Building and Exploiting a Business Process Model for Lobbying: Experience Report

The paper describes a project in the domain of business process modeling that concerns loosely-structured business processes, i.e. processes for which it is difficult to establish an order of activities. The process in focus is the lobbying process, i.e. a process aimed at influencing decisions of others, e.g. politicians. The project was carried out at a non-profit interest organization, and the paper describes the project’s motivation, structure, methodology, results, and how the results were exploited, including a short description of an IT system built to support the lobbying process. As the commonly spread workflow technique is not particularly suitable for loosely-structured business processes, the project exploited an original state-flow technique for developing a model of the lobbying process. The state-flow technique is based on the state-oriented view on business processes that has been used as a foundation for building the support system. The paper reports a number of problems encountered during the introduction of the system into operational practice. These problems led to the needs of reducing the level of details initially introduced into the system; they will be reintroduced at the later stage when the users become more accustomed to work in the process-oriented manner. In the conclusion, the paper discusses success factors important for modeling projects, and pros and cons of the modeling method used, as well as a broader research context of which the work presented in the paper is a part

Full Paper: How Hybrid IT Governance Mechanisms Influence Digital Transformation and Organizational Performance in the Banking and Insurance Industry of Indonesia

Incumbent businesses need to accelerate their digital transformation due to disruption from digital technologies, competition, behavioural changes, regulation, and pandemics. Nevertheless, many digital transformation investments have failed due to poor governance. Previous research has identified the hybrid of traditional and agile-adaptive IT governance mechanisms that influence digital transformation. However, it is important to measure the extent of mechanisms’ influence on organizational performance. Therefore, online survey data from 338 Indonesian banking and insurance respondents have been collected and analysed using the SEM-PLS. The results show that hybrid IT governance mechanisms have moderate influences on digital transformation, and digital transformation strongly influences organizational performance. The study contributes to research by analysing the effect of hybrid IT governance mechanisms on organizational performance, fully mediated by digital transformation. In practical terms, the measurement items from the hybrid IT governance mechanisms, digital transformation and organizational performance dimensions can be useful for guiding digital transformation journeys

THE IMPACT OF BUSINESS-IT ALIGNMENT ON ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE

Organizational culture continues to be cited as one of the most important factors for organizations’ success in an increasingly competitive and IT-driven global environment. Given the fact that organizational culture has an influence all over the organization, the complexity of its nature is increased when considering the relationship between business and IT. As a result, different factors that have influence on changing organizational culture were highlighted in literature. These factors are found in the research literature distributed in three main group; micro-environment factors, macro-environment factors and leader’s impact. One of the factors that have not been yet well investigated in researches is concerning business-IT alignment (BITA. Therefore the purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of BITA maturity on organizational culture. The research process that we have followed is a literature survey followed by an in-depth case study. The result of this research shows a clear interrelation in theories of both BITA and organizational culture, and clear indications of BITA impact on organizational culture and its change. The findings may support both practitioners and researchers in order to understand the insights of the relationships between BITA and organizational culture components and provide a roadmap for improvements or desired changes in organizational culture with highlighted target business area

Design Science in Action: Developing a Framework for Introducing IT Systems into Operational Practice

The paper presents an example of using design science research for solving a problem arising from local practice. The problem concerns adoption of new technology. The paper aims to integrate existing approaches and theories of technology acceptance and change management in a framework useful for practical purposes. It is based on the idea that the successful introduction of an IT-system requires a number of conditions to be satisfied as well as means for bringing about the satisfaction of these conditions. The level of satisfaction of the conditions can be measured by a set of parameters, such as the level of strategic, tactical and operational understanding of the system by the users. Means include various types of actions, tools and strategies. The introduction process is steered via periodically measuring the parameters, and applying means that help to change the level of satisfaction of the conditions

Organisational Structure’s Influence on IT Alignment in a Public Organisation: A Confirmatory Case Study Analysis

IT alignment in public organisations is considered to be one of the missing pieces in the otherwise rich research area in the IS domain. Researchers also criticise the lack of studies addressing practical issues related to IT alignment, particularly in public organisations. One such area of concern is the contradictory findings of prior studies on the role of formal and informal organisations on IT alignment. A case study was conducted in one public organisation to establish the influence of different forms of organisational structure on IT alignment. A theoretical model was proposed based on a previous study and literature, which is then tested with data collected from a survey among 163 IT and administrative personnel in a Swedish public organisation. The results suggest that centralised organisational structure as well as the two forms of informal organisational structures—interpersonal relationships and cross-departmental relationships influence IT alignment. However, the influence of professional networks on IT alignment is not significant. The findings are important for researchers and practitioners in public organisations

