Collaborative IT Research Articles

Advantage of Collaboration Workflows in the Automotive Supply Chain: Case Study on the Automotive Cluster of Slovenia

Strengthening of collaboration among individual business partners has proved essential for the structuring of Slovenian economy and enhancing competitive advantage on the global market. At the same time, ontology, as an important concept of business collaboration among individual business partners, has been proposed for the collaboration of information systems in the supply chain. The present paper presents a case study of internet-based collaboration workflows in the automotive supply chain. Furthermore, the paper reveals a prototype solution, describing a concept of integration between the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and open source business process management software. The partners in the Automotive Cluster of Slovenia (ACS), striving to make use of internet services in their operations, are consequently allowed to integrate into the supply chain. The result ensures that the competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) does not depend on internal IT infrastructure although their IT collaboration is supported by open source collaborative workflows.

Factors Affecting the Use of Outside, Intermittent Resources during NPD

Information technology, globalization, and digital design have all contributed to the changing composition of new product development (NPD). These developments have led to a paradigm shift where continuous resources can be replaced by outsourced resources that are used intermittently throughout the entire innovation process. These resources can be plugged into the project at opportune times thereby lowering fixed costs and speeding commercialization. However, this intermittent use of resources requires appropriate management actions. This study reports on longitudinal, ethnographic case research performed over the span of the product development cycle of two projects. We look at multiple factors that can influence the effective coordination of outside, intermittent resources on the project. We explore critical characteristics of intermittent resources employed by new ventures, focusing on project management, the product development process, and the role of technology enablers such as IT collaboration. We find that technology's role in coordination of resources is less important than the robustness of interaction. Our qualitative study suggests that only when skilled project coordination is combined with precise communication can intermittent resources be effective. We conclude the article with the limitations and directions for further research.

Drawing ‘Align’ in the Sand: The Cultural Shift toward Federating IT at Guardian Life Insurance

The 5-year transformation at Guardian Life Insurance provides significant insights for organizations aspiring to enhance their IT–business alignment. Alignment is more than just organizational structure, there is no silver bullet; it requires effective governance, partnership, communications, value analytics, technical services, and people. Like most companies around the globe, Guardian recognized the importance of moving to a collaborative IT–business alignment relationship; IT–business alignment was a persistent pervasive problem that needed to be improved. In 2005, Guardian viewed IT as an ineffective expensive cost of supporting the business. Was improving the IT–business relationship as difficult as drawing ‘a line’ in the sand? Today, IT is enabling and driving demonstrable strategic business value. The approach that transpired this turnaround at Guardian will provide students and organizations with a clear understanding and set of lessons learned that can be applied to enhance IT–business harmony. More importantly, it will help organizations recognize the important role that IT and business leadership must play as they collaborate to address the important considerations necessary to attain a mature relationship. To demonstrate this transformation, the past and the current IT–business alignment maturity of Guardian has been benchmarked and analyzed to reveal the steps taken to enhance the impact that IT is having on the company. Were these initiatives all that are necessary to enhance the IT–business relationship? What are the important next steps to improve the relationship?

Contractual and Consensual Profiles for an Interorganizational Governance of Information Technology

Two profiles of interorganizational governance of IT were obtained from interviews conducted with leaders involved in setting the governance mechanism needed to support successful IT collaboration with their business partners. Three attributes, based on literature from network governance streams, were used to uncover those profiles. They are the IT governance structure, the processes put in place to make decisions, and the roles of participants involved in setting the interorganizational governance mechanisms. Observed profiles share a continuum where the Contractual profile is at one end, and the Consensual profile is at the other end. Some performance variations among the two profiles exist, yet both profiles contribute to successful interorganizational relationships. These profiles were uncovered from seven case studies conducted in Canadian organizations. Through fifteen interviews with senior interorganizational IT governance committee members and IT executives, the critical IT governance mechanisms they employed were identified. Two cases are reported in this article, each one illustrating respectively the Contractual and the Consensual profiles.

