Considering Structural Properties of Inter-organizational Network Fragments during Business-IT Alignment

Value exchange models can be used to reason about possible networked business constellations. Such inter-organizational business settings are determined in most cases solely from a financial point of view, i.e. by assessing the economic sustainability of the constellation. In this paper we discuss also other criteria that are relevant and should additionally be considered, namely the structural properties of the inter-organizational constellation itself. The multitude of possible interorganizational business constellations – and underlying systems constellations respectively – makes it a necessary requirement to split such constellations into recurring structural patterns, which we call fragments. The structural properties are helping the designer to reason about quality related issues of the inter-organizational network, and may have an influence on design choices to be made. The paper suggests to design new e-business constellations not only on the basis of financial criteria, but to consider also quality issues of the inter-organizational network

The impact of prior use on the further diffusion of new process technology

This paper contributes to our understanding as to how the extent of prior use of a new technology may impact upon current additions to use. This paper is innovative first in placing emphasis upon intra-firm aspects of the diffusion process and second by integrating rivalry and spill-over effects (such as early-mover advantages, learning by doing, network externalities and learning) in a unified theoretic framework

IT in construction: aligning IT and business strategies

The extent to which information technology (IT) infrastructures and strategies are aligned with business processes and strategies varies widely along firms. The objective of this paper is to explain the success or failure of IT in construction firms by focusing on the alignment (or lack of it) between business strategy, IT strategy, organizational infrastructure, and IT infrastructure. It is hypothesized that the ‘fit’ among these elements, the domains of the Strategic Alignment Model, is positively related to the Business Value of IT in Construction. The IT Business Value is evaluated in terms of efficiency, effectiveness and business performance. By applying the Strategic Alignment Model to the Dutch construction industry, it is shown that the inadequate alignment between these domains is a major reason for the modest added business value from IT investments in this industry. The first lack of alignment is the technology shortfall: hence IT contributes in an inadequate way to strategic processes of construction firms. The second lack of alignment is the strategy-shortfall: hence the firm strategy impedes the implementation of IT that could generate a high business value

How innovative are UK firms? Evidence from the Fourth UK Community Innovation Survey on synergies between technological and organizational innovations

Using data from the Fourth UK Community Innovation Survey this paper explores the diffusion of a range of innovative activities (encompassing process, product, machinery, marketing, organization, management and strategic innovations) across 16,383 British companies in 2004. Building upon a simple theoretical model it is shown that the use of each innovation is correlated with the use of all other innovations. It is shown that the range of innovations can be summarized by two multi-innovation factors, labelled here `organizational' and `technological', that are complements but not substitutes for each other. Three clusters of firms are identified where intensity of use of the two sets of innovations is below average (56.9% of the sample); intermediate but above average (23.7%); and highly above average (19.4%). Distinctive characteristics are found to be common to the companies in each cluster. Finally, it is shown that innovativeness tends to persist over time

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

Open innovation in SMEs: Trends, motives and management challenges

Although evidence for open innovation practices has been provided for large MNEs, they have not yet been analyzed systematically for SMEs. This paper presents the results of a survey among 605 Dutch innovating SMEs. The results show that SMEs are increasingly adapting open innovation practices. Moreover, they indicate a difference in the adaption to open innovation between manufacturing and services firms, and between larger and smaller SMEs. Larger SMEs adapting more quickly and in a more structured and professionalized way to open innovation than smaller ones. The survey furthermore shows that SMEs generally pursue an open innovation strategy to realize market-related objectives such as meeting customer demands, or keeping up with competitors. In addition, the results show that the most important barriers respondents face are related to the organizational and cultural differences when cooperating with other partners. Other serious barriers are administrative burdens, financing and knowledge transfer problems.

Clusters and Knowledge Local Buzz, Global Pipelines and the Process of Knowledge Creation

The paper is concerned with spatial clustering of economic activity and its relation to the spatiality of knowledge creation in various sorts of interactive learning processes. It questions the merit of the prevailing explanatory model where the realm of tacit knowledge transfer is confined to local milieus whereas codified knowledge may roam the globe almost frictionless. When doing so the paper highlights the conditions under which both tacit and codified knowledge can be exchanged locally and globally. A distinction is made between, on the one hand, the learning processes taking place among actors embedded in a community by just being there - dubbed buzz - and, on the other, the knowledge attained by investing in building channels of communication - called pipelines - to selected providers located outside the local milieu. It is argued, that the co-existence of high levels of buzz and many pipelines may provide firms located in outward looking and lively clusters with a string of particular advantages not available to outsiders. Finally, some prescriptive elements, stemming from the argument, are identified.knowledge creation, clusters, buzz, pipelines, absorptive capacity