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Information Technology and Globalization Bob Galliers, Provost, Bentley

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'Good fences make good neighbors' * 2)human experts facilitated electronic communications * Robert Frost, Mending a Wall. Case Company C: background. Founded in 1946 ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Information Technology and Globalization Bob Galliers, Provost, Bentley


1
Information Technology and Globalization
Bob Galliers, Provost, Bentley
1st International Conference on Information
Systems and Technology Management São Paulo,
Brazil 21-23 June 2004
2
Information Technology and Globalization the
need for trans-disciplinary and cross-cultural
approaches in the field of Information Systems
Bob Galliers, Provost, Bentley
1st International Conference on Information
Systems and Technology Management São Paulo,
Brazil 21-23 June 2004
3
Bentley?
4
Not this kind of Bentley!
5
Bentley the USs first business university
  • Bentley is a business university. We do for
    students interested in business and related
    professions what the leading technological
    universities do for students of science and
    engineering.

6
The campus
7
Center for Marketing Technology
8
The Trading Room
9
Todays agenda
  • To surface issues facing the IS academy in the
    context of globalization
  • IS in multi-national companies
  • Focusing on
  • cross-cultural issues
  • trans-disciplinary approaches
  • Three case vignettes

10
Three vignettes
  • Case company A
  • Corporate intranet for knowledge sharing
  • Case company B
  • Socio-technical approach to knowledge sharing
  • Case company C
  • Software development sans frontiers

11
Case Company A background
  • Global bank
  • HQ on the continent of Europe
  • 70,000 employees
  • 70 countries
  • Formed following merger of two banks
  • 5th highest spender on IT in Europe
  • Highly decentralized

12
A crisis looms large
  • Key account lost why?
  • Inability to adopt similar procedures and provide
    similar services in different countries
  • Exasperated with inability to present a common
    face worldwide
  • Business goes to a rival bank

13
The response?
  • The Networked Bank
  • Pilot intranet project sharing knowledge across
    functions and geographically dispersed sites
  • Common adoption of defined best practices
  • Integration of procedures and services

14
The outcome?
  • During the 18 month life of the pilot
  • 150 known intranets in individual departments in
    different countries!

15
The outcome?
  • During the 18 month life of the pilot
  • 150 known intranets in individual departments in
    different countries!
  • Existing boundaries between functions and
    dispersed business units reinforced

16
The response?
  • A strategic workshop

17
The response?
  • A strategic workshop
  • Bankers and IT executives
  • 2 days _at_ company HQ

18
The response?
  • A strategic workshop
  • Bankers and IT executives
  • 2 days _at_ company HQ
  • 2 problems
  • Bankers too busy to attend both days

19
The response?
  • A strategic workshop
  • Bankers and IT executives
  • 2 days _at_ company HQ
  • 2 problems
  • Bankers too busy to attend both days
  • IT execs focused entirely on a technological
    solution on the second day a corporate portal

20
The outcome?
  • Within 10 days, the bank was the proud owner of
    six or seven corporate portals
  • Each with its own characteristics and
    idiosyncrasies

21
The outcome?
  • Within 10 days, the bank was the proud owner of
    six or seven corporate portals
  • Each with its own characteristics and
    idiosyncrasies
  • with more on the way!

22
Post-hoc analysis
  • Vision of global bank in stark contrast to
    existing culture and structure
  • History of growth through MA
  • Each bank left to own devices
  • No previous attempt to standardize
  • Culture of decentralization
  • Intranet concept adopted by each unit, for its
    own purposes

23
Case Company B background
  • Multinational chemical corporation
  • Serving several industry sectors
  • 102 different countries
  • 1000 different chemical products
  • Importance of knowledge sharing across company
    long recognized
  • but traditional methods used (globe-trotting
    experts postal services)

24
The chairman responds
  • Design and implementation of a global intranet
    forum
  • Industry-specific directories
  • Open access to all
  • Initial response very positive

