Resumo em Inglês:

This research focuses on the drivers of e-government (E-gov) maturity in two comparable developing regions of the world i.e. Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa (LA&SSA). E-gov maturity refers to the growth levels in a country's online services and its citizens' online participation in governance. To date, few researchers have focused on the drivers of E-gov maturity in LA&SSA. Given the challenges faced by LA&SSA with regard to the implementations and deployment of technological innovations including E-gov, research such as this current one is needed to enrich insight in such contexts. Building on a prior framework and the modernization theory (MT), the impacts of macro-environmental factors of political, economic, social, and technological dimensions on E-gov maturity in LA&SSA are examined. A longitudinal data i.e. a 5-year panel data consisting of 160 observations or data points was used for analysis in conjunction with the structural equation modeling (SEM) technique. Such factors as human capital development, technological infrastructure, and rule of law were found to have positive impacts on E-gov maturity in LA&SSA. To a large extent, national wealth served as an enabler in the proposed research conceptualization and not as a direct driver of E-gov maturity. The implications of the study's findings for research and policy making are discussed and future research areas noted.

Resumo em Inglês:

Requirements analysis (RA) is a key phase in information systems (IS) development. During this phase, system analysts use different techniques and methods to elicit and structure the system's requirements. The current paper rationalises the use of grounded theory (GT) as an alternative socio-technical approach to requirement analysis. It will establish theoretically that applying grounded theory procedures and techniques will support and add value to the analysis phase as it solves some problems of the existing traditional and socio-technical system design methods. Furthermore, to validate this proposal, a case study applying GT on a real project will demonstrate its applicability and success for requirement analysis. Implications of its application are also discussed.

Resumo em Inglês:

This article introduces a social and environmental management model based on the results of an empirical study that was conducted using the grounded theory method. It outlines a social and environmental mapping of the different economic segments of the Brazilian business universe to support decisions that are inherent to the sustainable management of the supply chain of organizations in terms of clean development mechanisms. It is in this context that the concept is included for the architecture of software and a model of social and environmental balance to track the demands for carbon credit required by an organization in the scenario of its business and that of the national economy.

Resumo em Inglês:

This study aims to assess the quality of Brazilian journals that use the Open Journal Systems (OJS) in order to be published. For this purpose, the main criteria used to assess quality were sought in the available literature, and a selection was made of those considered to be of great relevance. The universe of the research was comprised of journals that were correctly registered under their respective subject heading in the system website by June 2010, a total of 236. The sample's nature is intentional and, according to the established criteria, 78 journals were selected for the study. The quality aspects evaluated were: editorial board, authors, rules for article submission, peer review, age, format, language of publication and the journal impact. The criteria were assessed by indicating the presence/absence of the quality indicator or by attributing a poor/reasonable/good, quality scale, according to the criterion assessed. The results indicate that the criteria established for authors, rules for article submission, and format were positively evaluated. The editorial board was also positively assessed, although 38% of the journals analysed did not present the composition of this group on their websites. The peer review criterion was negatively assessed, since only 17% of the journals correctly inform how the article evaluation process occurs and what criteria are used in the assessment of the submitted articles. Furthermore, it was identified the existence of a moderate positive relation between the H-index of the journals and their ages, and that there is no correlation between the language of article publication and the H-index of the journals.

Resumo em Inglês:

This article analyzes the study of the relationship among knowledge management, the company's market orientation, innovativeness and organizational outcomes. The survey was conducted based on a survey held with executives from 241 companies in Brazil. The evidence found indicates that knowledge management directly contributes to market orientation, but it requires a clearly defined strategic direction to achieve results and innovativeness. It was also concluded that knowledge, as a resource, leverages other resources of the company, while it requires a direction in relation to the organizational goals in order to be effective.

Resumo em Inglês:

This study aims to develop and implement a tool called intelligent tutoring system in an online course to help a formative evaluation in order to improve student learning. According to Bloom et al. (1971,117) formative evaluation is a systematic evaluation to improve the process of teaching and learning. The intelligent tutoring system may provide a timely and high quality feedback that not only informs the correctness of the solution to the problem, but also informs students about the accuracy of the response relative to their current knowledge about the solution. Constructive and supportive feedback should be given to students to reveal the right and wrong answers immediately after taking the test. Feedback about the right answers is a form to reinforce positive behaviors. Identifying possible errors and relating them to the instructional material may help student to strengthen the content under consideration. The remedial suggestion should be given in each answer with detaileddescription with regards the materials and instructional procedures before taking next step. The main idea is to inform students about what they have learned and what they still have to learn. The open-source LMS called Moodle™ was extended to accomplish the formative evaluation, high-quality feedback, and the communal knowledge presented here with a short online financial math course that is being offered at a large University in Brazil. The preliminary results shows that the intelligent tutoring system using high quality feedback helped students to improve their knowledge about the solution to the problems based on the errors of their past cohorts. The results and suggestion for future work are presented and discussed.

