CRISTAL: A practical study in designing systems to cope with change

Software engineers frequently face the challenge of developing systems whose requirements are likely to change in order to adapt to organizational reconfigurations or other external pressures. Evolving requirements present difficulties, especially in environments in which business agility demands shorter development times and responsive prototyping. This paper uses a study from CERN in Geneva to address these research questions by employing a 'description-driven' approach that is responsive to changes in user requirements and that facilitates dynamic system reconfiguration. The study describes how handling descriptions of objects in practice alongside their instances (making the objects self-describing) can mediate the effects of evolving user requirements on system development. This paper reports on and draws lessons from the practical use of a description-driven system over time. It also identifies lessons that can be learned from adopting such a self-describing description-driven approach in future software development. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd

Enabling Flexibility in Process-Aware Information Systems: Challenges, Methods, Technologies

In today’s dynamic business world, the success of a company increasingly depends on its ability to react to changes in its environment in a quick and flexible way. Companies have therefore identified process agility as a competitive advantage to address business trends like increasing product and service variability or faster time to market, and to ensure business IT alignment. Along this trend, a new generation of information systems has emerged—so-called process-aware information systems (PAIS), like workflow management systems, case handling tools, and service orchestration engines. With this book, Reichert and Weber address these flexibility needs and provide an overview of PAIS with a strong focus on methods and technologies fostering flexibility for all phases of the process lifecycle (i.e., modeling, configuration, execution and evolution). Their presentation is divided into six parts. Part I starts with an introduction of fundamental PAIS concepts and establishes the context of process flexibility in the light of practical scenarios. Part II focuses on flexibility support for pre-specified processes, the currently predominant paradigm in the field of business process management (BPM). Part III details flexibility support for loosely specified processes, which only partially specify the process model at build-time, while decisions regarding the exact specification of certain model parts are deferred to the run-time. Part IV deals with user- and data-driven processes, which aim at a tight integration of processes and data, and hence enable an increased flexibility compared to traditional PAIS. Part V introduces existing technologies and systems for the realization of a flexible PAIS. Finally, Part VI summarizes the main ideas of this book and gives an outlook on advanced flexibility issues. The attached pdf file gives a preview on Chapter 3 of the book which explains the book's overall structure

Seeking to Learn versus Seeking to Teach: Network Position and Timely Electronic Documentation in Healthcare Practice

Timely documentation of administered medications is enabled by electronic medical records (EMR) systems, but also made more difficult due to increased task interdependencies in EMR-enabled medication administration practice. We investigate how clinicians can use their advice networks to accomplish timely EMR documentation. We consider the novel social structures through which nurses actively solicit advice (“seeking-to-learn” network) versus actively contribute unsolicited insights (“seeking-to-teach” network) in the course of patient-care work. Results from 2-level hierarchical linear modeling showed that while clinicians are better off “seeking-to-learn” from positions of brokerage/gatekeeping over requests for advice (betweenness centrality), they are better off “seeking-to-teach” from positions where their indirect contacts are within relatively close reach (closeness centrality) and their direct contacts are highly influential or popular (Bonacich Power centrality). Our study contributes by providing a more nuanced conceptualization of advice networks as a novel way of addressing a major information systems issue in healthcare

Guidelines for the Development of Three-Level Models: Bridging Levels of Analysis and Integrating Contextual Influences in IS Research

The use of multilevel analysis has steadily increased in information systems (IS) research. Many studies are doing an admirable job of integrating two-level models into their examination of IS phenomena. However, two-level models are limited in how well they enable researchers to (1) more explicitly incorporate context into theory development and testing and (2) bridge the existing gap between micro- and macrolevel research by focusing on intervening mechanisms that link hierarchically distal levels of analysis. Three-level models have emerged as a potential way to address these limitations. While the literature has clearly outlined the mechanics of how to estimate three-level models, there is very little, if any, guidance on when and how to integrate the use of such models with theory development. Consequently, IS researchers have little guidance to inform their decisions about integrating the use of three-level models with their theory development and testing. In this article, we identify the circumstances under which IS researchers should consider the use of three-level models, develop guidelines about how to map the use of three-level model estimation to the theoretical objectives, and provide an illustration of how to implement the guidelines

Innovating HRM for Employee-Driven Innovation:A Multilevel Perspective

Organizations introduce new Human Resource Management activities to boost innovativeness. Although an increasing number of studies has shown that HRM can contribute to innovation, little research has been done that uncovers in what ways HRM makes employees more innovative and how employees can contribute to innovation processes across organizational levels. Therefore, this thesis adopts a multilevel perspective to study the underlying mechanisms of the HRM – innovation relationship and examines the role of multiple (HRM) actors in these processes. This thesis demonstrates that employee-driven innovation can be stimulated by HRM, and that this process should be characterized by its multilevel nature. By adopting a multilevel perspective, our current understanding of how organizations can stimulate employee-driven innovation is improved. In particular, three different mechanisms are examined that help to understand the multilevel nature of the HRM – innovation relationship. First, innovative HRM that is introduced to increase the involvement and autonomy of employees changes the HRM function and consequently the implementation process. Second, employees’ perceptions of HRM lead to more innovative behaviour of employees through increasing their autonomy and commitment. Third, HRM contributes to the bottom-up development of innovation by influencing both the types of ideas generated and the processes that lead to idea implementation. These findings inform organizations and their various HRM actors how they can improve innovativeness of their work-floor employees

Design of Blockchain-based Precision Health-Care Using Soft Systems Methodology

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe the application of soft systems methodology (SSM) to address the problematic situation of low opt-in rates for Precision Health-Care (PHC). Design/methodology/approach: The design logic is that when trust is enhanced and compliance is better assured, participants such as patients and their doctors would be more likely to share their medical data and diagnosis for the purpose of precision modeling. Findings: The authors present the findings of an empirical study that confronts the design challenge of increasing participant opt-in to a PHC repository of Electronic Medical Records and genetic sequencing. Guided by SSM, the authors formulate design rules for the establishment of a trust-less platform for PHC which incorporates key principles of transparency, traceability and immutability. Research limitations/implications: The SSM approach has been criticized for its lack of “rigour” and “replicability”. This is a fallacy in understanding its purpose – theory exploration rather than theory confirmation. Moreover, it is unlikely that quantitative modeling yields any clearer an understanding of complex, socio-technical systems. Practical implications: The application of Blockchain, a platform for distributed ledgers, and associated technologies present a feasible approach for resolving the problematic situation of low opt-in rates. Social implications: A consequence of low participation is the weak recall and precision of descriptive, predictive and prescriptive analytic models. Factors such as cyber-crime, data violation and the potential for misuse of genetic and medical records have led to a lack of trust from key stakeholders – accessors, participants, miners and regulators – to varying degrees. Originality/value: The application of Blockchain as a trust-enabling platform in the domain of an emerging eco-system such as precision health is novel and pioneering