Acceptance to Use a Corporate Communication System

Acceptance to Use a Corporate Communication System

ABSTRACT

This aims to propose a model based on Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to investigate acceptance of Microsoft Lync as an office communication system and its’ adoption by the employees of IFS R&D International(Pvt) Ltd in Sri Lanka. The study includes identification of the appropriate variables and their application to the context of this study. The acceptance model was developed based on TAM theory.

1.      Introduction to the Company and its’ Business Process

     IFS(Industrial and Financial Systems) is a globally recognized leader in developing and delivering business software for enterprise resource planning (ERP) based in Sweden. It was founded in 1983 and currently has over 2,600 employees. IFS supports more than 2,200 customers worldwide from local offices and through partners in more than 60 countries. Since 1997, all the product development and customer support operations have been outsourced to Sri Lanka. Currently, the operations in Sri Lanka consist of Development and Support Services, Research and Development and Corporate Services. Research and Development (R&D) Department is engaged in developing the application and providing fixes to the application bugs reported by customers. The Development Services group collaborates with identified IFS consulting companies globally, performing customizations and second line customer support remotely from Sri Lanka. The group currently has around 10 teams dedicated to specific customer projects managed by consulting offices in the USA, UK, Netherlands, Scandinavia, Finland, Germany, Japan, Middle East and Africa. The Development Services teams mainly focus on fulfilling specific customer requirements that are not directly supported by core release(s) of IFS Applications. Also the teams analyze reported customer problems to identify causes and provide solutions with the support of R&D.

2.      Importance of communication in Current Business Process

     Once ERP application is implemented and gone live at customer’s site, any queries that arise will be forwarded to IFS through LCS (Life Cycle Support) system or by emails.  Business Analysts should then attend the customer inquiries and analyze them to see whether they are being core application bugs or caused due to any customization related problem. In case of a customization related matter, it is resolved within the Development Services department with the support of software engineers or else it is reported to R&D. In both instances, software engineers and Business Analysts at R&D should be guided to recreate the problem in their respective development environments in order to resolve the issue. In most of the times, communication with the regional consultants and product architects based in Sweden is necessary to proceed with the product solutions.  Therefore, both external and internal communications play a key role in successful delivery of customer solutions at IFS. The effective and faster internal communication enables to provide faster service to the customers. Earlier the communication was done mainly through emails and telephones, but it lacked the visual component, real-time desktop sharing and conferencing facility. Therefore, with the growth of the business, need for an effective internal communication system was raised in order to provide effective and efficient customer service.

3.      Microsoft Lync as an Internal Communication System

     Microsoft Lync is an enterprise communication software. Unlike Yahoo messenger, Windows Live Messenger, Skype, it contains a different feature set targeted toward corporate environments. Lync provides a user interface based on identity and presence that brings together voice, instant messaging (IM), audio, video, and web conferencing. According to Wikipedia 2014, features of MS Lync can be listed as follows,

·         Users can chat, share photos, files and join a web conference with voice audio and video.

·         Availability of contacts based on MS Outlook contacts stored in a Microsoft Exchange Server

·         Lync-Skype linkage enables to communicate directly with customers and partners on Skype

·         Users can organize polls and all participants can vote and see results using Polling List.

·         Desktop/ Windows applications sharing allows participants to see and simultaneously work on a Windows /specific application screen

·        A number of client types are available for MS Lync including mobile clients.

     Due to above capabilities, MS Lync has been identified as an effective communication system and Corporate Services Department wanted to test its’ acceptance among employees of several teams in the Development Services and R&D departments before being introduced throughout the company. Based on TAM model, the aim of this study is to gather user perceptions of the usefulness and ease of use of the system during its’ pilot implementation and to identify the relevant factors that support the acceptance or rejection of the system

4.      Discussion

    Based on the application of Technology Acceptance Model in this study, it appears that TAM offers a very practical model that can be used to predict the degree of actual use of a system which is unfamiliar to users after being introduced to it.

