined the effect that information system capability has on IT implementation strategy. Therefore, the results and findings of this study could provide an important reference for IT strategy implementation, in the era of e‐business.

There have been major efforts to develop the technology for integrated construction environments and the mechanisms needed to improve the collaboration between construction professionals. Evidently, the development and usage of such an environment is a complicated task. The two issues that can be among the main contributors to this are: the development of the technology and its effective implementation. These two issues are addressed separately in this paper. The paper first explains the approaches of sharing project information, followed by a review of a recent project in this area, the result of which is a distributed integrated construction environment based on the industry foundation class (IFC), capable of supporting a number of construction applications. This environment is capable of supporting a construction team to work collaboratively over the internet. It then discusses the difficulties facing the successful implementation of such environments in construction organisations. This is addressed within the context of two management models for effective implementation of IT: the resource‐based model and the Nolan model.

Although aligning information technology (IT) with quality management (QM) is a popular concept, it has not yet been properly, theoretically and empirically grounded. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to identify critical factors for the effective implementation (CFEI) of IT-enabled ISO-9000 quality management system (QMS).

The primary field data were collected through a questionnaire survey of 381 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in India. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were applied to check the reliability and validity of the data collected. First, using pattern matrix, 48 items (extracted from relevant literature) representing CFEI of IT-enabled ISO-9000 QMS were grouped into six latent variables (eigenvalue⩾1). Second, to test the relationship among CFEI, firm performance and competitive positioning, six hypotheses were formulated and tested using structural equation modelling (SEM) procedure.

The study results found that identified CFEI of IT-enabled ISO-9000 QMS, i.e. “strategic attributes” (β=0.517), “tactical attributes” (β=0.323), “operational attributes” (β=0.281), “organisational infrastructure and processes” (β=0.231), “system knowledge” (β=0.194), “alignment of system with firm’s strategy” (β=0.230), have a significant effect (p<0.05) on the successful implementation of ISO-9000 QMS. The critical factors are found to have a direct and positive impact on the firm’s performance. Study results found that the critical factors do not directly affect the firm’s competitive positioning (β=−0.097), but they do so indirectly through customer satisfaction (β=0.627) and operational performance (β=0.482).

The proposed model provides critical factors to align IT system with ISO-9000 QMS which is highly required mainly for SMEs. The study will provide a mean by which small manufacturing firms can counter the effects of increasing global competition.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the most significant barriers to successful implementation of information technology (IT) in higher educational institutions (HEIs) of India. Although, educational institutions are investing in IT, they have been not been able to leverage it the same way as other business organizations. The present investigation will assist the management of HEIs to distinguish the key barriers affecting productive IT implementations and further take appropriate measures to deal with it.

For the purpose of the study, focus group and semi-structured interviews were conducted with academicians, administrators, functional heads, and IT staff from various HEIs of India. This research attempts to discover the major barriers to successful implementation of IT in HEIs using an interpretive structural modeling (ISM) methodology. Furthermore, structural analysis and classification of barriers is done using MICMAC analysis.

The results identified the key barriers that if dealt with can help overcome or lower the effect of other barriers preventing successful IT implementation in HEIs. It will provide roadmap to managers and administrators of HEIs to take appropriate measures to overcome the major barrier to effective implementation of IT.

Several authors have been studied barriers to implementation of IT in industry and educational institutions, but none have found the most significant barriers that affect successful implementation of IT and may drive other impediments. This research draws inspiration and is being carried out for Indian HEIs.

Information regarding best practices of information technology (IT) management in K‐12 schools provides school leaders with a basis for developing their own IT systems or evaluating their existing systems. Important as this information is, limited literature coverage exists on this topic. Over 100 technology audits conducted by graduate students in school organizations in north‐east Ohio in the United States have yielded insights of best practices that school leaders should find useful. The insights discussed in this article include attention to the access rate of users, leadership promise, technology planning, staff development, technical support, strategic hardware and software procurement, the technology budget, and an expanded view of infrastructural facilities. The article concludes with recommendations to school leaders who are interested in taking their IT practices to another level of excellence.

The purpose of this paper is to bridge the gap in understanding the effects of external involvement on new product market performance. Particularly, the authors investigate the mediating effects of speed-to-market of new products and moderating effects of information technology (IT) implementation.

