IT in construction: aligning IT and business strategies

The extent to which information technology (IT) infrastructures and strategies are aligned with business processes and strategies varies widely along firms. The objective of this paper is to explain the success or failure of IT in construction firms by focusing on the alignment (or lack of it) between business strategy, IT strategy, organizational infrastructure, and IT infrastructure. It is hypothesized that the ‘fit’ among these elements, the domains of the Strategic Alignment Model, is positively related to the Business Value of IT in Construction. The IT Business Value is evaluated in terms of efficiency, effectiveness and business performance. By applying the Strategic Alignment Model to the Dutch construction industry, it is shown that the inadequate alignment between these domains is a major reason for the modest added business value from IT investments in this industry. The first lack of alignment is the technology shortfall: hence IT contributes in an inadequate way to strategic processes of construction firms. The second lack of alignment is the strategy-shortfall: hence the firm strategy impedes the implementation of IT that could generate a high business value

Prioritizing humanitarian assistance in a complex emergency: a decision method for military forces

The article develops a decision support model for a military commander who has to determine what humanitarian assistance will be provided in cooperation with which civil organizations in peacekeeping situations. After an investigation of the current methods decision theory was used to develop an initial decision method, consisting of consecutive steps to inventory potential humanitarian tasks, to identify attributes to evaluate these tasks, and to actually prioritize the selected tasks using an extensive scorecard. The initial decision method and its tools were reviewed in-depth in a series of expert interviews, resulting in an improved decision method

The barriers to nurturing and empowering long-term care experiments - lessons learnt to advance future healthcare projects

The objective of this study is to explore the barriers to nurturing and empowering subsidized long-term care experiments that try to deal with today's long-term care challenges such as an aging population and increasing healthcare costs. Nurturing is the process of planning, implementing, and learning from experiments. The empowerment process deals with stabilizing experiments into the existing long-term care system. This is a qualitative study of a network that nurtured and tried to empower three long-term care experiments, which were subsidized by a ministerial transition program (2009–2011) in the Netherlands. In total, 14 open-ended, semi-structured interviews were conducted. Further data were collected through participation, collecting documents, and pursuing a focus group. The findings revealed eight barriers to nurturing and empowering the experiments. During the planning of the experiments, top managers and consultants were (1) lacking time, (2) ignored the local context, and (3) did neither engage project managers nor professionals. At the start of the experimentation, project managers and professionals were lacking (4) motivation, (5) time, and (6) support while there was (7) no sense of urgency to experiment. Finally, there was (8) no commitment from the top managers during the empowerment of the experiments. In conclusion, future projects have to try to avoid these barriers. Otherwise, time, money, and energy are lost in overcoming these barriers, which are needed to deal with today's long-term care challenges

Perceptions of success in performance-based procurement: Differences between clients and contractors

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to analyse, from the perspective of agency theory, differences between client and contractor in their perceptions of changes in uncertainty and in inclination to opportunistic behaviour while using a performance-based procurement procedure. In agency theory, dealing appropriately with the uncertainty and opportunism that results from information asymmetry is an essential precondition for successful procurement. Design/methodology/approach – The procurement procedure analysed is the Performance Information Procurement System (PiPS). PiPS is a performance-based procurement method that uses historic performance information to select the expected best performing contractor. In a theoretical model, a PiPS is interpreted as a set of contractual and organisational safeguards. Through a survey, based on this model, the perceived effects of the PiPS safeguards for both clients and contractors are investigated. Findings – Both clients and contractors believe that applying PiPS introduces safeguards that reduce transaction uncertainty. The perceived changes in the discouragement to use opportunistic behaviour when using PiPS differ between client and contractor. Clients do not know and contractors are sceptical as to whether applying PiPS discourages opportunistic behaviour. This difference in perceptions can be explained by the often-traditional background of the two parties’ project teams and the existence of information asymmetry. Originality/value – This is one of the first studies to show that changes in the transaction environment in a performance-based procurement process are perceived differently by the client and the contractor. It is necessary to align the roles of both parties to avoid problems related to opportunistic behaviou