IT Organizations Research Articles

PROGRESS: the sectoral approach to cyber resilience

Each critical infrastructure and vital service represents a unique instance of a complex socio-technical–economic system. Resilience in complex systems is an emergent behaviour that occurs from interactions between components and is not easily predictable from understanding each component in isolation. Yet, cybersecurity practice and maturity models still focus on the robustness of separate components: organizational units, firms, or IT applications. Such a fundamental mismatch between theory and tools is among the causes of pervasive cyber insecurity. We introduce the sectoral capability maturity model to enable a comprehensive improvement of systemic resilience. The promoting global cyber resilience for sectors cyber-capability maturity model incorporates the science of complex systems, cybersecurity frameworks, and two decades of CIP operations experience. The model was successfully applied in resilience assessment projects in a dozen countries. Real-life experience emphasizes the benefits of the sectoral approach to cyber resilience: creating feedback loops within the sector, integrating supply chain and third-party risks, facilitating information flows between stakeholders, enabling cooperation with and among ministries, departments and other authorities, weighting in the links and processes between actors in cybersecurity issues. The established value of the sectoral approach calls for applications that will improve the resilience of essential services while lowering sector-wide cybersecurity expenditures.

Revolutionizing JIRA Management with Artificial Intelligence: Streamlining Workflow Efficiency and Enhancing Project Outcomes

IT organizations are investing heavily on artificial intelligence (AI), though the value realization and areas of application of AI are still limited and not explored completely. Artificial intelligence applications are using large set of data to train the system to either generate new content or to predict the outcomes. Predictive analytics is used in agile management projects for budgeting, forecasting and capacity management. The article represents the use of cycle time and cumulative flow diagram metrics in ActionableAgile or JIRA to predict in agile development projects for forecasting of inflow of work and for the improvement of current work processes.

Formation of leadership competences in the context of emergent development of the IT industry

The object of research is processes and approaches to the development of leadership competencies of personnel in IT organizations. The research is devoted to the analysis of the features of the formation of leadership competencies in the context of the emergent development of the IT industry. The work examines the evolution of concepts of corporate training and their adaptation to the specifics of the IT sphere, which is characterized by a high rate of technological changes and innovation. Traditional and innovative forms of personnel development are analyzed, with a special emphasis on their effectiveness in the context of the IT industry. A survey was conducted among employees of IT companies, which revealed high leadership potential and willingness to accept responsibility among industry specialists. At the same time, certain gaps in the development of certain competencies have been identified, in particular, regarding the ability to effectively delegate tasks and make risky decisions. The results of the study emphasize the need to adapt traditional leadership models to the unique requirements of the IT industry, with a focus on the development of technical competence, innovative thinking and adaptability. The paper offers recommendations for improving leadership development programs in IT companies. These recommendations include the implementation of flexible learning formats that combine online and offline components, as well as the use of modern technologies, such as virtual and augmented reality, to develop leadership skills. Special attention is paid to the development of such competencies as managing virtual teams and cross-cultural leadership, which are becoming more and more relevant in the context of the globalization of the IT industry. The paper outlines directions for further research, in particular the study of the impact of artificial intelligence and machine learning on the formation of leadership competencies in the IT sphere. The results of the study have both theoretical and practical value for the development of effective strategies for the development of leadership potential in IT companies, which will contribute to increasing their competitiveness on the global market.

Effect of technological culture and knowledge sharing on organizational performance: The mediating role of digital innovation and self-efficacy as moderation

In the era of IR4.0, environmental dynamism and satisfying customer needs through digital innovations have evolved across IT industries. This article attempts to examine the effect of technological culture (TC) and knowledge sharing (KS) on digital innovation (DI), organizational performance (OP), and the moderating effect of self-efficacy (SE) on the link between TC, KS, and DI. This study evaluates a novel conceptual framework utilizing survey data from 270 samples of IT firms’ employees in Bangladesh and analyzing it employing the PLS-SEM approach. The findings indicate that knowledge sharing and technological culture have a significant impact on DI and DI also significantly mediates the relationship between operational, financial, and employee performance. The findings suggest businesses recognize the chance of developing digital technologies and the digitalization trend in IT sectors by being devoted to embracing new technological cultures and upgrading their knowledge exchange to become innovation leaders and increase OP. This study describes how new digital technologies and knowledge sharing may be exploited to produce innovative digital creative digital solutions’ innovative products and services which ultimately increase their OP, where the managers of the IT organizations can apply this knowledge in respected fields.