This study is based on the high-performance manufacturing (HPM) project database collected from 366 manufacturing plants in ten countries and three representative industries. The hierarchical regression analysis is employed to explore the relationships in the model.

The empirical findings indicate that speed-to-market of new products positively and significantly mediates the relationship between customer involvement and new product market performance. The results also demonstrate that IT implementation moderates the relationship between external involvement and speed-to-market of new products. More importantly, the findings reveal that supplier involvement is less likely to lead to the enhancement of speed-to-market if the firm is not able to establish a higher level of IT implementation.

This analysis uncovers the way of how customer and supplier involvement are related to new product market performance, and highlights the importance of IT implementation in absorbing and exploiting external resources.

This paper moves us from a simplistic understanding of external involvement to a more nuanced and complex model which is closer to reality. The obtained findings highlight the importance for manufacturers to establish speed advantage of new products and implement IT as an enabler.

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) projects failing to meet user expectations is a cause for concern as it often leads to considerable time and money losses. The purpose of this paper is to understand the causal factors for such failures in the Indian context.

A scientific case study research methodology was followed. The unit of analysis: a failed ERP project followed by a successful one in the same organization. Data were collected through interviews, observation and study of archival documents. Analysis was methodical and validated through a triangulation approach.

The results suggest that it is the manner in which key critical success factors (CSFs) such as top management support are operationalized; good project management; a smaller scope and a hybrid approach of integrating the legacy system with the ERP that facilitates adoption and leads to a succesful implementation.

The study extends the work of earlier researchers in a new market – India. It identifies important constructs, composites of existing CSFs, which future research could measure as ex ante predictors of ERP project success.

The authors offer several guidelines related to the role of top management, the importance of simplicity of scope, change management steps – all of which would help implementation teams better manage projects.

The two case methodology of a failed implementation followed by a successful one in the same organization is unique, in the Indian context. This is the closest to a controlled experiment one can have in case study research. The findings pave the way for the development of predictive instruments of ERP project outcomes.

Effective flow of data and communication at every stage of a construction project is essential for achieving required coordination and collaboration between the project participants, leading to successful management of the projects. In present scenario, when project participants are geographically separated, adoption of information communication technology (ICT) enables such effective communication. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to focus on ICT adoption for building project management.

It is difficult to quantitatively evaluate the benefits of ICT adoption in the multiple enterprise scenario of building project management. It requires qualitative analysis based on the perceptions of the construction professionals. The paper utilizes interpretive structural modeling (ISM) technique to assess importance of perceived benefits and their driving power and dependence on other benefits.

The developed ISM model shows that all the categories of benefits, i.e. benefits related to projects, team management, technology, and organization are inter‐related and cannot be achieved in isolation. But, organization‐ and technology‐related benefits have high‐driving power and these are “strategic benefits” for the project team organizations. Thus, organizations are required to give more attention on strategically increasing these benefits from application of ICT.

This analysis provides a road map to managers or project management organizations to decide that if they are planning ICT adoption for achieving certain benefits then which are the other driving benefits that should be achieved prior to that and also which are the dependent benefits that would be achieved by default.

Pressure for reform and change in the public services will continue irrespective of the political composition of governments. There are many interrelated pressures for change, some of the key ones being the need to contain public spending (to under 40 per cent GNP?) in the face of ever increasing global competition, changing demographic and employment patterns, increasing need and demand for services, and the need to find innovative solutions to obdurate problems of local levels ‐ health, housing, community safety, unemployment and so on. Above all, this will require greater productivity; changing skill boundaries, demarcations and mixes; far greater applications of technology and innovative community‐based multi‐agency working ‐ beyond rhetoric. Unfortunately, much current research, scholarship and commentary is “locked into” individual public sectors ‐ health, education, public administration and so on. This means that it is likely to be informed by existing frames of reference which already lie within these sectors. A wider flow of ideas, theory and critical analysis across private and all public sectors could lead to the development of new paradigms of insight, understanding and practice. This would prove a further impetus for a bottom‐up social movement with a communitarianist agenda. Unfortunately this is most unlikely to be promoted top‐ down because most politicians are also “locked into” the binary thinking of Fordist modernism.