Bob Galliers

Editorial: JSIS editorial December 2007 issue

This issue of Journal of Strategic Information Systems (JSIS) is comprised of four articles: two regular research articles and two special issue articles from Global Mobility Roundtables. The first two articles cover fundamental topics in the strategic information systems domain, and hail from scholars located in Malaysia, United Kingdom, and United States. The special issue research articles focus on mobile applications that are emerging yet strategic particularly for the companies launching the applications. The special issue articles are authored by scholars in the United States, Spain, and Finland. Mohdzaher Mohdzain of University Kebangsaan, Malaysia, and John Ward of Cranfield University, United Kingdom, have examined the subsidiaries’ views of information systems (IS) strategic planning in multinational organizations. The authors find that in the majority of the nine multinationals, the responsibility for IS planning is centralized or moving toward centralization. There is little IS planning at the subsidiary level and planning is dominated by the corporate IT organization with the focus on achieving scale economies. These changes are associated with tactical rather than strategic IS planning; the information technology is viewed mainly as a utility. The subsidiary business managers reported that the local business requirement were not being adequately addressed in IS planning. What is also troubling of the authors’ findings is that there was little emphasis given to enabling global transfer of knowledge, even in a company where the focus of IS planning was global co-coordination. These findings suggest that the multinationals have much to learn about how to actively engage business managers in the subsidiaries, how to increase the acceptance of information technology at the subsidiaries, and to manage global transfer of IS knowledge across subsidiaries. The paper’s findings should encourage much future work in this area. The second paper is authored by Monideepa Tarafdar of the University of Toledo and Steven Gordon of Babson College, both located in the United States. They examined the fundamental issue of how firms can acquire business value from their information technology (IT) investments. The authors specifically focus on the influence of information systems competencies on process innovation. Grounding their ideas in the resource-based view of the firm (RBV), the authors examine how the combined and integrated influence of technology and managerial mechanisms and resources can influence the success of process innovations. The paper reports on a longitudinal and exploratory case study on two process innovations at a heath care organization in the United States. The findings high-

A new departure

Transaction cost theory (TCT) has been widely used in information technology outsourcing (ITO) research to explain and predict outsourcing decisions and outsourcing-related outcomes. This research, however, has led to mixed and unexpected results in terms of the effects of transaction attributes on outsourcing decisions and outcomes. This study assesses the empirical literature employing TCT-based ITO models in terms of its faithfulness to the precepts of TCT, and argues that one possible explanation for the mixed results is that the extant models do not capture all the essential elements of TCT. First, there are core TCT constructs that the extant models do not take into account; second, the linkages among constructs that the IT outsourcing models have hypothesized are not always in line with TCT precepts; and third, the normative nature 0963-8687/

Editorial: JSIS Editorial March 2009

see front matter 2011 Published by Elsevier B.V. doi:10.1016/j.jsis.2011.05.001 1 Other special issues, previously published in JSIS, have been (most recent, first): Volume 17, Number 2 (2008) eGovernment Strategies: ICT Innovation in International Public Sector Contexts edited by R. Hackney, K.C. Desouza, P. Chau. Volume 16, Number 2 (2007) Security and Privacy edited by G. Dhillon, J. Backhouse, A. Ray. Volume 14, Number 3 (2005) The Future is UNWIRED: Organizational and Strategic Perspectives edited by A. Takeishi, B. Thorngren, S. Jarvenpaa. Volume 14, Number 2 (2005) Understanding the Contextual Influences on Enterprise Systems (Part II) edited by Howcroft, Newell, Wagner. Volume 13, Number 4 (2004) Understanding the Contextual Influences on Enterprise System Design, Implementation, Use and Evaluation edited by D. Howcroft, S. Newell, E. Wagner. Volume: 13 Issue: 2 (2004) Strategic Information Systems in the Post-Net Era edited by J.N.D. Gupta, M. Quaddus, R.D. Galliers. Volume 12 Issue 4 (2003) LEO Conference 2001 edited by J. Aris, F. Land, V. Maller. Volume 9, Issue 2–3 (2004) Knowledge Management and Knowledge Management Systems edited by Dorothy Leidner. 124 Editorial / Journal of Strategic Information Systems 20 (2011) 123–124 of the theory is not always captured by the extant models. This paper, therefore, aims to provide one possible answer to the question: ‘‘Why have the appropriations made of TCT to study IT outsourcing produced mixed results?’’ Once again, we hope that you enjoy these articles, and we look forward to your continued support in 2011. As always, we welcome your reaction and comment.

