DEFINING AND EVALUATING AGILE CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT FOR REDUCING TIME DELAYS IN CONSTRUCTION

Both competitive market forces and growing societal needs have triggered the demand for rapid delivery of construction projects, or at a minimum, for projects completed on schedule. However, schedule delays are common and recurring in construction, inevitably resulting in rework, cost overruns and legal claims. As projects become increasingly complicated, delays arise in a more unpredictable manner. The initial motivation for this research is to explore a systematic flexibility to deal with delays caused by complex changes in construction and meanwhile enhance the overall project performance. Accordingly, agile construction management is proposed in terms of a conceptual framework. Derived from agile theories in other engineering disciplines, agile management is an integrated method that allows projects thrive in a fluid environment by applying agile enablers (approaches) throughout the project lifecycle. Since agility and relevant theories are emerging in construction, the proposed agile ideas and enablers are verified by qualitative interviews with construction professionals. With ultimate goal of reducing delays, a case study is conducted investigating how much delays could be reduced if the agile enablers were used

ERP System as an Enabler for Bottom up Innovations

This research adopts a resource-based approach to develop and test a new framework related to improvement in bottom up innovations by means of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. The framework consists of five primary resources: attitude, organisational characteristics, skills, ERP human resources, and ERP technological resources. Responses from 210 organisations that have adopted ERP were analysed using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). Regarding organisational resources, the research results did not support the premise that an organisation’s characteristics (i.e., agility, or the innovation sponsorship) and attitude to technology have direct effects on organisational innovativeness. Rather, it was found that these relationships are fully mediated by the employees’ quantitative skills. Regarding technical resources, ERP Human resources, i.e., the ability to create business partnerships, and ERP technical resources, i.e., the customisability of reports, have significant impacts on organisational innovativeness. The main implication of this research is that ERP is not only a planning technology but also a driver of innovation when supported by the necessary organisational and technical resource

Discovering the Role of Information Technology In Disruptive Innovations - Enabler, Sustainer or Barrier

