An Ethnographic Study of IS Investment Appraisal

Both academics and practitioners have invested considerably in the information systems evaluation arena, yet rewards remain elusive. The aim of this paper is to provide rich insights into the process of IS evaluation by examining some particular political and social aspects of evaluation processes. An ethnographic study of a large, international financial institution is used to compare the experience of observed practice with the rhetoric of company policy, and also to contrast these observations with the process of IS evaluation as portrayed within the literature. Our study shows that despite increasing acknowledgement within the IS evaluation literature of the limitations and flaws of the positivist approach, this shift in focus towards interpretivist understanding has had little impact on organizational practice. In addition, our observations within the research site reveal that the assumed rationality of formalised evaluation processes merely obscures issues of power and politics that are enmeshed within these processes

Combining the User as Social Actor Model, Institutional Theory and a Theory of Unobtrusive Power to Understand the Acquiescence of Software Developers

In this paper we argue that a combination of a social actor model, Institutional theory, and a model of unobtrusive power can constitute a theoretical framework for understanding how the business client is able to exercise control and subsequent subjugation of developers in the systems development process. Specifically, the paper develops a 3-level theoretical framework grounded in institutional theory that integrates elements of Lamb and Kling’s social actor model and Scott’s 3-pillars framework concentrating on the relationships among systems developers, the business client, the SDM, and the context surrounding its use. The framework is strengthened through the application of a third level – Hardy’s multi-dimensional model of power, offering explanations of political inactivity by developers. In this paper we discuss how all three theory can be combined in a framework for analyzing the power relations between developers and the business client. We apply this theoretical framework in a case study of the deployment of a mandated in-house developed systems development methodology in a large IT department of a major Australian bank Here we will show how, from the perspective of developers, the business client exercise both overt and unobtrusive power over the development process

Storytelling as a tool for knowledge transfer in the IT industry

Pre-investment evaluation of information system project proposals persists in being problematic and highly risky in practice. Numerous evaluation approaches and methodologies, offered in the literature, have not contributed to major improvements in practice. As the literature review shows, these methodologies have assumed an ideal of objective and scientific evaluation and taken the view of methodology as science. In this paper we aim to revisit the notion of IS evaluation methodology in practice and specifically explore the methodology as both the ‘science’ and the ‘art’. We achieve these aims by conducting an Actor Network Theory (ANT) study of IS evaluation in a large financial services company. The ANT study allowed us to investigate the methodology as it is enacted in IS project evaluations in practice without making any a priori decision of what methodology is or should do. By defining a series of processes, inscription aids and mandated checkpoints we found that the evaluation methodology engenders the evaluation process as ‘science’; and by allowing a degree of freedom in conducting the evaluation processes, the methodology is also enabling the evaluation processes to emerge as ‘art’ and by doing so stimulating creativity and innovation. Thus the ANT approach assisted in our discovery of the dual nature of methodology as simultaneously science and art

IT PROJECT PRIORITIZATION – A MATTER OF INTUITION AND TRUST

Organizations generally have a variety of IT projects to implement, but only limited resources to develop them. As information technology and systems pervade organizations, the pool of potential IT projects is continually increasing. In this paper, we explore IT project prioritization practices in a real life context and contrast them with the rational approaches which dominate the IS literature. We present a case study conducted in a large Scandinavian financial institution in which we found that the IT project prioritization process involved an informal way of generating and collecting project ideas and that several types of constraints limited the number of projects as well the type of projects. The study shows that calculated, financial benefits are not used for prioritization, that intangible benefits are very important despite not being measured and that alternatives approaches based on intuition and trust govern the prioritization process. Our results, supported by other research studies, open up new paths for the discussion of the nature of IT project prioritization and for the improvement of a prioritization process which is based less on rational considerations and more on a balanced approach of instinct, faith and contextual reasoning which also takes tangible, calculated benefits into account. We suggest for future work a further investigation of the relationship between these elements in the context of IT project prioritization

SYSTEMIC POWER, DISCIPLINARY AGENCY, AND DEVELOPER–BUSINESS CLIENT RELATIONS

This paper presents Hardy’s multi-dimensional model of power and illustrates its application to the field of IS. Findings from a case study of developer—business client power relations within a large financial institution are presented. Our findings indicate that from the developers’ perspective, the client exercised near complete control, with developers unwittingly playing a cooperative but submissive role. Our study makes two principal contributions. First, we combine Hardy’s (1996) multi-dimensional power framework and the principles of Pickering’s (1995) version of disciplinary agency to propose why the developer was compliant in this scenario of power inequality. Second, we examine how a development methodology helped convey symbolic and disciplinary power. By doing so we gain rich insight into how meaning power, and the power of the system institutionalised within the methodology, can constrain the actions of developers

ACTION DESIGN ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH – IN SEARCH OF A RIGOROUS METHODOLOGY FOR IS RESEARCH

