Developing a taxonomy for the understanding of business and it alignment paradigms and tools

The alignment of information technology with business objectives tends to be a managerial priority in modern organisations. Thus, practitioners and researchers have proposed different approaches to assess this relationship, some following similar approaches whilst others proposing different ones. The variety of approaches proposed, however, has created confusion about the applicability and context in which these approaches can be used. Thus, aiming to tackle this challenge, this paper proposes a taxonomy that organises and compares studies of alignment assessment in terms of their theoretical constructors and their practical use. The taxonomy is build around two research sources: a) a review of the literature of alignment and b) a framework for comparing IS methodologies. The structure of the taxonomy permits insights into studies by means of six theoretical (objective, nature of strategy, paradigm, dimension, type of measurement, model) and six practical constructors (audience, scope, output, techniques, product, target). The taxonomy is then applied to six assessment studies. The benchmarking analysis of these helped to identify their theoretical basis and its practical use, and confirms the need for more practical mechanisms to assess alignment. Additionally, it becomes apparent that process perspectives and social understanding of alignment are the two main paradigms for alignment

OntoEng: A design method for ontology engineering in information systems

This paper addresses the design problem relating to ontology engineering in the discipline of information systems. Ontology engineering is a realm that covers issues related to ontology development and use throughout its life span. Nowadays, ontology as a new innovation promises to improve the design, semantic integration, and utilization of information systems. Ontologies are the backbone of knowledge-based systems. In addition, they establish sharable and reusable common understanding of specific domains amongst people, information systems, and software agents. Notwithstanding, the ontology engineering literature does not provide adequate guidance on how to build, evaluate, and maintain ontologies. On the basis of the gathered experience during the development of V4 Telecoms Business Model Ontology as well as the conducted integration of the related literature from the design science paradigm, this paper introduces OntoEng and its application as a novel systematic design method for ontology engineering

Deferred Action: Theoretical model of process architecture design for emergent business processes

E-Business modelling and ebusiness systems development assumes fixed company resources, structures, and business processes. Empirical and theoretical evidence suggests that company resources and structures are emergent rather than fixed. Planning business activity in emergent contexts requires flexible ebusiness models based on better management theories and models . This paper builds and proposes a theoretical model of ebusiness systems capable of catering for emergent factors that affect business processes. Drawing on development of theories of the ‘action and design’class the Theory of Deferred Action is invoked as the base theory for the theoretical model. A theoretical model of flexible process architecture is presented by identifying its core components and their relationships, and then illustrated with exemplar flexible process architectures capable of responding to emergent factors. Managerial implications of the model are considered and the model’s generic applicability is discussed

A Process for Engineer Domain Ontology: An Experience in Developing Business Analysis Ontology

During the last years several works have been aimed to improve ontology technological as-pects, like representation language and inference mechanisms. This paper presents a discussion on the process and product of an experience in developing ontology for the public sector whose organization requires a strong knowledge management. This process is applied to engineer and develop ontology for Business analysis domain.Ontology, Ontology Engineering, Methodology, Protégé, Business Analysis

Business and Information System Alignment Theories Built on eGovernment Service Practice: An Holistic Literature Review

© 2019 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.This chapter examines previous studies of alignment between business and information systems holistically in relation to the development of working associations among professionals from information system and business backgrounds in business organization and eGovernment sectors while investigating alignment research that permits the development and growth of information system, which is appropriate, within budget and on-time development. The process of alignment plays a key role in the construction of dependent associations among individuals from two different groups, and the progress of alignment could be enhanced by emerging an information system according to the investors’ prospects. The chapter presents system theory to gather and analyze the data across the designated platforms. The outcomes classify that alignment among business and information system departments remains a priority and is of worry in different ways in diverse areas, which provides prospects for the forthcoming discussion and research.Final Published versio

Bells that still can ring: systems thinking in practice

Complexity science has generated significant insight regarding the interrelatedness of factors and actors constituting our real world and emergent effects from such interrelationships. But the translation of such rich insight towards developing appropriate tools for improving real world situations of change and uncertainty provides a further significant challenge. Systems thinking in practice is a heuristic framework based upon ideas of boundary critique for guiding the use and development of tools from different traditions in managing complex realities. By reference to five systems approaches, each embodying more than 30 years of experiential use, three interrelated features of the framework are drawn out – contexts of systemic change, practitioners as change agents, and tools as systems constructs that can themselves change through adaptation. The ‘bells that still can ring’ refer to tools associated with the Systems tradition which have demonstrable capacity to change and adapt by continual iteration with changing context of use and different practitioners using them. It is in the practice of using such tools whilst being aware of significant ‘cracks’ associated with traps in managing complex realities that enables systems thinking in practice to evolve. Complexity tools as examples of systems thinking can inadvertently invite traps of reductionism within contexts, dogmatism amongst practitioners, and fetishism of our tools as conceptual constructs associated with ultimately undeliverable promises towards achieving holism and pluralism. The heuristic provides a guiding framework on monitoring the development of tools from different traditions for improving complex realities and avoiding such traps

TRIZ: an alternate way to solve problem for student

Inventive problem solving is an alternative way of solving problem for student. 60 years ago, in 1956, Altshuller published a new, constructive and methodical approach ideas on problem solving to offer to the world. Even though TRIZ originally meant for fields of industry domains, it has solved problems in other field using some common principles. Thus, this methodology has spread to over 35 countries across the world. It is now being taught in several universities and it has been applied by a number of global organizations who have found it particularly useful to solve their problem. In 2017, KSSM curriculum has been revised to cope up this 21st century demand. This paper is a potentially useful for TRIZ beginner, as an alternative to solve problem comparable to common problem solving method. This paper also discussed the limitation of other common problem method which leads the advantages of using TRIZ

An Ontology for Product-Service Systems

Industries are transforming their business strategy from a product-centric to a more service-centric nature by bundling products and services into integrated solutions to enhance the relationship between their customers. Since Product- Service Systems design research is currently at a rudimentary stage, the development of a robust ontology for this area would be helpful. The advantages of a standardized ontology are that it could help researchers and practitioners to communicate their views without ambiguity and thus encourage the conception and implementation of useful methods and tools. In this paper, an initial structure of a PSS ontology from the design perspective is proposed and evaluated