Providing organizations with a validated instrument for an Enterprise Service Management capability

In light of new digital opportunities, enterprises require modernization also with regard to intra-organizational business and IT management. Enterprise Service Management (ESM) is an organizational capability aimed at a more efficient and effective IT and business service management in organizations. Although ESM has been recognized as an approach to improve customer and employee satisfaction and to create digital competitive advantage, there is a methodological and analytical void for organizations in how to measure their ESM capability. Motivated by this lack of measurability and tangibility, we aim to empirically validate the ESM capability model. Our contribution to this paper is empirical, as we provide a measurable instrument for further ESM studies. We aim to initiate a broader debate on ESM and thereby add to the scholarly establishment of the concept in the Information Systems and IT Management literature. Practically, we contribute by offering companies a validated and actionable set of ESM characteristics.

When Your Infrastructure Is a Buggy Program: Understanding Faults in Infrastructure as Code Ecosystems

Modern applications have become increasingly complex and their manual installation and configuration is no longer practical. Instead, IT organizations heavily rely on Infrastructure as Code (IaC) technologies, to automate the provisioning, configuration, and maintenance of computing infrastructures and systems. IaC systems typically offer declarative, domain-specific languages (DSLs) that allow system administrators and developers to write high-level programs that specify the desired state of their infrastructure in a reliable, predictable, and documented fashion. Just like traditional programs, IaC software is not immune to faults, with issues ranging from deployment failures to critical misconfigurations that often impact production systems used by millions of end users. Surprisingly, despite its crucial role in global infrastructure management, the tooling and techniques for ensuring IaC reliability still have room for improvement. In this work, we conduct a comprehensive analysis of 360 bugs identified in IaC software within prominent IaC ecosystems including Ansible, Puppet, and Chef. Our work is the first in-depth exploration of bug characteristics in these widely-used IaC environments. Through our analysis we aim to understand: (1) how these bugs manifest, (2) their underlying root causes, (3) their reproduction requirements in terms of system state (e.g., operating system versions) or input characteristics, and (4) how these bugs are fixed. Based on our findings, we evaluate the state-of-the-art techniques for IaC reliability, identify their limitations, and provide a set of recommendations for future research. We believe that our study helps researchers to (1) better understand the complexity and peculiarities of IaC software, and (2) develop advanced tooling for more reliable and robust system configurations.

Business intelligence solution implementation challenges: A comparative analysis of service based start-ups, small & medium and large enterprises

The term Business Intelligence (BI), first used in 1989 to describe an umbrella concept by Howard Dressner involving methods for improving business decision-making based on facts. It gradually evolved into data-driven decision support systems (DSS) in the contemporary era of technology, replacing terms like executive information systems. BI Solution works as a combination system of collection and storage of data to generate 'actionable information and knowledge at the right time, in the right location, and in the right form. Currently, BI solutions act as a priority for chief information officers (CIO), as a Gartner survey reported, to enhance business effectiveness and innovation by generating quality information of the company and using it in the decision-making process. Over the last few decades, business data volumes have increased tremendously due to the rise of business information systems such as ERP, CRM, etc. International Data Corporation (IDC) highlighted in the 6th annual study that the digital universe comprising structured and unstructured data will grow 300 times to 40,000 exabytes from 130 exabytes by 2020. The size of data will double every two years from 2012 onwards. India has witnessed the increased implementation of business intelligence solutions in the past decade, especially in the service industry, comprising retail, healthcare, BFSI, and IT organizations, to enhance their business practices & procedures and achieve competitive advantage. The present research aims to do a comparative study of business intelligence solution implementation challenges among service industry start-ups, small & medium, and large enterprises.

