Impact of Information Systems (IS) Steering Committees on IS Planning*

One of the most efficient ways to manage the information systems function is to introduce steering committees. It has been suggested that one of the foremost benefits of a steering committee is that it can improve the information systems planning efforts of an organization. However, there is very little empirical evidence in the literature that deals with how such committees affect planning. This study investigates the impact of steering committees on three phases of information systems planning: strategic planning, systems planning, and implementation of planning. The greatest impact of steering committees appears to be the strategic planning phase, while a lesser effect is observed in the systems planning and implementation of planning phases.     

Chief Executive Officer Behavior: The Catalyst for Strategic Alignment

Organizations facing the need for significant change must determine both adirection for change and a means to realize the strategy. Implementing astrategy for change is dependent upon aligning organizational parametersproperly at the system level: structure, culture, training and development,recruitment and hiring, resource allocation, leadership, information systems,reward systems, coordination mechanisms, and control systems. The chiefexecutive officer must be the catalyst for strategic alignment. Four clustersof behavior are particularly important for the chief executive officer toexhibit in implementing strategic change: Communication, StrategicInteraction, Resource Utilization, and Leadership. Specific behaviors withinthese clusters are identified. The chief executive officer has an importantrole to play as the catalyst for strategic alignment, but the ultimate purposeof that role is to make it possible for the organization to see itself as abroader community responsible for the long-term success of the organization.     

Integrating information systems into business strategies

The role of information systems (IS) in business is changing rapidly. The information revolution, driven by dramatic improvements in cost and performance of the technology is radically altering the business environment of many firms— restructuring whole industries, re-aligning the balance of power and leverage of industry component firms and enabling competitive strategies to be implemented or sustained more effectively. This transformation of role requires strategies for information systems to become an integral part of business strategy formulation. Traditional approaches to the management of IS activities are inappropriate for the determination of business strategies for systems. However, the techniques of corporate strategic analysis and formulation can be used to determine how IS should be managed to gain maximum business benefit.     

Strategic Manufacturing Planning Systems and Their Linkage to Planning System Success

Academics and practitioners alike are focusing more attention on manufacturing strategy after having recognized the important role it plays in shaping the success of industrial firms. Even though research in this area has increased in the last decade, the focus of much of that work has been on the content rather than the process of the manufacturing strategy. Consequently, this study attempts to understand the important elements of the strategic manufacturing planning process and its effectiveness. Borrowing from the extant literature in the fields of strategic management and information systems, we propose a research model that relates strategic manufacturing planning system design to planning system success. Using structured questionnaires, empirical data is collected from over 200 manufacturing executives to test the model hypotheses. Planning process in manufacturing was found to be a bottom‐up approach from a corporate or business perspective, which differs from the top‐down planning process prevalent in strategic information systems planning process. Findings also indicate that greater planning system success in manufacturing is associated with a planning system that combines some “rational” elements (formality, comprehensiveness, control focus, longer horizon) with others that lend adaptability (wider participation and more intense interaction). But the strategic manufacturing planning system is more than just a collection of independent planning characteristics. Instead, it can be viewed as a gestalt planning system whereby planning characteristics move together in affecting overall planning system success.     

Learning organization,organizational culture,and affective commitment in Malaysia: A person–organization fit theory

ABSTRACT

Based on person–organization fit theory, this article moves beyond theories of motivation and social exchange relationships that have often been used in commitment literature. This article contributes to understanding perceptions of organizational culture (OC) and affective commitment (AC) through perceptions of a learning organization (LO). Such understanding helps to tackle current commitment issues in Malaysia through strategic human resources development (HRD) planning and deploying organization development activities. We examined: (a) the extent to which organizations with an embraced LO mediated OC and AC, (b) the most influential component of OC in promoting employee AC, and (c) the most important component of LO for influencing OC and AC. We obtained 516 respondents (64.5% response rate) in selected Malaysian private organizations. It was concluded that LO mediated the relationship between OC and AC. Respect for people was an influential factor of OC for AC, while empowerment played a significant role in LO culture mediating the relationship between OC and AC. HRD practitioners should strategically plan organizational activities, norms, and policies that promote organizational learning processes and a learning culture to enhance AC.     

