Reframing the Dominant Quests of Information Systems Strategy Research for Complex Adaptive Business Systems.

Author List: Tanriverdi, Hôseyin; Rai, Arun; Venkatraman, N.;

Information Systems Research, 2010, Volume 21, Issue 4, Page 822-834.

We review and reframe three main quests of research on information systems (IS) strategy: (1) the strategic alignment quest, (2) the integration quest, and (3) the sustained competitive advantage quest. The assumptions and logic of these quests have become less relevant in increasingly complex adaptive business systems (CABS), where the competitive performance landscapes of products and services are highly dynamic and co-evolve. We revise the strategic alignment quest to propose a co-evolution quest that addresses not only competitive strategy questions of a firm but also corporate strategy questions. The co-evolution quest seeks to increase a firm's agility and dynamism in repositioning itself, identifying profitable product-market positions as the evolving competitive landscape erodes the profitability of the firm's existing positions. To support the co-evolution quest, we revise the integration quest and propose a reconfiguration quest that encompasses not only business processes but also products and services, as well as the contracts, resources, and transactions associated with them. As the firm makes repositioning moves to co-evolve with the competitive landscape, the reconfiguration quest seeks to increase the firm's agility in disintegrating its existing nexus of contracts, resources, and transactions that support the old positions and in reconfiguring new ones that support the new positions. Finally, we revise the sustained competitive advantage quest to propose a renewal quest that recognizes the temporary nature of competitive advantage in CABS. The renewal quest seeks to destabilize the firm's old sources of competitive advantage when competitive dynamics erode their utility, rapidly create new sources of competitive advantage, and concatenate a series of temporary advantages over time. The three reframed quests provide the foundation for a research agenda on IS strategy in CABS.

Keywords: co-evolution; complex adaptive business systems; emergence; information systems strategy; integration; reconfiguration; renewal; strategic alignment; sustained advantage; temporary advantage

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List of Topics

#36	0.368	competitive advantage strategic systems information sustainable sustainability dynamic opportunities capabilities environments environmental turbulence turbulent dynamics key quest create sustained ability
#229	0.114	alignment strategic business strategy performance technology value organizational orientation relationship information misalignment matched goals perspective fit firms executives argue need
#230	0.101	adaptation patterns transition new adjustment different critical occur manner changes adapting concept novel temporary accomplish experience period managers transitions frequency
#59	0.089	capabilities capability firm firms performance resources business information technology firm's resource-based competitive it-enabled view study value infrastructure results organizational model
#154	0.079	memory support organizations information organizational requirements different complex require development provides resources organization paper transactive depth process outside difficult breadth
#222	0.071	research researchers framework future information systems important present agenda identify areas provide understanding contributions using literature studies paper potential review