    In this particular study, users unfamiliar with MS Lync were expected to rate their perceptions of the MS Lync after being shown a demonstration of its capabilities through a pilot implementation. Users' initial perceptions of MS Lync's usefulness and ease of use were influential on changing their attitude and intentions to use it. Their intentions to use the system could accurately predict the actual use of the system as user behavioral intentions always act as a strong predictor in system usage according to TAM theory.  Gathering of results for the identified item scales under the selected constructs like perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, users’ attitude towards using, behavioral intentions  provided Corporate Services Department with implications for better implementing its’ internal communication system.

5.      Conclusion

It’s found that user perceptions of a system are formed very early and they can have a strong influence on whether users will actually use that system in the future. In this study, the pilot implementation of the system among few selected teams in the organization provided an opportunity to understand the initial user perceptions of the system and accordingly predict its’ acceptance before its’ actual organization wide implementation. With TAM, designers, developers, or purchasers can more accurately assess whether any system will be accepted by users by gathering their perceptions of a system's usefulness, ease of use and take required actions to encourage end user acceptance of that system. Therefore in conclusion, TAM can be considered as an effective means of assessing and predicting system acceptability.

An Analysis of Cyberbullying Sensitivity Levels of University Students of Sri Lanka

While current communication technologies such as mobile phones, the internet and social network sites provide new opportunities for learning and interaction, they may also pose a threat to personal security. The rapid increase in access to information and communication technologies by young people can also cause those technologies to be used for bullying their peers leading to cyberbullying. The purpose of this study is to determine the cyberbullying sensitivity levels of university students and their perceived social supports levels, and analyze the variables that predict cyberbullying sensitivity. In addition, whether cyberbullying sensitivity levels and social support levels differed according to gender was also investigated.

The aggregate level of perceived social support of the university students were identified based on three main variables. They are family support, friends and support from the external environment. Data was collected through a questionnaire and the responses were scored on a five point Likert scale. The population of the study comprised of government university students of Sri Lanka. Among them 50 students voluntarily participated in this study. Thereafter the predicting factors that affect cyberbullying sensitivity were recognized through a stepwise regression.

The findings of this research show that the cyberbullying sensitivities of the students were high but their levels of the perceived social support were low. However the cyberbullying sensitivities of the female students are higher than the male students. Further the levels of social support did not differ according to the gender. Among the factors friends support was found to be the most impactful variable.

With the development of technology the means of communication have changed rapidly in the past few years. Today the internet and social media are frequently used to stay connected with people rather than face-to-face relationships. More than the adults the youth are attached to cyber communication as an integral part of their daily life. For the youth online communication has assisted to expand their social circle. Therefore youth are actively using the internet as a very convenient and important form of social interaction.

In Sri Lanka the access of young people to the internet have rapidly increased in recent years. Total internet connections grew by 68.4 percent during 2014 largely due to the growth of mobile internet usage. In 2013 internet connections grew by 47 percent, increasing internet penetration (connections per 100 persons) to 9.8 percent.

In the case of Sri Lanka social media has grown at an alarming rate. There are over 2.3 million users of social media from the total population of 21 million.  That means 11.5 percent of the Sri Lankan population use Facebook. When a gender breakup is considered around 1.4 million are males and the rest would be female.  It is estimated that on average they spend about 34 minutes a day on social media and the age group of 25-34 makes up 33 percent of the entire base.

While such developments have provided great opportunities it also brings new problems related to

social and individual development of young people. One of those main problems is cyberbullying, which is expressed as purposeful and repeated misuse of technology to scare and harm others. In the Sri Lankan context the rate of cybercrimes have increased rapidly according to the Computer Emergency Response Team. There were 900 incidents related to cyber offences reported from January till end of May, while in 2014 there were 2250 reported incidents of that nature. In 2012 and 2013 the reported incidents were 1100 and 1200 respectively. Based on the given statistics the number of offences have almost doubled from 2013 to 2014.

                                                                                     

While most of the studies in the literature focuses on the influences of cyberbullying on victimhood, cyberbullying sensitivity of people is mostly ignored. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate

cyberbullying sensitivity levels of university students, who are among the potential victims of cyberbullying and whether this could be used to predict cyberbullying sensitivity

The effects of new technologies which have developed rapidly during the recent years

have affected every institution of the society, and the use of new technological products such as cell phones, the Internet and social network sites have become very much popular among  the younger crowd. From this crowd it is essential to understand how this had impacted on university students as they are more educated and updated in terms of using such technology. While these communication technologies provide new opportunities to learn and interact, they could also form a threat to personal security. One of those major threats is cyberbullying.

