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A MEMETIC THEORY OF INTERORGANIZATIONAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS
(IOIS) EMERGENCE AND EVOLUTION:
A LONGITUDINAL CASE STUDY OF IOIS FOR TRADE FACILITATION
A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAIʻI AT MĀNOA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE
REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
IN
COMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION SCIENCES
May 2014
By
Thayanan Phuaphanthong
Dissertation Committee:
Tung Bui, Chairperson Elizabeth Davidson
Daniel Suthers Jennifer Winter Ellen Hoffman
Keywords: Interorganizational Information System (IOIS), Evolution, Meme, Darwin, Lamarck
i
ABSTRACT
Interorganizational information systems (IOISs) have become the core platform of
today’s digital economy. Despite their increasing importance, little is known about how
they emerge, evolve into their current form, and coevolve with social institutions that
develop, regulate, use, and maintain them.
In addition to examining an IOIS at the macro level (i.e., IOIS of a specific technology,
an organization, a community of practice, or an industry) like most researchers, this study
put a spotlight on the smallest elements that constitute the existence of an IOIS, i.e.,
"meme" - a term coined by Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist, to refer to
information, knowledge, and ideas that serve as a unit of cultural transmission. Inspired
by Lamarck’s theory of acquired characteristics and inheritance and Darwin’s theory of
natural selection, a memetic theory of IOIS emergence and evolution was developed to
provide an alternative explanation for IOIS emergence and evolution as well as its
coevolution with the environment. The theory was operationalized with four propositions
and tested with data from a 17-year longitudinal case of the IOIS that has been
implemented for use in the international trade domain.
The empirical study confirms the usefulness of a meme-centered view, Lamarck’s theory
of acquired characteristics and inheritance, and Darwin’s theory of natural selection in
explaining the process in which an IOIS emerges and evolves. It reveals the roles of
memes in securing commitment and support from project sponsors, getting all the
stakeholders on board, and providing basic design parameters and raw materials
necessary for the existence of an IOIS. It uncovers the fact that social, economic, and
political happenings are not the only environmental forces that cause memes that are
crucial for the existence of an IOIS to emerge and evolve. The emergence and evolution
of one meme is also driven by the existence of other memes. There are memes that
emerge to allow traits of pre-existing memes to be properly expressed and memes that
build on pre-existing memes by using them as resources for their conception. The study
also unveils criteria in which memes are selected to be incorporated into an IOIS and the
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role of perception on meme selection. It explains the chaotic nature of decisions toward
implementing IOIS as well as the rationality of some irrational decisions. Although the
case study spanned from 1995-2012, only a few instances of coevolution between an
IOIS and social institutions and communities that develop, regulate, use, and change it
were detected. To better understand this kind of phenomenon, additional data must be
collected in the years to come.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................ i TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................ iii LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................... vi LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................ vii CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................... 1
1.1. Context of the study ................................................................................................. 1 1.2. Research in IOISs .................................................................................................... 3 1.3. Research in IOIS emergence and evolution ............................................................. 4 1.4. Problem statement .................................................................................................... 6 1.5. Research objective and approach ............................................................................. 8
CHAPTER 2. THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS ...................................................... 11
2.1. Complex adaptive systems (CAS) ......................................................................... 11 2.1.1. Emergence ....................................................................................................... 11 2.1.2. Evolution ......................................................................................................... 13 2.1.3. Coevolution ..................................................................................................... 14
2.2. Memes as origins of CAS emergence and evolution ............................................. 16 2.2.1. Replication of memes by means of imitation ................................................. 18 2.2.2. Characteristics of Dawkins’ successful memes .............................................. 19 2.2.3. Coadapted meme complexes (memeplex) ...................................................... 21 2.2.4. Meme-centered view as a useful philosophical perspective for examining CAS emergence and evolution .......................................................................................... 21
2.3. Literature synthesis on CAS emergence and evolution ......................................... 23 2.3.1. Evolution by means of natural selection ......................................................... 23 2.3.2. Meme as a unit of selection in a social/cultural realm .................................... 26 2.3.3. CASs as vehicles for meme propagation ........................................................ 27 2.3.4. The role of the environment on the emergence and evolution of memes ....... 28
CHAPTER 3. A MEMETIC THEORY OF IOIS EMERGENCE AND EVOLUTION .................................................................................................................. 31
3.1. Interorganizational information system (IOIS) ...................................................... 31 3.1.1. IOIS in a larger institutional setting ................................................................ 32 3.1.2. IOIS as a complex adaptive system ................................................................ 34
3.2. Memetic theory in action ....................................................................................... 36 3.2.1. Memes as origins of IOIS emergence and evolution ...................................... 37 3.2.2. The role of the environment on the emergence and evolution of memes, thus IOISs ......................................................................................................................... 38 3.2.3. Selection: A determinant of successful memes .............................................. 40 3.2.4. Coevolution between IOIS and various social institutions and communities
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that develop, regulate, use, and change it ................................................................. 43 CHAPTER 4. RESEARCH METHODS ...................................................................... 48
4.1. Problem statement, research approach, proposed theoretical model, and research questions revisited ......................................................................................................... 48 4.2. Research strategies ................................................................................................. 51
4.2.1. Qualitative approach ....................................................................................... 51 4.2.2. Case study ....................................................................................................... 52 4.2.3. Limitations of the selected research strategies ................................................ 54
4.3. The case ................................................................................................................. 56 4.3.1. Case selection .................................................................................................. 57 4.3.2. Case overview ................................................................................................. 58
4.4. Data collection ....................................................................................................... 61 4.4.1. Review of documents ...................................................................................... 62 4.4.2. In-depth interview ........................................................................................... 63
4.5. Coding and data analysis ....................................................................................... 66 4.5.1. Dedoose ........................................................................................................... 72
CHAPTER 5. THE THAI CASE: IN SEARCH OF CAS ORIGIN AND EVOLUTIONARY PATH ............................................................................................. 75
5.1. First-generation customs automation system ......................................................... 75 5.2. The modernization of customs automation system ................................................ 79 5.3. ThaiNSW: A customs automation system with greater interconnectivity ............. 82 5.4. An evolution of semantic rules underlying Thailand’s customs automation system and ThaiNSW ................................................................................................................ 89 5.5. ThaiNSW as a complex adaptive system (CAS) ................................................... 91
5.5.1. Aggregate behavior of ThaiNSW ................................................................... 92 5.5.2. Emergence and evolution as a ubiquitous feature of ThaiNSW ..................... 94
CHAPTER 6. INTERACTION – A PREREQUISITE FOR EMERGENCE AND EVOLUTION .................................................................................................................. 98
6.1. Communication in the execution stage .................................................................. 98 6.2. Communication in the initiation stage ................................................................. 104
6.2.1. Meme Vehicle No. 1 – Royal Thai Customs ................................................ 105 6.2.2. Meme Vehicle No. 2 – The professor ........................................................... 107 6.2.3. Meme Vehicle No. 3 – National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB) ................................................................................................................. 113 6.2.4. Meme Vehicle No. 4 – Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MICT) ................................................................................................ 119
CHAPTER 7. THE ROLES OF MEMES ON THE EMERGENCE AND EVOLUTION OF THAINSW (PROPOSITION 1) .................................................. 121
7.1. Drivers of ThaiNSW Emergence ......................................................................... 121 7.2. Drivers of ThaiNSW Evolution ........................................................................... 125
7.2.1. National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB) .................... 128 7.2.2. One-Stop Export Service Center (OEC) ....................................................... 134
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7.2.3. Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MICT) ............. 139 7.2.4. Royal Thai Customs ...................................................................................... 140
CHAPTER 8: THE ORIGIN OF THAINSW-RELATED MEMES (PROPOSITION 2) ....................................................................................................... 149
8.1. Social happenings ................................................................................................ 150 8.2. Economic happenings .......................................................................................... 154 8.3. Political happenings ............................................................................................. 159 8.4. Catastrophic happenings ...................................................................................... 162 8.5. A Chain of recurring environmental forces ......................................................... 163 8.6. Pre-existing memes .............................................................................................. 167
CHAPTER 9: SELECTION – A DETERMINANT OF SUCCESSFUL MEMES (PROPOSITION 3) ....................................................................................................... 169
9.1. Primary selection criteria ..................................................................................... 170 9.1.1. Memes perceived as mostly advantageous either to the environment or to the existence of ThaiNSW and its components ............................................................ 170 9.1.2. Memes in the human capacity to implement ................................................ 175
9.2. Secondary selection criteria ................................................................................. 177 9.2.1 Memes perceived as conveniently realizable ................................................. 179 9.2.2. Memes perceived as mostly replicated ......................................................... 182 9.2.3. Memes recognized as conforming to government policies, rules and regulations ............................................................................................................... 184 9.2.4. Memes remembered as fulfilling expectations and needs of users ............... 186 9.2.5. Memes known right when desperately needed ............................................. 187 9.2.6. Memes serving as responses to provocation ................................................. 189
9.3. The role of predominant interactor and perception on meme selection ............... 189 CHAPTER 10. COEVOLUTION BETWEEN THAINSW AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS/COMMUNITIES PARTICIPATING IN ITS DEVELOPMENT, OPERATION, REGULATION, AND USE (PROPOSITION 4) ............................. 193
10.1. Pairwise or specific coevolution ........................................................................ 193 10.2. Diffuse or guild coevolution .............................................................................. 195 10.3. Meme-for-meme coevolution or matching meme coevolution ......................... 198
CHAPTER 11. CONCLUSION ................................................................................... 200
11.1. Research recap ................................................................................................... 200 11.2. Summary of the findings .................................................................................... 201 11.3. Limitations and opportunities for future research .............................................. 203 11.4. Contribution of the research ............................................................................... 204
REFERENCES .............................................................................................................. 207
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LIST OF TABLES
Table 1.5-1: Data collected from document review and in-depth interviews ........................... 9
Table 2.1.3-1: Different types of relationships between interacting living organisms
(Langerhans, 2008) .................................................................................................................. 15
Table 3.1.2-1: Examples of IOIS Components ........................................................................ 35
Table 3.2.1-1: Memes governing IOIS (Adapted from Lyytinen and Damsgaard, 2011) ...... 38
Table 3.2.2-1: Examples of environmental forces that are capable of driving the emergence
and evolution of memes, thus IOISs ........................................................................................ 38
Table 3.2.3-1: Selective Criteria Adapted from Darwin (1909)1 and Campbell (1965)2 ........ 41
Table 4.1-1: Research Questions and Proposed Theoretical Model Mapping ........................ 49
Table 4.2.1-1: Research Purposes and Justification for Using Qualitative Approach ............ 51
Table 4.2.3-1: Information-oriented strategies for case selection (Flyvbjerg, 2006) .............. 54
Table 4.2.3-2: The use of the bracketing technique in this research ....................................... 55
Table 4.5-1: Codebook for descriptive coding on memes ....................................................... 67
Table 4.5-2: Guideline for examining memes based on Dawkin’s (2010) criteria of successful
memes ...................................................................................................................................... 68
Table 4.5-3: Codebook for topic coding on memes ................................................................ 69
Table 5.3-1: e-Licensing Implementation Status (As of October 2012) ................................. 83
Table 5.4-1: An evolutionary path toward ThaiNSW ............................................................. 90
Table 5.5.1-1: Components of ThaiNSW’s core application module and their key functions 92
Table 6.1-1: Participants in ThaiNSW participation continuum ............................................. 99
Table 6.1-2: VAS way of dealing with changes .................................................................... 100
Table 7.2-1: APEC Paperless Trading Goal meme ............................................................... 126
Table 7.2-2: A few variations of ‘complexity of international trade transactions meme’ ..... 127
Table 7.2.1-1: An example of a memeplex that influenced ThaiNSW uptake and design ... 131
Table 7.2.1-2: Action Plan for three-year ThaiNSW Implementation in a Nutshell ............. 132
Table 7.2.2-1: Guideline for Implementing a Single Window Entry System ....................... 137
Table 7.2.4-1: Interagency collaborative platforms ............................................................... 143
Table 7.2.4-2: Various Single Window Concepts ................................................................. 145
Table 8.3-1: Examples of Memes that Foster the Uptake of ThaiNSW ................................ 160
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 2.3-1: Synthesis of the basic concepts related to CAS emergence and evolution ........ 23
Figure 3.2.3-1: A memetic theory of IOIS emergence and evolution ..................................... 42
Figure 3.2.4-1: Pairwise or specific coevolution ..................................................................... 44
Figure 3.2.4-2: Diffuse or guild coevolution ........................................................................... 45
Figure 3.2.4-3: Meme-for-meme or matching meme coevolution .......................................... 46
Figure 4.5-1: Data collection and analysis process ................................................................. 71
Figure 7.2.1-1: ThaiNSW in a big picture – an example of a memeplex .............................. 130
Figure 8.5-1: Evolution of Single Window concept .............................................................. 163
Figure 9.2-1 Application frequency of codes related to meme selection criteria generated by
Dedoose ................................................................................................................................. 177
Figure 9.2-2: Cooccurrence of selection criteria ................................................................... 178
Figure 10.1-1: Example of pairwise or specific coevolution ................................................. 194
Figure 10.2-1: Example of diffuse or guild coevolution ....................................................... 196
Figure 10.3-1: Example of meme-for-meme or matching meme coevolution ..................... 199
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CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. Context of the study
Interorganizational information systems (IOISs)1 are information and communication
technology-based systems that support data sharing, coordination, cooperation, and
collaboration across time and space (Kumar and van Dissel, 1996). Given that the
interchange of information forms a basis of economic, political, and social activities
(Barrett and Konsynski, 1982), IOISs become increasingly pervasive in public and
private sector. They are no longer a strategic measure for a competitive success but a
competitive necessity (Siau, 2003).
As interorganizational relationships are mostly manifest in commercial transactions
between buyers and sellers (Nouwens and Bouwman, 1995), IOISs that have been studied
are those that support participating organizations in carrying out some value activities of
a value chain within a particular industrial sector. The often cited success stories are
those where their primary goals are to increase market share and to achieve the greatest
competitive advantages in a global economy. Examples include the American Airlines’
SABRE reservation system, the United Airlines’ APOLLO reservation system,
McKesson Drug Company's Economost system, Wal-Mart's continuous inventory
replenishment system, and American Hospital Supply's ASAP order-entry and inventory-
control system (Siau, 2003).
There are also IOISs that do not facilitate commercial transactions but administrative
ones among organizations participating in an interorganizational network of
organizations that share common interest but reside in different industrial or service
sectors. Their primary goals are to improve efficiency, transparency, and integrity in
daily operation. Well-known examples of IOISs in this category that have been
extensively documented and widely studied are the Singapore’s TradeNet and PortNet.
1 Like Kai, Johnston, and Klein (2004), I prefer to use of the term “interorganizational information systems (IOIS)” rather than “interorganizational system (IOS) to 1) emphasize the notion of IT artifact and 2) avoid any confusions that may occur from audiences’ misunderstanding “system” as work processes.
2
While TradeNet connects traders, freight forwarders, and shipping agents with relevant
government authorities and facilitates them in the submission and processing of trade
documents, Portnet has been deployed to improve the coordination between port
operators, freight forwarders, shipping agents, and marine service providers in dealing
with issues such as container handling and traffic management.
The recent years have witnessed the rise of IOISs that facilitate both commercial
transactions and administrative ones, so-called the Single Window. According to Koh
(2011), those Single Windows emerged from either customs automation or port
community systems. In his review of Single Window development, Koh (2011) points
out the World Bank’s Trading Across Borders 2012 report, which states that 49
economies out of 150 have introduced a Single Window. Throughout his report, he
emphasizes the fact that those Single Windows have been developed into different
variations. Some have their services extended to cater for B2B transactions such as those
that facilitate trade finance and the preparation of commercial documents. Some have
their data exchange linkages established with other government agencies responsible for
processing trade-related permits and certificates. The scope of data exchange,
additionally, is no longer limited within national borders (Navarrete, Gil-Garcia,
Mellouli, Pardo, and Scholl, 2010). There are considerable needs for greater connectivity
between countries within and across regions around the world (Koh, 2011).
This phenomenon that involves the transformation of IOISs from the simpler form to the
more complex one can be understood as an outcome of an evolutionary process.
Regardless of their places on an evolutionary ladder, this type of IOISs are ultimately
designed to link organizations participating in the international supply chain, i.e., i)
traders, ii) intermediaries who provide commercial, financial, and/or transport services,
and iii) government authorities, with an aim to facilitate the completion of trade-related
documentary requirements, physical transfer of goods, and the payment for goods. They
have become more and more important in the world of growing interdependence, as the
force of globalization is getting more and more predominant.
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1.2. Research in IOISs
Several scholars attempt to develop typologies of IOISs. They argue that IOISs can be
categorized by the degree of interdependency between the organizations participating in
the cooperative ventures of IOIS (Kumar and van Dissel, 1996), by an exchange
relationship between buyers and sellers (Choudhury, 1997), as well as by types of
organizational linkage and types of purpose of the IOIS (Hong, 2002). The most recent
attempt to create a typology for IOISs is made by Lyytinen and Damsgaard (2011). Based
on ample observations from the literature and experiences in analyzing IOIS adoption,
Lyytinen and Damsgaard (2011) classify IOISs according to their organizing vision,
functionality, structure, mode of interaction, and mode of appropriation. They propose
four types of IOIS, i.e., (i) IOISs that facilitate dyadic electronic partnerships; (ii) IOISs
with hub and spokes that span a single industry; (iii) IOISs that are usually established for
the common good of the participants in the business process which they support; and (iv)
community wide IOISs that consist of multiple coexisting IOISs in different classes.
A number of studies have been conducted to develop guiding frameworks for developing
IOISs (e.g., Fahy, Feller, Finnegan, and Murphy, 2007; Laframboise and Reyes, 2007;
and Choudhury, 1997), managing the development of IOISs (e.g., Hayes and Finnegan,
2005; Kirsch, 2004; Bakos and Nault, 1997; and Kumar and van Dissel, 1996), and
assessing benefits of IOIS projects (e.g., Frick, Kuttner, and Schubert; and Frick,
Hemmerich, and Schubert, 2012). Factors that determine success or failure in the
development (e.g., Harold and Horan, 2012; Sivadas, Holmes, and Dwyer, 2012; Yang
and Maxwell, 2011; Ibbott and O'Keefe, 2004; and West, 1994) have also been identified.
In addition to the above mentioned research streams, research in IOISs is also concerned
with impacts of IOISs on governance over economic transactions, organizational
consequences of IOISs, and factors influencing organizational adoption of IOISs (Robey,
Im, and Wareham, 2008).
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1.3. Research in IOIS emergence and evolution
By laying out possible technological, organization, and interorganizational factors that
created favorable conditions for IOISs to emerge, research in IOIS adoption contributes
to a better understanding of IOIS emergence. This area of IOIS research largely exists in
the area of electronic data interchange (EDI) (Koch, 2005). EDI adoption has been
studied using several approaches, i.e., a technological approach guided by the diffusion of
innovation theory, an organizational approach focusing on organizational characteristics
and inherent attributes of the technology, and an interorganizational approach to account
for the relationship between organizations participating in the EDI adoption (Chwelos,
Benbasat, and Dexter, 2001) as well as the combination of the three approaches guided
by the technology, organization, and environment (TOE) framework (Oliveira and
Martins, 2011).
Only a handful of research discusses IOIS evolution. Meier and Sprague (1991) and Senn
(1998) identify possible paths and patterns of IOIS evolution. Gil-Garcia and Martinez-
Moyano (2007) synthesize evolutionary stages of IOISs in government settings in terms
of their degree of technological and organizational sophistication. A list of theories that
may serve as theoretical lens for developing casual middle range explanations on the
evolutionary dynamic of the IOIS have been identified (Tiwana, Konsynski, and Bush,
2010). They are:
– Modular systems theory which may explain the effect of modularity (the degree to
which changes in certain IOIS components create a ripple effect in the behavior of
other IOIS components) on the evolution of IOIS components;
– Evolutionary selection theory which may illuminate the rate or intensity at which the
IOIS and its components evolve to fit the evolving environment over time, and thus
the chances that the IOIS will survive;
– Real options theory which may inform how the evolving environment influences the
evolutionary dynamics of the IOIS and its part; and
– Bounded rationality theory which may describe the effect that the cognitive limits of
individual developers to process feedback has on the evolution of the IOIS and its
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components.
For those attempt to explain the process of IOIS evolution, they base their explanations
on theoretical perspectives from path dependency theory, structuration theory,
communities of practice, practice theory, and the evolutionary concepts of autopoiesis
and natural drift.
Klein, Schellhammer, Reimers, and Reimer (2008) conducted historical analysis of
longitudinal data of IOISs in the pharmaceutical distribution industry in Australia and
Ireland from a period of about 20 years. Based on the theory of path dependency, they
explain that the variations in terms of technical features, relational aspects, and usage of
IOISs in the Australian and Irish pharmaceutical distribution industry emerge as a result
of a complex interplay between technical-organizational strategic choice made in the past
and their intended-unintended consequences over time. Those variations provide
necessary conditions for evolution to occur. In addition to the main conclusion, the
notion that choices are derived through negotiation in the process of decision-making
leads Klein et al. (2008) to emphasize the role of human agency in the IOIS emergence
and evolution process. They note that human agency is not limited to those from
organizations participating in IOIS, but also from the third party knowledgeable actors in
an organizational field.
Reimers, Johnston, and Klein (2008) conceptualize IOIS as a set of shared practices,
which jointly support one or more automated information processing functions between
independent organizations participating in community of practice (CoP). To them, the
identity of a particular IOIS is characterized by the constellation of shared practices it
facilitates. In line with the structuration theory, Reimers et al. (2008) believe that these
shared practices are performed within the context of a pre-existing social structure
governed by a set of norms and regulations. Changes in the social structure, which lead to
changes in the constellation of shared practices, are therefore important factors that cause
an IOIS to evolve (Reimers et al., 2008).
6
Schellhammer (2011) recently proposes to use the evolutionary theory, where the
adaptation to the environment is regarded as the primary mechanism of change, to
explain the development of IOISs over large timescales. Based on the evolutionary
concepts of “autopoiesis,” Schellhammer (2011) describes an IOIS as a “structurally
coupled system” (p.7). He posits that IOIS evolution occurs as a result of “natural drift.”
He argues that what happens in the environment may impact IOISs. Nevertheless,
structural changes in IOIS are not only determined by the environmental change, but also
by the internal dynamics of the industry structure, organization, and individual employee
(Schellhammer, 2011).
Diverging from most IOIS research, which usually employs a specific technology, an
organization, or an industry as a unit of analysis, Schellhammer (2011), in line with
Reimers, Johnston, and Klein (2004), suggests the use of an industry segment value
system (ISVS) as a unit of analysis in the study of the evolution of an IOIS. Given that
ISVS is a group of firms in an industry segment who engage in upstream and downstream
transaction relationships with one another, it represents an ecological niche where those
firms operate (Schellhammer, 2011).
Reimers, Johnston, and Klein (2010) contrast most IOIS research, which focuses only on
one unit of analysis. They no longer view an IOIS as a set of shared practices that jointly
support one or more automated information processing functions, but a set of aligned
practices. They argue that these practices reside in different organizations and are aligned
through boundary spanning activities where those organizations are mutually engaged in
a pursuit of common organizational interests. They, however, note that the boundary
spanning activity typically centers on the development and adjustment of interface
standards within formal or informal standardization organizations. It involves social
practices at the organizational level and at the level of the organizational field.
1.4. Problem statement
The synthesis of past research on IOIS emergence and evolution suggests that IOISs
7
emerge from aligned practices of organizations that come together to pursue common
organizational interests and evolve as an outcome of a complex interplay between
technical-organizational strategic choices mediated by the pre-existing social structures
made in the past and their intended-unintended consequences over time. Although it does
provide some insights about factors that influence IOIS emergence and evolution, it still
exhibits some limitations in explaining the process where IOIS emerges, where it evolves
into its current form, and where it coevolves with the various social institutions and
communities that develop, regulate, use, and change it. It does not explain many
instances where decision-makers do not choose to implement instances of IOIS structures
that best fit organizational strategies and current capabilities. The reason why decision-
makers commission the implementation of projects that are outside organizational core
competencies despite the fact that the implementation of those apparently attractive
projects adds risks to the organization and typically results in less than optimum results
has yet to be discovered.
Reimers et al. (2008) argue that a particular IOIS is reproduced because having it in place
is considered as a shared practice in a community where organizations participate.
However, as demonstrated by Klein et al. (2008), different organizations participating in
the same CoP are likely to implement and use that particular IOIS differently. Not all
instances of IOIS structures are taken for reproduction. None of the theories that have
been applied in past research can explain why some instances of IOIS structures are
reproduced while others are not. None of them can explain why “some practices steadily
increase in importance while others decrease (Reimers, 2010, p. 51).”
Klein et al. (2008) also emphasizes the role of the third party knowledgeable actors in the
evolution of a particular IOIS. Their observation implies that IOIS evolution cannot be
understood independently from the simultaneous evolution of the environment.
Unfortunately, past IOIS research that incorporates timescale is mostly conducted in the
scope not much larger than organizational dyads and hub-and-spoke networks (Reimers,
Johnston, and Klein, 2009). It takes into account changes occurring in a group of firms in
an industry segment who engage in upstream and downstream transaction relationships
8
with one another, but not in the larger institutional setting, i.e., an organizational field in
which IOIS is embedded. A theoretical framework that is capable of explaining how an
IOIS coevolves with various social institutions and communities that develop, regulate,
use, and change it has not yet been identified. The situation is worse in the IOIS adoption
research, which is mostly guided by the diffusion of innovation theory (DOI). As
Lyytinen and Damsgaard (2011) argue, the DOI-based IOIS research primarily focuses
on explaining the adopter’s behavior in a single organization. As such, any attempt to
account for the presence of such an alignment among factors that explain successful IOIS
adoption are likely to miss a critical theoretical narrative.
Lastly, the studies on IOIS emergence and evolution have been made at the macro level.
They examine IOISs of a specific technology as well as factors at the organizational and
industrial level that created favorable conditions for IOISs to emerge, (Lyytinen and
Damsgaard, 2011). However, the insights from the studies of complex adaptive system
theory suggest that it is rather at the micro level where the emergence and evolution arise
(Holland, 1999; and Goldstein, 1999).
1.5. Research objective and approach
As the force of globalization is getting more and more predominant, IOISs have become
more and more important in the world of growing interdependence. Yet, we have little
knowledge about how they emerge, how they evolve, and how they coevolve with
various social institutions and communities that develop, regulate, use, and change them.
The objective of this research is to address the lack of good understanding in the aspects
of IOIS emergence and evolution discussed above by offering an alternative explanation
to the following questions.
RQ 1. How does a particular IOIS emerge?
RQ 2. How does it evolve?
RQ 3. How does it coevolve with various social institutions and communities that
develop, regulate, use, and change it?
9
To study IOIS emergence and evolution as well as its coevolution with social institutions
and communities that develop, regulate, use, and change it, I conducted an explanatory
single case study of Thailand’s Single Window system (ThaiNSW) for trade facilitation.
The multi-level analysis of the qualitative data spanned over a period of 1995-2012 with
an inclusion of the happenings in the international trade domain and collected by means
of document review and in-depth interviews with the experts was guided by a set of
propositions derived from a theoretical model that I developed prior to data collection.
The theoretical model is based on a conceptualization of an IOIS as a complex adaptive
system (CAS) and ideas constituting an IOIS as memes. The theoretical model is also
inspired by key principles of evolutionary perspectives from Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck’s
theory of acquired characteristics and inheritance and Charles Darwin’s theory of natural
selection.
Table 1.5-1: Data collected from document review and in-depth interviews
Research question Type of data collected
Method Document
review In-depth
interviews RQ 1, RQ 2
Data about various components of ThaiNSW including their features, functions, and when they were conceived 80% 20%
RQ 1, RQ 2
Data about memes that dictated features and functions of ThaiNSW’s components as well as memes that fueled their implementation including data about where they were originated, how they became visible in the local meme pool, and reasons why they were activated or selected for implementation
70% 30%
RQ 1, RQ 2
Data about memes that made it to the local meme pool but did not get selected for implementation 10% 90%
RQ 1, RQ 2
Data about memes that were deactivated including reasons for their deactivation 10% 90%
RQ 1, RQ 2
Data about social, political, economic, or catastrophic happenings that induce perceived needs for the emergence and evolution of those memes
50% 50%
RQ 3 Data about characteristics of social institutions and communities that involved in the development, operation, use, and maintenance of ThaiNSW
50% 50%
The advantages of conceptualizing an IOIS as a CAS are threefold. It allowed me to
involve multiple units of analysis in the study. Firstly, through CAS theoretical
perspective, I visualized ThaiNSW as consisting of interdependent parts whose
10
simultaneous interactions made the aggregate behavior of ThaiNSW visible at the macro
level. Secondly, the conceptualization of an IOIS as a CAS allowed me to address an
IOIS as an analogy to a biological organism; another type of CAS, and interpret IOIS
components by analogy with organs. While features and functions of organs are dictated
by genes, those of IOIS components are dictated by ideas, information, and knowledge
which can be denoted as memes. Lastly, the conceptualization of an IOIS as a CAS
allowed me to explain the coevolution between IOIS and other types of CASs, i.e.,
various social institutions and communities that develop, regulate, use, and change it.
11
CHAPTER 2. THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS
To explain the emergence and evolution of IOIS as well as its coevolution with social
institutions and communities that develop, regulate, use, and change it, I have developed
a theoretical model (Chapter 3), resulting in four fundamental propositions. As a prelude
to Chapter 3, this chapter aims to provide an overview of the theoretical foundations that
the theoretical model is built on. They include the concept of complex adaptive systems,
the concept of memes, key principles of evolutionary perspectives from Jean-Baptiste de
Lamarck’s theory of acquired characteristics and inheritance, and those of Charles
Darwin’s theory of natural selection.
