This paper reports on a comparative case study of 13 industrial firms that had implemented an enterprise resource plannmg (ERP) system. Firms were compared based on their dialectical leammg process. All firms had to overcome knowledge bamers of two types: those associated with the configuration of the ERP package, and those associated with the assimilation of new work processes. We examined the mechanisms through which firms attempted to overcome each type of knowledge barrier. We also observed different ERP implementation approaches: piecemeal and concerted. In the former approach, firms concentrated on the technology first and on process changes second. In the latter approach, both the technology and the process changes were tackled together. The learning challenges associated with each of these approaches were found to be different.

New digital technologies, particularly what we refer to as SMACIT 3 (social, mobile, analytics, cloud and Internet of things [IoT]) technologies, present both game-changing opportunities and existential threats to big old companies. GE's "industrial internet" and Philips' digital platform for personalized healthcare information represent bets made by big old companies attempting to cash

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. AbstractTo date, most research on information technology (IT) outsourcing concludes that firms decide to outsource IT services because they believe that outside vendors possess production cost advantages. Yet it is not clear whether vendors can provide production cost advantages, particularly to large firms who may be able to replicate vendors' production cost advantages in-house. Mixed outsourcing success in the past decade calls for a closer examination of the IT outsourcing vendor's value proposition. While the client's sourcing decisions and the client-vendor relationship have been examined in IT outsourcing literature, the vendor's perspective has hardly been explored. In this paper, we conduct a close examination of vendor strategy and practices in one long-term successful applications management outsourcing engagement. Our analysis indicates that the vendor's efficiency was based on the economic benefits derived from the ability to develop a complementary set of core competencies. This ability, in turn, was based on the centralization of decision rights from a variety and multitude of IT projects controlled by the vendor. The vendor was enticed to share the value with the client through formal and informal relationship management structures. We use the economic concept of Levina & Ross/The Vendor's Value Proposition in IT Outsourcing complementarity in organizational design, along with prior findings from studies of client-vendor relationships, to explain the IT vendors' value proposition. We further explain how vendors can offer benefits that cannot be readily replicated internally by client firms.Keywords: Outsourcing of IS, case study, complementarity in organizational design, IS core competencies, management of computing and IS, systems maintenance, IS staffing issues, IS project management Introduction Outsourcing is a phenomenon in which a user organization (client) transfers property or decision rights over information technology (IT) infrastructure to an external (vendor) organization (Loh and Venkatraman 1992b). The brief history of IT outsourcing includes episodes of both high hopes and bitter disappointment. Since Eastman Kodak's landmark outsourcing of its IT services (Applegateand Montealegre 1991), the outsourcing industry has been growing at a staggering rate of about 20 percent a year (Caldwell and McGee 1997). Worldwide spending on IT outsourcing services reached almost $64 billion in 2001; in 2000, IT outsourcing represented about 30 percent of IT budgets (Mason 2000). Despite these numbers, both vendors and their clients are struggling to understand the outsourcing value proposition: can vendors deliver economic and management benefits to their clients th...

£ Case Study: an in-depth description of a firm's approach to an IT management issue (intended for MBA and executive education).

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IT chargeback is generally regarded as a necessary evil in which central IT costs are, as accurately as possible, divided among the business units that benefit from them. In this study of IT chargeback practices at ten large U.S. firms, we found that IT chargeback had the potential to be a valuable management tool. We observed three approaches to chargeback that differed according to their objectives, their policies regarding sourcing and level of accountability, and their administrative processes. While all three approaches led to cost reduction efforts by chargeback statement recipients, they had different impacts on business unit attitudes toward the IT unit. In particular, we found that chargeback could facilitate useful discussions between the IT unit and business units about business priorities and the value of IT services. In most cases, however, chargeback, while encouraging business unit managers to manage the demand for IT services, left them questioning whether the IT unit was effectively managing the supply of those services. Based on these findings we offer recommendations as to how firms can design chargeback systems that will generate positive attitudes and economic returns. Pages

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