Open Courseware vs. Open Source Software - A Critical Comparison

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) recently announced its OpenCourseWare project, which will make all its courseware available on the Internet free of charge. This paper compares the OpenCourseWare project to the open source approach of software development. It contrasts and evaluates the nature of the products, the motives of the producers and users, the consequences on the market environment and the contribution to the scientific progress. Besides exploring the specific MIT case, another motivation of the paper is to stimulate the academic discussion about new regimes for dealing with digital courseware

A Wheelbarrow Full of Frogs: Understanding Portfolio Management for Agile Projects

Organizations increasingly embrace agile approaches for IT projects, replacing rigid formal stage-gate control by flexible output-orientation. This challenges established program or portfolio management approaches that largely rely on consolidated (stage-gate) project metrics. Based on seven case studies of large Dutch organizations we explore these challenges and the organizational responses towards a new approach to portfolio management for agile projects. Data-collection is guided by four propositions derived from control theory and portfolio management literature. Our findings show that portfolio management adapts to agile projects by performing fewer and less strict process controls, by modifying the budget controls and by shifting from IT project/program control to business outcome control, with an increased focus on business value

Mastering the Downward-Facing Dog: IT Flexibility and Business-IT Alignment

With a rising quest to leverage information technologies (IT) for attaining strategic objectives, enterprises require sufficient flexibility to cope with dynamic business environments. The flexibility of IT infrastructure is investigated in this study as a mechanism to induce more aligned business and IT activities in large organizations. To complement earlier findings of IT flexibility’s influence on alignment, this study operationalizes three models. Using standardized survey responses from 130 organizations from around the globe, structural equation modeling is applied. Investigating the impact of IT flexibility on alignment, we find a positive and meaningful effect of IT flexibility on alignment. Moreover, positive effects on several alignment practices are found. Although no moderating effect of cloud adoption rates is found, this study concluded with several meaningful implications to understand the strategic relevance of a flexible IT

Success Lies in the Eye of the Beholder: A Quantitative Analysis of the Mismatch Between Perceived and Real IT Project Management Performance

Building on an earlier exploratory study, this paper investigates the drivers of the possible mismatch between traditional real IT project management performance criteria - quality, time and cost - and perceived project management performance. We use partial least squares structural equation modeling to test five main hypotheses with survey data from 248 managers with extensive IT/IS project involvement. The results demonstrate that mismatches between real and perceived project management performance indeed occur. They are predominantly driven by poor expectation management before and during the execution of IT projects, as well as by a low project sponsor commitment. A discussion of the findings and limitations, as well as suggestions for future research, conclude the article

Knowledge Management Systems Spanning Culture: The Case of Deutsche Bank\u27s HRBASE

Earlier research has shown the impact of national culture on the development, roll-out, and usage of cross-national information systems (IS) projects. This study builds on and extends this research by exploring the influence of national culture within the setting of Knowledge Management Systems (KMS). Employing a case study approach, the study analyses the cross-national development and rollout of HRbase, an Intranet-based KMS for Deutsche Bank. The findings suggest that the impact of national culture is even stronger for KMS. Hofstede’s four-dimension framework, the framework predominantly used in earlier research, is found to be applicable in the new setting of KMS. The findings suggest that Hofstede’s “Power Distance” dimension is particularly relevant as knowledge management aims at sharing knowledge across hierarchies