Technology as Central to New Organizational Models

Changes in the business environment have forced organizations to take new and exciting approaches to the overall development of their operations. Technology has moved to a more centralized function that fosters competitive global business strategy. As organizations seek to retain and grow their market positions they will also need to change their I.T. perspective from a business enhancing function to one co-mingled and central to the business itself. 

IT strategy has been predominately included at a functional level subordinate to operations. As part of the transformation from brick & mortar mentality to virtual perspective the IT functionality becomes a central strategic platform where other strategic considerations emulate. Constant new technology requires the ability to create a solid but adaptable platform that allows integration and removal of new applications with relative ease.

The advantage of virtual organizations is that it aligns more with a global market that is not limited by location. It is able to traverse time, space, and distance to service customers (Kohli & Grover, 2008). Such businesses have a reach that moves beyond physical restrictions as a small company into a much larger world (i.e.Alaska to China). Technological differences within these regions require adaptability that spans borders. 

As organizations partner and work in collaboration it is these new platforms that allow for digital information sharing that creates higher levels of intra-organizational efficiencies. These digital niches foster stronger market advantages (Rai et al. 2012).  The more service holes that can be filled the more seamless the intra-organizational efforts and the stronger their marketability.

Bharadwaj, et.al.  (2013) identified four evaluative themes in IT strategy to define the next generation of insights as the scope of digital business strategy, the scale of that strategy, the speed of the strategy and the source of value creation. Organizations that desire to stay ahead of the digital curve will need to have well defined strategies that capture a greater percentage of market share while creating higher levels of efficiencies among collaborating companies. This can only happen if the companies design puts technology as its very core in developing its strategic market approaches. 

IT Integration

-Use a central core platform integrated into the main strategy.

-Find niches and inefficiencies between collaborating companies.

-Integrate adaptive technology.

-Use technology to enhance market influence.

-Collaborate with related complementary organizations.

Bharadwaj, et. al. Digital business strategy: toward a next generation of insights. MIS Quarterly, 37 (2).

Kohli, R., and Grover, V. (2008). Business Value of IT: An Essay on Expanding Research Directions to Keep up with the Times. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 9 (1)

Rai, A, et. al. (2012). Interfirm IT capability profiles and communications for cocreating relational value: evidence from the logistics industry. MIS Quarterly, 35 (1)

OECD Reports on Canadian and U.S. Higher Education

According to a report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Canada ranks first in percentage of educated citizens followed by the United States. Fifty percent of Canadians, forty-two percent Americans, and twenty-nine percent of the British have degrees. The Canadian population is one of the most educated among the 34 OECD and the nation s but at a higher cost.  

Canada’s post-graduate degrees such as master’s degree or doctoral degrees lag behind Korea and Japan. Younger Korean and Japanese citizens are earning higher grades which mark a fundamental shift in where higher education is being centered. With young Asians pushing hard to achieve their goals they will become new sources of discovery and revenue. There is little doubt as to the association of education with economic activity. 

The system found that those with higher degrees had about a 5% unemployment rate while those who didn’t had an 11.7%. This helps highlight the idea that education may reduce unemployment due to the variability of skills. It is these skills and general understandings that afford people the opportunity to find meaningful work. 

It may also be an indication that manufacturing and other physical labor positions are on the decline in first world nations. Cost competitiveness of manual labor is lower in developing countries such as China and India where North American companies would need to automate their operations to achieve parity. 

The report further indicated that 6.6 percent of Canadian GNP went into education from kindergarten to college while 7.3% of U.S. GNP went into education. The difference being that the majority of educational monies went to higher income student populations than in Canada. Even with higher U.S. monies American students ranked lower on international tests. 

American primary education was less developed than other nations. The key years in a child’s education, which determines in many ways their chosen paths in life, was lacking. It is possible that the declining amount of students choosing higher education and overall competitiveness upon graduation may be part of a general decline in national educational achievement. 

Fewer foreigners were coming to the U.S . for education than in the past. They were opting to stay within their countries or other places where the educational system more matches their needs. Europe was the most popular place to get a higher education. The U.S. received only 21% of the total foreign population when compared to Europe receiving 48%. 

The report should act as food for thought for higher education decision makers. The traditional educational system needs reform in order to make it more effective. From early childhood development to graduate school the system should be focused more on teaching methods that actually enhance learning. It could consider the advantages of using virtual higher educational platforms to reach out and recruit international students who can study without having to leave their home countries. 

OECD

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Washington Post

Ottawa Citizen

Three Habitable Planets Found

Three possible habitable planets recently showed up on the galactic radar in the past week. Guillem Anglada-Escudé of the University of Göttingen in Germany indicated that they have seen the signals before but they may have been hidden in other data (Fox News, 2013). Using multiple data measurements the researchers were able to identify the stars and their nature. 

The solar system called Gleise 667C is much like our current solar system with 7 planets of which three are believed to be Super Earths. This means that they have water like Earth but is much larger. The ability of humans to live on such planets or whether they already contain life is unknown. However, someday out there in infinite space will be a planet we may be able to colonize. 

The solar system is also 22 light years away from us. This means that it is closer to use than originally believed. Many scientists have been using high powered telescopes to watch plants from further systems. Having habitable planets in our neighborhood is a benefit to us. It may someday be possible to finding something we can work with. 

