This article presents an executive overview of the article "Information Specificity and Environmental Scanning: An Economic Perspective," by Vivek Choudhury and Jeffery L. Sampler.
In 1989, the IT function of the exploration and production division of British Petroleum Company set out to transform itself in response to a severe economic environment and poor internal perceptions of IT performance. This case study traces and analyzes the changes made over six years. The authors derive a model of the transformed IT organization comprising seven components that they suggest can guide IT departments in general as they seek to reform themselves in the late 1990s. This model is seen to fit well with recent thinking on general management in that the seven components of change can be reclassified into the Bartlett and Ghoshal (1994) framework of purpose, process, and people. Some suggestions are made on how to apply the model in other organizations.
This paper reports on early results from case study research into the relationship between business process reengineering (BPR) and strategic planning. First a framework for analysis is proposed based on the concept of alignment. This "process alignment model" comprises four lenses of enquiry: process, strategy, information systems. and change management and control. Four case studies are then described, selected from a wider sample to demonstrate variation across the four domains. A taxonomy of strategies for BPR is derived from the case studies. This taxonomy suggests a richer variety of BPR practice than has been documented to date and provides an opportunity and platform for further research.
This paper is organized around two research questions and three issue areas in business reengineering. We address: (1) To what extent does environmental volatility affect the rate of accumulation or decay of critical firm assets? and (2) How can expertise and information related assets be operationalized in the context of process-based ("radical") organizational restructuring? With respect to business reengineering, we address: (1) How can differing needs for process reengineering projects be characterized? (2) To what extent does organizational resistance to reengineering projects differ by categories of need? and (3) To what extent are failure rates experienced by reengineering practitioners traceable to lack of alignment between project needs, planning agendas, and dominant modes of organizational resistance? We develop an explanatory framework based on two constructs, expertise half-life and information half-life, and apply these to help analyze current practices in business reengineering. We posit that under certain conditions high project failure rates are associated with weak coupling between reengineering project objectives and the firm's general business and information systems planning agendas. Under other conditions, this weak coupling is associated with successful projects. We conclude with recommendations for methodological approaches and suggested research extensions.