Make or Buy - A Taxonomy of Intranet Implementation Strategies

Most modern organizations have implemented intranets for communication within the organization itself. Recently drastic changes have occurred on the supply side of the technology on three fronts. First, intranet implementation tools have become very accessible. Second, a new breed of intranet tools known as “intranet-in-a-box” enables the implementation of an intranet without much in-house technical expertise. And third, the rise of the use of the World Wide Web has raised general awareness and knowledge about Internet/intranet technologies. In this speculative paper we ask the fundamental question “how should intranets be implemented?” As a possible answer we present a framework describing four different intranet implementation strategies based on who implements the intranet (in-house vs. outsourced project) and the technology used (development tools or shrink-wrapped intranet packages). The four strategies are the amateur, the craftsman, the engineer, and the traveling fitter. Each strategy has advantages as well as disadvantages. We conducted an explorative field study of eight Danish organizations that were implementing intranets. Our analysis suggests that the appropriate strategy must be chosen in accordance with the level of internal technical expertise, core competence, and maturity of the technology

Make or Buy -- A Taxonomy of Intranet . . .

Most modern organizations have implemented intranets for communication within the organization itself. Recently drastic changes have occurred on the supply side of the technology on three fronts. First, intranet implementation tools have become very accessible. Second, a new breed of intranet tools known as "intranet-in-a-box" enables the implementation of an intranet without much in-house technical expertise. And third, the rise of the use of the World Wide Web has raised general awareness and knowledge about Internet/intranet technologies. In this speculative paper we ask the fundamental question "how should intranets be implemented?" As a possible answer we present a framework describing four different intranet implementation strategies based on who implements the intranet (in-house vs. outsourced project) and the technology used (development tools or shrink-wrapped intranet packages). The four strategies are the amateur, the craftsman, the engineer, and the traveling fitter. Each strategy has advantages as well as disadvantages. We conducted an explorative field study of eight Danish organizations that were implementing intranets. Our analysis suggests that the appropriate strategy must be chosen in accordance with the level of internal technical expertise, core competence, and maturity of the technology

Research Philosophies in the IOS Adoption Field

This paper pursues two objectives. First it depicts the status of research philosophies of the IOS adoption field. Second, it gives an overview of the discussions within the field of IS about interrelating research philosophies and analyzes to which extent this has happened in the IOS adoption field thus far. In depicting the philosophical status of the field we apply Orlikowski and Baroudi’s (1991) framework that classifies IS research as relying on a foundation of assumptions from either positivism, interpretivism or critical theory. We found the framework well suited for our review of the field, although we did not find any instances where critical theory had been used as the basic assumption in an IOS adoption study. Our findings show that there are several clear openings for contributions that apply new research perspectives to the field of IOS or combine multiple research perspectives for added insight into the dynamics of IOS adoption