Journal of Strategic Information Systems最新文献

Person-to-person (P2P) followership is an important aspect of major open source software (OSS) development platforms. In this age of social media platforms, P2P followership has significantly shaped the way users engage in OSS development by facilitating the establishment of connections among OSS users. Despite the prevalence of P2P followership, less is known about the impact of OSS project initiators’ P2P followership nodes on their project popularity. This is a particularly important gap considering the low rate of OSS project success. We posit that OSS project initiators derive information and influence benefits from the quantity and connectivity of their P2P followership nodes, explaining the popularity of the projects initiated. We determine the connectivity of OSS project initiators’ P2P followership nodes based on the nodes’ reach and importance. To test the hypotheses, we use a large panel dataset collected over 24 months from GitHub. The findings indicate that the quantity of OSS project initiators’ P2P followership nodes including followers and followees has a positive effect on their project popularity. Moreover, such an effect is mostly dependent on the connectivity of the OSS project initiators’ P2P followership nodes in such a way that highly connected P2P followership nodes do not impact influence benefits but they increase information benefits. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings.

This viewpoint article aims to lay out the foundations for IS research on the strategic implications as well as diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) opportunities and challenges of the metaverse – a sociotechnical system providing users with an immersive, synchronous 3D experience of (virtual) reality through interoperable platforms and sensor devices. We first examine the metaverse’s technologies and its underlying business models, which hold immense strategic implications for organizations and industries, and might require rethinking the future of work. As with most emerging technologies able to generate, collect, and process user data, the metaverse comes at a price; leveraging the metaverse strategically will require ethical and DEI considerations. After examining all these aspects of the metaverse, we reflect on ways IS scholarship engaged in strategizing can advance theoretical and practical knowledge by generating novel research questions and outlining a research agenda. Our contribution is twofold: first, we analyze the metaverse using a sociotechnical lens, thereby setting the ground for future studies of the phenomenon. Second, we identify specific strategic implications as well as DEI opportunities and challenges associated with the metaverse, and discuss how scholarship versed in IS strategizing can contribute to addressing them, both theoretically and empirically.

In this paper, we provide a detailed insight into the complex coevolution dynamics that shape the alignment process by analyzing how different mechanisms and factors are mutually related in complex networks of feedback loops. We combine insights from the literature on alignment as a (coevolution) process with literature on alignment as a state to identify the different components of the organization’s socio-technical system that influence alignment, the relationships between these components, and the role that different factors play. In our empirical analysis (based multiple case studies) we then focus on the actual interplay between relevant factors. Using a causal loop diagramming approach - based on system dynamics – we analyze how these factors mutually influence each other through various feedback loops and thus shape the alignment process. We extend previous literature on the alignment process by identifying the way that the complex interplay between different factors shapes this process. By identifying the feedback loops between relevant factors, we also provide more insight into the complex bottom-up and top-down dynamics that shape the process, and that provide explanations for why this process is characterized by transitions between alignment and misalignment. For practice, our paper provides a deeper understanding of the alignment process, which is a precondition for improving alignment practices in organisations.

Recent diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts have made some limited progress in addressing underrepresentation and unequal opportunities for minority members in the Information Systems (IS) academic community. The Association for Information Systems (AIS), as the preeminent global professional society for the IS discipline, is tasked with acting on behalf of its members and their colleagues to achieve equity and inclusion for its diverse membership. This editorial has two aims: (1) to share the extent to which positive changes have been made and also the extent to which underrepresentation still pervades the IS academic community, especially at the senior ranks and in positions of power, and (2) to propose a coordinated, strategic focus that our field, our journals and conferences, and our association (AIS) can take to further improve diversity and inclusion for both junior and senior minority colleagues.

Workplace inclusion is a strategic concern for organizations, yet challenging to achieve. We investigate how Information and Communications Technology (ICT) use can enhance workplace inclusion. Based on qualitative data collected from a leading UK organization, we conceptualize four ICT-enabled workplace inclusion practices – Expanding, Orienting, Enculturating, and Reflecting. Each practice entails the use of multiple ICT applications to enhance workplace inclusion through a distinct set of organizational activities. We also highlight the Reflecting practice as key in enhancing other practices. Drawing from our findings, we develop a framework for ICT-enabled workplace inclusion that constitutes inter-related ICT-enabled practices focused on multiple organizational activities. We contribute to the literature on the strategic role of ICT for organizational/social good, a current area of research priority for the information systems discipline.

Digital new market creation has several advantages for incumbent firms (hereafter referred to as ‘incumbents’) that they seek to exploit by using formalization and implementing agility in their new product development (NPD). We introduce the construct of NPD decision agility encompassing the dimensions of sensemaking, speed, and iteration. However, research reveals heterogeneous insights into formalization’s suitability for digital new market creation and NPD decision agility. In response to this research gap, we test our hypotheses by applying a behavioral lens to a sample of 129 incumbents. We reconcile these heterogeneous insights on innovation by showing that formalization increases digital new market creation, but has more fine-grained effects on NPD decision agility. Although improving sensemaking and reducing iteration, formalization has no effect on speed. Furthermore, political behavior increases formalization’s negative effect on iteration. We contribute to research digitalization and agility at the intersection of information systems and innovation management by reconciling these heterogeneous insights.

High-reliability organizations (HROs) and their complex operating models have been a focus of scholarly work for more than three decades. Recently, HROs have been challenged by new market pressures that require them to digitally transform in ways that affect their identity and value creation models while still maintaining high levels of security and efficiency. This longitudinal, in-depth single-case study of a major European utility company examines the role of HRO identity in digital transformation (DT), specifically in terms of tensions between innovation and transformation on the one hand, and maintaining reliable operations on the other. Our findings show how tensions between HROs’ identity and key features of DT give rise to threat perceptions and self-protective behaviors by the IT workforce, that eventually may derail the transformation process. We develop a process model that highlights the sources and consequences of identity misalignment during major DT initiatives in HROs. In doing so, we extend the research on D T by highlighting the importance of bottom-up processes for DT success and failure, especially concerning the IT function’s perception of organizational identity.

Digital technology enables the transformation of work and workplaces. Previous digital workplace transformation (DWT) literature has shown how organisations add new digital technologies to create new workplace routines. However, such an emphasis on addition may hinder scholarship from recognising that some established workplace technologies and routines must disappear for new ones to emerge. Adopting the concept of deinstitutionalisation, we examine the rationale for and the process of how an organisation abandons workplace routines that conflict with its intended DWT. Referring to this as subtraction logic, we advance two contributions. First, we conceptualise how deinstitutionalisation of established workplace routines and technologies unfolds in DWT by outlining a process model that synthesises addition and subtraction. Second, we highlight the underlying rationales for DWT. With these insights, we shift the gaze from the dominant addition logic, which advocates for appropriating new digital technologies, to the equally important value of subtraction, i.e., removing existing workplace technologies (or inscribed institutional rules) to abandon workplace routines that conflict with the intended DWT. Hence, our study highlights the oft-ignored subtraction logic in DWT.