Better than you think? Exploring cost and schedule overruns in government IT projects

Information Technology (IT) projects experience cost and schedule overruns, and some fail altogether. We investigated 54 completed government IT projects, completed from 2011 – 2020. We present a mixed-method inquiry into Danish government IT projects. We used archival data to examine cost and schedule overruns in these projects, using measures established by Flyvbjerg. To further inform our understanding of the various drivers that influence these projects cost and schedule overrun, we conducted a qualitative study using interviews and documents analysis. Our findings show that projects in our sample experience much lower cost and schedule overruns than those reported in previous studies. Our qualitative analysis show that projects are more likely to be completed within time and schedule when project managers actively adopt a set of practices that help these projects to perform positively. These practices are: Building one team, accommodating uncertainty, rigorous project management and capitalizing previous domain knowledge

Digital Agility: Conceptualizing Agility for the Digital Era

It goes without saying that digital technologies have been forming an increasingly crucial component of companies’ value offerings in recent times. In many industries, this trend has led to converging markets, where traditional firms compete and collaborate with software firms and digital startups. One central competitive factor in these markets is the ability to capitalize on digital options faster than the competition. Prior research on agility in this context has advanced our knowledge on managerial and employee behaviors, as well as structures supporting such behaviors, to enable agility both in traditional and software firms. The challenge for firms in digitally converging markets is that agility now requires a combination of organizational and IS development agility—perceiving these concepts as separate entities is no longer appropriate or instructive. Building on prior work on agile behaviors and structures, and published cases on digital firms, we develop an integrative conception of digital agility in line with the realities of the digital era

Spotlight on the Positives:How Do Information Technology Projects Achieve Cost Underruns?

The Information Technology (IT) project literature has extensively studied cost overrun. But there is surprisingly little work on cost underrun. In this paper, we explore twelve IT projects that achieved cost underrun, using interviews and documents analysis. Our findings show that projects achieve cost underruns when they actively implement practices to enhance process efficiency. These practices are: Implementing a collaborative environment, budgetary control, capitalizing on previous knowledge, continuous learning during the project, and accommodating uncertainty. Projects also encounter conditions that contribute directly to cost underrun, like scope reduction and savings in spending. Our key contribution lies in uncovering, based on a unique sample, how a set of specific practices can lead to cost underrun

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

How Information Technology Governance Influences Organizational Agility: The Role of Market Turbulence

Elazhary, M., Popovič, A., Bermejo, P. H. D. S., & Oliveira, T. (2022). How Information Technology Governance Influences Organizational Agility: The Role of Market Turbulence. Information Systems Management, 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1080/10580530.2022.2055813We used a novel approach by extending the resource-based view with the dynamic capabilities view to capture the relationship between IT governance and organizational agility. Results from our survey of senior managers suggest that IT and innovation capabilities fully mediate IT governance on organizational agility. They show the strong impact of both IT governance and IT capability on organizational agility with high market turbulence, whereas innovation capability highly impacts organizational agility with low market turbulence.publishersversionepub_ahead_of_prin

Ambidextrous organization and agility in big data era: the role of business process management systems

The aim of this research is to explore the effect of Big Data Analytics capable Business Process Management Systems (BDA capable BPMS) on ambidextrous organizations' agility. The ways in which the functionalities of BDA capable BPMS may improve organizational dynamism and reactiveness will be explored. A theoretical analysis of the potential of BDA capable BPMS in increasing organizational agility, with particular attention to the ambidextrous organizations, has been performed. A conceptual framework was subsequently developed. The research proposes a framework highlighting the importance of BDA capable BPMS in increasing ambidextrous organizations' agility. Moreover, the authors apply the framework to the cases of consumer-goods companies that have included BDA in their processes management. The value of the proposed framework can be found in its ability to help managers to fully understand and exploit the potentiality of BDA capable BPMS. Moreover, the implications show some guidelines to ease the implementation of such systems within ambidextrous organizations. Accordincly, the research offers a model to interpret the effects of BDA capable BPMS on ambidextrous organizations' agility. In this way, the research addresses a significant gap by exploring the importance of information systems for ambidextrous organizations' agility

