Riitta Hekkala

Design Science at the Intersection of Physical and Virtual Design

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Design Science Research in Information Systems and Technology, DESRIST 2013, held in Helsinki, Finland, in June 2013. The 24 full papers, 8 research-in-progress papers, 12 short papers, and 8 poster abstracts were carefully reviewed and selected from 93 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on system integration and design; meta issues; business process management and ERP; theory development; emerging themes; green IS and service management; method engineering; papers describing products and prototypes; and work-in-progress papers.

Everyday power struggles: living in an IOIS project

The broad aim of this interpretive study was to investigate the lived experiences of inter-organisational information system (IOIS) project members who worked in a 3-year-long IOIS project. The study presents an original longitudinal study of project member experiences. In this paper, we have described and analysed one core category, project power, which was derived from a grounded theory (GT) study. This study extends existing theories about power in organisational contexts, in particular the everyday use of power in projects. The paper shows how GT can be used to gain significant insights into a case study, and also generate new concepts. This paper gives detailed insights into the power issues as they played out in a complex IOIS project. This IOIS project spanned four user organisations, two suppliers, one national organisation, a research organisation and a government Ministry. One key finding is that, given the complexity of the project management structures in an IOIS project such as this, project members often resorted to formal authority as a means of getting things done, in the absence of informal links between organisations. The project history also had major ramifications on the use of power in this project.

Emotions in Leadership in an IOIS Project

This interpretive grounded theory (GT) study describes and analyzes emotions in leadership in a Nordic inter-organizational information system (IOIS) project which spanned four user organizations, two suppliers, one national organization, a research organization and a Ministry. This study shows how GT can be used to gain significant insights into a case study, and generate new concepts. We identified Certainty, Significance, Connection and Contribution as important selective codes that make up the Emotions category. The paper focuses on leadership issues in the emotion category. The paper concludes by discussing how some of leadership issues could be attributed to emotions issues and considers some theoretical and practical implications.

Exploring IT Outsourcing Governance with Vendor's Interpersonal Networks: A Case Study

The governance of IT outsourcing (ITO) has been identified as an essential determinant for ITO success. Prior studies have shed light on effective governance forms in different organizational contexts, but few have studied the association between governance forms and interpersonal networks. With a single case study from a vendor’s perspective in an ITO dyad, this research strives to explore and empirically understand how interpersonal networks reflect and influence ITO governance. Social Network Analysis (SNA) was conducted for whole-network analysis on 24 team members in an ITO vendor company. In addition, open-ended interviews with six selected team members were utilized to identify the governance form from the vendor’s perspective. The findings suggest that the similarity between formal and informal interpersonal networks reflects a hierarchical form of governance; and the hierarchy governance is in turn reinforced by the geographically dispersed nature of team members.

Too Many Cooks Spoiling a Soup? Making Sense of a Distributed, Multi-party IS Project

Abstract This paper analyzes collaboration in a distributed, multiparty information system (IS) development and implementation project. Existing research on collaboration in IS projects, and particularly in distributed, multiparty IS projects, is reviewed. In addition, collaboration is empirically analyzed by utilizing a phenomenographic approach. Empirical analysis shows that collaboration as a theme emerged strongly. Different organizations viewed the project and collaboration in the project in divergent ways, but there were also varied and contradictory views within the organizations. Implications both for research and practice are discussed.

Metaphors in managerial and employee sensemaking in an information systems project

This longitudinal study looks at the metaphors used in a public sector information systems development project from the perspective of cognitive metaphor theory (Lakoff & Johnson, ). We examine the use of metaphors by project team members, including representatives of the users, software developers and the managers guiding the project work. The findings indicate that project team members and managers use a rich set of metaphors to make sense of the project and the records management system they are working on. Notably, distinct sets of metaphors are used in different project phases and among the project personnel and management. As the differences in the metaphors also coincide with key events in the trajectory of the project, we contend that metaphors have significant power in sensemaking, influencing action and project outcomes. In particular, we find that in highly ambiguous, knowledge‐intensive situations, metaphor use with unclear intentions and purpose hinders learning and creates more chaos than order. From a practical perspective, our study highlights the relevance of metaphor use for project management. We suggest that intentional selection of metaphors by management could be beneficial for many complex information systems projects.

Challenges in Transitioning to an Agile Way of Working

This longitudinal study examined how an information systems development team transitioned to an agile way of working. We describe the main events of a large, inter-organizational project, where agile methods and practices were applied for the first time. The organizations involved had a long tradition in heavy, waterfall style projects, and many of those past projects had severe challenges. We examine how the agile way of working was understood by particular groups (project team, management and suppliers), as well as how these understandings changed over time. The lack of experience with agile development, no common view on ‘agility’ and its key principles and practices were obvious challenges for the transition. Our study suggests that complex agile projects need to have very clear goals and management has to be able to communicate these, while preserving the autonomy of teams and individual team members.

Power and Status Theory as a Lens to View Knowledge Sharing and Knowledge Building Issues in an IOIS Project

This qualitative study used power and status theory as a lens to view and analyze knowledge sharing and knowledge building issues in an Inter-Organizational Information Systems (IOIS) project to further the understanding of how the experience of power and status affect perceptions concerning knowledge sharing and knowledge building. The case was a three-year-long IOIS project spanning nine organizations altogether. The data were collected by interviews, observations of project meetings, diaries, project memoranda and emails sent by project members to each other during these years. We demonstrate how power and status colors experiences about the knowledge sharing and knowledge building work in an IOIS project. The paper concludes by discussing theoretical and practical implications of our findings.

Dynamic Activities for Managing an IS-Enabled Organizational Change

The interpretive grounded theory (GT) study analyses information system (IS) enabled organizational change in two private sector organizations. These two organizations, who are long term partners, were developing a new IS product to divergent markets. The data was gathered through 15 interviews, conducted at the phase of initial rollouts. The findings focus on the results of the theoretical coding phase in which selective codes, referred to as change management activities, are related to each other. As a theoretical contribution, the dynamic structure presents how the change management activities appear differently, depending on a set of choices. Several paradoxical situations stemmed from inconsistencies and/or tensions, because the choices did not support the targeted change management activities. The study thus proposes that there is an increasing demand to analyze the sources of paradoxical situations. Paradoxical situations in these five opposing forces were identified: long term vs. short term, macro vs. micro, past vs. future, centralized vs. distributed, and control vs. trust/self-organization. Some paradoxical situations arose because of the nature of the trust-based IS partnership, while others were socially constructed as a result of unintended consequences of actions in relation to the strategic goals. Managerial efforts are increasingly required for identifying paradoxical situations at an early stage and for considering the right balance for the opposing forces in the dynamic IS change process.

No Gain without Pain: Feelings an Emotional Practices in an Information System Project

This paper discusses an interpretive case study on feelings and emotions in an information systems (IS) project focusing on the subsequent emotional practices adopted by the IS project members. We analyzed the data from interviews with fourteen IS project members. The analysis revealed the connection between specific feelings (dissatisfaction, fear, irritation, blame, frustration, feeling of failure) and specific emotional practices in an IS project (using power, criticizing, airing the frustration, seeking support, adjusting situation/ adapting to unwanted situation, using black humor or sarcasm, gossiping, practicing avoidance or withdrawal). We discovered that vastly different emotional practices can relate to the same basic feeling experienced by IS project members, illuminating the humble origins of the destructive emotional practice that affects negatively the outcome of an IS project. Our study extends the current understanding of the role of feelings, and how feelings relate to emotional practices in an IS project.