Groupware packages are increasingly being used to support content delivery, class discussion, student to student and student to faculty interactions and group work on projects. This research focused on groupware packages that are used to support students who are located in different places, but who are assigned group projects as part of their coursework requirements. In many cases, students are being asked to use unfamiliar technologies that are very different from those that support personal productivity. For example, computer-assisted cooperative work (CSCW) technology is different from other more traditional, stand-alone software applications because it requires the user to interact with the computer as well as other users. However, familiarity with the technology is not the only requirement for successful completion of a group assigned project. For a group to be successful, it must also have a desire to work together on the project. If this pre-requisite is not present within the group, then the technology will only create additional communication and coordination barriers. How much of an impact does each of these factors have on the acceptance of CSCW technology? The significance of this study is threefold. First, this research contributed to how a user's predisposition toward group work affects …

Information Technology (IT) is often viewed as a resource that is capable of enhancing organizational performance. However, it is difficult for organizations to measure the actual contribution of IT investments. Despite an abundance of literature, there is an insufficiency of generally applicable frameworks and instruments to help organizations definitively assess the relationship among organizational performance, IT-business alignment, and IT governance. Previous studies have emphasized IT-business alignment as an important enabler of organizational effectiveness; however, the direct and indirect effects of IT governance have not been incorporated into these studies. The purpose of this study was (1) to propose a new model that defines the relationships among IT governance, IT-business alignment, and organizational performance, (2) to develop and validate measures for the IT governance and IT-business alignment constructs, and (3) to test this IT Governance-Alignment-Performance or "IT GAP" model. This study made some novel contributions to the understanding of the factors affecting organizational performance. The quest for IT-business alignment in the MIS literature has been based on the presumption that IT contributes directly to organizational performance. However, this study found that although IT-business alignment does contribute to organizational performance, IT governance is an important antecedent of both IT-business alignment and organizational …

The purpose of this study is to develop an e-government readiness model and to test this model. Consistent with this model several instruments, IS assessment (ISA), IT governance (ITG), and Organization-IS alignment (IS-ALIGN) are examined for their ability to measure the readiness of one organization for e-government and to test the instruments fit in the proposed e-government model. The ISA instrument used is the result of adapting and combining the IS-SERVQUAL instrument proposed by Van Dyke, Kappelman, and Pybutok (1997), and the IS-SUCCESS instrument developed by Kappelman and Chong (2001) for the City of Denton (COD) project at UNT. The IS Success Model was first proposed by DeLone and McLean (1992), but they did not validate this model. The ITG instrument was based on the goals of the COD project for IT governance and was developed by Sanchez and Kappelman (2001) from UNT. The ISALIGN instrument was also developed by Sanchez and Kappelman (2001) for the COD project. It is an instrument based on the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) that measures how effectively a government organization utilizes IT to support its various objectives. The EGOV instrument was adapted from the study of the Action-Audience Model developed by Koh …

One of the important branches of government and vital to the community, police agencies are organizations that have high usage rates of information technology systems since they are in the intelligence sector and thus have information incentives. Not only can information technologies develop intra- and inter-relationships of law enforcement agencies, but they also improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the police officers and agencies without adding additional costs. Thus, identifying the factors that influence the police officers' adoption of information technology can help predict and determine how information technology will contribute to the social organization of policing in terms of effectiveness and efficiency gains. A research framework was developed by integrating three different models, theory of planned behavior (TPB), technology acceptance theory (TAM), and diffusion of innovation theory (DOI) while adding two other factors, facility and voluntariness, to better determine the factors affecting the implementation and adoption of the POLNET software system used by the Turkish National Police (TNP). The integrated model used in this study covers not only basic technology acceptance factors, but also the factors related to policing. It also attempts to account for the factors of cultural differences by considering the important aspects of Turkish culture. A …