Mikael Lind

A multi-grounded design research process

There has been a growing interest in the philosophy and constituents of design research by a vast amount of IS-scholars There are several unresolved concerns and issues in design research (DR) Some examples are the outcomes of design research, the role of theorizing in DR, how to conduct evaluation and validation, and the need for different grounding processes to generate valid knowledge from design research endeavors This paper describes a multi-grounded approach for design research; consisting of three types of grounding processes (theoretical, empirical and internal grounding) The purpose is to investigate DR-based design knowledge and its roles during design research and design practice A key feature in this approach is the division between the meta-design (within design research) producing abstract design knowledge and the empirical design practice producing situational knowledge and artefacts The multi-grounding approach to design research will be illustrated by the support of two design cases.

Coordination and transformation in business processes : Towards an integrated view

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to contrast two views, a transformative and a coordinative view, on business process management (BPM) in order to propose an integrated view. Design/methodology/approach: The investigation has been made with the purpose of developing a synthesis of these two views working as thesis and antithesis. The core of such dialectic approach is to create a synthesis that transcends contradictions of the thesis and antithesis. Pros and cons in the two perspectives have been identified and an integrated process view has been proposed, as well as operationalised into modelling methods. The integrated process view comprises a number of definitions of different process types (business process, assignment process, transformation process and provision process). Findings: The paper derives characteristics of the transformative as well as the coordinative view. These are used as the basis for pinpointing important characteristics of an integrative view. These characteristics put forward coordination in relation to transformation as well as assignment processes in relation to other types of processes (such as transformation processes and provision processes) Practical implications - The proposed integrated view has practical implications in the work of modelling, analysing and designing business processes. Originality/value: The value of the paper is that it presents a complementary view on business processes derived from two existing views. In the paper, coordination aspects are seen as superior to transformation.

Information systems strategizing, organizational sub-communities, and the emergence of a sustainability strategy

Examines IS strategizing in the sustainability area.Develops a process model.Draws on an interpretive case study at an automaker.Traces sub-communities production of strategy contents. The realized strategy contents of information systems (IS) strategizing are a result of both deliberate and emergent patterns of action. In this paper, we focus on emergent patterns of action by studying the formation of strategies that build on local technology-mediated practices. This is done through case study research of the emergence of a sustainability strategy at a European automaker. Studying the practices of four organizational sub-communities, we develop a process perspective of sub-communities activity-based production of strategy contents. The process model explains the contextual conditions that make sub-communities initiate SI strategy contents production, the activity-based process of strategy contents production, and the IS strategy outcome. The process model, which draws on Jarzabkowskis strategy-as-practice lens and Mintzbergs strategy typology, contributes to the growing IS strategizing literature that examines local practices in IS efforts of strategic importance.

Team-based reconstruction for expanding organisational ability

Organisations can be interpreted as a collection of actors who produce value for clients. In order for organisations to stay competitive there is a need for organisations to continuously develop their ability. An organisations ability is determined by its ability to effectively apply existing knowledge to create new knowledge and to take action that forms the basis for achieving competitive advantage from knowledge-based assets. One means for developing the organisational ability is to establish a mutually accepted understanding of the context in which the actors are acting. One important part of the organisations knowledge creation processes is to facilitate the sharing of personal knowledge. A condition for developing the organisational ability is to expand the amount of shared knowledge to an appropriate level. One type of knowledge that needs to be shared among different actors within the organisation is the knowledge about how and in which order actions are performed (contextual knowledge) in order to satisfy client needs. In this paper an approach for team-based reconstruction, used for moving from personal to shared contextual knowledge, is presented. The approach bears on the foundation of theories about knowledge management for understanding the process of externalisation and theories about language action for understanding organisations. Experiences from three case studies are presented. Team-based reconstruction can be used for (1) moving from personal knowledge to shared contextual knowledge in an efficient way, (2) arriving at a foundation for efficient organisational coordination, (3) arriving at a base for development work, and (4) organisational learning.

Modeling and Analyzing the Carbon Footprint of Business Processes

Many corporations and individuals realize that environmental sustainability is an urgent problem to address. In this chapter, we contribute to the emerging academic discussion by proposing two innovative approaches for engaging in the development of environmentally sustainable business processes. Specifically, we describe an extended process modeling approach for capturing and documenting the dioxide emissions produced during the execution of a business process. For illustration, we apply this approach to the case of a governmental Shared Services provider. Second, we then introduce an analysis method for measuring the carbon dioxide emissions produced during the execution of a business process. To illustrative this approach, we apply it in the real-life case of an European airport and show how this information can be leveraged in the re-design of “green” business processes.

