Abstract:A study aimed at a determination of the organizational principles involved in systems decentralization (SD). It is based on a survey of 14 American and British companies selected for their significant investments in and mature experience of decentralized systems. There were eight principles underlying the policy and practice of SD in these companies, and the inference is that these principles appear to work. That is, considering their commonality of use and the depth of experience in the companies concerned, t… Show more
“…Buchanan & Linowes () consider the debate as concerned with the distribution of computing, particularly the question ‘how can managers plan for the acquisition and use of minicomputers in their companies?’ (p. 144). This discussion has been rekindled by Evaristo et al () who assess whether IT hardware architecture should be centralized or decentralized (see also Ahituv et al , ; Bacon, ). Reynolds & Yetton, ; Schlosser et al, ; Williams & Karahanna, ; Choudhary & Vithayathil, ; Guillemette & Paré, ; Sia et al, ; Huang et al, ; McDonald, ; Vaast & Levina, ; Porra et al, ; Bassellier & Benbasat, ; Ranganathan & Kannabiran, ; Weill, ; Jiang et al, ; Schwarz & Hirschheim, ; Brown & Ross, ; Ross & Weill, ; Chan, ; Agarwal & Sambamurthy, ; Gordon & Gordon, ; Benmati & Lederer, ; Earl & Kahn, ; Sambamurthy & Zmud, ; Gordon & Gordon, ; Willcocks & Sykes, ; Purvis & McCray, ; Peppard & Ward, ; Brown, ; Mathiassen et al, ; El Sawy et al, ; Brown & Magill, ; Earl & Sampler, ; Fowler & Wilkonson, ; Feeny & Willcocks, (also ); Boar, ; Clark et al, ; Agarwal et al, ; Cross et al, ; Brown, ; Prager, ; Earl et al, ; Nelson & Cooprider, ; Rockart et al, ; Hodgkinson, ; Moreton, ; Wang & Barron, ; Brown & Magill, ; Venkatraman & Loh, ; Blanton et al ., ; Von Simson, ; Tavakolian, ; Swanson & Beath, ; Dearden, …”
Section: The Information Systems Organization In Research Studiesmentioning
Do conceptualizations of the information systems (IS) organization reflect findings from research studying requirements for successfully harnessing information, systems and technology to achieve operational and strategic objectives? This paper addresses this question, reporting on an analysis of articles published in leading academic and practitioner journals. It describes how the IS organization is portrayed in these studies and examines the results of this analysis through a sensitizing lens constructed from research that has studied how organizations generate business value from IS. The lens depicts this objective as a quest to harness knowledge that is distributed enterprise wide. The analysis suggests that conceptualisations of the IS organization used by researchers do not reflect the requirements for generating business value from information technology that have been identified in the literature. Whilst highlighting that definitions are vague or more often absent, it challenges the dominant orthodoxy of the IS organization as a separate organizational unit suggesting that it is a more pervasive construct. The implications of this conclusion for practice, research and teaching are considered.
“…Buchanan & Linowes () consider the debate as concerned with the distribution of computing, particularly the question ‘how can managers plan for the acquisition and use of minicomputers in their companies?’ (p. 144). This discussion has been rekindled by Evaristo et al () who assess whether IT hardware architecture should be centralized or decentralized (see also Ahituv et al , ; Bacon, ). Reynolds & Yetton, ; Schlosser et al, ; Williams & Karahanna, ; Choudhary & Vithayathil, ; Guillemette & Paré, ; Sia et al, ; Huang et al, ; McDonald, ; Vaast & Levina, ; Porra et al, ; Bassellier & Benbasat, ; Ranganathan & Kannabiran, ; Weill, ; Jiang et al, ; Schwarz & Hirschheim, ; Brown & Ross, ; Ross & Weill, ; Chan, ; Agarwal & Sambamurthy, ; Gordon & Gordon, ; Benmati & Lederer, ; Earl & Kahn, ; Sambamurthy & Zmud, ; Gordon & Gordon, ; Willcocks & Sykes, ; Purvis & McCray, ; Peppard & Ward, ; Brown, ; Mathiassen et al, ; El Sawy et al, ; Brown & Magill, ; Earl & Sampler, ; Fowler & Wilkonson, ; Feeny & Willcocks, (also ); Boar, ; Clark et al, ; Agarwal et al, ; Cross et al, ; Brown, ; Prager, ; Earl et al, ; Nelson & Cooprider, ; Rockart et al, ; Hodgkinson, ; Moreton, ; Wang & Barron, ; Brown & Magill, ; Venkatraman & Loh, ; Blanton et al ., ; Von Simson, ; Tavakolian, ; Swanson & Beath, ; Dearden, …”
Section: The Information Systems Organization In Research Studiesmentioning
Do conceptualizations of the information systems (IS) organization reflect findings from research studying requirements for successfully harnessing information, systems and technology to achieve operational and strategic objectives? This paper addresses this question, reporting on an analysis of articles published in leading academic and practitioner journals. It describes how the IS organization is portrayed in these studies and examines the results of this analysis through a sensitizing lens constructed from research that has studied how organizations generate business value from IS. The lens depicts this objective as a quest to harness knowledge that is distributed enterprise wide. The analysis suggests that conceptualisations of the IS organization used by researchers do not reflect the requirements for generating business value from information technology that have been identified in the literature. Whilst highlighting that definitions are vague or more often absent, it challenges the dominant orthodoxy of the IS organization as a separate organizational unit suggesting that it is a more pervasive construct. The implications of this conclusion for practice, research and teaching are considered.
“…In this regard, a large number of empirical studies have determined that an organization with a functional structure tends to rely on a centralized IT structure, because it fits the philosophy of structuring activities around functional departments. On the other hand, organizations with a divisional organization form tend to have a decentralized IT function, because it fits the philosophy of distributing the activities around productmarket divisions [2,11]. Publishing organizations with a rather centralized organization will tend to control and gather resources at a single location to keep hardware and personnel costs low.…”
Section: Organization Structure and Organization Sizementioning
“…Turner et al, 1988) and to research in the OITF field carried out by others (e.g. Bacon 1990). Besides, an analysis has been carried out of the reorganization of ISF as it has, in the past, actually taken place within two organizations.…”
The information systems function (ISF) of an organization consists of all activities aiming at maintaining or extending the information (processing) capacity of that organization with the help of IT, and the means necessary to execute them. Attempts to improve the efficiency or the effectiveness ofthe ISF must address ali-its structural characteristics (Waterman, Peters & Phillips, 1992). Each of these characteristics is an IT-tool and their optimal mix provides an organization with its most intelligent IT -tool. One of the often neglected characteristics is the organization of the ISF. A knowledge acquisition process was carried out to derive directives for the design of the ISF (Mantelaers, 1995).
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