2.1. Complex adaptive systems (CAS)
At a very high level of abstraction, Holland (1992) describes a complex adaptive system
(CAS) as being composed of individual parts whose simultaneous interactions constitute
an aggregate behavior. He argues that each of the parts, to some extent, is governed by its
own rules. It is continually revising its rules in response to changing behaviors of the
other parts and problems posed by its surroundings.
Examples of CAS have been drawn from both natural and artificial systems in biology,
sociology, and economics (Brownlee, 2007). Given that it crosscuts several disciplines,
the study of CAS has become a major focus of interdisciplinary research in the social and
natural sciences (Lansing, 2003).
2.1.1. Emergence
Emergence is recognized as a ubiquitous feature of a CAS. It is described as a
phenomenon where an emergent at the macro-level arises from the interactions between
micro-level parts (DeWolf and Holvoet, 2005). The definition of emergence provided
here uses the concept of an emergent as a general term to refer to property, behavior,
structure, or pattern that is a result of the process of emergence, i.e., a process of a system
12
coming to life, in a sense of “much coming from little” (Holland, 1999, p.2).
For the phenomenon to be classified as an emergent, it must be a radical novelty (DeWolf
and Holvoet, 2005). That is, it must have features that have not been previously observed
in the CAS under observation (Goldstein, 1999). Although the emergent can be seen at
the macro level, it is at the micro level where the emergent phenomenon arises (Holland,
1999; Goldstein, 1999). Without the interactions between the micro-level parts, the
emergent that appears as the integrated whole will never arise (DeWolf and Holvoet,
2005). Nevertheless, the dynamics of the CAS can neither be “predictable from,
deducible from, nor reducible to” what happens in the micro-level components alone
(Goldstein, 1999, p. 57). The configuration of what happens at the macro level must also
be taken into an account to gain more explanatory insight (Goldstein, 1999; DeWolf and
Holvoet, 2005).
From the CAS perspective, the micro-level parts that constitute a CAS, known as agents,
operate under a decentralized control. They interact without any direction from a central
control. These agents represent basic units of decision-making within a CAS (Nan,
Zmud, and Yetjin, 2013). They serve as influencers. Depending on the type of CAS being
studied, they can be individuals, units within organizations, or organizations themselves.
Their interaction eventually leads to the emergence of the whole that is more than the
sum of its parts.
The emergents at the macro-level tend to maintain some sense of identity over time
DeWolf and Holvoet, 2005). For the emergents to occur, Goldstein (1999) argues that a
CAS must possess a mechanism capable of generating a feedback when the system is
operating at a state beyond the equilibrium in a way that anticipates new problems posed
by the environment. The emergents are likely to increase rapidly (i) if the flexibility of
the interactions between the individual agents increases and (ii) if the individual agents
have some capacity for adaptation or learning (Holland, 1999). From the outcome of the
healthcare research in the U.S. and publishing industry in the Netherlands, Fedorowicz,
Gelinas, Gogan, and Williams (2004) and Van de Bosch, Volverda, and de Boer (1999)
13
suggest that an organization’s ability to adapt to new knowledge is a key element in its
organizational adaptation.
2.1.2. Evolution
Evolution is another property common to all CASs. It can be defined as a process of
change in systems’ properties over time (Scott, 1989; and Spencer, 1862). Darwin’s
evolutionary concept of descent with modification implies “the idea of an unfolding of
something already contained in the original” (Baynes, 1888, p. 751) whenever the
adaptability occurs. It also implies the process of “self-maintaining, self-transforming,
and self-transcending” that is “directional in time and therefore irreversible” (Huxley,
1956, p. 3). According to Darwin (1909), Lamarck (1914), and Spencer (1862),
evolutionary change can be considered as a transformation toward greater improvement.
Nevertheless, the greater improvement is not guaranteed (Gould, 1992).
Parsons (1966) claims that the principle of evolution, whether ‘biological’ or not, also
applies to the world of living things. It is applicable to any cultural system, whether it be
a model of the culture of mankind as a whole, or the culture of any people, group of
people, or area in so far as it can properly be regarded as a system, or to those portions of
the total cultural system that can be treated as subsystems, such as technology, social
organization, or philosophy (White, 1959).
The evolution can be seen as a process where temporal sequence of forms grows out of
another (White, 2007). These changes resulting from the evolution have a directional
component (Mayr, 2001). Given that “the evolution of an organism [as well as any
system] is primarily the formation of an aggregate, by the continued incorporation of
matter previously spread through a wider space [or an environment]” (Spencer, 1862, p.
110), an evolutionary phenomenon results in changes in properties of an organism from
relatively simpler state to the more complex one (Mayr, 2001). As Spencer (1862)
asserts, an evolutionary change leads to a change from a more diffused state to a more
concentrated perceptible state; from a less coherent form to a more coherent form; from
14
an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity; and from
confusion to order.
In this sense, it can be said that there is progress in evolution. As Blackmore (1999) puts
it, “evolution uses its products to climb upon” (p. 13). The progress, however, is not
necessarily steady or does it always yield better outcome. It can be long periods of stasis
between periods of rapid change” (p. 13). It can be just “increasing design, increasing
complexity, or any kind of continuous development without a particular goal or end point
built in” (p. 28). Evolution therefore implies the emergence of new properties in the
living system at certain points (Barringer and Blanksten, 1965), often as a result of
system dealing with far-from-equilibrium conditions (Goldstein, 1999). It can occur not
only after a system is brought to life, but also during its development process (Torres-
Carbonell and Parets-Llorca, 2001).
2.1.3. Coevolution
CASs do not simply evolve, but coevolve and mutually operate at the edge of chaos
(Kauffman, 1993). Although the general concept of coevolution has been around since
Darwin, the term was coined by Paul Ehrlich and Peter Raven in 1964 to refer to a
reciprocal evolutionary change between interacting living organisms driven by natural
selection (Thompson, 1982). It is a logical extension of Darwin's concept of coadaptation
(Durham, 1991) which posits that two different living organisms modify and adapt in the
most perfect manner to each other, by continued preservation of individuals seeking
mutual and slightly favorable deviations of structure (Darwin, 1909).
As shown in Table 2.1.3-1, there are different types of relationships between interacting
living organisms (Langerhans, 2008). However, not all types of interaction between
interacting living organisms can be considered as coevolution. According to Thompson
(1982), the reciprocal change has to be in the mutual sense. Furthermore, it must involve
coevolved interaction where “an evolutionary change in a trait of the individuals in one
population in response to a trait of the individuals of a second population, followed by an
15
evolutionary response by the second population to the change in the first” (Janzen, 1980,
p. 611). From this conceptualization of coevolution, raw materials for the evolution of
interactions are from (i) variation in traits in populations involved in the coevolution
process and (ii) variation in the outcome of the evolutionary changes (Thompson, 1994).
Table 2.1.3-1: Different types of relationships between interacting living organisms
(Langerhans, 2008)
Type of relationship Description
Antagonism The scenario where both members of the interaction are harmed
Parasitism The scenario where one member benefits while the other is harmed.
Amensalism The scenario where one member is harmed while the other member is
neither positively nor negatively affected.
Commensalism The scenario where one member benefits while the other member is
neither positively nor negatively affected.
Mutualism The scenario where both members benefit.
In ecology and evolutionary biology, coevolutionary relationships can be pairwise or
specific occurring only between two living organisms (Langerhans, 2008 and Weiblen,
2003). Coevolutionary relationships can occur in groups of living organisms, so-called
diffused or guild coevolution (Langerhans, 2008). This form of coevolutionary
relationships is more common than the pairwise as it reflects more the reality where
living organisms need to adapt in response to selective pressures derived from numerous
other living organisms and where their evolutionary responses cause changes in the
selective environment for other living organisms (Langerhans, 2008). Coevolutionary
relationships can also occur as a result of gene-for-gene correspondence among living
organisms (Langerhans, 2008). Gene-for-gene coevolution or matching gene
coevolution is the case in which the presence of a gene in one population is dependent on
the continued presence of a gene in another population, and where the interaction
between the two genes leads to a single observable characteristics by which the presence
or absence of the relevant gene in either organism may be recognized (Person,
Samborski, and Rohringer, 1962).
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Constant (1978) transposes the concept of biological coevolution to the technological
realm. He argues that technological coevolution is where the development of a given
technology is linked to the development of other technologies within a macro system, and
where each technology exerts mutual selective pressure on each other. He demonstrates
what he calls technological coevolution through the historical analysis of the
coevolutionary development between steam turbine and large-scale electrical generating
equipment. He also notes that “the fate” (p. 204) of these technologies also depended on
the evolutionary success or failure of the higher-level macro-systems where they resided
as individual parts. To him, “if electrical power had lost out to gas lighting and pneumatic
power distribution, the history of steam turbines would be different” (p. 207).
Yates (1993) uses the term coevolution to denote the reciprocal relationship between the
development of tabulating technology and the information tasks in the American life
insurance industry between 1890 and 1950. She explains (i) how the tabulating
machinery transformed the way in which the insurance companies sorted, counted, and
added data; (ii) how the use of the tabulating machinery in those insurance companies
shaped the development of tabulating technology; and (iii) how the changes in the
capabilities of the tabulating technology led to the development of new processes
associated with the integration of data and the production of documents. Yates (1993),
nevertheless, believes that the coevolution between technology and its use was not a
random process, but “conscious actions and reactions of managers, inventors, or other
individuals or groups involved” (p.5). The coevolution between technology and work
process is also present in other contexts. Goh, Gao, and Agarwal (2011) provide an
illustration of the bi-directional interplay, managed through leadership and personal
innovativeness, between technology and patterns of clinical work embodied in routines.
2.2. Memes as origins of CAS emergence and evolution
It seems convenient to analyze the emergence and evolution of any CASs at the
individual level where the characteristics of CASs are shown. However, through the CAS
theoretical lens, it is at the micro level the where emergence and evolution arise (Holland,
17
1999; and Goldstein, 1999).
In the social/cultural realm, I contend that memes are those micro elements that lie at the
origin of CAS emergence and evolution. Like genes, memes are seen as replicating
entities that passes on their structure largely intact in successive replications (Dawkins,
2010). They are information, knowledge, and idea that form themselves into distinct
memorable units (Dennett, 1995) and propagate without too much alteration (Speel,
1997). The units of meme are “the smallest elements that replicate themselves with
reliability and fecundity” (Dennett, 1995, p. 344). For any unit of culture to be identified
as a meme, it has to satisfy the following requirements (Gunders and Brown 2011).
– A meme must have enough originality or difference from other competing forms
(Gunders and Brown 2011). It must have an identity of its own. The identity reflects
not only a purpose or a reason for which a particular meme exists, but also the
substantive content embedded in a meme itself.
– A meme must be cognitively digestible. It has to be simple enough to be conveyed to
others. It can be an entire musical piece like Happy Birthday to You or a section of a
musical piece like the first few phrases of Beethoven’s fifth symphony. As long as it
is sufficiently distinctive and memorable to be abstracted from the context of the
whole symphony, it deserved to be recognized as a meme.
As it is the case with genes, which are made of stretches of DNA2, memes do not come in
one size. They can take many forms. As long as they satisfy the above requirements, they
can be in a form of a word, a sentence, a thought, a belief, a scientific theory, or an
equation (Gunders and Brown 2011 and Atran, 2011). Brodie (1996) classifies memes
into three classes:
– Distinction-memes are memes that distinguish one object or concept from another. 2 DNA has a property of a language. It consists of nucleotides that are represented by letters A, C, T, and G. Just like other languages, the meaning of a word lies in the sequence of alphabet letters. In DNA, groups of three nucleotide letters are used to make meaning. Most groups of three letters, so-called codons, provide codes for amino acids. The others provide the punctuation and grammar. A stretch of DNA in a gene is made of a chain of these amino acids. It carries instructions for making protein. Sometimes the instructions in one gene produce several proteins. Sometimes a production of a single protein relies on the instructions from many genes. It is these proteins that direct features and functions of parts that constitute the living organisms.
18
Soda, brush teeth, and harmful are examples of a distinction meme. “The universe is
full of stuff…we put edges around place we live [things around us, what we do, and
how we feel] in order to distinguish it from the rest of the universe” (Brodie, 1996, p.
41).
– Strategy-memes are memes that provide instructions for carrying out certain tasks,
including practices and routines, with an aim to achieve desired results. ‘Wait at least
30 minutes after drinking soda before brushing your teeth’ is an example of a strategy
meme. “[It] tells you what to do when you come across an applicable situation”
(Brodie, 1996, p. 43).
– Association-memes are attitudes about everything in life, which emerge when one
attempts to associate existing memes. ‘It is harmful to brush your teeth after drinking
soda’ is an example of association memes. It demonstrates an attitude about brushing
teeth after drinking soda by associating three distinction memes.
2.2.1. Replication of memes by means of imitation
Blackmore (1999) argues that the replication of memes is achieved by means of
imitation. Imitation, in this context, is described as “passing on information by using
language, reading, and instruction, as well as other complex skills and behaviors”
(Blackmore, 1999, p. 43). Imitation is not necessarily conscious and deliberate. As
Dennett (1990, pp. 128-129) describes:
“The other day I was embarrassed—dismayed—to catch myself walking along humming a melody to myself: not a them of Haydn or Brahms or Charlie Parker or even Bob Dylan. I was energetically humming: “It Takes Two to Tango,” a perfectly dismal and entirely unredeemed bit of chewing gum for the ears that was unaccountably popular sometime in the 1950s. I am sure I have never in my life chosen to listen to this melody, esteemed this melody, or in any way judged it to be better than silence, but there it was…And now, to make matters worse, I have resurrected the virus in many of you, who will no doubt curse me in days to come when you find yourself humming… that boring tune.”
In addition, the replication of memes through the process of imitation is not always
perfect (Blackmore, 1999). As indicated in the study conducted by Barlett in 1932 that
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Blackmore (1999, p. 14) points out, “a story gets a bit embellished or details are forgotten
every time it is passed on.” Imperfect replication of meme is also due to the uncertainties
of interpretation as well as the possibilities of refinement and recontextualization as they
spread (Weeks and Galunic, 2003). As Dawkins (2010) notes, “every time a scientist
hears an idea and passes it on to somebody else, he is likely to change it somewhat.
Instead, he repeats that particular idea in his own words, twists them around to fit his
purpose, places the emphasis differently, and perhaps blends it with his own idea or other
people’s” (p. 194). For this reason, meme that is passed on from one to another is likely
to be in an altered form, however, with the identity of the original idea intact.
Hodgson and Knudsen (2006a) point out necessary criteria for replication that they draw
from Godfrey-Smith (2000), Sperber (2000), and Aunger (2002). They argue that for an
action to be called replication:
– The source must be involved in the production of the copy;
– The copy must be similar to its source in relevant aspects; and
– The process that generates the copy must obtain the information that makes the copy
similar to its source from the same source.
From symbolic interactionist perspective (Blumer, 1969), meme can be regarded as an
object. Each object has meaning that sets the way in which an individual is to act toward
it. Given that these meanings are indicated by oneself to oneself, then handled and
modified through a self-interacting process of interpretation, the object can have a
different meaning for different individuals. As Pinch and Bijker (1984) address in social
construction of technology (SCOT), the meaning given to a technological artifact, which
can be perceived as a set of interacting memes, is influenced by social, political, and
economic situations. The artifact may, therefore, have different meanings for different
social groups.
2.2.2. Characteristics of Dawkins’ successful memes
The fact that people are the exclusive agents that drive the propagation of memes is not
20
the only part of the story (Aunger, 2002). “A single agent cannot normally execute
complex decision making tasks” (Bui, 2000, p. 246). As argued in the traditional
approach, a meme is believed to have a hidden agent acting for its own ends (Aunger,
2002, p. 13). It is an agent in a sense that it has an active role in producing a specified
effect as manifest through the physical characteristics of an organism or a vehicle that
houses meme. “Those words affect you, probably without any conscious intention on
your part” (Blackmore, 1999, p. 7). Not everyone can be infected by a particular meme.
TV commercials are examples of memes. The key message from L’Oreal Total Repair
shampoo commercial makes some people who have heard the spot buy the product, not
everybody. The magazine with a cover saying “What Darwin Didn’t Know” may catch
someone’s eye, drive some people to pick that magazine up and look inside, but not
everyone.
Dawkins (2010) argues that the environment consists of memes that are capable of
exploiting the environment to their own advantage. A group of strong memes that
survives in the environment forms a meme pool. For Dawkins (2010), meme is said to be
part of a meme pool if it catches on. Some memes are more successful in the meme pool
than others. Successful memes are ones that get copied with minimal change, spread
rapidly to relevant population, and last very long in the meme pool. He summarizes the
quality of successful memes in three words. They are copying-fidelity, fecundity, and
longevity.
Other things being equal, “a meme that not only grabs the attention but tends to make its
host keep on mentally rehearsing it” does better than “a meme that buries itself quietly in
memory and is never rehearsed” (Blackmore, 1999). The fact that memes may be
successful at spreading largely because they are memorable rather than because they are
important or useful also implies that the success and failure of memes also depend on the
nature of human memory and the limitations of human capacity to imitate (Blackmore,
1999). According to Blackmore (1999), memes spread themselves around
indiscriminately regardless of whether they are useful, important, or harmful. Ideas
underlying various types of cyber crime are examples of harmful meme.
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2.2.3. Coadapted meme complexes (memeplex)
Memes are also capable of reinforcing each other and assisting each other's survival in
the meme pool. With the right conditions, memes of mutual compatibility “automatically
band together to create systems or machines that carry them around and work to favor
their continued replication” (Dawkins, 2010, p. 322). Group of memes that are replicated
together is what Dawkins calls coadapted meme complexes. Blackmore (1999) notes that
the phrase was later renamed by Speel (1995) to memeplex. Similar to genes which move
around in groups, mutually cooperating memes are packed together inside the memeplex.
By cooperating with each other in the memeplex, memes can replicate better as part of
the group than they can on their own (Dawkins, 2010). Blackmore (1999) argued that the
way memes group together can in fact determine why some memes succeed and others
fail.
Aesop’s fables, for example, are good example of memeplexes. “One, who like Aesop
tells a story which is false … he has made use of the falsehood merely for its utility to his
audience … he puts animals in a pleasing light [he associates natural characteristics of
animals with human traits.] and makes them interesting to mankind … Aesop adds an
oracle to his story, and dismisses his hearers just as they reach the conclusion he wished
to lead them up to.”3 Aesop used the story to draw the attention from his audience before
passing the core moral message to them at the end. The story and the moral advice are
mutually cooperating memes. They have got each other rehearsed for over 2,000 years.
2.2.4. Meme-centered view as a useful philosophical perspective for examining CAS
emergence and evolution
Blackmore (1999) notes that changes in phenotypic expression of a cultural artifact,
which can also be seen as a CAS, depend on changes in these memes. It is simply
because these memes contain information that not only dictates the physical
3 Philostratus, Eusebius, and Frederick Cornwallis Conybeare. (1912). The Life of Apollonius of Tyana. New York, NY: The Macmillan Co., p. 495.
22
characteristics of a cultural artifact, but also directs its behavior in response to given
environmental conditions. Given that meme-centered view provides a useful
philosophical perspective for examining the emergence and evolution of cultural artifacts,
memes have been used as units of analysis in the study that attempted to explain the
emergence and evolution of cultural artifacts such as musical style (Jan, 2000),
ideological thought (Balkin, 1998), investment strategies (Frank, 2000), international
norms (Florini, 1996), regional policies (Batten and Bradbury, 2009), firm (Nelson and
Winter, 1982), and technology (Kneis, 2010, Sandberg, 2007, and Sheehan, 2006).
A clear distinction between replicator and interactor also allows researchers to conduct
multilevel studies within the coevolutionary hierarchy under the same unifying
theoretical framework. Interesting examples are the work of Rosenkopf and Nerkar
(1999) and Baum and Singh (1994). Rosenkopf and Nerkar (1999) describe the evolution
of organizations through the coevolution of components, products, and systems at
multiple levels throughout the organization’s hierarchy. Baum and Singh (1994) describe
the coevolution of genealogical and ecological hierarchies within organizations as well as
the interaction between the two. While the former focuses on the evolution of skills and
knowledge, the latter focuses on the structure and interaction between organizational
system.
Fleck (2000) argues that a focus on memes in form of knowledge and ideas underpinning
the development and use of a cultural artifact, technology in particular, is necessary but
not sufficient. He suggests that the concept of meme does not capture the full sense of
technology. It does not take into account practices being implemented in the real world,
which sometimes bring unexpected and unpredictable outcome. Then again, it would be a
denial to say that practices that people carry out in the real world are neither based on
ideas nor knowledge of some kind. The fact that traits of some ideas and knowledge have
not appeared in any practices does not mean that they do not exist. It rather suggests that
those ideas and knowledge have not yet been selected for implementation.
23
2.3. Literature synthesis on CAS emergence and evolution
Knowledge in evolutionary biology discipline has been used to explain phenomena that
happen beyond the biological realm. It can enhance our understanding about how CASs
emerge, evolve into their current form, and coevolve with social institutions that develop,
regulate, use, and maintain them.
Figure 2.3-1: Synthesis of the basic concepts related to CAS emergence and evolution
2.3.1. Evolution by means of natural selection
Evolution is a phenomenon that obeys the laws of natural selection in a neutral and
algorithmic manner (Dennett, 1995). This evolution process can be applied to any
‘system’ where there are variations in its units of heredity and where only some
variations are selected for reproduction (Blackmore, 1999). Due to its degree of
generality and abstraction, the laws of natural selection are known as Generalized
24
Darwinism (Hodgson and Knudsen, 2008).
Several scholars argue that the principles of Generalized Darwinism can be used to
describe the evolution beyond a biological domain. Darwin himself postulates that they
can explain the evolution of social phenomena such as language and morality within
human groups (Breslin, 2011 and Hodgson and Knudsen, 2006b). As he points out in The
Descent of Man, for example, “the survival or preservation of certain favored words in
the struggle for existence is natural selection” (Darwin, 1871, p. 80). Hodgson and
Knudsen (2006b, 2008) find that several scholars use the principles of Generalized
Darwinism to explain the survival of groups, customs, nations, businesses, and social
institutions. Aldrich and Pfeffer (1976) identify the natural selection model of
evolutionary theory as one of the possible approaches to study organizational change.
They believe that the general principles of Darwinism can be used to describe not only
the survival or failure of entire organizations, but also the partial modification of structure
and activities. Plotkin (1993) uses Generalized Darwinism as theoretical lens to study the
evolution of science. Popper (1972) applies Generalized Darwinism to explain the
evolution of animal and human cognition as well as knowledge.
The essence of Darwin’s theory of natural selection lies in the claim that natural selection
is a creative force of evolutionary change (Gould, 1982). Darwin (1909) argues that
variations in individual organic beings must exist for natural selection to operate. These
variations serve as raw material for the environment to function. They can be random or
planned (Breslin, 2011). Whenever and wherever an opportunity arises, the natural
selection preserves all variations that best fit the environment and rejects those that do
not. In other words, there must be an environment in which not all the variations can
survive and some do better than others.
Darwin (1909) suggests that variations in living organisms are naturally selected in a few
different ways.
– First, certain variations are preserved and naturally selected for future reproduction
because they inhabit in living organisms that have the best chance of surviving.
25
– Second, a unit of heredity which is also known as a replicator that contains a source
of variations manifested through an interactor is accidentally or unintentionally
transferred, thus naturally selected, from one living organism to another living
organism of the same kind.
– Third, variations inhabiting in living organisms that happen to have high productive
power are likely to be naturally preserved as living organisms with such variations
increase more and more.
Drawn from Darwin’s theory of natural selection, Campbell develops a blind-variation-
and-selective-retention (BVSR) model to explain the evolution of creative thought,
culture, and society (Aldrich and Kenworthy, 1999). Campbell (1965) argues that organic
being, creative thought, culture, and society are all evolving systems. Similar to Dawkins
(2010) and Dennett (1995), Campbell (1965) believes that all kinds of systems, including
organizations, information systems, and computer applications, resemble each other in
the sense that their evolution follows a general model of evolutionary change for which
organic evolution is only one instance. They change over time by accumulating and
losing features.
BVSR posits that for evolution to occur, the following three conditions have to be met
(Campbell, 1965), i.e.,
– There must be variations in the selective system and/or in the environment where the
selective system resides;
– The consistent criteria for determining which variations to eliminate, propagate, or
retain must be in operation; and
– The mechanism for preserving, duplicating, or propagating selected variations must
be established.
When these three requirements are in place, Campbell (1965) believes that there will be a
drift pressures toward increased adaptation, complexity, size, and integration of social
organizational units, if such increases give selective advantage.
26
Campbell (1965) argues that variations in a selective system and/or in the environment
provide adequate raw materials to operate on. That is, the more numerous and the greater
the heterogeneity among variations, the richer there will be the opportunities for “the
accidental discovery” of advantageous innovation to occur. A cultural norm with
variations that value change, progress, and innovation, in fact, should produce even more
variations. Campbell (1965) also argues that, other thing being equal, those social-
environmental settings providing the greatest range of variations are the most likely to
produce social advances. According to Campbell (1965), variations that are likely to be
preserved and thus selected for future reproduction within and beyond the selective
systems in which variations reside include:
– Variations that are advantageous to the survival of the selective systems;
– Variations that belong to the selective systems that are seen as prospering;
– Variations that are recognized as being associated with success in individual
memories of pleasure and pain;
– Variations that offer the most rewarding outcomes;
– Variations that exhibit traits of leadership and educational roles; and
– Variations that are outcomes of deliberate or self-conscious selective process.
2.3.2. Meme as a unit of selection in a social/cultural realm
As units of natural selection, variations can be any kinds of replicating entity that can
pass on its structure largely intact in successive replications (Dawkins, 2010 and Hull,
1988). In biology, a gene is a well-known example of a replicator (Dawkins, 2010). It
functions as an instructional unit that dictates physical characteristics of respective
organisms and directs their behavior in response to certain given environmental
conditions (Florini, 1996). Analogous to gene, Dawkins (2010) names ‘meme’ as another
type of replicator that conveys the idea of cultural transmission.
Memes guide cultural and social development in the same way that genes do in the
process of biological evolution (Shenkman, 1996). Many different forms of memes that
guide social and cultural development include a broad set of values that underpin an
27
existence of different kinds of artifacts, their basic design parameters, design techniques,
production processes, production methods, skills tacitly embedded within human agents,
and knowledge involved in their use (Fleck, 2000; Mokyr, 1991). “The ideas [memes]
themselves influence those [physical] objects” (Blackmore, 1999, p. 29). Changes in
phenotypic expression of any artifacts depend ultimately on changes in these memes. It is
simply because these memes contain information that not only dictates the physical
characteristics of those artifacts, but also directs their behavior in response to given
environmental conditions.
2.3.3. CASs as vehicles for meme propagation
Blackmore (1999) and Aunger (2002) note that memes are not only stored as ideas in
human brains, but also embodied in artifacts including prints and technologies which can
be perceived as CASs. As Dennett (1995, p. 348) demonstrates: “A wagon with spoked
wheels carries not only grain or freight from place to place; it carries the brilliant idea of
a wagon with spoked wheels from mind to mind.” Dawkins (2010) views these forms of
meme storage as vehicles for meme propagation. He defines a vehicle as “any unit …
which houses a collection of replicators and which works as a unit for the preservation
and propagation of those replicators” (p. 114). Hull (1988) refers what Dawkins calls a
vehicle to an interactor as its functions go beyond housing and carrying memes around.
For Hull (1988), any entity that stores memes also “interacts as a cohesive whole with its
environment in such a way that causes replication to be differential” (p. 408).
Replication, whether in biological or social form, involves a transmission of information.
Therefore, for an entity to become an effective gene vehicle, “it must have an impartial
exit channel into the future for all genes inside it” (Dawkins, 2010, p. 256). Similarly, for
a meme vehicle to be effective, it must have an impartial exit channel into the future for
all memes inside it. While “the thin stream of sperms or eggs” (p. 256) is seen as an exit
channel for gene vehicle (Dawkins, 2010), people who synthesize artifact (Simon, 1981),
who thus are one component of an artifact (Zwass, 1998), and who themselves are
vehicles of meme (Blackmore, 1999) can be considered as exit channels for meme
28
vehicles.
Through the exit channel, memes are passed on from brain to brain, from brain to print,
from print to print, or from some kind of vehicle/interactor to another kind of
vehicle/interactor by imitation (Blackmore, 1999). As people are considered as memes’
exit channel, they are the exclusive agents behind the process of meme replication
(Aunger, 2002). They are communicators in charge of duplicating information.
2.3.4. The role of the environment on the emergence and evolution of memes
Clearly, Generalized Darwinism provides an over-arching framework for explaining how
replicators, both biological and social genotypes, which contain useful information
concerning solutions to particular adaptive problems, are retained and passed on as well
as why those replicators differ in their longevity and fecundity. Generalized Darwinism,
however, does not provide a complete theory of evolution (Hodgson and Knudsen,
2006b). “Darwinian evolution proceeds merrily once life has originated” (Dawkins, 2008,
p. 137). It does not provide details on how replicators and their variations come to life
(Dawkins, 2010; Hodgson and Knudsen, 2006b; and Aldrich and Pfeffer, 1976). In
Generalized Darwinism, the existence of variations is in fact assumed. Moreover, as
Hodgson and Knudsen (2006b) argue, “natural selection alone cannot explain why some
birds have dull, and others colorful, plumage.” This missing theoretical component can
be supplemented by Lamarckian perspective on the role that the environmental force
plays in the emergence of the replicating entities and their variations that make up life. In
fact, any sociologists have argued for importance of variation emerging as a response to
environmental contingencies (Aldrich and Pfeffer, 1976).