One has to wonder if these concepts are simply a matter of long math problems. Let us assume that the chance of the Earth to be formed is a random event such as one in a billion or one in a trillion. This would mean that if space is infinite than there must be an infinite amount of earths out there just waiting for us to discover. It would mean that these would be randomly located based upon their probability. Who knows?

If one were sitting on the newly discovered planets they would see two suns during the day and would see these stars as about the strength of the moon during the nighttime. Because these planets are in the habitable zone they may have liquid water. Too far away and it would freeze and too close it would dissipate. When the star is dimmer than the sun the distance issue can change the habitable orbit width. 

The Atlantic

Fox News

Science Daily

Plants Make Complex Chemical Calculations

Plants do math. That is right…researchers have found that plants make calculations to determine the amount of food they will need to make it through the night. During the day they convert sun light into sugars and starch but at night they use 95% of that starch by the start of dawn. The rate is variable depending on the length of the evening. The research helps show chemical intelligence.

Using the Arabidopsis plant they found that they take an internal measurement of the amount of starch available and make a measurement of the time needed until day light. They release the starch throughout the evening to create growth. The plants are not doing human calculations but do use chemicals to make this determination of time and starch. Available starch(S) is divided by available Time (T) for maximum growth.

There is a type of chemical division going on that takes starch and separates by hours. The plants even showed the ability to adjust their calculations in the middle of the night. According to researchers at John Innes Centre in Norwich when night came unexpectedly early the plants made a new calculation. They were consistently efficient.

The purpose of this chemical process is to ensure that growth is maximized throughout the dark hours. When starch is low the plants will stop growing and will take a few hours before growing even after dawn has come. Likewise, when starch is not used up the energy they put into conversion is wasted. They seek homeostasis with their environment.

The advantage of such research is that it helps researchers understand better how plants grow. This can lead to better methods of growing crops and food. If the growth rate is variable and plants can adjust to certain conditions it may be possible to adjust conditions to create faster growing food sources in a natural way. 

The Journal Article

The Telegraph

BBC

Teaching Evidence Based Management to Future Executives

Executive decision-making often rests on ambiguous information that is not easily defined. Other times it is a social affair where other managers argue their points until a group consensus is achieved. Unfortunately, the decision-making process doesn’t often rely on the facts. Helping college students use research to make decisions and solve organizational problems helps them round out their decision-making processes and keep their organizations aligned to changing market needs.

Successful management requires the ability to implement research into new profit generating methods. There has been observed difference between those who conduct research and those who implement it (Lewis, 2004). This disconnect causes companies to make poor decisions and fail to align their methods to the changing environment. When companies don’t align well their market capitalization begins to decline.

The key is to change management styles that are based on the unsubstantiated whims of decision-makers, unsupported connections between personal styles and success, and the social influence of needy stakeholders. When managers can use evidence and research to help them formulate their opinions they are more accurate in their decisions which can have a significant impact on success.

Brown & Duguid (2002) indicate that manager’s first step is to consult with other managers. Even though this may work in some cases it may lead to group think based upon past knowledge that is either outdated or anecdotal. A disastrous situation would occur if the blind lead the blind into false conclusions with a whole host of self-interested stakeholders. When these poor decisions are made a whole host of people suffer from shareholder to worker.

A study conducted by Charlier, et. al. (2012) reviewed 800 management courses from 333 programs to determine the usage of evidence based management techniques in MBA courses. They used available course literature such as the syllabus and other course descriptions and objectives to determine the level of scientific evidence incorporation into the class. All of the schools in the study offered full-time MBA programs.

Results:

Instructors with Ph.Ds are more likely to teach Evidence Based Management Techniques.

Instructors who published are more likely to include Evidence Based Management Techniques.

The use of Evidence Based Management also increased student grades.

Evidence Based Management was also more common in highly ranked programs.

The Use of Evidence Based Management was not correlated with research funding or a doctoral program.

Business Application:

Training students on evidence based management techniques help them incorporate the most recent research into their decision making. When these students become managers they will need to understand and incorporate the latest research within their organizations and decision-making processes in order to maintain competitiveness. It is through this adaptation of new research that organizations innovate and develop better practices.

College professors would do well to incorporate research into their classes in order to help students understand how to read and analyze the latest findings. There are many benefits that include keeping up on the literature for relevancy, updating programs, raising student performance, and the overall credibility of the college. The findings indicated that it doesn’t matter if a university is research oriented or not the benefits and usage of evidence management are the same.

Some assignments professors may consider is going to the library and finding a research article that relates to the topic at hand. They don’t need to understand the statistics and all the doctoral jargon but they do need to understand the issue and the results. The literature review will help them understand how a current issue is viewed and the results give them information on a potential solution to their problem. Such students would do well to discuss how these concepts would be applied to a particular problem which helps solidify it within their minds.

Brown, J. S., & Duguid, P. 2002. Local knowledge: Innovation in the networked age. Management Learning, 33 (4): 427–437.

Charlier, S., et. al. (2011). Teaching evidence-based management in mba programs: what evidence is there? Academy of Management Learning & Education, 10 (2).

Lewis, M. 2004. Moneyball: The art of winning an unfair game. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.