JITCAR 2010, Vol.12 No.1
Editorial Preface
Towards a Smart Outsourcing Governance
Stefanie Leimeister, Andreas Heusler, and Helmut Krcmar, Fortiss Research Institute at Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany
How can managing an outsourcing venture be enhanced with an appropriate software-based solution? The simple approach involving a generic tool selection process and weighing the tool features with the organizational requirements has not been successful due to a number of complexities to be considered in outsourcing. This article deals with several issues on how to identify an appropriate software solution for governing outsourcing ventures. It deals with the problems of a generic tool selection process and describes an alternative approach on how to compare outsourcing tools to get a first glimpse of the market. It also gives recommendations to practitioners how to approach and speed up the tool selection process. Software developers will get possible directions on future development of outsourcing systems. While this paper will not give a detailed comparison on particular outsourcing management modules with their specific functionality, it can provide a profound comparison on a holistic governance perspective.
Research Article One
Lessons Learned From Offshore IT Outsourcing: A Client and Vendor Perspective
Peter Haried, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, USA K. (Ram) Ramamurthy, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA
ABSTRACT
Achieving success in international information technology (IT) sourcing or offshoring projects is a significant, emerging challenge for many organizations. Success requires a significant amount of detailed management, cooperation and coordination among the client and vendor organizations. This paper synthesizes the key findings from eight dyadic case studies consisting of 56 interviews in total from both client and vendor firms detailing their IT offshoring experiences. The case investigations lead to the discovery of twelve disparate and innovative lessons learned emerging from the experiences and challenges involved with IT offshoring on the part of client and vendor firms. These lessons cover a wide assortment of economic, strategic, relational, personal (individual), and organizational issues encountered while offshoring. The list of lessons learned can suitably guide client and vendor firms in their plans to engage in successful IT offshoring projects in the future as well as academic researchers to better understand and position the relationship for success.
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Research Article Two
Determinants and Impacts of Governance Forms on Outsourcing Performance: Evidence From a Case Study
Sanjay Chaudhary, Xalted Information Systems Pvt. Ltd., India, Rajiv Kishore, State University of New York at Buffalo, USA
ABSTRACT
As the world recovers from the economic slowdown, the outsourcing industry has to adapt via strategic planning and right governance to cater to the changing business requirements and objectives. The authors review the transactional, contractual and relational governance of outsourcing arrangements along with its underlying characteristics, so companies can choose an appropriate governance forms. Authors emphasize the positive effect of relational governance on the outcome of the outsourcing arrangement and illustrate their arguments through a case study. Authors recommend relational governance for desired benefits with flexibility to accommodate changes and mechanisms built in to cope with change.
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Research Article Three
Investigating Enablers of SFA Success: Case Study of a Pharmaceutical Company
ChihabBenMoussa, Åbo Akademi University, Finland, cbenmous@abo.fi
ABSTRACT
How does sales force’s adoption of technology happen and what organizational enablers could facilitate a successful adoption of Sales Force Automation (SFA) systems? This study of the success of a mobile information system designed to help the sales force of a medium-sized pharmaceutical company in dealing with the barriers to performance they face when operating within a mobile work setting; led to insights exploring those questions. Sales force will choose to adopt the SFA only if it believes that it is useful in helping them deal with the barriers to performance they face; and thus would have an impact on its job performance. In order to enhance the adoption of technology by the sales force, training from a work system perspective that goes beyond technical issues and guides the sales force on how the various capabilities of the technology could support their tasks and performance, is the key.
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The Expert Opinion
An Interview with Subhash C Bhatia, CEO, KMG Infotech Ltd.
Conducted and Documented by Mahesh S. Raisinghani, Texas Woman’s University, TX, USA
Subhash Bhatia is CEO of KMG Infotech Ltd. His mission is to offer business strategies and inspire the team to ensure the company's continuing success and long term growth.