When the cyberbullying sensitivity levels of university students were analyzed it could be concluded

that the cyberbullying sensitivity levels of students were high. The reasons could be due to the fast spread of the internet and other social media platforms among the youth and the convenience of access through mobile communication. On the other hand the students do not agree that the level of perceived social support was adequate. Since the virtual world provides more freedom, it promotes motivation for indecent behaviors. People are able to hide their identities easily during interaction. Also it frequently occurs outside university space. As the threat of cyberbullying involves privacy and relationships individuals are more prone to recognize cyberbully as a concern. Further the cyberbullying sensitivity of female students was found to be higher than the male students. But however even though social support is vital to decrease the negative effects of bullying students have stated that the level of social support they perceive is low. Both the male students and female students have recognized this fact.

Secondly the level of perceived social support do not differ based on the gender. A significant differentiation in favor of female students was found in the cyberbullying sensitivity of male and female students when the gender variable was considered. Higher levels of sensitivity among the female students was related to witnessing or experiencing cyberbullying. 

Human grievances when implement the technological change

 Human grievances when implement the technological change

Difficult in manage outsource locations and delay in supplier payments

Operation mechanisms are comparatively complicated, even though there are two manufacturing locations many outsource locations produce the goods to ship. To some outsource locations materials are provide by the company and other outsource locations source their material themselves. So two different cost structures are there with two different purchasing mechanism and sometime one outsource locations are follow both ways to provided goods to company. Such situations are not address by the system previously hence many disparage situations were occurs. Hence suppliers are dishearten due to hold of their payments and it will tend to create many disparate situations.

   Delaying the shipments to the customers

Eventhough the intention of implement ERP system to facilitate and provide better services to overseas customers, it was experience there are many disputes occurs within the system when cargo dispatch from the factory. Due this reason many containers were unable to load on the planed vessels and claim for delay shipments by customers. When tailored the system many work in progress stores were define to get the correct cost absorption to the product, hence all products should pass these relevant locations to accomplish as finish good. But due to many inter dependencies within the system it was congested without appear the sufficient finish good stock in loading warehouse, and general users cannot identify the exact module where it got stuck.  

     Depressed workforce and tendency to leave the organization.

More talent people are heavily depressed the situation irrespective of their age limit but more young executives are leave the origination due to this unwanted pressure and old chaps were remain without voicing & challenge the situation. Later it realize there are few young people remain in the organization who earn the knowledge & experience by on the job training that can rectify the situation by identifying the exact details penetrate the system in depth. But this process took comparatively long period and it setup some organizational hierarchy as well.

System authority structure not accord with the actual work authority structure. Redefine the real work authorities are much hard and harmful for the business continuation with human factors. The emotional cycle of change which shows here, explain the same like it explain in TAM (Technology Acceptance Model) model. It shows human stability how affect with new operational platforms especially on technology moves. When it change the adopted life & working pattern such resistance occurs naturally as a human behavior. What it can do to minimize the damage reduce and manage the emotional & behavioral levels. The other way is reduce the time for adoption the change. To manage above two factors following three major undertakings are vital on the change.

1.      Well enough training to real users who perform the job on floor

2.      Proper leadership with well awareness of the change requirement

3.      Flawless communication to explain the broad need of the change.

In such system implementation, it may not enough to train only the performing part to users. They should have overall training of the entire system architecture to understand what action will have an impact on where in the system. High caliber leadership is really essential with the knowledge of change to balance and motivate the team of users. If such malfunction occurs he should able to get immediate remedial actions make ease to the users till they familiarizes to the system by themselves. Communication is nother vital parameter of successful implementation by informing to all users the real impotency of the system implementation. If all users aware the big picture of the implementation it will really help to achieve the required attitude from the users. Hence all internal variable can manage in order to shape up the external variables with a proper blen of above three factors.

