Journal of Strategic Information Systems最新文献

Despite the extensive proliferation of Information Technology Outsourcing (ITO), firms often obtain unsatisfactory outsourcing outcomes due to the lack of appropriate outsourcing capabilities of a client or their vendor. ITO clients strive to enhance outsourcing performance by establishing their own outsourcing capabilities as well as contracting with capable vendors to meet their strategic needs. Thus, for the success of an ITO project, it is imperative to find an effective combination of complementary outsourcing capabilities on both sides. However, knowledge of how to identify and develop a set of appropriate outsourcing capabilities of both client and vendor has yet to be developed. This study aims to fill this knowledge gap by elaborating on the configurational mechanisms of outsourcing capabilities from a bilateral perspective, which explicate how multiple types of client and vendor outsourcing capabilities combine into configurations simultaneously to produce high ITO performance. First, based on the ITO literature, we develop a conceptual framework that identifies three key types of outsourcing capabilities. Then, with the matched dataset collected from a client and their vendor, we conduct a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), which is a set-theoretic configurational method to investigate the systemic and holistic interdependencies among key outsourcing capabilities that produce high outsourcing performance. On the basis of the conceptual framework and empirical findings, we present four viable propositions to build configurations of client and vendor ITO capabilities that can achieve ITO success with theoretical and practical implications.

Drawing on the notion of alignment, this paper endeavors to reappraise e-Government maturity models in the English system of criminal justice. It argues that e-Government maturity models are characterized by relatively-stable trajectories which are punctuated by radical shifts toward full-blown e-Government transformation. Far from being a prescriptive and linear process, e-Government maturity is an unpredictable process where turning points (or radical shifts) play a crucial role in the e-Government strategizing process. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed by developing a new theory of e-Government maturity that explains the twists and turns of e-Government strategizing.

Reputation threats on social media in the aftermath of a data breach is a critical concern to enterprises. We argue that any effort to minimize reputation threats will require an orderly assessment of how reputation threat manifests on social media. Drawing on crisis communication and social media literature, we analyze Twitter postings related to the 2014 Home Depot data breach. We identify a taxonomy of data breach frames and sub-frames and the related reputation threats as manifested by data breach responsibility-attributions and negative emotional responses. Results indicate that reputation threats vary for intentional, accidental, and victim data breach frames. Based on crisis stage theory, we also analyze the dynamics of evolving reputation threats as data breach situation unfolds on social media. Results suggest that the data breach frames and associated reputation threats vary across the crisis stages. Further, intentional and accidental frames increase subsequent responsibility-attributions and negative emotions. Tweets with responsibility-attributions further increase the subsequent generation of reputation-threatening tweets. Negative emotions, particularly anger and disgust, also increase subsequent reputation threats. Our study has implications for enterprise reputation management and word-of-mouth literature. The results yield valuable insights that can guide enterprise strategy for social media reputation management and post data breach intervention.

Effectively managing Information Technology outsourcing (ITO) requires integration of conceptually distinct and sometimes contradicting factors. For instance, ITO “best practices” for cost reduction can inhibit a firm’s innovativeness. To address these challenges, we build on governance and capability perspectives and employ a set-theoretic approach to examine ITO practices in 27 firms. Our exploratory study reveals four distinct ITO configurations, of which three lead to positive outcomes and one leads to negated-outcomes. Detailed contracts appear to be a necessary condition for cost reduction but can also be an impediment to strategic innovation; and firms can consider a “best-of-breed” strategy to overcome this tension. Our findings call for more attention to both transaction-based and portfolio-based governance to enable flexibility for innovation while retaining rigor and risk mitigation for cost reduction.

This study addresses calls to expand the boundaries of digital innovation research at multiple levels of society to comprehensively study the structure and evolution of innovation processes and outcomes. We contribute by proposing a framework composed of systems of innovation (SIs)¹ as an alternative and holistic conceptual base and unit of analysis, which accounts for the interconnected components located beyond the organizational microenvironments that ultimately affect innovation in organizations. Given the compatibility of SIs and the ontology of critical realism (CR)² as well as some flaws in SI research practice, we also use critical realist research approaches to guide the study of the state and transformation of SIs. We further explain the joint use of SIs and CR by applying them to the area of information systems innovation diffusion.

