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IT platform migration to open systems (IPMO) bears a great deal of risk over all the associated processes, in terms of a major IT investment. Hence it requires empirical data and references for decision making. Although there have been a number of published papers encouraging or discouraging IPMO, the studies that deliver useful empirical evidence for IPMO decisions are rare. The obvious first step to resolve this problem would be to gain lessons from the organizations who experienced IPMO. Based on the Delphi study, we examine both the pre and post evaluations on IPMO benefits and risks and analyze the underlying reasons of different evaluations from different stages. Our results identify the most important factor the organizations should seriously consider, and which factor is easy to neglect at the ex-ante appraisal stage.

This paper examines the relationship between IT investment and the improvement of efficiency from the perspective of organizational contingency by the type of organizations and their maturity in IT use in terms of their history of e-commerce use. Organizations are divided into private and public in nature, and into experienced and inexperienced in e-commerce. An analysis was performed on data from 286 organizations in tourism industry. Comparison among the four groups showed differences in competitive and operational efficiency.

This paper studies small and medium sized financial agency"s management states that take advantage of the Korea Federation of Saving Bank"s data. It also presents the management state and the decision-making model that monitors progressive insolvency by standardizing transfer path between relevant groups. With this in mind, we extracted explanatory variables for predictions of insolvency by using existing studies of document related insolvency. First of all, we designed a state model based on demarcated groups to take advantage of the self organizing map that groups in line with a neural network. Secondly, we developed a transition model by standardizing the transfer path between individual banks in a state model. Finally, we presented a decision-making model that integrated the state model and the transition model. This paper will provide groundwork for methods of insolvency prevention to businesses in order for them to have a smooth management system in the financial agencies.

Research results show (1) there are two dimensions characterizing Korean IS practitioners：‘project-operation’ and ‘product-orientation-strategic-orientation’, (2) there are two distinctive and main career paths of Korean IS practitioners：generalists who support using information systems in the context of operation and specialists who are engaged in software development or improvement projects, and (3) Korean IS practitioners are experiencing serious and pervasive knowledge and skill deficiencies. Research results also provide clear evidence that Korean universities fail to provide eligible entry-level software developers and that the shortage of eligible entry-level software developers distorts both IS specialists’ careers and knowledge and skill requirements for them.

With the corporate environment nowadays being surrounded by plenty of information, the sharing of information among businesses through mutual cooperation tops the list of hot issues. Predictions of demands from the customer, business, or consumer by sharing information can affect the inventory and order production system. However, notwithstanding the importance of sharing information, empirical studies on quantitative use of information still remain insufficient in spite of many a discussion now being made on the sharing of information. This paper proposes to examine the ways meteorological information may affect the rises in the achievements of supply chains in distributive businesses, the kind of information that noticeably affects the consumer behavioral patterns in the distributive businesses but rarely perceived as a form of information shared by businesses. This study is based on a model in which meteorological information has been added as the one used to predict demands, after the beer distribution game has been modified to fit the current status, and simulations under an assumptive situation, where decisions are made on a daily basis, were conducted 50 times for a period of 1000 days for the generalization of the results, while at the same time a Duncan Test was conducted to determine the threshold to use the meteorological information that will be most profitable to the retailer, wholesaler, supplier and the supply chain as a whole. Our findings indicate that corporations have thresholds that vary from business to business depending upon the ratio of backlog costs to inventory costs. At the same time, our findings also show that there existed effective thresholds depending upon the ratio of backlog costs to inventory costs for the performance of the overall supply chain.

Trust is emphasized as one of the most important factors in various e-commerce related studies. It is no exaggeration to say that in the area of e-commerce, trust-building with customers determines a company’s success or failure. That is why most e-commerce based companies spare no time and effort in building trust with customers. Without exception, trust is one of the most critical factors influencing a customer’s decision making process of whether to purchase Internet automobile insurance. This study attempts to provide useful guidelines for the sales-enhancing strategies of Internet automobile insurers, by delving into research questions concerning 1) gender differences in Internet automobile insurance customers’ recognition of trust, and 2) gender differences in the effective trust factors influencing one’s intention to purchase of Internet automobile insurance. The study finds that while the shape of trust-recognition toward three types of trust factors is very similar for both gender groups, the intensity of trust for each gender group in overall is pretty different. The results indicate that there exist gender differences in the trust factors influencing one’s intent to purchase Internet automobile insurance. The results of this study will provide useful guidelines for Internet automobile insurers in establishing effective and differentiated marketing strategies.

