Will Venters

A Critical Review of Cloud Computing: Researching Desires and Realities

Cloud computing has become central to current discussions about corporate information technology. To assess the impact that cloud may have on enterprises, it is important to evaluate the claims made in the existing literature and critically review these claims against empirical evidence from the field. To this end, this paper provides a framework within which to locate existing and future research on cloud computing. This framework is structured around a series of technological and service ‘desires’, that is, characteristics of cloud that are important for cloud users. The existing literature on cloud computing is located within this framework and is supplemented with empirical evidence from interviews with cloud providers and cloud users that were undertaken between 2010 and 2012. The paper identifies a range of research questions that arise from the analysis.

Reflexive Evaluation of an Academic–Industry Research Collaboration: Can Mode 2 Management Research Be Achieved?

We present a reflexive retrospective account of a UK government research council funded project deploying knowledge management software to support environmental sustainability in the construction industry. This project was set up in a form typical of a Mode 2 research programme involving several academic institutions and industrial partners, and aspiring to fulfil the Mode 2 criteria seen as transdisciplinarity and business relevance. The multidisciplinary nature is analysed through retrospectively reflecting upon the research process and activities we carried out, and is found to be problematic. No real consensus was reached between the partners on the ‘context of application’. Difficulties between industry and academia, within industry and within academia led to diverging agendas and different alignments for participants. The context of application does not (pre-)exist independently of institutional influences, and in itself cannot drive transdisciplinarity since it is subject to competing claims and negotiations. There were unresolved tensions in terms of private vs. public construction companies and their expectations of ICT-based knowledge management, and in terms of the sustainable construction agenda. This post hoc reflexive account, enables us to critique our own roles in having developed a managerial technology for technically sophisticated and powerful private industrial actors to the detriment of public sector construction partners, having bypassed sustainability issues, and not reached transdisciplinarity. We argue that this is due to institutional pressures and instrumentalization from academia, industry and government and a restricted notion of business relevance. There exists a politically motivated tendency to oppose Mode 1 academic research to practitioner-oriented Mode 2 approaches to management research. We argue that valuing the links between co-existing Mode 1 and 2 research activities would support a more genuine and fuller exploration of the context of application.

Collective agility, paradox and organizational improvisation: the development of a particle physics grid

This paper examines systems development in a global collaborative community of high‐energy physics and offers insights and implications for agile systems development in other large scale and distributed settings. The paper studies the ongoing construction of the UKs computing grid for particle physics (GridPP), a grid that is itself part of the worlds largest grid, the Large Hadron Collider Computing Grid. We observe in this project a collective, agile and distributed performance through which the Grid is constructed. We express this through the concept of ‘collective agility’ which captures a large distributed performance rather than the more conventional sense of agility as small‐group and deliberate systems development practices. The collective agility of GridPP is analysed as a process of ‘enacted emergence’ expressed through the dynamics of six improvisation paradoxes.

Degenerative structures that inhibit the emergence of communities of practice: a case study of knowledge management in the British Council

Abstract.  This paper presents the British Council’s knowledge management strategy. It outlines how, as part of this strategy, the organization attempted to engender communities of practice among a strategically significant group spread across the 110 countries in which the organization operates. Using a case study of this group, the paper explores ‘degenerative structures’ that impact on the ability to engender communities of practice and, through consideration of issues of individualization and risk, highlights a series of paradoxes that inhibited this organization’s attempt to move from a ‘hub‐and‐spoke’ structure to become a networked organization in which communities of practice flourish.

A trichordal temporal approach to digital coordination: the sociomaterial mangling of the CERN grid

This paper develops a sociomaterial perspective on digital coordination. It extends Pickerings mangle of practice by using a trichordal approach to temporal emergence. We provide new understanding as to how the nonhuman and human agencies involved in coordination are embedded in the past, present, and future. We draw on an in-depth field study conducted between 2006 and 2010 of the development, introduction, and use of a computing grid infrastructure by the CERN particle physics community. Three coordination tensions are identified at different temporal dimensions, namelyobtaining adequate transparency in the present, modeling a future infrastructure, and the historical disciplining of social and material inertias. We propose and develop the concept of digital coordination, and contribute a trichordal temporal approach to understanding the development and use of digital infrastructure as being orientated to the past and future while emerging in the present.