KMG continues to leverage his more than 35 years of global experience in delivering comprehensive business strategy and technology solutions. Prior to starting KMG, Subhash was with IBM, USA. His strong technical background, business acumen and perseverance are the qualities that initiated him to successfully lead the company to grow from a small office in New York to a global software company. Under his dynamic leadership, KMG today is a leading software solution provider in insurance, finance, manufacturing and FMCG domain.
Book Review
Getting China and India Right: Strategies for Leveraging the World's Fastest Growing Economies for Global Advantage
By Anil K. Gupta and Haiyan Wang, Published in 2009 by Jossey-Bass
ISBN: 978-0-470-28424-7; 272 pages
Reviewed by Richard G. Platt, University of West Florida, USA
JITCAR 2010, Vol.12 No.2
Editorial Preface
Business Process Fashions: Implications for IS Research
Anna Sidorova, University of North Texas, USA
INTRODUCTION
Although one may argue that fundamentals of business have changed little since the invention of double entry accounting by merchants of Florence in end of 13th century (Lee, 1977), the modern business world is ruled by management fads and fashions (Abrahamson, 1991). Abrahamson (1991) argues that in the face of uncertainty about the effects of innovations on organizational efficiency, organizations tend to follow fashion-setters in making innovation adoption decisions. Thus organizations often adopt technically inefficient innovations if organizations in fashionsetting networks, such as consultants, promote them. He further proposes that organizations tend to reject old technically efficient innovations when fashion-setting networks introduce mutually exclusive replacements.
ARTICLES:
Research Article One
ITIL Implementation: Critical Success Factors A Comparative Case Study Using the BPC Framework
KeldPedersen and Pernille Kræmmergaard, Aalborg University, Denmark,Bjarne Christoffer Lynge, Implement A/S, Denmark,
Christoffer Dalby Schou
ABSTRACT
This article examines critical success factors for the implementation of an IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL)1. It uses a case study methodology grounded in Business Process Change (BPC) theory to compare a successful ITIL implementation with an unsuccessful one. Data was collected by conducting interviews at various levels in two organizations. The study identifies several critical success factors related to ITIL implementation and compares these factors with factors identified by previous research in order to highlight areas that need specific attention when implementing ITIL.
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Research Article Two
Requirements Engineering During Complex ISD: Case Study of an International ICT Company
Päivi Ovaska, Saimaa University of Applied Sciences Finland
Larry Stapleton, Waterford Institute of Technology, Ireland
ABSTRACT
This paper provides a new interpretation of how ISD requirements can be collectively constructed in organizations through intersubjective sensemaking. The study described in this paper focuses upon how people in complex ISD contexts make sense of requirements as the development process unfolds. Its primary contribution is to suggest that requirements shaping during an ISD project can be described as a sensemaking process of incongruence, filtering, negotiating and shifting of different attitudes and expectations. An interpretive case study is undertaken and it highlights how the relevant stakeholders of the project came to make sense of, and shape, their ISD process. The study suggests sensemaking as a potential new rationality for requirements engineering and for ISD in general, by complementing the traditional functional rationalism. It lays a basis for understanding the complex interactions that emerge during challenged ISD projects in their way of navigating out of difficulties.
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Teaching Case One
What Is The Difference? The Case of Two ERP Implementations
Celia Romm Livermore, Wayne State University, USA
Pierluigi Rippa, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Italy
ABSTRACT
This is a unique case study as it is based on two “twin” case studies rather than one. The two cases studies, one from Italy and one from the US, describe the implementation of a SAP Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system in two similar organizations. Both organizations are mid-sized companies with similar size workforce and similar size annual sales. Both are in the electronics and telecommunications area. However, this is where the similarity ends. As indicated in the two case studies, the implementation process of the ERP systems, which followed similar steps, unfolded quite differently and resulted in very different outcomes. Thus, while the Italian implementation project met all its goals and was perceived by all participants as a success story, this was not the case for the American project. This teaching case study should give readers an understanding of the stages that a typical ERP implementation project follows, as well as, enable readers to understand the impact that individual, group, organization and national culture variables, have on how the process of implementing ERP systems unfolds and what may contribute to its final outcome.
