Citation
Varajao, J. (2013), "Enterprise information systems", The Learning Organization, Vol. 20 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/TLO-10-2013-0059
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Enterprise information systems
Article Type: Guest editorial From: The Learning Organization, Volume 20, Issue 6
This special issue presents extended versions of five articles selected from CENTERIS 2012 – Conference on ENTERprise Information Systems – aligning technology, organizations and people. Enterprise information systems and the emerging technological developments are key elements in the context of the development and business success of organizations. The extended articles presented here address research about various topics, to present and discuss state-of-the-art subjects on the enterprise information systems field of knowledge that aim to contribute for the improvement of organizations.
It is essential for organizations to predict, at early stages (during the planning phase), the result of strategic options, while maintaining viability and performance. The first article, “Strategy essentials: organizational simulators, from Carlos Páscoa, Nelson Ferreira and José Tribolet, using the metaphor “Flying the organization and organizational engineering principles, highlights the importance of using organizational simulators as essential tools to assess organizational objectives and strategy. Proposes also recommendations on how to advance the subject area in terms of research and development, and shows that aeronautical concepts can be applied in the organizational context.
The issue of multilingualism in organizations, a possible cause of a weak penetration in the global world, has been scarcely studied and hardly tackled from a methodological perspective. The second article, “Managing multilingualism in organizations, written by Jesús Cardeñosa and Carolina Gallardo, suggests technologies adequate for different situations when managing organizational information and suggests that, if technology is not used for solving the problems that arise when dealing with multilingual contents, the information management becomes a very difficult task.
The third paper “Organizational transactions with real time monitoring and auditing, by Rui Pedro Marques, Henrique Santos and Carlos Santos, contributes to a new vision of organizational auditing focused on assurance services in transactions executed and supported in a digital format, in compliance with the formalisms of a business ontological model of organizational transactions. The authors present a solution which allows to control and audit organizational transactions in real time, helping to determine the degree of reliability with which they are carried out, mitigating the organizational risk.
The health and social care sector is receiving growing attention for the last years, due to the increased life expectancy, and to the public demand for a better quality of life and for better health services. Since the majority of countries are unable to support increasing costs of health and social care, these requirements can only be met with more cost-efficient approaches and using new technology-based solutions for providing services. The authors Maria Manuela Cruz-Cunha, Isabel Miranda, Nuno Lopes and Ricardo Simões, in their article “An e-marketplace of healthcare and social care services: the perceived interest, address this important organizational subject and present some of the main results of a study on the perceived relevance of an e-marketplace of social and healthcare services for the inhabitants, in general, and for people with special needs, in particular.
Digital Preservation is the term used to describe the processes that guarantee the accessibility of data in the long term. The high value of health information justifies the use of electronic health records and the corresponding digital preservation. The fifth paper “Digital preservation cost: a cost accounting approach, co-authored by Juanjo Boté, Belen Fernandez-Feijoo and Silvia Ruiz, sheds light on the economic aspects of digital preservation, presenting a cost model proposal for health care organizations.
Before finishing this editorial preface, we would like to take this opportunity to express our special gratitude to the TLOs Editor-in-Chief, Doug Tuggle, to the TLOs Regional Editor, Ricardo Colomo Palacios, and to the members of the CENTERIS Editorial Board. A very special “Thank you! goes to Annie Simmons, Emeralds Managing Editor, for her patience, highly professional support, and prompt guidance. This special issue would not have been possible without their support.
Finally, we would like to express our gratitude to all the authors, for their insightful visions and valuable contributions.
João Varajão
University of Minho, Portugal