Cloud sourcing and innovation: slow train coming? A composite research study

Purpose – Although cloud computing has been heralded as driving the innovation agenda, there is growing evidence that cloud computing is actually a “slow train coming”. The purpose of this paper is to seek to understand the factors that drive and inhibit the adoption of cloud computing, particularly in relation to its use for innovative practices. Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws on a composite research base including two detailed surveys and interviews with 56 participants in the cloud supply chain undertaken between 2010 and 2013. The insights from this data are presented in relation to set of antecedents to innovation and a cloud sourcing model of collaborative innovation. Findings – The paper finds that while some features of cloud computing will hasten the adoption of cloud, and its use for innovative purposes by the enterprise, there are also clear challenges that need to be addressed before cloud can be adopted successfully. Interestingly, the analysis highlights that many of these challenges arise from the technological nature of cloud computing itself. Research limitations/implications – The research highlights a series of factors that need to be better understood for the maximum benefit from cloud computing to be achieved. Further research is needed to assess the best responses to these challenges. Practical implications – The research suggests that enterprises need to undertake a number of steps for the full benefits of cloud computing to be achieved. It suggests that collaborative innovation is not necessarily an immediate consequence of adopting cloud computing. Originality/value – The paper draws on an extensive research base to provide empirically informed analysis of the complexities of adopting cloud computing for innovation.

Knowledge Management Technology-in-Practice: A Social Constructionist Analysis of the Introduction and Use of Knowledge Management Systems

This paper argues that Knowledge Management Technology (KMT) is socially constructed in use based on the affordances and constraints of the technology artefact. Since many Knowledge Management (KM) systems are introduced with vague purposes (such as to improve knowledge sharing) it is therefore their affordances and constraints which strongly shape the socially constructed ‘KMT-in-practice’. The paper argues that knowledge is also socially constructed and that knowledge creation requires an element of surprise and challenge to routine. Using a case study of the British Councils KM programme between 1998 and 2003, the paper explores the social construction of a KMT as it is developed and used; describing how various features afforded by the technology influence its adoption and institutionalisation. The paper concludes by arguing that KMTs-in-practice, which are successful in supporting knowledge creation, must paradoxically remain in a state of neither stabilisation and acceptance, nor abandonment and disuse. Practical implications of how this might be achieved are provided.

To codify or collaborate – Introduction to the special issue on Knowledge Management and e-Research Technologies

