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This article aims to analyse the contribution of Information Technology (IT) infrastructure responsiveness in the initiative of using knowledge sharing to enhance the technological innovation capability of industrial companies. The research uses a sample of 90 multinational companies, and structural equation modelling to assess the hypotheses. The results show that initiatives to encourage knowledge sharing positively impact the technological innovation capability. Additionally, the research presents empirical evidence that the responsiveness of the IT infrastructure can induce knowledge sharing as a factor in expanding the technological innovation capability. Understanding how knowledge sharing can enhance technological innovation capability can help organisational theorists predict behaviours based on this innovative capability. Additionally, this understanding may expose mechanisms that enhance the effects of this sharing. This research contributes to the insertion of new views on studies involving the effects that IT responsiveness can exert on the technological innovation capability of companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This JLA column posits that academic libraries and their services are dominated by information technologies, and that the success of librarians and professional staff is contingent on their ability to thrive in this technology-rich environment. The column will appear in odd-numbered issues of the journal, and will delve into all aspects of library-related information technologies and knowledge management used to connect users to information resources, including data preparation, discovery, delivery and preservation. Prospective authors are invited to submit articles for this column to the editor at kenning.arlitsch@montana.edu. The cost of building library collections continues to increase, forcing librarians to think differently about their budget models. Increasing costs of IT infrastructure needed to connect to information resources also adds to budget concerns. The idea of changing the emphasis of collections budgets to one of broader access is not new, but formally acknowledging the need to support local technology infrastructure and other means of access may offer a new way of promoting the collections budget to university administrators. We propose a budget model that acknowledges these broader requirements and includes concepts of surfacing and discovery, provision, creation, and acquisition. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The lifetime and complexity of some IT scenarios significantly exceed the typical lifetime and complexity of a technological system. This is a source of significant economic efficiency improvement. In this paper, we propose an approach that enables us to leverage costs, reduce the space floor requirements, and lower CO2 emissions incurred by the infrastructure. By re-investing a significantly smaller financial amount compared to the initial investment an IT infrastructure with the same or better performance and with significantly higher energy efficiency can be purchased. By using a mathematical model, we can quantify the benefits of the approach based on technological advancement, electrical energy prices, and prices of data centre construction. We compare two strategies: the frozen strategy relying on a fixed IT infrastructure during the entire IT system lifecycle and the migration strategy leveraging technological advancement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to carry out a systematic literature review for the development of a conceptual model that deals with the relationship between knowledge sharing, Information Technology (IT) infrastructure, and innovative capability. The examination and synthesis of the theoretical and the empirical articles show that there are direct relations between the three constructs, observing that relations of interaction also represent forms of significant influences on the capacity of the firms to innovate. The literature review conducted in this study opened the possibility to develop a theoretical model that stimulates future research involving effects of interaction between variables associated with innovation, knowledge and IT. Researchers interested in evaluating simultaneous, direct and interaction effects on innovative capability can use the theoretical model developed as the basis for conducting empirical tests. Organisational managers can incorporate the findings of interaction effects into their knowledge management, innovation and IT models. The results show that the literature about knowledge sharing can consider direct impacts and interaction effects, considering their combination with IT infrastructure to enhance companies' ability to innovate. These findings suggest that companies' innovative potential can be incremented by efforts to integrate knowledge sharing processes with IT infrastructure components. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how information technology (IT) facilitates a firm's customer agility and, in turn, competitive activity. Customer agility captures the extent to which a firm is able to sense and respond quickly to customer-based opportunities for innovation and competitive action. Drawing from the dynamic capability and IT business value research streams, we propose that IT plays an important role in facilitating a "knowledge creating" synergy derived from the interaction between a firm's Web-based customer infrastructure and its analytical ability. This will enhance the firm's ability to sense customer-based opportunities. IT also plays an important role in "process enhancing" synergy obtained from the interaction between a firm's coordination efforts and its level of information systems integration, which facilitates the firm's ability to respond to those opportunities. We also leverage the competitive dynamics and strategic alignment literature to propose that the alignment between customer-sensing capability and customer-responding capability will impact the firm's competitive activity. We test our model with a two-stage research design in which we survey marketing executives of high-tech firms. Our results show that a Web-based customer infrastructure facilitates a firm's customer-sensing capability; furthermore, analytical ability positively moderates this relationship. We also find that internal systems integration positively moderates the relationship between interfunctional coordination and a firm's customer-responding capability. Finally, our results show that agility alignment affects the efficacy of a firm's competitive actions. In particular, action efficacy is higher when sensing and responding capabilities are both high. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the past two decades, both business managers and academic researchers have shown considerable interest in understanding how information technologies (IT) help to create competitive advantage for a firm. While recently the idea of competitive differentiation through IT has been challenged, this study contrasts the traditional thinking about competitive advantage with the re source-based view. Specifically, it is argued that by demarcating specific types of capabilities, we can contribute to better understanding of the sources of IT-based competitive advantage. Conceptually, we distinguish here between value, competitive, and dynamic capabilities as three distinct types of capabilities. Within each type, we identify specific capabilities. such as quality of the IT infrastructure. IT business experience, relationship infrastructure, and intensity of organizational learning, and present a model that describes relationships between these capabilities and competitive advantage. We then empirically test the model using data collected via a national mail survey from chief IT executives from 202 manufacturing firms. While the quality of the IT infrastructure is hypothesized as a value capability and expectedly did not have any significant effect on competitive advantage, the quality of IT business expertise and the relationship infrastructure (competitive capabilities) did. The results of the study also indicate that the intensity of organizational learning (dynamic capability) was significantly related to all of the capabilities. These