An Instrument for Assessing the Organizational Benefits of IS Projects

This paper reports the development of an instrument to measure the organizational benefits of IS projects. The basis for this instrument was a published framework that suggests three categories of such benefits: strategic, informational, and transactional. In a cross-sectional study of 178 IS projects proposed and approved for development, this framework was operationalized and empirically tested using the measurement model of LISREL. The analysis culminated in the validation and refinement of the these categories. The final instrument offers items under three separate subdimensions of strategic benefits: competitive advantage, alignment, and customer relations. Informational benefits are similarly comprised of information access, information quality, and information flexibility. Finally, transactional benefits are also shown to be of three types: communications efficiency, systems development efficiency, and business efficiency. Implications of this multidimensional instrument for IS practitioners and researchers are discussed.     

中国环境与规划（四）

中国人常说：“良药苦口,忠言逆耳”。在中国做了10年规划,我看到了一些不是简单的问题。有些问题不知道是否应该说出来,但是如果不说出来,我认为有愧领导的爱护。有—次,我与好朋友前纽约环境保护局局长、世界上一流的水处理专家ALAPPLETON交谈这些问题。没想到,他与我有许多共同的看法。后来,我告诉他我正在写一本有关对中国规划建议的书,不如他来个“友情演出”,替我写—篇我们对环境保护共同看法的文章。为了得到更多“外脑”的意见和支持,我要求编辑必须将原文登出。     

A New Immigration Regularization Policy: The Settlement Program in Spain

The topic of regularization of immigrants has occupied a position high on the agenda in Spain and elsewhere. In this paper, we contribute to this particular issue by providing an evaluative case study in Spain using administrative data from the Province of Barcelona from 2005 to 2009, which allows survival analysis, the follow‐up of migrants’ trajectories after regularization and the examination of the hazard of lapsing back into irregularity. Our analysis reveals critical differences on the effectiveness of two pathways to earned legalization in Spain as a policy: the 2005 Normalisation and the Settlement Program in full operation since 2006.     

The Industry-Level Impact of Information Technology: An Empirical Analysis of Three Industries*

As noted by several observers, information technology (IT) has rapidly evolved from “part of the organizational overhead” into a strategic resource capable of changing patterns of competition within industries [8, p. 275]. However, while this evolution has become part of the fabric for literature exploring the strategic impact of IT, very few studies have been undertaken to determine the specific influence(s) of technology-based competition on industry structure. The development of analytical frames for capturing aspects of industry behavior provides a potentially powerful tool for evaluating the influence strategic IT initiatives may have on current bases of competition. Drawing from the theoretical disciplines of industrial economics and strategic management, this study develops a framework for analyzing longitudinal changes in industry structure. Working within this frame, the study then analyzes the nature and change of structure in three industries during and after the introduction of strategic information technology. The findings suggest that in each of these industries structural characteristics were dramatically altered subsequent to the introduction of competitive-based IT. In two of the industries (airlines and industrial chemicals), early adopters broke away from other industry participants, in effect, forming unique bases of competition. In the remaining industry (drug wholesalers), previously distinct bases of competition consolidated, resulting in a more competitive industry structure than that which existed prior to the technological innovation.     

Makrosoziologie f��r Individualisten. Zur Kritik und Verteidigung kollektivistischer Erkenntnisziele

In this paper it is asked for the existence of macro-sociological laws in a realist perspective if one accepts the existence of emergence and macrodetermination. R. Keith Sawyers?? theory of emergence which favours the search for causal macro-laws will be criticised. He imports the argument of multiple realisation and wild disjunction from the philosophy of mind into sociology. But there are some weaknesses in his solutions to the problems dealt with which concerns action theory, reduction and macrodetermination, the difference between structural and efficient causality, and his ambiguous ontology. As a contraposition a realist ontology of social wholes will be outlined which combines contemporary ontology and anthropology. Accordingly holistic social wholes are build on intentional intertwinments between actors. All social wholes are of discrete, not of continuous nature. Therefore causal laws on a macro-social level seem to be impossible. But a classical argument of Peter Blau shows that non-causal laws of coexistence on the macro-level are possible. Therefore, an independent aim of macro-sociological research could be the search for macro-social laws of coexistence.     

Towards a critical realist epistemology?

When critical realists consider epistemology they typically start from “epistemological relativism.” We find this position necessary, but we also find it insufficient because it lacks a critique of the highly unequal social relations among observers themselves—relations that shape the very production of knowledge. While it is indeed the case that all knowledge is fallible, it is also the case that all knowledge is positioned, with a particular standpoint. What is more, the social power relations between standpoints organize the production of truth in ways that produce systematic distortions. In this paper, we propose a critical realist social epistemology. We introduce feminist standpoint theory and postcolonial theory as our suggested interventions into critical realism and we use two case studies of existing work to highlight i) the social production of truth and the real, and ii) what is at stake for radicalizing epistemology in critical realism. In so doing, our paper emphasizes the epistemic complexities that continuously shape ontology, a commitment to subaltern voices or experiences, and a thorough interrogation of the relations between positions of knowledge production.     

Analysis of longitudinal health-related quality of life data with terminal events

Longitudinal health-related quality of life data arise naturally from studies of progressive and neurodegenerative diseases. In such studies, patients’ mental and physical conditions are measured over their follow-up periods and the resulting data are often complicated by subject-specific measurement times and possible terminal events associated with outcome variables. Motivated by the “Predictor’s Cohort” study on patients with advanced Alzheimer disease, we propose in this paper a semiparametric modeling approach to longitudinal health-related quality of life data. It builds upon and extends some recent developments for longitudinal data with irregular observation times. The new approach handles possibly dependent terminal events. It allows one to examine time-dependent covariate effects on the evolution of outcome variable and to assess nonparametrically change of outcome measurement that is due to factors not incorporated in the covariates. The usual large-sample properties for parameter estimation are established. In particular, it is shown that relevant parameter estimators are asymptotically normal and the asymptotic variances can be estimated consistently by the simple plug-in method. A general procedure for testing a specific parametric form in the nonparametric component is also developed. Simulation studies show that the proposed approach performs well for practical settings. The method is applied to the motivating example.     

Arithmetic of Growth: Methods of Calculation,II

This calculational tutorial continues the presentation of an earlier article (Bartlett,1993 ). It starts with a news item that features one elderly person who has 67 grandchildren and 201 great grandchildren. This tutorial develops simple mathematical models to show how to calculate approximate average rates of growth of descendants using very simple assumptions plus the data from the news story. The model is then enlarged to describe the growth of populations and to see how the growth of populations is related to the growth of descendants and to fertility. The analysis is then generalized so it can be applied to other reproductive phenomena, such as the production of Ph.D.s. The goal is to illustrate the essential features of the simplest elements of the population growth process by introducing modeling that is within the reach of those who can use algebra.