This manuscript reviews the background of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) as well as the ethical foundations of individual privacy. This includes a historical perspective on personal privacy, a review of the United States Constitutional privacy interpretations, the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, European Union Regulations, as well as the positions of industry and advocacy groups. A brief review of the information technology ethics literature is also included. The RFID privacy concerns are three-fold: pre-sales activities, sales transaction activities, and post-sales uses. A proposal to address these privacy concerns is detailed, generally based on past philosophical frameworks and specifically on the Fair Information Practices that the Federal Trade Commission has outlined for the electronic marketplace (ecommerce). It is proposed that by application of these Fair Information Practices, the major privacy issues of RFID can be addressed.

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Instant messaging (IM) as a form of communication offers unique advantages to traditional email communication centered mostly on its immediacy. Levels of IM use are significantly less than email especially in business organizations. In order to understand IM behavior and encourage its adoption, this manuscript explores IM behavior using the Ajzen & Fishbein (1980) model of human behavior known as Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA). Attitude toward IM and "subjective norm" are positively associated with intention to use instant messaging. The TRA model can be used to predict and understand the usage of instant messaging in the target population.

For many years, business has invested significant resources in information technology, hardware, software, and manpower. The Productivity Paradox is the seeming lack of productivity gains despite the increased investment in IT. For many years the existence of a Productivity Paradox has been the subject of research interest. Conflicting results have been obtained from a variety of data sets. Until this time however there has been no study that has investigated European companies' use of information technology and its impact on productivity. The objective of this study was to investigate information technology productivity with a new data set from a European published source, and measuring productivity using both market and financial based measures. Results of the study indicated that information technology did have a consistent positive impact on firm level productivity in Europe for the years 1996, 1997, and 1998. Both market and financial based productivity measures provided consistent positive significant returns with regard to IT productivity. The major contribution of the study is that it provides an analysis of the impact of European information technology on firm and economic productivity.Since 1987, many researchers such as Erik Brynjolfsson, Paul Strassman, and Loren Hitt have studied the problem of whether the huge investment in information technology (IT) has had a positive impact on overall productivity in the economy and specifically on the firm. A variety of data sources has been analyzed across different perspectives and researchers have come to different conclusions on this central question. The Productivity Paradox concept started in 1987 with Robert Solow, the Nobel prize-winning economist, who said that computers can be seen everywhere but in the productivity statistics (Solow, 1987). The Paradox as presented by Strassmann is that, despite large investments in information technology, productivity as measured by cost of goods sold has not increased (McCune, 1998). Loveman, in 1988, studied information technology capital versus output over a five-year period, and found no correlation between information technology spending and output increase (Brynjolfsson, 1993). The Productivity Paradox simply stated that empirical investigations in the late 1980s and early 1990s seemed to show that information technology investments, by a variety of measures, were not contributing to overall productivity gains. Since the late 1980s, however, a series of studies have provided different, more positive results for information technology investments. The studies have included Brynjolfsson and Hitt (1996), Bharadwaj, Bharadwaj, andKnosynski (1999) and Dewan and Kraemer (1998). RELEVANCE OF THE STUDYThe general question addressed in this research is similar to many previous studies, i.e., does investment in information technology have a significant positive effect on overall firm productivity and performance. This work, however, adds to the literature in several ways:1. This empirical study analyzes both mar...

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The purpose of this paper is to explore the views of top corporate financial executives on the success of implementation of systems outsourcing and offshore outsourcing, as well as the variables associated with success in these areas. Design/methodology/approach -An analysis of secondary data obtained from the Financial Executives International comprehensive survey-based research on technology issues for financial executives. Regression analysis and other statistical methods are used. Findings -The study examined usage of outsourcing and offshore outsourcing from the top financial executive's perspective. Only 30 percent of the surveyed companies outsourced IT and only 25 percent engaged in offshore outsourcing IT. Size of the company did significantly influence usage. The major motivators behind the decision to pursue outsourcing were the views that IT is not a core competency and that significant cost reduction was possible. The experiences of the organizations surveyed reflect a general satisfaction with outsourcing and offshore outsourcing. But finally, it was found that while overall use of outsourcing did correlate with higher IT returns, offshore outsourcing did not correlate with higher IT return to the organization at traditional significance levels.Research limitations/implications -The study can be used as a basis for further exploration on outsourcing and offshore outsourcing success, influencing variables, and motivators. Practical implications -The findings can be used to guide management teams in outsourcing and offshore outsourcing decisions to maximize returns to their organizations. Originality/value -Despite many studies that examine success from the theoretical and IT perspectives, this paper provides a large sample set, which empirically reviews major corporations' top financial executives' experiences with outsourcing and offshore outsourcing. In addition, it begins to explore the variables influencing overall outsourcing and offshore outsourcing success perception. Major contributions are the extent of the detail, the large dataset analysis, and the CFO rather than CIO perspective.