LEADERSHIP IMPACT ON THE EFFECTIVENESS IN DIGITALISED IT ORGANISATIONS

LEADERSHIP IMPACT ON THE EFFECTIVENESS IN DIGITALISED IT ORGANISATIONS

Predicting Attrition among Software Professionals: Antecedents and Consequences of Burnout and Engagement

In this study of burnout and engagement, we address three major themes. First, we offer a review of prior studies of burnout among IT professionals and link these studies to the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model. Informed by the JD-R model, we identify three factors that are organizational job resources, and posit that these (a) increase engagement, and (b) decrease burnout. Second, we extend the JD-R by considering software professionals’ intention to stay as a consequence of these two affective states, burnout and engagement. Third, we focus on the importance of factors for intention to stay, and actual retention behavior. We use a unique dataset of over 13,000 respondents at one global IT organization, enriched with employment status 90 days after the initial survey. Leveraging partial least squares structural equation modeling and machine learning, we find that the data mostly support our theoretical model, with some variation across different subgroups of respondents. An importance-performance map analysis suggests that managers may wish to focus on interventions regarding burnout as a predictor of intention to leave. The Machine Learning model suggests that engagement and opportunities to learn are the top two most important factors that explain whether software professionals leave an organization.

Digitalization of talent planning in IT sector: Mediating role of HR policies and practices

In the highly dynamic digital era of the information technology industry, agile talent planning and human resources (HR) management strategies are essential for maintaining a competitive edge. This study aims to determine the impact of HR policies and practices as a mediator between the effectiveness of talent planning and digitalization tools and techniques within the IT sector. The research population comprised IT companies in Delhi (and its national capital region), India. Using the convenience sampling technique, a sample of 106 respondents was selected out of 168 contacted, including human resource professionals and managers. The study employed regression analysis and structural equation modeling. The results reject that digitalization tools and techniques do not significantly increase the effectiveness of talent planning in IT organizations (beta coefficient = 0.455 at p-value < 0.001). Additionally, the paper shows that digitalization tools and technologies significantly affect HR policies and practices (beta coefficient = 0.826 at p-value < 0.001). The findings reject the suggestion that there is no significant positive relationship between HR practices and policies and the effectiveness of talent planning in the IT sector (beta coefficient = 0.425 at p-value < 0.001). Furthermore, the study rejects the perception that HR policies and practices do not mediate the relationship between digitalization tools and techniques and the effectiveness of talent planning (beta coefficient = 0.351 at p-value < 0.001). These insights will contribute to developing effective HR strategies that align with technological advancements and foster organizational growth.

Towards a smart hospital: Smart infrastructure integration

In today’s business world, digital technologies have become vital for implementing processes in any company, including the healthcare industry. By utilizing the latest technologies to collect, process, analyze, and transmit data through smart devices and IT infrastructure, it is possible to implement trends in medicine as a value approach, personalization, predictability, and participation. Considering these trends, it is necessary to develop a methodology for creating a management system for medical organizations that can comprehensively and interconnectively develop various elements of the system. This includes business process systems, information systems and application architectures, hardware, and "smart" medical equipment that can fully participate in hospital information exchange. These elements should be developed within a single model. An architectural approach can be used to create a model of a medical organization. This paper examines the integration of smart infrastructure in medical organizations, develops requirements for smart infrastructure services, and creates architectural models based on the findings and requirements. Architecture models were developed for the following elements of the Smart Infrastructure: smart wards, wearable devices and telemedicine stands as the most necessary elements in everyday healthcare. The key discovery of the study is the architecture models of the mentioned elements and their integration with the medical organization IT architecture, described in the form of visual models and data exchange tables. The proposed models can be used both for further research or for practical implementation as the reference models to check up and adopt to each individual case. The solutions proposed in the paper give an example of open innovation philosophy, as they are developed on the basis of open information about the innovation activities of various medical organizations, and, at the same, time the results themselves are openly published and open for adaptation by the scientific and practicing medical community.

