Promoting the continuing usage of strategic information systems: The role of supervisory leadership in the successful implementation of enterprise systems

Late-mover advantages, innovation capability, and leapfrogging upgrading of low-carbon technology: evidence from Chinese enterprise groups

This research examines the ability of Chinese enterprise groups to leapfrog the upgrading of low-carbon technologies. A theoretical model based on backwardness advantage, innovation theory, and technological leapfrogging theory is proposed to investigate the determinants of late-mover advantage and innovation capability in Chinese provinces. The study conducted interviews with 198 selected group managers from China's top 500 manufacturing enterprises and collected data from 248 related departments through questionnaires. The collected data was analyzed using the partial least square-structural equation model (PLS-SEM) to test the reliability and validity of the questionnaire and verify theoretical assumptions. Results show that late-mover advantage positively and significantly affects innovation capability, indicating that Chinese enterprise groups can utilize their late-mover advantage to innovate quickly and upgrade low-carbon technology. These findings have crucial implications for China's medium-term sustainable development trajectory.

Differing Effects of Implementation Leadership Characteristics on Nurses' Use of mHealth Technologies in Clinical Practice: Cross-Sectional Survey Study

BACKGROUND

Leadership has been consistently identified as an important factor in shaping the uptake and use of mobile health (mHealth) technologies in nursing; however, the nature and scope of leadership remain poorly delineated. This lack of detail about what leadership entails limits the practical actions that can be taken by leaders to optimize the implementation and use of mHealth technologies among nurses working clinically.

OBJECTIVE

This study aimed to examine the effects of first-level leaders' implementation leadership characteristics on nurses' intention to use and actual use of mHealth technologies in practice while controlling for nurses' individual characteristics and the voluntariness of use, perceived usefulness, and perceived ease of use of mHealth technologies.

METHODS

A cross-sectional exploratory correlational survey study of registered nurses in Canada (n=288) was conducted between January 1, 2018, and June 30, 2018. Nurses were eligible to participate if they provided direct care in any setting and used employer-provided mHealth technologies in clinical practice. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted for the 2 outcome variables: intention to use and actual use.

RESULTS

The implementation leadership characteristics of first-level leaders influenced nurses' intention to use and actual use of mHealth technologies, with 2 moderating effects found. The final model for intention to use included the interaction term for implementation leadership characteristics and education, explaining 47% of the variance in nurses' intention to use mHealth in clinical practice (F10,228=20.14; P<.001). An examination of interaction plots found that implementation leadership characteristics had a greater influence on the intention to use mHealth technologies among nurses with a registered nurse diploma or a bachelor of nursing degree than among nurses with a graduate degree or other advanced education. For actual use, implementation leadership characteristics had a significant influence on the actual use of mHealth over and above the control variables (nurses' demographic characteristics, previous experience with mHealth, and voluntariness) and other known predictors (perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use) in the model without the implementation leadership × age interaction term (β=.22; P=.001) and in the final model that included the implementation leadership × age interaction term (β=-.53; P=.03). The final model explained 40% of the variance in nurses' actual use of mHealth in their work (F10,228=15.18; P<.001). An examination of interaction plots found that, for older nurses, implementation leadership characteristics had less of an influence on their actual use of mHealth technologies.

CONCLUSIONS

Leaders responsible for the implementation of mHealth technologies need to assess and consider their implementation leadership behaviors because these play a role in influencing nurses' use of mHealth technologies. The education level and age of nurses may be important factors to consider because different groups may require different approaches to optimize their use of mHealth technologies in clinical practice.

