Deborah Bunker

Research on information systems failures and successes: Status update and future directions

Information systems success and failure are among the most prominent streams in IS research. Explanations of why some IS fulfill their expectations, whereas others fail, are complex and multi-factorial. Despite the efforts to understand the underlying factors, the IS failure rate remains stubbornly high. A Panel session was held at the IFIP Working Group 8.6 conference in Bangalore in 2013 which forms the subject of this Special Issue. Its aim was to reflect on the need for new perspectives and research directions, to provide insights and further guidance for managers on factors enabling IS success and avoiding IS failure. Several key issues emerged, such as the need to study problems from multiple perspectives, to move beyond narrow considerations of the IT artifact, and to venture into underexplored organizational contexts, such as the public sector.

Circuits of power: a study of mandated compliance to an information systems security de jure standard in a government organization

Organizations need to protect information assets against cyber crime, denial-of-service attacks, web hackers, data breaches, identity and credit card theft, and fraud. Criminals often try to achieve financial, political, or personal gain through these attacks, so the threats that their actions prompt are insidious motivators for organizations to adopt information systems security (ISS) approaches. Extant ISS research has traditionally examined ISS in e-commerce business organizations. The present study investigates ISS within government, analyzing power relationships during an ISS standards adoption and accreditation process, where a head of state mandates that all government agencies are to comply with a national de jure ISS standard. Using a canonical action research method, designated managers of ISS services across small, medium, and large agencies were monitored and assessed for progress to accreditation through surveys, interviews, participant observation at round table forums, and focus groups. By 2008, accreditation status across the 89 agencies participating in this study was approximately 33 percent fully accredited, with 67 percent partially compliant. The research uses Cleggs (1989) circuits of power framework to interpret power, resistance, norms, and cultural relationships in the process of compliance. The paper highlights that a strategy based on organization subunit size is helpful in motivating and assisting organizations to move toward accreditation. Mandated standard accreditation was inhibited by insufficient resource allocation, lack of senior management input, and commitment. Factors contributing to this resistance were group norms and cultural biases.

Role of value compatibility in IT adoption

Compatibility has been recognised as an important element in the adoption of IT innovations in organisations but as a concept it has been generally limited to technical or functional factors. Compatibility is also significant, however, with regard to value compatibility between the organisation, and the adopted IT innovation. We propose a framework to determine value compatibility analysing the organisations and information systems structure, practices and culture, and explore the value compatibility of an organisation with its adopted self-service computer-based information system. A case study was conducted to determine the congruence of an organisations value and IT value compatibility. This study found that there was a high correspondence in the organisational structure and practice dimensions; however, there were organisational culture disparities. The cultural disparities reflected the self-service acceptance and training issues experienced by the case organisation. These findings add insight into the problems experienced with value compatibility and the adoption of the information systems, and show the potential use of the proposed framework in the detection of such problems.

A Philosophy of Information Technology and Systems (IT & S) as Tools: Tool Development Context, Associated Skills and the Global Technology Transfer (GTT) Process

It is the intent of this paper to discuss a philosophy of Information Technology and Systems (IT & S) as tools and the impact of this philosophy on the Global Technical Transfer (GTT) process of IT & S.It is argued that IT & S by definition, are artefacts, tools that have been made, used, inherited and studied within a cultural context which encompasses economic, historical, technical and social values and assumptions which are focussed in particular skill sets. It is assumed that these skill sets are mostly in evidence in any culture that receives the IT & S tool for use in a technical transfer process. It is argued, therefore, if we understand the cultural context in which a tool is made then we will understand the skills to transfer and use such tools in an effective manner. The issue we must face as makers, users, inheritors and scholars of IT & S tools, however, is that the tool context and inherent in-built values and skill sets, may not be in evidence across all cultures. This would make the effective use of IT & S, in a global sense, a difficult and complex (if not impossible) undertaking.From this position it is argued that IT & S tools reflect the IT & S discipline, as it is these tools which embody the assumptions of the discipline and hence, its paradigm. The Bunker and Dean (Bunker DJ, Dean RG. Philosophical Traditions in Information Systems: Challenger of an Interdisciplinary View, Faculty of Commerce Workshop, University of Wollongong, July 10--11, 1997) disciplinary model is highlighted as a means of understanding how tools are made within a cultural context and how they reflect the discipline in which they are created. This paper then goes on to explain the ramifications of IT & S as a discipline on the GTT process and proposes a skill-focussed approach, within a culture, to determining what IT & S may be appropriate for that particular cultural context.

