Antecedents of success in IS offshoring projects - Proposal for an empirical research study

The paper presents a research model and a measurement instrument for a research-in-progress study on the antecedents of success in IS offshoring projects. In this empirical-confirmatory study, we intendto analyse the impact of the constructs “offshoring expertise”, “trust in offshore service provider”, “project suitability”, “knowledge transfer”, and “liaison quality” on offshore project success. Constructs and indicators are derived from an extensive literature review. We plan to formulate astructural equation model and to test it using partial least squares (PLS) as an analysis technique. Our research model addresses the paucity of research that quantitatively examines offshoring success

Lean Management of IT Organizations: Implementation Success Factors and Theoretical Foundation

Lean Management has been successfully applied in production/manufacturing functions since more than four decades. Recently, the interest to investigate Lean Management also in service functions increased. Therefore, this study aims to (1) Consolidate critical success factors (CSFs) for the implementation of Lean Management of IT organizations; and (2) Describe a theoretical foundation for these CSFs. With respect to (1) a database-driven search was conducted. CSFs then were extracted and categorized. In total 13 CSF groups were assigned to three dimensions: Mindset and behavior; Organization and skills; and Process facilitation and performance management. To understand underlying mechanisms better, and with respect to (2) we related existing (IS) theory to identified groups of CSFs. Especially, five theoretical concepts are discussed: Absorptive capacity, Agency theory, Cognitive dissonance, Dynamic capabilities, and System dynamics. Future research needs to validate the results of (1) and (2) empirically in IT functions

Lean Management of IT Organizations: A Literature Review

Lean Management has been successfully applied by companies around the world, mainly in production/manufacturing functions. Recently, the interest to investigate a wider application of Lean Management especially in service functions increased. However, it is not clear how Lean Management can be applied to IT organizations. Therefore, this study aims to provide an overview on common characteristics and future research directions. A literature review on existing scholarly research from January 2004 to June 2014 is conducted. Using a database-driven search approach, a total of 1,206 re-search contributions are found of which 49 were identified as relevant. Results indicate a low theory grounding of mostly formulative and interpretative research items. This implies that research on Lean Management of IT organizations is still at its nascent state. Content-wise, five research themes emerge. The majority of research investigates IT organizations in a role to support Lean Management in production/manufacturing functions (determining “what to work on”), therefore more research on how Lean Management can be applied to IT organizations themselves (determining “how to work”) could be beneficial. Future research could also try to build on Change Management theories, as the implementation of Lean Management is of transformational character

Quo Vadis IT Infrastructure: Decision Support for Cloud Computing Adoption From a Business Perspective (29)

Many IT organizations are confronted with the question whether to modernize their IT infrastructure. While most data centers run on a virtualized environment, Cloud Computing technology emerges with new characteristics on fast provision of standardized resources in a scalable IT infrastructure. Public cloud vendors offer IT services on demand, so that IT organizations do not have to operate their own hardware. Moreover, private cloud architectures gain influence, claiming to provide flexible and elastic IT infrastructure. The paper at hand guides the strategic decision for adoption of Cloud Computing on IT infrastructure. Therefore, we first introduce a taxonomy for IT infrastructure encompassing a technological and a sourcing perspective. Second, we evaluate selective areas of the taxonomy adopting the SWOT framework to understand both opportunities and challenges of Cloud Computing for IT infrastructure from a business perspective

Cloud Computing Adoption: A Literature Review on What Is New and What We Still Need to Address

Research on cloud computing (CC) recently emerged congruently with the technology’s importance for organizations at a fast pace. This makes it difficult for practitioners to obtain a consolidated overview of what determines CC adoption based on the numerous papers in this regard. Moreover, for further research in the field to add value, it is necessary to identify what still needs to be addressed. In this vein, we conducted a descriptive review of 39 papers, integrating the results of a previous review on 23 papers from 2014, to compare findings across studies. We identify 44 determinant factors that exhibit consistent directional influence on the dependent meta-variable “CC adoption”, extending previous literature reviews with regard to asset, client, and environmental characteristics. We then critically reviewed the research landscape to identify what is there, and what is not yet covered: Future research should specifically regard the adoption of Infrastructure-, Platform-, and Everything-as-a-Service, private, hybrid, and multi-cloud deployment, investigate vendor, solution, and individual characteristics, analyzing information systems, or the decision-maker