Critical Success Factors Evaluation by Multi-Criteria Decision-Making: A Strategic Information System Planning and Strategy-As-Practice Perspective

Strategic information system planning (SISP) is a central process that enables organizations to identify the strategic alignment of their IT portfolio to achieve their business needs and objectives. The extant SISP literature has focused on theoretical and processual aspects and has left methodological ambiguity about how SISP is practiced. This paper contributes to the current knowledge by providing a mixed-methods SISP framework labeled CSF-MCDM for company-wide strategic alignment. The paper conducts a methodological synthesis, embracing an expert-based qualitative approach based on a PEST-SWOT and causal layered analysis to draw the critical success factors of a next-generation business system for an automotive company in South Korea. The derived CSF dimensions and sub-criteria are evaluated by the multi-criteria decision-making model, engaging a strategy-as-practice lens to SISP to enable an integrative analysis of IS strategy formulation, planning, and implementation. The findings reveal the relative strategic priorities of dimensions, the following core activities, and the global priorities for resource distribution planning for IS strategy of the firm. This paper argues that bringing replicability with SISP and diversifying methodological approaches within the organization is substantial. This paper also suggests that future researchers validate the suggested framework for scientific replicability and expand the SISP research stream within the entire IS/IT ecosystem.

Evaluating ERP systems success: evidence from Jordanian firms in the age of the digital business

Purpose

This paper aims to propose a theoretical extension of the information system success model (ISSM) to evaluate enterprise resource planning (ERP) success at an organizational level in Jordan. It explores whether information quality, system quality and service quality have a positive impact on both perceived usefulness and user satisfaction as antecedents of organizational impact.

Design/methodology/approach

A questionnaire was undertaken to gather data from chief information officers among Jordanian firms, with a total of 134 valid returns tested via partial least squares structural equation modeling.

Findings

The results showed that most of the research hypotheses proposed are empirically supported, with the exception of the influence of service quality on user satisfaction which was extremely low.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first empirical work that measured ERP success from an organizational perspective in Jordan. It also provides insight into how the factor of perceived usefulness is incorporated into ISSM in the mandatory system case and its influences on organizational benefits.

IT Process Alignment in Business Strategy: Examining the Role of Transactional Leadership and Organization Culture

Information technology (IT) is a competitive path and offers the entrepreneurial opportunity of accumulating business knowledge in capturing consumer behavior. This study employed a conceptual framework to investigate the information processing facet of IT–business alignment under the impact mechanism of transactional leadership in the manufacturing sector of Yunnan Province, China. Specifically, organization culture is taken as a moderating factor extracted from situational theory and has been highlighted as important in previous organizational research. This study aimed at investigating the impact of transactional leadership on IT–business process alignment and studying the moderating effect of organizational culture on the relationship between transactional leadership and IT–business process alignment. The empirical findings reveal that contingent reward and management by exception behaviors of entrepreneurs are significant drivers of IT–business process alignment. Furthermore, market culture had a moderating effect on the relationship between entrepreneurs’ transactional behaviors and IT–business process alignment. Similarly, hierarchy culture exerts a moderating effect on the path between contingent rewarding behavior and IT–business process alignment. Here, it exerts an insignificant moderating effect on the management by exception behavior and IT–business process alignment path. The study findings mainly reveal the association of transactional leadership with IT–business process alignment, along with the moderating role of organizational culture. This study contributes to the literature on business knowledge by showcasing empirical evidence—how information processing aids entrepreneurial behavior to capture market opportunities and consumer behavior.

Investigating the role of leader-member exchange for goal commitment in system implementation

Purpose

Although Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) has been studied within the domain of organizational psychology, it has not received major attention from information systems literature and researchers. Drawing on LMX theory and the theory of reasoned interaction, this study investigates the roles of LMX, individual member's attitude toward system adoption, supervisor influence and goal commitment on mandatory system implementation. Specifically, our model investigates the moderating role of LMX and how it can be interpreted for an individual member's system adoption in an organization.

Design/methodology/approach

Partial least square (PLS) technique with the field survey of 148 participants was used for this analysis.

Findings

The empirical test results in the field setting show that attitude and supervisor influence positively affect goal commitment in the system implementation. Furthermore, LMX is a significant moderator between attitude and goal commitment within organizations, but this moderating effect is not valid in the relationship between supervisor influence and goal commitment since it is a more complex process influenced by variables other than supervisor influence.

Originality/value

The results showed that the model in this research has high explanatory and predictive power and is valuable in offering insights and guidance for implementers initiating technology-related changes within organizations.