Employees’ knowledge about their coworkers’ knowledge (i.e., meta-knowledge) is central for organizations to create competitive advantages. According to Communication Visibility Theory, enterprise social networks (ESNs) have the potential to foster long-term formation of meta-knowledge. However, research about this potential is still limited. Using a quantitative study, we improve the understanding of how ESNs facilitate the development of meta-knowledge in three ways: we (1) show that the creation of meta-knowledge through ESNs works across contexts, (2) find that ESNs can lead to rather immediate increases in meta-knowledge, and (3) reveal that managers can gain more meta-knowledge using ESNs than can non-managers.

Crowdwork, a new form of digitally mediated employment and part of the so-called gig economy, has the capacity to change the nature of work organization and to provide strategic value to workers, job providers, and intermediary platform owners. However, because crowdwork is temporary, large-scale, distributed, and mediated, its governance remains a challenge that often casts a shadow over its strategic value. The objective of this paper is to shed light on the making of value-adding crowdwork arrangements. Specifically, the paper explores crowdwork platform governance mechanisms and the relationships between these mechanisms and organizational value creation. Building on a comprehensive review of the extant literature on governance and crowdwork, we construct an overarching conceptual model that integrates control system and coordination system as two complementary mechanisms that drive crowdwork platform governance effectiveness and the consequent job provider benefits. Furthermore, the model accentuates the role of the degree of centralization and the degree of routinization as critical moderators in crowdwork platform governance. Overall, the paper highlights the potential of crowdwork to contribute not only to inclusion, fair wages and flexible work arrangements for workers but also to organizations’ value and competitive edge.

While studies suggest that IS strategy is an important topic for practitioners, in-depth explorations of the potential practical relevance of this research area are lacking. In this paper, we develop a multidimensional framework of potential practical relevance and use it to conduct a multimethod descriptive review of 109 IS strategy papers published over the past 10 years in top IS journals. The framework contributes to the IS literature by synthesizing various characteristics that make a research project conducive to being practically relevant. The review highlights how IS strategy research has offered the potential for practical relevance in the past and recommends opportunities to increase this, especially in the digitalization era.

ICT projects are considered an important means of achieving development goals in developing countries. Although voluminous, the research to date is inconsistent in theorizing how, or why, development outcomes do or do not occur following the introduction of ICT4D. To better understand how and why ICT projects succeed, and even what success means in the ICT4D context, we conducted a literature review of ICT4D studies published during the period 2000–2016. We find that the very meaning of development varies, with four meanings of development emerging from the literature: (1) development as increased freedom, (2) development as expanded inclusion, (3) development as increased economic productivity, and (4) development as improved well-being. An ICT might succeed according to one meaning of development while simultaneously hindering achievement according to another meaning. As revealed by our analysis of the literature, these four perspectives suffer from some limitations, not least among them being the imposition of colonialist views of development on the recipients of the ICT4D. To address the limitations, we employ postcolonial theory to derive a new theory of ICT4D in which development is defined as an increase in power parity between dominant stakeholders and intended beneficiaries.

Organizations are increasingly turning to information technology (IT) to help them respond to unanticipated environmental threats and opportunities. In this paper, we introduce a systematic review of the literature on IT-enabled agility, helping to establish the boundary between what we know and what we don’t know. We base our review on a wide body of literature drawn from the AIS Basket of Eight IT journals, a cross-section of non-Basket journals, IT practitioner outlets, and premier international IS conferences. We review the use of different theoretical lenses used to investigate the relationship between IT and organizational agility and how the literature has conceptualized agility, its antecedents, and consequences. We also map the evolution of the literature through a series of stages that highlight how researchers have built on previous work. Lastly, we discuss opportunities for future research in an effort to close important gaps in our understanding.