Strategic competitive information systems

A variety of strategic competitive information systems is described and evaluated in terms of three criteria which should be met by strategic information systems. The more sophisticated varieties—those that incorporate specific models into the system—generally meet the criteria better than do the ‘retrieval’ varieties of systems. Since systems of this kind are relatively expensive to develop, this suggests that the area of strategic competitive information may be one of great potential payoff for the integration of models into information systems.     

开放信息系统动态运行的需求控制问题

与组织融为一体并相互作用的具有动态结构的开放信息系统是国民经济信息化的基础。本文抽象出信息系统动态运行的需求控制结构,提出了保证这种反馈结构的计算机信息系统的建设要求。     

Selected debate from the arena of knowledge management: new endorsements for established organizational practices

Management theorists and practitioners have been allured recently to the contemporary field of knowledge management. This is a burgeoning subject that has enticed the involvement of specialists from established domains that are broad based in themselves: strategy, organizational behaviour, operations and information technology. In arguing the importance of knowledge in the strategic purpose of the organization, authorities essentially endorse practices that have been supported in the past: practices that appreciate the social context of knowledge. This paper reviews the debates in strategic theory that support the contemporary 'knowledge-based' view of the organization, and describes how established practices relating to knowledge transfer and creation have been recently revitalized.     

Developing an information systems strategy

The pervasiveness of information technology and the development of information economies has been heralded as an ‘information’ revolution. Few organizations can avoid the implications of this revolution and, with the falling cost of hardware and the increased scope of applications, the number of firms needing a strategy for information systems has increased by an order of magnitude. An awareness of the benefits of planning, the dangers of technology which can trap the unwary, and the general characteristics of the DP development cycle, should all convince management of the need for a strategy for information systems. However, while information systems literature has many references to information systems strategy, definitions are elusive. This article describes a basic planning model for developing an information systems strategy. The model is specifically structured to ensure that the necessary strategic issues have been examined, before information systems management are asked to draw up detailed tactical and operational plans.     

参与度、信任与合作效果的关系——基于中国非营利组织与企业合作的实证分析

非营利组织与企业合作共同解决社会问题,是非营利组织和企业共同关注的发展战略,也是和谐社会建设的重要方面。本文基于中国非营利组织与企业合作的现实,通过建立合作双方参与度、信任关系与合作效果的假设模型,根据230个合作项目样本数据,利用回归分析进行了检验。分析结论表明,高的参与程度会带来良好的合作效果;信任在参与度与合作效果关系中的中介作用不完全一致:在参与度影响合作的直接效果中起中介作用;在参与度影响知识创造效果中没有起中介作用;在参与度影响社会效果中起到一定的中介作用。这对改进非营利组织与企业合作管理实践,以及有目的和针对性地实现相应合作效果具有指导意义。     

A Note on Interpersonal and Communication Skills for IS Professionals: Evidence of Positive Influence

A recent article by Byrd and Turner (2001) reported that interpersonal skills on the part of information systems personnel had a negative influence on the success of systems as measured by competitive advantage. Several reasons were forwarded to account for this unexpected result, including lack of richness in the measure of these skills, the use of strategic success measures, the true complexity of interpersonal relations within an organization, and the sample of CIOs who may have a bias in favor of technical skills. We address these concerns by incorporating a set of communication skills into the interpersonal skills set, sampling users for a different set of stakeholders, and employing a more complex model based on theories of expectation. The results indicate that the impacts of interpersonal skills on system success is not a simple function of the perceived level of the IS staff's skill proficiency but is also determined by the understood expectations of skill requirements.     

