Journal of Strategic Information Systems最新文献

Digital strategy alignment is a dominant concern for today’s managers and information systems researchers. Yet research in this area remains fragmented, particularly on the digital strategy alignment of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which is concerning owing to their value to European economies. Employing dynamic capabilities as an analytical lens, we investigate how 43 British, Irish, Italian, and Spanish SMEs, across five industry sectors, enact digital aligning. We identify a model of digital alignment comprising five phases, which we term “passive acceptance,” “connection,” “immersion,” “fusion,” and “transformation,” as well as the specific combinations of sensing, seizing, and reorganizing capabilities associated with each phase. Our model provides a holistic, practice-based perspective and highlights the role of micro-behaviors and leadership in SMEs implementing digital strategy.

The strategic information systems planning (SISP) literature has retained a narrow focus on organizational level activity to date. Limited empirical research has explored SISP’s multi-level interlinkages and complexities. Studies that have attempted to explore the micro activity of strategizing via a practice-based perspective have had their significance to academic and practitioner audiences questioned on grounds of micro-isolationism. Using a strategy as practice (SAP) lens, this study investigates how senior managers practice SISP through case studies of two public sector organizations (PSOs). The research’s primary contribution is a multi-level framework representing the practice of SISP. We ‘de-isolate’ SISP activity by empirically revealing how it is linked across macro, meso, and micro levels by SISP’s practitioners. Relating seemingly mundane strategic activity to matters of consequence has proven an enduring issue. Yet, at a time when organizations are facing grand challenges of increasing frequency and scale, we argue that the situating of day-to-day information systems (IS) strategy work within its broader context has never been more important. We propose a future research agenda premised upon moving ‘upstream’ to position SISP relative to grand challenges and ‘downstream’ to capture more open and inclusive forms of SISP.

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.

Fueled by the development of Internet-based platforms that provided its technological foundation, and the need for an agile and uniquely skilled workforce, crowdsourcing has grown from the grassroots, with a burgeoning body of research investigating its many aspects. To gain insight into organizational crowdsourcing as a strategic IS sourcing phenomenon, this paper thoroughly reviews the literature to identify both areas of saturation and gaps, with a focus on the strategic organizational context. Pulling together knowledge on specific aspects of crowdsourcing, we first offer a high-level analysis of definitions to reveal rather broad coverage of various activities involving the crowd, many of which do not involve sourcing. We further build on the literature to establish boundary conditions and clarify the focus on crowdsourcing. This is followed by an in-depth critical analysis of selected studies published in top IS and general management journals to date. Through this review, we identify key themes that emerge out of the crowdsourcing literature and synthesize the literature to chart a more focused research path moving forward. Guided by our analysis, we offer a road map for future research that brings together fine-grained insights from existing crowdsourcing studies towards developing a high-level, macro-perspective of the crowdsourcing phenomenon and its strategic impact.

Uncertainty and the pursuit of new ventures are intricately linked. Digital technologies open up new ways for uncertainty handling in the pursuit of novelty. In this paper, we develop a process model that traces the dynamics among uncertainty, digitally enabled tactics, and organizational novelty. The model points to the potential of technologies that are evocative, disposable, and responsive for venturing in complex, uncertainty-ridden contexts. Our research builds on extant conceptualizations of complexity in innovation journeys, in conjunction with perspectives on effectual entrepreneurial tactics. Empirically, we investigate uncertainty handling through a longitudinal case study on an in-house venture for the introduction of novel electronic services for patients in a major university hospital. Our research provides insight into the processes through which intrapreneurs handle uncertainty by leveraging the potential of digital technologies. The paper offers theoretical implications for the digital intrapreneurship literature.