As part of his theory of acquired characteristics and inheritance, Lamarck (1914) posits
that the environmental force “induces changes in the need and modes of life of living
beings… these changes give rise to modifications or developments in their organs and the
shape of their parts” (p. 45). In Lamarck’s view, the modifications of organs and body
parts actively acquired by living organisms from increased or decreased use responding
29
or reacting to some environmental cause or stimulus, “not those modifications of the
body resulting from a direct action of the environment on the organism (heat, light,
injury, or mutilation)” (p. 9), are important factors in biological evolution (Steele, 1981).
Such modifications imply cognitive mechanism that involves volitional activities striving
towards predetermined goals (Hodgson and Knudsen, 2006a). If the problem posted by
the environment persists for sufficient time, the acquired characteristics will maintain
their constancy and will be codified by heredity (Steele, 1981).
According to Lamarck, the environmental forces are the external conditions of life
(Darwin, 1909). They trigger and induce perceived needs for replicating entities, i.e.,
genes and memes, to emerge and evolve into different variations in the hope that they
will guide the development of living organisms and cultural artifacts in a way that better
fit the environment. While the environmental forces in the world of the living beings are
events such as anthropological, climatic or geological changes (Lamarck, 1914),
examples of the environmental forces in the context of cultural artifacts are the size and
the structure of the industry, the competitors, and government regulations (Tornatzky,
and Fleischer, 1990); stabilized, regulated institutionalized practices (Lamb and Kling,
2003); and the internal dynamics of the industry structure, organization, and individual
employees (Schellhammer, 2011).
Although Lamarckian principles had been criticized of being wrong for almost 200 years
(Steele, Lindley, and Blanden, 1998), scientists have already found scientific evidence
that supports Lamarck’s theory (e.g., Sciamanna, Vitullo, Curatolo, and Spadafora 2009;
Burger, Kirchner, Bramanti, Haak, and Thomas, 2007; and Steele, Lindley, and Blanden,
1998). Many prominent social scientists also confirm that instances of socio-economic
evolution are in line with Lamarckian’s view. Nelson and Winter (1982) incorporate
them in their evolutionary theory of economic change. Freeman (1992) claims that
institutional and technological change follows the rules of the acquired characteristics
and inheritance. Torress-Carbonell and Parets-Lorca (2001) apply Lamarckian principles
to explain the evolution of software systems. The work of Barthelmé, Ermine, and
Rosenthal-Sabroux (1998) in the area of knowledge system is also inspired by
30
Lamarckian theory. According to Barthelmé et al (1998), knowledge systems evolve as
they adapt to new needs or constraints imposed by the environment. The new
characteristics acquired as a result of the adaptation to organizations’ new moves, new
needs, and new usage pattern are believed to be wholly or partially transmitted to the next
generation knowledge systems. Contemporary theories such as genre model (Yates and
Orlikowski, 1992), technology-organization-environment framework (Tornatzky and
Fleisher, 1990), and social construction of technology (SCOT) (Pinch and Bijker, 1984)
are also found consistent with Lamarck’s view. What these three theories have in
common is the emphasis that technological artifacts are embedded in a larger
environmental context and that the environmental context is important to understanding
how technological artifacts are designed and used.
31
CHAPTER 3. A MEMETIC THEORY OF IOIS EMERGENCE AND
EVOLUTION
This chapter provides a synopsis view of IOIS and introduces the notion that IOIS is a
rather complex adaptive system (CAS) residing in an organizational field. A memetic
theory of IOIS emergence and evolution which is based on a combination of evolutionary
perspectives from leading evolutionary thinkers including Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck and
Charles Darwin is then proposed to explain how IOIS emerges, how it evolves into its
current form, and how it coevolves with the various social institutions and communities
that develop, regulate, use, and change it. The theory is then operationalized into four
propositions.
3.1. Interorganizational information system (IOIS)
IOISs are information and communication technology-based systems that support
organizational coordination, cooperation, and collaboration across time and space
(Kumar and van Dissel, 1996). According to Barrett and Konsynski (1982), IOISs
involve the sharing of information resources between two or more independent
organizations. The information resources may include hardware, software, transmission
facilities, rules and procedures, business applications, data/database, and expertise.
IOISs provide a technical platform rooted in a set of pre-defined standards for
information exchange shared by all participating organizations (Chatterjee and
Ravichandran, 2004). These standards provide guidelines on how information is created,
stored, transformed, and transmitted across organizational boundaries. They allow all
separate and heterogeneous information systems that are part of IOISs to interoperate
(Damsgaard and Truex, 2000). With “technological capacity to share information across
organizational boundaries more conveniently and more flexibly” (Hart and Saunder,
1998, p. 88), IOISs enable the transmission of large-volume high quality data. They
enhance storage and processing capabilities in a way that facilitates the matching of
relevant information as well as the monitoring of relations and transactions with partners
32
(Chatterjee and Ravichandran, 2004). Once entered into the system, the information can
be electronically shared among participating organizations. The task of rekeying the same
information into different information systems (Suomi, 1992) and thus documentary error
(Barrett and Konsynski, 1982) can be eliminated. As the productivity improves, the costs
of and time required for coordinating business transactions among participating
organizations can be reduced as a consequence (Barrett and Konsynski, 1982).
3.1.1. IOIS in a larger institutional setting
Stakeholders of an IOIS are not just organizations participating in the cooperative
ventures of an IOIS. They also include organizations in the interorganizational networks
that extend beyond a particular industry environment (Lamb and Kling, 2003). Social
actors who are part of those organizations are also professionally engaged in a set of
affiliations that connects them to other members of the industry, national, and
international networks (Lamb and Kling, 2003). Through affiliations, decisions regarding
the design, development, use, and maintenance of a particular IOIS are not only
influenced by organizations participating in that IOIS but also by other social institutions
and communities in an organizational field where those organizations reside. These
decisions are derived from a defined set of legitimate options determined by
organizations that constitute an organizational field (Hoffman, 1999). For this reason,
organizational decisions cannot be understood apart from the larger institutional setting in
which organizations are embedded (Powell, 1991). An organizational field therefore
serves as a scope of analysis in the study that aims to distill insights about how a
particular IOIS emerges, evolves, and co-evolves with the various social institutions and
communities that develop, regulate, use, and change them.
Powell (1991) adds that the decision outcomes at some given point in time cannot be
understood in terms of organizational preferences existing at that same point in time.
Those decision outcomes may be a product of previous organizational choices shaped by
conventions and capabilities that have been developed under an organizational field
(Powell, 1991). As Klein et al. (2008) conclude based on the analysis of longitudinal data
33
of IOIS in the pharmaceutical distribution industry in Australia and Ireland from a period
of about 20 years, the sequence of events is of great importance for the explanation of the
current situation. The emergence and evolution of any IOIS is a result of a complex
interplay between technical-organizational strategic choices and their intended-
unintended consequences over time (Klein et al., 2008). To study IOIS emergence and
evolution, it is therefore important to take into account changes in an organizational field
where the IOIS, which is the subject of the study, belongs.
An organizational field is formed around the issues that are important to the interests and
disparate objective of specific organizations (Hoffman, 1999). Based on such
conceptualization of an organizational field, organizations share the same organizational
field if (i) they are functionally interrelated, (ii) they operate on the common meaning
system, and (iii) they interact with other organizations within their organizational field
more frequently and fatefully than with those outside the field (Scott, 1991).
For an organizational field to exist, it must be institutionally defined (Dimaggio and
Powell, 1983). For organizational fields to be institutionally defined, the following
conditions must be met (Dimaggio and Powell, 1983). First, an interaction among
organizations that are functionally interrelated must increase to a greater extent. Second,
interorganizational structures of domination and patterns of coalition must be defined.
Third, there must be an increase in the information load with which organizations in a
field share. Last, a mutual awareness among organizations participating in an
organizational field must be developed. In short, the existence of a field structure can be
detected through an increase in the extent to which certain organizations interact and
engage in a common channels of dialogue (Hoffman, 1999). A boundary of a particular
organizational field can only be determined by a empirical investigation (Bourdieu and
Wacquant, 1992).
Organizations that are part of an organizational field are likely to stretch from local to
national or international (Scott and Meyer, 1991). A collection of organizations that is
arranged at broader and wider scale enables local organizations to connect with non-local
34
organizations (Scott and Meyer, 1991). Organizations that constitute an organizational
field may include the governments, business partners, organizations that provide sources
of funding, professional and trade associations, special interest groups, the general public,
and any organizations that impose a coercive/regulatory, normative, or cognitive/mimetic
influence on population of an organizational field (Scott, 1991). According to Dimaggio
and Powell (1983), a coercive/regulatory pillar shapes organizational action through
political and legislative influences. A normative pillar is made up of standard operating
procedures that are perceived as norms. A cognitive/mimetic pillar offers a cultural
framework that guides the development of meaning for objects in organizational life
especially when uncertainty is prevalent.
Coercive, normative, and cognitive pillars of institutions reflect the practical implications
of the issues lying at the center of an organizational field. These institutional pillars may
account for the instances where organizations adopt IOIS to satisfy external stakeholders,
and thus increase legitimacy in external stakeholders’ eyes, but not for the sake of
improving organizational efficiency (Koch, 2005). However, the fact that the
organizations occupy a common organizational field and follow a common set of
institutional pillars does not mean that they always share the same beliefs and attitudes
toward the environment. An organizational field can turn into an arena of power relations
where its population competes over the definition of issues and the form of institutions
that will guide behavior of organizations participating in it (Hoffman, 1999).
3.1.2. IOIS as a complex adaptive system
IOIS can be viewed as ‘a technological system’ (Hughes, 1987), ‘an information ecology’
(Davenport and Prusak, 1997), or ‘a local computing package’ (Kling, 2000) embedded
in a larger environmental context. As suggested by several scholars (Seror, 2013;
Adomavicius, Bockstedt, and Gupta, 2012; Fedorowicz, Gogan, and Ray, 2004;
Haveman, Russo, and Meyer, 2001; and Porra, 1999), it can also be conceptualized as a
complex adaptive system (CAS).
35
By its very nature, an IOIS exhibits properties of complexity, i.e., diversity,
connectedness, interdependence, and adaptability (Page, 2009). It consists of many
interacting and interdependent components working together to yield the outcome that
cannot be accomplished if each component works individually. IOIS may contain more
than one information system. Each of them has its structure, technologies, strategies, and
goals (Eom, 2005).
In line with the CAS perspective, Lyytinen and Damsgaard (2011) describe an IOIS as “a
constellation of conceptually distinct elements or traits [components] that commonly
occur together and form an integrative, meaningful whole” (p. 14). They argue that an
IOIS consists of actors, technology, and institutional elements. According to Lyytinen
and Damsgaard (2011), “a configuration is not a simple aggregation of behaviors of its
independent elements; rather, it forms a set of emergent behaviors that differ from the
sum of the parts” (p. 15). The interactions and interdependencies among these elements
are primary factors that determine the developmental trajectory of an IOIS (Adomavicius
et al., 2012).
Table 3.1.2-1: Examples of IOIS Components
Lyytinen and Damsgaard, 2011 Zwass, 1998 Examples
Actor People • Project sponsor • Technical and technical support personnel with
relevant expertise, knowledge, and skills • Users • Stakeholders from social institutions and
communities both local and global that develop, regulate, use, and change it
Technology Computer hardware • Computer • Computer peripheral equipment
Computer software • System software or operating system • Application server • Application software • User interface
Database • Database management system • Database server • Data model
Telecommunications infrastructure
• Telecommunication equipment • Communication network, Communication server
36
• Communication protocols Institutional elements
Procedures • Visions, policies, strategies, and goals • Rules and regulations • Business processes
The emergence of an IOIS implies a process of a system coming to life, in a sense of
“much coming from little” (Holland, 1999, p.2). The implementation of an IOIS involves
the integration of those disparate parts. It requires coordinated actions, which are subject
to “multiple social constructions and network effects” (Lyytinen and Damsgaard, 2011, p.
14), among large number of stakeholders from multiple autonomous organizations. The
coordinated actions will eventually align the structure, technologies, strategies, and goals
of each information system with those of IOIS, enable the cooperative relationships of
organizations participating in the IOIS, and thus allow IOIS to exist (Lyytinen and
Damsgaard, 2011).
Similar to other types of CAS, the parts that constitute IOIS are governed by their own
rules. Each of them is continually revising its rules with anticipation on the consequences
of the responses, as it encounters a problem posed by its surroundings. Similar to organic
beings, each of them is also revising its rules as it encounters a changing behavior of the
other parts (Holland, 1992). As Steele (1981) notes, “if several genetic changes are to
occur, they must be coordinated if they are to be harmoniously integrated into the four
dimensions of development” (p. 4) [i.e., time of appearance, function, position, and
number of cells, tissues, and organs]. A process of change in system’s properties over
time refers to evolution (Scott, 1989; and Spencer, 1862). Changes in IOIS may include
adding new components, removing existing components, or replacing existing
components with new ones (Lyytinen and Damsgaard, 2011).
3.2. Memetic theory in action
To explain IOIS emergence and evolution, I advocate for a conceptualization of an IOIS
as CAS and the recognition of information, knowledge, and ideas that prescribe features
and functions of an IOIS as memes. Based on prior knowledge and insights from Darwin
37
and Lamarck, we operationalize our theory with four propositions.
3.2.1. Memes as origins of IOIS emergence and evolution
In line with Arthur (2009) who argues that technologies revolve around concepts and
governing principles, the meme-centered view of emergence and evolution posits that
memes lie at the core of the emergence and evolution of any social, cultural, and socio-
technical systems, including IOIS. They serve as resources for IOIS project selection,
IOIS implementation planning, IOIS design, IOIS development, and IOIS maintenance to
accommodate a diversity of evolving interests, values, assumptions, and cultures in
organizations participating in the IOIS as well as other social institutions and
communities in an organizational field where those organizations reside.
Proposition 1: IOIS emergence and evolution revolve around memes
and their variations.
Memes that define IOIS can be those that Lyytinen and Damsgaard (2011) see as the
elements that constitute the adopter configuration, the very unit of IOIS adoption. They
include organizing visions, key functionalities, structure, mode of interaction, and mode
of appropriation for organizations participating in an IOIS. In their different forms and
variations, these memes provide a broad set of basic design parameters, design
techniques, production processes, production methods, skills tacitly embedded within
human agents, and knowledge underpinning IOIS existence.
Given that the realization of the technologies is achieved by implementing these elements
of adopter configuration, which are now conceptualized as memes, a solid understanding
about those elements and their interactions is required to understand the emergence of
IOIS and its evolution over time (Arthur, 2009; Lyytinen and Damsgaard, 2011).
38
Table 3.2.1-1: Memes governing IOIS (Adapted from Lyytinen and Damsgaard, 2011)
Class of memes that govern IOIS Definition
Organizing vision Persuasive cognitive model of how IOIS will benefit its participants Key functionality The scope and content of data exchanges and their choreography
including message structure and data format Structure The structural relationships among participating organizations Mode of interaction The characteristics of interaction, e.g., voluntary and equal
relationships (match mode) and obligatory and hierarchical interactions (conflict mode)
Mode of appropriation The level of process integration
3.2.2. The role of the environment on the emergence and evolution of memes, thus IOISs
From Lamarck’s perspective, memes emerge and evolve in response to problems posed
by environmental forces. In the context of an IOIS, these forces can be social, political,
economic, or catastrophic happenings that trigger or induce perceived needs for new
memes including their variations to emerge. These happenings, whether single events
occurring at different points in history or chains of continuous events, induce perceived
needs for new memes to emerge and for existing memes to evolve into different
variations in a way that fits their survival advantage, i.e. the ability to get themselves
replicated.
Proposition 2: Environmental forces, such as social, political, economic,
or catastrophic happenings, induce the emergence and evolution of
memes that leads to the emergence and evolution of an IOIS.
Table 3.2.2-1: Examples of environmental forces that are capable of driving the
emergence and evolution of memes, thus IOISs
Environmental force Perceived need Emerging meme Social happenings: Any phenomena that entail human aggregates and their behavior Remarkable growth in popularity of online social media
The need for cost effective branding tool and direct marketing channel
The emergence of commercials distributed through online social media
39
Environmental force Perceived need Emerging meme Political happening: Any events that occur to generate demands for the uptake of certain values and to mobilize support for the demands generated The overfishing of and thus extinction facing bluefin tuna (also known as ultimate political fish), which leads to the political clash between environmentalists and commercial interests.
The need to impose control including restrictions and quotas on the fishing of bluefin tuna
The emergence of: – Recommendation by ICCAT
Concerning the ICCAT Bluefin Tuna Statistical Document Program which paved the way for the creation of the Permanent Working Group for the Improvement of ICCAT Statistics and Conservation Measures
– Recommendation by ICCAT on an ICCAT Bluefin Tuna Catch Documentation Program which is expected to strengthen the conservation and management measures in force for the fishing and farming of Bluefin tuna4
Economic happenings: Any situations that deal with the allocation of resources and their use in terms of efficiency and effectiveness High cost of mapping data structure within and between software applications in international trade domain
The need for data interoperability in the international trade domain
The emergence of: – ISO 11179, Information
Technology – Metadata Registries (MDR)5
– UN/CEFACT Core Component Technical Specification (CCTS: ISO 15000- 5/ebXML)6
– UN/CEFACT Core Component Library (CCL)7
4 International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT). (2010). Summary of Measures Taken Historically by ICCAT for Bluefin Tuna. Retrieved from www.cites.org/eng/cop/15/doc/E15-68A04.pdf on April 25, 2011. 5 ISO (2004, 2005). ISO 11179, Information Technology – Metadata Registries (MDR). Retrieved from http://metadata-stds.org/11179/#A1 on April 25, 2011. 6 UN/CEFACT. (2009). UN/CEFACT Core Component Technical Specification Retrieved from http://www.unece.org/cefact/codesfortrade/CCTS_index.htm on April 25, 2011. 7 UN/CEFACT. (2011). Core Component Library. Retrieved from http://www.unece.org/cefact/codesfortrade/unccl/CCL_index.htm on April 25, 2011.
40
Environmental force Perceived need Emerging meme – Data models such as WCO Data
Model, UNeDocs, UBL, X12, UN/EDIFACT, OAGi, and RosettaNet
Catastrophic happenings: Accidental, intentional, or unintentional man-made or natural disasters 9/11 Tragedy
The need to secure and facilitate the global supply chain
The emergence of strategies, so-called WCO SAFE Framework of Standards, to secure the movement of global trade in a way that does not impede it (the implementation of trade information system is identified as one of the strategies in the framework)8
3.2.3. Selection: A determinant of successful memes
Lamarck’s perspective informs how memes emerge and evolve. However, I observe that
around one problem posed by the environmental force, several variations of solutions can
be identified. The Asian Koel, for example, is known for its egg-dumping behavior. The
female koel lays her eggs in the nests of other birds. Instead of laying her eggs in the
nests of other birds, the female koel could have built her own nest, laid her eggs there,
and fed her own chicks by herself. Similarly, WCO Data Model, UNeDocs, UBL, X12,
EDIFACT, and RosettaNet are data models that provide data structure for trade
documents. Ideally, only one data model is to be selected to guide the design of user
interface, database table, Java classes (in case it is a Java application), and exchange
interface. In addition, while some EDI-based IOIS use X12 as a message format, some
use EDIFACT.
These variations, whether embedded in genes or memes, serve as raw materials for
natural selection. They are used selectively. Both Darwin and Campbell identified
selective criteria that help explain why certain variations of meme are selectively
incorporated into a system. Table 3.2.3-1 provides a synthesis of the selective criteria 8 World Customs Organization (WCO) (2007). WCO SAFE Framework of Standards. Retrieved from www.wcoomd.org on April 25, 2011.
41
proposed by Darwin and Campbell. Examples of scenarios where each individual
selective criterion is in effect are also given. It should be noted that a list of selective
criteria presented in Table 3.2.3-1 intentionally leaves out the two selective criteria that
Campbell identified, i.e., ‘variations that exhibit traits of leadership and educational
roles’ and ‘variations that are outcomes of deliberate or self-conscious selective process.’
It is due to the fact that these two selective criteria are incapable of operating by
themselves. For them to be in effect, the selective criteria outlined in Table 3.2.3-1 are
required.
Table 3.2.3-1: Selective Criteria Adapted from Darwin (1909)1 and Campbell (1965)2
Selective criterion Example Survivability – Features and functions that are mostly
advantageous to the survival of a selective system and thus bring the most rewarding outcomes1,2
Web-based EDI is selected over traditional EDI, which is carried out via a commercial Value Added Network (VAN). It not only makes system maintenance more affordable, but also allows users to incorporate changes, updates, and modifications to new EDI versions and standards.9
Fertility – Features and functions that are mostly
replicated in population of a selective system1,2
Both industry and government within the US decided to migrate and align their X12 data structure and format with UN/EDIFACT to increase semantic interoperability of their EDI system with the rest of the world.10
Conformance – Features and functions that are recognized
as conforming to norms, rules, and regulations2
“K” Line updated its Global Manifest System to meet the requirements of the European 24 Hour Advanced Manifest Rule (EU24)
Satisfaction – Features and functions that are
remembered as fulfilling expectations and needs of users1,2
In a user satisfaction survey, one responder commented that there are too many types of Customs declarations and too many fields to key in TradeNet System for duty payment declarations. A customs officer promised to incorporate the comment into the next enhancement of TradeNet.11
Serendipity – Features and functions that are
incorporated into a selective system by chance1
Data analysts employed a particular data model to guide the harmonization of data requirements as that particular data model passed their way when they happened to need it.
9 Atia, R. (1999-2011). EDI VAN. Retrieved from http://www.amosoft.com/articles/edi-van.html on April 26, 2011. 10 ManTech Advanced Systems International. (1997). Op. cit. 11 Singapore Customs (last reviewed on April 2011). Responses to Significant Comments. Retrieved from www.customs.gov.sg/.../Responses+to+Significant+Comments.htm on April 26, 2011.
42
Proposition 3: Only memes that fall into one or more than one of the following
selection criteria are incorporated into and preserved in IOIS components.
– Memes that are mostly advantageous to system survival and thus bring
the most rewarding outcomes;
– Memes that are mostly replicated in population of a selective system;
– Memes that are recognized as conforming to norms, rules, and
regulations;
– Memes that are remembered as fulfilling expectations and needs of
users; and
– Memes that by chance come to be known right when desperately
needed.
In IOIS context, only memes that fall into one or more than one selection criteria outlined
above would likely be selected to be incorporated into and preserved in IOIS
components. Features and functions of IOIS components specified by memes enable IOIS
components to work together. Through the interaction of IOIS components, an IOIS
emerges.
Essentially, I argue that the combination of Lamarck’s theory of acquired characteristics
and inheritance and Darwin’s theory of natural selection can explain the mechanism
behind the emergence and evolution of IOIS.
Figure 3.2.3-1: A memetic theory of IOIS emergence and evolution
Figure 3.2.3-1 illustrates the process of IOIS, as a type of CASs, emergence and
evolution that has been discussed thus far. Based on Lamarckian perspective, I argue that
memes including their variations that dictate features and functions of IOIS components
43
emerge in response to the environmental forces. However, from Darwinian point of view,
I argue that not all emerging memes are selected to be included in IOIS components.
Only memes that fall into one or more than one selective criteria discussed above are
selected to be incorporated into and preserved in IOIS components. Features and
functions of IOIS components specified by memes enable IOIS components to work
together. Through the interaction of IOIS components, an IOIS emerges. A particular
type of IOIS can have several variations. It is simply due to the operation of the selective
criteria on different environmental context. In other words, different locations that
circumscribe organizational action are subject to different environmental forces.
As a CAS, an IOIS also possesses a mechanism capable of generating feedback. The
feedback mechanism allows an IOIS to anticipate both new memes emerging in response
to new problems posed by the environmental force and new memes generated by an IOIS
itself when it operates at a state beyond the equilibrium. By anticipating new memes, an
IOIS evolves with an aim to better fit the environment. Yet, its evolution does not
guarantee that greater improvement can be achieved. A random environmental force
could lead to a detrimental future path.
3.2.4. Coevolution between IOIS and various social institutions and communities that
develop, regulate, use, and change it
Technological evolution cannot be seen as an independent evolutionary process, but part
of a broad coevolutionary set of processes occurring at different levels of adaptation
(Devezas, 2005). A particular IOIS as well as social institutions and communities that
develop, regulate, use and change it can all be viewed as interdependent CASs cohabiting
in an ecosystem, known in this research context as an organizational field. As different
types of CASs interact, there are chances that they “modified and adapted in the most
perfect manner to each other, by continued preservation of individuals presenting mutual
and slightly favorable deviations of structure” (Darwin, 1909, p. 109). This reciprocal
evolutionary change between CASs is conceptualized as coevolution.
44
Proposition 4: IOIS and social institutions/communities participating in
its development, operation, regulation, and use coevolve by adapting and
modifying themselves in a manner that is harmonious to each other.
In line with ecology and evolutionary biology, I categorize coevolution between different
a particular IOIS as well as social institutions and communities that develop, regulate, use
and change it, into three categories.
Figure 3.2.4-1: Pairwise or specific coevolution
The first category of coevolution, as shown in Figure 3.2.4-1, is known as pairwise or
specific coevolution. It refers to a reciprocal change that occurs as an outcome of tight
interactions between two CASs. It is the case where one CAS modifies its traits in
response to traits of the other CAS and where the evolutionary changes in traits of the
first CAS drive the evolutionary changes in traits of the second one. For example, certain
features and functions are incorporated into an IOIS in response to ongoing business
practices in a social institution. New features and functions that an IOIS offers in turn
change the way members of that social institution run their operational routines.
45
Figure 3.2.4-2: Diffuse or guild coevolution
Diffuse or guild coevolution visualized in Figure 3.2.4-2 is the second category of
coevolution. It refers to the reciprocal evolutionary changes occurring in a group of
CASs. It occurs when several CASs modify their trait in response to selective pressures
posted by several other CASs. The new trait resulting from an evolutionary change in
turn causes changes in the selective environment for other CASs. The extension of
WCO12 and WTO13’s vision to better address supply chain security in trade facilitation
and border management together with the US DHS14 adoption of 24-hour advance
manifest and 100% scanning for US-bound cargo containers, for example, have driven
the reconfiguration of an IOIS and evolutionary changes in the way traders, freight
forwarders, logistics service providers, and government agencies operate. The effort that
members of these social institutions have spent to fulfill security requirements, in turn,
made organizations like WCO and WTO realize the importance of carefully balancing the
dual goals of security and trade facilitation. It also reflected the fact that the US DHS has
underestimated the enormity of efforts and costs both to governments of the US and other 12 World Customs Organization 13 World Trade Organization 14 US Department of Homeland Security
46
countries. The US DHS requested an extension of the congressionally imposed deadline
for 100% scanning as a result.15
Figure 3.2.4-3: Meme-for-meme or matching meme coevolution
Lastly, meme-for-meme or matching meme coevolution, as shown in Figure 3.2.4-3, is a
specific case where the presence of a meme in one CAS is dependent on the continued
presence of a meme in another CAS, and where the interaction between the two memes
leads to a single observable characteristics by which the presence or absence of the
relevant meme in either CAS may be recognized (adapted from Person, Samborski, and
Rohringer, 1962 to fill in the context of CAS).
For example, the European 24 Hour Advanced Manifest Rule (EU24) can be seen as a
meme embedded in European Union Customs. EU24 requires the electronic submission
of an Entry Summary Declaration for all import cargo moving from a non-EU country to
any EU member state to Customs at the first EU port of call 24 hours before the loading
of cargoes at the non-EU load port onto a vessel takes place. To accommodate this
requirement, “K” Line has updated its Global Manifest System16 to enable the electronic
provision of Entry Summary Declarations for all import cargo to Customs at the first EU
port of call by the time that the rule specifies. Without the EU24 rule, “K” Line would
15 http://www.container.hu/en/news/uk-forwarders-not-surprised-by-us-climbdown-on-100-container-scanning 16 www.kline.com/.../European-24-hour-Advanced-Manifest-Rule-Update-2010.pdf
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not update its Global Manifest System. The presence of meme that has emerged to
accommodate EU24 requirements and has been incorporated into “K” Line’s Global
Manifest System is dependent on the continued presence of the EU24 rule enforced by
European Union Customs.
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CHAPTER 4. RESEARCH METHODS
4.1. Problem statement, research approach, proposed theoretical model, and
research questions revisited
By laying out possible technological, organization, and interorganizational factors that
created favorable conditions for IOISs to emerge, research in IOIS adoption contributes
to a better understanding of IOIS emergence. It uncovers IOIS emergence and evolution
phenomena that occur as a result of deliberate choices. Nevertheless, little is known about
the mechanisms behind the selection of apparently attractive IOIS projects but do not fit
organizational strategies and current capability for implementation as well as the
variations in a particular type of IOISs. The missing theoretical narrative may be due to
the fact that:
– The efforts spent in research in this area have been directed to the examination of
IOIS emergence and evolution phenomena at the macro level; and
– The empirical studies that have been conducted are in the scope not much larger than
the network of organizations participating in the IOIS being studied.
