ALLOCATION OF IT DECISION RIGHTS IN MULTIBUSINESS ORGANIZATIONS: WHAT DECISIONS, WHO MAKES THEM, AND WHEN ARE THEY TAKEN?

Effective IT governance is an important requirement for strategic IT-based change. The extant literature focuses on which IT decisions should be governed and who is accountable for them. However, in multi-business organizations there is little theoretical guidance on which decisions should be made at the corporate and strategic business unit (SBU) levels, or when such decisions should be made as part of the corporate and SBU strategy processes. This paper draws on the strategic management literature to develop a theoretical framework for allocating IT decision rights between business and IT at the corporate and SBU levels. Importantly, the framework also unbundles corporate IT platform and SBU IT decision making across the corporate investment cycle. This is achieved by adopting a real options-based pricing investment model to reduce risk, uncertainty and complexity. The theoretical framework is illustrated with in-depth longitudinal case study and compared against existing normative IT governance prescriptions

Performing Under Pressure: IT Execution in a $1.4bn Business Transformation

This teaching case provides a practical illustration of the challenges in executing large-scale ITbased change. It describes how the Commonwealth Bank of Australia replaced its service and sales systems between 2003 and 2006 with the goal of collating a “single view of client”. The case is an exemplar of staged incremental development. The sponsor set up multiple work streams and ran them as independently as possible. Regular releases delivered incremental change to the business, incorporated lessons learned, and added further functionality. This had implications for architecture, software development, training, testing, and risk management. There were significant change management challenges. The case provides students with insights into program management in IT transformations, architecture, project management, software delivery lifecycles, risk management, logistics and IT infrastructure

It Operating Models In Practice And Research: An Analysis Of The State Of Knowledge

An IT operating model is a combination oforganizational structure and processes that comprehensively covers the IT department. It spans the whole IT lifecycle from IT strategy, architecture, demand and supply management, project management, infrastructure to support services such as accounting andHR. In essence, it is how the IT organization is set up to serve its users, the business. Chief Information Officers (CIOs) and IT executives are facing constant pressure to optimize their IT operating model to fit the ever changing business models of their users. The guidance information systems (IS) research provides on this issue is scarce. The IS literature contains little specific advice on how organizations should develop and adapt IT operating models. While the literature has extensive studies on components of IToperating models, such as enterprise architecture, research on IT operating models as a whole is surprisingly sparse. This paper analyzes the available academic and practitioner literature on IT operating models and identifies areas for future research. It specifically identifies research on internal alignment within an IT department ( inward alignment ) as an area of urgent need

24 x 7 @ Full Speed: Accelerated Time to Market

“It’s only a web site. What could be so difficult about that?” This quote is from the cafeteria of a start-up business funded by a North American retailer, after the disastrous ‘Black Friday’ of 2000, during which its web site experienced systemic failure. This case describes the dynamics, complexities and consequences of fast tracking an e-Business strategy with a small startup. This consumer electronics retailer created one of the most visited retail websites, from concept to operation in six months. Market analysts were predicting a major increase in online sales whilst consumers were adopting the Internet at a rate faster than any previous technology. Meeting the multi-channel demands of the dynamic and competitive environment required operational balance, stability, innovative flexibility, organizational fit, and the alignment of resource capabilities with technology. This case challenges the reader to comment on how a large company positioned itself and integrated the necessary competencies to compete successfully in this developing market by fostering an SME

Three IT-Business Alignment Profiles: Technical Resource, Business Enabler, and Strategic Weapon

There is a growing recognition among alignment researchers and IT professionals that one size does not fit all. In this article, we provide an important extension of alignment research that shows three profiles linking IT to different business objectives. We address the need to identify the appropriate types of IT alignment by using a multi-method study including interviews and cases. Two dimensions define the three alignment profiles: internal IT-business integration and external market engagement. The technical resource profile calls for low levels of IT-business integration and IT-market engagement. The business enabler profile deploys IT in some business processes and begins engaging IT with customers and suppliers. The strategic weapon profile uses IT to mobilize and extend the enterprise, which requires extensive IT deployment, both internally and externally. Each profile differs in strategies, criteria, capabilities, and mental models. Importantly, IT decision-makers should not adopt stage-model thinking which assumes that technical resource profiles naturally progress up the chain. Rather, successful use of IT requires specifying the requisite alignment profile as an initial design decision so that appropriate levels of resource allocation and management involvement occur