Resumo em Inglês:

The main reasons that motivate companies to outsource the services of Information Technology (IT) are: reducing costs, improving service quality and concentration on their core competencies. And the decision criteria of the contracting company are focused on those reasons. This article proposes a strategic criterion: the company should hire the supplier that best leverages their competitive advantages. This criterion implies the need to develop a specific methodology to this purpose, which is reported in this paper. To support it, the authors analyzed the models of Porter, Resource-Based View, Balanced Scorecard and the Fields and Weapons of the Competition, and making an option for the latter. The methodology was developed and applied to an Insurance Company and accepted by their leaders.

Resumo em Português:

Este trabalho analisa as transformações ocorridas nas práticas dos funcionários dos níveis estratégico, tático e operacional de uma empresa multinacional do setor siderúrgico após a adoção do programa de gerenciamento da cadeia de suprimentos - GCS. Na literatura, as pesquisas sobre o tema se concentram na operacionalização, limitações e justificativas desses sistemas, sendo poucas as investigações das percepções dos funcionários sobre os impactos dos recursos tecnológicos nas práticas de trabalho. Os resultados da pesquisa contribuem para uma maior compreensão das facilidades e dificuldades proporcionadas pelas manifestações dos usuários sobre as mudanças nas práticas organizacionais decorrentes da implementação dos sistemas de GCS.

Resumo em Inglês:

This paper evaluates the transformations occurred in practices of the employees at strategic, tactical and operational levels of a steel tube multinational company after the implementation of the supply chain management program - SCM. In the literature, the research about this theme is concentrated on systems' operations, limitations and justifications, with few investigations of the employees' perceptions about the impacts of technological resources on the work practices . The results of this research contribute to a better understanding of the facilities and difficulties provided by users' manifestations about the changes in organizational practices.

Resumo em Português:

A rápida atualização tecnológica atrai o desenvolvimento de novos produtos no mercado, convergindo para múltiplos usos e acessos, o qual vem sendo apresentados na literatura de new productsdevelopment e systems integration. Dado o confronto destas duas literaturas, esta pesquisa posiciona seu foco de estudo para os fatores determinantes na preferência do consumo de lançamentos de produtos altamente tecnológicos, onde a utilidade hedônica / social dos produtos all-in-one(tudo em um só) tem prioridade sobre os fatores utilitários. O objetivo do trabalho é avaliar quais fatores influenciam a preferência do consumo de alta tecnologia, utilizando como objeto da pesquisa o tablet da Apple (iPad), para identificar como a decisão de uso é construída. Neste artigo realizou-se um estudo netnográfico sobre o comportamento de consumo do iPad, interpretando suas necessidades através de experiências descritas em sites norte americanos de discussão do produto, o qual apresenta comentários sobre o processo de escolha, preferência e uso. Estes sites são utilizados para coleta dos dados textuais que são codificados, interpretados e apresentados sobre a forma descrição de uso dos consumidores atuais e pretensos consumidores do objeto analisado.

Resumo em Inglês:

Fast technological upgrading attracts the development of new productsin the market, converging into multiples uses and accesses, which hasbeen presentedin the literature of new product development and systems integration. Due to their confront, this research places its study focus on the determinants of consumer preference for high technology product launch. The hedonic / social utility of the all-in-one products has a priority in utilitarian factors. The main objective of this work is to evaluate which factors influence the consumer preference of high technology users, using the Apple's tablet (iPad) as a research object to identify how its use decision is made. In this article, anetnographic study was carried out about theiPadconsumer behavior, interpreting their needs through their experiences described in American websites for the discussion of the product. These sites present comments about the process of choice, preference and useof theiPad. The websites havealso been used to collect the textual database which is coded, interpreted and presented through the description of how current and potential consumers use the analyzed product.