While studies suggest that IS strategy is an important topic for practitioners, in-depth explorations of the potential practical relevance of this research area are lacking. In this paper, we develop a multidimensional framework of potential practical relevance and use it to conduct a multimethod descriptive review of 109 IS strategy papers published over the past 10 years in top IS journals. The framework contributes to the IS literature by synthesizing various characteristics that make a paper conducive to being practically relevant. The review highlights how IS strategy research has offered the potential for practical relevance in the past and recommends opportunities to increase this, especially in the digitalization era.

While indigenous theorizing in information systems has clear merits, theory borrowing will not, and should not, be eschewed given its appeal and usefulness. In this article, we aim at increasing our understanding of modifying of borrowed theories in IT-rich contexts. We present a framework in which we discuss how two recontextualization approaches of specification and distinction help with increasing the IT-richness of borrowed constructs and relationships. In doing so, we use several illustrative examples from information systems strategy. The framework can be used by researchers as a tool to explore the multitude of ways in which a theory from another discipline can yield the understanding of IT phenomena.

To select risk responses matching the desired profile, we designed and ran a survey with ITPMs and IT project management academic experts (Table A1). The survey presented the respondents with the specific risk responses (SRRs) from Table 1 and asked them to rate each SRR on the three profile dimensions on a scale of low, medium, and high.For each SRR, the percentages of the responses that matched the desired value of each dimension of the profile were calculated. For example, for the first SRR (having user representatives), 71% of the ratings matched the ideal profile of low or medium frequency of practice. Then, the Euclidean distance of each risk response from the ideal profile (representing how well the risk response matches the entire profile) was calculated using the formula Euclidean Distance 2 = (100% -percent of responses rating importance as Med/High) 2 + (100% -percent of responses rating control as Med/High) 2 + (100% -percent of responses rating frequency as Low/Med) 2 A one-sample t-test was used to verify whether the calculated distance for each SRR was different from the mean distance of all SRRs. Table A2 presents the results. The mean Euclidean distance from the ideal profile was 0.321 (SD = 0.631) over 19 SRRs. For each risk response category, the SRR with the minimum Euclidean distance was selected for further examination (formatted as bold in the table). As the p-values indicate, the distance for each selected SRR was significantly different from the mean distance over all SRRs.

Article (Accepted Version)http://sro.sussex.ac.uk Moeini, Mohammad and Rivard, Suzanne (2018) Sublating tensions in the IT project risk management literature: a model of the relative performance of intuition and deliberate analysis for risk assessment. AbstractThe information technology (IT) project risk management literature comprises two dominant but diverging bodies of knowledge: the normative and the experiential. We conducted a threestep dialectical review of this literature with the aim of creating a bridging body of knowledge. In the first step, delineation, we synthesize the overarching variance and process explanations in each body of knowledge and motivate the examination of their divergences. In the second step, contrastation, we perform a dialectical interrogation of these bodies to articulate their key assumption-level tensions. We elaborate on the most prominent tension between the two bodies, namely, the relative performance of intuition and deliberate analysis for project risk assessment.In the third step, sublation, we propose a theoretical model that resolves this tension. Anchored in both bodies of knowledge and drawing from managerial decision-making research, the model proposes that the relative performance of intuition depends on characteristics of the IT project manager (project-specific expertise), the project (risks' temporal complexity and risks' structural complexity), and the project's organizational environment (e.g., stakeholders' involvement in risk management, methods-using pressures). Moreover, the model posits that project-specific expertise moderates all the other effects. Building on the bridging knowledge insights from this model, we discuss how researchers can design interventions to increase project managers' use of deliberate analysis when it is expected to outperform intuition or to encourage reliance on intuition when it is likely to outperform deliberate analysis.This resulted in identifying 268 papers (Table 1). We then read the abstracts, introductions, and conclusions of these papers and included those that focused on: (1) ITPMs, as they have risk management as part of their function (PMI, 2013); (2) in-house-not outsourced-IT projects, to limit the variation on the nature of risk management and the role of ITPMs; and (3) project risks,

While indigenous theorizing in IS has clear merits, theory borrowing will not, and should not, cease completely due to its appeal and usefulness. In this chapter, we aim at increasing our understanding of IT-rich recontextualized modifying of borrowed theories. We present a 2×2 framework in which we discuss how two recontextualization approaches of specification and distinction help with increasing the IT-richness of borrowed constructs and relationships. In doing so, we use several illustrative examples from IS strategy. The framework can be used by researchers as a tool to explore the multitude of ways in which a theory from another discipline can yield some IT-rich understanding.