How can SMEs benefit from big data? Challenges and a path forward

Big data is big news, and large companies in all sectors are making significant advances in their customer relations, product selection and development and consequent profitability through using this valuable commodity. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have proved themselves to be slow adopters of the new technology of big data analytics and are in danger of being left behind. In Europe, SMEs are a vital part of the economy, and the challenges they encounter need to be addressed as a matter of urgency. This paper identifies barriers to SME uptake of big data analytics and recognises their complex challenge to all stakeholders, including national and international policy makers, IT, business management and data science communities. The paper proposes a big data maturity model for SMEs as a first step towards an SME roadmap to data analytics. It considers the ‘state-of-the-art’ of IT with respect to usability and usefulness for SMEs and discusses how SMEs can overcome the barriers preventing them from adopting existing solutions. The paper then considers management perspectives and the role of maturity models in enhancing and structuring the adoption of data analytics in an organisation. The history of total quality management is reviewed to inform the core aspects of implanting a new paradigm. The paper concludes with recommendations to help SMEs develop their big data capability and enable them to continue as the engines of European industrial and business success. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Organisational culture and effectiveness: a three perspective analysis

Although a number of studies have examined organisational culture and effectiveness, such studies have often resulted in inconclusive findings. Through an intensive ethnographic case study, this study explores and analyses this relationship in the context of a knowledge-intensive firm. The study adopts the three perspective framework of organisational culture (see Martin 1992, 2002) as the theoretical framework through which the links between organisational culture and effectiveness are examined. The adoption of the three perspective framework throws rich insights into the nature of organisational life. However, although the study finds overall support for the three perspective framework, it suggests that this framework could be strengthened in regard to the conceptualisation of integration and fragmentation, particularly in the context of an organisation based in a developing country undertaking work for the MNCs. Similarly, the adoption of the different theoretical approaches to effectiveness leads to the identification of a series of interesting measures of effectiveness. In this regard, an integration based analysis highlights the certainty of the measures of effectiveness whereas the differentiation and fragmentation analyses show the problematic, inconsistent and transient nature of effectiveness. The adoption of the three perspective framework sheds interesting insights into culture effectiveness relationship. While the integration perspective presents a positive relationship, the differentiation perspective holds that the inherent inconsistencies and conflicts have a negative influence on effectiveness. The fragmentation based analysis shows that culture is a neutral factor vis-a-vis effectiveness. Furthermore, the ironies, contradictions and ambiguities are shown to have a negative influence in this regard. This work therefore concludes that the argument that there is a relationship between culture and effectiveness is the result of adopting a particular analytical lens (generally, integration perspective). This study also shows that the proposition that non-financial aspects of effectiveness mediate the relationship between organisational culture and financial performance can work only in the case of adopting an integration perspective

Revisiting the project management knowledge framework: Rebalancing the framework to include transformation projects

Purpose This paper highlights that extant project management (PM) bodies of knowledge have not fully addressed organisational transformation enabled by information systems projects. The purpose of this paper is to examine the transformation context in the PM disciplines. The authors argue that the execution-oriented PM bodies of knowledge are limited, as they place too much emphasis on the delivery outputs by the supplier rather than the achievement of beneficial outcomes by the project owner. Design/methodology/approach As a conceptual paper, this paper reviews extant PM bodies of knowledge, life cycle models, the context of organisational transformation and benefits realisation, and the distinction between a project owner’s and the project supplier’s capabilities. Findings A new PM knowledge framework is provided as an advanced research frame for future works by enhancing Peter Morris’ Management of Projects framework by employing the conceptual lens of Winch’s Three Domains of Project Organising model. Originality/value The advanced model emphasises the necessity of distinguishing a project owner’s and a supplier’s PM capability and knowledge to achieve successful IS-enabled organisational transformation. Through this effort to resolve the fragmentation and specialisation problems in PM disciplines, the model can be used as a theoretical groundwork for the advancement of PM research

Successful acquisition of IT systems

School of Managemen

Rediscovering the IT productivity paradox : the alignment and dynamics of IT-enabled change

There is a growing recognition that sustainable competitive advantage requires a viable integration between information technology (IT) and organisational change. Increasingly, firms are interested in the transfer of IT-related best practices in the hope that fundamental organisational change will thereby be achieved. However, the investment in IT is often disproportionate to the benefits obtained. This issue of what has been referred to as the IT productivity paradox requires a re-examination of the organisational dynamics rather than a mere proclamation of the insufficiency of best practices. In this study, the re-examination is based on the viewpoint of alignment and contextualism. To achieve this aim, the study is divided into two phases. Phase one uses five cases to investigate the alignment behaviour of organisational change, and proposes four change patterns. Phase two uses one in-depth case study to explore the problem of IT-enabled change backfire and enhance the contextualism perspective of change in terms of four propositions (underlying logic, reciprocal causality, time effect and frame awareness). This conceptualisation offers a socialscientific perspective on the analysis of the IT productivity paradox, and draws out the practical implications for change management based on a "reflective transfer" model that complements the planned approach. The research adds to current understanding of the IT productivity paradox by highlighting the importance of the alignment and dynamics of organisational change

