To derive more business value from existing organizational knowledge, many organizations seek to rely on strategically aligned knowledge management systems (KMS). However, as documented in prior studies, they often underestimate the challenges about social interactions and users' perceptions in response to new information systems. Based on an interpretive case study, this paper examines the implementation of a KMS to show how social representations of four groups of users resulted in the misalignment of the KMS with the organizational strategy. The social representation lens allows us to interpret strategic alignment in terms of dynamic processes of anchoring and objectification that aid individuals and groups to make sense of KMS initiatives. The groups studied developed different cognitive views of the KMS that ultimately led to a strategic misalignment. The key implication is that social interactions within and among groups shape KMS alignment with organizational strategy, thus elucidating the nature of system use.
Internet auctions demonstrate that advances in information technologies can create more efficient venues of exchange between large numbers of traders. However, the growth of Internet auctions has been accompanied by a corresponding growth in Internet auction fraud. Much extant research on Internet auction fraud in the information systems literature is conducted at the individual level of analysis, thereby limiting its focus to the choices of individual traders or trading dyads. The criminology literature, in contrast, recognizes that social and community factors are equally important influences on the perpetration and prevention of crime. We employ social disorganization theory as a lens to explain how online auction communities address auction fraud and how those communities interact with formal authorities. We show how communities may defy, coexist, or cooperate with the formal authority of auction houses. These observations are supported by a qualitative analysis of three cases of online anticrime communities operating in different auction product categories. Our analysis extends aspects of social disorganization theory to online communities. We conclude that community-based clan control may operate in concert with authority-based formal control to manage the problem of Internet auction fraud more effectively.
This interpretive case study examines knowledge brokering as an aspect of the work of information technology professionals. The purpose of this exploratory study is to understand knowledge brokering from the perspective of IT professionals as they reflect upon their work practice. As knowledge brokers, IT professionals see themselves as facilitating the flow of knowledge about both IT and business practices across the boundaries that separate work units within organizations. A qualitative analysis of interviews conducted with 23 IT professionals and business users in a large manufacturing and distribution company is summarized in a conceptual framework showing the conditions, practices, and consequences of knowledge brokering by IT professionals. The framework suggests that brokering practices are conditioned by structural conditions, including decentralization and a federated IT management organization, and by technical conditions, specifically shared IT systems that serve as boundary objects. Brokering practices include gaining permission to cross organizational boundaries, surfacing and challenging assumptions made by IT users, translation and interpretation, and relinquishing ownership of knowledge. Consequences of brokering are the transfer of both business and IT knowledge across units in the organization.
This paper reports on a comparative case study of 13 industrial firms that implemented an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. It compares firms based on their dialectic learning process. All firms had to overcome knowledge barriers of two types: those associated with the configuration of the ERP package, and those associated with the assimilation of new work processes. We found that both strong core teams and carefully managed consulting relationships addressed configuration knowledge barriers. User training that included both technical and business processes, along with a phased implementation approach, helped firms to overcome assimilation knowledge barriers. However, all firms in this study experienced ongoing concerns with assimilation knowledge barriers, and we observed two different approaches to address them. In a piecemeal approach, firms concentrated on the technology first and deferred consideration of process changes. In a concerted approach, both the technology and process changes were undertaken together. Although most respondents clearly stated a preference for either piecemeal or concerted change, all firms engaged in practices that reflected a combination of these approaches.
Although much contemporary thought considers advanced information technologies as either determinants or enablers of radical organizational change, empirical studies have revealed inconsistent findings to support the deterministic logic implicit in such arguments. This paper reviews the contradictory empirical findings both across studies and within studies, and proposes the use of theories employing a logic of opposition to study the organizational consequences of information technology. In contrast to a logic of determination, a logic of opposition explains organizational change by identifying forces both promoting change and impeding change. Four specific theories are considered: organizational politics, organizational culture, institutional theory, and organizational learning. Each theory is briefly described to illustrate its usefulness to the problem of explaining information technology's role in organizational change. Four methodological implications of using these theories are also discussed: empirical identification of opposing forces, statement of opposing hypotheses, process research, and employing multiple interpretations.