The management of organizational Human Resource is steadily shifting away from pure hierarchical to market mechanisms that involve external vendors. HR Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) has recently emerged as a significant administrative innovation in an organization’s strategy. Our paper attempts to understand firm-specific factors influencing the scope of HR BPO needs. Study results show that IT maturity and firm size are influential factors on the scope of HR BPO needs. We hope that our attempt at empirically examining and predicting this emergent phenomenon will stimulate others to look at this important strategic challenge facing firms from a theoretical perspective. Such research initiatives will allow us not only to better understand this complex phenomenon, but also to drive useful management prescriptions grounded on theory-based research.

This study sought to explore how SMEs are utilizing EC. Drawing on existing research on IT and EC related field, this study presented the framework of EC utilization level and analyzed its affecting factors in the point of organizational perspectives; strategy and competency. The impact of EC utilization on firm performance was also examined by employing BSC. Structural equation model was applied to test the relationships among the theoretical constructs with data from 171 SMEs. The results showed that the rate of EC utilization in SMEs is growing quite rapidly. However, manufacturing related firms still remain at a lower level compared to service related firms. As for the two affecting factors of EC utilization level, it was found that the level of EC utilization appeared to be driven not by strategy but by competency. This result implicates that EC utilization in SMEs doesn’t reach to strategic purpose yet, while it is dependent on firm’s competency. As far as the impact of EC utilization on firm performance, the study showed that the level of EC utilization has significant relationship with all perspectives performance indicators of BSC. This study can provide the managers with current EC utilization pattern and the guidelines as to where to put the efforts in the EC utilization and how to get an effective EC utilization strategy in the future.

This study examines the effect of sense of community on the relationship between learner satisfaction and influencing factors related to the online learning environment. Influencing factors related to the online learning environment are derived from previous literature and classified into two groups： social dimension (leader’s enthusiasm, offline activities) and system dimension (usefulness, ease of use, enjoyability). Learner satisfaction is defined as the learners’ perceived learning gains from taking an online class. Study participants included 250 university students from two different institutions. The participants were divided into 43 groups and asked to complete an online TOEIC preparation module using a commercial cooperative learning system over 4 weeks. Data were collected at three points for each participant, at the beginning, 3 weeks after, and at the end of the online module. Two system factors related to the online learning environment (ease of use, usefulness) directly influenced learner satisfaction, while social factors indirectly influenced learner satisfaction through the mediating role of sense of community.

Recently, the concept of web site stickiness receives attention as a measure of strategy to influence user’s visit and behavior on web sites. Web site stickiness means site visit frequency and stay duration. This study investigates the moderating effect of espoused national cultural values on Internet community stickiness with the assumption that dimensional values of national culture can be internalized as individual’s espoused values. Espoused values (i.e., espoused national cultural values) are defined as the degree to which an individual embraces the values of his or her national culture. Our findings can be summarized as follows. First, femininity and power distance moderate the influence of user participation on Internet community stickiness. Second, uncertainty avoidance and power distance moderates the effect of social influence on Internet community stickiness. However, femininity and collectivism do not moderate the effect of social influence on Internet community stickiness. Third, uncertainty avoidance, femininity, and collectivism moderate the influence of network effect on Internet community stickiness. Fourth, masculinity does not moderate the influence of usefulness on Internet community stickiness.

