357 research outputs found

    Understanding Organizational Coordination and Information Systems - Mintzberg\u27s Coordination Mechanisms Revisited and Evaluated

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    This paper investigates organizational coordination and its relationship to computer-based information systems. As a basis for understanding organizational coordination and information system use, Mintzberg’s well-known set of coordination mechanisms is used as a point of departure in this paper. The set of coordination mechanisms is evaluated by applying it in an interpretive case study of a house building firm and confronting the set of mechanisms with other theories of coordination. The result of the evaluation shows that the applied set of coordination mechanisms does not sufficiently cover important aspects of organizational coordination and information system use, such as more dynamic issues (e.g. coordination history, external influence, emergent processes, concurrency and variation, and communication). The set of coordination mechanisms is, however, more sufficient when it comes to understanding formal division of labour, stable organizational structures and roles, and planned coordination

    Managing E-Government Projects: A Comparative Case Study of Two Inter- Organizational E-Service Development Initiatives

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    E-government initiatives have large potentials in developing better services for citizens and a potential to transform government structures. However e-government initiatives face a number of challenges of complexity and risk - it is not an easy matter to realize its potentials. A key research issue for the e-government field, as well as the information systems field in general, is to understand why some projects progress to success while others end in failure. The main objective in this paper is to contribute to a better understanding of the progress and the success vs. failure in e-government development based on case studies of two inter-organizational e-service projects. The analysis in the paper is made from a) an e-government systems development life cycle perspective and b) a challenge and success factors perspective. The main result in this paper is that crucial success factors of an inter-organizational e-government project include project manager skills and position in the agency organization as well as when and how systems maintenance issues are introduced in the project. Criticism is presented concerning the life cycle model used in the analysis regarding this last matter.

    Analyzing Communication Media and Actions - Extending and Evaluating the Business Action Matrix

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    In this paper we analyse how different communication media affect, restrict and facilitate business actions. This paper aims to attain a further understanding of what consequences decisions about offering or relinquishing a certain medium would have for the company and its customers. We are also interested in finding feasible ways to make such analyses of business actions and communication media. For this purpose, we use a business action matrix to analyse three kinds of business actions in a Swedish mail order company. The studied business actions are placing orders, posing questions and making complaints. This is an important field to study since in distance selling companies, the more or less innovative communication media must be carefully evaluated from both the customers’ and the company’s point of view. Used in the right way, the business communication media might lead to a well-functioning customer communication, which facilitates closer customer relationships, customer loyalty and customer satisfaction. Used in an ad-hoc manner, without a proper communication media strategy, the company might lose its chance to offer media that satisfy both the customers’ and the company’s needs. In the paper we discuss what makes the business action matrix a useful tool for analyzing a company’s communication media portfolio

    Communication Media in Distance Selling

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    This paper focuses on communication media offered by distance selling companies. It also concentrates on possible as well as feasible business actions for customers to conduct through these media. The analysis distinguishes between communicative and material business actions. We examine the benefits of this separation when conducting business analysis in settings where there is a physical distance between the selling company and its customers. The paper also stresses the usefulness of focusing on both generic phases of the business interaction, and communicative and material business actions conducted within each phase. As a result of the study, a business action matrix is introduced to analyse different dimensions of business interactions and media

    Managing The Development Of Secure Identification - Investigating A National e-ID Initiative Within A Public e-Service Context

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    This paper investigates the management of developing electronic identification (e-ID) within a public e-service context. e-ID is an important key enabler for secure identification, authentication and digital signing via the Internet and a part of e-service design. As users, and citizens, we become reliant on electronic solutions that give us a certain level of utility and trust, and use e-ID solutions to interact with local and central government in an e-service context. The management of e-ID development in a national context is the case in focus for investigation. Such development initiatives, and especially inter-organizational projects, face a number of challenges. Therefore it is a need for a more thorough understanding of e-ID development within a public e-service context. The purpose is to analyse the contemporary management of e-ID development in Sweden from: a) an e-government systems development life-cycle perspective and b) a project challenge and critical success factor perspective. This study concludes that there are significant challenges involved in managing integrated e-ID development. Challenges involve the organization and management of the program and can be traced back to e-government and general project management literature, but based on this study one can question, e.g. governance models, centralization, and a narrow focus on a technical artefact. Important implications from this paper are a call for further contextual studies of e-ID development, putting the user and organizational setting, path dependency, and governance models in focus.FUSe - Future Safe Electronic Identificatio

    E-government challenges – exploring inter-organisational aspects of e-service development

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    In this paper we are applying inter-organizational concepts from the industrial/business network approach on empirical findings from an e-government case, in order to describe and better understand challenges in one-stop government e-service development. We analyze our case by using concepts that characterize an inter-organizational relationship in terms of its level of continuity, complexity, symmetry, informality, and its dimensions (links, bonds, and ties). The purpose of the paper is to explore how these theoretical concepts can help us focus on certain aspects of e-service development challenges. The empirical findings are collected within an on-going action research project for e-service development in the public sector in Sweden. The aim of the project is to develop one-stop government e-services for driver’s license matters as well as a web-based portal where these e-services and information about the driver’s license process will be easily accessible. Our conclusions are that the theoretical concepts helped us reach further understanding of the empirical case. In the spirit of the network approach, we focused on the present situation and been able to give a rather detailed and fine-grained picture of the problems and challenges in this context
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