K.M. Nelson’s research while affiliated with The Ohio State University and other places

Demonstrating the business value of information technology (IT) strategies is a major concern for most organizations. Previous research in this area has yielded mixed results, further confounding the issue. Much of the previous literature has focused on the return on investment in hardware and software as the definition of business value. We take a different approach to the IT business value problem by examining whether organizations that deploy IT with differing strategies enjoy better business value efficiencies. This paper describes an eight-year longitudinal study of a homogeneous set of credit unions to determine if different IT deployment strategies (interactive Web site, informational Web site, or no Web site) result in greater credit union efficiency. Data envelopment analysis by Cooper et al. (2000) and Charnes et al. (1978) was used to calculate efficiency scores. Our results indicate that credit unions who use the strategy of interactive Web sites have greater overall and asset efficiency than credit unions with informational or no Web sites. Credit unions with informational Web sites have greater asset efficiency than those without Web sites, but do not show a difference in overall efficiency. Our analysis shows no statistical difference in personnel and operational cost efficiencies between the three different groups of credit unions. This result contradicts conventional wisdom that a business benefit of IT is cost reduction.

One of the least studied areas of information systems (IS) is software operations support, also known as software maintenance. As organizations move to the e-business economy, software is either being purchased, modified or outsourced. What remains inside the organization is software support and modification, the evaluation of the user business process, assisting users with new or modified requirements, and ongoing platform or technology changes and upgrades. This study identifies and explores the personal competencies required of IS support personnel to succeed in a non-development-oriented environment. Since organizations are evolving to the new economy at different rates, two different types of organizations are examined in this study. The results of this study indicate that the personal competencies of support personnel differ in these two contexts.

Information systems (IS) is a complex discipline constantly in need of additional operationalized theories and constructs. The need exists for methodologies that are qualitative and interpretive but result in theories and constructs that can be subjected to empirical testing. This paper proposes that revealed causal mapping (RCM) is a methodology that meets this need. This paper uses the domain of IS expertise to demonstrate the potential role of RCMs in IS research. Revealed causal maps fall in the category of evocative research methods. These methods are used where general theoretical frameworks are available but operationalization of concepts and specification of linkages among the concepts are still not available. While qualitative methods are especially useful in exploratory areas such as IS expertise, they cannot be used to test emergent theory. The theory must be transformed into testable hypotheses, and then operationalized into measurable constructs. Once this transformation is complete, the theory can be tested using established quantitative methods. Revealed causal maps can facilitate the transformation from qualitative inquiry to quantitative inquiry as an evocative research method.

This research investigates technology flexibility, which is the technology characteristic that allows or enables adjustments and other changes to the business process. We develop dimensions and determinants of this phenomenon and demonstrate a methodology for the validation and the study of flexibility. The results of a test of software system flexibility are reported. Technology flexibility has two dimensions, structural and process flexibility, encompassing both the actual technology application and the people and processes that support and use it. The flexibility of technology that supports business processes can greatly influence the organization’s capacity for change. Existing technology can present opportunities for, or barriers to, business process flexibility through structural characteristics such as language, platform, and design. Technology can also indirectly affect flexibility through the relationship between the technology maintenance organization and the business process owners, change request processing, and other response characteristics. These indirect effects reflect a more organizational perspective of flexibility.

A number of programming paradigms have risen and fallen in popularity since the invention of the computer. Many of these have been accompanied by claims that they are more natural ways to program. Little evidence has been offered to justify these claims. One possible way of providing this evidence is to compare programming paradigms to a standard of naturalness. We compare the structured and object-oriented programming paradigms to such a standard: the cognitive paradigm that supplies the general-purpose cognitive tools for one's daily life. To do so, we propose a methodology that draws upon techniques used in the fields of anthropology, archaeology, and comparative linguistics to compare paradigms indirectly through their artifacts. The results of the comparison indicate that the object-oriented programming paradigm can be considered to be more natural than the structured programming paradigm. Further, it indicates that the method of comparing and exploring programming “cultures” though their artifacts opens a number of interesting possibilities

This study evaluates a vendor supplied structured methodology which was implemented in a large manufacturing organization. Thirty projects using the methodology are measured for efficiency and effectiveness of software maintenance performance. The performance of these projects is evaluated using both objective metrics and subjective measures taken from stakeholders of the software applications. The performance results of these thirty systems are then contrasted to the performance results of thirty five applications in the same organization that do not use this structured methodology and to one hundred and sixteen applications across eleven other organizations. All of these applications had been in operation at least six months when they were studied. The software applications developed and maintained using the structured methodology were found to have some significant cost and quality performance gains over the applications that do not use this methodology

This research investigates technology flexibility, which is the technology characteristic that allows or enables adjustments and other changes to the business process. Technology flexibility has two dimensions, structural and process flexibility, encompassing both the actual technology application and the people and processes that support it. The flexibility of technology that supports business processes can greatly influence the organization's capacity for change. Existing technology can present opportunities for or barriers to business process flexibility through structural characteristics such as language, platform and design. Technology can also indirectly affect flexibility through the relationship between the technology maintenance organization and the business process owners, change request processing, and other response characteristics. These indirect effects reflect a more organizational perspective of flexibility. This paper asks the question, “what makes technology flexible?” This question is addressed by developing and validating a measurement model of technology flexibility. Constructs and definitions of technology flexibility are developed by examining the concept of flexibility in other disciplines, and the demands imposed on technology by business processes. The purpose of building a measurement model is to show validity for the constructs of technology flexibility. This paper discusses the theory of technology flexibility, develops constructs and determinants of this phenomenon, and proposes a methodology for the validation and study of the flexibility of emerging technologies