Human Benefit through the Diffusion of Information Systems Design Science Research

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 2010 Joint International Working C- ference of the International Federation for Information Processing Working Groups 8.2 and 8.6. Both working groups are part of IFIP Technical Committee 8, the tech- cal committee addressing the field of Information Systems. IFIP WG 8.2, the Inter- tion of Information Systems and Organizations, was established in 1977. IFIP WG 8.6, Diffusion, Transfer and Implementation of Information Technology, was est- lished in 1994. In accordance with their respective themes, both IFIP WG 8.2 and IFIP WG 8.6 have long had an interest in the human impact of information systems. In December 1998, they held a joint working conference in Helsinki, Finland, on the theme Inf- mation Systems: Current Issues and Future Challenges. The two working groups joint interest in and collaboration on research concerning the human side of IS is c- tinued and extended through this joint working conference, held on the campus of Curtin University of Technology, from March 30 to April 1, 2010, in Perth, Western Australia. This conference, Human Benefit Through the Diffusion of Information Systems Design Science Research, combines the traditional themes of the two working groups with the growing interest within the IS research field in the area of design science research.

Design and diffusion of systems for human benefit: toward more humanistic realisation of information systems in society

Purpose – This paper aims to introduce this special issue of ITP on systems for human benefit (S4HB), to develop and promote the idea of S4HB, and advocate that more research be conducted on the design and diffusion of S4HB.Design/methodology/approach – This conceptual paper argues that S4HB are systemically under‐researched based on a historical perspective on IS research and proposes an agenda for research on the design and diffusion of S4HB.Findings – The paper identifies extant areas of S4HB, such as health and education, but also advocates that new areas of S4HB be identified and new kinds of S4HB be designed. It further discusses how diffusion is a key issue to the realisation of human benefits and contrasts diffusion of S4HB with more commercial business systems as a motivator for further research. Finally it sets out a brief agenda for research in S4HB, including: development of a vision for research on S4HB that emphasises design for solving human problems; research on diffusion of S4HB; revision...

Conceptualization of a Context Aware Cloud Adaptation (CACA) Framework

Organisations have shown a significant interest in the adoption of cloud computing environment for managing the needs of their complex adaptive business and system environments. While many organisations are interested in adopting a cloud computing environment suitable to their local circumstances, there is little guidance available on how to do so. This paper proposes the development and application of a context-aware cloud adoption (CACA) framework by using an iterative constructive development process. This framework, whilst still under development, may be useful in assisting organisations to develop self awareness of cloud issues, while at the same time being able to assess, select, adopt and improve an appropriate cloud computing environment for their business by obtaining, modeling, processing and managing contextual information for their economic and competitive advantage. This paper presents a position i.e. argues for a certain view of cloud computing, and conceptualizes this position via a framework based on an initial empirical study, which looked at complex event processing, context-awareness and self-adaptation approaches for the cloud adoption and improvement. This paper presents our ongoing research in this emerging area of cloud computing and investigates how businesses can best deal with the challenge of context-aware cloud adoption and improvement.

An Exploration of Information Systems Adoption: Tools and Skills as Cultural Artefacts — the Case of a Management Information System

This paper explains the development of a skills-focused approach that can assist organisations to better anticipate hurdles to successful information systems (IS) adoption. This approach is utilised in an interpretive field study in an Australian information technology company. From a perspective that views IS as tools, the approach is used to analyse the management control skills required to use a specific management IS. A skills match between the set of management control skills assumed by the toolmaker and the skills possessed by the tool user shows why a group of users with a high degree of match adopted the tool, while another one with a low degree of match did not do so. The study thus demonstrates that the skills-focused approach is a valid and effective way of determining the appropriateness of an IS.

Sense-making in social media during extreme events

During an extreme event, individuals use social media to communicate, self-organize, manage, and mitigate risks (crisis-related communications) but also to make sense of the event (commentary-related communications). This study focuses on commentary-based social media communication practices of Twitter users to understand the processes and patterns of inter-subjective sense-making during an extreme event. We analyse Twitter communication generated during three events: The Sydney Lindt Cafe Siege (2014), the Germanwings plane crash (2015), and the Brussels Terror Attacks (2016). We focus on the (i) communication structure, (ii) emotionality of the content via sentiment analyses, and (iii) influence of Twitter users on communications via social network analyses. We identified differences in the communication structures between the three events, which suggests a research agenda focussed on inter-subjective sense-making through the use of social media platforms, would make a significant contribution to knowledge about social media adoption and use in extreme events.

Crisis management and social media: Assuring effective information governance for long term social sustainability

When managing a crisis, governments and their agencies have to balance their responsibility to the societies they serve and the groups and individuals within them, all within a legislative framework. They must effectively use information that is available to them to make critical decisions to prevent, prepare, respond and recover from a crisis in the context of social sustainability [1]. While governments and agencies have their own command and control systems that assist them to manage crises, how do they assure the value, authenticity, accuracy, reliability and legality of information that is generated by individuals and groups during a crisis, on Social Media platforms? How does this impact social sustainability? This paper analyses the case of the University of Canterbury Student Volunteer Army (SVA) that was formed through the use of Social Media in the wake of the Christchurch earthquakes (September 2010 to June 2011) through a lens of self producing/structuring systems (autopoiesis). It then argues that the ideas of autopoiesis may assist us to better understand the appropriate blending of open Social Media and closed commercial systems for social sustainability during a crisis.