To fill the literature gap on IOIS emergence and evolution, I advocate for (i) the
conceptualization of an IOIS as a complex adaptive systems (CAS); (ii) the recognition
of information, knowledge, and ideas that prescribe features and functions of an IOIS as
memes; (iii) the inclusion of happenings in an institutional setting larger than dyads, hub-
and-spoke networks, and a group of firms in an industry segment in the analysis; and (iv)
the use of evolution perspectives inspired by Charles Darwin and Jean-Baptiste de
Lamarck to explain the emergence and evolution of IOIS. Table 4.1-1 illustrates the
mapping between research questions outlined in Chapter 1 and the proposed theoretical
model as discussed in Chapter 3.
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Table 4.1-1: Research Questions and Proposed Theoretical Model Mapping
Research questions Proposed theoretical model RQ 1. How does a particular IOIS emerge?
As illustrated in Figure 3.2.3-1, IOIS emerges through the interaction of IOIS components. Features and functions of IOIS components are dictated by memes and their variations (Proposition 1) that (i) emerges in response to environmental forces listed in Table 3.2.2-1 (Proposition 2) and (ii) fall into one or more than one selection criteria listed in Table 3.2.3-1 (Proposition 3).
RQ 2. How does a particular IOIS evolve?
The process of IOIS evolution is also illustrated in Figure 3.2.3-1. Given that evolution also implies the emergence of new properties in the system at certain points, emergence and evolution cannot be separated from one another. An IOIS evolves as a result of memes’ adaptation (Proposition 1) through refinement and recontextualization in response to environmental forces listed in Table 3.2.2-1 (Proposition 2). In other words, the environmental forces are factors that drive the evolution of a particular IOIS. The same type of an IOIS can have several variations, i.e. not all features and functions of a particular IOIS are selected for reproduction. Some steadily increase in importance while others decrease. As noted in Chapter 3 under Section 3.2.3, it is simply due to the operation of the selection criteria listed in Table 3.2.3-1 (Proposition 3) on different environmental context. In other words, different locations that circumscribe organizational action are subject to different environmental forces.
RQ 3. How does a particular IOIS coevolve with various social institutions and communities that develop, regulate, use, and change it?
Section 3.2.4 in Chapter 3 lists three ways where a particular IOIS coevolves with various social institutions and communities that develop, regulate, use, and change it (Proposition 4).
The first way is through pairwise or specific coevolution. As
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Research questions Proposed theoretical model shown in Figure 3.2.4-1, it refers to a reciprocal change that occurs as an outcome of tight interactions between an IOIS and a social institution or a community that develop, regulate, use, and change it.
The second way is through diffuse or guild coevolution as visualized in Figure 3.2.4-2. It refers to the reciprocal evolutionary changes occurring in a group of CASs, which may include several IOISs, several social institutions and communities, and other types of CASs cohabiting in an ecosystem, known in this research context as an organizational field. It occurs when several CASs modify their traits in response to selective pressures posted by several other CASs. The new trait resulting from an evolutionary change in turn causes changes in the selective environment for other CASs.
The third way is through meme-for-meme or matching meme coevolution. As shown in Figure 3.2.4-3, it is the case where the presence of a meme in one CAS is dependent on the continued presence of a meme in another CAS.
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4.2. Research strategies
4.2.1. Qualitative approach
I took a qualitative approach to data collection and analysis in this research project
simply because the nature of this research project meets the justification for qualitative
research identified by Richards and Morse (2007).
Table 4.2.1-1: Research Purposes and Justification for Using Qualitative Approach
Purposes of Qualitative Research
(Richards and Morse, 2007) Proposed Research
1. To understand an area that is inadequately addressed in existing literature
– Existing IOIS research focuses on issues related to the implementation, adoption, and consequences of IOISs. It barely discusses how they emerges, evolves, and coevolves with an organizational field where it is embedded.
2. To make sense of complex and dynamic phenomenon taking into an account the context where the situation is embedded
– This research intends to explain the emergence an evolution of an IOIS as a complex adaptive system involving constant changes and complex network of events occurring over time.
– Given that changes are highly context-dependent, the phenomenon under the scope of the study can only be understood by taking the context where they operate into an analysis. Decisions regarding the design, development, use, and maintenance of a particular IOIS are influenced by organizations participating in that IOIS as well as by other social institutions and communities in an organizational field where those organizations reside. They are results of a complex interplay between technical-organizational strategic choices and their intended-unintended consequences over time. For this reason, IOIS emergence and evolution as well as the coevolution of IOIS with various social institutions and communities that develop, regulate, use, and change it, an in-depth investigation on these phenomena cannot be studied outside the context in which they occur.
3. To learn from experiences and perception of participants in a natural setting
– Orlikowski and Iacono (2001) argued that the evolution of IT artifacts is a result of their adaptation, enhancement, and expansion to accommodate a diversity of evolving interests, values, assumptions, cultures, and new technologies. Therefore, to understand how IOIS emerges, evolves, coevolves with various social institutions and communities in a relevant organizational
52
Purposes of Qualitative Research
(Richards and Morse, 2007) Proposed Research
field, it is necessary that the researcher understands how participants in a real setting perceive each environmental force occurring in time.
– In line with Mead (1934), this research scheme also reflects researcher’s belief that the world of reality exists only in human experience. Given that knowledge exists only in human experience, knowledge inquiry about human conduct and human society that affects the fate of an IOIS can only be obtained through naturalistic examination of the empirical social world.
4. To understand the phenomena of interest in a great depth
– In order to answer the proposed research questions, a close-up look at the phenomenon under the scope of the study was required. Through an in-depth examination of the phenomenon of interest, I was able to construct a sequence of historical events occurring as a result of environmental forces has been constructed, describe perception of relevant social groups on each event, and explain how events and perception of relevant social group on each event constitute the occurrence of the phenomenon of interest.
– The study of the phenomena of interest requires that multiple units of analysis (memes and CAS including IOIS and various social institutions and communities that develop, regulate, use, and change it) and their interaction are examined.
5. To construct a theoretical framework that reflects what has been happening in reality
– A theoretical model that explains the phenomenon of interest has been developed. An empirical testing of the proposed theoretical model against a “verbally stated evidence” (Dubé and Paré, 2003) is necessary to ensure that the proposed theoretical model reflects what actually happens in reality.
4.2.2. Case study
Case study is defined as “an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary
phenomenon in depth and within its real-life context, especially when the boundaries
between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident (Yin, 2009, p. 18).” I selected it
as a research strategy because the nature of this research project met the justifications for
the use of case study as a research strategy defined by Yin (2009), i.e., ‘how’ questions
was posed, (ii) the researcher had no control over events; and (iii) the focus was on a
contemporary phenomenon within some real life context. I also chose it because it
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allowed the use multiple data collection methods with multiple sources of evidence in the
case setting to get the best possible answers to the research questions (Gillham, 2000). As
Dubé and Paré (2003) argued, the richness and flexibility that case study research
strategy brought to the overall research process made it particularly useful for the study
of a complex phenomenon that I studied.
Explanatory single case study: The ‘how’ component of the research questions that I
developed for this research project and the urge to explain how IOIS emergence and
evolution occur led me toward explanatory case study. In this research, I followed the
explanation-building process suggested by Yin (2009). I first developed a theoretical
model to explain the sociotechnical process where IOIS emerges, evolves, and coevolves
with the various social institutions and communities that develop, regulate, use, and
change it. The theoretical model was derived through the mapping of the knowledge that
I gained from my work experience with the synthesis of theoretical concepts of CAS and
meme as well as theoretical perspectives from Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck and Charles
Darwin. Based on the theoretical model that I developed, I generated four propositions. I
then compared the findings from the case against the theoretical model and those four
propositions. With the evidence from the case, I was able to confirm the theoretical
model and statements, refine them, and thus improve their precisions.
Embedded single case study: The case study conducted in this research project is
classified as an embedded case study due to the fact that it involved multiple units of
analysis. They were (i) memes, i.e., ideas, information, and knowledge that serve as raw
materials for IOIS project selection, IOIS implementation planning, IOIS design, IOIS
development, and IOIS maintenance and (ii) CASs i.e., ThaiNSW as well as social
institutions and communities that develop, regulate, use and change it.
I incorporated multiple units of analysis, i.e., one at the micro level and another at the
macro level in the study in the hope to overcome the limitations of the past research. As
discussed in previous chapter, it seems convenient to analyze the emergence and
evolution of any CASs at the individual level where phenotypic expression is stored and
54
shown through physical characteristics (Jablonka, 2000). However, the individual level
where phenotypic expression is stored and shown through physical characteristics is not
where emergence and evolution occur (Holland, 1999; and Goldstein, 1999). The
emergence and evolution of any CASs occur at the level of social genotype or replicator
represented by meme (Hodgson and Knudsen, 2006a). Nevertheless, the dynamics of the
CAS can neither be “predictable from, deducible from, nor reducible to” what happens in
the micro-level components alone (Goldstein, 1999, p. 57). According to Goldstein
(1999), the configuration of what happens at the macro level must also be taken into an
account to gain more explanatory insights.
4.2.3. Limitations of the selected research strategies
The use of a qualitative approach and a case study as research strategies made the theory
I developed embedded in rich empirical data. Given that the research itself is highly
context-dependent, the outcome of the study is not generalizable.
Flyvbjerg (2006) points out that generalizability of the theory built through a case study
can be increased by the strategic selection of case. He emphasized the selection of the
case based on “the basis of expectations about their information content” summarized in
Table 4.2.3-1. Unfortunately, the limitation to cases that I could use as the instrument for
the study made this option improbable.
Table 4.2.3-1: Information-oriented strategies for case selection (Flyvbjerg, 2006)
Type of selection Purpose Extreme/deviant cases To obtain information on unusual cases, which can be especially
problematic or especially good in a more closely defined sense. Maximum variation cases
To obtain information about the significance of various circumstances for case process and outcome (e.g., three to four cases that are very different on one dimension: size, form of organization, location, budget).
Critical cases To achieve information that permits logical deductions of the type, “If this is (not) valid for this case, then it applies to all (no) cases.”
Paradigmatic cases To develop a metaphor or establish a school for the domain that the case concerns.
To improve the validity of the theoretical model that I developed to explain IOIS
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emergence and evolution as well as its coevolution with various social institutions and
communities that develop, regulate, use, and change it, further testing is needed. For now,
it is listed as a future work. The knowledge that I gained from this research remains valid
as an input for the collective process of knowledge accumulation in IOIS emergence and
evolution research stream.
I was also aware of the fact that this research was hermeneutic in nature. Therefore, there
were possibilities that I might apply my pre-existing interpretations on data as they
accumulated and that my background knowledge and my professional experiences related
to the case might influence the way I concluded the study.
Bellini and Rumrill (2009) suggested the use of the bracketing technique to minimize
such subjective bias. Unfortunately, there is a lack of consensus among qualitative
research scholars about what constitutes bracketing and when it should occur in the
research process (Tufford and Newman, 2010). I chose to follow the scholars who
advocate the incorporation of bracketing at the start of the research process when the
project is first conceptualized and throughout the research (e.g., Tufford and Newman,
2010; Rolls and Relf, 2006; and Ahern, 1999). As part of the explanatory building
procedure, I was able to fully embrace bracketing early on in the study. I set aside my
assumptions about the phenomenon of interest by embedding them in the theoretical
model and statements. The theoretical model and statements were later empirically
verified and refined to reflect the social reality.
Despite lack of uniformity and varied application, Gearing (2008) argues that bracketing
consists of specific standard elements. Those elements as well as the actual use of
bracketing in this research are outlined in Table 4.2.3-2.
Table 4.2.3-2: The use of the bracketing technique in this research
Core element of bracketing (Gearing, 2008)
The actual use of bracketing in this research
The actual bracket The bracket contained the proposed IOIS emergence and evolution theoretical model and its four propositions.
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Core element of bracketing (Gearing, 2008)
The actual use of bracketing in this research
The nature of suppositions being held The proposed IOIS emergence and evolution theoretical model and its four propositions came from my internal suppositions, i.e., my past experiences as well as my knowledge of theoretical concepts like CAS and meme as well as theoretical perspectives from Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck and Charles Darwin.
The time in which the bracketing is applied
The bracketing process was applied after the literature search but prior to data collection.
The unbracketing and reintegration of the data derived from the bracketing process into the larger research
The theoretical model and statements were later empirically verified and refined to reflect the social reality.
The use of bracketing technique in this manner allowed me to combine both inductive
and deductive approach in a process of knowledge inquiry. As a qualitative researcher, I
began with a set of research questions and detailed observations of the world. I proceeded
inductively by generating four research propositions. Given that induction is
distinguished from deduction by the absent use of existing theory (Ali and Birley, 1999),
it should be noted that those propositions were not derived from the purest inductive
approach. Existing theories and theoretical concepts were employed. They helped me
make sense of disparate information and organize it in a way that guided my study in a
later stage.
In addition to the use of existing theories and theoretical concepts, this research also
employed a deductive approach. It sought to illustrate each proposition using the
information generated by empirical research. I then proceeded inductively. I continued to
examine the findings. Based on the findings, I modified the propositions to better reflect
the findings.
4.3. The case
Thailand’s National Single Window (ThaiNSW) or a set of information systems that
facilitates the coordination and collaboration among stakeholders from different
industrial or service sectors in a symbiotic network of the international supply chain was
used as an instrumental case to get insight into the proposed research questions.
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4.3.1. Case selection
ThaiNSW was purposefully selected as a case for the study due to my familiarity with it.
I had been involved in its implementation for some years. Given that getting to know the
case is among the first essential steps that case study researchers have to do in parallel
with reading relevant literature (Gillham, 2000), my familiarity with the case helped save
the time required for getting acquainted with the case and its context. My familiarity with
the case also offered me an access to the greatest possible amount of data inclusive of
‘the little things’ that might not have been visible to me if I had not participated in the
project. The randomly selected case “emphasizing representativeness will seldom be able
to produce this kind of insight” (Flyvbjerg, 2006, p. 229).
Given that the nature of the research questions required an in-depth investigation on
emerging and evolving properties of an IOIS over time, longitudinal data were needed.
ThaiNSW clearly fulfilled this data requirement. Its history could be traced back to mid-
1990s. The longitudinal data of a single case allowed me to observe the same set of
phenomena under different conditions. They also offered me a better chance to spot
instances of coevolution between ThaiNSW and various social institutions and
communities that develop, regulate, use, and change it.
I also purposefully selected ThaiNSW as a case for the study because of its characteristics
and the context where it resided. ThaiNSW case is interesting in the sense that its
characteristics falls into what Lyytinen and Damsgaard (2011) called a community wide
IOIS which had not been studied much in the past. As Reimers et al. (2009) noted, past
IOIS research that incorporated timescale was mostly conducted in the scope not much
larger than organizational dyads and hub-and-spoke networks that usually span a single
industry.
In addition, most of the IOISs that have been studied are those that support participating
organizations in carrying out some value activities of a value chain between buyers and
sellers (Nouwens and Bouwman, 1995). These IOISs facilitate the interaction between
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members of what Alter and Hage (1993) denoted as a systemic production network or
between organizations that perform similar tasks. The characteristics of ThaiNSW, on the
other hand, place it with IOISs that facilitate the coordination and collaboration of
members in what Alter and Hage (1993) denoted as a symbiotic network or a network of
organizations residing in different industrial or service sectors which becomes more
apparent in the IS world. It should be noted that, in symbiotic relationship, organizations
enter into mutual dependences based on their functional differences (Hawley, 1950).
Differentiation of functions is associated with a differentiation of environmental
requirements that each organization requires in carrying out the kind of activities in
which it is routinely engaged (Hawley, 1986; and Astley and Fombrun, 1983). Given that
such differences are complementary, organizations in the symbiotic relationship support
one another in the performance of their respective assignments (Hawley, 1986).
4.3.2. Case overview
Single Window is a set of information systems that facilitates the G2G, G2B, B2G, and
B2B information sharing and exchange between stakeholders of international supply
chain. United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business
(UN/CEFACT) (2005) defines Single Window as a facility that allows parties involved in
the international supply chain to lodge data in a standardized format at a single entry
point to fulfill all import, export, and transit-related regulatory requirements. If the data
are electronic, they should be submitted only once. UN/CEFACT (2001) categorized
parties involved in the international supply chain into four groups (UN/CEFACT, 2001).
They are:
– Supplier (exporter/seller) who sells goods or services as stipulated in a sales contract;
– Customer (importer/buyer) to whom goods and services are sold as stipulated in a
sales contract;
– Intermediary who provides commercial, financial, and/or transport services within an
international supply chain, such freight forwarder, customs broker, 3rd party logistics
service provider, express integrator, carrier of all modes, port, terminal operator,
inland container depot, bank, insurance company, IT value-added service provider,
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bank and financial institutions; and
– Authority (including authorized private inspection agency) of exporting country,
importing country, and country in transit who monitors goods crossing borders in a
way that reflects national and international public interests.
Many governments worldwide have adopted the Single Window initiative as a national
program of work since they recognize that Single Window is a crucial instrument that can
be used to eliminate operational inefficiency and ineffectiveness in business and
government along the international supply chain, reduce trade transaction costs, as well
as improve border control, compliance, and security.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Single Window Taskforce (2005)
has also inserted that Single Window should facilitate a synchronous processing of data
as well as enable the decision-making for customs release and clearance at a single point.
The actual Single Window implementation cases, however, suggest that the electronic
lodging of all data used to fulfill procedural requirements of the international supply
chain does not necessarily have to be performed in one time and at a single point. Given
that the international supply chain consists of several business processes; and that those
different business processes, which may be carried out by different people from different
organizations in different time, have different data requirements, the submission of data is
performed as appropriate in different stages of the international supply chain through
different data submission channels.
Regardless of diverging definitions, Single Window is made up of different kinds of
artifacts that are interconnected and interacting with one another.
– IT artifacts that can be grouped into three major categories. They are Central
information gateway, Information systems of all participating organizations, and
information submission channels.
• Central information gateway serves as a hub for the management of workflow
throughout the Single Window and thus the international supply chain as well as
60
the sharing and exchange of information among relevant parties. Its key features
include (i) the module that facilitates business process management, (ii) the
module that administers communication protocols and enables interconnectivity
among information systems of all participating parties, (iii) the module that
facilitates the authentication and non-repudiation of messages and fosters the
security and integrity of the system as a whole, and (iv) the module that provides
semantic translator and syntax validation.
• Information systems of all participating organizations serve various purposes.
Some facilitate the declaration, clearance, and release of goods. Some facilitate
the issuance of permit, license, and certificate required to fulfill documentary
requirements in the declaration, clearance, and release of goods. Some facilitate
the processing of payments for services and goods. It is important to note that
these information systems are equipped with an additional module that enables
back-end integration and service arrangements with the central information
gateway.
• Information submission channels provide communication interfaces for data
submission. The selection of an interface is of users’ preference. These
information submission channels are accompanied with the business process
management module that assists users from trade and transport community with
procedural and documentary requirements in different phases of the international
supply chain.
– Artifacts that serve as inputs for the development of the IT artifacts outlined above
(e.g., a report illustrating supply chain’s “as-is” and “to-be” business processes,
harmonized data set, a data model)
– Artifacts that serve as mechanisms for enabling smooth and sound implementation
and operation of Single Window (e.g., a master plan, enterprise architectures,
business models, legal framework, and governance mechanism)
When operated in a full scale, Single Window connects information systems of
stakeholders engaged in various business processes across the international supply chain
from after the goods are ordered until the payment for good is made. By integrating
61
relevant information systems, Single Window enables collaborative processing, sharing,
and exchange of information among parties involved in the international trade
transactions. One-time submission of identical pieces of data is made possible. Errors
from rekeying identical pieces of data are eliminated. Integrity of data used across those
business processes and compliance with regulatory requirements are enhanced.
In Thailand, the establishment of ThaiNSW has been assigned as a national flagship. It
has been promoted as a strategic agenda on Trade Facilitation Enhancement and a vision
to become the world-class logistics hub for Indochina (NESDB, 2005). As a data network
for information exchange among all stakeholders in the international trade supply chain,
ThaiNSW is expected to foster regional integration and realization of an ASEAN
Economic Community by 2015. Together with the governments of ASEAN member
countries, the Thai government signed the agreement to establish and implement the
ASEAN Single Window. This agreement requires Thailand to put in place ThaiNSW by
2008 (ASEAN, 2005).
The continuous effort that Royal Thai Customs and other government agencies
contributed to ThaiNSW endeavor led to a reduction in the average export and import
time from 24 and 22 days in 2007 to 14 and 13 days in 2010. The costs necessary to
complete every official procedure for exporting and importing containerized cargoes also
went down approximately 25 percent as a result. Thailand was able to save at least THB
46 billion annually. Thailand was ranked the 12th in the World with regard to the ease of
trading across borders, as compared to the 108th in 2007.17
4.4. Data collection
To confirm that a theoretical model and theoretical statements that I developed to explain
the actual sociotechnical process where an IOIS emerges, evolves, and coevolves with the
various social institutions and communities that develop, regulate, use, and change it
17 Department of International Trade Promotion. Thailand National Single Window. Available at URL: http://www.tradelogistics.go.th/download/file/faa8e3e5.pdf
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using data collected from the proposed case, i.e., Single Window that has been
implemented in Thailand, longitudinal data were needed. Data that I collected included:
– Data about various components of ThaiNSW including their features, functions, and
when they were conceived;
– Data about memes that dictated features and functions of ThaiNSW’s components as
well as memes that fueled their implementation including data about where they were
originated, how they became visible in the local meme pool, and reasons why they
were activated or selected for implementation;
– Data about memes that made it to the local meme pool but did not get selected for
implementation;
– Data about memes that were deactivated including reasons for their deactivation;
– Data about social, political, economic, or catastrophic happenings that induce
perceived needs for the emergence and evolution of those memes; and
– Data about characteristics of social institutions and communities that involved in the
development, operation, use, and maintenance of ThaiNSW over time.
Triangulated design: Triangulated design was fully incorporated into the study it the
hope that it would help reduce systematic biases occurring from the limitation of a
specific source. Data were collected from written documents and from interviews with
individuals performing different roles in introducing the global structure of IT application
in trade facilitation domain to Thailand and embedding it in local practices. The collected
data offered insights from multiple perspectives. The findings were derived by inference
on the basis of evidence and reasoning.
4.4.1. Review of documents
In this research, data were first collected from relevant written documents that I found
through Internet searches. They include presentation slides given in various occasions,
minutes of meetings, progress reports, project proposals, project’s term of reference,
CVs, formal policy statements, formal notifications from government agencies,
newsletters, news articles, internet blogs, technical reports, and research papers.
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The extensive review of those documents enhanced my knowledge about the life of
ThaiNSW from the day its first component was conceived and what was going on in its
habitat. With such knowledge, I was able to (i) construct the narrative that informed the
origin and the evolutionary path of ThaiNSW from 1995 to 2012 (Chapter 5); (ii) identify
memes that dictated features and functions of ThaiNSW’s components (Chapter 8); (iii)
identify memes that fueled their implementation (Chapter 8); (iv) pinpoint various types
of happenings that induce perceived needs for the emergence and evolution of memes
(chapter 9); and (v) describe how ThaiNSW evolved with social institutions and
communities that involved in its development, operation, use, and maintenance over time
(Chapter 11).
The knowledge I gained from the documents review helped me prepare interview
questions. Better understanding about the topic and issues surrounding the settings
increased my ability to quickly understand the data that I acquired during the interviews.
Following the interviewees’ lead, additional documents were collected and reviewed
during and after the interviews.
4.4.2. In-depth interview
The review of documents was useful. It improved my understanding about the case and
issues surrounding the case. Nevertheless, it fell short in answering why certain memes
were selected for implementation while other were not as well as why memes that were
once activated but got deactivated. In addition, after reviewing documents for quite some
time, I began to have the impression that the data I got from documents review, seemed
too presentable. It left out many disordered and chaotic situations that I myself
experienced when I actively involved in the project. With the in-depth interviews, I came
to learn ‘behind-the-scene’ stories from interviewees’ perspective that had not been
recorded in any written documents. Triangulation of documents review and in-depth
interviews therefore provided a more complete account for the case than either could
achieve alone.
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Drawing on the principle of an elite interview (Marshall and Rossman, 1999), I
purposefully selected interviewees based on their expertise and their involvement in
ThaiNSW case. The selected interviewees could report on organizations' policies, past
histories, future plan, as well as the ‘little things’ regarding the practicalities of ThaiNSW
implementation. From the in-depth interviews with the experts, I was able to quickly
acquire large and valuable amount of data that was not present in the documents that I
reviewed.
The participation in the interview was voluntary. The email invitations were sent to 12
potential interviewees. Only nine interviewees agreed to participate. They were (i) a
senior officer from the national think-tank who considered himself as “a champion” in
driving the interagency collaboration in the ThaiNSW endeavor; (ii) a senior officer from
Royal Thai Customs who involved in the implementation of ThaiNSW at the decision
making level since it was just the EDI-based customs automation system; (iii) four
consultants who assisted other government agencies implement the components that
constituted ThaiNSW; (iv) two change agents from academia; and (v) an officer from an
agency under the umbrella of the United Nations, who unlike the others, shares with me
an interesting story of how a particular meme emerged and evolved over time.
The in-depth interviews took place in August 2012. They were conducted in an
unstructured manner. The participants were allowed to share in details the information
about each episode in their own view (Ruspini, 2002; and Richards and Morse, 2007).
During the interviews, with open-ended questions, interviewees were asked to remember
and reconstruct all kinds of data listed above. Before ending each interview session,
interviewees were asked to name documents that they thought could be sources of
evidence. All of the interviews were conducted via Skype call which took no more than
90 minutes. Each of them was digitally recorded.
The data from the interviews enabled me to (i) confirm the origin and the evolutionary
path of ThaiNSW from 1995 to 2012 (Chapter 5); (ii) identify additional memes that
dictated features and functions of ThaiNSW’s components (Chapter 8); (iii) identify
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additional memes that fueled their implementation (Chapter 8); (iv) describe how memes
propagated (Chapter 7); and (v) gain insights about the reasons for the activation and
deactivation of memes (Chapter 10).
It should be noted that I was not able to conduct an interview over Skype with a senior
officer from Royal Thai Customs due to his busy work schedule. After almost two
months with a few attempts to schedule the interview, in mid-October 2012, he instructed
me to send him an email with a list of questions. With his generosity, I received
comprehensive data for each question I asked in four days.
Respondent validation or member checks: Although triangulation can help reduce
systematic biases, it does not guarantee the accuracy of the findings. It is because the
findings, whether they are derived from the documents review or the interviews, are
generated according to the interpretation of the researcher. To ensure accurate
interpretation of the data, respondent validation or member checks were employed during
the interviews. I restated what the interviewees had said and then questioned them to
determine accuracy. I also contacted some of the interviewees after the interviews via an
instant messaging, i.e. the chat feature embedded in Gmail, to double check the meaning
of the statements that later on were unclear to me. According to Maxwell (2005),
respondent validation is seen as “the single most important way of ruling out the
possibility of misinterpretation” (p. 111). Through the conduct of respondent validation,
an additional level of credibility regarding the accuracy of the research outcome can be
obtained (Bellini and Rumrill, 2009).
All the interviews, except the interview with an officer from the UN agency, and
respondent validation were conducted in Thai. Each interview was transcribed within the
same day it was held. Given that all interviews were subject to a confidentiality
agreement, interviewee names were not mentioned in the transcribed material.
Back translation: Only the relevant parts of the interviews were translated into English.
To ensure the accuracy of the translation, I applied the back translation technique. I back
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translated the English texts into Thai. To give myself an opportunity to look at the
English texts with the fresh eyes, the back translation was conducted several months after
the Thai-English translation was made. With the help of my colleague in Thailand, the
two versions of Thai texts were then compared, evaluated, and revised where necessary.
4.5. Coding and data analysis
Chronological analysis: I conducted the data analysis as I collected data. My first
attempt of data analysis took place after the initial round of document reviews. I began
the analysis of data by organizing them in a chronological order. The chronological
analysis enabled me to construct the narrative that informed the origin and the
evolutionary path of ThaiNSW from 1995 to 2012 (Chapter 5). The historical recap of
how ThaiNSW came to be in its current form also revealed several characteristics of
ThaiNSW that were common with those of CASs as well as some patterns in ThaiNSW
evolution (Chapter 6). The narrative served as the groundwork for the systematic
identification of ThaiNSW’s key features and functions. It shed light on memes that I had
to pay attention to. It also revealed a few instances of the coevolution between ThaiNSW
and social institutions and communities that develop, regulate, use, and change it.
The second round of chronological analysis began during the period in which I conducted
the interviews. The data that I analyzed came from the review of documents and the in-
depth interviews. It enabled me to identify (i) the path in which key memes that were
crucial for major evolution in ThaiNSW propagated as well as (ii) key agents who played
an important role in bringing the global structure of Single Window to Thailand and
embedding it in local practices (Chapter 7).
Analytical coding: Analytical coding was employed on the narratives that described the
historical recap of ThaiNSW emergence and evolution as well as the path in which
memes that were crucial for major evolution in ThaiNSW propagated (Chapter 7).
According to Richards (2009), this type of coding is the hardest but the most rewarding.
It is the exercise where “you are considering the meanings in context, and creating
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categories that express new ideas about the data, coding to gather and reflect on the data
related to them” (Richards, 2009, pp. 102-103). The result of the analytical coding led me
to conclude that an interaction between participants in the cooperative venture of
ThaiNSW through formal and informal communication was a necessary condition for its
emergence and evolution and to identify communication patterns that were apparent
throughout the process of ThaiNSW evolution.
The narratives that described the historical recap of ThaiNSW emergence and evolution
as well as the path in which memes propagated also enabled me to establish the
association between the features and functions of ThaiNSW and relevant memes. With
such knowledge, I was able to demonstrate various roles of memes on the emergence and
evolution of ThaiNSW (Chapter 8).
