A fuzzy clustering methodology to analyze interfaces and assess integration risks in large-scale systems

“Interface analysis and integration risk assessment for a large-scale, complex system is a difficult systems engineering task, but critical to the success of engineering systems with extraordinary capabilities. When dealing with large-scale systems there is little time for data gathering and often the analysis can be overwhelmed by unknowns and sometimes important factors are not measurable because of the complexities of the interconnections within the system. This research examines the significance of interface analysis and management, identifies weaknesses in literature on risk assessment for a complex system, and exploits the benefits of soft computing approaches in the interface analysis in a complex system and in the risk assessment of system integration readiness. The research aims to address some of the interface analysis challenges in a large-scale system development lifecycle such as the ones often experienced in aircraft development. The resulting product from this research is contributed to systems engineering by providing an easy-to-use interface assessment and methodology for a trained systems engineer to break the system into communities of dense interfaces and determine the integration readiness and risks based on those communities. As a proof of concept this methodology is applied on a power seat system in a commercial aircraft with data from the Critical Design Review”--Abstract, page iv

Information Technology and the Search for Organizational Agility: A Systematic Review with Future Research Possibilities

Organizations are increasingly turning to information technology (IT) to help them respond to unanticipated environmental threats and opportunities. In this paper, we introduce a systematic review of the literature on IT-enabled agility, helping to establish the boundary between what we know and what we don’t know. We base our review on a wide body of literature drawn from the AIS Basket of Eight IT journals, a cross-section of non-Basket journals, IT practitioner outlets, and premier international IS conferences. We review the use of different theoretical lenses used to investigate the relationship between IT and organizational agility and how the literature has conceptualized agility, its antecedents, and consequences. We also map the evolution of the literature through a series of stages that highlight how researchers have built on previous work. Lastly, we discuss opportunities for future research in an effort to close important gaps in our understanding

Understanding Effective Use of Big Data: Challenges and Capabilities (A Management Perspective)

While prior research has provided insights into challenges and capabilities related to effective Big Data use, much of this contribution has been conceptual in nature. The aim of this study is to explore such challenges and capabilities through an empirical approach. Accordingly, this paper reports on a multiple case study approach, involving eight organizations from the private and public sectors. The study provides empirical support for capabilities and challenges identified through prior research and identifies additional insights viz. problem-driven approach, time to value, data readiness, data literacy, data misuse, operational agility, and organizational maturity assessment

Cloud Computing Tipping Point Model

Recently a continuing trend toward ITindustrialization has grown in popularity. IT services deliveredvia hardware, software and people are becoming repeatableand usable by a wide range of customers and service providers.This is due, in part, to the commoditization and standardizationof technologies, virtualization and the rise of service-orientedsoftware architectures, and (most importantly) the dramaticgrowth in popularity/use of the Internet and the Web. Takentogether, they constitute the basis of a discontinuity that amountsto a new opportunity to shape the relationship between those whouse IT services and those who sell them. The discontinuity impliesthat the ability to deliver specialised services in IT can be pairedwith the ability to deliver those services in an industrialised andpervasive way. The reality of this implication is that users of ITrelatedservices can focus on what the services provide them, ratherthan how the services are implemented or hosted. Analogous tohow utility companies sell power to subscribers, and telephonecompanies sell voice and data services, some IT services suchas network security management, data centre hosting or evendepartmental billing can now be easily delivered as a contractualservice. This notion of cloud computing capability is gatheringmomentum rapidly. However, the governance and enterprisearchitecture to obtain repeatable, scalable and secure businessoutcomes from cloud computing is still greatly undefined.This paper attempts to evaluate the enterprise architecturefeatures of cloud computing and investigates a model that an ITorganisation can leverage to predict / evaluate the ‘tipping point’where an organisation can make an objective decision to investin cloud computing. Current research results are attempting tobuild a quantitative and qualitative service centric frameworkby mapping cloud computing features with ValIT and COBITindustry best practices

THE IMPACT OF EMPLOYEE COMPETENCE ON ORGANIZATIONAL AGILITY: THE MEDIATING ROLE OF IT ALIGNMENT

Scholars have proposed that IT enables organizational agility by extending the reach and richness of firm knowledge and processes. However, this relationship is still open to debate. Based on the dynamic capabilities perspective, this paper proposes a model to investigate how employee competence (i.e., IT competence of business people and business competence of IT professionals) affects organizational agility through IT alignment. Data analysis results show that IT alignment fully mediates the influence of IT competence of business people and partially mediates the influence of business competence of IT professionals on organizational agility. In addition, the two kinds of competence are also positively interacting with each other to enhance IT alignment. We summarize with implications and suggestions for future research