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The Expert Opinion
An Interview with Samuel D. Dunn, P.E., Ph.D., Chief Information Office, Babson College
Conducted and Documented by Mahesh S. Raisinghani, Texas Woman’s University, TX, USA
Dr. Sam Dunn comes to Babson from Shawmut Design and Construction with over 15 years of CIO experience in several different industries: Healthcare, engineering, construction, government and technology consulting.
Book Review
The Adventures of an IT Leader
By Robert D. Austin, Richard L. Nolan, and Shannon O’Donnell
Published in 2009 by Harvard Business Press
ISBN: 978-1-4221-4660-6; 314 pages
Reviewed by Richard G. Platt, University of West Florida, USA
JITCAR 2010, Vol.12 No.3
Editorial Preface
Knowledge Management Systems for Emergency Preparedness: The Way Forward
Murali Raman, Multimedia University, Malaysia
Murray Jennex, San Diego State University, USA
This paper aims to address the following questions: (i) What does emergency preparedness mean? (ii) Is there a role for Information Systems (IS) – or more specifically instantiations of IS, in the form of Knowledge Management Systems, (KMS henceforth) to support emergency preparedness efforts in an organizational context? (iii) What work has been done thus far in this domain? (iv) What should be the way forward research with regards to this area of research? This paper is written with the above questions in mind, and proceeds as follows. I begin by providing some basic notions of emergency preparedness and KMS. Next the paper addresses the role and relevance of KMS in light of emergency preparedness. The paper ends with several suggestions to researchers (who are keen in expanding the scope of work in the domain), in the future, on what can and/or needs to be done in offering more meaningful outcomes to the IS community interested in examining the relationship between KMS and emergency preparedness.
ARTICLES:
Research Article One
Structuring Interactions With Technology: A Social Identity Approach
Canchu Lin, Bowling Green State University, USA
ABSTRACT
This case study investigated social construction of technology from the perspective of social identity theory. Four pre-existing social categories were found to be important sources of social influence: professional, organizational, departmental, and disciplinary identities. Additionally, an emerging social category (cross-unit and cross-discipline faculty and staff committees and learning groups) influenced technology use as well. Organizational members drew on structural elements from these five sources in their social construction of an information communication technology system. Theoretical as well as practical implications were addressed with respect to technology use. The findings helped to show how social identity influenced people’sinterpretations of technology and then use and non-use of technology. It is suggested that organizations make efforts to identify all possible social identities that may influence technology use and non-use.
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Research Article Two
Discovering the Hidden Dynamics of Learning Communities
Francesca Grippa, Marco De Maggio, Angelo Corallo, and Giuseppina Passiante, Scuola Superiore ISUFI, University of Salento, Italy
ABSTRACT
This paper presents a framework developed to monitor the evolution of learning communities intended as open communities of peers, tutors, and mentors from industry and academia. The proposed framework is described through a case study that provides empirical evidence of the benefits of studying learning communities by observing group dynamics and detecting individual trends. It has been applied to observe and supervise a learning community built around a Master’s Program intended to create e-Business Solutions Engineers. The framework is based on two dimensions of analysis: the individual growth and the team growth. The first is function of personal development and satisfaction, while the second depends on social networking dynamics and cooperative content creation. The analysis of data, collected through ten months of exchanged e-mails and five monthly web-surveys, has been validated through interviews of the Program’s coordinator and the Program Director, as well as through the involvement of academic and industrial partners in the formal assessment of the learners’ performance.
