Editorial

Citation

Irani, Z., Dwivedi, Y. and Kamal, M. (2012), "Editorial", Journal of Enterprise Information Management, Vol. 25 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/jeim.2012.08825faa.001

Editorial

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of Enterprise Information Management, Volume 25, Issue 6.

It gives us great pleasure to welcome our readers to the sixth issue of volume 25 of Journal of Enterprise Information Management (JEIM), and express our appreciation to them for their continuous support during the past year. The update of the journal's scope to promote theory and practice has led to an increase in submissions that has allowed us to further the quality of the journal. This issue incorporate excellent “quality” submissions that focus on providing a mixture of conceptual and practical contributions.

The sixth issue of volume 25 commences with a research paper by Michael Johnson, entitled “A study of e-market adoption barriers in the local government sector”. This paper investigates and explicates the influential factors that inhibit the local government authorities in adopting e-markets. The paper offers a knowledge acquiring prospect for procurement managers and those stakeholders that are involved in the technology adoption process in local government as well as in a wider context of the public sector. To test the conceptual findings (i.e. the Johnson's framework of barriers and e-market adoption and use), the author followed a qualitative case study-based research approach. The author interviewed 17 top management executives from local government authorities, who were related to e-markets and by acquiring their responses and personal observation on the key barriers to e-market adoption in local government domain was able to articulate novel findings. According to the empirical findings, a number of factors from Johnson's framework were found to influence e-market adoption and use in the local government. Essentially, the empirical findings also identified some factors that are distinctive to local government and push forward the established normative literature. This paper addressed the call for more empirical research on the dynamics of e-market adoption and contributes to the wider academic literature on technology adoption in the public sector. The author claims that this research study can be considered as a starting point for developing an in-depth understanding of barriers inhibiting e-market adoption and use among the academic research and practitioner community.

The above research paper is followed by a conceptual research focusing on critical success factors for software projects by Goparaju Purna Sudhakar, entitled “A model of critical success factors for software projects”. The author proposes a conceptual model of critical success factors related to software development projects through an exhaustive review of the normative literature. The rationale for proposing the conceptual model is the lack of focus in the existing research studies and models that relate to team, communication, project management and product-related factors. This conceptual paper appears to deal with a void in the literature and provides an in-depth insight to the influential factors for software development projects. The conceptual model is based on 80 critical success factors grouped into seven prime categories (i.e. communication, technical, organisational, environmental, product, team and project management). These categories are identified based on a critical literature review of success factors for software projects. The author claims that this conceptual research is highly useful for those organisations that are currently involved in software development projects. The project managers involved in such software development projects can also gain further insight from the proposed category of factors within the software planning and implementation stages.

The above research study is followed by Ramzi El-Haddadeh, Vishanth Weerakkody and Juanjuan Peng, with a paper entitled “Social networking services adoption in corporate communication: the case of China”. This paper empirically investigates the adoption of social networking services in corporate communication within a Chinese context. The aim of this descriptive research is to acquire a better understanding of consumers’ adoption of social networking services as a communication channel for multinational organisations within a Chinese market context. In doing so, the paper proposes a conceptual model for researching the adoption of social networking in corporate communication. Founded on this conceptual model, the authors carried out a quantitative survey to assess the influential factors prompting consumers’ adoption of social networking services. In testing the conceptual model, this quantitative-based research provides in-depth insights and understanding in relation to how this new technology facilitated social media platforms and offers a more vigorous engagement between the customers and organisation(s). This study offers organisations and researchers a comprehensive overview of the adoption of social networking services in corporate communication, particularly in an emerging economy context. This research is considered timely and scaleable.

Then we have Ahmad Saleh Shatat and Zulkifli Mohamed Udin presenting their paper, entitled “The relationship between ERP system and supply chain management performance in Malaysian manufacturing companies”. In this paper, the authors aim to enhance supply chain management performance through the successful utilisation of enterprise resource planning (ERP). In doing so, the authors explore the association among ERP and supply chain management performance within a Malaysian manufacturing context via a questionnaire survey research strategy. This research contributes by providing organisational variables that can support to achieve successful usage of ERP system, reducing the likelihood of ERP system failure, elucidating the benefits of ERP systems, whilst enhancing SCM performance. This research is considered to encourage companies to implement ERP systems through the success of earlier cases of ERP system. This paper is seeking to encourage the Malaysian Government to provide financial assistance and grants for SMEs to implement and support the ERP systems implementations, stimulating the ERP systems among Malaysian companies and finally, adding to the body of literature on technology diffusion. The authors assert that the findings of this study will support manufacturing companies in accomplishing optimal utilisation of ERP system after the implementation stage and support in preventing the system failure and acquire greater SCM performance.

Finally, we have a case study-based research paper by Steve Jones, entitled “Understanding t-government progress and issues: a case study of a United Kingdom local authority”. In this paper, the author presents the outcomes from an empirical analysis of stakeholder opinions in relation to t-government within a UK local authority. The paper identifies issues from a user perspective, which are believed to be of importance to the successful implementation of t-government. The perspectives noted from the literature review and analyse empirical data that may be of potential value to t-government initiatives in the UK and other regions. The paper, however, offers conceptual and practical insights, together with innovative ideas from this research into public sector organisational enterprise. From the novelty perspective, the author claims that the work presented in this paper brings together the literature, current discussions within enterprise, UK central government, public sector and t-government, together with an investigative pragmatic public sector case study from a senior user perspective. The overall aim of this paper is to inform theory and practice to the wide audience.

Zahir Irani, Yogesh Dwivedi and Muhammad Kamal