Law Professor Blogs Network 2.0: Faculty, IT, and Vendor Collaboration

The Law Professor Blogs Network is the nation's only network of legal blogs edited primarily by law professors. The network owns and operates forty legal blogs, edited by leading scholars and educators who are committed to providing the web destination for law professors, practitioners, government and nonprofit lawyers, legal information professionals, and students in their respective fields. Since the launch of TaxProf Blog on April 15, 2004, the network’s influence has continued to grow with roughly ten million annual page views in recent years. After nine years of operation, the network is undertaking a major re-design to provide the premier legal blogging platform to our editors. The re-design will (1) optimize each blog for viewing across a variety of platforms (desktop, laptop, tablet, and smart phone); (2) better integrate social media; (3) provide more robust analytics with richer and more accurate readership data; and (4) strengthen our partnership with Wolters Kluwer/Aspen Publishers and provide additional avenues for monetization.

On IT governance structures and their effectiveness in collaborative organizational structures

Organizations today engage in various forms of alliances to manage their existing business processes or to diversify into new processes to sustain their competitive positions. Many of today's alliances use the IT resources as their backbone. The results of these alliances are collaborative organizational structures with little or no ownership stakes between the parties. The emergence of Web 2.0 tools is having a profound effect on the nature and form of these alliance structures. These alliances heavily depend on and make radical use of the IT resources in a collaborative environment. This situation requires a deeper understanding of the governance of these IT resources to ensure the sustainability of the collaborative organizational structures. This study first suggests the types of IT governance structures required for collaborative organizational structures. Semi-structured interviews with senior executives who operate in such alliances reveal that co-created IT governance structures are necessary. Such structures include co-created IT steering committees, co-created operational committees, and inter-organizational performance management and communication systems. The findings paved the way for the development of a model for understanding approaches to governing IT and evaluating the effectiveness for such governance mechanisms in today's IT‐dependent alliances. This study presents a sustainable IT-related capabilities approach to assessing the effectiveness of suggested IT governance structures for collaborative alliances. The findings indicate a favorable association between organizations' IT governance efforts and their ability to sustain their capabilities to leverage their IT resources. These IT-related capabilities also relate to measures business value at the process and firm level. This makes it possible to infer that collaborative organizations' IT governance efforts contribute to business value.

IT Governance in Collaborative Networks: A Socio-Technical Perspective

Research on IT governance has tended to focus on the issue within a single organizational environment. Our understanding of IT governance in an inter-organizational context remains limited. In addition, few have taken a socio-technical perspective. The aim of the study is therefore to empirically explore the impacts of socio-technical factors on the effectiveness of IT governance for a collaborative network by examining three IT governance elements: structure, process and relational mechanism. This paper reports on the findings of the pilot phase of the broader study.The findings indicate that more effective collaborative IT governance is associated with an active involvement of a governing body; a co-ordinated communication process; and the presence of relational culture and attitudinal commitment. Theoretical and managerial implications of the study are discussed.

Whole-of-government approach to information technology strategy management: Building a sustainable collaborative technology environment in government

The Whole of Government (WG) approach is increasingly seen as an imperative for delivering coherent and integrated policies, joined up and seamless services, and integrated program management in government. Although no generic WG framework currently exists, there are reported cases of WG initiatives by different governments. Grounded in existing theories, frameworks and cases related to inter-organizational collaboration, collaborative Electronic Government (EGOV) and joined-up government, this article describes how to build a collaborative IT Strategy Management (ITSM) environment based on the WG approach. The article first develops a WG model to identify the enabling elements for the WG approach. Next, it identifies the necessary conditions for creating a collaborative ITSM environment in government, applies the WG model to synthesize a set of generic requirements for implementing the WG approach, and presents a WG ITSM toolset to support the implementation. Finally, the generic WG-ITSM requirements are used to analyze a case study involving the WG-ITSM development in a city government. Based on the case study, the validity of the WG model and generic WG-ITSM requirements as well as the usefulness of the toolset are discussed. The article closes with the recommendations for the WG-ITSM practice and for further development of the WG framework.

