The Socio-Logic Of The IT Marketplace And Long-term Relationships Between Banks And IT Fims

The extension of IT-related change from particular organisational settings of user organisations to a broader, complex, multi-actor socio-economic environment, has shifted the attention of scholars studying IT in Organisations towards the study of the broader IT marketplace. There is however controversy on how choices on technology adoption and implementation as well as choices affecting the formulation of inter-organisational networks are made within such a complex, uncertain and challenging environment. What are the key relationships between players acting at various organisational echelons and in various parts of the networked enterprises? Are they based on formal, discursive criteria or are they a result of tacit knowledge, trust and ‘strong ties’? Also, what is the ‘logic’ or the driving force behind the formulation of such relationships? Is it a collaborative spirit or an antagonistic attitude based on opportunism? Based on the Agora of Techno-Organisational Change concept, which refers to the broader IT marketplace and the way it is shaped, we examine the case of a long-term relationship between an IT firm and a bank in Greece. This case provides some answers to the questions above. Findings suggest that the logic that drives the shaping of the IT marketplace lies with the actor and in that sense there are multiple logics expressed by different actors’ viewpoints, while relations of competition, collaboration, long-term or ad hoc are all existing possibilities within the broader IT marketplace. However, there can be shifting configurations of such viewpoints depending on the influence of critical factors shaping products, services, transactions and IS-development practices in the IT-marketplace. Such critical factors observed in the case studied are the tendency towards outsourcing / insourcing or the degree of customisation and/or in-house development as opposed to standardisation and package-oriented solution technologies

From local social mindfulness to global sustainability efforts?

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Reply to Nielsen et al. social mindfulness is associated with countries’ environmental performance and individual environmental concern

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Social mindfulness and prosociality vary across the globe

Humans are social animals, but not everyone will be mindful of others to the same extent. Individual differences have been found, but would social mindfulness also be shaped by one’s location in the world? Expecting cross-national differences to exist, we examined if and how social mindfulness differs across countries. At little to no material cost, social mindfulness typically entails small acts of attention or kindness. Even though fairly common, such low-cost cooperation has received little empirical attention. Measuring social mindfulness across 31 samples from industrialized countries and regions (n = 8,354), we found considerable variation. Among selected country-level variables, greater social mindfulness was most strongly associated with countries’ better general performance on environmental protection. Together, our findings contribute to the literature on prosociality by targeting the kind of everyday cooperation that is more focused on communicating benevolence than on providing material benefits

The socio-logic of the IT marketplace and long-term relationships between banks and IT fims

The extension of IT-related change from particular organisational settings of user organisations to a broader, complex, multi-actor socio-economic environment, has shifted the attention of scholars studying IT in Organisations towards the study of the broader IT marketplace. There is however controversy on how choices on technology adoption and implementation as well as choices affecting the formulation of inter-organisational networks are made within such a complex, uncertain and challenging environment. What are the key relationships between players acting at various organisational echelons and in various parts of the networked enterprises? Are they based on formal, discursive criteria or are they a result of tacit knowledge, trust and ‘strong ties’? Also, what is the ‘logic’ or the driving force behind the formulation of such relationships? Is it a collaborative spirit or an antagonistic attitude based on opportunism? Based on the Agora of Techno-Organisational Change concept, which refers to the broader IT marketplace and the way it is shaped, we examine the case of a long-term relationship between an IT firm and a bank in Greece. This case provides some answers to the questions above. Findings suggest that the logic that drives the shaping of the IT marketplace lies with the actor and in that sense there are multiple logics expressed by different actors’ viewpoints, while relations of competition, collaboration, long-term or ad hoc are all existing possibilities within the broader IT marketplace. However, there can be shifting configurations of such viewpoints depending on the influence of critical factors shaping products, services, transactions and IS-development practices in the IT-marketplace. Such critical factors observed in the case studied are the tendency towards outsourcing / insourcing or the degree of customisation and/or in-house development as opposed to standardisation and package-oriented solution technologies

REPLY TO NIELSEN ET AL.: Social mindfulness is associated with countries’ environmental performance and individual environmental concern

Nielsen et al. (1) argue that Van Doesum et al. (2) need to consider three points for their interpretation of a positive association between individual-level social mindfulness (SoMi) and environmental performance (EPI) at the country level (3). The association is weaker when 1) it is controlled for GDP and 2) when the data of three countries are removed; also, 3) the data do not address the association between SoMi and individual-level environmental concern. We discuss these points in turn

Social mindfulness and prosociality vary across the globe

Humans are social animals, but not everyone will be mindful of others to the same extent. Individual differences have been found, but would social mindfulness also be shaped by one's location in the world? Expecting cross-national differences to exist, we examined if and how social mindfulness differs across countries. At little to no material cost, social mindfulness typically entails small acts of attention or kindness. Even though fairly common, such low-cost cooperation has received little empirical attention. Measuring social mindfulness across 31 samples from industrialized countries and regions (n = 8,354), we found considerable variation. Among selected country-level variables, greater social mindfulness was most strongly associated with countries' better general performance on environmental protection. Together, our findings contribute to the literature on prosociality by targeting the kind of everyday cooperation that is more focused on communicating benevolence than on providing material benefits