IT Capability has traditionally been used as one of the constructs used to high-light the value of IT both to competitive advantage and firm performance. However, a school of thought is rising with the banner that IT no longer matters as a source of competitive advantage. The argument is that IT is becoming a utility like electricity and organizations need to look elsewhere for unique competitive advantage. This dissertation is therefore positioned to investigate the value (if any) of IT in today’s organisations particularly in disruptive innovation scenarios. Disruptive innovations (DI) are innovations that typically gain initial adoption at the fringe of a market but gradually attract the mainstream customers of an established firm thereby threatening the survival of such firms. Disruptive Innovations have caused leading firms to drop from their esteemed position not because of bad management or lack of technological skills but because they introduce a different set of business rules and performance measures. Therefore, DI can be a source of competitive advantage for the firm that successfully implements it and a cause for alarm for firms facing such disruptions. By adopting a qualitative study and extensive review of literature and secondary data, the dissertation explores how IT plays a role in disruptive innovations in two streams – IT as DI and IT for DI. IT as DI considers - what is the significance of IT when the disruptive innovation is a digital/IT Innovation? While IT for DI considers - what is the essence of IT in the creation or response to disruptive innovations (regardless of the type of innovation)? For the IT as DI study, the dissertation advances a theoretical proposition of Wickempowerment using the theory of empowerment and wicked problems to articulate the identified duality when a disruptive innovation is also a digital/IT innovation. Using IT capability as a theoretical lens for the IT for DI study, the dissertation posits that IT remains a potent source of competitive advantage in two ways. These are conceptualized as Disrupt-ability (ability to create disruptive innovations) and Disruptability (ability to be disrupted or expressed conversely as ability to respond to disruptive innovation threats). With this theoretical conceptualization, we articulate three roles of IT capabilities in disruptive innovations – IT as an enabler, IT as a sustainer and IT as a barrier.Yrityksen kykyä hyödyntää tietotekniikkaa (IT) on perinteisesti tutkimuksessa tarkasteltu yhtenä merkittävänä yrityksen tulokseen ja kilpailukykyyn vaikuttavana tekijänä. Toisaalta osa tutkijoista on esittänyt, että tietotekniikka ei enää ole merkittävä kilpailuedun lähde. Tämän näkemyksen mukaan tietotekniikka on sähköverkkojen tavoin osa kaikille yhteistä infrastruktuuria ja organisaatioiden tulisi hakea muita tapoja erottautua kilpailijoistaan. Tämä väitöskirja asemoituukin tutkimaan sitä, millainen arvo tietotekniikalla on yritysten markkina-asemaa voimakkaasti muuttavien disruptiivisten innovaatioiden (DI) muotoutumisessa. Disruptiiviset innovaatiot on määritelty innovaatioiksi, jotka alkuvaiheessa kiinnostavat vain pientä osaa toimialan asiakkaista, mutta jotka vähitellen tavoittavat myös suuria asiakasryhmiä ja näin uhkaavat alan perinteisten suurten yritysten markkina-asemaa. Muutos ei siis johdu välttämättä huonosta johtamisesta tai puutteellisista teknisistä taidoista, vaan siitä, että innovaatio muuttaa alan liiketoiminnan sääntöjä ja menestystekijöitä. Yrityksen kyky tuoda tällainen uusi innovaatio markkinoille voi siis tuoda yritykselle merkittävää kilpailuetua, mutta samalla sen tulisi herättää alan muut yritykset vastaamaan uuden innovaation aiheuttamiin muutoksiin. Käsillä oleva tutkimus hyödyntää laadullisen tutkimuksen ja systemaattisen kirjallisuuskatsauksen menetelmiä tarkastellakseen tietotekniikan roolia sekä tietotekniikkaan perustuvissa innovaatioissa erityisesti (IT as DI) että liiketoimintaan liittyvissä innovaatioissa yleisemmin (IT for DI). Ensimmäinen tutkimuskysymys (IT as DI) siis tarkastelee erityisesti digitaalisten innovaatioiden syntyä ja vaikutuksia. Toisen tutkimuskysymyksen kautta (IT for DI) huomio kohdistuu tietotekniikan rooliin liiketoiminnan innovaatioiden luomisessa ja innovaatioihin vastaamisessa (innovaation tyypistä riippumatta). Digitaalisten innovaatioiden tarkastelussa teoreettisena viitekehyksenä hyödynnetään monitahoisten ja vaikeasti ratkaistavien ongelmien käsittelyyn ja voimaistamiseen liittyvää kirjallisuutta. Näin tarkasteltuna digitaalisissa innovaatioissa voidaan erottaa kahdensuuntaiset (positiiviset ja negatiiviset) vaikutukset niin yksilöiden, yritysten kuin yhteiskunnankin tasolla. Toisen tutkimuskysymyksen tarkastelu perustuu IT kyvykkyyksiä käsittelevään tutkimukseen. Tältä osin tutkimuksessa esitetään, että IT voi tuottaa yritykselle kilpailuetua kahdella eri tavalla: IT kyvykkyydet ovat osa yrityksen kykyä luoda uusia disruptiivisia innovaatioita (Disrupt-ability), IT kyvykkyyksien puuttuminen taas voi heikentää yrityksen kykyä vastata muiden luomiin innovaatioihin (Disruptability). Tämän teoreettisen viitekehyksen kautta IT kyvykkyyksilletunnistetaan kolme roolia disruptiivisissa innovaatioissa: IT mahdollistajana, IT ylläpitäjänä ja IT esteenä.Siirretty Doriast

The Interface of IT Capabilities and Disruptive Innovations

This paper presents a collection of behaviours for gaining insights in projects of small, innovating organisations. An explorative study of 12 informants and their subject matter expertise are used to inform this work. The paper draws on three bodies of literature – Innovation Management, Knowledge Management and Project Management to inform the theoretical background. So far no framework has been developed that are tailored to the unique situation of Small Innovators as they aim to foster innovation within the organisation. A number of propositions is offered based on the qualitative data analysis and hermeneutic literature appraisal that address potential heuristics processes that could enhance a Small Innovator’s ability to gain better insights while pursuing innovative project outcomes

Tipping the scales: ambidexterity practices on e-HRM projects

Purpose: We examine and conceptualise the ways in which a balance can be achieved between optimising the efficiency and effectiveness of electronic HRM (e-HRM) systems for human resource management (HRM) and enabling innovation to occur during the system implementation. Design/methodology/approach: An intepretive case study of a UK local authority e-HRM system implementation is examined using the notion of ambidexterity as an analytical device. Ambidexterity relates to how an organisation develops the ability to operate efficiently in the now, while at the same time being able to adapt to environmental changes around and ahead of them in order to grow into the future. Findings: As an intra-organisational capability, ambidexterity is found to derive from the simultaneous interplay and balancing of dual capabilities: exploitation and exploration.. E-HRM exploitation concerned the capability to generate new knowledge with innovatory effects, created through the everyday practices performed by practitioners at all levels in the organisation. E-HRM exploration, rather than being a purposeful act, was found to be an accidental consequence of engaging in exploitation to maintain the status quo. Originality/value: There is a lack of detailed investigation of how organisations actually achieve ambidexterity, particularly in three under-researched areas: ambidexterity in the public sector, at HR functional level and e-HRM systems implementation. Bundling these three areas into an integrated examination allows us to both identify how exploitation and exploration play out in the ambidextrous practices of an e-HRM project and also to identify the dimensions of ambidexterity in balancing e-HRM work

