Karin Olesen

Trying to improve communication and collaboration with information technology: An action research project which failed

Discusses the use of information technology to facilitate communication and collaboration. In this action research project a groupware product called Lotus NotesTM was implemented to facilitate communication and collaboration amongst the senior management team. Although there was a real need for change, and the project received strong support from senior management on the basis that it would enable radical changes in coordination within the workgroup, these radical changes did not occur. The authors analyse the reasons for failure, and suggest that the project failed because of institutional forces which inhibited dramatic changes in work habits.

Analysis of intellectual capital disclosure – an illustrative example

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide an analysis of intellectual capital (IC) disclosures in annual reports (mandatory and voluntary) and draw attention to the specific issues related to the methodology used i.e. content analysis. The focus is to incorporate all forms of IC disclosure – narratives, numbers, and visual images – into the analysis as well as highlight the need to study both quantity (extent) and quality of disclosure.Design/methodology/approach – Using content analysis, this paper analyzes 30 of Malaysias largest public‐listed companies from the IC disclosure of 2008 annual reports. The results are used to discuss specific methodological issues such as the usage of an IC index, choice of unit of analysis, quantity versus quality, presence/absence versus multiple disclosures, and the usage of narratives, numbers, and visual images.Findings – This paper proposes that themes are the most appropriate recording and counting unit to analyze IC information combining narratives, number...

Implications of dominant technological frames over a longitudinal period

Successful adoption and use of information systems is an area of continued research in the field of information systems. This prior research has shown that how we adopt and use an information system depends on how we make sense of it. The sense‐making activity is carried out through our cognitive structures of knowledge that relate to technology (our technological frames). The sense‐making activity changes over time, as use and exposure to differing technologies occur. Most research into information systems in organisations has focused on a specific information system; this preoccupation with studying discrete projects at one point in time may be limiting. In an attempt to fill this research gap, we use the socio‐cognitive perspective of Orlikowski & Gash to analyse technological frames in one organisation over a longitudinal period to evaluate sensemaking in relation to multiple systems. The interpretive case study looks at the technological frames of senior management, faculty teaching staff, information technology (IT) mediating staff and IT groups over a 10‐year period in a university and finds that there were incongruent frames between senior management and other groups within the organisation with senior management holding a dominant frame. The consequences of these frames were demonstrated when they were linked to the use of the four major information systems in the organisation, showing repeated historical patterns of use that caused inefficiencies due to the incongruent frames of the various groups. The unchanging dominant technological frame contributed to this pattern.

The Impact of Positive Informal Behaviors on the Effectiveness of Information Systems Departments

Good relationships between information systems (IS) and business employees build shared understanding and cross-domain knowledge, and enhance the level of business-IS alignment in an organization. Most researchers have focused on improving the quality and frequency of communication, and less work has been done on the informal activities IS staff carry out to aid their non-IS colleagues. This limited attention on the behaviors of IS employees restricts our understanding of how positive interaction between IS and non-IS employees can be encouraged and how it affects the effectiveness of an IS department. Drawing on the concept of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), we derive a set of IS-specific OCBs by reviewing the literature and relate them to characteristics of IS departments and IS employees. Our research questions are: a) When are IS professionals more likely to engage in IS-specific OCBs? b) What is the impact of IS-specific OCBs on the effectiveness of the IS department?

Sociomateriality Implications of Software as a Service Adoption on IT-Workers’ Roles and Changes in Organizational Routines of IT Systems Support

This paper aims to deepen our understanding on how sociomateriality practices influence IT workers’ roles and skill set requirements and changes to the organizational routines of IT systems support, when an organization migrates an on-premise IT system to a software as a service (SaaS) model. This conceptual paper is part of an ongoing study investigating organizations that migrated on-premise IT email systems to SaaS business models, such as Google Apps for Education (GAE) and Microsoft Office 365 systems, in New Zealand tertiary institutions. We present initial findings from interpretive case studies. The findings are, firstly, technological artifacts are entangled in sociomaterial practices, which change the way humans respond to the performative aspects of the organizational routines. Human and material agencies are interwoven in ways that reinforce or change existing routines. Secondly, materiality, virtual realm and spirit of the technology provide elementary levels at which human and material agencies entangle. Lastly, the elementary levels at which human and material entangle depends on the capabilities or skills set of an individual.

Being Useful: How Information Systems Professionals Influence the Use of Information Systems in Enterprises

Information systems (IS) researchers have developed various frameworks to understand the reactions of individuals to new information systems and their decisions to continue or discontinue their use. While routine use is usually enough to obtain the first-order benefits of information systems once they have been deployed in an enterprise, more extensive and deeper use of these systems is needed to unlock their full potential. Encouraging individual employees to use information systems in this way often requires their IS colleagues to engage more fully with them to overcome uncertainties or a lack of training. This could take the form of IS professionals interacting with their non-IS colleagues formally or informally to provide relevant knowledge and guidance, and by taking the initiative to, for example, preempt challenges or develop useful tools. We draw on the concept of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) to examine how the actions of IS employees can make it more likely for non-IS employees to engage in the deeper use of information systems. This study contributes to extending our understanding of the roles that IS employees play in improving the value that enterprises obtain from their IS investments, especially through their extra-role behaviors.

Assessing the Grounded Theory of Packing for Air Travel Using a Video-Ethnographic Case Study

Packing for travel is an intriguing aspect of tourist behavior. Until recently, no research has sought to explain what the modern traveler packs for air journeys or why these items are packed. Perhaps for some observers these questions appear mundane, and the answers appear obvious, yet these issues attract a great volume on commentary on websites, blogs, in travel books, in magazines, and conversations between travelers. From these sources, Hyde and Olesen (2011) developed a grounded theory of packing for air travel. The purpose of this article is to test the grounded theory of packing for air travel using video-ethnographic case study data. The findings are that the grounded theory for air travel is able to explain what possessions are packed and the motives for these items being packed. The emphasis that any individual places on the possessions they pack and the role these possessions play during a journey will differ by traveler. This adds to extant literature on packing for travel.

REMODELLING UNIVERSITY GOVERNANCE IN PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES TO RESPOND TO THE DUAL CHALLENGES OF ACADEMIC RESEARCH AND COMMERCIALIZATION

Using an in-depth case study, this paper examines how the governance of a public university responds to the dual challenges of academic research and commercialization. Our findings indicate that the stakeholder model of institutional governance for academic research strongly underpinned by new public management ideologies conflicted with the research commercialization mission dominated by a profit seeking objective. To be governed responsibly, commercialization requires some degree of corporatization, and the corporate governance model seems to offer many advantages to public universities. The study demonstrated that the best way forward for public universities may be to adopt „dual‟ stakeholder and corporate governance models and utilize complementary and collaborative governance strategies to meet the challenges of academic research development and commercialization.