Natalia Levina

Global Multisourcing Strategy: The Emergence of a Supplier Portfolio in Services Offshoring

In todays global services outsourcing arena, increasing numbers of companies adopt “multisourcing,” that is, they select and combine information technology (IT) and business services from multiple providers. The literature on IT outsourcing and supply chain management has identified critical tradeoffs involved in increasing the number of suppliers and has strongly recommended focusing on a handful of strategic partners to balance these tradeoffs. Committing to a few strategic partners, however, may prevent a firm from discovering new suppliers, or even supply regions. Such missed opportunities may be particularly limiting in the context of offshoring professional services, which has exhibited rapid changes in supplier markets in the last decade. Thus, firms may want to engage in a more intensive multisourcing in services. If they do so, their success will depend on a global sourcing process that effectively addresses the critical tradeoffs involved. To explore how a global sourcing process can support multisourcing, we conducted a qualitative longitudinal case study of a large financial services institution that developed a varied global supply base to obtain offshore professional services. Our analysis results in a theory that emphasizes (i) advantages of a multiple provider strategy in rapidly changing global supply markets; (ii) the critical role of middle managers in enabling continuous innovation in the supplier structure; and (iii) the importance of the global sourcing process combining top–down and bottom–up decision making in multisourcing.

Software-as-a-Service Model: Elaborating Client-Side Adoption Factors

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is emerging as a viable outsourcing option for clients interested in paying for the right to access a standardized set of business software functions through the network. SaaS model largely replaced the Application Service Providers (ASPs) model, by creating an architecture that provides no mechanisms for customizing the software on the vendor side; all customization is done on the client side through standardized interfaces. The fact that vendors are not making any client-specific investments makes this outsourcing model quite intriguing. In this paper we investigate clients side determinants the SaaS model adoption. We draw on economic, strategic management, and Information Systems theories to develop a theoretical framework. By integrating diverse literature streams, we are able to develop a more elaborate view of uncertainty arguing that some types uncertainty increase the propensity to adopt SaaS, while other types do not. Finally, we argue that the maturity of the clients internal enterprise IT architecture plays an important role in SaaS adoption decisions.

Understanding Shifting Power Relations within and across Organizations: A Critical Genre Analysis

Drawing on an in-depth qualitative study of a consulting project, we examine how conditions of novelty and ambiguity on interorganizational engagements produce inconsistent norms and expectations for guiding project interaction. Clients and consultants attempt to resolve the resulting discursive tensions while also increasing their organizations influence on the project. As diverse institutional contexts offer multiple legitimate ways of practicing, agents draw on such alternatives to renegotiate power relations. We develop a theoretical framework and empirical approach for understanding how discursive resources from diverse institutional contexts can be used to transform power relations within and between organizations.

Context Knowledge Representation and Reasoning in the Context Interchange System

The Context Interchange Project presents a unique approach to the problem of semantic conflict resolution among multiple heterogeneous data sources. The system presents a semantically meaningful view of the data to the receivers (e.g. user applications) for all the available data sources. The semantic conflicts are automatically detected and reconciled by a Context Mediator using the context knowledge associated with both the data sources and the data receivers. The results are collated and presented in the receiver context. The current implementation of the system provides access to flat files, classical relational databases, on-line databases, and web services. An example application, using actual financial information sources, is described along with a detailed description of the operation of the system for an example query.

Multiple Faces of Codification: Organizational Redesign in an IT Organization

This paper details a longitudinal interpretative field study of an information technology (IT) organization in which a new chief information officer (CIO) implemented a major organizational redesign. The redesign increased the degree of codification in activities of the IT organization so as to control, coordinate, and deliver services more cost effectively to its business clients. We examine different stakeholders views of the change, the implementation processes, and the consequences of the redesign. The case analysis emphasizes specific challenges that designers of support organizations face when increasing the degree of codification. Key implications include the need for these designers to (1) pay as much, if not more, attention to the local organizational context as they do to the external environmental conditions; (2) communicate and negotiate constantly with various stakeholders concerning the appropriate degree of codification and control; (3) be wary of how a strict alignment of all design elements can blind the designer to important, unrecognized issues; and (4) consider that increased codification may help support organizations compete more efficiently with external vendors, but may also ease the process of outsourcing.

