Journal of Strategic Information Systems最新文献

Internal boundaries between information systems divisions have traditionally caused friction and frustration, and negatively affected IT staff job satisfaction. Adopting open source development principles and processes within a corporate environment, what has been labeled ‘inner source,’ is now part of a larger management strategy to break down silos and promote innovation, collaboration, cooperation and communication across divisions of an organization. In this article we argue that inner source emphasizes the importance of relationships between developers and teams interacting across intra-organizational boundaries. We posit that inner source helps to create social capital, which in turn links to higher levels of job satisfaction. We use a sequential mixed-methods approach to test a theoretical model by combining quantitative survey data collected at one IT organization with qualitative data based on interviews with professionals from six organizations that adopted inner source. The results suggest that employees who participate in inner source projects develop more social interaction ties with others and have higher levels of shared understanding of software projects. Furthermore, we confirm that social interaction ties and a shared understanding link to a higher degree of trust. Finally, this study provides evidence that social capital mediates the link between participation in inner source and job satisfaction, implying that an inner source strategy can offer benefits to organizations. Enriched with the findings from the qualitative interviews, we then identify a number of implications for managers.

We examine how firms configure alliance portfolios—that is, networks of partnering firms—in order to exchange, share, or codevelop the capabilities they require to engage in digital innovation. We analyze data from 550 U.S. firms and the strategic alliances they formed within and across industrial sectors to study how the configuration of alliance portfolios in terms of size, degree of exploration, internationality, and competition affects the volume and quality of digital patents. We find that alliances appear to be an effective means, yet alliances for digital innovations require a different configuration when compared with alliances for non-digital innovations. Large and explorative alliance portfolios help with the creation of digital innovations while international alliances and alliances involving competitors do not. We discuss the implications of these findings for research on digital innovation and alliances. We also distill practical advice to executives charged with making strategic decisions about inter-firm partnerships.

Digital social innovation (DSI) offers incumbents a strategic field of action to leverage the opportunities of digital technologies to address pressing societal challenges. By proposing a taxonomy and 12 clusters of incumbents’ DSI initiatives based on a sample of 296 real-world objects, we develop a unified understanding of DSI and its characteristics. This lays the foundation for further theorising on DSI from an incumbent perspective and for researchers to shape the DSI field. The taxonomy provides incumbents with an orientation to realise DSI’s rich strategic potentials throughout the DSI ideation process and in assessing DSI types.

Although cloud computing is associated with organizational agility, anecdotal evidence points to resistance to cloud computing by employees in information technology (IT) units. We explored the links between software as a service (SaaS) and organizational agility by conducting two stages of interviews with key informants in large organizations, and by employing affordance and inertia-theoretical lenses. Two basic affordances emerged from the retroductive data analysis – implementing quickly and sourcing independently – which in turn yielded two higher-level affordances: trialing alternatives and self-organizing business teams. We developed a model that explains how and why these four affordances enhance agility by accelerating the sensing-to-acting process of organizations. We also describe how five categories of organizational inertia in IT units hinder agility. Our main contribution is how adopting SaaS applications enables organizational agility while highlighting the role of IT unit inertia in SaaS affordance actualization processes.

Information systems (IS) strategizing is particularly challenging for established organizations because of their historical conditions. The question of how established organizations can effectively manage their historical conditions in IS strategizing remains under-explored. To address this question, we conducted a case study tracing the history (1960–2020) of an established organization in the building and construction industry. Through the analysis, we found four systems: accounting management system, business communication system, knowledge management system, and community collaboration system, as the historical conditions that formed an IS imprint, which was later managed and reproduced during IS strategizing. Using the imprinting lens, we developed an understanding of: (1) the formation of the IS imprint at the organizational foundation; and (2) the reproduction of the IS imprint, considering imprint-as-resource and imprint-as-constraint during IS strategizing. We contribute to the literature by providing an understanding of how historical conditions inform IS strategizing in the long term and by applying the imprinting lens to uncover the process through which an IS imprint is strategically managed and reproduced beyond the founding phase. The insights developed from this study are transferable to similar organizational contexts for managing historical conditions in IS strategizing.

AI-based technologies have changed the nature of the symbiosis between humans and AI, and so strategic management of human-AI interaction in organizations requires deeper ethical considerations. Aligning AI with human values requires a systematic understanding of the ethical management of human-AI interaction. We conduct a theoretical review, from a sociotechnical perspective, and analyze ethical management of human-AI interaction through the lens of sociomateriality. Our systematic approach helps explain and clarify the interdependencies between two ethical perspectives – duty and virtue ethics – in sociotechnical systems. We also provide a theoretical framework that leads to seven avenues for future research.

There is a promising body of work pertaining to the strategic value of IT-enabled self-organised collectives in times of crisis. This area is of significant theoretical and practical importance. Yet, we still have little systematic knowledge about precisely how self-organised collectives contribute during crises and how the value of their contributions might be leveraged strategically. To address this, we develop a model to demonstrate four dimensions across which self-organised collectives create strategic value: (i) information sharing value; (ii) collective resource-mobilisation value; (iii) network value; and (iv) generative value. In doing so, we reveal more about the specific capabilities of self-organised collectives, and we use these insights to develop implications for theory. We conclude by outlining an agenda to encourage and accelerate future research on the role of IT-enabled self-organised collectives during crises.

This review discusses the challenges associated with the sustainability of remote workplaces, which have become more prevalent due to the growing trend of work digitalization and the pandemic-induced push to remote work. These challenges are highlighted in literature across various disciplines, including information systems, but these discourses have remained isolated from each other. In this review, we consolidated and synthesized research on remote work from the perspective of individual workers by reviewing 187 articles published between 1999 and 2020 in recognized academic journals from fields including information systems, organizational studies, economics, human resources, sociology, and psychology. We identified five key themes that concern opportunities and challenges to sustainable remote workplaces: (1) key characteristics, (2) work-life boundaries; (3) health and well-being; (4) social interaction, and (5) leadership. Building on our findings we created a framework that recognizes two interrelated categories of factors influencing remote workplace sustainability – rigid base characteristics and contextual remote workplace variables – that together shape the trajectory of remote workplace sustainability in the long term. The framework also identifies the potential role of information systems in modulating the impact of the base characteristics to build continuities that encourage more sustainable remote workplaces. The paper concludes by offering a research agenda for information systems for sustainable remote workplaces based on the three IS theoretical frames: inclusion, dignity, and boundary objects.