Organizational commitment and work-related implementation of enterprise social networks (ESNs): the mediating roles of employees' organizational concern and prosocial values

Purpose

This study, based on the cognitive dissonance and commitment theories, aims to show that employees with high organizational commitment take more advantage of enterprise social networks (ESNs) due to work-related motivations. Furthermore, this study used the tricomponent attitude model to show that the employees' organizational concern and prosocial values mediate the impact of the organizational commitment on the work-related use of an ESN.

Design/methodology/approach

In all, 361 employees from seven Iranian companies using different ESN software packages were surveyed. The validity of the hypotheses was evaluated using partial least square–structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

Findings

The results of this study confirm that the employees' organizational commitment has a positive impact on their work-related use of the relevant ESN directly and through the mediating roles of their organizational concern and prosocial values.

Originality/value

Previous studies have carefully addressed the role of organizational commitment in the implementation of conventional information systems. However, this is among the few studies addressing the role of commitment in the work-related implementation of ESNs. The results of this study shed light on how employees with a high level of commitment toward the organizations for which they work take advantage of ESNs due to a work-related motivation for the accomplishment of their duties, for bringing benefits into the organization and for helping their coworkers.

The Impact Mechanisms of Psychological Learning Climate on Employees' Innovative Use of Information Systems

The aim of this study is to explore the impact mechanisms of psychological learning climate on employees' innovative use of information systems (IS). Using structural equation modeling, this study develops a theoretical model to investigate how the psychological learning climate affects innovative IS use by introducing individual motivational factors as mediators. The model is tested through a survey of 163 employees using enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems in China. The results suggest that psychological learning climate is positively related to innovative IS use both directly and indirectly. The indirect effect works through motivating employees' intrinsic motivation and creative self-efficiency. This study adds to the literature on IS use by identifying and examining the role of psychological learning climate as a driver of innovative IS use. The findings could provide managers with an understanding of how management can inspire employees' potential in IS innovation.

Investigating the Adoption of ERP Systems

Software usability is one of the important issues of human computer interaction. It is a critical quality factor that controls the quality and the performance of any interactive software. This study aims to investigate the impact of usability attributes on end-user's acceptance of enterprise resource planning by extending the technology acceptance model to include five usability attributes, namely: task support, presentation, navigation, learnability and memorability. At the time of writing this article, to the best-known knowledge, there have been no studies in Jordan that have investigated the impact of software usability on the end users' continuous intention to use an enterprise resource planning system. The proposed research model is validated by conducting a survey from Dawacom Pharmacies based in Amman, Jordan. The results show that nine out of eleven hypotheses are significant. The findings indicate that all attributes have a significant impact on user acceptance. Except, the task support does not have a significant effect on perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use.

Perceived leadership behaviours and their effects on IT departments in Swiss financial companies

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of perceived transformational, transactional and laissez-faire (LF) leadership behaviours on both the effectiveness of the leader and satisfaction with the leader, as perceived by information technology (IT) subordinates in the Swiss financial sector.

Design/methodology/approach

In total, 182 IT professionals from 45 Swiss financial companies rated their perceptions using the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ 5X short). Results were evaluated using partial least squares based structural equation modelling.

Findings

Idealised influence (attributed) and individualised consideration as well as contingent reward (CR) leadership are positively related to effectiveness and satisfaction. LF leadership had a strong, significant negative effect on both outcomes. No augmentation effect of idealised influence and/or inspirational motivation over the effects of CR was found. These results are partly contradictory to findings of earlier studies. Additionally, stability problems/discriminant validity issues were found for some of the examined constructs.

Practical implications

Managers and leaders in IT departments in Swiss financial institutions should be advised of the possibly strong effects of CR on outcomes, together with the risks of potentially highly negative impacts of LF leadership, as well as the possible limitations of the stability and validity problems found. Leadership training could be used to this end. The paper gives specific advice on how the different findings could be included in such training.

Originality/value

IT can significantly contribute to a firm’s success, and leading people who deliver technology is becoming more important in an increasingly digitised world. No previous research has illustrated the effects of leadership behaviours on IT departments in Swiss companies.