In an emergency management case, evaluating the economic value of information technology investments is a challenging problem due to the effects of decision making, uncertainty of disasters, and difficulty of measurements. Risk assessment and recovery process, one of the major functions in emergency management, consists of (1) measurement of damages or losses, (2) recovery planning, (3) reporting and approving budgets, (4) auctioning off recovery projects to constructors, and (5) construction for the recovery. Specifically and of our interest, measurement of damages or losses is often a costly and time-consuming process because the wide range of field surveys should be performed by a limited pool of trained agents. Managers, therefore, have to balance accuracy of the field survey against the total time to complete the survey. Using information technologies to support field survey and reporting has great potential to reduce errors and lowers the cost of the process. However, existing cost benefit analysis framework may be problematic to evaluate and justify the IT investment because the cost benefit analysis often include the long-run benefit of IT that is difficult to quantify and overlook the impact of managerial control upon the investment outcomes. Therefore, we present an alternative cost-centric control model that conservatively quantifies all cost savings to replace benefits in cost benefit analysis and incorporate the managerial control. The model provides a framework to examine how managerial decision making and uncertainty of disaster affect the economic value of IT investments. The current project in Emergency Agency in South Korea is introduced as a case to apply the cost-centric control model. Our work helps managers to better evaluate and justify IT-related investment alternatives in emergency management.

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between IT human capability and knowledge transfer and the role of absorptive capacity between them. From the test of both measurement and structural model using Partial Least Squares (PLS), IT human capability is found to be significant to absorptive capacity and knowledge transfer. Absorptive capacity is also significantly related to knowledge transfer. The interesting result found in this study is that the path of absorptive capacity drawn from IT human capability to knowledge transfer is stronger than the direct relationship between IT human capability and knowledge transfer, indicating that absorptive capacity plays an important role in knowledge transfer. This result indicates that IT personnel with stronger technical skill, interpersonal skill and management capability are more likely to acquire and learn knowledge effectively from outside expertise. Moreover, this study shows that absorptive capacity, the individual’s ability to utilize external knowledge is derived from IT human capability and strongly effects on transferring knowledge from outsourcing vendors. This study suggests IT related managers that the development of IT human capability and absorptive capacity should be recognized for a successful exploitation of outside knowledge within a firm. It is also a necessary condition for a successful IT implementation and maintenance independently and economically from outside vendors.

The purpose of this study is to identify the critical factors for the successful implementation of e-business in the public sector. The paper reports on a case study of the ‘Onbid’ asset-management system developed by the Korean Asset Management Corporation(KAMCO). ‘Onbid’ system is an e-marketplace for trading in public assets, including the disposition by public sale of real estate. Through this case study, the paper: (ⅰ) explores the changes in organizational culture that are required for successful e-transformation in organizations of public sectors; and (ⅱ) identifies the critical success factors for the implementation of e-business in the public sector.

To support business services interoperation, the BSD (Business Service Document), which is an extension of the Web Service Description Language (WSDL) the web service specification of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) was designed. The WSDL presents comprehensive standards for the interoperability of software components and W3C delegates extensions of WSDL to the users for their own purposes and objectives. In this article, BSD Creator, which can generate well-formed and valid BSDs, was designed and implemented. Also, the BSD Operation Pilot System where service providers can publish BSD specification documents and service users can search for services, was implemented and presented. BSD Creator and the BSD Operation Pilot System, which are the outcomes of this study, were assessed for their quality and usefulness using ISO/IEC 9126. The outcomes of this paper will be the basis on which industry groups can construct a Business Services Interoperation System, and are expected to contribute to the revitalization of business service interoperation.

The starting point of knowledge generation and management is the enhancement of learning capability and capacity of organizational members. Organizational change for learning environment should be aligned with the change of organizational strategy, structure and processes. The study employed action learning methodology to constitute learning organization processes. The treatment effect to institute learning organization has been successful thanks to the members’ zeal and consensus to change the processes. However, not every learning team has been so successful. Some cases complained time consuming where others expect to be helpful for their incentives. The researchers concluded that the most important point for success of the learning organization project should be the support of top management.

Employing a sample of 126 suppliers in Korean electronic industry, this research examined the effects of institutional environment, social capital and strategic importance in manufacturer-supplier relationships on knowledge sharing. Building on the relational view and knowledge-based theories, this study proposed that these factors facilitate knowledge sharing in manufacturer-supplier relationships and that knowledge mediates satisfaction between manufacturer-supplier relationships for competitive advantage. Results indicate that institutional environment, social capital and strategic importance in manufacturer-supplier relationships are indeed associated with greater knowledge sharing. Inter-firm satisfaction is, in turn, positively associated with knowledge sharing for competitive advantage through technical support, financial support, competence increasing. Further, results provide evidence that knowledge sharing plays a mediating role between institutional environment, social capital, strategic importance and inter-firm satisfaction.