Towards an understanding of business design within enterprise architecture management: a cautionary tale

Includes bibliographical references.Business Design represents a set of concepts that are described in the literature as providing a sound foundation for sustainable competitive advantage into the future. The particular values underpinning Business design are based on the enablement of a design thinking approach to solving the imponderable problems that organisations regularly encounter. In particular, the application of a design thinking approach to Business Design requires that resultant system designs are economically viable and technologically feasible. Enterprise Architecture Management plays a vital role in supporting these latter two requirements. Yet the definition of Enterprise Architecture Management as the 'normative restriction of design freedom' (Deitz, 2011) implies constraints that could impose limits on such business design. Consequently, the qualitative inductive research described in this document was undertaken to explore the perceived paradoxical relationship between Business Design and Enterprise Architecture Management. This dissertation recounts the process and results of this research initiative based on data recorded during interviews with a number of management level staff at a leading South African Insurance organisation. The participants were intimately involved in a programme to, amongst other objectives, establish a platform to support enterprise-wide Business Design within Enterprise Architecture Management, a programme that was experiencing a number of challenges and that was still underway at the time of completion of this research. Findings arising from this research were that the varying perceptions and levels of commitment of business and IT stakeholders associated with the programme and its requirements, contributed significantly to these challenges. In addition to providing a rich description of the case organisation's journey towards the establishment of a Business Design platform, a sensitising framework – 'The 6 Cs Framework in Support of the Successful Enablement of Business Design within Enterprise Architecture Management' – is proposed as a useful tool to assist organisations that might be considering a similar programme in the future

Business processes in the agile organisation: a socio-technical perspective

© 2015, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg. This paper takes a cross-disciplinary view of the ontology of “business process”: how the concept is treated in the IS research literature and how related concepts (with stronger human behavioural orientation) from organisation and management sciences can potentially inform this IS perspective. In particular, is there room for socio-technical concepts such as technology affordance, derived from the constructivist tradition, in improving our understanding of operational business processes, particularly human-centric business processes? The paper presents a theoretical framework for understanding the role of business processes in organisational agility that distinguishes between the process-as-designed and the process-as-practiced. How this practice aspect of business processes also leads to the improvisation of various information technology enablers, is explored using a socio-technical lens. The posited theoretical framework is illustrated and validated with data drawn from an interpretive empirical case study of a large IT services company. The research suggests that processes within the organisation evolve both by top-down design and by the bottom-up routinisation of practice and that the tension between these is driven by the need for flexibility

Hospital Leadership in Support of Digital Transformation

Evolving customer expectations and the rapid introduction of new information technologies are influencing business operations, and businesses need to transform themselves with new operating models to remain competitive. The traditional top-down administrative leadership approach is not sufficiently flexible to support the innovation needed to sustain customer engagement and retention. There is a need for both an enabling leadership that supports the exploration of innovative ideas quickly for viability and an adaptive leadership to transition the ideas that show promise into the current business model or a variation of this model to sustain growth. We define digital leadership as a strategic process that collectively uses these three leadership styles to create an ecosystem that advances a culture of innovation within organizations. This leadership process uses four foundational platforms to support business transformations: (1) An innovation platform to empower teams to explore ideas that create value using digital transformations; (2) An agile system and business platform to quickly design and deliver IT implementations; (3) A learning platform to support reflective discourse that leads to organizational capacity building; and (4) An adoption platform to decide when and what implementations get transitioned to the regular business for sustaining competitiveness. We will illustrate how digital leadership is used to transform the culture of a community hospital through several IS implementations recognized by external peers for their innovativeness. Available at: https://aisel.aisnet.org/pajais/vol10/iss3/1

Strategies for I-Business in Virtual Markets: A Co-Evolutionary Approach

This paper presents proposals for current research into IT-based strategies within virtual markets. It argues for a more flexible and dynamic approach to IT enabled change which is a direct consequence of these new organisational forms. An initial overview is presented of the mechanisms and dynamics of change and the unique features of IBusiness is described. The paper then considers so-called ‘virtual market ecosystems’ where organisations evolve to support various changes to their environments through the adoption and implementation of electronic infrastructures. In this way organizations are attempting to deal with their surroundings which includes all aspects of IT-enabled learning and adaptation (Clegg et al, 1996; De Geus, 1997; Dvorak et al, 1997; Hackney et al, 1999). The contribution of the paper is to identify the fundamental theoretical approaches to meet the challenges of these emerging virtual markets and to propose appropriate IT strategies for I-Business in this respect