Collaborative Process Modeling: The Intersport Case Study

Business strategies need to be aligned with business process models. In this chapter, experiences from a collaborative process modeling effort performed at Intersport, Sweden, for the purpose of creating a solid base for taking a business into the future will be elaborated. In this effort, the new process design is aligned with strategic goals. By a codesign approach for deriving business process models, diverse stakeholders’ knowledge and interests are captured in the development of tangible descriptions of the future. Business plans are given a meaning, and participating actors become committed to implement business strategies.

Facilitating Learning in SPI through Co-design

Information system development (ISD) is not a stable discipline. On the contrary, ISD must constantly cope with rapidly changing and diversifying technologies, application domains, and organizational contexts [14]. ISD is a complex and a multi dimensional phenomenon [5, 15]. As a consequence of this. Software Process Improvement (SPI) can also be regarded as a complex and multi dimensional phenomenon [16]. Problems that are accentuated in relation to SPI are: SPI is in its current shape a quite young discipline [15], there is a sparse amount of SPI-theories that can guide SPI initiatives [19], SPI-initiatives often focus on the system development (SD)-process, methods and tools which is a narrow focus that leave out important aspects such as business orientation [6], organization and social factors [4, 5] and the learning process [19]. Arguments have therefore been raised that there is a need for both researchers and practitioners to better understand SD-organisations and their practice [5].

Bringing Contextual Dimensions into The improvement of Information System Development Practices

Significant attention has been paid to the improvement of system development practices. There are theories and methods that are to be used for such improvement purposes. The criticism towards these theories and methods is that many of them have a narrow focus on the system development process, methods, and tools. Too little attention is paid to business orientation, organisational aspects and social factors. In this paper we present a framework that goes beyond this narrow focus in order to serve as a support for directing focus during improvement of system development practices. The development of the framework has been driven by experiences derived from four action research projects focusing on the improvement of system development practices. Generated categories from these experiences have been validated theoretically and internally through a multi-grounded theory development process in order to arrive at a practical theory.

Layered patterns for business interaction

Business modelling is needed in order to highlight the essentials of businesses when developing information systems. Patterns of inter-related speech acts are the basis for identifying essentials in Language/Action-oriented approaches for business modelling. Weigand et al. has made an attempt to conceptualise the notion of patterns in a layered architecture founded in such approaches. In this paper we present a framework of generic layered patterns for business interaction inspired by a critical examination of Weigands meta-pattern framework. Our framework of interdependent layers of generic patterns can be used to describe and understand short-termed as well as long-termed business interaction. The five layers of generic patterns are business act as the basic unit of analysis, action pair, exchange, business transaction, and transaction group.

Design Science Research for Punctuation : the Establishment of a Service Ecosystem

Uniform control and coordination of immigrant childrens vaccination is a critical current problem in the Swedish child health safety work. In this paper we discuss the Business Rules (BR) centric and SOA architected digital service VacSam. VacSam incorporates principles of SOA, Business Rules Approach, and Business Process Management. The incorporation is used for deriving VacSam from a part of the Swedish vaccination business process by separating decision logic from process logic. Based on regulatory texts and empirical investigations, VacSam BRs presently provides vaccination diagnosis of and recommendations to immigrant children. By ensuring the basic principles of SOA, VacSam becomes an eligible, SOA executable digital service. VacSam is in development and has hitherto been evaluated in an artificial context, where we show that the service can provide explained diagnosis of and recommendations to immigrant childrens vaccinations totally based on natural language BRs.Design Science Research (DSR) is concerned with demonstrating design principles. In order to prove the utility of these principles, design ideas are materialized into artifacts and put into an environment sufficient to host the testing of these principles. When DSR is used in combination with action research, constraints in the environment may restrain researchers to fully inscribe or test such principles. In this paper it is argued that scholars pursuing DSR has paid insufficient attention to the type of change necessary in the local practice. We draw upon theories on IS change as punctuated equilibrium to illustrate when DSR demonstrators can be used to make substantial contributions to local practice as well as to the scientific body of knowledge.