Impact of ambidextrous leadership on innovative work behaviour and employee performance in the IT sector

The leadership role is crucial for motivating employees to do innovative work and discover new ideas and solutions. The IT sector is known for innovation. However, more studies are needed on the impact of ambidextrous leadership on innovative work behaviour (IWB) in the IT sector. This investigation explores the effects of ambidextrous leadership on innovative work behaviour and employee performance. This study employs a cross-sectional design, in which empirical data is gathered through scales adopted and modified from previous research. A total of 371 employees from IT companies participated in this survey. The selection of participants was carried out using a systematic sampling technique, with the survey being self-administered. In order to examine the structural relationships between opening and closing leadership, IWB, and employee performance, a method known as the partial least square structural equation modelling approach is used using SmartPLS 4.0 software. The findings of this study indicate that ambidextrous leadership has a significant and positive impact on IWB. Furthermore, it is revealed that IWB plays a significant role in influencing employee performance. Moreover, the impact of ambidextrous leadership, followed by innovative work behaviour, is more significant on employee performance. From a practical standpoint, this study offers valuable insights for IT organisations, which are renowned for their innovation but face a high attrition rate within the industry.

Evolving Client–Vendor Relationship: As Manifested Through an Artificial Intelligence Research Unit of an Indian IT Organization

The Indian information technology (IT) sector is traditionally known for delivering IT and business process management (BPM) services to clients across the globe. To ensure the longevity of this client and service provider relationship, Indian IT organizations have made significant client-specific investments and actively engaged them in offshore development activities. One of the outcomes from such investments can be seen in terms of the very high maturity standards that Indian IT organizations currently exhibit in the context of IT–BPM service delivery. In recent times, these organizations are also undertaking offshore projects around emerging technologies. Such projects, especially those related to artificial intelligence (AI), are largely centred around the automation of client-focused BPM services. Given their relative nascency, such projects are primarily led by the AI research units that are rapidly diffusing across Indian IT organizations. In this study, we rely on a four-month-long ethnography to explore a client and vendor (or service-provider) relationship as manifested through one such AI research unit of an Indian IT organization situated in Bengaluru, India. Our objective from this study is to understand how these new offshore AI projects affect the longevity of the relationship between clients and the Indian IT service providers. Given the nature of emerging technology workflows, our findings indicate a tilt more towards meeting client-side expectations than that of vendors in these projects. We portend that this can potentially disrupt the longevity of the client–vendor relationship in the Indian IT services sector, and, therefore, both the clients and vendors must attend to the peculiarities of offshore emerging technology projects to mitigate such disruptions.

Assessing the effect of open innovation on firm performance: a study of Indian IT organisations

PurposeThere is a growing interest among academics, government agencies and private organisations to examine the scale, characteristics, and impact of Open Innovation (OI). Studies have examined these issues mainly in the context of a developed world. Because firms in developing economies face unique challenges of OI such as building networks, inter-firm interactions, collaboration for resource utilisation and knowledge sharing, these warrant an examination of the theoretical relationships between the antecedents of OI and their impact on performance as well as mediators of these relationships. Therefore, this study develops a comprehensive OI framework to measure open innovation and analyse its effect on the innovation performance of Indian IT organisations.Design/methodology/approachTheoretically, the study draws upon the Resource-Based View, Relational View, and Absorptive Capacity theories. Empirically, a survey questionnaire was distributed to Indian IT organisations through the online survey tool “Qualtrics”. The research framework was tested using the data collected from 346 Indian IT organisations.FindingsThe results highlight the positive effect of OI activities on innovation performance and the mediating role of absorptive capacity. IT organisations with a higher inbound knowledge and absorptive capacity demonstrated better innovation performance.Research limitations/implicationsThis study is limited to understanding the mediating effect of absorptive capacity for inbound innovation. Future studies into the mediating role of desorption capacity could reveal its impact on innovation performance.Practical implicationsFrom a management perspective, this knowledge will enable managers and policymakers to emphasise OI to achieve better innovation performance. This knowledge will provide both government decision-makers and IT managers with definite OI implications for innovation performance.Originality/valueThe main contribution of this study lies in exploring the interconnectedness among IT organisations and collaborative processes on OI and innovation performance. This empirical study pinpoints the causes and sources of OI that would lead to innovation performance and the mediating role of absorptive capacity in achieving innovation performance. It extends the empirical base of OI scholarship based on firms in an emerging economy.