Achieving digital-driven patient agility in the era of big data

There is still a limited understanding of the necessary skill, talent, and expertise to manage digital technologies as a crucial enabler of the hospitals ability to adequately sense and respond to patient needs and wishes, i.e., patient agility. Therefore, this investigates how hospital departments can leverage a digital dy-namic capability to enable the departments patient agility. This study embraces the dynamic capabilities theory, develops a research model, and tests it accordingly using data from 90 clinical hospital departments from the Netherlands through an online survey. The model's hypothesized relationships are tested using structural equation modeling (SEM). The outcomes demonstrate the significance of digital dynamic capability in developing patient sensing and responding capabili-ties that, in turn, positively influence patient service performance. Outcomes are very relevant for the hospital practice now, as hospitals worldwide need to trans-form healthcare delivery processes using digital technologies and increase clinical productivity.Comment: 13 pages, 1 figure, The 20th IFIP Conference e-Business, e-Services, and e-Society I3E2021. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2105.0901

Idiosyncratic Values of IT-enabled Agility at the Operation and Strategic Levels

Although research recognizes the role of IT and organizational agility on firm performance, a research gap to investigate IT-enabled agility at strategic and operational levels exists. In this study, we define operation-level agility as a firm’s ability to respond to market changes or emerging opportunities by quickly modifying its business routines. In contrast, we define strategic-level agility as a firm’s ability to define long-range investment decisions and implement them to accommodate strategic moves and business initiatives. We investigate how IT can empower these two levels of agility, and, in turn, how these two levels of agility can influence firm performance. We also examine the relative roles of the two levels of IT-enabled agility in manufacturing and service settings. We use survey data to validate the proposed hypotheses. The results indicate that, in general, IT leads to superior firm performance through agility at both levels. Further analyses, however, suggest that IT-enabled operation-level agility is a stronger success factor for service firms and IT-enabled strategic-level agility is more critical in manufacturing firms. Our findings provide a theoretical insight regarding the industry-specific values of IT-enabled agility at operation and strategic levels and practical implications for organizational IT deployment under specific industrial settings

A Lean Enterprise Architecture Approach as an Enabler for Organizational Agility : Case: Metso Outotec

In the era where delivery speed is perceived more important than IT landscape integration, consistency and long-term planning, different architectural approaches have become important considerations of information systems management. Moreover, recent studies have shown that the need for a holistic EA is often overlooked, when organizations try to apply agile development models, which may lead to several problems, such as technical debt, redundant rework, inconsistent communication, decentralized and siloed architecture design, unsustainable architecture, and inconsistence in coding style. Hence, with the growing deployment of scaling agile methods there is a need for purpose-fit approaches to integrate EA frameworks to enable organization agility while maintaining long-term vision. This study aims to explore how EA activities are put into practices in a company deploying large-scale agile development methods – namely EA deliverables, EA benefits, EA concerns and EA enablers. In total, 13 semi-structured interviews were conducted from a case company, and an analysis was done using the Gioia method. As a result, EA deliverables (business objective deliverables, intentional architecture deliverables, and emergent design deliverables), EA benefits (organizational agility and organizational robustness), EA concerns (immaturity, disengagement, urgency, and resistance and anti-patterns), and EA enablers (communication and collaboration, Lean EA, and EA culture) were identified. The enterprise architecture practices used by the case company were in line with the guidelines and best practices recommended by the literature and industry experts. Moreover, a literature review provided some theoretical constructs and suggestions, namely the Lean EA development (LEAD) method and the design principles of architectural thinking for supporting organizational agility, which can be recommended to be applied by the case company or any other organization scaling agile

A Three-pronged View on Organizational Agility

The ability of organizations to sense and respond to changes–defined as organizational agility–is considered by senior executives among their top information technology (IT) concerns as an important ability for organizations on their quest toward sustainedcompetitive advantage. However, every transformation toward agility also comes at a cost, requiring resource commitment and IT landscape changes. We present examples of successful and unsuccessful attempts at achieving agility while leveraging IT. Our presented cases focus on information systems development agility, customer agility, and entrepreneurial agility. Our findings suggest that agility is neither achieved easily, nor is a guarantor for success.Depending on the context and implementation of organizational agility, however, it can significantly improve process and product performance. We develop a three-pronged viewconsisting of a functional,temporal,andambidextrous viewtoresolve thesechallenges. We end with three recommendations for practitioners that seek to shape their organization’s journey toward agility