ERP and Innovation in Schupeterian Market Dynamics

Organizations are under competitive pressure to innovate and at the same time efficiently execute their strategy, and have been implementing enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions to aid in the achievement of their goals. Sambamurthy, Bharadwaj, and Grover (2003) describe the capability of simultaneous innovation and efficient execution as agility, and they propose a model of information technology’s role in agility and entrepreneurial action within established organizations. They refer to the market forces that drive the need for agility as Schumpeterian market dynamics. We apply a synthesis of two seminal Schumpeterian theories to ERP research. We then relate these lessons to the Sambamurthy et al. framework. We conclude with a view of ERP as an amplifying technology that has the potential to amplify either adaptive or creative response, depending largely on firm-specific factors

Integrating Tacit Customer Knowledge with Internal Knowledge: In-Progress Research into Customers as Members of Cyberinfrastructure Projects

This paper reports on in-progress research into the coordination of specialized knowledge for projects by “cyberinfrastructure centers” that provide infrastructural services to scientists conducting computationally intensive research. Specifically, we draw from a preliminary analysis of 51 interviews with senior personnel at 11 cyberinfrastructure centers to highlight three findings. First, members of two customer-facing cyberinfrastructure departments (Scientific Applications and Visualization) possess specialized “computational science knowledge,” while members of two “back-end” departments (Systems and Operations and User Services) possess specialized “infrastructural operations knowledge.” Second, the regular inclusion of front-end employees in back-end projects (and vice versa) has stimulated the development of knowledge coordination practices. Third, the need for Scientific Applications and Visualization Departments to coordinate knowledge with customers also has yielded a formalized approach in which an employee is physically embedded in a scientific project team and/or a member of a scientific project team is embedded in one of these departments

Video Game Design in the MBA Curriculum: An Experiential Learning Approach for Teaching Design Thinking

In the spirit of design thinking, we have developed a “hands-on” video game design workshop intended to be used for an MBA course on design thinking. This novel approach to teaching complex concepts and skills to business students has been received with enthusiasm, and it provides a unique and memorable experience for students to draw on as they encounter situations in which they will apply design thinking in the future. Additionally, student-produced games and student reflections on the workshops provide initial evidence of the value of teaching design thinking through this type of experiential method. In this article we review key design thinking concepts, report on our continuing efforts to incorporate these principles into video game design workshops in the MBA curriculum, and conclude with reflections on improvements for future iterations in hopes that these lesson plans will be shared and will add value to other institutions teaching design thinking. Workshop lesson plans and student projects can be found online at http://www.kolobkreations.com/GDWweb/GDWHome.html

Supporting Knowledge Creation through Interorganizational Information Systems: Pragmatic Collaboration between Object Worlds

In pursuit of radical innovation, firms are increasingly turning to joint knowledge creating design activity between firms. The bulk of research on interorganizational systems, however, addresses the way transactional activity supports explicitly defined sequential or pooled processes. Design activity by nature requires cross-functional reciprocal processes that cannot be entirely defined in advance. We draw the notion of an “object world†from design theory to distinguish between collaborators on a basis other than functional groups, as cross-functional collaboration can generally be assumed in such design activity. We also draw the principles of information pooling and group interaction from the economic theory of pragmatic collaboration to address potential for inter-firm opportunism. By studying multiple episodes of collaboration in one of Frank Gehry’s innovative construction projects, our data indicates that higher object world congruence between actors generally requires lower degrees of group interaction, but a greater amount of information pooling. Less object world congruence appears associated with more frequent interaction and lower, or more strategic, levels of information pooling

Factors Inhibiting Information Process Integration

Although researchers have considered process integration in some detail, describing it using expressions such as tight coordination among activities, standardization and tight coupling, operating as a whole, etc., we lack an operational measure. Aubert, Vandenbosch and Mignerat (2003) proposed a formal definition of process integration as the sum of efforts expended by the receiving activities of a process to achieve access, transparency, granularity and timeliness of goods and data, relative to the total value added by the process. In other words, the fewer steps and handoffs and the smaller the physical distance in a process, the greater its integration. To test their proposal, we undertook 42 on-site interviews to understand the degree of integration of ten information processes in four industries. We found that the four properties are collectively exhaustive, but fail the test of mutual exclusivity. In order to differentiate among them, it is necessary to uncover instances of information transformation (granularity and transparency) before looking for needless information transfer (accessibility and timeliness).The degree of integration of the ten processes ranged from 9 percent to 81 percent. Accessibility was the most common reason for a lack of process integration and re-keying known data was the major activity undertaken to make information more accessible. A great deal of the re-keying was for documentation purposes. More research is necessary to understand the purpose and value of documentation vis-Ã -vis the real work accomplished in information processes

GENERATIVITY, SECOND-ORDER EFFECTS, AND ICTINNOVATION: AN INFORMATION PROCESSING VIEW

In this study, we examine three types of second-order effects stemming from ICT innovation: subversive, adaptive, and generative. In order to theorize about the precursors of generative second-order effects, we use Galbraith’s organizational information processing theory to the highlight variables that moderate the relationships between the diffusion of ICT innovations and the variety of local adaptations that might enable or inhibit innovation. Future research will focus on second-order effects of Healthcare Information Technology (HIT) innovation

Legitimate Peripheral Participation and Value Creation in Online Knowledge Sharing Communities

Online knowledge sharing communities require contributions and active participation to thrive, yet all participation is not equal. Community members well-socialized in the community are more likely to make stronger contributions. In this paper, we theorize about how legitimate peripheral participation of new online knowledge sharing community members can drive different types of contributions and potentially generate value for the community. We conduct an agent-based simulation analysis of different configurations of legitimate peripheral participation to explore our theoretical arguments. We find, in general, that increased requirements for legitimate peripheral participation of new members drive quality contributions and generates value for the community. However, we also find that there is an inflection point where too many such demands may stifle contributions and impede value creation in these communities

Toward Third Wave Information Systems Research: Linking Sociomaterial Practice with Broader Institutional Logics

The sociomaterial movement has done much to strengthen the theorizing of IT artifacts in practice. This “second wave” information systems research, which focuses on theorizing of the interpenetration of IT artifacts and human activity, is a response to the positivistic, reductive accounts that overly simplified human activity around the development and adoption of IT in the name of generalizability. However, with their focus on local ideographic interpretation, sociomaterial views have abandoned the search for regularities across contexts and across time. In this paper, we take a step toward a “third wave” approach as we look to theoretically account for both idiosyncrasies in sociomaterial practice in situ, and the regularities across these practices. Drawing on institutional logics and the concept of sociomaterial practice, we develop a conceptualization that highlights how technologies afford the enactment of different practice scripts as users draw on different institutional logics

A Design Artifact for Distributed Cognition: Natural Science Pilot Leads to an Expanded Design Science Program

As part of an on-going design science project, we are developing “Theory Garden,” a tool that enables individuals to easily generate visual causal models, thus making their perspectives explicit. Theory Garden aids in the drawing of personal theories of a situation as users indicate their assumptions with qualitative statements and simulate the resulting models. The intuitive interface is intended to minimize the barrier to use, and thus be accessible to a wide audience. The simulation engine enables users to better understand theoretical implications of their theories, and to engage in scenario-based simulation. This paper represents the first step in our effort to scientifically validate our use expectations for the software. In this step we identify a range of use patterns of untrained users. We address strategies for dealing with the unexpected variation that we found in personal modeling strategies, as well as a next step in our study