Descriptive coding: I extracted memes that were crucial for ThaiNSW implementation
from the narratives derived from the chronological analysis. I conducted descriptive
coding on those memes to give myself some ideas about the nature of memes that I
studied. As outlined in Table 4.5-1, for each of them, I applied Brodie’ (1996)
classification of memes and Lyytinen and Damsgaard’s (2011) five dimensions of IOIS
configuration. I added “technology” to the codebook as technologies such as EDI,
ebXML, and Web Services which are examples of distinction memes that I identified do
not fall into any of Lyytinen and Damsgaard’s (2011) five dimensions of IOIS
configuration.
Table 4.5-1: Codebook for descriptive coding on memes
Type of memes (Brodie, 1996) Distinction meme Memes that distinguish one object or concept from another Strategy meme Memes that provide instructions for carrying out certain tasks, including
practices and routines, with an aim to achieve desired results
Association meme Memes that emerge when one attempts to associate existing memes, e.g., attitudes about everything in life
Characteristics of memes that govern IOIS (Lyytinen and Damsgaard, 2011)
Vision Persuasive cognitive model of how IOIS will benefit its participants
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Key functionality The scope and content of data exchanges and their choreography including message structure and data format
Mode of interaction The characteristics of interaction (between IOIS stakeholders), e.g., match mode (voluntary and equal relationships), conflict mode (obligatory and hierarchical interactions), strategic mode, regulated mode
Structure The structural relationships among participating organizations, e.g., 1:1, 1:M, M:M, M:M:M
Mode of appropriation
The level of process integration, e.g., business process support, business process integration
Characteristics of memes that govern IOIS (this research)
Technology Technologies underlying IOIS
For the memes that I identified, I examined their properties in terms of copying-fidelity,
fecundity, and longevity (Table 4.5-2). According to Dawkins (2010), the success of
memes is determined based on these characteristics. He claims that successful memes are
ones that get copied with minimal change, spread rapidly to relevant population, and last
very long in the meme pool. For each of those memes, I also specified whether it has
been activated in and/or deactivated from ThaiNSW project.
Table 4.5-2: Guideline for examining memes based on Dawkin’s (2010) criteria of
successful memes
Copying-fidelity The degree of exactness with which a meme is reproduced • High denotes a meme that gets copied with no or minimal change. • Low denotes a meme that gets copied with changes so extensive that
they affect the meaning of that meme. Fecundity The speed in which a meme is diffused to relevant population
• Fast denotes a meme that moves quickly from one mind to another easily without much effort.
• Slow denotes a meme that does not get transferred easily. Longevity The length of a meme’s life
• Long denotes a meme that has been mentioned at least over a decade. • Short denotes a meme with life expectancy less than ten years.
Topic coding: Topic coding was then conducted on those memes to identify the type of
happenings that induce perceived needs for their emergence and evolution (Table 4.5-3).
As Richards (2009) said, topic coding is very straightforward. It involves the allocation
of passages to topics and requires little interpretation. The passages that served as a basis
for topic coding were from both the documents that I reviewed and the interview
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transcription.
The codebook on types of happenings that induce perceived needs for their emergence
and evolution was revised during the coding. Technological happening was listed in the
original codebook. I removed it after I learned from the data that technological happening
typically has its root in social, economic, political, and/or catastrophic happening. I also
found memes whose emergence did not fall into any of the happenings that I identified.
The data suggested that those memes emerged in response to pre-existing memes. Some
emerged to support pre-existing memes so that the pre-existing memes could be properly
expressed. Some emerged as a result of evolution. In this case, pre-existing memes served
as resources for the conception of new memes.
Table 4.5-3: Codebook for topic coding on memes
Type of happenings that induce perceived needs for their emergence and evolution Social happening Any phenomena that entail human aggregates and their behavior. Economic happening Any situations that deal with the allocation of resources and their use in
terms of efficiency and effectiveness. Political happening Any events that occur to generate demands for the uptake of certain
values and to mobilize support for the demands generated. Catastrophic happening
Any accidental, intentional, or unintentional man-made or natural disasters.
Pre-existing meme Memes whose emergence is influenced by pre-existing memes Meme selection criteria Survivability Memes that are mostly advantageous to system survival and thus bring
the most rewarding outcomes Fertility Memes that are mostly replicated in population of a selective system, e.g.,
standards and international best practices Conformance Memes that are recognized as conforming to norms, rules, and regulations Satisfaction Memes that are remembered as fulfilling expectations and needs of users Serendipity Memes that by chance come to be known right when desperately needed Capacity Memes that are in the human capacity to implement Provocation Memes that serve as responses to provocation Convenience Memes that were perceived as conveniently realizable Factors that influence meme selection Negotiation power The power that comes with predominant actor Perception A way of interpreting memes based on individual preferences, attention,
emotions, and desires which are influenced by values, beliefs, and practices embedded in the social setting in which memes are propagated
After working with the data set for a while, I had an impression that coding memes’
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selection criteria was not as straightforward as coding the type of happenings that induce
perceived needs for their emergence and evolution as it required more interpretation.
Selection criteria also operated in hierarchical order. I needed to understand the order in
which they operated before I could carry out another topic coding. For this reason, I went
through data, especially those collected from the in-depth interviews over and over again
before I performed topic coding on meme’s selection criteria. Once I became familiar
with them in intimate ways as Marshall and Rossman’s (1999) advised, I assigned each
meme with the applicable selection criteria (Table 4.5-3). I began with the five selection
criteria that I identified in Chapter 3, i.e., survivability, fertility, conformance,
satisfaction, and serendipity. The codebook on meme selection criteria was later updated
to incorporate new selection criteria that emerged from the data, i.e., capacity,
provocation, and convenience. During the coding, I was exposed to the data that
suggested that negotiation power and perception played a crucial role in meme selection.
I added them to the codebook as a result.
Pattern matching: The findings resulting from the analyses of the case served as inputs
to confirm the possibility that an IOIS could emerge, evolve, and coevolve with the
various social institutions and communities that develop, regulate, use, and change it in
the way that the theoretical model and statements suggested. They also provided
information for refining the theoretical model. The comparison of an empirically based
pattern with a predicted one is known as pattern matching (Yin, 2009). This data analysis
technique, according to Yin (2009), is one of the most desirable data analysis techniques
for case study research. He argued that internal validity is enhanced when the empirical
pattern and the predicted one coincide.
Data collection and data analysis excluding the back translation process is summarized in
Figure 4.5-1.
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Figure 4.5-1: Data collection and analysis process
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4.5.1. Dedoose
Both descriptive and topic coding that I carried out was done using Dedoose, i.e. a web-
based application for analyzing various formats of data (http://www.dedoose.com/). I set
up a project in Dedoose. I went to the ‘Project’ page, in the Select Project panel, I click
the ‘Add Project (+)’ icon.
After I added the title and description of the project, Dedoose generated a nice and clean
project dashboard.
In the project dashboard, I began by setting up the code tree. To add code, I clicked the
Edit Code icon ( ) in the Code panel. After clicking the Edit Code icon, Dedoose gave
me options to alphabetically sort codes ( ), to reorder codes ( ), to import codes ( ),
and to add codes (+). After I clicked the ‘Add Code (+)’ icon, Dedoose gave me a
window to add the title of my codes and their description. Note that during the coding
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process, I had to visit the Code panel from time to time to add additional codes that
emerged from the data. Dedoose allows the creation of codes in hierarchy and code
weighing. Given the project time constraint, I did not have much time to learn how it
worked. I decided to stick with the basics.
Before clicking the Edit
code icon
After clicking the Edit
code icon
Data can also be imported to Dedoose from the project home dashboard. It can simply be
done through the ‘Add Media (+)’ icon in the Media panel.
After clicking the ‘Add Media (+)’ icon in the Media panel, the ‘Add Media’ box will
pop up. Dedoose supports the analysis of data in various formats, i.e., text, video, and
audio. In this study, only “Import Text” and “Create a Blank Document” applied.
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Texts will be automatically loaded after they were added to Dedoose.
In order to apply codes to the texts, I needed to create an excerpt. To do so, I needed to
select the desired texts and then click the ‘Create Excerpt’ button at the bottom of the
page. The excerpts are highlighted in different colors. I then applied relevant code(s) to
the selected texts by double-clicking the code in the ‘Codes’ panel.
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CHAPTER 5. THE THAI CASE: IN SEARCH OF CAS ORIGIN AND
EVOLUTIONARY PATH
This chapter provides the narrative that informed the origin and the evolutionary path of
ThaiNSW from 1995 to 2012. As it reveals several features and functions of ThaiNSW as
well as its underlying technologies over the 17 years period, it partly serves as the basis
for the systematic identifications of memes.
5.1. First-generation customs automation system
THAINSW emerged as a customs automation system that supported customs declaration
processing, customs clearance and customs release of exported and imported goods, risk
management, revenue collection, duty drawback, and collection of trade statistics. As
stated in its 2010 Annual Report, “Royal Thai Customs had implemented the concept of
Single Window to facilitate import and export since 1998.” Back then the Single Window
was known as a customs automation system. The first-generation customs automation
system facilitated the electronic routing of (i) Customs Declaration, Commercial Invoice,
and Goods Control List from traders or their customs brokers to Royal Thai Customs; (ii)
Vessel/Flight Schedule, Sea/Air Cargo Manifest, and Container List from carriers or their
agents to Royal Thai Customs; and (iii) various kinds of response messages from Royal
Thai Customs to traders or their customs brokers and carriers or their agents.
The messages were in an UN/EDIFACT format. They were transferred using X.400-
based X.435 as a messaging protocol. All messages had to go through one of the three
EDI-based data exchange gateways. For traders, carriers, or their representatives to
electronically send messages to or receive messages from Royal Thai Customs, a front-
end application with a necessary interface that complied with the specifications defined
by Royal Thai Customs and a connection to the EDI-based data exchange gateways were
required. They usually procured it from VAN EDI service providers, also known as VAS
(value-added service provider). EDI Service Counters were, nevertheless, established by
Royal Thai Customs and third-party service providers to assist traders who did not have
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the front-end application.
e-Declaration module of the first-generation customs automation system automatically
processed Customs Declarations provided by traders or their customs brokers. It verified
them against tariff information, exchange rates, trader’s tax registration numbers,
carrier’s names, and various codes including those related to location, country,
commodity administered and maintained in the customs database. In addition to those
data, the system also verified the amount of to-be-paid duties provided by traders or their
customs brokers against the one it calculated. The system was able to send a notification
to notify traders or their customs brokers when the errors were spotted in the submitted
Declaration. If no errors were detected, the system’s Risk Management module would
analyze and assess Customs Declarations against customs risk profile. It would label low-
risk cargo as Green Line and high-risk cargo as Red Line, and then prescribe inspection
needed. Upon the completion of risk assessment, the system returned response messages
to traders. The message contained customs declaration identification number and
inspection code.
To safeguard customs duties and better facilitate traders in duty payment, e-Payment
module was developed. Traders or their customs brokers, who participated in electronic
fund transfer (EFT) over a VAN, must have a front-end application that allowed them to
electronically send a Payment Order of duties for one or more Customs Declaration to
their bank and to electronically send Remitted Advice to Royal Thai Customs. Traders’
banks must have the application that allowed them to electronically send Debit Advice to
traders. Customs’ banks must have the application that allowed them to electronically
send Credit Advice to Royal Thai Customs. The back-end system of Royal Thai Customs
system, then, automatically matched Remitted Advice and Credit Advice. If there was no
discrepancy between Remitted Advice and Credit Advice, the system would
electronically send a message containing a receipt number to traders or their customs
brokers. Traders or their customs brokers could now print Customs Declaration, collect a
receipt at customs office, and proceed with customs clearance.
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The first-generation customs automation system facilitated the compilation of trade
statistics. As noted in Customs report: “Our international trade statistics are collected
from import and export data. These data will be automatically verified and corrected
until completed. In the past, it took many months to capture data. But now by using the
EDI system, the Royal Thai Customs can reveal foreign trade statistics within one
month.” The compiled trade statistics helped policymakers detect not only economic
trends, but also smuggling and fraudulent activities. It enabled Royal Thai Customs to
identify effective policies and plans to handle emerging trends in a timely manner.
e-Manifest module of the first-generation customs automation system was used in the
export and import of sea and air cargoes. It provided an electronic channel for carriers or
their agents to submit Vessel/Flight Schedule, Sea/Air Cargo Manifest, and Container
List to Royal Thai Customs. It facilitated customs officers in the process of customs
clearance and customs release by automatically matching data in Customs Declarations
and Goods Control List with corresponding Cargo Manifests and Container List,
identifying risky cargoes, and automatically sending out the inspection order to customs
officer in charge. Doing so allowed Royal Thai Customs to prevent illegal export and
import of undeclared cargoes.
e-Container module was used in the export of containerized cargo by sea. It provided an
electronic channel for traders or their customs brokers to submit Goods Control List, i.e.,
a document that served as Cargo Conveyance Report, to Royal Thai Customs. The
system automatically validated the data. If the submitted Goods Control List did not meet
customs requirements, the system would send a message to notify traders or their customs
brokers about the error. If the document met customs requirements, the system would
return traders or their customs brokers a message containing an identification number of
the accepted Goods Control List. The print out of Goods Control List must accompany
cargoes to port of exit. During customs clearance and customs release at port of exit,
customs officers had to retrieve Customs Declaration and Goods Control List using an
identification number of either Customs Declaration or Goods Control List. They had to
make sure that the actual goods to be exported were identical to the data declared. The
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system allowed customs officer to amend the data in the system to reflect the actuality.
These modules were integrated and operated on Unisys IX 5604 mainframe with an
RDMS 2200 relational database. They, however, were not conceived at once. The initial
launch of the first-generation customs automation system focused on the processing of
Customs Declarations for exported cargoes. It was deployed for the first time on February
20, 1998 for exported cargoes going through customs checkpoints located in Bangkok
airport and seaport. The deployment of e-Declaration for imported cargoes going through
customs checkpoints located in Bangkok airport and seaport began on April 21, 1999. In
2000, system deployment was extended to all customs checkpoints throughout Thailand.
However, it was not until late 2001 that Royal Thai Customs attempted to make the use
of e-Declaration mandatory. In the same year, trade statistics was published for the first
time on the Internet.
Although it was officially launched on November 13, 2002, EFT, enabled by Financial
Electronic Data Interchange (FEDI), had become an alternate payment method for duty
payment since May 11, 2000. On the date the service was officially launched, there were
6 commercial banks participating in the program. The number of participating banks as
well as the number of FEDI Service Counters provided by Royal Thai Customs changed
over time.
Royal Thai Customs introduced e-Manifest to enable the electronic transmission and
automatic processing of sea cargo and vessel movement data in 2001. The use of e-
Manifest in the sea mode of transportation had been mandatory for carriers or their agents
who had to complete customs formalities through the Royal Thai Customs’ head office
since April 1, 2003 and customs office nationwide two months later. The use of e-
Manifest was available in the air mode in April 1, 2004.
On January 9, 2003, Royal Thai Customs officially introduced a web-based application as
an alternate solution for small-and-medium-sized traders to electronically generate
Customs Declaration in an XML format and submit it to Royal Thai Customs. The
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routing of electronic messages between traders and a connection to the EDI-based data
exchange gateways were made via HTTPS. The transfer of messages between a
connection to the EDI-based data exchange gateways and customs system remained on
X.400-based X.435. At first, the application only supported the electronic preparation and
submission of General Export Customs Declarations. To enjoy the benefits of Internet-
based EDI, traders only required a personal computer with an Internet connection and a
web browser. Regardless of the submission channels, VAN or Internet, traders were
allowed to lodge several sets of documents in a single submission through the EDI
system.
Royal Thai Customs issued a Customs Order No. 166/2545 on May 29, 2002 to inform
relevant parties about the new rules regarding the clearance, the release, the stuffing, and
the loading of containerized cargoes for export. This new rules required traders or their
customs brokers to report the actual quantity of goods that was stuffed in the container in
a template called Goods Control List. Goods Control List then accompanied the
containerized cargo to the port of exit. This Customs Order had been strictly enforced
since August 14, 2002. It was later automated and successfully deployed in 2004.
5.2. The modernization of customs automation system
In December 2005 during the opening of an awareness-raising seminar on Paperless
Customs, Director General of the Royal Thai Customs at that time announced, “Royal
Thai Customs shifted its focus from EDI to an open system philosophy.” The officer from
Royal Thai Customs whom I interviewed noted that: “He [Director General] began
duties of his offices after the system migration was implemented for a while.” It involved
the migration from a mainframe to a client-server architecture; from Unisys IX 5604
mainframe to Sun E12000 server; from RDMS 2200 relational database to Oracle
RDBMS; and from EDI to the one that (i) relied on the Internet; (ii) was based on
ebXML standard; and (iii) was equipped with public key infrastructure (PKI) and digital
signature. Royal Thai Customs’ effort in revolutionizing its customs automation system
became apparent in 2006.
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Although the underlying technologies including those related to messaging protocols,
data format, and data structure were different, the access channels and the functions of
the ebXML system which was later known as e-Customs, Paperless Customs, or
Thailand’s Electronic Customs System, were very similar to the EDI-based system. The
major modules included e-Export, e-Import, e-Payment, and e-Manifest. They facilitated
(i) the preparation and submission of Customs Declarations, Goods Control List,
Vessel/Flight Schedule, Sea/Air Cargo Manifest, and Container List; (ii) the validation of
data provided by traders, their customs brokers, and carriers or their agents; (iii) the
generation of response messages; (iv) the routing of messages between traders or customs
brokers, Royal Thai Customs, and their banks as well as between carriers or their agents
and Royal Thai Customs; (v) the arrangement of electronic fund transfer for duty
payment; (vi) customs clearance and customs release of exported and imported goods;
and (vii) the generation of trade statistics.
The three EDI-based data exchange gateways needed to make necessary adjustments to
move from EDI to ebXML. However, their functions as hubs for B2G and G2B data
exchange between members of trade and transport communities and Royal Thai Customs
remained unchanged. They still facilitated the routing of electronic messages as well as
the validation and verification of messages being transferred.
During the transition from EDI to ebXML, Royal Thai Customs also sought to enhance
its operational efficiency. RFID-based e-Seal was implemented for the first time under
the Secure Free Zone project. e-Seal process began after the cargoes were stuffed in a
freight truck/container and when an authorized personnel verified the contents of the
freight truck/container, closed the door, and affixed either Passive or Active e-Seal with a
radio frequency between 920-925 MHz or 433.05-434.79 MHz as specified by Office of
the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission to the freight
truck/container closure right before it departs for RFID-enabled Customs inspection
points. As the freight truck/container departed trader’s premise, RFID reader, mounted at
the gate, commissioned the tag by encoding it with a shipment identification number,
station identification number, and date and time of departure, and then routed the data to
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RFID software running at trader’s premise. The data from RFID reader together with
Goods Control List message were then sent via e-Export application to Customs office at
the port of exit. When the freight truck/container arrived the checking post at the port of
exit, RFID reader, mounted at the checking post, would retrieve data about that e-Seal,
record date and time of arrival, and route them to customs officer in charge. Customs
officer in charge then retrieved corresponding Goods Control List and Customs
Declaration to process customs clearance. RFID deployment were later implemented at
Customs checking posts at high volume port.
e-Export module was officially launched for the first time at Laemchabang seaport on
July 1, 2007 and at Suwannabhumi airport on September 1, 2007. Users’ comments that
Royal Thai Customs received were used as inputs to fine-tune the system before its
deployment at nine customs’ regional offices on January 1, 2008, at customs’ regional
offices nationwide in February 2008, and at Bangkok seaport in April 2008. e-Import
module was first launched at nine customs’ regional offices on January 1, 2008 where e-
Export module was also launched in the same day. It was then launched at
Suwannabhumi airport in April 2008 and Laemchabang seaport in May 2008. The
deployment of e-import module at other customs’ offices nationwide was completed in
the same year.
Given that e-Declaration and e-Container modules of the EDI-based customs automation
system did not support the use of new tariff code – ASEAN Harmonised Tariff
Nomenclature: AHTN – as enforced by Customs Law on Community Code, Amended
B.E. 2549 (2006), they were retired on June 1, 2008 right after the deployment of e-
Export and e-Import modules was completed. Royal Thai Customs, however, had
allowed the parallel use of both EDI-based and ebXML-based e-Manifest modules since
December 27, 2006 to allow all users to acclimatize to the new system. The EDI-based e-
Manifest module was terminated on February 1, 2011.
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5.3. ThaiNSW: A customs automation system with greater interconnectivity
In July 2008, Royal Thai Customs launched an ebXML-based data exchange gateway.
Although the gateway hosted by Royal Thai Customs was just one component of
ThaiNSW, it was, most of the time, called ThaiNSW. At the initial stage, this gateway
mainly served as a router that provided a standardized and regulated ebXML standard-
based environment for seamless and secured routing of permit/certificate data between
Royal Thai Customs and other 35 government agencies whom Royal Thai Customs
signed the Memorandum of Understanding with.
e-Licensing module was the application module that enabled A2A data exchange
between Royal Thai Customs and those 35 government agencies. Beginning February
2009, Royal Thai Customs, enabled by e-Licensing module, was able to receive
electronically permit/certificate data from some participating government agencies and
use the data to verify the permit/certificate data when processed Customs Declaration that
traders electronically submitted. Data that were subject to cross-checking included
permit/certificate identification number, date of issue, tax identification number of the
authority issuing the permit/certificate, and tax identification number of permit/certificate
applicant. Beginning April 2011, Royal Thai Customs, however, extended the list of data
to be cross-checked to include the country of exportation/importation, permit/certificate
effective date, permit/certificate expiration date, tariff/commodity code, and other data as
agreed upon by Royal Thai Customs and individual participating government agencies.
The approved Customs Declaration would serve as a basis for customs clearance and
customs release. Along the customs clearance and customs release process, Royal Thai
Customs would update Customs Declaration in the system to reflect the actual type, the
actual quantity, and the actual value of goods imported or exported. e-Licensing module
enabled Royal Thai Customs to electronically send, at pre-specified time, updated
Customs Declaration data to government agencies whom it received the permit/certificate
data from upon the release of goods from customs control. It eliminated the need for
traders or their representatives to travel to the customs office at port where goods were
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processed for cross-border movement to submit the permit/certificate documents. Similar
to all messages routed through the three ebXML-based data exchange gateways provided
by the service providers, those routed through the ebXML-based data exchange gateway
hosted by Royal Thai Customs were also encrypted with either a 1024-bit RSA algorithm
or Triple DES and digitally signed with RSA-SHA1 algorithm. The status of e-Licensing
implementation is summarized in Table 5.3-1.
Table 5.3-1: e-Licensing Implementation Status (As of October 2012) Participating Govt Agencies Data Status
Department of Foreign Trade Kimberly Process Certificate Launched, Feb 2009
Permit for Exporting Coffee Launched, Jun 2011
Permit for Exporting Timber Launched, Apr 2012
Permit for Exporting Charcoal Launched, Apr 2012
Certificate of Origin ATIGA Form D Testing
Permit for Exporting Tapioca Products Negotiating
Industrial Estate Authority of
Thailand
Permit/Certificate of Goods Imported/
Exported through Free Trade Zone
Launched, Mar 2009
Department of Industrial Works Import/Export of Dangerous Goods
Declaration
Launched, Jul 2009
Department of Livestock Permit for Importing/Exporting
Animals/Animal Remains
Launched, Jan 2010
Excise Department Permit for Importing/Exporting Tobacco
Products and Alcoholic Beverages
Launched, Oct 2010
Board of Investment Releasing Order for Machinery Equipment Launched, Jul 2011
Department of Fisheries Permit for Importing/Exporting Aquatic
Animals
Launched, Sep 2011
Food and Drug Administration Permit for Importing Cosmetic Products Launched, Apr 2012
National Bureau of Agricultural
Commodity and Food Standards
Certificate for Agricultural Products Launched, Aug 2012
Fine Arts Department Permit for Importing/Exporting Antiques Launched, Sep 2012
Office of the Cane and Sugar
Board
Permit for Exporting Sugar Testing
Department of Mineral Fuels Proof of Tax Exemption for Petroleum
Concessioner
Testing
Department of Land Transport Permit for Importing Automobiles Testing
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Participating Govt Agencies Data Status
Department of Primary
Industries and Mines
Permit for Importing/Exporting Minerals Implementation in progress
Department of Energy Business Permit for Importing Fuel Implementation in progress
Office of Atom for Peace License to Produce or Process or Use
Nuclear or By-product Materials
Implementation in progress
Permit for Importing/Exporting Nuclear or
By-product Materials
Implementation in progress
Thai Chamber of Commerce and
Board of Trade of Thailand
Certificate of Quality Implementation in progress
Certificate of Origin Implementation in progress
Department of Disease Control Certificate of Fruit, Food, or Vegetable
Quarantine
Implementation in progress
Marine Department Permit for Loading/Unloading Dangerous
Goods
Implementation in progress
Defense Industrial Department Permit for Purchasing/Importing Weapons Planning the
implementation
License to Possess Weapons Planning the
implementation
Weapon Conveyance Report for Export
and Transit
Planning the
implementation
Department of Provincial
Administration
Permit for Purchasing/Importing Firearms,
Ammunition, Explosive Devices,
Fireworks, or the Equivalents
Planning the
implementation
Office of the Rubber Replanting
Aid Fund
Proof of Export Fee Payment Installing hardware
The National
Telecommunications
Commission
Permit for Importing/Exporting
Telecommunication Devices or Parts of
Telecommunication Devices
Preparing the TOR
Thai Industrial Standards
Institute
Permit for Importing Controlled Industrial
Products
Securing funding
Department of Mineral
Resources
Permit for Importing/Exporting Fossils or
Fossils with Modification
Securing Funding
Department of Internal Trade Permit for Taking Measuring Tool out of
Customs Checkpoint
Securing Funding
Permit for Transporting Caffeine Securing funding
Permit for Transporting Garlic Securing Funding
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Participating Govt Agencies Data Status
Royal Forest Department License to Manufacture Timber without
Machinery Equipment
Securing Funding
License to Manufacture Timber Securing funding
License to Trade or Possess Products
Made from Protected Plant
Securing Funding
Permit for Importing Automatic Chain
Saw
Securing Funding
Department of Medical Science Permit for Importing/Exporting/
Transferring Disease or Poisonous
Materials from Animal
Securing Funding
National Park, Wildlife and
Plant Conservation Department
Permit for Importing/Exporting/
Transferring Wildlife, Wildlife Products,
or Their Remains
Securing Funding
Department of Agriculture Phytosanitary Certificate Securing Funding
Electrical and Electronics
Institute
Proof of Tax Exemption for Goods that
Fall into Section 12 of Customs Tariff Act
B.E. 2530
Securing Funding
Port Authority of Thailand Manifest Negotiating
Airport of Thailand PCL Permit for Transporting Dangerous Goods
Aboard Aircraft
Negotiating
Department of Civil Aviation Flight Schedule Negotiating
The Federation of Thai
Industries
Certificate of Origin Negotiating
In addition to the ebXML-based data exchange gateway and e-Licensing module, Royal
Thai Customs also created a web-based application that was connected to
permit/certificate issuing systems of a few government agencies including Defense
Industrial Department, Department of Fine Arts, Office of Atom for Peace, and
Department of Provincial Administration. Via this web-based application, traders were
able to electronically submit data necessary for the issuance of permit/certificate to those
government agencies. The requests for a permit/certificate were then processed by
corresponding permit/certificate issuing system of the relevant government agencies.
Once the request was approved, the permit/certificate issuing system would then send
permit/certificate data with permit/certificate identification number to both Royal Thai
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Customs as well as to traders.
Apparently, Single Window Entry had never been implemented, even though it was
recognized as an item to-be implemented since 2004. Traders had to rekey a set of data
that could most likely be found in their information systems. They could not import
relevant piece of data from their system to the front-end of the permit/certificate issuing
systems nor could they automatically reuse data received from the permit/certificate
issuing system of participating government agencies. Nevertheless, the prototype for
Single Window Entry had been developed. The proof-of-concept was successfully
implemented in the context of jasmine rice and sugar export and dangerous goods import
under the project commissioned by Ministry of Information and Communication
Technology in 2009.
As one of the interviewees who served as a system architect in the Single Window Entry
pilot project suggested: “ThaiNSW in its current form still doesn’t comply with the
definition of Single Window in UN[ECE] Recommendation 33.” He said: “There are
many ways to implement Single Window Entry that is in line with the Recommendation.
But the way we proposed is to leave Single Window Entry in the hand of VAS [value-
added service provider who have long provided front-end applications and counter
services that facilitated trade and transport communities in B2G and G2B data exchange
with Royal Thai Customs]. VAS can hire a software house to develop the Single Window
Entry.”
The business analyst in the Single Window Entry pilot project explained the proposed
solution in very simple terms. She said: “With Single Window Entry, traders key
whatever data that they have to in once. The [Single Window Entry] application will use
the data that traders provide to generate relevant messages – it can be one, it can be
many – that traders need to apply for permit or certificate. The messages are then sent
through one of the three ebXML Gateways operated by private companies to Customs
ebXML Gateway. Customs ebXML Gateway serves as a hub to distribute right messages
to right government agencies.”