25
The chairman responds
  • Design and implementation of a global intranet
    forum
  • Industry-specific directories
  • Open access to all
  • Initial response very positive
  • but cultural and linguistic problems soon
    surfaced

26
Where to from here?
  • Four independent regional forums serving specific
    geographical region
  • Similar internal structures but
  • different languages

27
Where to from here?
  • Four independent regional forums serving specific
    geographical region
  • Similar internal structures but
  • different languages
  • Replicated solutions in different regional forums
  • Considerable overlap and differing interpretations

28
Back to the drawing board
  • Further discussions across the whole company
  • Importance of addressing industry diversity
    surfaced
  • Forums reorganized global/industry-based
  • Knowledge sharing stimulated by new role of
    intranet facilitator

29
Intranet facilitator role
  • Experts in given area
  • Responsible for ensuring that knowledge generated
    was useful and accurate
  • Queries addressed promptly
  • Volunteer section leaders followed

30
Reflections
  • The intranet generated knowledge sharing, but
    only after
  • 1) boundaries had been created Good fences
    make good neighbors
  • 2)human experts facilitated electronic
    communications

Robert Frost, Mending a Wall
31
Case Company C background
  • Founded in 1946
  • Headquartered in Boston, MA
  • The largest mutual fund company in the United
    States
  • More than 880 billion under management as of
    June 30, 2003
  • More than 19 million customers company wide
  • Products include mutual funds, brokerage,
    insurance

32
Globally distributed software development
  • Information services in financial markets
  • A profit center competing for company business
    with third parties
  • USA, Ireland, India
  • India a threat to Ireland, and esp. USA
  • Low cost imperative
  • Standardized technology, software, methodology
    imposed top-down

33
Summary of Preliminary Findings
  • 1. The importance and challenge of
    building team cohesion among distributed
    personnel
  • Recognizing the role of team cohesion as an
    important variable in team productivity
  • Installing project initiation techniques that
    increase cohesiveness of the team

34
Summary of Preliminary Findings
  • 2. The need to develop integrative and
    collaborative work among distributed teams
  • Providing the social networks to develop rapport,
    relationships, and trust among team members
  • Balancing formal and informal communications
    among team members
  • Building and creating in-company understanding to
    circumvent cultural differences

35
Summary of Preliminary Findings
  • 3. Over-reliance on standardized processes,
    best practices, methodologies, standards, ICT
  • While work standardization can aide in improved
    understanding and increased productivity among
    distributed teams
  • Negative effects, e.g., lowering innovation,
    hurting morale, limiting application of skills
  • Needs balance between imposing a global work
    culture and allowing one to emerge

36
Summary of Preliminary Findings
  • 4. Evolution of roles versus planned
    assignment of roles
  • Emergent sense of anxiety and uncertainty over
    changing roles
  • Importance of articulating - preferably
    negotiating - shared common vision of roles and
    responsibilities of different centers

37
Moving from Knowledge Management to
Relationship Management
  • Through Processes
  • Standardized methodologies
  • Best practices
  • Technological pipelines
  • Through Technologies

38
Moving from Knowledge Management to
Relationship Management
  • Through Processes
  • Standardized methodologies
  • Best practices
  • Technological pipelines
  • Through Technologies
  • Through Face-to-Face

39
Summary lessons
  • Case A
  • Focusing on IT an IT solution, or
    rather
  • an organisational problem
  • Case B
  • Boundaryless corporations a myth
  • Good boundaries (and a socio-technical approach)
    make for good solutions
  • Case C
  • Standardised IT/methodology necessary but not
    sufficient
  • Team building communication/understanding across
    cultures

40
The argument for disciplinary purity
  • Excluding the IT artifact makes ambiguous the
    boundaries of IS scholarship, thus raising
    questions regarding its distinctiveness - and
    hence its legitimacy - with respect to related
    scholarly disciplines.

