Sundeep Sahay

GIS for district-level administration in India: problems and opportunities

This paper describes a research study, carried out over the period 1993-95, of the efforts made in India to develop and use geographical information systems (GIS) to aid district-level administration. We give a detailed description of our research approach, drawing from contextualism as a broad research methodology and using actor-network theory for analytical purposes. The main section of the paper provides an in-depth analysis of a major GIS initiative from a particular Indian government ministry. We conclude that the creation and maintenance of a relatively stable set of key actors with aligned interests related to the GIS technology had not been achieved in any of the districts studied by the end of the research period. Our analysis leads to implications for future action that go beyond traditional prescriptions, such as improved participation or better training, toward the need for higher level-interventions in such areas as educational processes and administrative structures. We then turn to criteria for judging the merits of an intensive research study and illustrate to what extent this study satisfies the criteria. Finally, we draw conclusions on the contribution of this paper to the promotion of intensive research and to the opening up of new fields of IS research.

Managing cross-cultural issues in global software outsourcing

Exploring research-derived best practices for effective management of global software teams.

Networks of action: sustainable health information systems across developing countries

Our paper is motivated by one simple question: Why do so many action research efforts fail to persist over time? We approach this question, the problem of sustainability, building on a perspective on action research identifying the pivotal importance of networks. More precisely, local action research interventions need to be conceptualized and approached as but one element in a larger network of action in order to ensure sustainability. A vital aspect of our perspective is that local interventions depend heavily on the support of similar action research efforts in other locations. This is essential for the necessary processes of learning and experience sharing. We suggest that the scaling (i.e., spreading) of intervention is a prerequisite, not a luxury, for sustainable action research. Empirically, we base our analysis on an ongoing, large-scale action research project within the health care sector (called HISP) in a number of developing countries. HISP provides a fruitful occasion to investigate key criteria for our approach to action research, namely sustainability, scalability, and capacity to be politically relevant to the participants. We contribute to three discourses: (1) models of action research, (2) lessons for health information systems in developing countries, and (3) more generally, IS implementations that are dispersed, large-scale, and have scarce resources.

Research on information systems in developing countries: current landscape and future prospects

The current landscape of the information systems research literature concerned with developing countries is surveyed by examining a range of research articles published from 2000 onward. These are discussed in terms of the key challenges addressed, including the role of technology, and the methodological and theoretical approaches used. Prospects for future research are discussed, based on a conceptual view as to how to study information and communication technologies (ICTs) in developing countries, to classify existing work, identify gaps, and suggest future opportunities. The authors contribute to the important debate on how ICTs in general, and information systems research in particular, can make a positive difference in the developing countries.

Some political and cultural issues in the globalisation of software development: case experience from Britain and India

Abstract Global outsourcing of software development is a phenomenon that is receiving considerable interest from North American and European companies currently under pressure to meet their growing manpower resource shortages and find new ways to cut costs. However, these outsourcing arrangements are technologically and organisationally complex, and present a variety of challenges to manage effectively. In this paper we discuss results from an ongoing longitudinal study of a British firms attempts to develop and manage global software outsourcing arrangements with an Indian software company. More specifically, we focus on understanding management challenges along three key dimensions of culture, organisational politics and the process of distributed development across time and space. The process of globalisation provides the context within which these management challenges can be investigated.

Implications of space and time for distributed work: an interpretive study of US-Norwegian systems development teams

In this paper, utilizing the often taken-for-granted notions of space and time, we develop an understanding of how collaboration is possible among virtual team-members spread across the globe. We do so by interpretively examining the actual experiences and work practices of virtual team-members located in the US & Norway, engaged in information systems development (ISD) projects. We identify a number of collaboration inhibitors, along with strategies used by team-members to address the challenges posed by the mismatch in time zones and the lack of physical proximity.

Transforming Work Through Information Technology: A Comparative Case Study of Geographic Information Systems in County Government

A comparative case study was designed to assess the consequences of implementing a particular geographic information system (GIS) in two neighboring county government organizations. Respondents reported radically different experiences with, and consequences of, the GIS technology. In North County, participants considered GIS to be responsible for transforming the way that work was accomplished and for changing patterns of communication among departments. In South County, the same GIS technology was implemented with little social consequence. These divergent outcomes are associated with differences in four specific processes related to the implementation of the GIS in the two organizations: initiation, transition, deployment, and spread of knowledge. In North County, implementation was initiated by an influential group of users (geographers) who positioned the technology as a shared resource that built upon existing competencies. A distributed configuration was deployed in North County, and conceptual know...

Foreword: special issue on information systems in developing countries

The developing countries account for the majority of the world’s population, and are important for this reason alone. In addition, developing countries contain millions of people who lack access to resources such as clean water, adequate housing, and education for satisfying basic human needs. Moreover, many people in developing countries lack the freedom to make choices in their own lives (Sen 1999). These conditions present a moral issue with which we should all be concerned. A further reason to take seriously the “majority world,” from a business and policy perspective, is that the world is becoming increasingly interconnected in economic, social, and cultural terms. Whatever view one takes of trends toward globalization, global business, or global outsourcing, there is agreement that these present important issues and problems, even if one lives in the richer countries. There was at one time some debate as to whether information and communication technologies (ICTs) were relevant to the developing countries, but this debate has been resolved with a clear “yes” answer. The question has now become not whether, but how ICTs can benefit development. ICTs have high potential value across both public and private enterprises; and at multiple levels, for example from software businesses in urban areas to health delivery in rural villages. The application of ICTs to development goals has not always succeeded to date, and indeed there are many examples of partial or complete failure (e.g., Avgerou and Walsham 2000). One particular issue concerns the need to bridge the so-called “digital divide” between those people with the ability to access and use technologies effectively, and those without. The challenge remains to tackle such difficulties and to resolve them.

Embedded knowledge and offshore software development

Abstract Offshore software development scenarios may include groups with domain specific knowledge who collaborate internationally across multiple local contexts. A key challenge in the understanding and also practice of such distributed work is concerned with the issue of knowledge, and how it can be effectively managed. In this paper, we develop a conceptual scheme based on theories associated with embedded knowledge. Drawing on evidence from a longitudinal case study of a British software company with an offshore subsidiary in India, we discuss problems associated with the embeddedness of knowledge in two geographically separated units of a firm.

Social Structure and Managerial Agency in India

In this paper, we argue the need to understand the relationship between mana gerial agency and social structure within a broad societal context. Managers are members of different social systems arising from both work and non-work related activities. These systems have various sets of rules and resources embedded within them which managers draw upon to create agency, which in turn can either reinforce or change social structure. Drawing upon sociological approaches to the study of human agency, we propose a framework to describe possible influences that social structure has on the shaping of managerial atti tudes in India. We then use this framework to provide the lens through which a specific Indian-government-initiated, information-technology project is ana lyzed. We see the approach that has been illustrated in this paper to have implications for management studies in three areas: the management of cross- cultural projects; management practice in India; and future research on man agement in organizations.