Analyzing the impact of cyber-attacks on the performance of digital twin-based industrial organizations

Digital twin is a virtual copy of their “real-world counterparts”, which refer to physical objects, systems, or entities that exist in the physical world. They share valuable information about how the system works by connecting the replica with the real product via the internet and sensors. In digital twin organizations, industrial control systems and the internet are the main sources of data collection and synchronization, resulting in an increase in cyber-attacks. As a result, they could cause data leaks and be used by hackers to launch attacks without being detected. Researching the appropriate defenses against such attacks is of paramount interest. To that end, in this study, we build an integrated model utilizing the combination of a Dynamic Bayesian Network (DBN) and a Discrete-Time Markov Chain (DTMC) to analyze the considerable consequences of cyberattacks on a digital twin-based organization over different time period. DTMC models recovery and vulnerability for DT-based organizations, and then it is paired with the DBN model to simulate the cyberattack propagation behavior in the organization's IT performance. Next, we calculate the organization's work level and total expected utility under two different cyber-attack scenarios to determine its IT performance and financial behavior. Finally, we evaluate the organization's IT system's reliability and resilience after implementing two prevention mechanisms. Result indicates that Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) cyberattack can cause more destruction to the digital twin organization's IT system than a malware attack in terms of cyberattack propagation, work and utility level, reliability, and resilience capability. The findings of the analysis hold practical applicability in real-world settings, enabling the identification of high-risk cyberattacks within DT-based organizations, the analysis and prediction of an organization's IT performance during actual cyberattacks, and the formulation of effective prevention strategies to address cyber security concerns within DT-based organizations.

Sustainable software engineering—A contribution puzzle of different teams in large IT organizations

AbstractIT sustainability is becoming more and more important within the digitalization journey. It is more than green coding or the usage of power‐efficient hardware – it needs a holistic approach to leverage the potentials end‐to‐end in the software life‐cycle. The overall value stream within the IT organization is subject to sustainability alignment. This holistic alignment demands the engagement of different teams in large IT organizations. This article identifies the contributions of typical team stakeholders and evaluates their sustainability software engineering (SSE) contributions. This includes demand, architecture, design, implementation, operation, and usage. As an IT organization focuses on more than just software, the term sustainable IT engineering (SIE) fits better with the scope of organizational sustainability. The proposed approaches are presented based on instantiations within the Volkswagen Group IT.

Effectiveness of Tax Benefits for Information Technology Organizations in Russia

The subject of the study is a set of measures of tax incentives for the information technology industry in the Russian Federation — “tax maneuver in IT”, launched from the beginning of 2021. The purpose of the study is to identify and qualitatively assess the stimulating effect of the tax maneuver in IT, which is expressed in changes in key financial and natural performance indicators of IT industry organizations, and to develop proposals on ways of tax incentives for the development of the industry. The article describes the distortion of the aggregate tax reporting characterizing the IT industry, which takes into account not only recently established IT organizations, but also “nominal” separates from large organizations IT subdivisions or technically clarified classification code, making it inappropriate to use such reporting as a basis for analysis and reliable conclusions. Based on the data of the public financial statements of selected sample from the top-100 Russian IT organizations, the article analyzes the dynamics of financial indicators of their activities, among which are the profiles of profiles, operating profit, net profit, investment in basic assets, the number of staff, the amount of products supplied for export, the capitalization of the company. The observation was conducted for 2017– 2022 and covers the periods both before and during the engagement of tax benefits. A comparative study was carried out with similar indicators of the organizations of the “control group”, which included IT companies operating in other countries that were not affected by such tax benefits. According to the results of the study, small or no extra growth was observed in key financial indicators of IT organizations due to the tax maneuver compared with the “pre-maneuver” period and compared with the indicators of the control group. It is concluded that there is no evidence of a significant impact of the tax maneuver on the development of the IT industry in Russia. We proposed dismantling of the “maneuver” and transition, based on the Chinese and some EU countries approaches, to taxation of the qualified profit. The latter is the profit of Russian and foreign IT developers from the localization of IT development and value creation in Russia. The achievable effective rate is 2.5%.