  Conclusions

Technology Acceptance Model is very popular to explain the guess of system use specially technology base systems. Here the experienced with describe example manage the people grievances is most important. The TAM is give good enough platform to pre study the possible and potential issues that can be arise. Further the external variable are not uniform and it vary place to place and situation to situation. Hence the effective factors should read before decisions of systems implementation in depth and detail to avoid any malfunctions after implementation of such systems. Even the same system with same users may behave differently in changed environments. External factors  

NON-ACCEPTANCE OF ELECTRONIC MEDICAL/HEALTH RECORDS SYSTEM

NON-ACCEPTANCE OF ELECTRONIC MEDICAL/HEALTH RECORDS SYSTEM 

1.    Introduction

This study is based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). The expectation of the study is to identify an information technology system, which was not accepted by people, and to identify the reasons for such non-acceptance by using TAM.

The information technology system selected as rejected by people, particularly by Medical Practitioners, is the ‘Electronic Medical/Health Records System’ and this study elaborates the reasons as to why the Electronic Medical/Health Records System was rejected by Doctors, by means of TAM.

2.    Theoretical Review

Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) is a theoretical framework that explains and predicts the user acceptance of information technology. It suggests that when users encounter a new information system innovation there are two main factors which will influence how and when they will use it.

One is Perceived Usefulness (PU), i.e., the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would enhance his or her job performance. The other is Perceived Ease of Use (PEOU), i.e., the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would be free from effort.

3.    Electronic Medical/Health Records System

Electronic Medical/health Records is a computerized medical information system, which collect, store and display patients’ information or an electronic record of health related information of individuals.

Traditionally health records of patients are paper based that involved with large amount of papers. Many shortcomings are there with this paper based medical records, such as, requirement of unnecessary space for document keeping, the possibility of missing important records, inability to maintain uniform record system, misinterpretations, repetition of same tests, wastage of resources and time etc.

On the other hand Electronic Medical/health Records system facilitates patients’ health and safety, quality of care instant availability of information, prompt identification of the illness, convenience treatment, save of money and resources, quick services, reduction of errors, improvement of communication of information to Doctors etc. which benefits both the patients as well as medical practitioners.

Though there are many advantages of the Electronic Medical/health Records system, medical practitioners are not willing to accept the implementation of the same.

4.    Reasons for non-acceptance of Electronic Medical/Health Records System

In this scenario, based on the TAM model, the reasons for non-acceptance of emerging technology, that is, Electronic Medical/Health Records System, are assessed mainly based on two assumptions;

            Perceived usefulness (PU)

            Perceived ease of use (PEOU)

4.1 Reasons for non-acceptance of Electronic Medical/Health Records System due to lack of Perceived usefulness:

§  More time consuming –

Medical Practitioners are supposed to spend more time when using an Electronic Medical/Health Records System, which they don’t prefer as it may reduce the number of patients they could treat per day. Further, more time consumption is required for data entering to the system, and getting familiarize with the system or learning.

§  Potential for mix-ups and confusion that can be frustrating, costly and even dangerous –

Though the use of Electronic Medical/Health Records System is said to be an advantage, some mistakes, errors, mix-ups of data etc, which are not only costly and frustrating but even dangerous are possible.  Thus, the Doctors as well as the patients are with some suspicion to resort to electronic records system. 

§  Compatible only with half of work but not compatible for all the work of Doctors –

 Electronic Medical/Health Records System can be used only for certain work of Doctors, but not for all the work. Therefore they are of the feeling that no point of moving to an electronic system that supports only few of their functions.

§  Possibility of fraudulent billing –

Parties can intentionally engage in malpractices such as generation of fraudulent bills. Such aspects hinder the trust among the Doctors and patients about electronic system.

§  Similar to other computerized systems, electronic records are also vulnerable to crashes, errors or defects –

Crash, error or defect occurred in the electronic system can trouble the smooth happening of patient care, may be even for considerable period, which can ultimately create negative or dangerous results. Unlike other computerized systems, since the patient care is a sensitive issue much concern should be to avoid such possibilities. Disruptive acts of external parties may cause enormous troubles and damages.

§  Requirement for large amount of investment –

A Doctor having a small or medium scale patient care center may find difficultly of affording the high investment required to establish Electronic Records System. 

§  Possibility of negatively affecting the relationship between the Doctors and Patients - 

The belief among the Medical Practitioners seems to be that with the introduction of an Electronic System the communication or the relationship among the Doctors and patients will be weakened or damaged. 

