How does PLM enhance international inter organizational new product development? Knowledge transfer and translation with boundary spanners

An important question for IS researchers and practitioners is how IT can improve new product development (NPD) in the context of inter organizational development. More precisely, this paper aims at understanding how Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) technology contributes to NPD knowledge integration in this environment. It is based on a longitudinal case study of a French industrial Group with design teams located in Europe, which had greatly increased development work with China at the time of the study. The first author participated in PLM implementations in Asia over the course of four years. Data analyses indicate a reduction of communication problems, from which we infer a positive contribution of PLM to knowledge transfer and knowledge translation. PLM reinforces the role of outsourced Chinese engineers who act as a boundary spanner with Chinese suppliers

INCREASING RELEVANCE IN IS RESEARCH: CONTEXTUALIZING KNOWLEDGE IN NETWORKS

Relevance is useful and actionable knowledge in situ. It is a result and condition of ‘knowledge exchanges’ between practitioner and scientific communities taking place in heterogeneous knowledge networks. Whereas IS research has traditionally emphasized a selection perspective in disputes around relevance preferring scholarly community’s viewpoint over the other, this paper articulates a networking perspective which analyzes enablers, competencies and barriers for useful knowledge flow across communities. After introducing main types of knowledge that flow in the knowledge system we apply the concept of absorptive capacity to analyze the outcomes and processes of knowledge exchanges and map how each type of knowledge is sought and absorbed by one community from another by leveraging specific knowledge networks including the focal one. Given little empirical research about a) how IT managers and other high level IT professionals (consultants, etc) source and exchange different forms of knowledge in their practice, and b) the properties of this knowledge such as its volatility, accuracy, validity demands, forms of sourcing, genre or presentation, we outline a field study on salient knowing and knowledge practices among high achievement IT individuals with significant careers. Preliminary findings are reported

HOW PLM INFLUENCES KNOWLEDGE INTEGRATION IN NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT: A SET-THEORETIC APPROACH FOR CAUSAL ANALYSIS

This paper evaluates the effects of the use of Product Lifecycle Management and its three sub-systems - Organizational Memory, Project and Resource Management and Cooperative Work systems - on three components of knowledge integration in New Product Development: knowledge transfer, translation and transformation. A second aim of this paper is to explicate and discuss the use of the crisp set version of Qualitative Comparative Analysis to explain the three components of knowledge integration. It does so in an international inter-organizational context of a moderately turbulent industry. In addition to the PLM sub-systems, this configurational analysis focuses on the level of supplier relationships as characterized by two conditions: the boundary spanner participation and supplier integration. Results show that different types of sub-systems impact various types of knowledge integration, and that the level of supplier relationship conditions is important to ensure knowledge translation and transformation

Should We Collaborate with AI to Conduct Literature Reviews? Changing Epistemic Values in a Flattening World

In this paper, we revisit the issue of collaboration with artificial intelligence (AI) to conduct literature reviews and discuss if this should be done and how it could be done. We also call for further reflection on the epistemic values at risk when using certain types of AI tools based on machine learning or generative AI at different stages of the review process, which often require the scope to be redefined and fundamentally follow an iterative process. Although AI tools accelerate search and screening tasks, particularly when there are vast amounts of literature involved, they may compromise quality, especially when it comes to transparency and explainability. Expert systems are less likely to have a negative impact on these tasks. In a broader context, any AI method should preserve researchers’ ability to critically select, analyze, and interpret the literature

Adoption Factors of Electronic Data Exchanges and Technologies to Improve Data Synchronization in BtoB Relationships: Are they similar?

Because of the emergence of technologies that allow more flexible interconnections, we propose to divide Interorganizational Information Systems (IOSs) adoption into two decision processes: electronic data exchanges adoption and technological choices. Indeed they are sequentially and in extreme case simultaneously related but independent since electronic data exchanges decision rarely imposes a technological choice. In this context, the research aims at distinguishing factors influencing the decision for a company to adopt electronic data exchanges with its partners and factors influencing the decision to adopt technologies supporting these electronic data exchanges. We investigate product information exchanges in the French consumer goods and retail industry through external catalogue, internal catalogue and Extranets. Analysis of 25 case studies allows us to conclude that it is relevant to distinguish these two decisions and the factors influencing each one

The Digital Transformation Conundrum: Labels, Definitions, Phenomena, and Theories

The forthcoming JAIS special issue on “Envisioning Digital Transformation” is predicated on the assumption that theoretical diversity would be a good thing for the IS field. But making sense of theoretical diversity requires either a common frame of reference or crystal clarity about concept definitions and the phenomena to which they point. In this editorial, we argue that the IS field still lacks the conceptual and empirical clarity needed to benefit from theoretical diversity about digital transformation. The digital transformation label has been applied to the evolution of technology, as well as to the evolution of organizations and society. It has been used to refer to change in entities or processes and to processes of change. It has been used to refer to particular technological artifacts and to particular kinds of data and processing power. This type of diversity risks obscuring the value of diverse theoretical formulations. Only through clear distinctions and precise labeling of older and new phenomena can the IS field fully benefit from new theories and theoretical elaborations about digital transformation

Understanding the Diversity of Interconnections between IS: Towards a New Typology of IOS

Electronic exchanges of information between Businesses have continued to grow over recent decades. Though the emergence of new technologies, firms are facing new opportunities to build Interorganizational Information Systems (IOSs) to organize electronic data exchanges to update their own information systems. In this paper, we focus on flows from suppliers to retailers of product information, a set of data that describe the product manufactured by suppliers and retailed by wholesalers to the end consumer. We propose a new methodology to analyze IOSs, by considering how suppliers build their sending systems, how retailers build their receiving systems and how their interconnections lead to the creation of IOSs. Through a qualitative research based on interviews and documentation reviews, we describe and discuss the possibilities of interconnections between sending and receiving systems based on data privacy, structural linkages and message interdependencies