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Research Article Three
An Exploratory Study of the Contextual Factors That Influence Success of ICT Projects in Developing Nations: A Case Study of a Telecommunications Company in Ghana
Millicent Yawa Atsu, MainOne Cable Company, Accra, Ghana
Francis Kofi Andoh-Baidoo, University of Texas-Pan American, USA
Babajide Osatuyi, New Jersey Institute of Technology, USA
Kwasi Amoako-Gyampah, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, USA
ABSTRACT
Organizations use various information and communication technologies (ICTs) to support business operations. In the developing world, ICT has promise for socio-economic development of the people. Successful project implementation is necessary in order to obtain the needed benefits from ICT endeavors. Factors that contribute to the successful implementation of ICT projects are well known. However, the implementation of ICT projects in developing countries is a more recent phenomenon that has not been well researched. In this paper we use a case study of ICT project implementation within one company in Ghana to highlight factors that underlie the implementation of ICT projects and how these factors collectively impact project success. The study shows that some of the factors identified as important in developed nations were relevant in the developing nation environment. However, the relative ranking of the importance of the factors was different between developed and developing nations. The study also identified additional factors that were relevant in the developing nation context. Our study is informed by the diffusion innovation theory, Hofstede’s cultural theory and DeLone and McLean’s IS success model. We present a framework that ties the ICT project success factors together and can serve as a guideline in ICT implementations in similar environments.
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The Expert Opinion
An Interview with Maurice Leatherbury, Ph.D.,Vice President and CIO, University of North Texas, USA
Conducted and Documented by Daniel A. Peak, University of North Texas, USA
Maurice Leatherbury has been an Air Force officer, a librarian, an entrepreneur, a college professor, and an IT manager at a large university in the course of his career. Graduating from the University of Southwestern Louisiana in 1966, he served four years in the Air Force then went to graduate school at Florida State University where he earned a Master’s degree in Library Science in 1970. After working at Stetson University in DeLand, Florida for two years he went to the University of Texas at Austin, where he earned a Ph.D. in 1979, also working at the Houston Academy of Medicine Library for several years before finishing his doctorate.
Book Review
Enterprise 2.0: New Collaborative Tools for Your Organization’s Toughest Challenges
By Andrew McAfee
Published in 2009 by Harvard Business Press
ISBN: 978-1-4221-2587-8; 231 pages
Reviewed by Richard G. Platt, University of West Florida, USA
JITCAR 2010, Vol.12 No.4
Special Issue on ICT Innovation in Emerging Economies
Special Issue Editors Sudhanshu Rai and Mogens Kühn Pedersen
From the Editor’s Desk
A Bittersweet Farewell
Steven Gordon, Babson College, USA
Editorial Preface
IT Innovation in Emerging Economies
Sudhanshu Rai and Mogens Kühn Pedersen
Copenhagen Business School, Copenhagen, Denmark
ABSTRACT
In this special issue we highlight the role played by IT Innovation in Emerging Economies. To understand this role with some clarity we focus on three theme concepts derived from underlining theoretical frames researchers have used to explain innovation. We identify these as the economic theme, the knowledge theme and the interactive globalization theme. Using each of these themes, we make some observations about the state of the art for IT innovation research. For instance, we conjecture that IT innovation needs to be researched independently rather than in terms of diffusion or adoption studies. In the knowledge theme we propose that IT innovation will flourish only if local knowledge is made mainstream. It means that not all knowledge needs to be scientific knowledge, but it does need to be locally embedded. Therefore, we suggest that local knowledge be given more legitimacy for IT innovation. From the interactive globalization theme we suggest that co-creation is a form of IT innovation and that co-creation is mutually beneficial.
ARTICLES:
Research Article One
A Framework for the Co-Creation of ICT Innovation: Empirical Results from India
Sudhanshu Rai and Mogens Kühn Pedersen, Copenhagen Business School, Copenhagen, Denmark
Agnė Kazakevičiūtė, Department of Business Administration, Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania
ABSTRACT
The main aim of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework for understanding the cocreation of ICT Innovation.
