Ambidextrous IT Governance Enactment in Healthcare: A comparison between the Swedish and Ugandan setting

IT Governance is advocated as a necessary prerequisite for effective digitalization by research and practice alike. Despite this, there are but few studies of IT Governance in the healthcare sector, and even fewer on the enactment of IT Governance. This paper reports on a comparative case study of a Swedish and Ugandan setting on the enactment of ambidextrous IT governance within healthcare. Ambidextrous IT Governance is perceived as governance designed to balance targets of efficiency and innovation, and the study is informed by the resource orchestration logic. The findings show a set of challenges and opportunities in both settings such as complexity in the sharing of information in the Swedish setting and the possibility to leapfrog in the Ugandan. Furthermore, the ambidextrous balancing point and aspired shift differed significantly between the two settings, where the Ugandan setting wanted to rebalance toward exploitation and the Swedish setting toward exploration. The paper concludes with a discussion and a call for future research on ambidextrous IT Governance

Overcoming inertia : drivers of the outsourcing process

Almost all managers have directly or indirectly been involved in the practice of outsourcing in recent years. But as they know, outsourcing is not straightforward. Outsourcing inertia, when companies are slow to adapt to changing circumstances that accommodate higher outsourcing levels, may undermine a firm’s performance. This article investigates the presence of outsourcing inertia and the factors that help managers overcome it. Using statistical evidence, we show that positive performance effects related to outsourcing can accumulate when circumstances change. This is then followed by rapid increases in outsourcing levels (i.e. outsourcing processes). We investigate what gives rise to these outsourcing processes through follow-up interviews with sourcing executives, which suggest five drivers behind outsourcing processes: managerial initiative (using outside experience); hierarchy (foreign headquarters); imitation (of competitors and of similar firms); outsider advice (from external institutions); knowledge sources (using external information). These five drivers all offer scope for managerial action. We tie them to academic literatures and suggest ways of investigating their presence and impact on the outsourcing process. Overall, we conclude that while economizing factors play a key role in explaining how much firms outsource, it is socializing factors that tend to drive outsourcing processes

The influence of a collaborative procurement approach using integrated design in construction on project team performance

Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to study the influence of procurement on the performance of integrated design teams. Design/methodology/approach – The research paradigm is based on Russian socio-constructivist approach to activity theory. Activity theory, as opposed to natural or social science, is a design science approach that focuses on the context aspect of project. A triangulation of qualitative research methods is used to investigate the dynamic of integrated teams in two different procurement contexts. Findings – The paper is conclusive regarding the influence of procurement on team efficiency. It demonstrates that traditional procurement processes reinforce socio-cognitive barriers that hinder team efficiency. It also illustrates how new procurement modes can transform the dynamic of relationships between the client and the members of the supply chain, and have a positive impact on teamperformance. Practical implications – The paper demonstrates first that problems with integrated design team efficiency are related to context and not process – they are not technical but socio-cognitive; second that fragmented transactional contracting increases socio-cognitive barriers that hinder integrated design team performance; third that new forms of relational contracting may help to mitigate socio-cognitive barriers and improve integrated design team performance, fourth that changing the context through procurement does not address the problem of obsolete design practices. Originality/value – The paper brings together theories of production in lean construction and social learning as a rival approach to traditional project management theory for demonstrating the importance of context on team performance

A stage model for uncovering inertia in big data analytics adoption

Big data and analytics have been credited with being a revolution that will radically transform the way firms do business. Nevertheless, the process of adopting and diffusing big data analytics, as well as actions taken in response to generated insight, require organizational transformation. Yet, as with any form of organizational transformation, there are multiple inhibiting factors that threaten successful change. The purpose of this study is to examine the inertial forces that can hamper the value of big data analytics throughout this process. We draw on a multiple case study approach of 27 firms to examine this question. Building on a stage model of adoption, our findings suggest that inertia is present in different forms, including economic, political, socio-cognitive, negative psychology, and socio- technical. The ways in which firms attempt to mitigate these forces of inertia is elaborated on, and best practices are presented. We conclude the paper by discussing the implications that these findings have for both research and practice

From Big Data Analytics to Dynamic Capabilities: The Effect of Organizational Inertia

While big data analytics have been credited with being a revolution that will transform the way firms do business, there is still limited knowledge on how they should adopt and diffuse these technologies to support their strategies. The purpose of this paper is to understand how different inertial forces related to deployments of big data analytics inhibit the formation of dynamic capabilities and subsequently performance. We draw on a multiple case study approach of 27 firms to examine the different forms of inertia that characterize big data analytics implementation. This study provides empirical evidence that contributes to the scarce research on deployment of big data analytics to enable dynamic capabilities. Disaggregating dynamic capabilities into the sensing, seizing, and transforming, we find that different forms of inertia including economic, political, socio-cognitive, negative psychology, and socio-technical affect the formation of each type of underlying capability

CAN DATA QUALITY HELP OVERCOME THE PENGUIN EFFECT? THE CASE OF ITEM MASTER DATA POOLS

The diffusion of standards is characterized by network effects, path dependency, and the penguin effect. Particularly the latter, also referred to as excess inertia, is a frequent inhibitor of the adoption of standards, even if they could provide benefits. This is particularly true for item master data pools that suffer from little adoption in many industries as benefits can only accrue if many firms use them. At the same time, data pools show the potential to improve the quality of item master data by pooling the efforts on data quality assurance. This paper addresses the question whether an improvement of item master data quality can contribute to overcoming the penguin effect by data pools. The theoretical considerations are supplemented by an exploratory qualitative research among the leading retailers in the Austrian food and drug sector. The findings suggest that data quality improvement can be one way to encourage the use of data pools and thus overcome the penguin effect in adoption