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In May 2010, e-Tracking module was up and running. e-Tracking module was a web-
based application that enabled traders or their customs brokers to track the whereabouts
and status of the requests for some permits/certificates as well as the status of Customs
Declaration, duty payment, and Goods Control List via the Internet. Carriers or their
agents could track the whereabouts and status of Vessel/Flight Schedule, Sea/Air Cargo
Manifest, and Container List. Traders or their customs brokers and carriers or their agents
simply provided a type of message and an identification number of the message that was
a subject of the search. The search result would reveal all transactions with regards to the
message that was the subject of the search. e-Tracking module also allowed traders or
their customs brokers and carriers or their agents to search the messages by an
identification number of a user, a type of message, and a period of time they were
sent/received as well as permit/certificate issuing agencies to retrieve a summary of
messages that they sent or received by the type of sender/receiver.
The hardware and application software of Royal Thai Customs’ ebXML-based data
exchange gateway, which served as a G2G data exchange, was later upgraded to support
foreseeable greater electronic transactions. By the end of year 2011, this ebXML gateway
became a national data exchange hub that provided a single point of access to
interconnect with ASEAN Single Window and Single Windows of other countries. In
ASEAN vocabulary, this national data exchange hub was known as a National Single
Window.
Through National Single Windows of Laos and Thailand, B2B data exchange between
traders from both countries was achieved. Thai exporters were able to electronically send
Customs Export Declaration and Invoice messages to Laotian importers. The messages
were routed from Thai exporters to Thai National Single Window. Thai National Single
Window then forwarded the messages to Laotian National Single Window so that Laotian
National Single Window could deliver it to Laotian importers. Laotian importers were
able to automatically reuse the data received electronically from Thai exporters to prepare
Customs Import Declaration. The need for Laotian importers to rekey Customs
Declaration data was eliminated. This B2B service was officially launched in August
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2012. Similar to other messages routed through this gateway, the messages exchanged
between Thai exporters and Laotian importers were encrypted with either a 1024-bit RSA
algorithm or Triple DES and digitally signed with RSA-SHA1 algorithm.
In addition to B2B data exchange through National Single Windows of Thailand and
Laos, Royal Thai Customs have been piloting the B2G, G2G, and G2B exchange of
Certificate of Origin used among ASEAN countries known as ASEAN Trade in Goods
Agreement (ATIGA Form D) with Customs Department of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia,
the Philippines, Singapore, and Vietnam. The transaction started from an exporter
sending an electronic request containing ATIGA Form D data to the government agency
of an exporting country responsible for approving it. Once the request was approved, the
government agency of the exporting country forwarded ATIGA Form D message to
exporting country’s National Single Window. ATIGA Form D was then routed from
National Single Window of the exporting country to National Single Window of the
importing country. National Single Window of the importing country subsequently sent
ATIGA Form D message to Customs Department of the importing country as well as to a
corresponding importer so that necessary data from ATIGA Form D could be
incorporated to Customs Import Declaration. Once importing cargo was released from
Customs Control, Customs Department of the importing country would electronically
generated ATIGA Form D Utilization Report. The Report would be routed through
National Single Window of both importing and exporting country to the government
agency of an exporting country responsible for ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement.
Royal Thai Customs expected to officially roll out this service, most likely at the
beginning with Indonesia, in 2013.
Another pilot project under ASEAN Single Window umbrella that Royal Thai Customs
planned to execute in 2013 involved the G2G and B2B exchange of ASEAN Customs
Declaration Document. This initiative would enable Royal Thai Customs to reuse data of
goods imported from Brunei, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and
Vietnam. Likewise, it would also allow Thai importers to reuse data of goods imported
from their counterparts located in those countries.
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While striving toward international interconnectivity, Royal Thai Customs did not stop
enhancing its operational efficiency. Like the B2B, B2G, G2G, and G2B data exchange
pilot projects under ASEAN Single Window initiative, the implementation of e-Tax
Incentives module began in 2010 with an aim to better facilitate traders eligible for tax
compensation and duty drawback. It was officially launched in September 2012. E-Tax
incentives consisted of (i) a database of traders eligible for tax compensation and duty
drawback; (ii) a module that enabled customs officer to monitor traders’ use of tax
compensation and duty drawback; (iii) e-Guarantee which helped coordinate the
establishment of a bank guarantee between a trader, Royal Thai Customs, and a bank; and
(iv) e-Refund which helped coordinate the cancellation of a bank guarantee between a
trader, Royal Thai Customs, and a bank.
5.4. An evolution of semantic rules underlying Thailand’s customs automation
system and ThaiNSW
Whether it was a customs automation system or a larger scale IOIS like ThaiNSW,
electronic data sharing among different information systems and automatic data
processing of data received from different information systems remained the main
purpose of having such an IOIS in place. To ensure that different information systems
commonly interpreted the shared data and automatically processed them to achieve a
desirable business goal, Royal Thai Customs applied semantic rules that governed data
element names, their representations, and structure on the messages transferred among
participating parties. However, the semantic rules that Royal Thai Customs employed
were not fully compliant with the international standards.
During the EDI period, the message rules were aligned with UN/EDIFACT 95B and 96B
Directories. Relevant data definitions and representation formats from United Nations
Data Element Directory (UNTDED) were taken into account. In a transition to the open
system where XML became the format of the exchanged messages, Royal Thai Customs
identified required data elements. It adopted the definition and representation format of
the required data elements from WCO Data Set for WCO Data Model 2.0. However, the
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message rules associated with tags name, their position in the message, and their
cardinality were self-defined. The message schemas were self-developed.
Table 5.4-1: An evolutionary path toward ThaiNSW
1998 – 2006 2003 – 2006 2007 – 2008 2009 – Present Server 1 Unisys IX 5604
mainframe Unisys IX 5604 mainframe
Sun E12000 server (TCES), Sun E6900 (ebXML Gateway), Sun E4900 (e-Licensing), Sun SPARC Enterprise M4000 (e-tracking)
Sun E12000 server (TCES), Sun 6900 (ebXML Gateway), Sun 4900 (e-Licensing), Sun SPARC Enterprise M4000 (e-tracking)
Database RDMS 2200 relational database
RDMS 2200 relational database
Oracle RDBMS Oracle RDBMS
System architecture
Mainframe Mainframe Client-server Client-server
Paperless trading technology
Traditional EDI Internet-based EDI
ebXML ebXML
Messaging protocol
X.400 based on X.435 standard
HTTPS HTTPS ebMS 2.0
HTTPS ebMS 2.0
Message format EDI XML EDI
XML XML
Message structure
UN/EDIFACT 95B and 96B Directories
UN/EDIFACT 95B and 96B Directories
Self-defined Self-defined ASEAN Data Model
Data definition and data representation
UNTDED UNTDED WCO Data Set for WCO Data Model 2.0
WCO Data Set for WCO Data Model 2.0
Data encryption algorithm
– – 1024-bit RSA or Triple DES
1024-bit RSA or Triple DES
Data signature algorithm
– – RSA-SHA1 RSA-SHA1
Access channel Front-end application, Counter service
Counter service, Web browser
Front-end application, Web browser, Counter service
Front-end application, Web browser, Counter service
The message schemas, in addition, evolved over time to accommodate new data
requirements resulting from the implementation of new modules. In case of Customs
Declaration, for example, new data elements addressing details of the permit as well as
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tax compensation and duty drawback were added to Customs Declaration message
schemas when Royal Thai Customs attempted to implement e-Licensing and e-Guarantee
modules. The message schemas were also altered to incorporate new requirements
emerging from new practices, such as the introduction of new convention for generating
tax identification number by Department of Business Development which changed the
characteristics of tax identification number from 10 digits to 13 digits.
The message schemas that governed the messages routed between different Single
Windows, on the contrary, were relatively more compliant with the international
standards. WCO Data Set for WCO Data Model 2.0 and UNTDED provided a reference
for defining data elements extracted from a physical ATIGA Form D and ATIGA Form
D Utilization Report. UNeDocs served as a reference for defining a message structure for
those two documents. Semantic rules that governed ATIGA Form D and ATIGA Form D
Utilization Report were incorporated in ASEAN Data Model.
5.5. ThaiNSW as a complex adaptive system (CAS)
The historical recap of how ThaiNSW came to be in its current form revealed core
application modules and their components that were connected together by a computer
network and were arranged in a hierarchical order to make up ThaiNSW, the IOIS for
trade facilitation. I categorized the core application modules that made up ThaiNSW into
three groups. The first two groups were B2G/G2B and G2G transactions within Thailand.
The third group dealt with cross-border B2B/G2G/G2B data exchange.
Core application modules that facilitated B2G/G2B data exchange between members of
trade and transport communities and Royal Thai Customs consisted of front-end
applications residing on a business side and back-end information system of Royal Thai
Customs. Each front-end application was equipped with a message service handler for
incoming and outgoing messages. They were interconnected with the back-end
information system of Royal Thai Customs by a computer network that provided a
communication for A2A data exchange and three data exchange gateways that housed
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messaging service handlers for approximately 5,500,000 incoming and outgoing
messages per month from approximately 80,000 traders, carriers, or their representatives.
According to Royal Thai Customs, the number of exchanged messages had gone up 20%
each year.
Core application module that facilitated G2G data exchange involves back-end
information systems of Royal Thai Customs and 35 other government agencies. The
back-end information systems of these government agencies had a message service
handler for incoming and outgoing messages embedded. These back-end information
systems were interconnected by a data exchange gateway that housed a messaging
service handler for all incoming and outgoing messages from and to 35 participating
government agencies.
Cross border data exchange required all of the above components. All transactions had to
go through data exchange gateways of both participating countries. In the context of cross
border data exchange in the international trade domain, the data exchange gateway was
known as the National Single Window.
5.5.1. Aggregate behavior of ThaiNSW
Obviously, each component that made up the application modules had its own specific
functions. However, they did not function independently. They worked as part of a group.
Through simultaneous interactions, they enabled data exchange in the context that they
operated on. The simultaneous interactions between these interdependent components
yielded the outcome that definitely could not be accomplished if each interdependent
component worked in isolation.
Table 5.5.1-1: Components of ThaiNSW’s core application module and their key
functions
Component Key function Front-end applications – Provide an interface for users to enter, update, retrieve, and
query data
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Component Key function – Provide an interface for users to produce required reports
Back-end information systems with database, DBMS, and/or connection to other information systems
– Process incoming message according to the pre-defined business rules
Messaging service handlers for outgoing messages
– Send data from front-end applications or back-end information systems when requested or at pre-specified time
– Generate electronic messages from data received in a format that conforms to pre-defined syntax rules
– Create a digital signature for outgoing messages – Verify receiver’s digital certificate – Encrypt the outgoing messages – Handles the delivery of the outgoing messages and the
reporting of errors during the delivery Messaging service handlers for incoming messages
– Authenticate senders – Ensure that the incoming messages are free from computer
virus – Verify the digital signature in the incoming messages – Verify sender’s digital certificate – Decrypt the incoming messages – Verify the syntax of the incoming messages – Transform the contents of the incoming messages into a form
that is suitable for further processing – Forward the incoming messages that are in the application
format to the corresponding back-end information system – Acknowledge the receipt of the incoming messages – Report the error in the delivery of the incoming messages
Computer network – Provide a communication channel for A2A data exchange Data exchange gateways (ebXML gateways)
– House Royal Thai Customs’ messaging service handlers for all incoming and outgoing messages from traders, carriers, or their representatives as well as other government agencies
It was also clear that each application module did not function alone either. Through
simultaneous interactions, various application modules allowed Royal Thai Customs to
accomplish certain tasks that could not be accomplished otherwise. For example,
– e-Licensing provided e-Export and e-Import an input to process Customs Declaration.
It also allowed Royal Thai Customs to electronically send updated Customs
Declaration data including the actuality of goods exported and imported to relevant
government agencies.
– e-Export and e-Import provided input for e-Payment to execute the electronic fund
transfer for duty payment. E-Payment, in turn, provided e-Export and e-Import a
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proof of duty payment required for customs clearance and customs release.
– e-Seal together with e-Export and e-Manifest enabled Royal Thai Customs to
expedite customs clearance and customs release process.
– e-Import reused ATIGA Form D data received through the application module that
facilitated G2G exchange of ATIGA Form D between Thailand and ASEAN member
countries.
The simultaneous interactions between the components that constituted the application
modules and those between the application modules that constituted ThaiNSW enabled
Royal Thai Customs to effectively and efficiently control cross-border movement of
goods while better facilitate cross-border trade. Similar to other types of CAS, their
interactions as a whole yielded the outcome that was greater than the sum of its parts.
Like other CAS, the breakdown of one component would lead to the breakdown in other
components and eventually in the system as a whole (Miller, 2009).
5.5.2. Emergence and evolution as a ubiquitous feature of ThaiNSW
The historical account of ThaiNSW emergence and evolutionary path confirmed that
ThaiNSW emerged and evolved through a process of what Holland (1999, p. 2) called
“much coming from little.” As the interviewee who had been involved in the
establishment of the ThaiNSW from the beginning said: “Single Window can’t be
acquired at once like the big bang. To me, Single Window development is incremental. I
believe that there are maturity levels in Single Window development. It starts from
Customs’ use of IT to facilitate customs clearance and customs release. The scope of the
system is then extended to cover the interconnectivity with information systems of other
government agencies that handle the issuance of import/export permit/certificate as it
will enable Customs to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of its customs clearance
and customs release process. Since part of the data used to process customs clearance
and customs release are also used in port management, it is thus rational for Customs
and port operators to share data. For this reason, the interconnectivity is made available
between Customs and port community. The same logic serves as an underlying principle
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for establishing the interconnection with insurance and financial sector. When Single
Window reaches its highest maturity, it will even interconnect with other Single Windows.
The interconnectivity between Single Windows will be made available through bilateral
or regional agreements. This phenomenon is quite universal. It can be considered as the
best practice. You can also see these steps in the development of Single Windows around
the world.”
Data regarding the scale of data exchange also unveiled the evolution of ThaiNSW – the
emergence of new service coverage or features – from the perspective of White (1959, p.
29) who defined evolution as “a temporal sequence of forms” where “one form grows out
of another.” It all began with the implementation of information system for electronic
submission and processing of Customs Declaration. Royal Thai Customs started small.
They first limited the scope of data exchange and reuse within a community of exporters
whose exported goods had to go through customs checkpoints located in Bangkok airport
and seaport. Shortly after a year, they began to offer the same service to importers who
had to complete customs formalities at customs checkpoints located in Bangkok airport
and seaport. It was approximately two years after the first system deployment when the
service was offered to traders who were in contact with customs checkpoints outside
Bangkok. A few months ago, Royal Thai Customs successfully launched B2B exchange
of Customs Declaration data between Thai and Laotian traders. Royal Thai Customs also
planned to implement not only B2B but G2G Customs Declaration data exchange with
other ASEAN member countries. The similar pattern of evolution was also found in the
implementation of e-Manifest. Royal Thai Customs contributed a great deal of effort in
putting in place e-Manifest for the sea mode of transportation at first. It was three years
later when e-Manifest for the air mode was launched to the public.
The similar pattern of evolution also exhibited in the content of data exchange. The
schema of Customs Declaration message defined for the exchange of Customs
Declaration under e-Export module, for example, originally consisted of five segments,
i.e. Declaration Control, Invoice Control, Declaration (Invoice) Details, Duty, and
Permit. The Deposit segment was recently added to the schema during the
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implementation of e-Tax Incentives module. In addition to the Deposit segments, Royal
Thai Customs had in addition included five more data elements, i.e, the country of
exportation/importation, permit effective date, permit expiration date, tariff/commodity
code, and other data as agreed upon by Royal Thai Customs and individual participating
government agencies, to Permit section of the Customs Declaration message.
The pattern of evolution in e-Declaration module, e-Manifest module, and Customs
Declaration message discussed above suggested the evolution in a vertical direction. The
trajectory in which ThaiNSW evolved into its current form was also lateral. New types of
message were introduced to the data exchange platform over the years. Examples of those
messages are Customs Declaration in 1998, Manifest in 2001, Goods Control List in
2004, Kimberly Process Certificate in 2009, and Permit for Exporting Coffee in 2011.
The number of areas where data had been reused also grew. First, Royal Thai Customs
used the Customs Declaration data originated from traders as inputs for risk profiling and
management. A few years later, Royal Thai Customs reused data related to duty and
traders’ bank account to coordinate the collection of duty via Electronic Fund Transfer.
Royal Thai Customs also reused export and import data from Customs Declaration to
create trade statistics that helped predict economic trends as well as smuggling and
fraudulent activities. When e-Manifest module and e-Container module were in place,
Royal Thai Customs use Customs Declaration data as a basis for verifying and validating
Manifest and Goods Control List data. Recently, part of Customs Declaration data for
exported cargoes from Thailand were reused as Customs Declaration data for imported
cargoes to Laos. Lateral evolution in ThaiNSW also included the incorporation of a
value-added service such as e-Tracking module and possibly Single Window Entry in the
near future.
In addition to the vertical evolution, which led to changes in scale, and the lateral
evolution, which led to changes in scope and thus the functionalities of the overall
system, the data also suggested that technologies and technical requirements underlying
the data exchange platform that Royal Thai Customs developed changed over the years.
These changes, however, did not change the major functions of the data exchange
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platform. Rather, they served as “additional harmonious adjustments” (Steele, 1981, p. 3)
that allowed important changes to be properly expressed. I found changes in technologies
and technical requirements that occurred in the transition from the customs automation
system to ThaiNSW analogous to “the hypothetical pre-giraffe with the mutant gene
‘long neck’ [who] will need to modify not only its heart and circulatory system but also
perhaps its semicircular canals, its intervertebral discs, its postural reflexes, the ratio of
length and thickness of many muscles, its evasive tactics vis-à-vis predators, etc.
(Bateson, 1963, p. 530). The followings are a few evidences of harmonious adjustments
that I extracted from the collected data.
– Royal Thai Customs moved away from the mainframe toward client-server
architecture and replaced Unisys IX 5604 mainframe with Sun E12000 server as
client-server technology provided more ‘horsepower for high volume transactions’
and thus allowed Royal Thai Customs to scale up its services. Because it changed the
system, it had to change the database as a result.
– “Department of Land Transport’s Data integration project with Royal Thai
Customs? It is now in the maintenance period. We don’t have to do anything else but
reconfigure the system whenever Customs makes adjustment to the e-Licensing
module. The back-end system on our side is actually working. And we didn’t have to
do anything until the past month or two. It was after Customs changed the IP address.
Because of that change, we needed to reconfigure the system.”
This chapter provides a detailed description of the case study. The description portrays
the life of ThaiNSW. It illustrates how ThaiNSW had evolved over a period of 1995-
2012. Typical characteristics of a complex adaptive system as described in Chapter 2
exhibited in ThaiNSW are discussed.
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CHAPTER 6. INTERACTION –
A PREREQUISITE FOR EMERGENCE AND EVOLUTION
The data suggested that interaction by means of communication among participants in the
cooperative venture of ThaiNSW was a necessary condition for its emergence and
evolution. The finding was in line with what Castells (2007) argued. He said,
“Throughout history, communication and information have been fundamental sources …
of domination and social change. This is because the fundamental battle being fought in
society is the battle over the minds of the people. The way people think determines the
fate of norms and values on which societies are constructed … Because communication,
and particularly socialized communication, the one that exists in the public realm,
provides the support for the social production of meaning, the battle of the human mind is
largely played out in the processes of communication” (Castells, 2007, pp. 238-239).
According to Dennett (1995), the same is true in the evolution of ethics and morality.
In case of ThaiNSW emergence and evolution, two major styles of communication were
revealed. Although there was evidence that Royal Thai Customs was sometimes sensitive
to the needs of other participants in the cooperative venture of ThaiNSW, Royal Thai
Customs, as a designated lead agency in ThaiNSW implementation, tended to be more
authoritative when communicated with other participants in the cooperative venture of
ThaiNSW during the project execution stage. The communication during project
initiation stage, on the other hand, was rather participatory. It was led by an expert from
the national think-tank with an assistance of the university professor who was recruited as
an external consultant. The communication during this initiation stage aimed at gaining
stakeholders’ support and commitment. Stakeholders were allowed to participate fully in
the decision-making. Stakeholders’ engagement was encouraged.
6.1. Communication in the execution stage
ThaiNSW was about B2B, B2G, G2B, and G2G data exchange. It involved participants
from Royal Thai Customs, other government agencies, as well as trade and transport
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communities from Thailand and ASEAN member countries. However, the level of
participation, as Barrett and Konsynski (1982) suggested, varied by (i) the degree in
which participating organizations were responsible for the design, development, and
maintenance of an IOIS, (ii) the degree in which participating organizations were willing
to invest, and (iii) the degree of complexity of the operating environment as determined
by the degree of integration between incoming queries and participating organizations’
internal systems.
Table 6.1-1: Participants in ThaiNSW participation continuum
Participation level (Barrett and Konsynski, 1982) Participant in ThaiNSW Participating organizations of level one participate through a remote input/output node. At this level, participating organizations only require to put in place the basic communication device necessary to interface to the system provided by participating organizations of higher levels.
Members of trade and transport communities from Thailand and ASEAN member countries through VASs
Participating organizations of level two engage in the development and sharing of an application processing node that facilitates the processing of information among all members.
Participating government agencies from Thailand and ASEAN member countries
Participating organizations of level three develop a multi-participant exchange node and shares applications that serve itself and others whom it has an established business relationship with. The processing of all transactions is done through this multi-participant exchange node.
N/A
Participating organizations of level four develop a network control node which functions very similar to a multi-participant exchange node. It serves as a processing center and communication facilitator. The only difference is that the provider of a network control node may have or may not have a business relationship with participating organizations that it supports.
State enterprises and a local IT firm who provided data exchange gateways
Participating organizations of level five develop an IOIS that is known as an integrating network node. This integrating network node serves as a data communication and data processing utility that facilitate the integration of applications provided by participating organizations of lower level IOISs in real time.
Royal Thai Customs
The historical account of ThaiNSW evolutionary path suggested that the members of
trade and transport communities had the “simplest and least costly role” (Barrett and
Konsynski, 1982, p. 97) in the implementation of ThaiNSW. In most cases, the members
of trade and transport communities participating in the cooperative venture of ThaiNSW
acquired the front-end application from VASs (value-added service providers). “If
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nobody does, VAS don’t do it, there’ll be no interface,” said one of the interviewees.
VAS did not just provide the front-end application that complied with the specifications
defined by Royal Thai Customs. They also maintained it. With close communication with
Royal Thai Customs, VASs were able to configure their system to correspond to any
changes in technical, procedural, or documentary requirements that Royal Thai Customs
introduced. Because of the closer relationship that they had with Royal Thai Customs,
Royal Thai Customs also relied on VASs in keeping members of trade and transport
communities informed about any changes it made to procedural and documentary
requirements.
Table 6.1-2: VAS way of dealing with changes
Preparation for Royal Thai Customs’ implementation of new Customs Declaration, e-Tax Incentives, and ThaiNSW – An update from IT Division Manager 1. Preparation for Royal Thai Customs’ implementation of new Customs Declaration
1.1. Attended the meeting organized by Royal Thai Customs to discuss new Customs Declaration structure and learn about the implementation timeline – End of April 2012: Meeting with VAS to finalize the new schema for Customs
Declaration message and distribute it to VAS so necessary update can be incorporated accordingly.
– Mid May 2012: Royal Thai Customs will publish the formal notification on the new Customs Declaration schema with the implementation timeline. It will call for another meeting.
– June-July 2012: Royal Thai Customs will test the exchange of all message types that have new schema. After a successful testing, Royal Thai Customs requires VAS to complete the program upgrade for all customers in 2 months.
– August 2012: Royal Thai Customs expects to begin using the new schema. At the initial stage, the use of the new schema is voluntary. It will be made mandatory by the end of the year.
1.2. Informed and trained relevant staff about the changes 1.3. Arranged a meeting with developers to discuss measures to be taken to have the
improved Customs Declaration program and e-Tax Incentives system ready for testing with Royal Thai Customs during June-July 2012 according to its plan
2. Preparation for Royal Thai Customs’ implementation of e-Tax Incentives 2.1. Attended the meeting organized by Royal Thai Customs to learn about a new data
structure used in e-Tax Incentives initiative – Royal Thai Customs has already distributed a schema for the production formula, but
not the one for import tax refund. – Royal Thai Customs hasn’t scheduled for system testing.
2.2. Arranged a meeting with developers to discuss measures required to support the implementation of new Customs Declaration schema and the electronic submission of data under e-Tax Incentives initiative – Developers informed that the updated program would be ready for validation and
verification by Mid June 2012.
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3. Preparation for Royal Thai Customs’ implementation of ThaiNSW 3.1. Attended the meeting organized by Royal Thai Customs as a member of ThaiNSW
Development Technical Working Group to learn about project progress 3.2. Noted that ThaiNSW is not the application program but infrastructure that facilitates the
routing of electronic messages and the tracking of electronic message status routed through ThaiNSW – the messages can be from users resided in Thailand or those in ASEAN member countries
3.3. Signed up for the services at www.thainsw.net, e-Tracking in particular
Other government agencies, on the other hand, participated in the cooperative venture of
ThaiNSW through the back-end information system that was equipped with a messaging
service handler for incoming and outgoing messages and connected to a data exchange
gateway by a computer network. These government agencies were responsible for
developing a system that was capable of not only receiving messages from Royal Thai
Customs at pre-specified time and processing them, but also handling Royal Thai
Customs’ queries to retrieve permit and certificate data. The participation of these
government agencies in ThaiNSW was rather complicated as the nature of the
requirements involved high degree of data integration. Communication between these
government agencies and Royal Thai Customs was crucial. A miscommunication might
result in failure in the A2A data exchange. As described by one of the interviewees:
“Earlier this year, they [Royal Thai Customs] enhanced their e-Licensing module. They
adjusted the CPA. But they didn’t tell us [Department of Land Transport]. Sure enough,
they couldn’t exchange a message with us. They should have told us the new CPA so we
could adjust ours accordingly.”
In addition to one-on-one communication that Royal Thai Customs had with each
individual government agency, Royal Thai Customs, as a designated lead agency in the
implementation of ThaiNSW, also established a few communicative platforms to discuss
with experts from participating government agencies as well as trade and transport
communities the practicalities of ThaiNSW implementation. Issues that were discussed
ranged from project planning and management to those related to the determination of
standards to be used in data exchange, the redesign of existing business processes, and
the revision of affected laws, rules, and regulations.
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However, according to the report made by an external expert, the participating
government agencies did not perceive these communicative platforms as a mechanism for
interagency collaboration. “From their perspectives, ThaiNSW is all about Customs.
They have obligation to support Customs with the data it needs…Customs does what it
has to do in their own way. It never listens to the requirements of others. For example,
Customs wants to include only invoice number, invoice date, and line item number in
invoice in the exchange of permit/certificate data. Department of Agriculture by Plant
Varieties Protection Division can’t send CITES permit data to Customs because in one
invoice, there can be 200 line items. If the line item number is specified incorrectly, the
meaning of the whole message will be wrong. Another example, when permit and
certificate issuing agencies send permit and certificate data to Customs, Customs said
they have to wait for response messages from Customs. If they don’t get the response
messages from Customs, they have to continue working with the manual procedure …
Customs, on the other hand, agrees to electronically send the updated Customs
Declaration data to those government agencies to report the actuality of export and
import. However, it refuses to receive the response messages from those government
agencies. It also refuses to guarantee the success of message transfer. It said it doesn’t
have sufficient staff. So, there is no way for those government agencies to validate and
verify the data received from Customs.”
There were many instances where participating government agencies had to adjust its
information system to accommodate the request from Royal Thai Customs. The pattern
of communication between Royal Thai Customs and other participants of the ThaiNSW
cooperative ventures suggested that the characteristics of ThaiNSW were, to some extent,
outcomes of the dynamics of power relations. One of the interviewees said: “So,
Department of Land Transport, before, they thought they had to receive data from 18
data fields from Customs. Now it seems like they have to receive data from over a
hundred data fields. This is in the process of car export, alright? Once cars are exported,
Customs has to send data about car export to Department of Land Transport.
Department of Land Transport only needs data as listed in the document called
Attachment 32 which has 18 data fields. Somehow, after a big while, the two agencies
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still hadn’t come to agreement about the data that would go into the message.
Department of Land Transport finally decided to go ahead. They developed a schema
based on their data requirements. At the end, Customs said no. They said we’re going to
send you everything [in the updated Customs Declaration] and you do whatever you have
to do to get the data you want. So, Department of Land Transport had to change their
back-end system so they can receive data from all those hundred something data fields
and write a program to extract the data they need. This is what Department of Land
Transport told me. I guess it applies to other government agencies too.”
Royal Thai Customs’s action back in the EDI seemed arrogant. Royal Thai Customs
considered itself as a pioneer. As the customs officer whom I interviewed said, “I was the
one who develop a terms of reference for the EDI Gateway project. It was the first EDI
project that got implemented in Thailand.” He recalled that the government policy to the
adoption of EDI to increase efficiency and effectiveness of the government services in
various government agencies was endorsed under Prime Minister Anand Panyarachun’s
administration in 1992. The government established National IT Committee (NITC) with
NECTEC (Thailand National Electronics and Computer Technology Center) as a
secretariat. It also established Thailand EDI Council (TEDIC) as one of NITC
subcommittees. TEDIC was chaired by Director General of Royal Thai Customs. Under
TEDIC, several working groups were formed. He served as a secretary for Messages
Development Group (MDG). According to the interviewee, more than 17 message
implementation guidelines for use in the customs domain were produced under this
working group. He said: “This technical working group was where most of TEDIC
outputs came from. It worked through continuity alone. TEDIC rarely met. In fact,
toward the end, there was no meeting at all.” According to Blanchard (2003), it was not
an act of arrogance, but “the job of the leader” (p. 59). As he said (p. 59): “I think people
want to be magnificent. It is the job of the leader … to bring out that magnificence in
people and to create an environment in which they feel … ready to do the best job
possible in accomplishing key goals.”
