225 research outputs found
EXTENSIONS TO THE THEORY OF MARKETS AND PRIVACY: MECHANICS OF PRICING INFORMATION
Information Systems Working Papers Serie
CIO's Beware: Very Large Scale Systems Projects
Very-Large Scale Systems (VLSS) play a powerful role in shaping what an
organization does and can do in a practical sense. VLSS are deeply embedded in an
organization's procedures, business plans, and strategies. These systems evolve over
long periods of time, often not according to some rational plan, and for a limited
time they provide a significant competitive advantage over other firms. In the long
run, however, VLSS become strategic liabilities and must be rebuilt.
Many organizations experience great difficulty rebuilding VLSS. Indeed,
most organizations attempt to avoid rebuilding VLSS until the last possible moment.
Often, the organization is in a state of crisis, a strategic transition. Because of the
complexity and size of VLSS, existing methodologies often are not helpful. To make
matters worse, the typical management incentive structure discourages rebuilding
VLSS.
In a typical VLSS effort, participants soon discover that they must rebuild the
organization in order to take full advantage of new technologies. A major
organizational engineering effort is often required. Senior management as well as
systems management routinely underestimate the complexity of the task before
them. Consequently, large errors are made in estimating costs and time.
Drawing on research in both the private and public sector, this paper
examines why VLSS fail, why are VLSS so difficult to rebuild, what are the strategy
options, and how can senior management guide the rebuilding process.Information Systems Working Papers Serie
THE WIRED SOCIETY: PROMISE AND PERFORMANCE
Information Systems Working Papers Serie
A Prolegomenon to Information Technology Ethics
Information Systems Working Papers Serie
CIO's Beware: Very Large Scale Systems Projects
Very Large Scale Systems (VLSS) play a powerful role in shaping what an
organization does and can do in a practical sense. VLSS are deeply embedded in the
organizational procedures, business plans, and strategies. These systems evolve over long
periods of time, often not according to some rational plan, and for a limited time they
provide a significant competitive advantage over other firms. In the long run, however,
VLSS become strategic liabilities and must be rebuilt.
Many organizations experience great difficulty rebuilding VLSS . Indeed, most
organizations attempt to avoid rebuilding VLSS until the last possible moment. Often, the
organization is in a state of crisis, a strategic transition. Because of the complexity and
size of VLSS, existing methodologies often are not helpful. To make matters worse, the
typical management incentive structure discourages rebuilding VLSS.
In a typical VLSS effort, participants soon discover that they must rebuild the
organization in order to take full advantage of new technologies. A major organizational
engineering effort is often required. Senior management as well as systems management
routinely underestimate the complexity of the task before them. Consequently, large
errors are made in estimating costs and time.
Drawing on research in both the private and public sector, this paper examines why
VLSS fail, why are VLSS so difficult to rebuild, what are the strategy options, and how
can senior management guide the rebuilding process.Information Systems Working Papers Serie
PRODUCTIVITY AND THE ENACTMENT OF A MACRO CULTURE
This paper reports the puzzling results of a study which examined IT capital investment
and productivity at three of the largest IT user sites in the U.S. for the period 1970-1990: Social
Security Administration (SSA), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI). Based on detailed IT investment, employment, and output data over twenty
years, we found that only one agency had achieved significant productivity benefits, a second
agency had modest results, and a third agency achieved no results whatever. These results
cannot be explained by traditional theories of productivity of how productivity is produced.
We argue that IT-induced productivity results not simply from strategic choice, nor the
operation of the invisible hand in the market place, nor simply from keen managers adjusting
their organizations to an "objective" environment. Instead we propose instead a new theory in
which productivity benefits derive from a larger macro-culture enacted by powerful institutions
in an organizational field. We extend this analysis to the larger economy and examine how this
new theory helps us understand recent claims that IT is finally having positive productivity
benefits at the sector level, and also helps us understand how the current fascination with reengineering
and downsizing may be a self-fulfilling prophecy.Information Systems Working Papers Serie
Information Technology and Occupational Structure
A central tenet of much popular and scholarly
literature is that computers -and more broadly speaking
"information systems"- bring about significant change in
organizations. Some scholars focus on changes in
organizational structure- the division of labor and its
coordination through authority and power (Blau, 1976;
Danziger, et. d., 1982; Laudon, 1976; 1986; Keen 1981;
Kling and Iacono, 1984; Orlikowski and Robey, 1991;
Robey, 1981; Walton, 1989; Barley 1986; 1990) . Others
focus on IT induced changes in the design of work
(Zuboff, 1984; Bikson, et. al., 1985: Kraut, et. al., 1987;
Sproull and Kiesler, 199 1; Turner, 1984; Iacono and
Kling, 1987). Still others have argued that IT
significantly alters occupational structure in
organizations--the distribution of employment among
occupations and skill classes of workers (Braverman,
1984; Kling and Turner, 1987; Berndt, et. al., 1992;
Howell and W e , 1993; Cyert and Mowry, 1988; 1989).
