Champions Of Information System Innovations: Thematic Analysis And Future Research Agenda

This paper presents an analytic review of literature on the role of key individuals linked to the success of IS initiatives; namely, project champions. We follow a systematic literature review approach and select papers for inclusion and then exclusion drawn from the two domains of relevance: information systems and innovation studies. Inductive categorisation using human and software-enabled insights identifies seven core themes through which we can conceptualise and understand IS innovation champions: origins, competencies/identities, roles/activities, relationships/influence, resource identification/mobilisation, impact on projects/organisations, and support. We summarise what is known to date from the literature for each of these themes but – reflecting the rather formative nature of the field – we identify for each theme a set of directions intended to guide future research on IS innovation champions. We conclude with a summary characterisation of these champions from the literature which constructs them in terms of 3Rs: results, relationships and resources. These, in part, are then used to produce a condensed list of key future research priorities. Our ultimate aim is to stimulate greater understanding of, and interest in IS champions among researchers and practitioners, providing the former with a research agenda to take forward

Champions of IS Innovations

Researchers have studied champions in diverse settings and kinds of initiatives; a significant body of work on champions has also steadily grown in the information systems discipline. However, we still lack clarity about the distinctiveness of IS champions. Given the poor track record of IS project success and champions’ importance to that success, we argue that this lack of conceptual clarity about the uniqueness of IS champions constitutes a significant and urgent gap. In part, this gap exists because researchers have inadequately consolidated knowledge about IS champions thus far. In response, we systematically reviewed the literature and approached this gap from two viewpoints: 1) a research process perspective whereby we investigated the approaches and practices that IS champion research has followed and 2) a thematic perspective whereby we examined how knowledge about IS champions has accumulated to date. Our findings culminate in three contributions: we 1) propose eight IS champion distinctive features using a classification scheme, 2) redefine IS champions in a way that better reflects the distinctiveness of the champion role in IS innovation, and 3) combine findings from process and thematic perspectives in an agenda to advance IS champion research