If the members of trade and transport communities participating in the cooperative
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venture of ThaiNSW were on one end of the participation continuum, Royal Thai
Customs was on the other end. The automation of customs procedures was highly
complex. Royal Thai Customs was required to develop the back-end information system
that was capable of processing high volume of data from a very large number of traders,
carriers, or their representatives as well as government agencies involved in the control of
goods traded across borders. As part of the road toward the paperless customs, Royal
Thai Customs also worked closely with three EDI/ebXML-based data exchange gateway
operators and a local IT firm in setting up data exchange gateway that was capable of
managing the routing of incoming and outgoing messages.
The fact that Royal Thai Customs had to deal with a very large number of stakeholders,
each with its own business requirements, might be the explanation for its authoritative
nature and dominant role in ThaiNSW development. As a system analyst who
participated in the implementation of G2G data exchange between Royal Thai Customs
and a few other government agencies described: “Customs has to deal with over 30 other
government agencies. It’s impossible for them to make system adjustments to
accommodate the needs of everybody. Create separate message schema for each
participating government agency? … For one government agency, Department of
Agriculture, for example. most likely, there’re different data requirements for the export
and import of different products.”
6.2. Communication in the initiation stage
Communication between participants in the cooperative venture of ThaiNSW discussed
above, even though it was seen as highly centralized and seemed to flow through highly
structured channels, was vital for the establishment of ThaiNSW. However, it was not the
kind of communication that triggered the localization of the global structures that brought
about the emergence of a customs automation system and the evolution toward ThaiNSW
in Thailand. According to Latour (2005), “if any action has to be transported from one
site to the next, you now clearly need a conduit and a vehicle” (p. 174).
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6.2.1. Meme Vehicle No. 1 – Royal Thai Customs
There was no doubt that Royal Thai Customs, through its connection with other members
sharing the same organizational field, was the vehicle that brought home the urge to
transform the manual operation of customs clearance and customs release to the
automated one. According to the customs officer who was involved in the uptake of EDI
to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of customs clearance and customs release, it
was the communication that Royal Thai Customs had with its fellows in the larger
organizational field that brought EDI-based customs automation system to life. He
recalled that “the policy [to promote the use of EDI to increase efficiency and
effectiveness of the government services] was endorsed [in mid 1990s] during the former
Prime Minister Anand Panyarachun.” However, it was not the real beginning. As he
said: “Our trip to attend the WCO [World Customs Organization] meeting in Belgium
was the real beginning. It was when we set for EDI adoption. There, WCO promoted the
application of EDI to facilitate export and import procedures [customs clearance and
customs release to be exact] to its members around the world. After that, we organized
official visits to several countries and looked for a model suitable to Thailand.” There, he
said: “We also learned about the data standards that, according to WCO recommendation,
we should consider using.”
Like WCO, Royal Thai Customs was affiliated with APEC Sub-Committee on Customs
Procedures (SCCP) by mandate. While the interaction with WCO exposed Royal Thai
Customs to WCO Revised Kyoto Convention, the interaction with APEC SCCP led
Royal Thai Customs to APEC Blueprint for Customs Modernization. These two
documents, according to the expert from Royal Thai Customs who developed the Terms
of Reference (ToR) for the development of Thailand’s EDI-based customs automation
system, were major sources of ideas underlying system’s features and functions.
The participation in WCO and APEC SCCP also allowed Royal Thai Customs to network
with customs administrations of other countries and various international communities in
the area of trade and transport facilitation. The networking provided great opportunities
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for Royal Thai Customs to learn best practices on how to apply IT to improve customs
operation. The professional connections that Royal Thai Customs established during the
networking also facilitated Royal Thai Customs in the arrangement for its delegation to
visit customs administrations of other countries in order to “search for the model
[customs automation system] that fitted the context of Thailand.”
While Royal Thai Customs’ participation in WCO and APEC SCCP drove Royal Thai
Customs toward the establishment of EDI-based customs automation system, it was the
participation in ASEAN that drove the uptake of ThaiNSW. In ASEAN context, the
establishment of Single Window at the national level was just a small part of a bigger
picture. National Single Windows (NSWs) were seen as elements that together made up
technological infrastructure for seamless B2B, B2G, G2B, and G2G among participants
of the international trade across ASEAN region, i.e., ASEAN Single Window (ASW).
The urge to establish this large-scale technological infrastructure could be traced back to
the adoption of Bali Concord at the 9th ASEAN Summit in 2003 when ASEAN leaders
agreed to establish an ASEAN Economic Community with the end goal of the economic
integration stipulated in ASEAN Vision 2020.
ASEAN not only gave Royal Thai Customs the motivation to develop the Single
Window, it also drove the establishment of institutional arrangements for representatives
from relevant government agencies from ASEAN member states, such as, trade, health,
agriculture, customs and those responsible for standards and conformance to work
together to develop Technical Guide of ASEAN Single Window and National Single
Windows Implementation for parties responsible for the development of Single Window
in ASEAN member states to follow. With the Technical Guide, they hope, the
implementation of Single Window in each ASEAN member states would be effective and
the resulting Single Windows would be interoperable with one another. Recognizing
Royal Thai Customs’ active participation in ASEAN Interagency Taskforce for ASW
implementation and its in-depth knowledge of the business domain and technologies, the
Cabinet designated Royal Thai Customs as a lead agency responsible for coordinating
with relevant public and private agencies as well as other stakeholders in ASEAN to
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ensure:
– The implementation of data exchange gateway or a router that provided a
standardized and regulated ebXML standard-based environment for seamless and
secured routing of permit/certificate data between Royal Thai Customs and
participating government agencies;
– The integration of data exchange gateway and information systems of participating
agencies; and
– The electronic exchange of trade-related data between ThaiNSW and NSWs of other
ASEAN countries.
In addition to Royal Thai Customs’ participation in the intergovernmental platform listed
above, Royal Thai Customs also kept its ears and eyes opened to learn about
technological advancement that had been introduced to its organizational field. Through
the Internet, a website of OASIS to be exact, an expert from Royal Thai Customs added,
was where he learned about the technology that underpinned ThaiNSW in its current
form. He said: “We just studied from over-a-thousand-page document by ourselves. We
couldn’t organize a visit to any places abroad where this kind of technology was
implemented. We have no budget for that.” Regardless of where it came from, the new
ideas, information, and knowledge that Royal Thai Customs had gained over time
contributed to the emergence of new services and features in the customs automation
system offered and the evolution of customs automation system to ThaiNSW.
6.2.2. Meme Vehicle No. 2 – The professor
Royal Thai Customs was not the only organization reaching out in search for better IT
solutions for customs clearance and customs release. The university professor whom I
interviewed said: “I started looking into technologies that enabled paperless trading
when I served as a director of e-Commerce Resource Center. NECTEC borrowed me
from the university. They wanted me to help them promote e-commerce, which included
electronic exchange of data across organizational boundaries. It was also at the time
when I formed a research institute at the university. Like our name – Institute for IT
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Innovation, we were interested in finding innovative technologies that enabled us to
strengthen national competitiveness in terms of international trade. We were interested in
finding out how we could improve customs as well as export and import related
procedures. At the beginning, we did some desk research to identify framework or
protocol, apart from EDI, that enabled the electronic exchange of data across
organizational boundaries. That must be around year 2000 when OASIS and
UN/CEFACT worked together to develop ebXML framework.”
From the interview with a former employee of the Institute for IT Innovation, I learned
that ebXML Asia Committee was not the only international organization in the field of e-
commerce, e-business, and trade facilitation that the founder of the Institute for IT
Innovation who was also the director of e-Commerce Resource Center was affiliated
with. The interviewee recalled that her boss (the university professor whom I
interviewed), wearing a hat of a director from e-Commerce Resource Center, was a
delegate to APEC e-Commerce Steering Group (ECSG), APEC Telecommunication and
Information Working Group (TEL), e-ASEAN Working Group, and Asia Pacific Council
for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (AFACT). He was also invited to
workshops, conferences, and expert meetings organized by agencies under the umbrella
of the United Nations including United Nations Economic and Social Commission for
Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) and United Nations Conference on Trade and
Development (UNCTAD). By participating in those forums, he learned the concept of
paperless trading, Single Window, and experiences of countries that successfully
implemented it. In addition to the information and knowledge gained, he got to know
more people who shared the same organizational field. Some were from Thailand and
some from other countries. His professional network expanded as a result. Examples of
senior government officials whom she said her boss met in those international forums
included Deputy Director General, Royal Thai Customs; Director of Planning and
Information, Technology System Development Group, Royal Thai Customs; Deputy
Governor, Bank of Thailand; and Director General, Department of Business
Development; and Director, One Stop Export Service Center (OEC).
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The interview with a former employee of the Institute for IT Innovation also suggested
that her boss also expanded a network in a field of e-commerce, e-business, and trade
facilitation through teaching. As his former employee at the Institute for IT Innovation
mentioned, her boss, who taught a few graduate classes she enrolled in, offered her a job
at the Institute when he started looking for better IT solutions for customs clearance and
customs release. To her, she got a job offer because of her solid background in EDI.
Back then, she worked in an IT department of one of the leading third-party logistics
service providers in Thailand. She also mentioned that teaching gave her boss
opportunities to meet students who became important actors in the initiation of a pilot
project that involved the use of ebXML in a banking domain.
The university professor, who simultaneously served as a director at both e-Commerce
Resource Center and Institute for IT Innovation, could be seen as “the vehicles linking
places together” (Latour, 2005, p. 176) through the implementation of information and
knowledge that he learned in various global arenas at a particular local site. Various
organizations and people that the university professor were affiliated with locally and
globally over a period of time, on the other hand, could be considered as conduits or
paths that he, as the vehicle traveled through. These paths gave the university professor
all sorts of resources that enabled him to localize the global. The resources that the
conduits offered included authority, information and knowledge, physical resources,
financial support, and social capital.
NECTEC, a statutory government organization under the National Science and
Technology Development Agency (NSTDA), Ministry of Science and Technology gave
the university professor the mandate. By designated him as a director of e-Commerce
Resource Center, NECTEC authorized his participation in various international
cooperative platforms. In addition to various international cooperative platforms,
NECTEC also provided a conduit to the local ones. After he completed his duty at e-
Commerce Resource Center, the university professor whom I interviewed was appointed
as a secretary in the Sub-committee on the Promotion of ICT for e-Transaction in Public
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and Private Sectors.18 Given that the Sub-committee had members from several
government agencies and business associations, the social capital of the university
professor whom I interviewed was further accumulated as a result.
Given that the Committee and the Sub-Committee were administered by Ministry of
Information and Communication Technology (MICT), the university professor whom I
interviewed became closely affiliated with MICT. Like NECTEC from Ministry of
Science and Technology provided the university professor whom I interviewed a conduit
to the Sub-committee on the Promotion of ICT for e-Transaction in Public and Private
Sectors and the Sub-committee itself connected him with MICT, APEC provided a forum
for the university professor to meet the organization that significantly influenced
decisions regarding a technology underlying ThaiNSW, i.e., ebXML Asia Committee. He
noted that: “Not long after that we became a member of ebXML Asia Committee. We [the
Institute for IT Innovation] took software [Hermes Messaging Gateway] from Hong
Kong [CECID], modified it, and used it to test cross-platform data exchange with Japan,
Korea, and Hong Kong.” The successful ebXML interoperability test was an important
credential that helped the university professor gain credibility for both ebXML and the
Institute from the public.
As mentioned earlier, the university professor whom I interviewed also accumulated his
social capital through the affiliation with the university -- his primary workplace. The
social capital made it rather easy to set up two pilot projects that aimed at examining the
feasibility of exchanging electronic messages with ebXML. As illustrated by the former
employee of the Institute for IT Innovation: “The first project had to do with paperless
trading. We did it with Customs, shipping companies and an exporter. The project got
started not long after we approached them. Well, before I joined the Institute, I worked in
18 The Sub-Committee on the Promotion of ICT for e-Transaction in Public and Private Sectors was established as part of e-Transaction Committee The Order of e-Transaction Committee No. 4/2546 endorsed by Minister of Information and Communication Technology gave him and other members of the Sub-committee the mandate to identify strategies to promote the uptake of e-transaction in public and private sectors; to develop ICT implementation guideline to ensure that the application of ICT followed the international standards; to support the organization of capacity building activities that would enable practitioners from public and private sectors to realize e-transaction; to collaborate or coordinate with relevant international cooperative platforms or organizations to carry out the above mentioned activities.
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IT department at TKK Logistics [one of the participating shipping companies]. Back then
I was responsible for handling data exchange with Customs and Minibea, the largest
exporter of electronic parts, using EDI. Another project was Interbank Transaction
Management and Exchange. We implemented this project with the Bank of Thailand with
some help from one of my boss’ students who worked for SCB [a commercial bank] and
had lots of experience in exchanging electronic messages between banks. The project
came up after my boss learned about Bank of Thailand’s initiative on the development of
e-Payment Infrastructure master plan from another student who worked for Bank of
Thailand.” She added: “Thanks to those senior government officials especially the
director of Customs IT department and Deputy Governor from Bank of Thailand whom
my boss knew when he joined APEC events. They were the ones who helped drive project
initiation. If there were just us and a few private companies, the pilot projects wouldn’t
be conceived.”
The same story also appeared in the interview that I had with the university professor
who led the above mentioned pilot projects. For the paperless trading one, he also noted
that: “We were working on ebXML before digging into the subject of National Single
Window. We made the prototype for Royal Thai Customs. At that time, Customs still used
traditional EDI running on the mainframe. We made a few recommendations to Customs.
We told them that they should consider replacing EDI with a solution that was based on
the Internet protocol. We also told them that they should consider studying ebXML
technology.” According to the supplementary document distributed at the first meeting of
the Sub-committee on the Promotion of ICT for e-Transaction in Public and Private
Sectors and the news article from local newspaper with a scoop on a seminar titled
ebXML Awareness Day, the ebXML-related projects, that were carried out jointly by e-
Commerce Resource Center and Institute for IT Innovation, aimed at promoting the
development of one-stop e-government services for collaborative e-business/e-commerce.
Local and international organizations that the university professor whom I interviewed
was affiliated with also provided conduits to financial resources needed to localize the
ebXML, paperless trading, and Single Window. The financial support from NECTEC
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enabled the implementation of the two pilot projects listed above as well as the
organization of information dissemination events that promoted the uptake of ebXML,
such as ebXML Awareness Day.
Similarly, the financial support that the university professor whom I interviewed sought
from MICT and APEC enabled him to put together another information dissemination
event, i.e., the APEC Symposium on ebXML for Internet Paperless Trading and
Collaborative e-Business. For the first time in Thailand, he managed to gather 26
resource persons (speakers) from 13 economies representing businesses, government
agencies, academic institutions, and international organizations including ebXML Asia
Committee, OASIS and UN/CEFACT who had been heavily involved in single-window
projects and/or standards development. For some of the resources persons he contacted,
he knew them personally, mostly from trade facilitation related events. Some of them, he
knew through his interaction with those whom he was affiliated with when he prepared
the Symposium agenda. There was one case, however, an expert from UNECE, the
UN/CEFACT secretariat addressed his interest to participate as a resource person through
APEC program officer. The former employer of the Institute noted that “the request
came in when we were about to finalize the program.” The Symposium received 142
participants, 37 of which were from APEC member economies. They represented
government agencies, international carriers, logistics service providers, IT solutions
providers, traders, and financial institutions. At the Symposium, technicalities of ebXML
were discussed. The sharing of technical know-how and best practices in implementing
paperless trade using Single Window as a measure was fortified.
MICT, with a financial support from the World Bank, also recruited the university
professor whom I interviewed as a consultant. His work was (i) to conduct a
technological assessment to determine Thailand’s readiness to implement ThaiNSW; (ii)
to provide recommendations on what had to be done to establish ThaiNSW; and (iii) to
arrange a national workshop to disseminate the project output to parties involved in cross-
border trade from government agencies, business, trading and transportation-related
communities, as well as supportive industry namely software industry. The scope of work
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was “in their [MICT] realm of responsibility.” The technological assessment and the
development of Guidelines for Establishing the Integrated Single Window e-Logistics
System gave MICT some idea of what it would take to implement ThaiNSW and how they
could contribute. The workshop, which was held approximately seven months after the
APEC Symposium, prepared affected parties for the journey toward ThaiNSW. It discussed
the policy framework, how ThaiNSW fitted in the national logistics development program,
implementation models, critical success factors, as well as relevant tools, techniques,
standards, and international best practices with regard to Single Window implementation.
So far, I identified important conduits that the university professor perceived as the vehicle
had gone through. They included (i) key tasks that he had performed under various roles as
delegated to him by the authorities and (ii) major events that he had organized in
collaboration with the organizations at both local and international level that he was
affiliated with. These channels made him more visible and recognizable as an expert in
trade facilitation field. They allowed him to share with local stakeholders the information
and knowledge about trade facilitation measures including paperless trading and Single
Window as well as enabling technologies that he learned from the outside world. Yet, they
merely brought the issues to public attention. They made the public aware of what could be
done to remove inefficiencies in administering procedural and documentary requirements
associated with cross-border trade, but did not accelerate the implementation.
6.2.3. Meme Vehicle No. 3 – National Economic and Social Development Board
(NESDB)
Previously, I brought to light two important vehicles, i.e., Royal Thai Customs and the
university professor. I explained what they had carried out prior to mid-2005. While
some of their actions were influenced by what they learned along the conduits, some
were enabled by the conduits. Royal Thai Customs brought to life the customs
automation system in Thailand. Its decision was influenced by its connection to the WCO
and what it learned from the WCO. The university professor whom I interviewed, on the
other hand, passed the information, knowledge, and idea which he learned from the
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external world about the importance of paperless trade, the application of Single Window
as a measure to achieve paperless trading, and how to implement it to the parties involved
in the international trade. He enlightened a group of relevant stakeholders about what he
perceived as better IT solutions for customs clearance and customs release. The mandate
that he received from NECTEC and MICT made his action legitimate. What he did was
essential for the evolution of customs automation system into ThaiNSW in its current
form today. However, the contribution that he made under NECTEC and MICT did not
yield enough force to drive the ThaiNSW endeavor. It did nothing more than raising the
awareness. The government agencies involved in border control became aware of
technological options that they could adopt to enhance coordination with one another.
The third-party logistics service providers became aware of possible new services that
they could offer to members of trade and transport communities.
The vehicle that drove the formation of the interagency collaboration for ThaiNSW
implementation came from National Economic and Social Development Board
(NESDB).19 It was an expert who was designated to be in charge of identifying strategies
that helped boost country’s competitiveness. The expert from NESDB explained how he
got to promote ThaiNSW as trade facilitation measure to improve national
competitiveness. At the beginning, he recruited a team of consultants from Thailand's
most well-known and respected academic institution. Together with the consultants, he
developed strategic initiatives that addressed Thailand’s economic development platform.
He also sought advices from the world’s leading authority in the field of competitive
strategy who drew on ideas from his publications; particularly The Competitive
Advantage of Nations (The Free Press, 1990), “Building the Microeconomic Foundations
of Competitiveness,” in The Global Competitiveness Report 2002, (World Economic
Forum, 2002), “Clusters and the New Competitive Agenda for Companies and
Governments” in On Competition (Harvard Business School Press, 1998), as well as joint
19 NESDB is a national think-tank whose mission is “to provide opinions and recommendations on national economic and social development to the Cabinet; to scrutinize the National Economic and Social Development Plan and other proposals before submitting to the Cabinet for consideration; to provide opinions concerning the economic and social development issues to the Prime Minister as requested; and to set up the coordination mechanism between the NESDB, concerned agencies and state enterprises regarding the planning and implementation of development programs and projects.”
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work with a team of local consultants. One path led to another. The advice from the
world’s leading authority, which aimed toward improving the country’s competitiveness,
led to the adoption of logistics development as the country’s strategic agenda. The
country’s logistics development agenda led to the identification of ThaiNSW as one of
the means to achieve it.
Like Kouzes and Posner (2003), the expert from NESDB believed that “collaboration is
the critical competency for achieving and sustaining high performance in the Internet
age” (p. 88). He considered himself as “a champion” in driving the interagency
collaboration in the ThaiNSW endeavor. As he said, “I had been a champion in this area
for five-six years. When people saw me, they could relate my appearance to that issue.”
According to him, “there must be the champion.” He believed that the champion played a
significant role in not only getting all the stakeholders on board but also keeping up the
momentum. He commented that: “The organization that best serves as the champion is
Sapapat [Thai short name of NESDB]. Sapapat is the central agency that handles
national policies. It has a mechanism that allows the big agenda like this to be carried
through over a long period of time even during a period of instable political situations.
The Ministries don’t have such mechanism. It’s unlikely that they’ll invest their efforts on
one particular issue over time. Their working agenda are often influenced by the politics
and politicians in power.”
In addition to the long-term mandates that NESDB received from the government since
its establishment, the expert from NESDB drove forward various logistics development
programs under the mandate of National Competitiveness Committee (NCC)20 and
National Logistics Committee (NLC),21 where his superior served as a secretary.
ThaiNSW was one of them. NCC and NLC provided NESDB expert the conduits to the
stakeholders of the ThaiNSW endeavor. Because the existence of the two committees and 20 NCC was a high-level committee chaired by the Prime Minister. It comprised of all economic-related ministers and executives from key business associations. It was mainly responsible for identifying a policy framework, direction, and strategy that fostered national competitiveness. 21 NLC was chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister. It consisted of permanent secretaries from economic-related ministries and representatives from trade-related associations. It was responsible for planning and monitoring logistics development related projects carried out under each ministerial boundary and across ministerial boundaries.
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their mandates were endorsed by the Prime Minister and the Cabinet, the members of the
two committees as well as their subordinates at both the middle management and
operation level felt obliged to render collaboration.
Nevertheless, “the mandate wasn’t enough [to get the stakeholders to collaborate and to
keep up the momentum].” According to the expert from NESDB, in order to get their
buy-ins and willingness to participate, several meetings were arranged with an aim to
educate them on policy framework where ThaiNSW resided and to foster common
understanding about the initiative. Those events were supplemented by informal and
formal information-sharing sessions on relevant methods, tools, techniques, and standards.
According to the university professor who worked with the expert NESDB, “90% talking
and 10% doing is necessary.” Effective communication helped ensure that all
stakeholders “tow one rope in the same direction.” As Harkins (2003) suggests,
“effective communications is an enabler that allows true partnerships to be formed…” (p.
265).
To move forward the ThaiNSW endeavor, which was part of the country’s strategic
agenda, the expert from NESDB sought assistance from the external consultant. He
explained: “At that time, I was a coordinator of Thailand’s competitiveness enhancement
program. Logistics development hadn’t been instigated as a national strategy yet. My job
was to identify a flagship project in trade facilitation area. Our consultant mentioned this
particular university professor who was widely known as an expert in trade facilitation
and e-business. So I invited him over to discuss all the possibilities including Single
Window. We ended up allocating 200,000 Baht to hire him to develop a roadmap on how
to go about implementing Single Window.”
The expert from NESDB then used the roadmap as an input in the communication with
the stakeholders. He believed that having the roadmap close at hand was advantageous.
The roadmap helped clarify project definition, roles of each stakeholders, and thus mutual
understandings among the stakeholders. As the university professor who developed it
commented, it presented the high-level architecture which informed “what is what” and
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“who is doing what.” With a clear overall picture and common vocabularies, common
understanding among stakeholders was promoted. Confusion was reduced. Integration at
the operational level was strengthened as a result.
In addition to using the roadmap as a tool to foster the mutual understanding among the
stakeholders, the expert from NESDB commented that he also used the roadmap as a tool
to keep all the stakeholders engaged in the country’s flagship project. He said: “I had to
explain to them, convince them, and engage them in the decision-making dialogue. It
relied a lot on personal creditability. Definitely, I didn’t order them or force them to go
on board.” He also noted that the process to get all stakeholders to arrive at mutual
understanding was lengthy. As he described: “We had to approach them [government
officials at the middle management and operational level who were involved in the
control and management of cross-border movement of goods as well as executives from
business associations], set meetings with them, and explain to them. It took a lot of time.
We had to rely on a consultant from the academia. He and I, we went together. I
explained to them government’s vision, policy, and why we needed to go for Single
Window. The consultant explained to them the technical aspect of Single Window
implementation … Because the subject is new, highly technical, and highly complex, we
had to explain to them over and over again … It was like we were creating a trend. We
were trying to gain community acceptance. Finally, we managed to get stakeholders from
public, private, and academic sectors all jumped on board.”
The expert from NESDB also commented that the qualities, such as patience,
perseverance and persuasion of the university professor who joined NESDB team as a
consultant were in fact acknowledged as critical factors that helped foster common
understanding, manage diverse requirements and expectations among stakeholders, create
collaborative partnerships, thus enlist commitment and participation from independent
agencies. As NESDB expert said, “If it’s not for his [the university professor] good
manner at all time, we would have stumbled on the rock already at some stage of the
project formation.” He also recognized that the university professor had done beyond
what he was hired to do. He commented that: “Other roles and activities carried out by
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the consultant from the academia in facilitating the project implementation, if beyond the
TORs of each project, would be, to his credit, his own constructive engagement.”
In addition to fostering common understanding, the expert from NESDB found it
necessary to engage those whose participation was crucial for the successful
implementation of the ThaiNSW endeavor in a dialogue and thus a decision-making
process. Again, he used the roadmap as a tool. As he said: “During the ‘talking’ period,
we engaged everybody. Several meetings were held to discuss about the roadmap. We
discussed it until everybody came to agreement and the roadmap was finalized.”
According to the expert from NESDB and the university professor whom NESDB hired
as an external consultant, the roadmap also served as a tool to secure funding for
ThaiNSW implementation. As the university professor mentioned, the roadmap showing
the high-level architecture of ThaiNSW was submitted to the Cabinet through NCC. The
Cabinet, in principle, approved a budget of 1,250 million Baht for three-year ThaiNSW
implementation. After the budget was approved in principle, the university professor
reported that he, as chair of Thailand’s Single-Window e-Logistics Planning Committee,
turned the roadmap into a detailed action plan. He said: “We have a clear and precise
plan. We identified what to do in the first year, in the second year, and in the third year.
This three-year plan covered the development of an exchange hub, the development of
participating government agencies’ back-end systems with the application of ebXML
framework, the arrangements for capacity building programs, system roll out, legal
reform, so on and so forth. I listed the budget required to implement each component. I
was also the one who defended the budget. The budget for the first year was 200
something million and we got it.”
NESDB expert commented that the university professor developed the detailed action
plan “on behalf of MICT and in accordance with the government policy which is
symbolized by NESDB’s participation.” Similar to the roadmap, he added that: “Several
meetings with stakeholders were organized to discuss and revise the plan. The forum was
at MICT. But it was me and the consultant from the university who led the meeting. Later,
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many government agencies invited us to join their TOR [terms of reference] drafting
teams. We said yes. We helped them draft TOR. We also helped them secure some
funding for implementing their back-end system.”
The expert who represented NESDB in the ThaiNSW endeavor, without a doubt, played
a strong role in forming the interagency collaboration for ThaiNSW implementation. His
move was strategic. With the help of with the university professor who served as a
consultant for both NESDB and MICT, NESDB expert managed to mobilize
commitments and funding from the government toward the Single Window goal.
6.2.4. Meme Vehicle No. 4 – Ministry of Information and Communication Technology
(MICT)
Despite the fact that MICT was appointed by the Cabinet as an agency to be in charge of
managing ThaiNSW implementation, the interviewees were reluctant to say that the key
personnel from MICT held a role in this endeavor. The interviewees perceived that the
contribution from MICT with regard to the establishment of interagency collaboration
was insubstantial.
One interviewee mentioned that she met several MICT officials when she was on her
mission to forums held by international organizations like APEC and AFACT. These
officials were responsible for developing ICT-related national policies. At those events,
they learned about paperless trading and Single Window as the means to achieve it from
experiences of other countries. According to the interviewee, the officials really showed
an interest in it. As she said: “I think, MICT wants to have it because others [countries]
have it. Somehow, they only incorporated it in their plan. They didn’t really spend their
effort to realize it. They left most of the work to us, the consultant.” Even in the budget
allocation process, MICT did not take part. The university processor who served as a
consultant to both MICT and NESDB reported that he assisted MICT in defending the
budget with the Bureau of the Budget. The day he defended the budget was the first day
in office of MICT Permanent Secretary.
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Another interviewee recalled that MICT portioned out some resources that it got from the
government to set up ThaiNSW program management office (PMO). However, the PMO
only facilitated the physical allocation of funding that participating government agencies
requested for use in developing their back-end systems so that they could electronically
share relevant data with other participating government agencies. The PMO did not
organize the campaign to stimulate those government agencies to put in place the back-
end systems nor urge them to prepare for the integration with ThaiNSW.
Previously, I revealed how communication, as one mode of social interactions, served as
a central process in initiating, planning, and implementing ThaiNSW. I identified the
styles of communication used and key champions in the initiation and execution stages of
the project. I also explained where the key ideas to implement the EDI-based customs
automation system and to turn the EDI-based customs automation system into the
ebXML-based ThaiNSW as well as the knowledge of how to make it happen came from.
It was these information, ideas and knowledge that contributed to the emergence and
evolution of ThaiNSW. These information, ideas and knowledge are what Dawkins
(2010) refers to as memes.
