A Just‐in‐Time system crosses functional lines and therefore requires support throughout the organisation. A survey of one‐hundred firms actively pursuing JIT implementation found relatively high commitment from top and middle level management. Lack of functional support, especially from engineering, finance, and marketing has been reported as barriers in JIT implementation. The non‐commitment of functional groups has been related to their failure to understand JIT. This study found the size of the firm, the type of productive system, and the type of business did not exhibit strong influence over management and functional group commitment levels for JIT implementation.

Western organizations have led the globalization of business operations, especially in the deployment of multi-domestic strategy. The decentralized organizational control and customized operations support the fast penetration of huge global markets. Western management theory considers information the lifeblood of organization. The sharing of information lubricates the interlocking divisions within the organization, promoting the effective achievement of organizational goals with external business partners. However, in many regions of the world, information represents power, and managers often try to accumulate as much of it as they can while denying access to others (Oz, 2002). For others, the disclosure of information is considered a threat to the span of management control (Rocheleau, 1999). In some cases, administrators could be more interested in the scale of the information system and its associated budget, than the capability and functionality of the system (Kalpic & Boyd, 2000). These are examples of conflicting cultural values in a cross-cultural environment. The introduction of Western management approaches conflicts with regional administrative styles, diminishing the effectiveness of information systems (Raman & Watson, 1997; Shea & Lewis, 1996). Sensitivity to cultural differences has been recognized as an important factor in the successful global deployment of information systems. Minor information management issues potentially resolvable through improved communication in the west often manifest as major challenges in a crosscultural environment.

GHI, an international service conglomerate, recently acquired a new subsidiary in an Asian country. A new information system was planned to facilitate the re-branding of the subsidiary. The project was outsourced to an application service provider through a consultant. A functional manager from another subsidiary in the country was assigned to assist the development of specifications. The customized information passed numerous benchmarking tests, and was ready for implementation. At that point, it was discovered that the native users at the rural location of the new subsidiary could not comprehend any of the user interfaces programmed in the English language. A depressed local management team, with a depleted technology budget, must reinvent all operating procedures dependent on the new information system.

As most of the prior research on Facebook use and impact has been conducted within the continental US, there is a need to explore these issues in other countries and cultures. This article conducts this study on Guam, a US unincorporated territory. This article surveys Guamanian college students to investigate the impact of ethnicity and culture on Facebook use for socialization and academics among Chamorros and Filipinos, the two major ethnic groups on Guam. The following notes that Filipinos stay logged on longer per Facebook visit, and have significantly higher scores on Social Maintenance, Academic Outreach, and Hofstede's Individualism-Collectivism and Masculinity-Femininity cultural scales. A step-wise regression analysis showing that Facebook use is related to cultural background indicates that Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions can be used for exploring the use of Facebook for social and academic interactions. This also implies that Facebook can be a suitable tool for engaging students in both social and academic contexts.

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