Project failure in the information systems field is a costly problem and troubled projects are not uncommon. In many cases, whether a troubled project ultimately succeeds or fails depends on the effectiveness of managerial actions taken to turn around or redirect such projects. Before such actions can be taken, however, management must recognize problems and prepare to take appropriate corrective measures. While prior research has identified many factors that contribute to the escalation of commitment to failing courses of action, there has been little research on the factors contributing to the deescalation of commitment. Through deescalation, troubled projects may be successfully turned around or sensibly abandoned. This study seeks to clarify the factors that contribute to software project deescalation and to establish practical guidelines for identifying and managing troubled projects. Through interviews with forty-two IS auditors, the authors gathered both quantitative and qualitative data about the deescalation of commitment to troubled software projects. The interviews sought judgments about the importance of twelve specific factors derived from a review of the literature on deescalation. Interviews also generated qualitative data about specific actors and actions taken to turn troubled projects around. The results indicate that the escalation and deescalation phases of projects manifest different portraits. While there were no factors that always turned projects around, many actors triggered deescalation, and many specific actions accounted for deescalation. In the majority of cases, deescalation was triggered by actors such as senior managers, internal auditors, or external consultants. Deescalation was achieved both by managing existing resources better and by changing the level of resources committed to the project. We summarize the implications of these findings in a process model of project deescalation.
A comparative case study was designed to assess the consequences of implementing a particular geographic information system (GIS) in two neighboring county government organizations. Respondents reported radically different experiences with, and consequences of, the GIS technology. In North County, participants considered GIS to be responsible for transforming the way that work was accomplished and for changing patterns of communication among departments. In South County, the same GIS technology was implemented with little social consequence. These divergent outcomes are associated with differences in four specific processes related to the implementation of the GIS in the two organizations: initiation, transition, deployment, and spread of knowledge. In North County, implementation was initiated by an influential group of users (geographers) who positioned the technology as a shared resource that built upon existing competencies. A distributed configuration was deployed in North County, and conceptual knowledge about GIS was disseminated widely. By contrast, in South County GIS was initiated by a centralized data processing department as one of many revenue-producing services. Transition to GIS in South County required a departure from existing competencies, and it was deployed as a centralized system with limited procedural knowledge spread among the potential user community. Taken together, these findings suggest that implementation processes that advance users' learning about potentially transformational technologies are likely to result in perceived transformation. The theoretical perspective of organizational learning is, therefore, suggested as a guide for future research on the role of information technology in organizational transformation.
This paper confirms the evidence of diversity in information systems (IS) research and identifies the ways in which diversity both threatens and advances the field of IS. While advocating diversity within the field of IS, the paper also discusses the responsibilities that must be assumed by IS researchers. Responsibilities include a "disciplined methodological pluralism" (Landry and Banville 1992) in which researchers clearly justify their research aims, theories, and methods. Responsibilities also include researchers' commitment to collaborative ideals.
Information systems researchers commonly describe variance and process strategies for studying information system development (ISD) as alternatives that may be difficult to reconcile. In this paper, we argue that it is possible to reconcile these two strategies, despite the clear differences that exist between them. Some possible methods of combining variance and process strategies are examined, the most powerful of which jointly applies these strategies while maintaining their distinct forms. This method is used in this paper, with variance strategy being implemented using levels of participation of key actors and process strategy being implemented using sequences of actions. Based on empirical analysis of 50 ISD projects, five clusters of ISD processes are examined. Results show that projects that are similar based on levels of participation are also similar based on event sequences, thus indicating that variance and process strategies can be reconciled. The insights that variance strategy, process strategy, and joint application provide into each cluster are examined.