Benbasat Zmud, 2003 189
41
The argument for disciplinary purity
  • Excluding the IT artifact makes ambiguous the
    boundaries of IS scholarship, thus raising
    questions regarding its distinctiveness - and
    hence its legitimacy - with respect to related
    scholarly disciplines.
  • If IS research is no different from that
    undertaken in more entrenched scholarly
    disciplines (e.g., marketing, operations
    management, organizational behavior), why should
    institutions in the organizational field continue
    to invest in this new intellectual capability.

Benbasat Zmud, 2003 189
42
My counter argument
  • Thomas Kuhns concept of paradigm
  • Ashbys law of requisite variety
  • Gibbons et al. Mode 2 thinking
  • Charles Handy

43
Kuhn and the concept of paradigm
  • A monastic vision of science
  • members of a scientific community know
    precisely the relevant research topics the
    appropriate research methods and the proper
    interpretation of results.

Banville Landry, 1989 49
44
Ashbys Law of Requisite Variety
  • Only variety can absorb variety

W R Ashby, An Introduction to Cybernetics, 1956
45
Ashbys Law of Requisite Variety
  • Only variety can absorb variety
  • The more complex the problem situation, the
    greater the range of variables/approaches that
    need to be introduced.
  • A counter to Descartes reductionist philosophy
  • Varietys the very spice of life

W R Ashby, An Introduction to Cybernetics, 1956
William Cowper (1731-1800) The Task, Book II 606
46
Knowledge production
  • Mode 1
  • Within a single discipline
  • Mode 2
  • Trans-disciplinary

Gibbons et al. The new production of knowledge,
1995
47
God, it has to be said, did not see fit to
divide up the world to accord with the faculties
of universities. Charles Handy,
Understanding Organisations (1992)
48
Organisational Behaviour
  • A more entrenched scholarly discipline?

49
Organisational Behaviour
  • A more entrenched scholarly discipline?
  • Hardly!
  • the related theory and scientific study are
    extremely broad-based. It is an eclectic theory
    comprised of parts of sociology, psychology,
    anthropology, economics, political science,
    philosophy, and mathematics. (Kast Rosenzweig,
    1974)

50
Contrasting views of Information Systems
  • DisciplinarityOrganizationITInwardNarrowOB,
    Comp Sci, etc.DefinedA threat
  • Trans-disciplinaritySocietyPeople/InformationO
    utwardBroadIS EmergentAn opportunity

Boundary
Artifact
Focus
Scope
Ref. disc.
Properties
Inter-disc.
51
A word of caution
  • beware mechanistic pooling(Knights
    Willmot, 1997)

52
A word of caution
  • beware mechanistic pooling(Knights
    Willmot, 1997)
  • cf. boundary spanning (Tushman Scanlon,
    1981), and
  • knowledge creation and exploration (Nonaka, 1994)

53
Information Systems
Philosophy
Computer Science
Computer Science
Information Science
Philosophy
Systems Theory
Operations Mgmt
Strategy
Ethics
Political Science
Information systems
Mathematics
Anthropology
Organisational Behaviour
Psychology
Critical Theory
  • Management Science

History
Sociology
Economics
54
Implications
  • Renounce the technology artifact!
  • A broadly based, well-rounded education as well
    as skills/professional training
  • A willingness to adapt, learn and span boundaries
  • Movement on the part of professional institutions
  • Changed attitudes on the part of academics

55
Implications
  • Renounce the technology artifact!
  • A broadly based, well-rounded education as well
    as skills/professional training
  • A willingness to adapt, learn and span boundaries
  • Movement on the part of professional institutions
  • Changed attitudes on the part of academics
  • A willingness to appreciate other perspectives,
    cultures and literatures

56
Some background reading
  • Change as Crisis or Growth? Toward a
    Trans-disciplinary View of Information Systems as
    a Field of Study A Response to Benbasat and
    Zmud's Call for Returning to the IT Artifact
    JAIS 4(13)
  • The Myth of the Boundaryless Organization CACM
    44(12)
  • Electronic Commerce and Strategic Change Within
    Organizations Lessons from Two Cases, JGIM 9 (3)
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