A Study on Impact of Hybrid Work on Employee Productivity in Select IT Organizations of NCR

A hybrid work is a combination of both remote and in-person work, where employees can work from the office, home, or other locations. This type of work design has become more and more popular in recent years due to advances in technology and changing work preferences. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of hybrid work on employee productivity in select IT organizations of the National Capital Region (NCR). The employees of select IT companies in the NCR who have experienced a shift to a hybrid work will be the focus of the study. Through surveys and interviews with employees and managers, the study will gather data. The studies will gather information on representative efficiency, work fulfilment, balance between serious and fun activities, and other important elements. Keywords: Employee Productivity, Hybrid Work, NCR, Delhi. Research Type: Research Paper

MARKETING ACTIVITIES OF IT COMPANIES: INFORMATION AND ORGANISATIONAL CAPABILITIES FOR DIGITAL PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

The purpose of this article is to provide a comprehensive examination of the informational and organisational capabilities of marketing activities in the market for digital products and services. It highlights the importance of data analysis, web analytics and technology partnerships for success in the digital marketplace. It also examines modern organisational strategies to help IT companies effectively implement marketing initiatives and adapt quickly to changing business landscapes. Methodology. This article is based on a theoretical and methodological review of the existing scientific literature on digital technologies, the marketing of digital products and services, and an overview of current technological and organisational solutions in the digital field. In addition, it includes a survey of marketing managers from renowned IT companies with the aim of delineating the typology of organisational structures within marketing departments. Results. Information delivery, data analytics, monitoring tools and web analytics are critical to digital marketing in IT organisations, facilitating the collection and analysis of data from multiple sources such as websites, social media and CRM systems. By leveraging big data and machine learning algorithms, it is possible to identify complex dependencies and predict consumer behaviour. Technological partnerships and collaborations with startups are becoming increasingly important for IT companies' marketing efforts, providing access to fresh ideas, technologies and a competitive edge. Organisational structures in the marketing departments of IT companies emphasise agility and cross-functional teamwork, often using agile methodologies. This promotes adaptability to market changes. Marketing structures typically include inbound approaches, flexible growth-oriented setups, and streamlined hierarchies. Practical implications. These marketing tools and organisational methods are recommended for implementation in the marketing departments of IT companies. The correlation between informational and organisational capabilities contributes to the achievement of marketing goals and the competitive advantage of IT companies in the marketplace. Scrum and Kanban, widely used agile frameworks, are not limited to technology companies but are also common in financial services and retail. Value / Оriginality. In the context of the ongoing military conflict, successful operation of Ukrainian IT companies in the modern world requires not only technological superiority, but also effective marketing and a well-organised internal structure. To accelerate the recovery of the Ukrainian IT sector and improve existing practices, the following recommendations have been made.

Managing Cyber Security Debt: Strategies for Identification, Prioritisation, and Mitigation

This paper explores cyber security debt, a technical debt arising from unaddressed security vulnerabilities in an organisation's IT systems. These vulnerabilities accumulate due to resource limitations, time constraints, and expertise gaps, potentially leading to security breaches and data compromises. The paper outlines the cyber security debt management process involving identification, prioritisation, and mitigation strategies. Drawing parallels to financial debt, the authors emphasise the escalating risks of delaying cyber security debt repayment. The paper underscores the significance of diligent debt management in maintaining digital resilience and mitigating cyber threats. The increasing interconnectedness of systems and rapid software development has given rise to a hidden challenge known as cyber security debt. Cyber security debt is posed as a subset of technical debt, encompassing the accumulation of security vulnerabilities within an organisation's IT infrastructure and applications. Drawing a parallel between cyber security debt and its financial counterpart, the authors underscore the grave risks of deferring debt repayment. Just as financial debt accrues interest, unresolved security vulnerabilities compound over time, elevating the likelihood of breaches and data exposure. A poignant case study of the Equifax breach exemplifies the real-world consequences of neglecting security debt management. The failure to patch a well-known vulnerability led to a colossal data breach, highlighting the urgency of addressing security weaknesses promptly. Complex in nature, cyber security debt materialises when organisations fail to address vulnerabilities during various operational life cycles. These vulnerabilities might remain concealed within IT architecture, legacy code, or third-party libraries, posing a formidable challenge to detection and resolution. By understanding the parallels between financial and cyber security debt and proactively managing the latter, organisations can enhance their ability to safeguard against evolving cyber threats and maintain a robust security posture.