Donal J. Flynn

Escalation and de-escalation of commitment: a commitment transformation analysis of an e-government project

Abstract.  This paper presents a commitment transformation framework for analysing the change in actors’ commitment during the transition from escalation to de‐escalation in information technology projects. De‐escalation is potentially a more important issue than escalation because de‐escalation provides remedies for the ills of escalation. Therefore, it is important to understand how stakeholders may bias facts in the direction of previously accepted beliefs and thus prevent an organization from de‐escalating. Here, we adopt Lewins change theory to examine the commitment transformation during the transition from escalation to de‐escalation of an e‐government project in a local council in the United Kingdom. By conceiving actors’ commitment transformation as an ‘unfreezing–changing–refreezing’ process, researchers may develop a deeper understanding of how actors may give up previous failing course of action and accept an alternative course of action. Practitioners can also utilize the framework in post‐mortem analyses of projects which have faced escalation to devise useful de‐escalation strategies for future project development. 1

Expectations and experiences of eHealth in primary care: A qualitative practice-based investigation

OBJECTIVES (1) To assess expectations and experiences of a new eHealth service by patients and staff in three primary care settings; (2) to ascertain attitudes to a range of future, primary care-oriented eHealth services. DESIGN Qualitative case study. SETTING Three UK general practices introducing an eHealth service for booking patient appointments. PARTICIPANTS Ninety patients purposively selected from users and non-users of the new service and 28 staff (clinicians, management and administrative staff). RESULTS Actual patient use of the service was lower than stated intention. Patients and staff felt that more active promotion of the service would have resulted in more use. Low usage did not result in a negative assessment of the service by most staff. Different patient groupings were identified with characteristics that may be used as predictors of eHealth service use and indicators of training needs. GPs and patients expressed opposing viewpoints on a range of future eHealth services. CONCLUSIONS Take-up of eHealth services may be lower than expected. To overcome patient barriers, factors that may narrow the intention-behaviour gap such as level of service promotion, GP endorsement, and usage by different patient groups, should be investigated. For clinician barriers, the eHealth evidence base needs strengthening, while for primary care practices, a learning process including staff training needs to be instituted. The differing views of patients and GPs about components of eHealth means that policymakers need to plan for a lengthy political process to obtain agreement on contentious issues if they are to achieve successful eHealth services.

De-escalation of commitment to information systems projects: a process perspective

Escalation of commitment is a common and costly problem among information system projects. Although the potential of de-escalation of commitment to failing courses of action has been much heralded, many de-escalation efforts may result in failure due to constituencies biasing facts in the direction of previously accepted beliefs and therefore preventing an organization from de-escalating commitment to a project. Here, we examine actors’ commitment transformation during the de-escalation of commitment to an e-procurement project in a local government organization in the UK. Our findings suggest that the commitment transformation process can be enacted successfully through the deployment of behaviour disconfirmation, continuous commitment, provision of psychological safety, development, and the alignment and integration of new attitudes and behaviours. The research and practical implications of these findings are discussed, and future research areas are explored.

CONSTRUCTING USER REQUIREMENTS: A SOCIAL PROCESS FOR A SOCIAL CONTEXT

We discuss our approach to constructing user requirements whereby users build requirements models themselves. The approach, termed user‐led requirements construction (ULRC), is a social process that addresses a major problem: the user‐developer culture gap. An important feature of the approach is that we have conducted, with users, an interpretivist empirical evaluation study of its constituent event flow diagram (EFD) modelling method and associated training. The ULRC has also been used in a live environment. The results are that users regard the EFD as effective for the requirements process, the EFD may be used for further studies to deepen our knowledge of the requirements process and the results contribute towards a set of public results for general evaluation and improvement.

Escalation and de-escalation of commitment to information systems projects: Insights from a project evaluation model

We view escalation and de-escalation of commitment as processes involving recurring instances of approach-avoidance conflict. This paper outlines an approach-avoidance process model for describing and analyzing escalation and de-escalation of commitment in information systems projects. In the model, the sequential mapping of project events is integrated with a model of approach-avoidance conflict that identifies periods of gradual evolution at two separate levels of social analysis (project and work) that are punctuated by sudden, revolutionary periods of rapid change. By conceiving the processes of commitment escalation and de-escalation as sequences of events involving approach-avoidance conflicts, researchers may develop a deeper understanding of how and why projects escalate and de-escalate. Practitioners can also utilize the model in postmortem analyses of projects which have faced escalation to diagnose the issues surrounding the escalation and devise useful de-escalation strategies for future project development. The model is developed and illustrated with a case study that exhibits both project escalation and de-escalation conditions.

A survey of the use of strategic information systems planning approaches in UK organizations

Abstract This work describes the results of a questionnaire-based survey into how 18 UK organizations use strategic information systems planning approaches for integrating IT into their business. The results are useful both for practitioners who may benefit from the experiences of planning in other organizations, and for researchers who seek to understand and improve planning approaches and the way in which they are used.

A case study of the process of achieving legitimation in information systems development

Social and organizational issues are important in developing successful information systems in organizations. In the past, several approaches have been used to investigate these issues, but more recently an emerging and promising approach is to use Structuration Theory (ST). ST is acknowledged as a powerful approach but needs careful operationalization; consequently, the empirical application of ST remains scarce. In this research ST is used as a sense-making device to examine the research context. In this case study of a National Health Service organization, we concentrate on the legitimation construct within ST to examine how IT management carried out an integrated set of actions over a three-year period to obtain legitimation for an Intranet system from its eventual stakeholders. Legitimation is potentially important for any project involving the introduction of new information tools, especially those that will require a change in end user behaviours. It is therefore possible that this study of legitimation in ISD is transferable to many other IS contexts. A Legitimation Activity Model was used to show how activities could be performed to achieve legitimation from key organizational stakeholders. We suggest that a failure to obtain legitimation may be a significant but under-recognized factor in information systems failure.

An empirical study of the validation process within requirements determination

Abstract. An empirical investigation into the validation process within requirements determination is described in which systems analysts were asked to complete a questionnaire concerning important validation issues. We describe the major validation activities, a set of major problems experienced by the respondents, factors affecting the process and hypotheses for problem explanations. The levels of experience of the respondents and the organizations for which they work appear to be significant.

A CASE tool to support critical success factors analysis in IT planning and requirements determination

Abstract A CASE tool is described which addresses the problems of defining business needs and the IT systems required to support them. The tool is based on Critical Success Factors (CSF) analysis for use within IT planning and requirements determination, and has three basic uses: (1) a database of information concerning organizational factors gathered during CSF analysis, linking business and IT needs, (2) a source of reports showing interrelationships between the organizational factors, (3) a ‘what-if’ facility that allows the analyst to vary the priorities of organizational factors and to study the effects on the priorities of business factors such as business units and IT-related factors such as applications. We describe the tool and its two arenas of use with a case study and an example.

A Semantic Comparison of the Modelling Capabilities of the ER and NIAM Models

Conceptual design (conceptual modelling) is the most important phase in database design as it results in a conceptual schema, which is a high-level description of the user requirements. Over the past decade, several data models, called semantic or conceptual models, have been proposed for conceptual design. Two of the most popular of these data models are the ER and NIAM models. In this paper we present a semantic comparison of the ER and NIAM models with a view to highlighting their similarities and differences, and to showing the major characteristics of each model. The comparison is divided in three parts. Firstly, we describe and compare the model constructs using a common terminology framework. We then compare their modelling capability by discussing the mapping of ER and NIAM schemas into the relational model. Finally, we relate the models to a checklist of conceptual modelling objectives.