Perspective of Yemeni students on use of online learning

Purpose

Online learning has evolved into a necessary means of learning because of its capability to enhance the education quality with minimum resources and infrastructure. Nevertheless, while academics have studied the espousal and use of online learning in various settings, the effect of compatibility and transformational leadership (TL) still remains to be seen, with regards to the Yemeni context. The purpose of this paper is to forward the Delone and Mclean Information System (IS) success Model by integrating compatibility and TL constructs as precursors to user contentment and actual use for estimating performance of students.

Design/methodology/approach

The questionnaire technique was utilised for gathering primary data from 448 students in nine state-funded Yemeni universities. The six variables in the recommended framework were gauged utilising current scales. Data analysis was done by deploying structural equation modelling through SmartPLS 3.0.

Findings

The outcomes encompassed three key results: overall quality (data, system and service quality), compatibility and TL have a favourable effect on user satisfaction and actual use; actual use considerably estimates user satisfaction; and user satisfaction and actual use have a favourable effect on performance of students.

Research limitations/implications

Because the research populace comprised students from nine state-funded universities, it did not include administrative and academic staff. Furthermore, as the study was cross-sectional, it studied the variables at a single point of time. Attaining experience in utilising online learning would transform the convictions of students, and this cannot be traced through a cross-sectional scrutiny. Moreover, the research relies upon self-testified measures for ascertaining the recommended research model. The reason behind this is that obtaining objective information regarding performance was not likely because of the privacy concern.

Practical implications

Despite the fact that Yemen is a low-income emerging nation with inadequate resources (World Development Indicators, 2017), it can capitalise on online-based learning that provides the advantage of excellent education and that too with limited supplies (Dokhan and Akkoyunlu, 2016; Yang et al., 2016). Additionally, online learning can enhance administration and communication, empower learning anywhere and anytime, and endorse fairness of education.

Originality/value

This study supplements the existing studies on information systems by blending overall quality, compatibility, TL, actual use and client satisfaction for estimating the effect of online learning among students from nine state-funded Yemeni universities. Moreover, the recommended model’s predictive prowess has a higher capability to elucidate and estimate the performance effect as against those acquired from few of the previous studies.

The mediating role of knowledge integration model for enterprise systems success

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to empirically demonstrate how knowledge management, particularly knowledge integration (KI), acts as a mediator in enterprise systems (ES) post-implementation stage and how transactional and transformational leadership styles are impacted toward ES success.

Design/methodology/approach

Drawing on the insights of 508 valid respondents from various business backgrounds that used ES in Malaysia, structural equation modeling was employed and the path modeling approach was used to investigate the underlying relationships between variables. The mediating effects were tested using the bootstrapping procedures presented by Preacher and Hayes.

Findings

The results support the mediating effects of KI mechanisms and both leadership styles toward ES success. The analysis revealed the importance of KI in an organization, especially by the leaders who manage the complexity of the ES in the post-implementation stage.

Research limitations/implications

The study can be extended by analyzing other leadership styles in-detail.

Practical implications

This paper is useful for practitioners as it acts as a guide to conduct management practice for business managers.

Originality/value

The results demonstrate the importance of leaders’ adoption of KI mechanisms in various business domains. This study approach can be used to investigate which sub-items of the leadership styles are more likely to promote KI mechanisms.

The effect of leadership in the development of innovation capacity

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of leadership on culture and on the structure of learning, and of these two constructs on the innovation capacity.

Design/methodology/approach

A quantitative study utilising a survey was carried out. By means of an ad hoc questionnaire, educational administrators were asked about some characteristics of their organisations. The authors have proven the model of research through a model of structural equations, that is, by means of the partial least squares technique.

Findings

The hypothesis is confirmed that leadership affects culture and learning structure, and both impact on the innovation capacity of schools.

Practical implications

This work addresses the role of three critical aspects in the management of educational organisations—leadership, culture and structure—in the development of innovation that is essential in improving organisational development.

Originality/value

The role of leadership in the development of favourable conditions for innovation is verified, as is the impact of these conditions on the innovation capacity of educational organisations.