Architectural evolution through softwarisation: on the advent of software-defined networks

Digital infrastructures characteristically expand and evolve. Their propensity for growth can be attributed to the self-reinforcing mechanism of positive network externalities, in which the value and attractiveness of any digital infrastructure to users, is generated from and sustained as a function of the size of its existing user community. The expansion of any digital infrastructure, though, is ultimately underpinned by an inherent architectural capacity to support unanticipated change, that may include changes to architecture itself. However, as digital infrastructures scale, their usage grows, and they encounter and become entangled with other digital infrastructures. As such, the capacity of digital infrastructure architecture to accommodate change, under conditions of positive network externalities that attract users, conversely leads to intensified social and technical dependencies that eventually resist certain kinds of change. That is, it leads to sociotechnical ossifications. Changing underlying architecture in existing digital infrastructures, thus, becomes increasingly prohibitive over time. Information Systems (IS) research suggests that architectural change or evolution in digital infrastructures occurs primarily via a process of replacement through two means. An existing digital infrastructure is either completely replaced with one that has an evolved architecture, or intermediary transitory gateways are used to facilitate interoperability between digital infrastructures of incompatible architectures. Recognising the sociotechnical ossifications that resist architectural evolution, this literature has also tended to focus more on social activities of cultivating change of which the outcome is architectural evolution in digital infrastructures, than directly on architectural evolution itself. In doing so it has provided only a partial account of underlying architectural evolution in digital infrastructures. The findings of this research come from an embedded case study in which changes to underlying architecture in existing networking infrastructures were made. Networking infrastructures are a prime instance of sociotechnically ossified digital infrastructures. The case’s primary data sources included interviews with 39 senior networking and infrastructure virtualisation experts from large Internet and Cloud Service Providers, Standards Development Organisations, Network Equipment Vendors, Network Systems Integrators, Virtualisation Software Technology Organisations, Research Institutes, and as well technical documents. A critical realist analysis was used to uncover generative mechanisms that promote underlying architectural evolution in sociotechnically ossified digital infrastructures. This thesis extends IS understanding of architectural evolution in digital infrastructures with the complementary finding of, architectural evolution through softwarisation. In architectural evolution through softwarisation, the architecture of sociotechnically ossified digital infrastructures, is evolved via the exploitation of features inherent to digital entities, which have been overlooked in extant research on architecture in digital infrastructures

Use of linguistic markers in the identification and analysis of chief executives’ hubris

This research seeks to provide an insight into the identification and understanding of linguistic markers of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) hubris. It analyses spoken and written discourse samples of CEOs deemed to be hubristic and benchmarks the results against those of a sample of non-hubristic CEOs. In doing so it explores the hypothesis that the linguistic utterances of hubristic CEOs show consistent differences from the language produced by CEOs who have not been identified as possessing hubristic tendencies. This thesis presents a review of academic literatures pertaining to personality, hubris and natural language use. The review of these three domains leads to the conclusion that certain personality traits are antecedents to hubris and can be identified in one’s language use. The word count strategies are reviewed in depth as a framework for measuring hubris at-a-distance through the assessment of CEO’s linguistic utterances. In addition to word count strategies, this thesis also proposes a new approach – applying machine learning techniques to the analysis of language - for identifying CEO hubris. The research consists of a Pilot Study and three main studies (Study 1, Study 2, Study 3 (comprising two sub-studies, 3a and 3b)). It describes in detail the process, methods and materials used, summarises findings and explains the implications of the results obtained for further research into linguistic markers of hubris. For the purpose of this research, Hubris Syndrome is conceptualised as proposed by Owen and Davidson (2009), including all 14 proposed symptoms for Hubris Syndrome (Owen & Davidson, 2009). This research focuses explicitly on leaders who occupy or have occupied the position of CEO for a significant amount of time and were identified by other researchers, subject matter experts and media as having exhibited the features of Hubris Syndrome during their time in office. This research proposes several innovative techniques to identify the differences between hubristic and non-hubristic language, and documents subtle differences identified. Findings from this doctoral study suggest that the high use of impersonal pronouns, the total count of pronouns, auxiliary verbs, common verbs and tentative tone indicate CEO hubris. All in all, exploring if and how hubris’ symptoms manifests in CEO language use and what are characteristic features of hubristic discourse, contributes to wider research regarding the diagnosis and prevention of this phenomenon. This study seeks to mitigate the risk of potentially destructive CEO behaviour for the organisation and prevent organisational failures induced or aggravated by Hubris Syndrome