Surfacing Automation Criteria: A Process Architecture Approach

This paper describes the outcomes of a case study aimed at surfacing and analyzing decision making criteria used to prioritize process automation initiatives with a view toward engendering a process-centric organization and eventually exposing these processes as services. The study used structured interviews, content analysis, and enterprise process architecture mapping techniques to explore the implicit and explicit logic underlying process automation decisions. The results point to a wide range of decision making criteria involving technology, business and industry characteristics. We discuss the implications of our analysis for future, larger-scale, research projects and describe the potential implications for organizations interested in moving toward a process-oriented enterprise

Searching for the engine of business-IT alignment in social capital.

This thesis examines alignment between the business and IS communities through the lens of social capital. Although alignment has been studied in great depth for many years, it is still a concern for IS managers and practitioners. The study developed a tiered and dimensional framework approach to social capital and applied it to four cases in the investment management sector via a series of interviews and a short questionnaire targeting managers within those firms. Taking an interpretative approach to the subject, the study examined both qualitative and quantitative data looking at the impact that network associations, shared norms, trust, reciprocity-expectation and collective efficacy have on alignment within the participant firms. The study found that although business and IS participants believed that alignment was valuable for their firms to achieve their objectives and recognised the benefits of working collaboratively, they did not tend to share a view on the importance of different types of social capital. Business managers found value in personal relationships which allowed the building of trust and expectations of the fulfilment of mutual obligations. IS managers placed greater emphasis on impersonal aspects such as formal engagement and decision-making. The research concluded that whereas the business perceived alignment to be a social experience, IS viewed it as a process