§  Security or privacy concerns –

By nature humans are more concern about their security and privacy. And when moving to an electronic system one of the major worries are security and privacy.

4.2 Reasons for non-acceptance of Electronic Medical/Health Records System due to lack of Perceived ease of use:

§  Necessity to be familiar with computers / lack of technical competency of the staff –

Medical Practitioners or Physicians are relatively less familiar with computers. Thus, they resist to the Electronic Medical/Health Records System, which requires sound computer literacy to operate smoothly.   Not only Doctors, but Nurses as well as patients will have to struggle with unfamiliar screens. 

§  System complexity –

Electronic Records System is a complex one, where all parties are in need to spent considerable time to be familiarize with and understand such system, prior to starting its successful operation.

§  Requirement to totally rely on the vendor –

An Electronic Medical Records System will be designed and developed by an external third party vendor, on whom it is necessary to rely on for each and every aspect. In a certain way, some sort of a risk. Any amendments or developments identified in the electronic system can only be incorporated through the vendor.

§  Lack of managerial support -

Managerial support is an essential factor to make success an effort. Thus, the support from the management of the Medical Institutions is a must to successfully implement Electronic Medical/health Records system. Proper leadership is another compulsory factor in need.

§  Lack of belief in an Electronic Medical/health Records system –

Lack of trust or belief in the society on an Electronic Medical/health Records system is also a major hindrance to realization of such system.

 5.   CONCLUSION

                 

Despite the considerable number of advantages of implanting an Electronic Medical/health Records System, it has not been a success mainly due to external variables, divided into two as lack of perceived usefulness and lack of perceived ease of use, for which reasons are elaborated above.

As a result the attitude toward using Electronic Medical/health Records System was not favorable. Thus, the particular Electronic Medical/health Records System has not been purchased by many, which shows poor behavioral intention to use.

Ultimately the actual usage of the Electronic Medical/health Records System was very much less.

By way of avoiding or overcoming the identified reasons for lack of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use, the actual system use of Electronic Medical/health Records System can be improved.

FAILURE OF SINGLE WINDOW IMPLEMENTATION FOR IMPORT TRADE FACILITATION IN SRI LANKA

UNDERSTANDING THE FAILURE OF SINGLE WINDOW IMPLEMENTATION FOR IMPORT TRADE FACILITATION IN SRI LANKA 

1.    Introduction

 When an importer import a consignment to Sri Lanka there were extended process and cumbersome paper work, delays caused by regulatory agencies to clear that consignment with the manual clearing process. To avoid the above manual time consuming procedure the regulatory agencies such as Sri Lanka Customs, Port Authority, Bank of Ceylon, Inland revenue, etc. has introduced this single window concept to facilitate the traders(Both Import and Export). The Department of Customs established an Automated Data Processing (ADP) Division for the introduction of the ASYCUDA (Automated System for Customs Data) system in 1992 with a view to introducing automation of the export-import process and procedure.in 2011 they have introduced the advanced version of this system called ASYCUDA World that facilitate to fully automate the cargo clearance customs procedures. As a part of automation the databases of the Inland Revenue department also connected with the customs systemBut unfortunately the process has stopped and the other required institutes do not connected to the system for the last few years. Currently Traders only able to submit the electronic CUSDEC form to the Sri Lanka Customs and they have to send the hard copy of that CUSDE for further process as previous manual procedure.When refer to this single window concept implementation process it can clearly see the objectives of the project does not yet achieve.This research paper has conducted to analyses the reasons for the failure of implementation of the single window concept for the trade facilitation in Sri Lanka using the Actor Network (ANT) theory. 

 2.     The Actor - Network Theory

Actor network theory (ANT), also known as enrolment theory or the sociology of translation, emerged during the mid-1980s. This is defined as Heterogeneous network of aligned interests, including people, technology and organizations (Walsham and Sahay, 1999).

