Gwanhoo Lee

An Open Government Maturity Model for social media-based public engagement

Abstract Social media has opened up unprecedented new possibilities of engaging the public in government work. In response to the Open Government Directive, U.S. federal agencies developed their open government plan and launched numerous social media-based public engagement initiatives. However, we find that many of these initiatives do not deliver the intended outcomes due to various organizational, technological, and financial challenges. We propose an Open Government Maturity Model based on our field studies with U.S. federal healthcare administration agencies. This model is specifically developed to assess and guide open government initiatives which focus on transparent, interactive, participatory, collaborative public engagement that are largely enabled by emerging technologies such as social media. The model consists of five maturity levels: initial conditions (Level 1), data transparency (Level 2), open participation (Level 3), open collaboration (Level 4), and ubiquitous engagement (Level 5). We argue that there is a logical sequence for increasing social media-based public engagement and agencies should focus on achieving one maturity level at a time. The Open Government Maturity Model helps government agencies implement their open government initiatives effectively by building organizational and technological capabilities in an orderly manner. We discuss challenges and best practices for each maturity level and conclude by presenting recommendations.

Toward agile: an integrated analysis of quantitative and qualitative field data

As business and technology environments change at an unprecedented rate, software development agility to respond to changing user requirements has become increasingly critical for software development performance. Agile software development approaches, which emphasize sense-and-respond, self-organization, cross-functional teams, and continuous adaptation, have been adopted by an increasing number of organizations to improve their software development agility. However, the agile development literature is largely anecdotal and prescriptive, lacking empirical evidence and theoretical foundation to support the principles and practices of agile development. Little research has empirically examined the software development agility construct in terms of its dimensions, determinants, and effects on software development performance. As a result, there is a lack of understanding about how organizations can effectively implement an agile development approach. Using an integrated research approach that combines quantitative and qualitative data analyses, this research opens the black box of agile development by empirically examining the relationships among two dimensions of software development agility (software team response extensiveness and software team response efficiency), two antecedents that can be controlled (team autonomy and team diversity), and three aspects of software development performance (on-time completion, on-budget completion, and software functionality). Our PLS results of survey responses of 399 software project managers suggest that the relationships among these variables are more complex than what has been perceived by the literature. The results suggest a tradeoff relationship between response extensiveness and response efficiency. These two agility dimensions impact software development performance differently: response efficiency positively affects all of on-time completion, on-budget completion, and software functionality, whereas response extensiveness positively affects only software functionality. The results also suggest that team autonomy has a positive effect on response efficiency and a negative effect on response extensiveness, and that team diversity has a positive effect on response extensiveness. We conducted 10 post hoc case studies to qualitatively cross-validate our PLS results and provide rich, additional insights regarding the complex, dynamic interplays between autonomy, diversity, agility, and performance. The qualitative analysis also provides explanations for both supported and unsupported hypotheses. We discuss these qualitative analysis results and conclude with the theoretical and practical implications of our research findings for agile development approaches.

Complexity of Information Systems Development Projects: Conceptualization and Measurement Development

This paper conceptualizes and develops valid measurements of the key dimensions of information systems development project (ISDP) complexity. A conceptual framework is proposed to define four components of ISDP complexity: structural organizational complexity, structural IT complexity, dynamic organizational complexity, and dynamic IT complexity. Measures of ISDP complexity are generated based on literature review, field interviews, and focus group discussions. The measures are then refined through a systematic process and are tested using confirmatory data analyses with survey responses from 541 ISDP managers. Results support the final measurement model that consists of a second-order factor of ISDP complexity, four distinct first-order factors, and 15 measurement items. The measurement adequately satisfies the criteria for unidimensionality, convergent validity, discriminant validity, reliability, factorial invariance across different types of ISDPs, and nomological validity. Implications of the study results to research and practice as well as limitations of the study and directions for future research are discussed.