Knowledge Management Research & Practice (2009) 7, 192–195. doi:10.1057/kmrp.2009.20 This special issue on Knowledge Management and e-Research Technologies aims to provide a distinctive perspective on the role of technology in knowledge work. We begin with the assumption that today’s knowledge work and research practice is increasingly mediated by a diversity of tools which may not traditionally be labelled as knowledge management technologies (Hendriks, 2001; Butler, 2002), but which are embedded within knowledge work practices. Although many have criticised the idea of formal knowledge management technology (Swan et al., 1999; Galliers & Newell, 2001; Hislop, 2002), it is highly apparent that contemporary knowledge work is facilitated using information and communications technologies (ICTs) of various types from the ‘macro’ knowledge management systems that have been heavily criticised to the more ‘micro’ emerging technologies that we may not traditionally associate with the term knowledge management technology. This special issue, therefore, returns to the debate on the role of technology within knowledge creation, dissemination and use, but explores this with a specific focus on the how new, flexible ICTs are emerging, which blur the boundary between technology and social knowledge practices. Within knowledge management theory, it is possible to observe two broad and enduring perspectives towards technology (elaborated persuasively and famously by Hansen et al. (1999) but also by Alavi & Leidner (2001); Schultze & Stabell (2004)) between those who seek to catalogue and capture knowledge within computer systems, believing knowledge as capable of objective representation and is therefore capable of codification (Schultze, 1998), and those who believe knowledge to be inherently tacit and social, and who argue technology’s role is to support collaboration (Schultze, 1998). Both perspectives seem much evident in literature on Knowledge Management Systems, which frequently adopts a view of ‘knowledge management’ through the management of either catalogued, codified, data or of collaborative, social relationships. These two perspectives of codification or collaboration have, however, created, in our opinion, an unhelpful dichotomy and instrumentalisation of ‘knowledge management technology’ (Mitev & Venters, 2009) leading to polarised literature of either codification technology or collaborative systems. This special issue thus seeks to present articles that will stimulate the debate on the interrelationship and connection between technology aiming to codify knowledge and that aimed at collaboration. Our argument is founded on the observation that human action is mediated by tools, in a myriad of forms, which have a materiality to us and form part of our ongoing practice (Orlikowski, 2007; Orlikowski & Scott, 2008). That knowledge is socially constructed through social interaction is Knowledge Management Research & Practice (2009) 7, 192–195 & 2009 Operational Research Society. All rights reserved 1477–8238/09

The Use of Technology within Knowledge Management: A Review

This paper reviews how technological artefacts are employed within Knowledge Management interventions. The paper first describes the nature of technology within Knowledge Management practice. It then draws upon a categorisation of knowledge management as either functionalist or interpretivist to consider the use of technology either encoding knowledge objects, or in supporting personalisation and the emergence of communities of practice. Finally the paper draws upon phenomenological writings, in particular the work of Martin Heidegger, in order to consider the way in which individuals engage with technology and how this impacts upon the desire of knowledge management technology. Finally the paper concludes by calling up future research to consider the situated design of technology for Knowledge Management.

Cloud Sourcing: Implications for Managing the IT Function

Our research points to the considerable promise of Cloud [1], and the even bigger opportunity waiting to be grasped.However, this is all before us in a future still undetermined, despite confident predictions of very large revenues and business benefits from cloud technologies within 2-3 years. If ‘the mark of a successful technology is that it vanishes,’ [2] then cloud computing has a long way to go. Not only has it been the most visible technology by far in the last three years, but this looks likely to continue for the next three. Leaders in industry and governments worldwide find themselves on the cusp of potential major deployment of these technologies but find themselves at a key Stop, Think, Act moment. In the face of business demands, technological developments and the maturing of external services, CIOs, in particular, need to be thinking about, and revisiting, what their technology organizations need to look like three to five years out. Managing cloud deployment on a project-to-project or six months-to six months basis, is not going to achieve technological integration, optimize cloud deployment, or deliver on the agenda businesses are setting for cloud. CIOs will be looking at their strategy, capabilities, operating model and ability to execute, how cloud fits with their existing technologies and organization, and its implications for this industry, and this business – because there is no single cloud, and it is going to be different for every organization. Ultimately it is management that will make the difference. And for management, there is a (very large) sting in the tail. In the face of the forthcoming data explosion, the problems organizations have always had with optimizing their use of information are just about to get much, much, more difficult. This brings to the fore the need for organizations, and their technology functions, to resist the old compulsion to merely straightjacket the data explosion with superior technology, and instead rethink themselves as digital businesses, and address the importance of business analytics for guiding strategic action and operations [3]. This forward vision will seems ambitious. But it actually represents a convergence whose emerging shape we have been tracking through a range of research studies stretching back to commercial development of the internet from the mid 1990s [4]. How can this world can be managed into existence? What retained capabilities will be needed to run the technology function? What specific management capability challenges and worry-points are coming to the fore with cloud deployment? How can the technology function, and business readiness, be evolved to leverage cloud, the technology platform and applications for business advantage? These are the questions our research in this paper sets out to answer.