Understanding the customer is a key aspect of developing any e-commerce offering. In doing so, organizations can improve their offerings over time and benchmark against competitors and best practice in any industry. eQual is a method for assessing the quality of Web sites. The eQual instrument has evolved via a process of iterative refinement in different e-commerce domains. Two of the studies conducted have examined online bookshops as a domain for e-commerce quality evaluation, one based on eQual 2.0 and the other on eQual 4.0. In this chapter we aim to examine these studies, and, as a result, to evaluate the use of the instrument and the benchmarking of the bookshops on two separate occasions. Of particular note are whether the findings are consistent across the two studies and the implications of the findings for e-commerce practice. Finally, the paper rounds off with some conclusions and directions for further research.

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The popularity of big data and business analytics has increased tremendously in the last decade and a key challenge for organizations is in understanding how to leverage them to create business value. However, while the literature acknowledges the importance of these topics little work has addressed them from the organization's point of view. This paper investigates the challenges faced by organizational managers seeking to become more data and information-driven in order to create value. Empirical research comprised a mixed methods approach using (1) a Delphi study with practitioners through various forums and (2) interviews with business analytics managers in three case organizations. The case studies reinforced the Delphi findings and highlighted several challenge focal areas: organizations need a clear data and analytics strategy, the right people to effect a data-driven cultural change, and to consider data and information ethics when using data for competitive advantage. Further, becoming data-driven is not merely a technical issue and demands that organizations firstly organize their business analytics departments to comprise business analysts, data scientists, and IT personnel, and secondly align that business analytics capability with their business strategy in order to tackle the analytics challenge in a systemic and joined-up way. As a result, this paper presents a business analytics ecosystem for organizations that contributes to the body of scholarly knowledge by identifying key business areas and functions to address to achieve this transformation.

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Despite the popularity of agile methods in software development and increasing adoption by organizations there is debate about what agility is and how it is achieved. The debate suffers from a lack of understanding of agile concepts and how agile software development is practised. This paper develops a framework for the organization of agile software development that identifies enablers and inhibitors of agility and the emergent capabilities of agile teams. The work is grounded in complex adaptive systems (CAS) and draws on three principles of coevolving systems: match coevolutionary change rate, maximise self-organizing, and synchronize exploitation and exploration. These principles are used to study the processes of two software development teams, one a team using eXtreme Programming (XP) and the other a team using a more traditional, waterfall-based development cycle. From the cases a framework for the organisation of agile software development is developed. Time pacing, self-management with discipline and routinisation of exploration are among the agile enablers found in the cases studies while event pacing, centralised management and lack of resources allocated to exploration are found to be inhibitors to agility. Emergent capabilities of agile teams that are identified from the research include coevolution of business value, sustainable working with rhythm, sharing and team learning, and collective mindfulness.

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This article reports an investigation into project managers’ perceptions of managerial complexity. Based on a multistage empirical study, elements of “what makes a project complex to manage” were identified and classified under the dimensions of mission, organization, delivery, stakeholder, or team—the MODeST model. Further, the data showed that these elements had both structural and dynamic qualities and that the elements are interdependent. Project managers are shown to be embedded in this complexity. The practical implications of the research include the ability to describe managerial complexity in a manner consistent with the actuality of the lived project environment. This provides a framework for the description of the level of managerial challenge or difficulty, which will allow the assessment of individual and organizational responses to it in the future. Further, the opportunity exists for active management of complexity.

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