Christoph Rosenkranz

Aggregated construction supply chains: success factors in implementation of strategic partnerships

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to address the management of supply chains within the construction industry. Supply chains in this sector evidence a marked tendency to waste and inefficiency. One approach to improving this situation, which is the subject of intense discussion by both scientists and practitioners, is the establishment of strategic partnerships integrated with the scientific observation of the processes involved. This paper aims to present a case study of such a strategic alliance among German building contractors whose goal it is to cover the entire life cycle of a building, from its planning to its ultimate facility management. The paper seeks to focus on the establishment and implementation of an aggregated strategic alliance and its success factors.Design/methodology/approach – The research methodology is based on a case study of a German network of builders and trade contracting companies. Data collection tools included observation of workshops and meetings, semi‐structured inte...

The emergence of shared understanding: applying functional pragmatics to study the requirements development process

While the importance of social interactions and especially communication is generally acknowledged in information systems development and requirements development, there are few studies that investigate communication. Departing from the conceptualisation of information systems development as a language development and formalisation process, we focus on linguistic communication and the development of language‐based shared understanding of requirements. We investigate and analyse the semantic alignment process by which stakeholders achieve shared understanding in requirements development. We adopt Functional Pragmatics and examine how linguistic communication is shaped and regulated during requirements development in an actual project. By developing a pattern for semantic alignment and its use as an analytical lens, we enable a systematic and insightful understanding of communication in information systems development.

The Role of Communication in Agile Systems Development

Agile systems development (SD) is described as a cooperative game of invention and communication, in which teams are characterized by relying heavily on informal communication mechanisms such as face-to-face conversations. Our current state of knowledge about the actual communication process in agile SD projects is fragmented because of the lack of an integrative lens across different studies. On the basis of the Unified Model of SD Success, we provide an integrated view on the role of communication in agile SD by conducting a structured, systematic literature review. Our data collection process resulted in 333 relevant papers on agile SD and communication. We find that despite its acknowledged importance, our knowledge on communication and agile SD is limited and research is scattered, inconclusive, as well as contradictory. In consequence, we present several research gaps that deserve future research attention. Specifically, we call for research that opens up the communication process and empirically validates the implications for communication frequency and quality triggered by agile SD.

Towards a Framework for Business Process Standardization

Organizations increasingly seek to achieve operational excellence by standardizing business processes. Standardization initiatives may have different purposes, such as process streamlining, process automation, or even process outsourcing. However, standardization of processes is easier said than done. Standardization success depends on various factors, such as existent IT capabilities, available standard frameworks, market situation, and the processes’ nature, such as their level of routine or structuredness. This paper uncovers the complex nature and relative influence of process-internal and -environmental factors relevant to process standardization, by discussing three case studies from different industries. The findings are summarized in a set of initial conjectures about successful process standardization. This exploratory research is a first step towards uncovering the characteristics of successful process standardization efforts.

The variety engineering method: analyzing and designing information flows in organizations

In every organization, various decisions have to be made continuously, from the simple choice, which customer order to be processed next, to the serious question, whether to select a new supplier or to cancel an existing one. All of these decisions are supported by the provision of relevant information. Therefore the efficiency of a value chain is strongly influenced by the accurate setup of information flows. To make organizations more effective and efficient, one needs to understand what information flows are currently available and how information flows should be designed for a given organization. However, there is hardly any methodology available in order to analyze and redesign information flows in organizations in a structured way. Using the design science research framework, we develop a method for the analysis and design of information flows in organizations. Our research on the Variety Engineering Method (VEM) attempts to develop a method to analyze, diagnose and design information flows. VEM is built based on systems theory and cybernetics, especially the Viable System Model. VEM has been tested internally, and evaluated externally through field studies. In this paper, we present VEM in detail and discuss some general issues involved in its development, including the application of concepts form method engineering and evaluation in field studies.

Factors Influencing Business Process Standardization: A Multiple Case Study

Organizations make determined efforts to standardize their business processes in order to gain performance improvements. Having integrated and standardized data as well as processes reduces costs, improves collaboration and eases decision making for managers. Higher quality levels can be reached by successfully implemented standard processes. But due to the wide variety of business process types several challenges for the standardization of business processes exist. The diversity of business processes makes business process management (BPM) a cumbersome and complex challenge. Therefore, the main aim of this paper is to identify business process standardization success factors. As a first step, we use the categorization criteria offered by Lillrank as a starting point for our research and develop a theoretical research model of business process standardization success. Afterwards we conduct a preliminary test of our model in two case studies at two German companies.

Health Information on the Internet

Electronic Health (e-Health) increasingly strives to provide health information and services to healthcare stakeholders via the Internet, and to actively involve patients in their care. One major chance for these participatory healthcare and patient-centered approaches that integrate patients in healthcare are the phenomena and ideas associated with providing information and healthcare on the Internet. This paper examines the existing body of knowledge on online health information and explores the current state of research through a review of literature as well as past and current research projects. The fundamental categories of the analysis represent the stakeholders in the healthcare sector, the connecting information flows, the information-transferring technological applications, as well as the categories of the TEMPEST model. Based on these findings, causes and future research fields are discussed. The technological category has the largest share of all categories. Based on these findings, causes and future research fields are discussed.

Language Quality in Requirements Development: Tracing Communication in the Process of Information Systems Development

Knowledge transfer, communication, and shared understanding between project stakeholders are important factors in requirements development and in the information systems development process. Nevertheless, the impact and analysis of language and linguistic communication during requirements development is still an open issue. In our research, we claim that requirements development depends on the ability to deal with language and communication issues in practice and reach shared understanding of requirements. We propose the concept of language quality as a suitable means for analyzing the emergence of coherent and meaningful requirements. By applying the thereby developed dimensions of language quality to a real information systems development project, we are able to obtain practice-grounded propositions to further evaluate the consequences of different actions on the interaction and communication process of stakeholders in requirements development.

Ordnungsrahmen für die hybride Wertschöpfung

Mit Ordnungsrahmen lassen sich hoch aggregierte Uberblicke uber die wesentli-chen Funktionsbereiche einer Domane darstellen. Der Beitrag regt die Entwick-lung eines Ordnungsrahmens fur die hybride Wertschopfung an. Mit der Konstruk-tion des Ordnungsrahmens soll eine modellbasierte Grundlage geschaffen werden, um in weiterfuhrenden Arbeiten einen strukturierten Uberblick uber die fur die hybride Wertschopfung bereits entwickelten beziehungsweise zukunftig zu entwi-ckelnden Artefakte bereitstellen zu konnen. Als Ausgangspunkt fur die Konstrukti-on eines hierfur geeigneten Ordnungsrahmens wird ein erster Vorschlag zu dessen inhaltlicher Gestaltung prasentiert. Der vorgestellte Ordnungsrahmen wird evalu-iert, indem er zur Strukturierung von in Expertenbefragungen erhobenen Artefak-ten der hybriden Wertschopfung herangezogen wird.

Combining cybernetics and conceptual modeling: the concept of variety in organizational engineering

Organizational engineering addresses various aspects of changing organizations in order to create and keep the alignment between business and information technology (IT). In this paper, we show how the combination of cybernetic theories with conceptual modeling contributes to the analysis and design of information systems and organizations. Based on the discussion of a language-driven understanding of information systems as socio-technical systems, we show how conceptual models can significantly contribute to organizational engineering if used in combination with the concept of variety, an established theory from cybernetics. Within an IT controlling case, we show how our approach can be applied to the diagnosis of an IT controlling and reporting system in the German subsidiary of a large European bank.