Promoting Digital Innovation for Sustainability in the Public Sector

Digital technologies and their uptake in society have advanced more rapidly than any innovation in history. However, research into how the public sector uses digital innovation has been slow to develop. Government has an essential role to play in sustainability by setting and enforcing policies around subjects such as pollution and carbon taxes, making digital innovation in government critical for digital sustainability. Further, the public sector’s values and priorities differ from those of the private sector, which confounds simple comparisons in areas such as digital ways of working and efficiency drivers. This paper draws on the public management literature and uses an exploratory and interpretive field study of a leading digital government. The research identifies six barriers to digital innovation within the New South Wales government, a world-leader in digital integration. The barriers are: varying digital maturity, non-digital mindset, slow mobilization, service-based silos, premature solutioning, and failure to align investment in digital innovation with broader government priorities. The paper identifies initiatives enabling world-class digital innovation and driving effective change. These enablers are structural service integration, ecosystem engagement, technology modernization, customer-centric strategies and processes, and agility in management. This paper finds that digital capability gaps and core rigidities interact requiring a comprehensive approach to realize the significant benefits offered to citizens and the environment

Development of Information Systems Project Portfolio Management Capabilities: A Case Study on an Australian Bank

Project Portfolio Management (PPM) has emerged as an effective technique to manoeuvre and align projects and programs with business strategy. Strategic alignment empowers the Information Systems (IS) function and Information Technology (IT) enabled initiatives to support business development. To this end, organisations are using more IS projects and programs to enable them to compete. The literature identifies Information Systems Project Portfolio Management (IS PPM) capabilities but lacks empirical research on how these develop. This research seeks to address this gap by investigating how capabilities develop over time. This case study research adopts the Dynamic Capabilities theoretical lens to validate capabilities against existing research. It retrospectively analyses how these developed over time and examines how other portfolios may be able to embrace and ‘learn’ such capabilities. This study focuses on a portfolio of IS projects within a major Australian banking and financial institution. This study explores the top-down and bottom-up approach in building capabilities over time.

Digital Capabilities: Getting Ahead of the Curve

The covid-19 pandemic has been a catalyst for digital transformation, causing organisations to go through complex systemic organisational change. The literature shows that pressure from the public is driving digital transformation, which is causing governments and the private sector to uplift their capabilities. Practitioners and researchers are calling for investments in digital capability. This exploratory field study found fifty-one digital capability initiatives in two governments, which are partitioned into four themes: Ways of Thinking, Ways of Learning, Ways of Doing and Ways of Enabling. The study applies organisational learning theory to show how immediate needs for user-centric and agile capabilities led to second-loop investments in achieving a shift in managers’ mindsets through action learning. Respondents reported that third-loop investments were necessary to enlist previously siloed services through reorganisation and changes to funding controls. By achieving all three loops of learning through investing in the four ‘Ways of’, organisations may get ahead of the digital transformation curve

Toward a sustainable culture of peer partnership

This project is a two phase design working in partnership with five universities to develop, implement and systematically embed a distributive leadership model that aims to embed peer partnership (review, development) within the culture of teaching and learning excellence. This presentation will posit a ‘prototype’ peer review leadership model based on ongoing research that brings together both the fundamentals of peer review with the broader importance of context and persons. It will be argued that essential to teaching development is a need to address not only the implementation of peer partnership programs but also strategies to influence and change both the contexts of teaching and the advantages for colleagues. Peer review as a strategy to develop excellence in teaching needs to be considered from a holistic perspective encompassing all elements of the teaching environment. The emphasis is on working to foster the type of conditions needed for leadership and change to begin and be sustained. The work has implications for policy, research, leadership development and student outcomes and has potential application world-wide. Phase 1 has collected focus interview and questionnaire data to inform the research and is being analysed using a thematic qualitative approach and statistical analysis. Evidence is emerging currently as the project is ongoing