Grounded theory method in information systems research: its nature, diversity and opportunities

This article introduces this special issue by exploring the nature and diversity of the Grounded Theory Method (GTM) and the opportunities associated with its use in Information Systems (IS) research. As guest editors for this special issue and as practicing grounded theorists, we feel that the nature of GTM is often misunderstood and its label abused in different ways. Therefore, in this editorial article, we attempt to clarify what we see as the essential characteristics of GTM. We also present some issues that are commonly discussed among grounded theorists, but which are less well known publicly. We argue that GTM can be a powerful tool for IS scholars interested in theory development, allowing researchers to conduct pioneering research with both flexibility and rigour. This argument is illustrated by the seven papers that we have selected for this special issue. These papers represent the wide variety of ways in which GTM can be used in our field. Further, they show how, through innovative uses of GTM, IS researchers can address some long-standing research challenges.

Global Multisourcing Strategy: Integrating Learning From Manufacturing Into IT Service Outsourcing

“Multisourcing” has emerged as an important strategy for global information technology (IT) service outsourcing in todays turbulent business environment. The existing literature on IT service provides only limited insights into this phenomenon. However, in the manufacturing domain, a similar concept, supply base management, has been extensively studied. In this paper, we integrate related research in IT service and manufacturing to explore how firms can successfully pursue global multisourcing strategy in IT service. Specifically, we first conceptualize a firms multisourcing supply base along the dimensions of breadth and depth and theorize about the impact of these two dimensions on outsourcing outcomes. Second, based on this framework, we analyze four configurations of multisourcing supply base. Finally, we conduct case studies of two global financial services firms to illustrate the configurations and identify patterns of evolution of global multisourcing strategy in customized information systems development.

What Grounded Theory Is…A Critically Reflective Conversation Among Scholars:

Grounded theory (GT) is taught in many doctoral schools across the world and exemplified in most methodological books and publications in top-tier journals as a qualitative research method. This limited view of GT does not allow full use of possible resources and restrains researchers’ creativity and capabilities. Thus, it blocks some innovative possibilities and the emergence of valuable theories, which are badly needed. Therefore, understanding the full reach and scope of GT is becoming urgent, and we brought together a panel of established grounded theory scholars to help us in this endeavor through a reflective conversation.

Role of a Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinase Cascade in Ion Flux-Mediated Turgor Regulation in Fungi

ABSTRACT Fungi normally maintain a high internal hydrostatic pressure (turgor) of about 500 kPa. In response to hyperosmotic shock, there are immediate electrical changes: a transient depolarization (1 to 2 min) followed by a sustained hyperpolarization (5 to 10 min) prior to turgor recovery (10 to 60 min). Using ion-selective vibrating probes, we established that the transient depolarization is due to Ca2+ influx and the sustained hyperpolarization is due to H+ efflux by activation of the plasma membrane H+-ATPase. Protein synthesis is not required for H+-ATPase activation. Net K+ and Cl− uptake occurs at the same time as turgor recovery. The magnitude of the ion uptake is more than sufficient to account for the osmotic gradients required for turgor to return to its original level. Two osmotic mutants, os-1 and os-2, homologs of a two-component histidine kinase sensor and the yeast high osmotic glycerol mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase, respectively, have lower turgor than the wild type and do not exhibit the sustained hyperpolarization after hyperosmotic treatment. The os-1 mutant does not exhibit all of the wild-type turgor-adaptive ion fluxes (Cl− uptake increases, but net K+ flux barely changes and net H+ efflux declines) (os-2 was not examined). Both os mutants are able to regulate turgor but at a lower level than the wild type. Our results demonstrate that a MAP kinase cascade regulates ion transport, activation of the H+-ATPase, and net K+ and Cl− uptake during turgor regulation. Other pathways regulating turgor must also exist.

Distinction and Status Production on User-Generated Content Platforms: Using Bourdieu's Theory of Cultural Production to Understand Social Dynamics in Online Fields

In this paper, we propose an analytical lens for studying social status production processes across a wide variety of user-generated content UGC platforms. Various streams of research, including those focused on social network analysis in social media, online communities, reputation systems, blogs, and multiplayer games, have discussed social status production online in ways that are diverse and incompatible. Drawing on Bourdieus theory of fields of cultural production, we introduce the notion of an online field and associated sociological concepts to help explain how diverse types of producers and consumers of content jointly generate unique power relations online. We elaborate on what role external resources and status markers may play in shaping social dynamics in online fields. Using this unifying theory we are able to integrate previous research findings and propose an explanation of social processes behind both the similarity across UGC platforms, which all offer multiple ways of pursuing distinction through content production, as well as the differences across such platforms in terms of which distinctions matter. We elaborate what role platform design choices play in shaping which forms of distinction count and how they are pursued as well as implications these have for status gaining strategies. We conclude the paper by suggesting how our theory can be used in future qualitative and quantitative research studies.