Isolation of Photosystem II Reaction Center Complexes from Plants

18 Pags. The definitive version is available at: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1064-3745/Methods to isolate and purify 6- and 5-Chl D1/D2/Cyt b559 photosystem II (PSII) reaction center (RC) complexes from plants are presented, and the advantages and disadvantages of each procedure are discussed. One of the simpler 6-Chl procedures and a procedure for isolating 5-Chl complexes are described in detail. Furthermore, a rapid procedure that produces relatively large amounts of less pure 6-Chl material (i.e., more nonpigmented protein) is also described. Criteria to assess the purity of PSII RC preparations are presented, and problems associated with each of the isolation procedures are discussed.This work was supported by the Chemical Sciences, Geosciences, and Biosciences Division, Office of Science, U.S. Department of Energy (MS) and by the MCYT of Spain (Grant BFU2005-04722-C02-01 and AGL2008-00377) to RP.Peer reviewe

From selling machinery to hybrid offerings – organizational impact of digital servitization on manufacturing firms

The transition towards services has been imperative for manufacturing firms for years. The change from a product-oriented to a more service-dominant business model affects the organizational structure of firms. However, literature provides limited insights into how manufacturing firms organize themselves in this transition. Even though digital technologies are critical for the transition, it is unclear how to orchestrate digital and traditional Information Technology (IT) resources in manufacturing firms accordingly. We analyze the case of a typical manufacturing firm that has adjusted its structure to reorganize for solution offerings based on product, service, and digital components. Our results describe a hybrid organizational structure that splits front- and back-end units. The back-end units are split along solution components. Digital IT resources are internalized and governed decentrally, with traditional IT resources being outsourced and steered centrally. Our findings contribute to digital servitization research by clarifying the overarching as well as the digital and traditional IT-related organization for manufacturing firms

Change management lessons learned for Lean IT implementations

Lean Management is a standard production mode that has been familiar to production organizations for several decades. To date, however, academic literature has presented surprisingly little information about the application of Lean Management in Information Technology (IT) organizations, or what is called Lean IT. Drawing upon an empirical qualitative case study of the IT departments of two multinational companies, in this paper we identify change management lessons learned for Lean IT implementations, as well as seven characteristics of a corresponding change management approach. As an extension of our work, researchers should validate and expand our initial findings, preferably in a quantitative setting

From selling machinery to hybrid offerings – organizational impact of digital servitization on manufacturing firms

The transition towards services has been imperative for manufacturing firms for years. The change from a product-oriented to a more service-dominant business model affects the organizational structure of firms. However, literature provides limited insights into how manufacturing firms organize themselves in this transition. Even though digital technologies are critical for the transition, it is unclear how to orchestrate digital and traditional IT resources in manufacturing firms accordingly. We analyze the case of a typical manufacturing firm that has adjusted its structure to reorganize for solution offerings based on product, service, and digital components. Our results describe a hybrid organizational structure that splits front- and back-end units. The back-end units are split along solution components. Digital IT resources are internalized and governed decentrally, with traditional IT resources being outsourced and steered centrally. Our findings contribute to digital servitization research by clarifying the overarching as well as the digital and traditional IT-related organization for manufacturing firms

We have a platform, but nobody builds on it – what influences Platform-as-a-Service post-adoption?

When higher-level management of a company has strategically decided to adopt Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) as a Cloud Computing (CC) delivery model, decision-makers at lower hierarchy levels still need to decide whether they want to post-adopt PaaS for building or running an information system (IS) – a decision that numerous companies are currently facing. This research analyzes the influential factors of this managerial post-adoption decision on the IS-level. A survey of 168 business and IT professionals investigated the influential factors of this PaaS post-adoption decision. The results show that decision-makers’ perceptions of risks inhibit post-adoption. Vendor trust and trialability reduce these perceived risks. While competitive pressure increases perceived benefits, it does not significantly influence PaaS post-adoption. Controversially, security and privacy, cost savings, and top management support do not influence post-adoption, as opposed to findings on company-level adoption. Subsamples constructed by the form of post-adoptive use (migration of IS, enhancement of IS, new IS development) exhibit better goodness-of-fit measures than the full sample. Future research should explore this interrelation of the form of post-adoptive use and the post-adoption influence factors