PRINCIPLES OF ORGANIZATIONAL CO-EVOLUTION OF BUSINESS AND IT: A COMPLEXITY PERSPECTIVE

The Business and IT Co-evolution (BITC) is a growing concern for researchers and practitioners alike. Extant literature on implementation and management of BITC is still in infancy and lacks especially empirical guidelines. This paper makes two contributions to the study of BITC. First, we summarize and systematically organize 10 BITC principles from prior literature to guide management efforts. Second, we build a system dynamics model based on the 10 principles to apply these principles as a means to improve the BITC management. The model embraces the emergent behaviors driven by the interactions of business and IT, and guides the BITC governance shaped by the principles. The development of this model forms a necessary step towards suggesting guidance how to implement BITC in companies. The paper also shows the capability of a system dynamic method to capture some of the holistic behaviors that emerge from implementing the 10 principles

USING A CO-EVOLUTIONARY IS-ALIGNMENT APPROACH TO UNDERSTAND EMR IMPLEMENTATIONS

Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) are repositories of electronic medical histories of patients, main-tained over time. Hospital operations and EMRs typically become interdependent, due to the inclusion of medical workflow- and administrative process support as core functionalities. Hence, it is profoundly challenging to effectively enable complex, multi-stakeholder clinical processes, enhance patient care, and align EMRs with hospital strategies, goals, and needs. In this study, we build upon co-evolutionary IS-alignment (COISA) theories and argue that current approaches to business-IT alignment in hospitals should be reconceptualised, particularly regarding modern EMR implementations. In this effort, we respond to the call for more empirical research on business-IT co-evolution. We unfold how COISA manifests during EMR implementations using a multiple case study method. This method allows us to get a rich understanding of the complex social phenomena that emerge during EMR implementations. Outcomes show that COISA manifests in all three cases, involving different stakeholder groups, but in different localities and intensities. These findings suggest that COISA is a suitable framework to de-scribe and understand EMR implementations and that different configurations of interaction patterns can lead to comparable results. This understanding enables EMR practitioners to more effectively iden-tify improvement areas in dealing with internal and external complexity

Co-evolutionary IS-Alignment: A Complex Adaptive Systems Perspective

Many studies have investigated the effects of information technology (IT) in achieving organizational performance. However, despite substantial IT investments, organizations often fail to improve organi-zational performance using IT. This failure could be the result of a lack of Business-IT alignment. Re-cently, scholars and practitioners have adopted a complexity science approach to better address the many interwoven IT, organizational and environmental turbulence challenges. These efforts resulted in the emergence of the complexity-based concept of co-evolutionary IS/IT-alignment (COISA). COISA involves “the series of coevolutionary moves that makes IT aligned over time.” However, the notion of COISA remains conceptual, and further operationalization in preparation for more empirical evidence seems appropriate. Therefore, this study aims to provide further clarification on the conceptualization of COISA in turbulent environments. We conducted a structured literature review using a theoretical foundation of Complex Adaptive Systems theory. In this effort, we developed a COISA model composed of five continuous alignment processes characterized by co-evolutionary moves toward alignment, situated in two organizational contexts. This model provides a basis for further empirical re-search on COISA