Journal of Strategic: Editorial

A warm welcome to Volume 18 of the Journal of Strategic Information! In this issue, we cover a range of topics. We commence with a highly topical paper on how IT has been used defensively in a newly vulnerable market, followed by a paper on eCommerce adoption in the SME sector, and then a paper that considers how competitive advantage may still be gained from mandatory (i.e., through government regulation) IT investments. The geographical locations for these papers are New York, the UK and Australia. These three papers are followed by case studies related to disruptive technologies and a financial services website. Before introducing these articles, though, and as has been the case in previous years, we shall use this first issue of Volume 18 to provide a brief analysis of the nationality of lead authors, and subject matter of articles, that have appeared in JSIS since its inception. Table 1 provides information on author nationality, while Table 2 provides information on topics covered. As we can see from these data, the Americas region (the Association for Information Systems Region 1) is represented by 34% of the lead authors; Europe, the Middle East and Africa (AIS Region 2) is represented by 44.5% and Asia Pacific (AIS Region 3) by 21.5%. These percentages have held reasonably steady in recent years, although Volume 16 saw a relative increase in the articles from Continental Europe, and Volume 17, a relative increase in the articles from Asia. Of the 16 articles published in 2008, 5 were from Continental Europe, raising the total number over the past year from 28 (11.7%) to 48 (17.5%). 4 articles from Asia were also published last year, with the last two years seeing an increase from 25 (10.6%) to 31 (11.3%). Given JSIS’s aim to publish articles from around the world, it is encouraging to note the range of countries represented. And given the global environment in which business is conducted, we shall continue in our endeavors to attract more articles from around the world, particularly from non-English speaking countries. With regard to the subject matter of the articles published, and as can be seen from Table 2, we continue to see being covered such topics as IS strategy and planning, alignment, inter-organizational systems, competitive advantage, and the organization and management of IS services. As noted previously, topics that have appeared in the journal more recently include knowledge management, enterprise systems, sourcing, issues associated with trust (e.g., in virtual teams), historical perspectives and future trends, including globalization. Last year, we published a special issue on privacy and security issues given the heightened interest in the topic. As mentioned this time last year, we would like to encourage more papers on such topics, including studies that investigate cultural nuances and associated considerations in the age of globalization (e.g., in global software development, off-shore sourcing), and on ethical considerations. The not-for-profit sector is also of interest to JSIS, and in this context, we have a special issue on e-government scheduled for this June’s issue. Turning now to this issue of JSIS, we have a total of 5 papers, each focusing on different aspects of strategic information systems. The papers are written by researchers from Australia, Canada, Malaysia, the UK and the US, thus reinforcing our international orientation once more. Our first paper for 2009 is by Henry Lucas (University of Maryland, USA), Wonseok Oh (McGill University, Canada) and Bruce Weber (London Business School, UK. This team of researchers provides an insight into the dynamics of competition between new entrants and an incumbent using the New York Stock Exchange as their focus of study. Through a review covering a period of 27 years (1980–2007), the authors identify four eras of IT management at the NYSE. Their data indicate that, while investment in new IT ‘‘helped the Exchange defend floor trading and its market share for a number of years, it finally had to adopt the technology of all-electronic exchanges”. The authors utilize an extension of the framework of newly vulnerable markets as a lens for their investigation. Moving on to a very different sector, our second paper investigates eCommerce adoption in family-run SMEs located in the UK. The article is written by Yong Wand (University of Wolverhampton) and Pervaiz Ahmed (Monash University, Malaysia). The research had the objective of examining the environmental and organizational determinants of eCommerce adoption and exploring the moderating effect of business strategic orientation on the relationships between these determinants and the adoption decision – within the context of the SME sector. The authors undertook survey research of 88 companies, and, using regression analysis, identified that ‘‘external pressure” and ‘‘perceived benefits” are both predictors of eCommerce adoption.