Actor Network theory has been used in different ways in analyzing the failures of an ICT project. In this study it has used the four stages of translation of Callon (1986) Problematization, interessement, enrolment and mobilization. These help to analyses and describe the process leading up to the failure, step by step from the Actor-Network’s formation until its collapse (Greener, 2006; Lee and Oh, 2006;Mahring et al., 2004) 

2.1 Problematization 

This is the first stage of the ANT, in this stage the focal actor decides the project objectives and selects the actors, according to the selected case the ministry of finance and planning is the focal actor and they have to set the OPP that can align the interests of different actors.In this Sri Lankan scenario the focal actor was unable to set an OPP that might hold important actors with different concerns together.ministry of finance and planning has focused only their interest than other actors like Other government ministries and Departments including the BOI, Ceylon Chamber of Commerce ministry of Agriculture, Archeology and private sector players such as , Transporters, and Freight Forwarders.Introduced ASYCUDA WORLD system has been given an opportunity to Importer to feed CUSDEC online from their offices. Before it was done by the Officers of Sri Lanka Customs once an Exporter submits the papers to their Key-in counters. Up to now this is the only procedure that upgraded with the new system. Since the Data bases of Inland Revenue linked with the Department of Customs Imports has to get the TIN numbers manually.It is clear that, ministry of finance and planning – the Focal actor is focused only their interest in the development of new system rather than aligning the interest of different actors. So the current system does not provide the expected return to the other actors.

 2.2 Interessement

At the interessement moment, the Focal actor uses various devices to lock important actors into their respective position and establish a balance powers between actors, ensuring that these actors are able to overcome a series of obstacles and go through OPP (Callon, 1986)In the beginning ministry of finance and planning was not allowed and not aware of the difficulties faced by the different actors and later offered little help to them with tackling the problems.
Secondly, the officers of Sri Lanka Customs required hard copies of E-CDN and it should send along with the consignments. Since they can view it through the system, so far they need Hard copies to cross check with the ASYCUDA SYSTEM.Also an Importer cannot pay their Bills, Statutory charges or obtain online Country of origin through the system so far. Still, it processes manually and all papers – supporting documents should file to each section to get the things done. These functions of the above system does not activated in Sri Lanka.

 2.3. Enrolment

 Sri Lanka Customs were ready to facilitate paperless movements & online procedures under the new system. So far the focal actor – ministry of finance and planning failed to provide fully automated online submission, online paying facility and obtain country of origin certificates, TIN numbers and other required certifications from the system.
In this scenario ministry of finance and planning was not properly coordinates with the other ministries to get them together to implement this automated system. They have to coordinate and arrange the procedures of getting the all required government institutions functioning under different ministries that connected to the import trade to obtain required certifications online. 2.4.  Mobilization On the other hand, due bad ICT infrastructure, issues in internet access, low productivity and frequent server downs, IT security threats the other actors in the network are not relying on the system. Nothing has been changed from the Old systems to a new system, rather than adding extra payment from the Importers and Exporters entering Initial data in to the system which is an additional work to the client.

 3.     Conclusion 

The concept of the Single window project is to facilitate the import and export trade with the development of the other infrastructure such as sea and air ports. Under that ministry of finance and planning is expected to facilitate this project but this was not success. Sri Lanka has only partially implemented the automated system despite the fact that the Sri Lanka Automated Cargo Clearance System was initiated about 12 years back.

The progress to date has been poor with still more than 35 per cent of the import CUSDECs being processed manually. According to stakeholders interviewed only about 40 per cent of the entire import process has been automated on average and most of them are not satisfied with the status of automation in the country. Not surprisingly, the benefits from automation have been limited and it has had a limited impact on the small and medium scale traders and agents.Currently, the system only allows for the lodgment of the Customs declaration form and receipt of approval. Thereafter, the process is entirely manual and still involves a lot of paper work and visits to different locations to import or export a good. Some stakeholders thought was too high considering the fact that they can only lodge the CUSDEC electronically but have to do the rest manually. The expected level of service that need to obtain from the implementation of automated clearing system is not contributing to the system due to issues in implementation and the implementation progress  getting the log time than the expected.In the interessement stage, the key challenge faced by focal actor is to support other actors in the actor-network to work properly and avoid betrayals appearing, by employing different mechanisms. The other factor is the focal actor should be guaranteed with a stable status, which is critical for the actor-network to survive the translation process.The Final conclusion is the project of Single Window implementation in Sri Lanka is became a failed project according to the Actor- Network Theory.