Developing an IS Quality Culture with ISO 9001: Hopefully, a Never Ending Story

We present an approach to develop IS Quality Culture, in the context of ISO 9001. The research design begins with semi-structured interviews with eight auditors, followed by action research. We confirmed that auditors recognize the importance of five distinct IS Quality dimensions: information/data, software, administrative, service, and infrastructure. However, the audit practice reveals the risk of considering IS as mere support, disregarding the cultural aspects of IS Quality. Our contribution addresses this gap by providing an audit checklist and an approach accessible to IS non-experts. An IS Quality Culture is vital in regulatory environments, and may raise the audit effectiveness and confidence in ISO 9001 as an improvement model. ISO 9001 diffusion and acceptance by more than one million companies worldwide creates an exceptional opportunity to continuously development of the IS Quality Culture. The obtained findings can also contribute to the discussion of the next ISO 9001 revision, expected to be published in 2016

Ignorance Management - an alternative perspective on Knowledge Management

Managing organisational knowledge is crucial to increase business performance and competitiveness. However, given the complexity and dynamic nature of knowledge management practices, multinational organisations experience difficulties in identifying business opportunities and often fail to make necessary investments. This thesis develops an alternative perspective on knowledge management through the creation of a model based on socio-technical characteristics and organisational ignorance, and argues that managing nescience, i.e. knowing what needs to be known and also acknowledging the power of understanding the unknown, could facilitate employees' knowledge sharing behaviour and could improve both short-term opportunistic value capture and longer term business sustainability. It also creates a novel technique for managing dysfunctional knowledge management scenarios and improving knowledge management practices in the workplace by definition of the concept of KM anti-patterns, while discussing practices that reduce the risk of making the wrong decision when using uncertain information. The philosophy of this study is based on an interpretative approach with inductive reasoning. Both qualitative and quantitative methods, based mainly on workshop style discussions, questionnaires and semi-structured interview data, were implemented using various departments of one multinational organisation within the Aerospace and Defence industry as units of the analysis. Managing organisational ignorance is seldom and insufficiently discussed by the current KM literature and no previous attempt has been made to detect, analyse and categorise KM dysfunctional situations using a systematic KM anti-pattern template. It is argued that the issues addressed in this study could lead to inefficient or otherwise inappropriate KM practices; therefore it is important, particularly for managers and senior executives, to acknowledge, verify and act upon such matters in order to increase performance within their business, and optimise the level of knowledge for an individual employee or group in knowledge intensive settings

Organizational Change Perspectives on Software Process Improvement

Many software organizations have engaged in Software Process Improvement (SPI) and experienced the challenges related to managing such complex organizational change efforts. As a result, there is an increasing body of research investigating change management in SPI. To provide an overview of what we know and don’t know about SPI as organizational change, this paper addresses the following question: What are the dominant perspectives on SPI as organizational change in the literature and how is this knowledge presented and published? All journals on the AIS ranking list were screened to identify relevant articles and Gareth Morgan’s organizational metaphors (1996) were used to analyze this literature considering the following dimensions of each article: organizational perspective (metaphor), knowledge orientation (normative versus descriptive), theoretical emphasis (high versus low), main audience (practitioner versus academic), geographical origin (Scandinavia, the Americas, Europe, or the Asia-Pacific), and publication level (high versus low ranked journal). The review demonstrates that the literature on SPI as organizational change is firmly grounded in both theory and practice, and Scandinavia and the Americas are the main contributors to this research. The distribution of articles across Morgan’s metaphors is uneven and reveals knowledge gaps that present new avenues for research. The current literature offers important insights into organizational change in SPI from machine, organism, and brain perspectives. Practitioners may use these articles as a guide to SPI insights relevant to their improvement initiatives. In contrast, the impact of culture, dominance, psychic prison, flux and transformation, and politics in SPI have only received scant attention. We argue that these perspectives offer important insights into the challenges involved in managing change in SPI. Researchers are therefore advised to engage in new SPI research based on one or more of these perspectives. Overall, the paper provides a roadmap to help identify insights and specific articles related to SPI as organizational change.Software Process Improvement; Organizational Change; Organizational Metaphors; Images of Organization; Literature Review