The user’s usage continuance of an information system (IS) has been considered as a key factor in determining whether an IS is useful or not. This usage continuance not only allows firms to recoup their IS investment but also represents the sustainability of IS success. However, continuance of IS usage is a long-term organizational process; it can be influenced by contingency factors (e.g., env...

Contingency analysis is a key function to assess the impact of various combinations of power system component failures. It involves combinatorial numbers of contingencies that exceed the capability of even very large supercomputing platforms. Therefore, it is critical to select credible contingency cases within the constraint of computing power. This paper presents a contingency selection metho...

Artificial systems that generate contingency-based teleological behaviors in real-time, are difficult to model. This chapter describes a modeling and simulation (M&S) framework designed specifically to reduce this difficulty. The described Knowledge-based Contingency-driven Generative Systems (KCGS) framework combines aspects of SES theory, DEVS-based general systems theory, netcentric heteroge...

Four hypotheses relevant to the contingency theory of management accounting are presented. Data relate to the period 1994–98 for a sample of new Scottish microfirms. First, correlation analysis is applied to test the hypothesis that the introduction of management accounting system (MAS) developments is related to the timing of contingent events such as cashflow crises, shortfalls of finance, an...

Where do equivalence relations come from? One possible answer is that they arise directly from the reinforcement contingency. That is to say, a reinforcement contingency produces two types of outcome: (a) 2-, 3-, 4-, 5-, or n-term units of analysis that are known, respectively, as operant reinforcement, simple discrimination, conditional discrimination, second-order conditional discrimination, ...

This paper introduces a method of analysis to uncover artefact communication relationships in real world settings. This method is based on learning and communication theory, together with situated cognition. It was developed in the context of agile software development practice. Using this method, we found evidence that physical artefacts help team members to define contexts within their practi...

The paper exposes a non-parametric approach to latent and co-latent modeling of bivariate data, based upon alternating minimization of the Kullback-Leibler divergence (EM algorithm) for complete log-linear models. For categorical data, the iterative algorithm generates a soft clustering of both rows and columns of the contingency table. Well-known results are systematically revisited, and some ...