중소협력업체의 효율적 비즈니스 프로세스 관리를 위한 핵심성과지표 우선순위에 대한 연구

중소기업의 대기업 의존도가 날로 증가함에 따라 대기업과 중소기업의 IT 상생협력의 중요성이 증가하고 있다. 하지만 중소기업의 정보화 수준은 대기업의 정보화 수준에 비하여 현저히 저조하고 중소기업의 정보화 수준을 개선하기 위한 자금부족, 낮은 관리 수준, 정보화 기반에 대한 문제가 제기되고 있다. 이에 따라 중소기업의 현황에 기초한 정보화 수준 개선이 요구된다. 본 연구는 관리 비율에 비해서 달성 수준이 높은 핵심성과지표를 도출하여 우선순위를 수립함으로써 비즈니스 프로세스별 핵심성과지표의 관리 방향을 제시하였다. 본 연구의 결과는 핵심성과지표의 우선순위를 반영하여 규모에 맞는 효율적인 정보화 추진을 달성하는데 기여할 수 있을 것이다. As Small and Medium Enterprises(SMEs)' dependency on major companies is increasing every day, the importance of the IT collaboration between those is being highlighted more than ever. However, the information level of the SMEs is much inferior and lack of capital, low level of management and the problem of the informatization are being raised. Therefore, the methods to improve the level of the infrastructure for the informatization need to be performed based on the current status of the SMEs. In this paper, we proposed the ways to manage key performance indicators(KPI) of each business process by inducing and prioritizing the KPIs which has higher accomplishment compared to its management rate. As the result of the present study reflects the priorities of KPIs, it may contribute to the accomplishment of the efficient informatization that considers the enterprise's size.

Collaborative IT offshoring relationships and professional role identities: Reflections from a field study

While IT offshoring has generated heated debates both in scholarly circles and in the popular press, its impact on professional role identities and career experiences of situated individuals in both onshore and offshore locations has received much less attention. In this paper, we present a qualitative case study featuring a large global German technology firm and examine the multiple ways in which working within a collaborative offshoring arrangement has influenced the reconfiguration of German and Indian respondents' professional role identities. In light of these changes, the findings also highlight how emerging offshoring practices led to an ongoing reassessment of our respondents' career aspirations and strategies. In particular, our study draws attention to the often complex means deployed by individuals working in an offshoring environment to further their career prospects. From a practitioner perspective, we suggest several steps managers can take to help employees overcome the anxiety and insecurities, which inevitably seem to accompany the offshoring phenomenon.

글로벌 통합 기업에 대한 다중 사례 연구

자유 무역의 확산과 국제적 투자, 국제화의 확대로 표준화된 기술 및 프로세스의 확산은 글로벌 통합 기업 등장의 발판을 마련하였다. 본 연구는 글로벌 통합기업으로 경쟁우위를 선점하고 있는 기업들은 어떠한 공통된 전략적 특성을 가지는 가에 대한 질문과 그들만의 독특한 특성은 무엇인가에 대한 질문에서 시작되었다. 이를 위해 본 연구는 다중사례연구로써 글로벌 통합 기업의 선두기업인 IBM과 뒤를 이어 글로벌 통합기업으로 전환을 꾀한 NOKIA, P&G를 분석의 단위로 선정하였다. 또한 사례를 분석하는 이론적 틀로 Ghemawat(2007)이 글로벌 통합기업의 특징으로 제시한 현지화(Adaptation), 통합(Aggregation), 재정거래(Arbitrage)로 구성되는 AAA Triangle을 사용하였다. 또한 사례 연구 분석의 한계를 보완하기 위해 한국 IBM 직원들과의 인터뷰를 실시하였다. 본 연구는 사례 연구를 진행하는 가운데 글로벌 통합 기업의 전형적인 속성을 지니고 있는 IBM의 도입 사례와 도입 과정상에서 나타난 IT 혁신을 통한 협업 특징에 대해서도 구체적으로 살펴보았다. 이를 통해 IT를 통한 협업에는 어떠한 특성들이 숨어있는지에 대해서 살펴볼 수 있었다. 본 연구는 IBM, NOKIA, P&G의 사례 분석을 통해 글로벌 통합 기업은 공통적으로 현지화, 통합, 재정거래 세 가지 전략을 정도의 차이는 존재하나 기업의 상황에 맞게 수용하고 있음을 확인할 수 있었다. 이를 위해서 기업들은 자신의 기업에 처한 특수한 상황에 맞는 단계적 접근을 해야 한다는 점과 IT 협업을 통한 현지화, 통합, 재정거래 과정을 거쳐야 한다는 점을 도출 할 수 있었다. 본 연구는 IBM을 중심으로 한 기업들의 글로벌 통합 기업 사례를 통해 글로 벌 통합 기업 모델을 적용하고자 하는 기업들에게 그 특징과 접근 방안을 제안하고, 이를 현실화 할 수 있는 가이드 라인을 제공한다는 점에 있어서 실무적인 의의가 있다고 할 수 있다. 또한 기존 경영정보에서 다루지 않았던 AAA Triangle로 특징지어지는 글로벌 통합기업에 대한 문헌적 발전을 통해 IT 협업의 중요성을 도출하였다는 점을 들 수 있다. 본 연구는 향후 실증적인 분석을 통해 더욱 구체적이고 현실적인 연구로 발전할 것으로 기대된다. Globally Integrated Enterprise(GIE) has recently emerged as a popular concept in multinational enterprises(MNEs). In this paper, we use the AAA triangle in order to explain the degrees of adaptation, aggregation and arbitrage in IBM, P&G and NOKIA. The AAA triangle provides a basis for understanding GIE on the topic. This research also examines IT collaboration in order to provide practical guidance for implementation of AAA triangle. From the case study, several results are derived. First, we suggest a step-by-step approach for GIE to enhance global value creation with a situation. Second, we emphasize the importance of IT collaboration in process of introducing the AAA strategies. We believe that the issues we have raised in this paper will be useful to MNEs. In terms of the AAA triangle, this would be best thought of as a lateral shift to a new area of business, where the organization would have more of a competitive advantage.