Organizational size and IT innovation adoption: A meta-analysis

Organizational size has long been considered to be an important predictor of IT innovation adoption. However, empirical results on the relationship between them have been disturbingly mixed and inconsistent. Through a meta-analysis of 54 correlations derived from 21 empirical studies, we attempted to explain and resolve these mixed results by synthesizing across studies the effects of organizational size on IT innovation adoption and by examining the effects of six moderators on the relationship. The results suggested that, although a positive relationship generally existed between them, the relationship was moderated by five variables: type of IT innovation, type of organization, stage of adoption, scope of size, and type of size measure. This suggested that the mixed empirical results from previous studies can be explained by a lack of consideration of moderators.

Grasping the complexity of IS development projects

To improve performance of IS development projects, first measure the key dimensions of project complexity and understand how they affect project outcomes.

Global boundaries, task processes and IS project success: a field study

Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to better understand how global boundaries affect global information system (IS) project success and which mediating process variables increase the chance of success.Design/methodology/approach – Based on the literature on IS success and global teams, an input‐process‐output framework is adopted to develop the research model for the study. This research is based on semi‐structured interviews with 22 global IS project managers. An attribution analysis is used to identify common themes and patterns of the interview results.Findings – Global IS project managers identified time separation and cultural differences as the most significant barriers to project success. Our findings suggest that effective teams were able to overcome these barriers to achieve success, but this success was achieved through the implementation of special coordination, communication and cognitive processes tailored to help teams overcome global barriers and through considerable additional cost and ...

The ability of information systems development project teams to respond to business and technology changes: a study of flexibility measures

The socio-technical perspective suggests that information systems development projects (ISDPs) involve both organizational and technical dimensions. As both the organizational and technical aspects of ISDPs frequently change, the ISDP teams flexibility in responding to these changes has become a critical success factor for system development. While the importance of ISDP team flexibility has increased, the research literature lacks a consistent definition and validated measures of the construct. Drawing upon the socio-technical and the capability-based perspectives and using a systematic multi-stage approach, we identified major business and technology changes and developed measurement scales of ISDP team flexibility along two dimensions: Response Extensiveness and Response Efficiency. The results of a confirmatory factor analysis using survey data from 505 ISDP managers suggested that the final measurement scales exhibited adequate levels of measurement properties including unidimensionality, reliability, discriminant validity, factorial invariance and nomological validity. In addition, our results revealed an interesting negative relationship between Response Extensiveness and Response Efficiency, indicating a trade-off between the two dimensions of flexibility. Our result indicated that while the ISDP teams experienced and responded more extensively to business changes than technology changes, they were much less efficient in dealing with business changes than technology changes.

Ambidextrous coping strategies in globally distributed software development projects

Strategies for enhancing flexibility and rigor.

Bridging Global Boundaries for IS Project Success

Despite the increasing attention to global IS work, there is limited understanding of why and how global IS development projects succeed or fail. Based on the literature on IS success and global teams, we develop a conceptual framework for global IS development project success. We also conducted interviews with nine global IS project managers to validate this framework through a qualitative attribution analysis to identify common themes and patterns of the interview results. Global project managers identified time separation, cultural differences and geographic distance as the most significant barriers to project success. Organizations implemented various communication mechanisms, task programming, and project control methods to mitigate global risks, leading to project success.

IT resources, organizational capabilities, and value creation in public-sector organizations: a public-value management perspective

What value does information technology (IT) create in governments and how does it do so? While business value of IT has been extensively studied in the information systems field, this has not been the case for public value. This is in part due to a lack of theoretical bases for investigating IT value in the public sector. To address this issue, we present a conceptual model on the mechanism by which IT resources contribute to value creation in the public-sector organizations. We propose that the relationship between IT resources and organizational performance in governments is mediated by organizational capabilities and develop a theoretical model that delineates the paths from IT resources to organizational performance, drawing upon public-value management theory. This theory asserts that public managers, on behalf of the public, should actively strive to generate greater public value, as managers in the private sector seek to achieve greater private business value. On the basis of the review of public-value management literature, we suggest that the following five organizational capabilities mediate the relationship between IT resources and public value – public service delivery capability, public engagement capability, co-production capability, resource-building capability, and public-sector innovation capability. We argue that IT resources in public organizations can enable public managers to advance public-value frontiers by cultivating these five organizational capabilities and to overcome conflicts among competing values.