ORGANIZING FOR THE DIGITAL WORLD: A PATHWAY TOWARDS THE AGILE MARKETING CAPABILITY

The ultimate goal of this dissertation is to explain how agility intersects in the field of marketing capabilities, in order to deepen the understanding about a new marketing capability: the Agile Marketing Capability. My dissertation consists of three papers. The first paper inquires how the Agile Marketing Capability can be formally theorized and conceptualized, identifying its key theorizing elements and putting the basis for its further exploration and analysis. The outcomes of this first study identify the core dimensions (or constructs) of the Agile Marketing Capability, advance a holistic theoretical model, and discuss the underlying constructs and relationships. With this first conceptualization of a marketing-focused capability of agility, I start outlining a new path of marketing capabilities, seeking to redefine marketing capabilities by learning more about Agile Marketing implementation. Thus, I lay the terrain for future exploration and forecast of this topic, and enrich the debate on the opportunity to integrate agile principles into marketing studies, and ultimately impact marketing capabilities. The second paper provides an initial empirical investigation of agile capability in marketing field, exploring its main defining features and thus elaborating some key theoretical and empirical dimensions which may characterize and compose the Agile Marketing Capability. The outcomes of this second study identify and organize the key theoretical concepts and dimensions of the Agile Marketing Capability in a theoretical framework. To summarize study results I also formulate some propositions, which could stimulate future theoretical and empirical research towards this topic. The findings of this research considerably advance extant knowledge on capabilities greater aligned with digital transformation challenges, which is a topic still at an early stage in current literature. Specifically, the analysis carried out in the second paper improves the understanding on agility in digital and international marketing settings, contributing to extend dynamic capabilities and marketing capabilities literature. In the meantime, the framework and propositions of this study, as well as the empirical findings, contribute to explain what strategic actions are needed to foster marketing agility, thus pursuing and implementing an Agile Marketing Capability. The third and final paper extends the body of knowledge of agile capabilities in marketing field by looking at how different organizations pursue and implement the Agile Marketing Capability. The outcomes of this third study deepen the conceptualization and definition of the Agile Marketing Capability dimensions, proposing a four-stage Agile Marketing Capability maturity framework. The framework provides key actions, activities and behaviours organized in progressive maturity levels to enable organizations to assess and improve their capabilities in Agile Marketing implementation. The findings of this work contribute to deepen the body of knowledge on marketing capabilities and agility research streams, explaining the benefits that could derive from employing agile approaches and capabilities in marketing, and how their employment actually may enhance organizations’ extant marketing capabilities, particularly in turbulent and fast-changing contexts. Notably, the analysis performed in this third study sheds light on progressive behaviors and actions representative of different maturity levels in the development and management of the Agile Marketing Capability. The maturity framework proposed in this paper and the empirical findings clarify to managers and practitioners how to assess current maturity level in the development of such capability, understand potential improvement actions, and, thus, achieve higher levels of performance. Briefly, it provides useful guidelines for organizations to become more agile in their marketing capabilities

Understanding the link between information technology capability and organizational agility: an empirical examination.

Information technology is generally considered an enabler of a firm's agility. A typical premise is that greater IT investment enables a firm to be more agile. However, it is not uncommon tha

The co-evolutionary relationship between digitalization and organizational agility: Ongoing debates, theoretical developments and future research perspectives

This study is the first to provide a systematic review of the literature focused on the relationship between digitalization and organizational agility (OA). It applies the bibliographic coupling method to 171 peer-reviewed contributions published by 30 June 2021. It uses the digitalization perspective to investigate the enablers, barriers and benefits of processes aimed at providing firms with the agility required to effectively face increasingly turbulent environments. Three different, though interconnected, thematic clusters are discovered and analysed, respectively focusing on big-data analytic capabilities as crucial drivers of OA, the relationship between digitalization and agility at a supply chain level, and the role of information technology capabilities in improving OA. By adopting a dynamic capabilities perspective, this study overcomes the traditional view, which mainly considers digital capabilities enablers of OA, rather than as possible outcomes. Our findings reveal that, in addition to being complex, the relationship between digitalization and OA has a bidirectional character. This study also identifies extant research gaps and develops 13 original research propositions on possible future research pathways and new managerial solutions