A path analytic study of the effect of top management support for information systems performance

Information systems (IS) have become a vital component of an organization's competitive practices. Organizations have tried to differentiate themselves based on their use and adaptation of new information technology. Top management support (TMS) is a significant factor in influencing the effectiveness of the IS function in an organization. The literature has conceptually supported this notion, but empirical evidence has been sparse. This paper develops a two-tiered framework for studying the relationship between top management support, the IS function, and IS performance. This conceptual model was empirically tested using structural equation modeling based on data collected through a survey instrument. The results support the direct and indirect relationships depicted in the model between top management support and IS performance.     

商业模式创新的机理分析:一个系统思考框架

在文献研究的基础上,构建起一个商业模式创新机理的二维分析框架,认为商业模式创新包括企业战略分析、创新要素利用、收入模式设计三大模块。基于该判断,采用多案例研究方法分析了4种企业商业模式的创新实践。基于系统思考的研究表明,投资模式是保证企业商业模式持续创新的重要因素,是连接收入模式与企业战略、创新要素的重要纽带;内化于创新活动之间的因果联结机制是商业模式创新的内在机理,初始创新活动则是商业模式创新的触发动因。     

Meeting the challenges of information systems planning

Strategic information systems planning (SISP) is the process of deciding the objectives of computing for an organization and then identifying the applications that the organization should computerize. SISP has become increasingly important as information systems have begun to play a more critical role in implementing business strategies. However, SISP is beset with problems that hinder organizations from determining their computing objectives and applications. This article identifies the impediments to SISP and offers some constructive actions for business planners to take to increase their chances of success. It also suggests that planners may face greater difficulties implementing their information systems plans than in initially creating them.     

Strategic Information Systems Planning: Planning System Dimensions,Internal Coalignment,and Implications for Planning Effectiveness

Improving strategic information systems planning (SISP) remains a critical concern of both practitioners and academics. To date, a rather large number of studies have examined or proposed analytical techniques, frameworks, and tools for developing strategic plans. As a direct consequence of this emphasis, methodologies have often become the basis for characterizing the entire process of SISP within the information systems literature. Recent theoretical work suggests that such characterizations are unnecessarily narrow and that planning activities within organizations can be more accurately conceptualized as systems of behaviors, agendas, or process dimensions. Working within this contemporary theoretical perspective, the findings of this study suggest that SISP can be operationalized along distinct dimensions of comprehensiveness (extent of solution search), formalization (rules and procedures to guide activities), focus (creativity or control), flow (top down, bottom up), participation (number and variety of planners), and consistency (frequency of planning cycles). Similar to previous theoretical work and case studies, higher order factor modeling of these dimensions suggests that planning systems that exhibit aspects of rationality (high comprehensiveness, high formalization, control focus, top-down flow), and adaptation (high participation, high consistency) are positively associated with planning effectiveness.     

Flexibility, Hierarchy, Markets

The conclusion that organizations need to become more strategically flexible as a response to increasing environmental dynamism and uncertainty has been an important feature of recent contingency theories of organization design. In this literature organizations have been analysed from the perspective of the development of networks of organizations concentrating on their core competencies and contracting among themselves on a stable long-term basis. This model of inter-firm relationships provides an alternative mode of organizational structuring to that arising from vertical integration, which, by contrast, is seen as fostering strategic inflexibility. In the literature on corporate restructuring and changes in ownership form arising from the markets and hierarchies perspective, we see a similar emphasis on the dysfunctional consequences of large-scale bureaucratic organization. Changes in ownership form are seen as a major means of providing more effective managerial control. In this paper we argue that linking the literature on flexibility emanating from contingency theories of organizational design and the markets and hierarchies perspective provides important new insights into current and emerging forms of organization.     

