Qualitative Critical Realism in Information Systems Research

Currently, undertaking qualitative multi-disciplinary studies in Information Systems (IS) domain has been increased. Accordingly, the congruence between research philosophy and methodology allows the IS researchers to identify the overall strategy of the study and avoid unnecessary efforts. Consequently, application of innovative research philosophies, such as critical realism, which benefits from ideas of multiple philosophies (e.g. positivism and interpretivism) is reflected to be more to meet the requirements of multi-disciplinary IS researches. Critical realism allows the use of a well-developed and well-structured path to the research through identifying core elements including mechanisms, structures, and events. This research attempts to provide a distinctive approach for unification of critical realism philosophy and qualitative research through a literature analysis and according to the supplies of qualitative approach and the idea of fishbone diagram. It also offers a novel strategy for the validation of qualitative research based on the qualitative validity criteria and the requirements of the empirical stratum of critical realism philosoph

Urban Computing and Smart Cities: Towards Changing City Processes by Applying Enterprise Systems Integration Practices

For developing smart cities, it is necessary to integrate all components of a city as a system of systems. This is facilitated by urban computing as a technology to address the complexity of providing adequate services to citizens through various city sectors/systems. Since business processes across city sectors/systems should be aligned with the objectives of urban computing, Business Process Change (BPC) is also a significant prerequisite of city systems integration for Smart City Development (SCD). However, there is limited research on understanding of BPC and its challenges in SCD, while in the private sector, the BPC best practices for Enterprise Systems Integration (ESI) have already been recognised and implemented. By considering city as an enterprise, this research aims at providing an understanding of similarities and differences between BPC challenges in the two contexts: SCD and ESI. This study collects data through literature analyses, interviews, and document analyses and suggests that many BPC challenges in SCD have an equivalent from the ESI context. In addition, the findings provide new insights through some challenges that are only relevant to the SCD context, so-called unsolved challenges. Consequently, the study developed a comparison framework, which indicates that the learnings from ESI could be utilised for the SCD context, in order to address BPC challenges. This will assist city authorities in designing their SCD roadmap, prioritising BPC challenges based on the efforts employed for ESI, and thinking about addressing unsolved challenges; as well as smart city solution providers to develop solutions for changing city processes

A Framework for Addressing the Challenges of Business Process Change during Enterprise Systems Integration

Purpose- Enterprise Systems Integration (ESI) is necessary for today’s business environment to access real-time data and quickly respond to fluctuating market demand. Business Process Change (BPC) as a significant prerequisite of ESI encompasses various challenges that must be tackled by employing success factors, techniques, and approaches. This study focuses on BPC challenges and develops a conceptual framework for addressing BPC challenges in ESI. Design/Methodology/Approach- BPC challenges and their success factors were firstly identified through a literature analysis. Then, the findings from the literature were thematically analysed and qualitatively validated through 35 unstructured interviews for developing the conceptual framework. Findings- The findings from the literature suggested 17 BPC challenge along with their success factors. During the validation process, 15 BPC challenges were accepted by all interviewees, while most of the respondents disagreed with the two challenges of ‘consolidation of information system reengineering with BPR’, and ‘customisation’. Moreover, ‘risk’ was suggested as a BPC challenge by several interviewees. Thus, the study offered a modified list of BPC challenges that was empirically validated. Originality/value- The study proposes a conceptual framework for addressing BPC challenges in ESI that enables enterprises to design their systems integration roadmap, based on an understanding of BPC challenges and their success factors; as well as supporting solution providers to develop solutions for effective and efficient BPC. Furthermore, the framework will act as a basis for BPC and developing a similar framework for other related contexts, such as smart cities

Towards a City’s Systems Integration Model for Smart City Development: A Conceptualization

Abstract— Smart city development is a response to address the issues of urbanization and need for flexibility and agility in delivering services to citizens. City as a complex system of systems needs to be efficient, inter-operable, and integrated. Thus, similar to systems integration in enterprises, integration of city systems provides flexibility and access to real-time information for creation and delivery of efficient services. In addition, Business Process Change is essential for systems integration in smart city development. Similar to business process change in the private enterprises, there are a number of challenging dimensions in smart city development. This conceptualization research considers a city as a large-scale enterprise and attempts to design a business process centric model for city’s systems integration

Cross-sectoral Process Modelling for Smart City Development

Purpose- Integration of city systems is needed to provide flexibility, agility, and access to real-time information for the creation and delivery of efficient services in a smart and sustainable city. Consequently, City Process Modelling (CPMo) becomes an essential element of connecting various city sectors. However, to date, there has been limited research on the requirements of an ideal CPMo technique and the usefulness of available Business Process Modelling (BPMo) tools/techniques. This research develops a framework for CPMo to guide smart city developers when modelling city processes. Design/Methodology/Approach- Data from literature analysis was gathered to derive capabilities of existing BPMo techniques. Then, semi-structured interviews were conducted to thematically and qualitatively explore the requirements, challenges, and success factors of CPMo. Findings- The interview findings offered 17 requirements to be addressed by a CPMo technique, along with several challenges and success factors to be considered when implementing CPMo techniques. Then, the paper presents the results of mapping these requirements against 12 existing BPMo capabilities, identified from the literature, concluding that a significant number of requirements (which are mainly related to inputs and visualisation) have been left unfulfilled by existing BPMo tools/techniques. Hence, developing an innovative CPMo technique is necessary to address the components of unfulfilled requirements. Originality/value- The innovative framework presented in this paper justifies the CPMo requirements, which are unexplored in existing SCD frameworks. Moreover, it will act as a guide for smart city developers, to model cross-sectoral city processes, helping them progress their SCD road map and make their cities smart