Developments in Practice XXXVI: How to Talk So Business Will Listen … And Listen So Business Will Talk

One of the most important skills all IT staff need to develop today is how to communicate effectively with business. Over and over, research has shown that if IT and business cannot speak the same language, focus on the same issues and communicate constructively, they cannot build a trusting relationship. And business is consistently more negative about IT’s ability to communicate effectively than IT is. In fact, even while IT collaboration is improving, business’s assessment of IT’s communication skills is declining. While much attention has been paid to organizational alignment between IT and business (e.g., governance, structure) very little has been paid to the nature and impact of the social dimension of alignment, a big element of which involves communication. To explore the business and interpersonal competencies that IT staff will need in order to do their jobs effectively over the next five–seven years and what companies should be doing to help develop them, the authors convened a focus group of senior IT managers from a variety of different organizations. This paper documents the results of this discussion, integrating them with findings from the research and practitioner literature. It begins by characterizing the state of communication in the business–IT relationship and why “good communication” is becoming increasingly important. Then, it explores what is meant by “good communication” in this relationship and looks at some of the inhibitors of effective communication between these groups. Finally, it discusses the key communication skills that need to be developed by IT staff and makes recommendations for how organizations can improve or develop communication in the business–IT relationship. It concludes that good communication has both social and organizational dimensions, both of which need to be appropriately managed. It also shows that there is a “virtuous circle” of communication, with is associated with improved IT performance and perceptions of IT value.

IT Collaboration

Journal of Clinical Engineering: July 2008 - Volume 33 - Issue 3 - p 135 doi: 10.1097/01.JCE.0000315056.62126.41

Communicating and Coordinating

This article uses the theory of loose coupling to explain failure in the adoption of a technology that was supposed to improve collaboration across one organization’s internal boundaries. The research details an interpretive case study of a single organization, MacGregor Crane, in which relatively autonomous individuals are connected only loosely in terms of their daily interactions. The company implemented Lotus Notes® in an attempt to increase collaboration. However, this effort failed because employees in various units, particularly engineering, were reluctant to share information across unit boundaries. In light of these findings, it is suggested that the successful implementation of a collaborative IT within a loosely coupled organization should involve the reconsideration of the organizational members’ roles and functions.

