IoT Security Adoption into Business Processes: A Socio-Technical View

Recently, the Internet of Things (IoT) has gained huge focus and has led to the generation of valuable data to create new value propositions for organisations. It is important to explore the impact these developments have on our society. IoT security is identified as the key issue amongst all the IoT applications and presents numerous social and technical challenges. We conducted interviews with IoT experts and the results illustrated how holistic security issues in IoT are undermined and to further emphasize the importance of addressing these issues by accommodating security into IoT business processes. This approach facilitated the assessment and identification of security threats from both social and technical perspectives. Our outcome highlights that IoT security must be implemented into IoT aware business processes to make the technology human centered, despite the challenges involved

Air Canada:flying high with information technology

By covering information technology (IT) management at Air Canada over two decades, this case illustrates the process of alignment between IT and business over time. During the 1990s, the focus was on efficiency and the IT department supported business through both the centralization of the IT function and the outsourcing of most of the IT activities, with the explicit objective of reducing costs. Twenty years later, at the time the case takes place, Air Canada had two key strategic objectives: operational excellence and customer proximity. In order to help meet these two objectives, IT now supported business through a hybrid structure and an innovation-based, "best-of-breed" sourcing strategy. Also, over the years, the IT department at Air Canada had developed processes aimed at ensuring efficient delivery of services by suppliers, as well as in-house processes to scan, identify and implement innovative IT solutions both for operational excellence and customer proximity

Information technology outsourcing success:a model of dynamic, operational, and learning capabilities

Grounded in dynamic capabilities perspective, our study offers a model of IT outsourcing success. We distinguish between three sets of IT outsourcing capabilities. We first define IT outsourcing dynamic capabilities as the ability of an organization to purposefully extend, create or modify its information technology resources through an outsourcing arrangement. We define IT outsourcing operational capabilities as the ability of the client firm to manage/execute IT outsourcing arrangements. IT outsourcing learning capabilities are defined as the capacity to acquire external knowledge on IT outsourcing and accumulate experience. We theorize on the relationships between these capabilities and propose a model of their impact on IT outsourcing success. A cross-sectional survey of organizations across different industries will provide the data and a structural equation modeling (SEM) approach will be used to analyze the data

The strategic role of information technology sourcing:a dynamic capabilities perspective

Grounded in the theory of dynamic capabilities, our study offers a conceptualization of IS strategy that comprises two sets of dynamic capabilities: enterprise IT architecture dynamic capability and IT sourcing dynamic capability. We borrow from extant IS literature and define enterprise IT architecture dynamic capability as the capacity of an organization to purposefully extend, create or modify its IT competencies for tight alignment with the firm’s business strategy; and we offer the concept of IT sourcing dynamic capability that we define as the capacity of an organization to purposefully extend, create or modify its IT resource base to support the creation or modification of IT competencies for tight alignment with the firm’s business strategy. We theorize on how these two sets of capabilities combine to form the firm IS strategy, which either helps a firm respond to rapid changes in the environment or bring about changes in the business strategy, which may in turn provoke changes in the environment and thus provide a competitive advantage. Our theorizing will be informed by a case study of two business units facing rapid environmental change

An assessment of the use of Transaction Cost Theory in information technology outsourcing

Transaction Cost Theory (TCT) has been widely used in information technology outsourcing (ITO) research to explain and predict outsourcing decisions and outsourcing-related outcomes. This research, however, has led to mixed and unexpected results in terms of the effects of transaction attributes on outsourcing decisions and outcomes. This study assesses the empirical literature employing TCT-based ITO models in terms of its faithfulness to the precepts of TCT, and argues that one possible explanation for the mixed results is that the extant models do not capture all the essential elements of TCT. First, there are core TCT constructs that the extant models do not take into account; second, the linkages among constructs that the IT outsourcing models have hypothesized are not always in line with TCT precepts; and third, the normative nature of the theory is not always captured by the extant models. This paper, therefore, aims to provide one possible answer to the question: “Why have the appropriations made of TCT to study IT outsourcing produced mixed results?

Revising the IT outsourcing decision model:a transaction cost perspective

Williamson’s (1979) transaction cost theory (TCT) has been widely used in information technology (IT) outsourcing research. This research, however, has led to mixed and unexpected results. From a theoretical standpoint, this paper argues that the conceptualization of the constructs and, more importantly, the linkage among constructs that IT outsourcing decision models have hypothesized are not completely in line with TCT. By reviewing the extant IT outsourcing decision models, this paper proposes a model of IT outsourcing decision that is closer to TCT than its predecessors. The model links transaction attributes to the outsourcing decision through a cost analysis mechanism, and also includes some attributes of transactions that have been ignored in past IT outsourcing research. In addition, the proposed model re-examines the role of some transaction attributes by taking into account their moderating effects

Simulation Games for Active Learning of ERP Concepts

Teaching the concepts underlying an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system is a difficult task. Many students have very little IT experience to which they can relate these concepts. They may have acquired business experience in one or two functional areas, but many of them have only a limited understanding of the operational aspects supporting the value creation process in modern firms. Moreover, they usually have had no firsthand experience with the functional non-integrated software that the ERP system was designed to replace. For these students, the horizontal integration of the firm can be very abstract due to their lack of hands-on experience with legacy systems. \ \ ERPsim solutions are innovative “learning-by-doing†approaches to teaching ERP concepts. Several administrative functions in SAP are automated, so that students can focus on making business decisions. Using a mix of the ERP system’s standard transactions and customized reports, students must analyze information and make business decisions to ensure the profitability of their operations. The main learning objectives of this game are: (i) to develop a hands-on understanding of the concepts underlying enterprise systems, (ii) to experience the benefits of enterprise integration, (iii) and to develop technical skills using ERP software. \ \ The ERPsim Lab develops innovative teaching solutions by transforming business software into dynamic learning platforms. In this workshop, the lab’s flagship solution, ERPsim, will be introduced. This solution enables participants to understand ERP concepts by experiencing a continuous-time simulation where they have to run a business by leveraging the capabilities of SAP ERP and S/4HANA. Through the experience, the link between ERPsim and SAP will be demonstrated. \ \ The participants will also become familiar with other activities of the ERPsim Lab such as solutions that are developed for teaching data analytics concepts.