Journal of Enterprise Information Management ( IF 5.661 ) Pub Date : 2021-06-25 , DOI: 10.1108/jeim-11-2020-0478 Joerg Leukel 1 , Vijayan Sugumaran 2
Purpose
Process models specific to the supply chain domain are an important tool for the analysis of interorganizational interfaces and requirements of information technology (IT) systems supporting supply chain decision-making. The purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness of supply chain process models for novice analysts in conveying domain semantics compared to alternative textual representations.
Design/methodology/approach
A laboratory experiment with graduate students as proxies for novice analysts was conducted. Participants were randomly assigned to either the diagram group, which worked with “thread diagrams” created from the modeling grammar “Supply Chain Operation Reference (SCOR) model”, or the text group, which worked with semantically equivalent textual representations. Domain understanding was measured using cognitively demanding information acquisition for two different domains.
Findings
Diagram users were more accurate in identifying product-related information and organizing this information in a graph compared to those using the textual representation. The authors found considerable improvements in domain understanding, and using the diagrams was perceived as easy as using the texts.
Originality/value
The study's findings are unique in providing empirical evidence for supply chain process models being an effective representation for novice analysts. Such evidence is lacking in prior research because of the evaluation methods used, which are limited to scenario, case study and informed argument. This study adds the diagram user's perspective to that literature and provides a rigorous empirical evaluation by contrasting diagrammatic and textual representations.
中文翻译:
新手分析师如何理解供应链流程模型:使用图表和文本的实验研究
目的
特定于供应链领域的流程模型是分析组织间接口和支持供应链决策的信息技术 (IT) 系统需求的重要工具。本研究的目的是检验与替代文本表示相比,新手分析师在传达领域语义方面的供应链流程模型的有效性。
设计/方法/方法
进行了一项由研究生作为新手分析师代理的实验室实验。参与者被随机分配到图表组(使用从建模语法“供应链操作参考(SCOR)模型”创建的“线程图”)或文本组(使用语义等效的文本表示)。领域理解是使用对两个不同领域的认知要求高的信息采集来衡量的。
发现
与使用文本表示的用户相比,图表用户在识别产品相关信息和在图表中组织这些信息方面更加准确。作者发现在领域理解方面有了相当大的改进,并且使用图表被认为与使用文本一样容易。
原创性/价值
该研究的结果在为供应链流程模型提供经验证据方面是独一无二的,该模型是新手分析师的有效代表。由于所使用的评估方法仅限于情景、案例研究和知情论证,因此在先前的研究中缺乏此类证据。这项研究将图表用户的观点添加到该文献中,并通过对比图表和文本表示来提供严格的经验评估。