In general, the impact of IT on occupational structure of
firms and organizations is a neglected area of empirical
research despite the fact that scholars have strong
opinions, and convincing theories, about such
occupational shifts.
In this paper we report the results of a twenty year
longitudinal study of occupational structure in three of the
largest and most intensive organizational users of IT in
the United States. For benchmarking purposes we also
examine occupational change at the aggregate society
level and in the federal government sector over a twenty
year period. The results of our research question the
claim that IT brings about significant change in
occupational structure. While the organizations we
examine did experience significant change in
occupational structure during periods of intense
computerization, these changes did not conform to
theoretical predictions and they were inconsistent from
one organization to another. We conc1ude that
organizational occupational structures are quite stable in
the face of massive IT change and claims that IT brings
about "revo1utionaryâ changes in organizational structure
have little empirical foundation even though there may be
isolated cases where such rapid and drastic changes do
occur.Information Systems Working Papers Serie
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT STRATEGY
Information Systems Working Papers Serie
KNOWLEDGE AND INFORMATION WORK IN ORGANIZATIONS
Since the turn of the century, the United States, Canada, and Western Europe have
been moving toward service and information economies and away from an agricultural and
manufacturing economies (Euromonitor, 1990; Machlup, 1962; Rubin and Huber, 1986;
Porat, 1977). The fraction of workers using information to produce economic value has
been rising, and the fraction working with their hands in factories or on farms has been
declining. In the United States, the percentage of jobs in manufacturing fell from 27
percent in 1920 to 17 percent in 1990. In the European Community, the value-added by
manufacturing grew at an average annual rate of 6.2 percent from 1960 to 1970, but this
growth rate was only 0.7 percent from 1980 to 1985. Among white-collar workers, the
fastest growing occupations have been clerical, professional, and technical workers, and
managers and administrators (Wolff and Baumol, 1987).
Six factors have been involved in this shift. First, third-world and developing
societies have become centers of manufacturing, while the so-called advanced societies
have shifted toward services. In Europe, the telecommunications sector has been growing
about 9 to 11 percent annually, and the software and computing services sector has been
growing 15 to 20 percent annually (Sema Group, 1991). Second, knowledge-intense and
information-intense products and services have grown rapidly, and the production of
traditional products has also been using knowledge more intensively. Third, business has
invested heavily in equipment to support information work. In the United States,
information-related equipment accounted for 20 percent of capital investment in 1979; this
figure had become 40 percent of capital investment by 1986. Fourth, knowledge workers
and information workers have replaced manual production workers within the
manufacturing sectors. Machine-tool operators, for instance, have often been replaced by
technicians who monitor computer-controlled machine tools. Fifth, workers have
increased education and information-processing skills (Howell and Wolff 1991). Sixth,
new kinds of knowledge-intense and information-intense organizations have emerged that
are devoted entirely to the production, processing, and distribution of information. These new kinds of organizations employ millions of people (Office of Technology Assessment,
1988).
As early as 1976, the value of information-sector products and services had
already exceeded that of the manufacturing sector in the U. S. By 1990, the information
sector (including services) accounted for 4 of GNP, and over half of the
U. S. workers were doing some type of information work (Howell and Wolff, 1993;
Roach, 1988). The U. S., however, represents an extreme case. For instance, in the
software and computing services sector, the United States has about 55 percent of the
world market, the European Community has about 25 percent, and Japan has about 8
percent (Sema Group, 199 1).
This article surveys information work, information workers, and the computer
systems that support such work. It then examines the organizations that are most
dependent on knowledge and information work -- knowledge-intensive firms.Information Systems Working Papers Serie
MANAGEMENT STRATEGY, INVESTMENT IN IT, AND PRODUCTIVITY
Previous literature on IT and productivity does not take into account different
organizational goals and different management strategies for achieving these goals. But
productivity and ROI relationships can easily differ as organizational goals and
management strategies differ. Therefore, we argue, it is no longer appropriate to ask,
"Does IT lead to productivity enhancement." or "Is the ROI on IT investments large or
small or nonexistent? The better question is under what conditions of organizational
climate and management choice does IT enhanced productivity result.
To illustrate the powerful effect of organizational goals and management strategy
on IT-productivity relationships, we examine the twenty year history of two of the largest
IT users in the world: the Internal Revenue Service and the Social Security
Administration. And we find that these two very similar agencies experienced very
different results from massive investments in IT despite sharing a similar production
function. There is nothing in micro economics however to explain the different strategies
pursed by these managers. Instead we must turn to political and sociological models of
organizations to understand the social construction of productivity results.Information Systems Working Papers Serie
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