To do this we first review key innovation literature with the argument that each set of innovation literature considers the world of innovation from a sterile perspective, normally linear in nature. We propose an alternative view encapsulated in our idea of ‘Co-creation of ICT Innovation’. To illustrate the nature of Co-creation of ICT Innovation, we present three case studies from India and show the distinctness in the nature of problem solving in each case. We then use this distinctness to develop a dual interactive framework. One framework is at a Meta level that develops the conceptual theme for the process of co-creation. The other framework, that populates the conceptual theme with operational drivers, is aimed to populate the Meta level with ideas that can initiate the process of Co-creation of ICT Innovation. Our contribution in this paper is this dual interactive framework that we argue explains the nature and process of cocreation.
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Research Article Two
Digital Divide and Equity in Education: A Rawlsian Analysis
Josephine Anthony and Dr. Sudarsan Padmanabhan, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT-Madras, India
ABSTRACT
In his magnum opus, “A Theory of Justice” (1971), John Rawls, one of the most influential American philosophers of the twentieth century, emphasizes two principles of justice, one that ensures equal liberties and the second equal opportunity for all irrespective of their status. The most important part of the second principle known as the “difference principle” addresses social inequity by recommending institutional support for the under-privileged segment of the society. These principles of justice serve as guidelines for political institutions to ensure equality of basic political and civil rights and equity in the social and economic conditions. To facilitate equity, Rawls places significant emphasis on the formal notion of “justice” over its substantive notion which is “fairness.” If fairness could be achieved in the process of institutionalising justice in any socio-political system then it would reach the position of “reflective equilibrium” which is an ideal condition for any just system. This paper would attempt to apply the Rawlsian principles of justice in the context of the emerging inequitable situation in the education sector and web based education in India. The emerging issue of “digital divide” widens the disparity among the society in education and economic sectors. The burgeoning fields of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and the scope of ICT in education at various levels create a complex situation, when resources and opportunities remain inaccessible to the poor. Inequity due to digital divide assumes significance and requires urgent attention of the policy makers, administrators and community as the Indian government has been actively implementing massive schemes in education and rural development, to ensure accessibility, availability and affordability of education and economic opportunities to all citizens of the country. The paper analyses how accessibility to web based learning enhances opportunities for the educated sector and its inaccessibility implies “injustice” to the deprived sector of the society. The efforts of the government to bridge the digital divide could lead to a rapid improvement in the social, political and economic conditions of the poor and underprivileged strata in India. In this paper, the efforts of the Indian government to bridge the digital divide are highlighted and effective measures to tackle inequity due to the digital divide are suggested.
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Research Article Three*
Transition to Market Economy through Information Systems and Organizational Learning: A Case of Sava Company
Dubravka Cecez-Kecmanovic, University of New South Wales, Australia
Marius Janson, University of Missouri-St. Louis, USA
Jože Zupančič, University of Maribor, Slovenia
* Reprinted with permission of the publisher from Journal of Global Information Technology Management, 2008, Vol. 11, Iss. 4.
ABSTRACT
The transition to a market economy has been painful, if not fatal, for many companies in the postsocialist Central and Eastern European countries. The case of the Slovenian Company Sava, presented in this paper, is remarkable not only due to its highly successful transition from a socialist Company operating in a protected market to a privatized Company competing in the free, global market, but also due to the ways in which it achieved such a transition. Our case study shows that the key to Sava’s successful transition (1995-2005) was its reliance on organizational learning enabled and supported by information systems (IS). Sava’s transformation provides a ‘natural laboratory’ for exploring and extending theories about the role of IS in supporting organizational learning under conditions of radical organizational, social, economic, and political change. The objective of the paper is twofold: a) to propose a theoretical interpretation of the role of IS in organizational learning in companies in transition economies by drawing from theories generated and tested in the context of developed western economies, and b) to demonstrate how such interpretation can expand our understanding of the relationship between IS and organizational learning beyond its traditional western context.
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Book Review
Technology at the Margins: How IT Meets the Needs of Emerging Markets
By Sailesh Chutani, Jessica Rothenberg Aalami, and Akhtrar Badshah Published in 2010 by John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 978-0-470-92063-3; 166 pages
Reviewed by Richard G. Platt, University of West Florida, USA