A Framework to Support Practitioners in Evaluating Business-IT Alignment Models

Many business-IT alignment (BITA) models have been designed to support organizations in achieving, assessing and maintaining alignment between business and IT. These models focus on different components and emphasize different perspectives. This makes it difficult for practitioners to choose appropriate BITA models given organization at-hand. In this paper, an evaluation framework supporting practitioners to choose appropriate BITA models is presented. The framework was designed following design science as main research approach. The design process was based on literature and empirical studies. The literature study contributed in constructing a tentative version of the framework which was refined through an empirical study in 6 organizations. The final framework consists of 25 criteria categorized into four groups, and was demonstrated on six major BITA models showing its feasibility. Finally, the framework was evaluated by interviewing two business consultants and three CIOs from large-sized Swedish companies. The evaluation shows the framework having a complete set of criteria, but its usability and efficiency could be increased

IT Alignment and its Influence on Digital Transformation Success

Managing digital transformation is a complex enterprise dependent on various organisational, managerial, and technological factors. Among others, the influence of factors related to IT alignment on digital transformation is recognised. This study attempts to establish the significance of eight organisational and managerial factors (organisational agility, organisational structure, organisational culture, leadership skills, digital metrics, HR management, stakeholder relationships, and external domain alignment). Our aim is to investigate whether these factors’ influence on IT alignment affects the success of digital transformation in public organisations. The proposed conceptual research model, founded on related prior studies, was tested with quantitative data collected through a survey from 402 leaders. Our results indicate that IT alignment is positively related to digital transformation success in public organisations. However, the PLS-SEM analysis reveals a varying degree of influence among the factors on IT alignment as organisations undertake digital transformation

Towards a Business Process Modeling Technique for Agile Development of Case Management Systems

A modern organization needs to adapt its behavior to changes in the business environment by changing its Business Processes (BP) and corresponding Business Process Support (BPS) systems. One way of achieving such adaptability is via separation of the system code from the process description/model by applying the concept of executable process models. Furthermore, to ease introduction of changes, such process model should separate different perspectives, for example, control-flow, human resources, and data perspectives, from each other. In addition, for developing a completely new process, it should be possible to start with a reduced process model to get a BPS system quickly running, and then continue to develop it in an agile manner. This article consists of two parts, the first sets requirements on modeling techniques that could be used in the tools that supports agile development of BPs and BPS systems. The second part suggests a business process modeling technique that allows to start modeling with the data/information perspective which would be appropriate for processes supported by Case or Adaptive Case Management (CM/ACM) systems. In a model produced by this technique, called data-centric business process model, a process instance/case is defined as sequence of states in a specially designed instance database, while the process model is defined as a set of rules that set restrictions on allowed states and transitions between them. The article details the background for the project of developing the data-centric process modeling technique, presents the outline of the structure of the model, and gives formal definitions for a substantial part of the model

Business-IT Alignment in the Era of Digital Transformation: Quo Vadis?

For the last four decades, the alignment of business and IT strategies also referred to as business-IT alignment (BITA), has been recognised as one of the top concerns for leaders. The current digital transformation journey undertaken by most organisations, however, triggered a new approach to planning and executing business and IT strategies as well as pursuing BITA. A systematic literature review is conducted to capture the paradigmatic shift in research and practice. A total of 94 articles published between 2014 and 2018 were identified searching through databases known to index reputable IS journals and conference proceedings. The analysis of the review revealed the continued conceptual debate on BITA construct as well as new research topics. The significance of digital strategy, enterprise architecture models, as well as intelligent IT systems to enable elicitation, implementation and assessment of activities enabling BITA are garnering the attention of researchers. Potential research directions are presented

Digital Transformation in Public Organisations: IT Alignment-Related Success Factors

IT alignment is recognised as one of the prerequisites for digital transformation in the extant literature. To further our understanding of this relationship, a case study was conducted in a public organisation (city administration). Data was collected through interviews and internal-organisational documents in four sub-cities within the city administration. The findings suggest that an organisation’s attempt to reach IT- aligned position improves the likelihood of successful digital transformation. The analysis also revealed various factors influencing IT alignment in a public organisation undertaking digital transformation. These factors are presented in eight categories---organisational structure, organisational culture, organisational agility, leadership skills, human resource management, digital metrics, external domain alignment, and stakeholder relationships. The contributions of the study for research and practice are also discussed