Archetype Change in Professional Organizations: Survey Evidence from Large Law Firms

This paper examines the proposition that the traditional archetype of the professional partnership is said to have changed into a more 'business-like' entity, the managed professional business. It broadens the restricted case sample base on which much of the evidence has been adduced, by developing a survey questionnaire through which 197 large British law firms were sampled. Change, consistent with the notion of a more commercially oriented and consciously managed organization, is concentrated in the market-facing area of the firm but coexists with areas of continuity in the governance of the firm and its strategic management. The findings reveal a more managerial form of organization in which the core elements of the traditional form of professional organization have not been transformed. These results contest the assertion of either transformational or sedimented change found in other, case-based research and suggest that archetype change needs theoretically to be distinguished from the general phenomenon of greater managerialism within the professional service firm.     

母子公司战略一致性的路径及实现机制 ——基于相互依赖关系视角

由复杂依赖关系构成的国有企业集团需要确定各子公司在战略目标上达成共识的程度,如何协调依赖关系以促成战略一致成为集团企业亟须解决的问题。本文通过多案例研究方法,基于相互依赖关系视角,构建了母子公司依赖关系与战略一致性的研究框架。通过定性比较分析(QCA),本文解读产生战略承诺的两类构型特征,一类是具有高开放性和低能动性的锁定式建构,另一类是具有低关系形态、高能动性和集权管控的能动式依赖。本文又立足关系规则,构建能够引发主动精神的策略,触发式探索策略可以减弱开放的锁定性和能动的短视性,嵌入式即兴策略可以增加子体的即兴创作和母体的适度规则,以促进子公司主导行为的生成。本文结合能动性与管控模式拓展了相互依赖关系视角的战略研究,对于国有企业集团内部协调运行提供借鉴与启示。     

Strategies for planning

In recent years there has been a good deal of discussion amongst planning specialists and academics about the gap which exists between the theory of planning as set out in journals and textbooks, and the practice of planning in private and public organizations. Planners are continually complaining about the resistance to planning by top management and operating managers in divisions and departments.In this article the author aims to produce a reconciliation between theory and practice and to discuss what alternative strategies are open to planners in devising planning systems for their organizations.He suggests that the problem has its origin in the fact that corporate planning theory was first developed by management scientists as a total systems approach. Corporate planners have failed to sell an integrated planning system either as programme budgeting or as corporate planning. Research suggests that a management team can only adopt and implement a comprehensive planning system in very special circumstances, e.g. when the organization's survival is threatened, a new management team has been appointed and the staff of the organization are ready to accept radical change.In normal circumstances the planner is wrong to advocate a ‘root and branch’ solution. He must diagnose the planning needs of the organization and his objective must be not merely to establish a particular planning procedure but rather to discover how he can best improve the quality of management decisions.Recent studies on strategy formation indicate that the introduction of a formal planning procedure is only a partial answer to the problem of improving the quality of management decisions.The paper reviews various approaches to planning and considers how they relate to organizations with different strategic problems, with differing organization structures and various management styles.     

The social construction of strategic coherence: Practices of enabling leadership

The construction of “strategic coherence,” defined as the development of a system of mutually compatible meanings among organization members about desirable organizational directions, is clearly a crucial issue for organizations. Yet, how to achieve it is in part an open question. While previous studies have considered how strategic coherence may emerge across top levels of management through strategic planning activities and negotiations among senior leaders, we know much less about the contribution of other actors and processes behind the scenes (in non-strategy roles). Drawing on an ethnographic study of a public hospital's planning and project management practices, this paper therefore focuses on the bundles of practices, people and tools through which strategic coherence can emerge across different levels and sectors in mundane activities. We build on the concept of “enabling leadership”, grounded in practice theories of leadership, as our analytical lens. The study reveals how strategic coherence is socially constructed by practices of ‘fueling’, ‘shaping’ and ‘entwining’ mutually compatible meanings, in interactions among diverse people and tools. We propose a grounded model of the construction of strategic coherence as the progressive socialization of meanings about organizational direction that is not just administered from the top, nor naturally emergent from the grass-roots, but that is a collective and inherently socio-material accomplishment of enabling leadership.