Action Design Research (ADR) has been developed as a broader research framework to design, evaluate and redesign IT artifacts in organizational contexts while design-evaluation-redesign is inseparable and iterative. ADR seeks to build IT artifact in organizational contexts and implement, redesign and evaluate it through organizational intervention. We applied ADR in a complex context of a develop country where understanding organizational context is challenging. In this situation, we applied ADR in ethnographic methodological framework in order to understand the complex organizational context. From our empirical findings, we found that applying ADR with the ethnographic methodological framework is potential for understanding the complex contexts. We showed that the ethnographic methodology has potential complementary with ADR’s stages and processes without requiring extra stages. Further, we argued that applying ADR in ethnographic methodology can be seen as Action Design Ethnographic Research (ADER)

From beliefs to success: Utilizing an expanded TAM to predict web page development success

The technology acceptance model (TAM) is a popular model for the prediction of information systems acceptance behaviors, defining a causal linkage between beliefs, attitudes, intentions, and the usage of information technologies. Since its inception, numerous studies have utilized the TAM, providing empirical support for the model in both traditional and Internet-based computing settings. This article describes a research study that utilizes an adaptation of the TAM to predict successful Web page development, as an introduction of the TAM to a new domain, and the testing of a new dependent variable within the model. The study found some evidence to support the use of the TAM as a starting point for the prediction of Web development success, finding causal linkages between the belief constructs and the attitude constructs, and the intent construct and the successful development of Web pages. However, additional research is required to further study the expanded model introduced within this article. Keywords: computer attitudes; internet attitudes; system development success; technology acceptance model (TAM

Método de Análise de Investimentos em Sistemas de Informação e Tecnologias de Informação e Comunicação (SI/TIC) aplicado ao Sector Público

Mestrado em Gestão de Sistemas de InformaçãoO objectivo deste estudo consiste em propor um método de análise ex-ante de investimentos na área de sistemas de informação e tecnologias de informação e comunicação (SI/TIC), com aplicação ao sector público, que represente uma melhoria face aos métodos actualmente existentes. A metodologia adoptada consiste em determinar as características identificadas na literatura como desejáveis para um método desta natureza, orientar o desenvolvimento do método no sentido dessas características e, uma vez desenvolvido, verificar em que medida o mesmo as conseguiu incorporar. Uma das características consideradas fundamentais é a da usabilidade pelos decisores: Para facilitar a utilização pelos decisores é desenvolvida uma aplicação que o implementa o método proposto. Outra característica tida como importante é a incorporação de conhecimentos já disponíveis, pelo que o método proposto é desenvolvido a partir de outros já existentes: a metodologia MAIS e a AHP expandida com cut off values (AHP+). O método resultante vai ao encontro de muitas características identificadas como desejáveis, sendo de destacar a capacidade de incorporar múltiplos critérios livremente escolhidos, numa avaliação que faculta um valor preciso facilitando a comparação precisa entre várias alternativas de investimento. As vertentes estratégica, financeira e de risco são abordadas de forma abrangente e sistemática. Posterior investigação orientada para aumentar a usabilidade do método fica facilitada pela disponibilização de uma aplicação que o implementa.The goal of the present study is the proposal of an improved method for ex-ante investment assessment in information systems and information and communications technology to be mainly used in the public sector. The adopted methodology relies on literature review aimed at identification of key characteristics whose accommodation at the method to be developed is to be evaluated. One of the key characteristics is perceived usability since most available methods are not used while investment decisions are still made in a casuistic manner. In order to improve its usage the method is provided together with a software application. Since available knowledge embedding is an important characteristic the method is developed from existing ones, namely MAIS and an expanded version of AHP (AHP+). The resulting method meets most of the key characteristics notably its multi-criteria capacities as well as its precise evaluation feed-back allowing for a fine comparison between rival investment proposals. Strategic, financial and risk issues are also dealt with in a broad systematic way. Following investigation aiming to increase usability of the proposed method will be eased since the provided software application allows for real life tests which will give valuable feed-back

The Role of Business Intelligence in Organizational Decision-making

This Ph.D. thesis is concerned with the role of the business intelligence (BI) output in organizational decision-making processes. The primary focus of this thesis is to investigate how this BI output is employed and deployed by decision-makers to shape collective judgement and to reach organizational decisions. Concerning the role of the BI output in decision-making the BI literature is characterized by normative ideas of how the BI output should be used in decision-making and how it can enable people to make better decisions. Most previous work has concerned methods and technologies to collect, store and analyze BI. It has also, assumed a rational approach to decision making where data from information systems are used to inform decisions either by reducing uncertainty, ambiguity or complexity. This study attempts to establish knowledge about the role of the BI output in the IT project prioritization process of the Group IT of the Danske Bank Group. Hence, the starting point of this thesis is a 16-month long interpretive study from March 2010 till July 2011 during which I observed the prioritization process and collected various forms of data. I use a rich dataset built from this longitudinal study of the IT project prioritization process in Group IT where thematic analysis is used to analyze the data. Overall, the study operates under the interpretive paradigm, which assumes that the world and knowledge are socially constructed