results point to the importance of delineating capabilities such as relationship infrastructure that can facilitate differentiation in the marketplace, and dynamic capabilities such as organizational learning as an important antecedent to IT capability building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information technology (IT) infrastructure investments are an extremely important part of e-business and constitute a major portion of IT investments in many organizations. IT infrastructure investments include investments in connectivity, systems integration, and data storage that may be used by multiple applications. Prior research has recognized the importance of a flexible IT infrastructure as a source of competitive advantage. Evidence regarding the value of IT infrastructures is anecdotal, and there is a realization that large investments in IT infrastructures are often difficult to justify. This paper expands on the idea that the value of an IT infrastructure depends on its use in an organizational context, and presents a relatively simple approach to understanding and assessing the value of IT infrastructure investments. This approach is based on the asset valuation literature in finance. An example is provided to illustrate the proposed approach, and managerial implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research examines the relationship between proportionally higher usage of public cloud infrastructure with cost and schedule delivery variance within information technology projects of the United States government. This research demonstrates that agencies of the government that have proportionally higher levels of public cloud usage are better able to deliver projects on schedule than agencies with proportionally lower levels of public cloud usage. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores how UK charities use information technology (IT) to support integrated performance management (IPM). Based on six case studies of small and medium-sized charities (SMCs), it finds that SMCs see IT as important for IPM, but face significant barriers establishing effective IPM. The paper concludes that charities would benefit from a more strategic infrastructure approach to IT, integrating IT for data, information and knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To paraphrase Calvin Coolidge, the business of the Internet is business1. The more business done on the Internet, the more need for regulation of that business. Many of the existing government and industry regulations deal with security measures, and for that reason it's more important than ever to secure your company's IT infrastructure, no matter how large or small your company. Even if for some reason you're not subject to regulations, it's still a very good idea to secure your assets as if you were. At some point, your status might change, and besides, nobody wants to be hacked. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As of January 2007, approximately 50% of the workforce in the United States aerospace defense industry was eligible for retirement. This translated to a potential significant loss of knowledge and posed a significant threat to the longevity of and competitiveness in, the defense industry. At the turn of the century, Aerospace firms began to use information systems to develop, retain, transfer, and reuse knowledge -- a practice referred to as Knowledge Management (KM). In this case study, we highlight the KM efforts of Pratt-Whitney Rocketdyne. The firm invested $2.5 million to minimize knowledge drain in the organization, resulting in an immediate $25 million cost savings. However, the firm's Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO) needed to determine the extent to which the company should reengineer and change the firm's existing IT infrastructure to support the KM Team's objectives. Several best practices for knowledge management practiced by the Southern California Aerospace Industry are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we investigate the prevention and detection of corporate software piracy, which is a serious concern to the software industry but that has received scant attention in the extant body of software piracy research. The strategic interaction between corporations that may consider piracy and the software coalition that investigates them, is represented by a one-period game theoretic model. Our analysis focuses on 2 scenarios distinguished by the type of information technology infrastructure (centralized vs. decentralized) used in the corporations. Under both scenarios, we identify equilibrium strategies and perform sensitivity analysis with respect to model parameters. Among other results, the sensitivity analysis suggests that a stricter penalty regime and higher level of compensatory damages to the software coalition are beneficial, whereas higher auditing costs and poor control structures to prevent software piracy are detrimental to the software industry's bottom line. We also found that the probability of audit and optimal audit cost are unaffected by the proportion of nonpirating firms. Also, there is an externality between firms, that is, if more firms pirate in an industry, location, or nation, then all such firms will face inspections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dramatic advances in Information Technology (IT), telecommunications and transportation have made it possible for organizations to more effectively manage their globally dispersed assets. One such organizational asset that has emerged as vital to success in todays global economy is knowledge. Global knowledge management has emerged as a discipline that focuses on the study of managing (his organizational asset from a global perspective. In this paper, a process oriented conceptual framework for studying factors that influence knowledge management processes that impact the successful outcome of global knowledge management programs is presented. This framework is intended to present an agenda for and to suggest avenues for conducting further research in global knowledge management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information technology (IT) policy in New Zealand has closely paralleled the broader economic policies that have prevailed in the country. Until the mid‐1980s, economic policy was inwardly oriented, marked by high trade barriers and heavy government regulation. In 1984, the Labor government responded to a balance of payments crisis with a radical program of economic liberalization. By the end of the decade, this process had fundamentally altered the New Zealand economy through deregulation, privatization, and public sector reform. IT policy likewise moved from protectionism and centralized control to almost pure laissez faire. Tariffs on computer hardware were lowered from 40% to 10%. Government computing was moved from a central data processing bureau and placed under the control of individual departments. In terms of IT production, the government has refused to provide any significant incentives or subsidies to the fledgling software industry, feeling the industry should succeed or fail on its own. Under laissez faire policies, New Zealand has become a heavy user of IT, ranking behind only Japan in the Asia‐Pacific region for IT spending as a percent of the gross domestic product (GDP). It has also had some success as a producer and exporter of software. However, the hands‐off approach to the industry is likely to prove problematic in an international environment in which many countries have explicit strategies to improve their infrastructure for IT production and/or directly subsidize the industry. New Zealand is unlikely to become a hardware producer, but it has a number of endowments favoring software production, particularly its well‐educated, English‐speaking workforce. However, it faces obstacles, such as a small domestic market, distance from international markets, and a shortage of venture capital. Although software may be a potential growth industry in the ailing New Zealand economy, it is unclear whether the industry can thrive without at least some government support. Even the government now seems to be considering this possibility, and is considering the creation of an IT unit within the Ministry of Commerce. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]