Overcoming inertia : drivers of the outsourcing process

Almost all managers have directly or indirectly been involved in the practice of outsourcing in recent years. But as they know, outsourcing is not straightforward. Outsourcing inertia, when companies are slow to adapt to changing circumstances that accommodate higher outsourcing levels, may undermine a firm’s performance. This article investigates the presence of outsourcing inertia and the factors that help managers overcome it. Using statistical evidence, we show that positive performance effects related to outsourcing can accumulate when circumstances change. This is then followed by rapid increases in outsourcing levels (i.e. outsourcing processes). We investigate what gives rise to these outsourcing processes through follow-up interviews with sourcing executives, which suggest five drivers behind outsourcing processes: managerial initiative (using outside experience); hierarchy (foreign headquarters); imitation (of competitors and of similar firms); outsider advice (from external institutions); knowledge sources (using external information). These five drivers all offer scope for managerial action. We tie them to academic literatures and suggest ways of investigating their presence and impact on the outsourcing process. Overall, we conclude that while economizing factors play a key role in explaining how much firms outsource, it is socializing factors that tend to drive outsourcing processes

Organizational performance and strategic inertia

Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationship between organizational performance and the pattern of strategic decisions formalized in the planning of a Brazilian heavy construction company between 2006 and 2014. In this period, the company experienced a recurrent pattern of maintaining strategic decisions, despite the systematic decrease in performance and investments in the formal strategic planning (SP) and monitoring of results. The research focus is on strategic inertia and the influence of social determinants on the relationship between performance and the strategic actions negotiated in formal planning. Design/methodology/approach – This is a single-case study. The exploratory-descriptive research comprises data collection on performance and strategic decisions from the period between 2006 and 2014. The analysis was guided through documentary material and data collected from 16 interviews conducted with members of the middle to top management concerning performance, goals, and strategic initiatives. The interviewees’ statements were used to apprehend the interpreted dimension of SP expressed in the meanings attributed to this process. The analysis adopts a sociological base, and strategic inertia is the underlying phenomenon that guides this analysis. Findings – The results show the interactive effect caused by political, cognitive, discursive, and ceremonial mechanisms obstruct the company’s strategic decisions. This case study illustrates that the conditions for the phenomenon of path dependence were created, reinforcing the strategic inertia observed in the maintenance of a reproduced pattern of strategic initiatives and goals, even though the performance was recurrently unsatisfactory. In this case, strategic inertia showed a complex relationship between the interpreted performance and strategic actions negotiated in formal planning, conditioned by mechanisms of trajectory reinforcement that interfered with the conditions for strategic change. Research limitations/implications – Strategic inertia demonstrates a complex relationship between the interpreted performance and strategic actions negotiated in formal planning, conditioned by mechanisms of trajectory reinforcement that interfere with the conditions for strategic change. Future research on social mechanisms from the perspective of strategy-as-practice could be developed to capture the tacit components, language, power games, and other relevant categories in the social interaction of strategy development at the organizational level. In addition, future research could focus on investigating the extent to which path dependence is contingent, assuming that it is a temporary and, therefore, reversible process. Practical implications – This work contributes to the view of SP from the social perspective and shows that the relationship between performance and strategy has biases that can compromise performance. The work highlights implications for maintaining strategic initiative patterns, which shape a path whose function is less associated with its effects on performance and more associated with the commitment to instrumental results, due to the social nature of organizations.Social implications – This work deals with social mechanisms that influence strategic decisions. Since organizational performance depends on strategic decisions, the social nature of strategic inertia has causal implications to economic and social impact of organizations. Originality/value – This work argues in favor of the influence of self-reinforcing mechanisms of path dependence in the relationship between performance and strategic decisions. The results extended the predominantly structural approach of path dependence by considering interpretive aspects related to the political, discursive, cognitive, and ceremonial dimensions of strategic inertia. Keywords Organizational performance, Organizational strategy, Strategic inertia, Path dependenc

EXAMINING THE INFLUENCE OF PERCEIVED JOB CHARACTERISTICS ON EMPLOYEES’ PROCESS ORIENTATION

A lot of companies struggle by shifting the focus from function orientation to process orientation, es-pecially due to missing process-oriented thinking and behavior of their employees. While, enhancing employees\u27 knowledge about processes by training and empowerment has been considered as the sole adjusting screw to influence process orientation, the characteristics of the jobs, in which the employ-ees work, were not considered in the same extent. As the daily job and its related characteristics rep-resent the core of individuals’ working life, we examine in our paper how these perceived job charac-teristics influence employees’ process orientation. Therefore, we develop a research model on the influence of five job characteristics – autonomy, feedback, skill variety, task identity, task significance – on employees’ process orientation and evaluate the model by using data from a field survey with 191 employees of a global service company of the aviation industry. The results depict that autonomy, feedback and task significance are all significant predictors for individuals’ process orientation. By considering job characteristics, organizations can successfully shift from function orientation towards process orientation