This paper builds on a Strategic Activity Framework (Jarzabkowski 2005) and activity based theories of development (Vygotsky 1978) to model how Enterprise Systems are used to support emerging strategy. It makes three contributions. Firstly, it links fluidity and extensiveness of system use to patterns of strategising. Fluidity -the ability to change system use as needs change -is supported by interactive strategising, where top managers communicate directly with the organisation. Extensiveness requires procedural strategising, embedding system use in structures and routines. Secondly, it relates interactive and procedural strategising to the importance of the systemprocedural strategising is more likely to occur if the system is strategically important. Thirdly, using a scaffolding metaphor it identifies patterns in the activities of top managers and Enterprise System custodians, who identify process champions within the organisational community, orient them towards system goals, provide guided support, and encourage fluidity through pacing implementation with learning.
The literature on IS alignment is extensive, has developed significantly in the last twenty-five years, and is itself based on fifteen years of prior work exploring the strategic possibilities of information systems. Several important models have now been developed, but it is not always clear how they relate to each other. This can be problematic for practitioners, as it is not clear how, and indeed when, alignment can benefit an organization. It can be problematic for academics, in that gaps and areas for further research cannot be systematically identified. Furthermore, most alignment studies are motivated by two considerations that have themselves changed over time. First, IS alignment can bring strategic benefits to an organization, and second, alignment is consistently ranked highly as a key issue for IS managers. Over twenty-five years, there have been several key developments in strategic theory, and the issues being addressed by IS managers have changed significantly. This article addresses both problems by providing a meta-model of alignment studies, based on their relationship to different strategic theories. It populates the meta-model with examples of previous studies and demonstrates how it can be used by practitioners and academics.
This paper addresses the issues of software development in situations of organizational and process change. There is wide agreement in the literature that organizations have to be increasingly flexible in order to survive in the current economic climate. They must innovate, replicate, adapt and extemporize. As they do so, the requirements they have of their software applications are likely to change. Equally, as new software solutions are provided, new opportunities for business change arise. The situation is made still more complex because even if the needs of organizations were stable, we still could not be certain of the validity of an application's functions. This is because the process of program development is inherently uncertain. From this situation arise difficult, practical challenges for those concerned with the deployment of software in organizations. Starting with a consideration of the nature of organizations themselves, this paper takes looks at these problems by moving between three related points. It looks at software development methodologies and suggests that these have in the past tended to assume that discrete IT solutions can be cast for a ‘steady state’ which the organization is attempting to achieve. From the second vantage point it looks at the role of IT staff in supporting the operational needs of the organization. The third is the nature of software systems themselves.
This paper compares the perceptions of business and IS managers regarding the issues known to affect the achievement of alignment of IS with the business. Previous work has identified Information Systems (IS) managers' organisational position, IS business partnerships, and IS managers' understanding of business respectively, as being critical to attaining IS alignment. On these issues, the findings of this research are encouraging, and suggest that progress has been made in the past fifteen years. The paper's main contribution is in identifying a new focus for alignment researchthe exploration of three, interrelated issues: the extent to which business and IS managers share a vision of the alignment profile of information systems, the extent to which they have a common understanding of the time lags required to achieve such alignment; and the need to educate business managers regarding the strategic potential of IS.
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