Journal of Strategic Information Systems最新文献

Corporate governance mechanisms in the Information Technology (IT) industry are viewed as pivotal for the success of IT organizations. While corporate governance, particularly in terms of board characteristics, has been extensively studied in other disciplines, it has not received as much attention in the Information Systems discipline. This study investigates the effects of board structure and its changes (i.e., board flux) on organizational performance. Results show that board size, gender diversity, and board age have curvilinear effects while board independence has a positive effect and board flux has a negative impact on performance. However, the negative relationship between board flux and performance was weaker for firms with a higher, as compared with those with fewer, number of independent directors. In addition to making a useful contribution to the sparse literature on the role of corporate governance in IT organizations, our study has strong implications for research and practice.

Despite suggestions that analytics projects have value, the literature has, at times, glossed over the obstacles organizations must overcome to realize value from analytics. This research reports on a longitudinal case study of one organization's efforts to improve its profit margins by incorporating analytics into how it generates revenue. The case describes a business unit launching the organization's analytics initiatives, which they deliberately hid from their information technology department to reduce interference. Our study finds that realizing shadow analytics value involves a 3-phase sensemaking process that redefines organizational structures and sets organizations on the path towards digital transformation. These findings offer implications to the mechanisms and structures necessary for realizing value from analytics. Practically, analytics projects may require managers to rethink project management practices and business unit’s and IT department’s roles in analytics projects.

Temporary organizations (TOs) are organizational forms characterized by finite-life duration, novel tasks, heterogeneity of organizational members, and different phases of work. They have a greater proportion of emergent processes than more enduring organizations do. This poses particular challenges in the use of IT because it is difficult to foresee all IT applications that are required. This paper examines how IT is used to support the execution of processes in TOs. The empirical setting for our study is a particular and exemplar temporary organization: the 2016 Olympic Games Organizing Committee. Through immersive, in depth and qualitative fieldwork, based on participant observation, interviews, and internal documents, we find that TOs have a dynamic mix of operational processes in different phases of work. Accordingly, they have four patterns of IT use: (1) planned use - of formal IT, (2) planned use - of informal IT, (3) emergent use - of informal IT as a substitute for formal IT, and (4) emergent use - of informal IT combined with formal IT. We develop a theoretical explanation for how the patterns address the distinctive conditions facing TOs (i.e. a novel task done in a finite time, by multiple and heterogeneous people, across different phases of work) and its dynamic mix of processes through both planned and improvised use of IT. Practical implications include the impact of improvised IT use on aspects such as security, compliance, integration, and traceability.

Innovation in IT outsourcing, in which client and vendor aim at co-creating strategic innovation, is becoming a key ingredient of contemporary sourcing arrangements. However, innovation in ITO is regarded as being a paradox as innovation’s dynamic nature conflicts with established guidelines for successful ITO governance. To date, knowledge about how to accommodate innovation in ITO governance is embryonic. Particularly unclear are the differential and interaction effects of contractual and relational governance mechanisms on relationship learning and joint innovation. To investigate these effects, we propose and validate a research model through survey data from 344 senior-level IT employees of firms that collaborate with a vendor on strategic innovation. Results indicate that while contractual mechanisms primarily determine joint innovation performance, relational mechanisms are central to relationship learning. Results show an inverted U-shaped relationship between governance mechanisms and joint innovation and an additive complementary relationship between governance mechanisms and relationship learning.

Firm-sponsored online user communities have become product innovation and support hubs of strategic importance to firms. Product users and host firm employees comprise the participants of firm-sponsored online user communities. The online user community provides a forum wherein the product users and firm employees discuss questions, problems or issues resulting from the use of host firms’ products. Extant research on online user communities has largely focused on either product users or employees and has examined the various dynamics that ensue from each entity’s community participation. This paper seeks to investigate the interdependence between the two entities in the communities and, in particular, how product users’ reading of employee-generated content influences subsequent knowledge contribution by product users as well as employees. Analyzing data from an online user community over a two-year period, our study shows that employees whose content is read by product users generate additional content and product users who read employee content themselves contribute more knowledge to the community. Thus, the reading of content is not entirely a passive, individual action that only affects the reader. On the contrary, reading sparks additional knowledge contribution by the reader and having readers sparks additional knowledge contribution by the original source of the content, thereby creating a sustainable online user community.

A better understanding of the key to successful open-source software (OSS) development continues to motivate research. Aligned with work that builds on the notion that an OSS development is tightly interrelated with its social environment (i.e., the OSS community), this study examines the relationship between interproject structure and OSS project success. OSS project success is reflected in two forms: popularity and knowledge creation. Extending the extant OSS literature, we theorize a contingent role of interproject connectedness. In particular, we posit three points: (1) an OSS project with more structural holes achieves higher popularity; (2) an OSS project with fewer structural holes yields higher knowledge creation; and (3) these two relationships are enhanced by an increase in project maturity. Using a dataset longitudinally collected from SourceForge.net, we found that OSS projects with widespread connectedness are more popular. This is especially so for those OSS projects in the mid-mature stage. We also found that OSS projects with a cohesive network achieve higher knowledge creation, irrespective of their maturity. Findings from our study can contribute to OSS literature by identifying OSS projects that are more likely to be successful.

IT/IS strategy is of central importance to practice and many well-developed lines of research have contributed to our understanding of IT/IS strategy. However, throughout the last decade, digitalization has fundamentally transformed the business world and put into question traditional strategy wisdom. As information technologies are the driver of this digital transformation, we can expect an even more fundamental change in IT/IS strategy thinking. To verify this expectation, we undertook an in-depth, extensive review of the academic literature on this topic. Our review, which is time-framed to the years 2008–2018, distils five different directions in the development of IT/IS strategy research. It also identifies a shift in how IT/IS strategy is defined and investigated over this period. Moreover, we present an emerging debate on how digitalization challenges traditional IT/IS strategy wisdom. As this debate is still in its infancy, we take it further by entering into the larger discussion on digitalization, including digital innovation, digital ecosystems, and digital transformation. Building on this, we derive at deeper insights on how IT/IS strategy could, should, or should better not be understood in the digital age.