This article offers commentary on the paper by Barki and Hartwick (1994), to replicate and extend the model of conflict during systems development reported in previous research by Robey and his colleagues (Robey and Farrow 1982, Robey et al. 1989, Robey et al. 1993). Because of differences in the approach to measurement and data analysis, Barki and Hartwick's contribution is more properly considered as an extension of the model rather than a replication. Barki and Hartwick's strategy of model fitting is appropriate for such an extension, but it is not clear what role their "hypothesized model" plays in this exploratory work. A more careful distinction between hypothesis testing and data exploration is suggested. Finally, all of the studies using the original model or its variants are limited in their ability to support theoretical reasoning about the process of system development. The direct use of process research strategies is encouraged as a means of overcoming this limitation.
Previous research on the development of information systems has focused on the conflicts among participants and the consequences of satisfactory resolution of those conflicts. In this paper, we test a model of conflict during system development [40,41]. As specified, the model proposed relationships among participation, influence, conflict, and conflict resolution. We extend the model to include project success as an outcome variable. A sample of 84 participants in 17 system development projects in 3 organizations was surveyed. Results support the portions of the model reported earlier [41], show a strong positive relationship between conflict resolution and project success, and show a modest positive relationship between participation and project success.
The development of an information system is a social process involving users and systems analysts, carried out in an organizational setting. This paper presents a process model of user-analyst relationships to guide research into the social dynamics of system development. The model identifies antecedent conditions, encounters, episodes, and outcomes over the course of a project. The model asserts that established relationships between analysts and users will persist unless critical encounters change the trajectory of the project. By conceiving of systems development as a series of encounters and episodes, researchers may identify critical encounters and study the connections between preceding events and their consequences. Practitioners may use the model to diagnose problems and to enact critical encounters that move a project in a different direction. The descriptive and predictive capacities of the process model are illustrated with two case studies.
Recent work in social theory departs from prior traditions in proposing that social phenomena can be understood as comprising both subjective and objective elements. We apply this premise of duality to understanding the relationship between information technology and organizations. We construct a theoretical framework in which the development and deployment of information technology in organizations is a social phenomenon, and in which the organizational consequences of technology are products of both material and social dimensions. The framework is based on Giddens' theory of structuration, and it allows us to progress beyond several of the false dichotomies (subjective vs objective, socially constructed vs material, macro vs micro, and qualitative vs quantitative) that persist in investigations of the interaction between organizations and information technology. The framework can be used to guide studies in two main areas of information systems research-systems development and the organizational consequences of using information technology.
The role of frameworks in information systems has recently received a great deal of critical attention. One prominent indictment, which has been directed at even commonly accepted frameworks, is that they lack empirical support, and in fact are not constructed in operational terminology. This article reports the results of an experimental lab study using MBA students as subjects to investigate the tenets of the Gorry and Scott Morton framework (Gorry and Scott Morton, 1971). While firm support is found for the assumption that the level of information attributes varies across system type in the direction postulated, there is evidence that the ability to differentiate the component attributes is affected by such factors as field dependency and mode of presentation.
This study examines the impact of an information system on user attitudes and perceptions of job characteristics. These impacts were assessed with a quasi-experimental research design for a sample of nurses in a major urban hospital. After testing for and rejecting possible confounding influences of the pretest scores, comparisons were made between pre-implementation and post-implementation attitudes and perceptions. Results showed little change in job perceptions and no significant change in attitudes toward the system. The importance of these findings is discussed within the context of alternative models for explaining the organizational impacts of information systems.
This article explores the relevance of human information processing to the development and use of computer based information and decision support systems. Human information processing is related to the biological specializations of the human brain. Basically, the left cerebral hemisphere performs rational, sequential, analytical functions, while the right hemisphere operates intuitively, simultaneously, and holistically. In contrast, the electronic computer performs only logical, sequential operations. The electronic computer is in this sense a model of the left brain and not the right. Three implications emerge from this understanding. First, research using cognitive style to predict decision behavior should include intuitive styles as well as heuristic and analytical styles, even though intuition cannot be modeled in the traditional sense. Second, this article sheds light on the appropriate division of labor between the electronic computer and the human "bio-computer" for various types of organizational decision making. Third, information systems should be designed to support the type of processing required by the task, including both right and left hemisphere processes. Information systems which engage both hemispheres of the decision maker are likely to be more useful in complex tasks than those which support only the activities of the logical, left hemisphere.