Editorial

Abstract

In this issue, the first of 2007, we have five very interesting but different papers that illustrate the breadth as well as depth of information systems (IS) research. Marius Janson, Dubravka Cecez-Kecmanovic and Jože Zupančič present the findings of a longitudinal study of the Slovenian company Sava during its 1995–2004 transition period when it adapted to and then prospered in a free market economy. A study over such a long period is rare in IS research. The study suggests that information technology (IT) supported organizational learning played a pivotal role in bringing about radical change and successful transition. The company’s adoption of new IT systems such as Lotus Notes, document management systems and SAP increased Sava’s capacity to learn. The paper also discusses the nature of learning (single-loop, double-loop or triple-loop learning) and the organizational level at which learning takes place (individual, group/department or organization). The paper of Kai Olsen and Per Sætre describes four cases in which small niche manufacturing companies that decided to adopt generalized ERP (enterprise resource planning) solutions suffered as a result in various ways. The authors were involved in all four companies, in three as part of a government academia-practice initiative, and in the fourth as consultants, with each investigation being described as an action case (having many similarities to participative action research). Following an analysis of the cases, the paper evolves into a discussion of how such companies should proceed and the authors argue for some, or even all IT applications, tailor-made software development for these niche companies is more appropriate than adopting generalized solutions as they thrive on being special and different. The paper of Mark Keil, Ghi Paul Im and Magnus Mähring presents the results of experiments run using student subjects in both South Korea and the USA in an effort to measure the influence of cultural norms and values on the willingness of individuals to report on project problems in the presence/absence of blame-shifting opportunities. The authors address the pros and cons of using student experimental subjects in their research. Whereas the importance of failure to report bad news to software project management is found in the existing literature, this research investigates the relationship between face-saving and willingness to report bad news and cross-cultural factors that affect willingness to report/transmit bad news. As the authors point out, this is a particularly important topic given the increased prevalence of global, dispersed software development teams and offshore outsourcing of software development. Using a scenario-driven experiment of an online grocery shopping IS, Mitzi Pitts and Glenn Browne set out to test how procedural prompts may aid in the elicitation of requirements for systems development. The authors motivate their study by arguing two things. One, that it is generally accepted that inadequate requirements elicitation is the key reason why IS development continues to fail on a frequent basis; and two, that elicitation by interview remains the most common method for defining requirements. Using experimental tests on 54 systems analysts, the study illustrates the potential of procedural prompts specifically designed to overcome the cognitive limitations of systems analysts that have been shown to bring about premature termination of requirements elicitation. It is often said that there is too much ‘doing’ in IS research and not enough ‘thinking’. Unusually, therefore, the paper of Esther Klein and Paul Herskovitz contributes to the philosophical foundation of IS research. The authors look at the fundamental philosophy of science underpinning prototype validation in both custom and packaged IS development. They achieve this by presenting and comparing the view of science of Popper with that held by Quine. These two views on how we create and use knowledge, and specifically our behaviour when validating prototypes, can both be viewed as in some ways ‘correct’, though the authors choose to support the philosophy of Quine.