Blockchain technology as an enabler for cross‐sectoral systems integration for developing smart sustainable cities

Smart cities driven by modern technologies are the need of the day to alleviate the urbanisation challenges and improve the overall experience of the citizens. As the role of data-sharing to facilitate systems integration across city sectors for developing smart cities has grown ever so profoundly, there is a need for decentralisation, transparency, and openness in terms of integration of city sectors to have efficient data diffusion among them. This is extremely important as the requirements of smart sustainable cities are open data sharing to allow service providers to better serve the citizens. Blockchain technology offers these characteristics with the extremely important added advantage of maintaining data security via an immutable record. However, the notion of the use of Blockchain for smart sustainable cities is still in the early years and requires extensive efforts to research and test it. In this research, a state-of-the-art review is conducted to explore the usefulness of Blockchain technology in smart sustainable city development with a specific focus on cross-sectoral systems integration, highlighting the gaps in the existing body of knowledge. This leads to the proposal of a novel framework for the use of Blockchain for smart sustainable cities, linking together service providers and citizens

Smart City Development: A Business Process-centric Conceptualisation

Smart city development has been proposed as a response to urbanisation challenges and changing citizen needs in the cities. It allows the city as a complex system of systems to be efficient and integrated, in order to work as a whole, and provide effective services to citizens through its inter-connected sector. This research attempts to conceptualise smart city, by looking at its requirements and components from a process change perspective, not a merely technology-led innovation within a city. In view of that, the research also gains benefits from the principles of smart city development such as systems thinking approach, city as a system of systems, and the necessity of systems integration. The outcome of this study emphasises the significance of considering a city as a system of systems and necessity of city systems integration and city process change for smart city development. Consequently, the research offers a city process-centric conceptualisation of smart city

FABS: A Framework for Addressing the Business process change challenges for Smart City Development

Over the past decade, extensive research has focused on the conceptualization and implementation of smart cities, considering aspects such as "City as a system of systems," "city as an enterprise," and "city systems integration" as necessary for Smart City Development (SCD). However, despite these considerations, including our existing works, numerous challenges remain in the design and implementation of SCD roadmaps. One critical element for successful SCD is city systems integration, which necessitates cross-sectoral Business Process Change (BPC). However, limited attention has been given to addressing these challenges. To address this gap, our research builds upon and extends our prior works, utilising established principles and research findings to develop and validate a Framework for Addressing the BPC challenges for SCD (FABS). By undertaking a rigorous theoretical adaptation process and incorporating success factors, tools, techniques, and approaches from diverse domains, including enterprise systems, as well as conducting interviews and document analysis, our study contributes to the development of FABS. This empirically supported framework offers a systematic approach to effectively tackle BPC challenges in SCD, enabling smart city developers to assess their current SCD status and readiness for BPC, formulate their SCD roadmap, and assist solution providers in devising specialized tools and techniques tailored for SCD. Thus, our previous works have played a pivotal role in building the foundational components of this research's outcome, namely the FABS framework, which has the potential to advance the field of smart city development

Facilitating Smart City Development through Adaption of the Learnings from Enterprise Systems Integration

Cross-sectoral city systems integration is a necessity for Smart City Development (SCD) to provide real-time services to citizens. However, there is scant knowledge about integrating city systems, while the existing literature is replete with learnings on systems integration from private enterprises. Hence, the wisdom of Enterprise Systems Integration (ESI) can be utilised to integrate systems for SCD. Yet, there is limited knowledge on the association between these two contexts. This research aims to develop an innovative model, referred to as ‘AdaptModel’, that enables the adaption of the ESI learnings for SCD based on the differences and similarities between city and enterprise through qualitative research utilising literature analysis, semi-structured interviews, and document analysis. The findings show that the difference between cities and private enterprises from a systems integration viewpoint is in degree rather than in kind. Hence, using ESI learnings for the SCD context is valuable and informative, but it would be more complex, bureaucratic, time-consuming, and expensive. The research offers guidance in addressing the systems integration challenges associated with SCD based on interrelations between SCD and ESI; this is carried out by applying a novel approach of contextualising and modifying the ESI learnings to support cross-sectoral city systems integration

Smart, Sustainable, Green Cities: A State-of-the-Art Review

This state-of-the-art review paper aims to provide an overview of the current research on three categories of liveable cities, Smart, Sustainable, and Green (SSG). It explores how the discussions about these three categories have been brought together in the literature and identifies an integrated approach to developing more liveable cities of the future. The paper begins by introducing the research topic and methodology, setting out a broad definition for SSG cities as a starting point. Then, the review focuses on recent publications and research trends, with an emphasis on the most significant contributions to the convergence of the SSG categories. Special attention is paid to identifying gaps in current knowledge and suggesting areas for future research. Reviewing recent resources based on our inclusion and exclusion criteria in depth, using 11 relevant themes within the three aforementioned categories, provides a comprehensive and up-to-date summary of the current state of research in developing more liveable cities. Moreover, a summary of the main findings, providing a holistic view of the liveable future cities and implications for further research, policy, and practice offers a helpful resource for scholars, practitioners, policymakers, city authorities, consultants, and solution providers for SSG cities