Information Systems Reseach at RuG:

rigour, relevance, or both?

Prof. Hans Wortmann Dept. Business and Economics, RuGJune 29th, 2007

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The menu

• Preliminary: The dominant topic is change • What is the field of Information Systems

What is the relationship with Business Studies?

What is the relationship with Economics?

Some notes about rigour and relevance• What about IS research at RuG?• Where are we going?

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Change

• Organizational theory neglects IS change as part of organizational design

• Is this bad?• Yes, because the source of new organizational reality is

neglected

• Software engineering neglects organizational change as part of the problem definition

• Is this bad?• Yes, because legacy is part of the design problem – also

organizational legacy

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ICT versus IS

ICT can be used to improve an organization’s: • Products and services (e.g. e-business), • Processes (national census, banking, energy)• Resources (tele-service), • Operations (factory automation)

However, ICT is embedded in other academic disciplines:• marketing, BPR, operations management, maintenance

ICT can also be used to improve information systems

Themes such as strategic alignment, organizational change cover all these fields

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Strategic alignment of Business and ICT: covers all areas of the businessacademic work is in strategy

IS OMHRMBPRMRO

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Change management of ICT in organizations: covers all areas of the business

IS OMHRMBPRMRO

academic work is in change management

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The field of Information SystemsTwo alternatives:

IS defined as a work system, producing information• In other words, a subsystem of organizations• The academic field of IS becomes specialization of

the field of business, e.g.:• Organization of IS, Accounting of IS, Quality

management of IS,Outsourcing of IS, etc.

IS defined as an artifact, facilitating information flow• In other words, an aspect system of organizations• The academic field of IS becomes a specialization of

engineering, e.g.:• Design of IS, Architecture of IS, Integration of IS,

Modeling of IS

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About Rigour and Relevance

• Differs completely between:

Economics

Engineering

Business

Humanities• Therefore, academic IS research should be:

Tolerant

Allow the individual research actor to specify criteria

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What is Business & ICT at RuG

• Human and organizational issues in ICT deployment triggered by change

• ICT-economics: decision making on change

• Enterprise models, simulation and architectures of enterprise information systems

EIS are to bedeveloped by model-driven approaches, including change

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Organization(s)

ICT-application(s)

Business performance

Understand (dynamic) interaction between organizations and ICT-applications. Directed to contribute to improved business performance

Human&organizational issues – Research objective:

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Focus and concepts Organization(s) Service organizations, information

intensive

Processes, strategies, behaviour and people

ICT-applications as a socio-technical system

mainly applications that support operational processes within and between organizations, e.g. enterprise information systems and extra organizational information systems.

Business performance whether and how ICT-apps contribute to business

performance. What is business performance? Relation with strategies

Interaction of ICT application with organization

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Research objective has theoretical and practical relevance and builds on current work within our group.

Theoretical relevance: alignment, interaction theory, interpretive approaches, system development approaches,

Practical relevance: need to use ICTs as effective as possible. Search for alignment, adaptation to changing circumstances. Many human and organizational problems around use of ICTs.

Current work: organization centered IS development, research in effectiveness of ICTs in business processes, research in the mutual adjustment of organization and ICT.

Theoretical and practical relevance

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IT Economics

Research is focused on the economics of information technologies. Our research aims at understanding and analyzing the dynamics and the processes of development, distribution and implementation of information and communications technologies and improving their efficiency and effectiveness.

Projects and main venues of research• Cost/benefit management of IT (Powell).• Decision-support methods for implementation decisions within

organizations (Sassenburg).• Evaluation of legacy systems (Commandeur & Orie).• ‘Open’ vs. ‘proprietary’ software modes of development (Harison).• Management of IT operations (Schuurman).

Sponsors• UWV• Getronics PinkRoccade

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Enterprise models, simulation, architecture of enterprise information systems

Modelling objects which play an important role in enterprises, or in organizational networks, such as:

• Goals, processes, activities, contracts, products, …• Resources: competencies and capacities (humans,

agents)• Temporal behaviourFor various purposes, e.g.:• Understanding of systems for their design in e.g.

logistics (by simulation or gaming)• For theoretical models in business and management• For decision support in e.g. planning situations• For developing enterprise information systems• For inter-organizational systems

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Different corners have different definitions of rigor and relevance

Strategy

Change IS Worksystem

Artifact

ISICT

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Different corners have different definitions of rigor and relevance

Economics

HumanitiesIS as abusiness

IS in abusiness

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Networked organizations

Economics

HumanitiesIS as abusiness

IS in abusiness

ICT supply

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Ph D projects at RuG – Software supply networks – D. Postmus

Economics

HumanitiesIS as abusiness

IS in abusiness

ICT supply

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Ph D projects at RuG – Collaborative planning – C. de Snoo

Economics

HumanitiesIS as abusiness

IS in abusiness

ICT supply

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Ph D projects at RuG – Agent-based modeling: M. Stuit

Economics

HumanitiesIS as abusiness

IS in abusiness

ICT supply

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Ph D projects at RuG – Complex engineering: A. Alblas

Economics

HumanitiesIS as abusiness

IS in abusiness

ICT supply

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Ph D projects at RuG – End of life decisions of IS: P. Schuurman

Economics

HumanitiesIS as abusiness

IS in abusiness

ICT supply

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Ph D projects at RuG – IS in maintenance: J. Koochaki

Economics

HumanitiesIS as abusiness

IS in abusiness

ICT supply

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Ph D projects at RuG – Risk management in IS: K de Bakker

Economics

HumanitiesIS as abusiness

IS in abusiness

ICT supply

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Is there a common theme?

• The role in information systems in changing organizations

• How to act, in order to make IS add most value• Either from the software delivery perspective or from

an integral organizational perpective

• Multiple approaches?• Of course!• Is it to be regretted?• Not at all!

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Future

• IS has to be embedded in the mainstream of business studies, because business without IS is like a body without nerves

• But IS also has to be developed as an engineering dicipline, because it can be and should be designed: IS is an artefact

• We will continue to walk on two legs!