Health Care IT Collaboration in Massachusetts: The Experience of Creating Regional Connectivity

The state of Massachusetts has significant early experience in planning for and implementing interoperability networks for exchange of clinical and financal data. Members of our evolving data-sharing organizations gained valuable experience that is of potential benefit to others regarding the governance, policies, and technologies underpinning regional health information organizations. We describe the history, roles, and evolution of organizations and their plans for and success with pilot projects.

Polypharmacy and older people—

It is well known that problems with compliance rise exponentially when more that 4 drugs are prescribed. The rising use of prescription medicine forces the GP to balance the benefit of evidence group-based appropriate drug use against the problems arising when medication is given to older people and to consider different approaches when evaluating evidence of risk and benefit for the individual. Old people are facing a considerable risk of adverse drug reactions and recent initiatives, including the Continuous Medical Educational Efforts Programme, address issues of inappropriate prescribing practices. The authors recommend and present tools enabling the GP to focus on 'the core prescribing situation'. The logistics to optimise medication including compliance, the use of modern IT and better collaboration and communication between primary and secondary care are in focus. Since medication review is recommended at every encounter, and time consuming comprehensive follow-up will be demanded, 'polypharmacy consultations' surely will be built into GP contracts in the future. The authors state that a number of pharmacological regimens for older people are outperformed by non-pharmacological treatment alternatives involving competent individualised counselling and public provision of easy (transportation) possibilities for joining centres offering staff and equipment for physical and social activity (including basal aids for hearing and sight).

Medication for older people—

This paper discusses GP perspectives on the principles underlying rational pharmacotherapy for older people. The rising use of prescription medicine forces the GP to balance the benefit of evidence group-based appropriate drug use against the problems arising when medication is given to older people and to consider different approaches when evaluating evidence of risk and benefit for the individual. Old people are facing a considerable risk of adverse drug reactions and recent initiatives, including the Continuous Medical Educational Efforts Programme, address issues of inappropriate prescribing practices. The authors recommend and present tools enabling the GP to focus on 'the core prescribing situation'. The logistics to optimise medication including compliance, the use of modern IT and better collaboration and communication between primary and secondary care are discussed. The authors state that a number of pharmacological regimens for older people are outperformed by non-pharmacological treatment alternatives involving competent individualised counselling and public provision of easy (transportation) possibilities for joining centres offering staff and equipment for physical and social activity (including basal aids for hearing and sight).

Collaborative Infrastructure Formation in Virtual Projects

In this paper, we discuss the concept of collaborative IT infrastructure. Based on data from our own research plus case studies from the literature we propose a framework for the implementation of such infrastructure at the level of hardware, software, and protocols or guidelines on how to manage such projects. This framework is applied to a typology of projects including four dimensions: number of sites, number of projects, locus of project (intra versus interorganizational), and level of cultural homogeneity versus heterogeneity. The resulting insights allow us to present considerations on the successful implementation of a collaborative IT infrastructure for different types of virtual projects. A summary of insights obtained and future research suggestions are also offered.

The role of cultural fitness in user resistance to information technology tools

Human interactions with IT tools reproduce organizational cultural patterns in evolutionary terms which are similar to those seen in the evolution of human tools and language. This paper proposes that user adoption or rejection of new IT tools is derived from the cultural fitness of the tools in the organizational context rather than being close to the user's operational adaptation. The hypothesis proposed here requires an understanding of the correlation between language and tool use and an analysis of recent multi-disciplinary research in tool-mediated activity, language and cognition. Concepts of tool-mediated activity in a cultural context and their theoretical implications for HCI are examined by using the fields of anthropology, cognitive sciences and information technology. A comparative analysis of empirical data using cultural parameters is performed showing the effects of cultural fitness on the discretionary use of a new collaborative IT tool in an organizational context.

The role of users In collaborative IT research: Experience from the UK's Information Engineering Advanced Technology Programme (IEATP)

The involvement of users in publicly-funded collaborative IT research projects in the UK has been partially constrained by a tendency to equate the ‘user’ with the ‘consumer’. This distances the user from the research process and makes the research appear too ‘near market’ to win funding. A vertical chain of ‘users’ with different types of user at each stage of the chain is proposed here. A number of novel collaborative structures have been established under the IEATP to facilitate user involvement and minimise the possibility of commercial conflict arising from multiple-user and user-producer relationships.