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CHAPTER 7. THE ROLES OF MEMES ON THE EMERGENCE AND
EVOLUTION OF THAINSW (PROPOSITION 1)
This chapter demonstrates that memes lie at the core of IOIS emergence and evolution. It
brings to light memes that serve as resources for IOIS project selection, IOIS
implementation planning, IOIS design, IOIS development, and IOIS maintenance to
accommodate a diversity of evolving interests, values, assumptions, and cultures in
organizations participating in the IOIS as well as other social institutions and
communities in an organizational field where those organizations reside.
7.1. Drivers of ThaiNSW Emergence
According to the customs officer whom I interviewed, the origin of the government’s
policy to take advantage of EDI to improve government’s administration could be traced
back to mid 1990s during the time Anand Panyarachun was a Prime Minister. The
government’s promotion of EDI very much owed to the meme that addressed the
popularity of EDI, which tremendously grew in the late 1980s and 1990s. However, the
customs officer whom I interviewed pointed out that the government’s policy toward EDI
adoption only brought about the establishment of Thailand EDI Council and various sub-
committees. The council and its sub-committees, except the sub-committee responsible
for the development of message implementation guidelines, were rather inactive. He
claimed that the emergence of the EDI-based customs automation system was driven by
the meme that promoted the application of EDI to facilitate export and import procedures,
which propagated from World Customs Organization (WCO) to the delegates from Royal
Thai Customs who attended the WCO meeting in Belgium in late 1990s. It played an
important role in cultivating Royal Thai Customs’ willingness and commitment to
modernize customs operation, as reflected in Royal Thai Customs’ vision that
emphasized three values – “honest, transparent, and modern.”
The interview data from the customs officer who was in charge of developing a terms of
reference for the EDI Gateway project [the EDI-based customs automation system]
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suggested that the characteristics and features of the system were dictated by memes from
several sources. The two sources that the customs officer whom I interviewed considered
most important were Chapter 7 of the General Annex of the Revised Kyoto Convention –
International Convention on the Simplification and Harmonization of Customs
Procedures22 and APEC Blueprint for Customs Modernization23 which summarized the
international best practices recommended by World customs Organization and agencies
under the umbrella of the United Nations.
The analysis of those two documents suggested that while the memes that Chapter 7 of
the General Annex of the Revised Kyoto Convention carried were quite general, the
memes drawn from APEC Blueprint for Customs Modernization were very specific. One
of the memes from the Revised Kyoto Convention, for example, promoted the use of
relevant internationally accepted standards when automating customs procedures whereas
one of the memes from APEC Blueprint for customs Modernization called for the
adoption and support for the UN/EDIFACT. Clearly, Royal Thai Customs was ‘infected”
with these memes. The use of relevant internationally accepted standards was recognized
as one of the system implementation principles. UN/EDIFACT (95B and 96B
Directories) was adopted as an electronic message format for electronic data exchange.
The design of Thailand’s EDI-based customs automation system was also influenced by
other memes that APEC Blueprint for Customs Modernization carried. The document
housed the results of the discussions between members of the APEC Sub-Committee on
Customs Procedures (SCCP) and representatives from businesses. It provided
recommendations that, as SCCP claimed, met the needs and priority of traders. Close
examination of the document suggested that many of the memes were realized. The
evidence that those micro elements were implemented was shown in the features of the
22 WCO. (1999). The Revised Kyoto Convention – International Convention on the Simplification and Harmonization of Customs Procedures. Available at URL: http://www.wcoomd.org/en/topics/facilitation/instrument-and-tools/conventions/pf_revised_kyoto_conv.aspx 23 APEC SCCP. (1997). A Blueprint for Customs Modernization: Working with Business for a Faster, Better Border. Singapore: APEC Secretariat.
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system at the macro level. The concept of pre-arrival release24 was implemented as part of
the e-Declaration module. The principle of risk management25 was incorporated to the
Risk Management module attached to the e-Declaration module. It facilitated the analysis
and assessment of customs declarations against customs risk profile and labeled low-risk
cargo as Green Line and high-risk cargo as Red Line, and then prescribed inspection
needed. The idea to implement Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT)26 could also be traced
back to APEC Blueprint for Customs Modernization. Thailand’s EDI-based customs
automation system also followed APEC Blueprint for Customs Modernization’s
recommendation on the adoption of HS Convention, i.e., the standard international
harmonized system for the classification of goods. The use of HS Convention was listed
in APEC Blueprint for Customs Modernization as one of the collective action that
Customs administrations of APEC member economies should adopt. In addition to the Revised Kyoto Convention and APEC Blueprint on Customs
Modernization, the customs officer whom I interviewed mentioned that he himself and
the team studied what had been done in other countries. Several official visits were
organized to several countries. However, it was the Australian’s that Royal Thai Customs
considered suitable for Thailand. As the customs officer whom I interviewed said: “We
looked up to the Australian model. We also hired the Australian consultant to assist us in
the design of the core system.” Examples of memes that were fundamental to the design
of the Australian Customs Service Electronics and were found reproduced in Thailand’s
EDI-based customs automation system included:
– The provision of electronic channel for exporters to submit electronic requests for
clearance;
– The provision of a direct online system that enable importers and customs brokers to
create and lodge the intention to import using in-house terminals;
– The electronic issuance of Export Clearance Numbers;
24 “Through the transmission of shipment information while the goods are en route, Customs can make a decision whether to examine or release the shipment prior to its arrival.” 25 Customs’ resources are concentrated on areas of greatest risk, thereby providing faster and consistent service for low-risk shipments and decreased export/import costs for business.” 26 “Business will have the option of paying customs duties and taxes via electronic fund transfer, thus reducing paperwork and saving time.”
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– The provision of electronic channel for freight forwarders, shipping agents, and
airlines to submit transport documents including manifests and waybills; and
– The electronic clearance of transport documents.
Like the Australian’s, after a certain period of deployment, Royal Thai Customs
attempted to bringing the meme of making the use of the EDI-based customs automation
system mandatory to a reality. However, the mandatory requirements could not be
implemented in its entirety. As the customs officer whom I interviewed mentioned: “We
didn’t have a problem getting larger sized companies to use it, but the smaller ones.”
There was a case where a lawsuit was filed against Royal Thai Customs. The court
ordered Royal Thai Customs to keep the manual system. “So, we changed the strategy,”
said the customs officer whom I interviewed. “We just made the response through
services provided through the manual system way slower than the services provided
through the electronic system. The use of the manual system eventually disappeared.”
The strategy that Royal Thai Customs implemented was basically the meme that helped
promote the use of the EDI-based customs automation system at large.
The fact that Royal Thai Customs pursued the Australian model did not mean that its
reception for memes from other sources had been turned off. Royal Thai Customs looked
out for memes of what it could do to better facilitate SMEs in the process of customs
clearance. The meme that it came up with was to implement a web-based application as
an alternate solution for SMEs to electronically submit Customs Declaration to Royal
Thai Customs. Royal Thai Customs was aware of its limitation, yet the meme was
implemented anyway. A source inside Royal Thai Customs gave a short comment on the
use of the Internet-based EDI. He said: “We gave SMEs a new option [to submit Customs
Declaration via a web-based interface]. But there were only 300 transactions per month.
And the majority of users were big customs broker companies. They used the system for
free and collected service charges from their clients. I know from the beginning that this
wouldn’t be popular, even though it was offered free of charge as users had to rekey
necessary data which were already in their company system.”
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7.2. Drivers of ThaiNSW Evolution
Thailand’s EDI-based customs automation system was originally made to operate on the
mainframe. The shift to the open client-server architecture in a later stage was, according
to the customs officer whom I interviewed, a response to the memes that “maintaining
the open system is cheaper than maintaining the mainframe” and that “tools and
techniques are available to combat threats to the computer and network security in the
open system environment.” These memes were the reasons behind Royal Thai Customs’
decision to migrate its customs automation system from Unisys IX 5604 mainframe to
Sun E12000 server. “Because we changed the system, we had to change the database as
a result,” said the customs officer whom I interviewed. This was the meme that indicated
a reason for RDMS 2200 relational database – Oracle RDBMS migration.
At about the same time Royal Thai Customs decided to have its customs automation
system migrated to the open system, there was evidence that “honest, transparent, and
modern” were not the only three memes that Royal Thai Customs held as its principles.
The vision that Royal Thai Customs introduced at that time also valued the meme that
placed a great emphasis on bringing the quality of customs operation to the world
standard. This meme made Royal Thai Customs vulnerable for infections with memes
from various sources that contained ideas, information, and knowledge about concepts
and alternative technologies that would enable Royal Thai Customs to bring its operation
to the world standard. They included those related to ebXML – “When compare with
EDI, ebXML is less vulnerable to security threats,” PKI and digital signature – “RSA
Algorithm for digital signature and encryption with Tripple DES makes the exchange of
messages highly secure.” and paperless trading which Royal Thai Customs perceived as
trade facilitation measure “to promote good governance, eliminate redundant regulatory
processes, enhance customs operation, ensure that members of trade and transport
communities can easily fulfill regulatory processes.”
There were memes that took part in convincing Royal Thai Customs that improving its
customs automation system was the way to go, such as those that discussed what better
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customs automation system meant for national competitiveness and the safety of Thai
society. There were also memes provided Royal Thai Customs with the assurance that the
migration of the EDI-based system to the one that (i) relied on the Internet; (ii) was based
on ebXML standard; and (iii) was equipped with public key infrastructure (PKI) and
digital signature could be achieved. Memes in this group were those that illustrated the
results of cross-platform data exchange between Thailand, Japan, Korea, and Hong Kong
under the ebXML Asia Committee's ebXML Interoperability Certification Program as
well as the successful outcome of the pilot projects that examined the feasibility of
exchanging electronic messages using ebXML framework in trading and banking
domain.
Table 7.2-1: APEC Paperless Trading Goal27 meme
APEC Ministers agreed that member economies should endeavor to reduce or eliminate the requirement for paper documents needed for customs and other cross-border trade administration and other documents and messages relevant to international sea, air and land transport i.e. "Paperless Trading" (for trade in goods), where possible, by 2005 for developed and 2010 for developing economies, or as soon as possible thereafter.
The meme that addressed APEC paperless trading goal (Table 7.2-1) was particularly
interesting. Before paperless trading became the goal of Royal Thai Customs, it was the
meme that had been discussed in APEC since 1998. It might not drive the emergence of
EDI-based customs automation system in Thailand, but it played an important role in
getting other government agencies to follow the path that Royal Thai Customs had taken.
The first paperless trading Individual Action Plan (IAP) that Thailand submitted to APEC
in 2002 suggested that Royal Thai Customs was no longer the only actor in the journey
toward paperless trading goal. All the government agencies listed in the document were
well aware of the idea that each of them had responsibilities in creating paperless trading
environment in Thailand. The document listed other IT initiatives, permit/certificate
issuance systems to be exact, that these government agencies were planning to implement
or implementing.
27 APEC. (1998). APEC Leader’s Declaration: APEC Blueprint for Action on Electronic Commerce, Singapore: APEC Secretariat.
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In APEC report titled Paperless Trading: Benefits to APEC published in 2001, Foreign
Affairs and Trade, Australian Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation
showed evidence of how “the APEC goal of reducing or eliminating the requirement for
mandated paper-based documents in cross-border trade … [has revolutionized] the
conduct of trade within the region.” Nevertheless, what Royal Thai Customs and other
government agencies perceived at that time as what they had to do to remove the paper
requirements to pursue the paperless trading goal stayed within the boundary of their
organization. As shown in 2004 Individual Action Plan for Thailand: Highlights on Trade
Facilitation Work cum Mid-Term Review, their actions were limited to the establishment
of electronic channels for B2G and G2B transactions with members of trade and transport
communities and the modification of relevant regulations to support the removal of paper
requirements.
Table 7.2-2: A few variations of ‘complexity of international trade transactions meme’
UNECE28: One single, international transaction can generate hundreds of information elements that must be checked, transcribed, transmitted, re-checked, re-entered into various information systems, processed and filed, thus generating a huge amount of documents which end being used by as many as thirty to forty different partners in at least two countries.
APEC29: What it takes to effect an average international trade transaction today – 27-30 different parties – 40 documents – 200 data elements (30 of which are
repeated at least 30 times) – Re-keying of 60-70% of all data at least
once
CrimsonLogic30
28 UNECE. (1994). Methodology for Estimating Costs and Benefits of Trade Facilitation, Geneva: United Nations 29 APEC. (1996). Report to the Economic Leaders: APEC means business: building prosperity for our community. Singapore: Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Secretariat. 30 CrimsonLogic. (2003). TradeNet and eCustoms Systems.
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Over the years, the perception of the key actors on how to create paperless trading
environment evolved. Their perceptions evolved as they were exposed, through various
local and international events, to more ideas, knowledge, and information. Variations of
the meme that addressed the complexity of the international trade transactions, such as
those in Table 7.2-2, were repeatedly brought to their attention. The Single Window
concept, technicalities of technology especially ebXML, as well as technical know-how
and best practices in implementing paperless trading using the Single Window were
introduced to them as solutions that might help them improve the way they dealt with the
complexity of the international trade.
Interestingly, the government agencies prone to be infected with these memes were not
just those directly responsible for the border control like Royal Thai Customs,
Department of Foreign Trade, Department of Agriculture, and so forth, but also a
government agency that was mandated to facilitate traders in fulfilling trade-related
regulatory requirements (i.e., One Stop Export Service Center (OEC)) and a national
think-tank agency (i.e., National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB))
who was designated to be in charge of identifying national flagship projects that would
promote national logistics development and thus improve country’s competitiveness.
7.2.1. National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB)
The senior policy analyst from NESDB responsible for identifying strategies for logistics
development was aware that: “The issues related to logistics development aren’t just
limited to the provision of physical infrastructure -- road, rail, port, etc. It also had to do
with the paperwork. Traders needed to deal with customs and many government agencies
to complete the required paperwork. They had to make necessary arrangements with
freight forwarder, shipping company, insurance company, and bank prior to exporting
goods out of the country or importing goods into the country.”
In one of the meetings with representatives from Ministry of Finance, Ministry of
Commerce, and Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MICT), the
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senior policy analyst from NESDB reported that, “65% of the time it takes to move the
goods across the border was spent on the paperwork and 35% on transportation
arrangement. This observation indicates that we have plenty of opportunity to improve
and thus speed up the paperwork process. Although IT has been applied to boost up the
efficiency, the existing systems are standalone. They don’t link with each other. The
format of data used in those systems isn’t standardized. Traders still have to deal with
several government agencies, as those agencies can’t share data with each other. This
inefficiency means non-value added cost to businesses.” The understanding of what
logistics was to him let him made him more vulnerable to be infected by memes that
addressed the complexity of international trade transactions and those that described the
concept of Single Window. All these memes led him to pick up the Single Window idea
and commissioned the development of a roadmap on how to go about implementing it.
The NESDB expert, through National Competitiveness Committee (NCC), then
submitted the roadmap to the Cabinet for endorsement and budget allocation. Once the
idea was endorsed as a national flagship project and the funding was secured, NESDB
began its Single Window campaign. According to the expert from NESDB, several
meetings were arranged with an aim to gain buy-ins from all stakeholders.
NESDB campaign on Single Window illustrated a case where memes of mutual
compatibility reinforced each other in a memeplex. The NESDB expert employed a
group of memes when he attempted to convince stakeholders from the top-level
management to those at the operational level to support ThaiNSW cooperative endeavor.
“I did not just go to them and explain what Single Window is and preach how important
it is to trade facilitation. As I told everybody at the conference organized by UNESCAP
and UNECE in Ulaanbaatar, It won’t be effective if you promote either trade facilitation
or Single Window as a standalone issue. For it to be effective, you have to promote Single
Window as trade facilitation measure under the umbrella of logistics development
strategy where the ultimate goals are to turn Thailand into Indochina trade and
investment hub with a world-class logistics system and to enhance country’s
competitiveness. Right? This way, you can create a momentum. Everybody is looking at
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the big picture. They see the necessity of having the Single Window. They perceive
themselves as part of a whole. If they don’t go on board, the country will lose its ride to a
better place in the international trade.” Like Blackmore (1999) and Dawkins (2010)
argue, by cooperating with each other, the memes inside the memeplex replicate better
than there are on their own.
Figure 7.2.1-1: ThaiNSW in a big picture – an example of a memeplex
The expert from NESDB added that the memes describing the problems that the country
was facing were usually followed by the memes that offered the solutions. “We had to
rely on a consultant from the academia. He and I, we went together. I explained to them
government’s vision, policy, and why we needed to go for Single Window. The consultant
explained to them the technical aspect of Single Window implementation … Because the
subject is new, highly technical, and highly complex, we had to explain to them over and
over again. Single Window became something like fashion, you know? Everybody began
to pay more attention to it and wanted to be involved.” Table 7.2.1-1 lists examples of
memes in a memeplex that had been used repeatedly.
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Table 7.2.1-1: An example of a memeplex that influenced ThaiNSW uptake and design
Meme 1: Thailand’s total logistics cost in 2001 was equivalent to 19% of GDP which was really high when compared with those of EU, USA, and Japan which were equivalent to 7%, 10%, and 11% of GDP respectively. Meme 2: Transportation, inventory holding, and administration are considered as major components of logistics costs. Meme 3: Inefficiency in logistics management is the improvement opportunity for Thailand. Meme 4: The reduction of logistics cost by 5% of GDP would give the country approximately 7.5 billion USD in return. Meme 5: Duplicated and redundant procedural and documentary requirements are seen as non-tariff barriers to trade. Meme 6: Duplicated and redundant procedural and documentary requirements that have to be fulfilled for each international trade transaction usually cause delay in the delivery of goods. Meme 7: Duplicated and redundant procedural and documentary requirements do not have value to the delivery of goods, the collection of national revenue, the enhancement of border security, the protection of public health and safety. This inefficiency means non-value added cost to businesses. Meme 8: Although IT has been applied to boost up the efficiency, the existing systems are standalone. They don’t link with each other. Meme 9: A Single Window is described as a facility that allows parties involved in trade and transport to lodge standardized information and documents with a single entry point to fulfill all import, export, and transit-related regulatory requirements. If information is electronic, then individual data elements should only be submitted once. Meme 10: A Single Window is equipped with a national router, which provides a standardized and regulated environment for seamless routing of streamline data among government agencies and businesses from trade and transport communities within and across borders. Meme 11: Process and data integration across information systems constituting the Single Window is facilitated by an ebXML-based communication protocol so-called ebMS. Meme 12: Single Window operation is governed by an institutional body to be established with a mandate to define relevant policies such as those related to the quality of service and transaction fee and ensure that the policies are strictly followed.
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After the Cabinet approved a budget of THB 1,250 million for ThaiNSW
implementation, the expert from NESDB as a secretary to NCC led the establishment of a
special taskforce responsible for developing the action plan for three-year ThaiNSW
implementation (summarized in Table 7.2.1-2). The taskforce led by the university
professor, who had worked with the NESDB team since logistics development, was
endorsed as a national strategic agenda consisted of representatives from Royal Thai
Custom, MICT, and NESDB. The action plan approved by the Cabinet in 2006, carried:
– Memes that addressed goals of ThaiNSW initiative;
– Memes that were perceived as critical to the successful establishment of ThaiNSW;
– Memes that suggested the implementation approach; and
– Memes for projects whose outcomes were expected to contribute to the establishment
of ThaiNSW with the name of government agencies in charge of chartering the
projects. Interestingly, MICT was identified as a project leader for 13 projects out of
14. The only one project that Royal Thai Customs claimed its area of responsibility
was e-Licensing.
Table 7.2.1-2: Action Plan for three-year ThaiNSW Implementation in a Nutshell
Goal – To eliminate the requirement for paper-based documents in cross-border trade by
2010 Critical Success Factors – Effective institutional mechanism with support from the Prime Minister that
promotes the collaboration between participating government agencies and the partnership between public and private sector
– Solid understanding of the as-is business processes, properties of data used in those business processes, and relevant laws and regulations
Implementation Approach – Put users first when designing e-services – Establish institutional mechanism for interagency collaboration – Review and analyze as-is business processes and streamline them – Eliminate non-value added and redundant procedural and data requirements – Put in place a mechanism to monitor process performance and plan for continuous
improvement – Harmonize and standardize the format of data used in international trade transactions – Adopt ebXML-based protocol for secure data exchange – Develop a system architecture illustrating various components of ThaiNSW and the
associations among them
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– Implement in increments, i.e., focus on enabling the interconnectivities between government agencies involved in the administration of international trade transactions, particularly those involved in the export of shrimp, poultry, and garment in year 1, then extend to logistics service providers, banks, and insurance companies in year 2, and NSWs of other countries in year 3.
– Empower practitioners from private and public sector with information and knowledge required for effective ThaiNSW implementation and use
Projects (*Implemented by Royal Thai Customs, **Not yet implemented) – Business process analysis (with an emphasis on export and import strategic products) – Business model development – Harmonization and standardization of ThaiNSW data requirements – Design and development of Single Window Entry prototype – Establishment of project management office – Development of detailed technical specifications of participating government
agencies’ back-end systems to be interacting with the data exchange hub – Development of detailed technical specifications of the data exchange hub* – Development of Royal Thai Customs’ e-Licensing system and its interconnectivity
with the data exchange hub* – Development of a facility for the exchange of trade-related data with other countries* – System maintenance* – System auditing and hardening (security)* – Development of a one-stop information service for exporters and importers** – Development of Single Window Entry and Internet permit/certificate issuance system
(9 government agencies)** – Development of Single Window Entry and Internet permit/certificate issuance system
(26 government agencies)** – Performance measurement for continuous improvement**
The examination of those memes suggested that apart from the goal of ThaiNSW
initiative which was consistent with the goal of APEC paperless trading, the key memes,
especially those that described critical success factors and implementation approach,
were influenced by the ideas present in Draft UNECE Recommendation No. 33:
Recommendation and Guidelines on Establishing a Single Window and the ideas that the
university professor who chaired the ThaiNSW action plan development taskforce
learned from his interaction with others who also shared trade facilitation organizational
field over time.
Not all memes that the three-year action plan carried were selected for implementation.
Memes that addressed critical success factors and implementation approaches were
mostly embraced. NESDB, for example, took the initiative in putting in place one of the
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critical success factors, i.e., “Effective institutional mechanism with support from the
Prime Minister that promotes the collaboration between participating government
agencies and the partnership between public and private sector.” It facilitated the set up
of National Logistics Committee (NLC).31
Regarding the projects, 11 out of 15 were implemented. The reason why some memes
were selected but some were not will be discussed in Chapter 10. It should also be noted
that Royal Thai Customs took a lead in implementing five projects instead of one as
planned. Its action was driven by the memes related to the establishment of ASEAN
Single Window and the meme that MICT failed to act in a timely manner.
7.2.2. One-Stop Export Service Center (OEC)
The definition of Single Window by UNECE32, which had been referred to in various
trade facilitation related events and documents, suggested that Single Window consisted
of “a single entry point … for traders to submit information to governments so as to
fulfill import- or export-related regulatory requirements.”33 The last part of the Single
Window definition provided by UNECE -- “If information is electronic, then individual
data elements should only be submitted once.” – implicated the necessity of data sharing.
It implied that an electronic single entry point could only exist in “an integrated
environment for data sharing and exchange.”
31 The establishment of NLC was notified the Resolution issued by the Office of the Prime Minister published in the Royal Gazette on 22 May 2009. NLC, chaired by the Prime Minister, consisted of permanent secretaries from trade and transport related Ministries and representatives from trade and transport related associations. Its members were responsible for: – Developing strategies to drive logistics development; – Providing policy advice, i.e. Logistics Development Strategy, to the Cabinet; – Approving action plans in areas related to logistics development; – Supporting and monitor the implementation of the strategies and the action plans; and – Establishing sub-committees to handle various aspects of logistics development. 32 Introduced to Thailand for the first time by Jean Kubler, Chief – Global Trade Solutions Branch, Trade Development and Timber Division, UNECE at APEC Symposium on ebXML for Internet Paperless Trading and Collaborative e-Business, Bangkok, July21, 2004 33 UNECE. (2003). The Single Window Concept. Geneva: United Nations.
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OEC34 was the first government agency that attempted to implement the Single Window
meme in its entirety (i.e., both “a single entry point… for traders to submit information to
governments so as to fulfill import- or export-related regulatory requirements” and “an
integrated environment for data sharing and exchange”). In 2004, OEC convinced eight
government agencies,35 who already had their staff working at OEC to go on board.
Through the interactions with those government agencies, OEC came to realize the fact
that none of the participating government agencies, except Royal Thai Customs, were
ready for G2G data sharing and exchange. This meme forced OEC to leave the
development of an integrated environment for data sharing and exchange untouched and
push forward the development of a single entry point, which was also known as Single
Window Entry. As the first phase of its Single Window Initiative, OEC launched the
Single Window Entry system in 2004.
The idea of the Single Window Entry that OEC implemented was to have a centralized e-
form where exporters electronically submitted a set of data to various government
agencies at once together with scanned copies of necessary supplementary documents to
obtain all regulatory documents that they needed to fulfill trade related regulations of
Thailand and countries of their trading partners. Documents that OEC single window
system intended to support were Phytosanitary Certificate, Veterinary Health Certificate,
Customs Declaration, Halal Certificate 2, all kinds of Certificate of Origin, Application
for Legalization, and Commercial Registration Certificate. Once received the data, the
system then generated the regulatory documents that exporters requested. Each document
was generated according to the requirements specified in the Regulation that governed it.
The documents were then sent to authorized officers from respective government
agencies (physically locating in OEC) for processing and, if no anomalies were found,
34 OEC was a relatively new government agencies. It was established as part of Department of Export Promotion in 2002 to serve as a trade facilitation centre, the one almost similar to what UNCTAD promoted under its Trade Point program “where participants in foreign trade transactions (e.g. customs, banks, chambers of commerce, freight forwarders, transport and insurance companies) are grouped together under a single physical roof.” The differences were that OEC only attempted to house government agencies involved in the administration of foreign trade transactions so that exporters could walk in to submit requests for regulatory documents that they needed and collect them all in one place. 35 Royal Thai Customs, Department of Foreign Trade, Department of Agriculture, Department of Livestock, The Central Islamic Council of Thailand, Department of Consular Affairs, Department of Business Development, and Department of Export Promotion
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granting the approval. Exporters then collected the requested documents at OEC when
they were informed by the system’s document status tracking feature that the documents
were ready.
Unfortunately, OEC’s Single Window Entry project was not a success. According to the
findings from the survey conducted in 2006, the services were not popular among
exporters.36 The implementers did not see, or worse, they ignored the fact that there was
less likely the case where all those documents had to be obtained together. They also did
not take into account the fact that the documentary requirements varied across exported
products and across countries where the products would be exported to when they
designed the system. In addition, they invested the development of e-service that was not
really in need. For example, in four years of its operation, only 235 applications were
submitted to request for the legalization of trade documents. Failure to incorporate certain
memes in the system design led to unsuccessful system uptake.
OEC was aware of the limitations of its Single Window Entry system from the beginning.
Shortly after the system was launched, OEC commissioned the university professor who
was also a member of the special taskforce whose responsibility was to develop the
action plan for three-year ThaiNSW implementation to develop a guideline for
implementing a Single Window Entry system (summarized in Table 7.2.2-1) and a
system that facilitated data sharing and exchange between government agencies involved
36 Firstly, exporters did not find the service offered by OEC better than the method that they had been using. In case of Customs Declaration, most exporters had the application that facilitated the customs clearance in place. Because the application was usually integrated with the business system used in the company, exporters could reuse relevant data that were already in the system without rekeying them. In addition, Customs Declaration was not the only document that exporters had to submit to Royal Thai Customs. They also had to submit Goods Control List (Cargo Conveyance Report) when the consignment was en route to port of exit. Secondly, the request for regulatory documents also required supplementary documents. The officers in charge of processing the requests reported that they felt reluctant to operate with the scanned copies of the supplementary documents. A representative from Department of Agriculture reported in the meeting on the issuance of trade-related regulatory documents that “even though the Internet-based permit/certificate issuance system is in place, it is still impossible for the permit/certificate issuance process to be paperless.” Exporters ended up coming in to show the original copies of the supplementary documents as a result. In some cases, the officers in charge of processing the requests did not have the authority to issue the documents. They had to bring the applications back for further processing at their office. Thirdly, submitting all data for all documents at once did not really work as they could not be obtained at the same time. All data required to submit to Department of Foreign Trade to request for the Certificate of Origin were not available when exporters had to submit Customs Declaration.
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in the administration of the international trade. The guideline also included
recommendations on how to improve the product of the first phase and functional
requirements of the second phase which aimed at creating an integrated environment for
data sharing and exchange. Again, although not in a full scale, the idea was to establish
the infrastructure similar to what was defined by UNECE. The university professor,
whom OEC sought assistance from, perceived what OEC wanted to do as an attempt to
pilot the implementation of a full-scale ThaiNSW.
Table 7.2.2-1: Guideline for Implementing a Single Window Entry System
Goals – To simplify trade-related procedural and documentary requirements – To reduce the compliance time and costs incurred to exporters – To holistically remove non-tariff barriers to export Critical Success Factors – Use of standardized data and message format, messages and services exchange
protocol, and messages and services integration – Favorable legal infrastructure – Removal of redundant processes and data – Incentive for users from both public and private sector to use the system – Awareness raising and training programs – Supportive legal environment – Effective institutional mechanism for interagency collaboration in the areas of laws
and regulations, process and data standardization, and change management Implementation Approach – Implement in increments
• Phase 1: Develop an Internet-based Single Window Entry system to facilitate the completion of regulatory procedures required to move shrimp, poultry, textile, and products that follows similar procedures across border
• Phase 2: Extend the service offered by an Internet-based Single Window Entry system to ten additional products and develop a facility that supports data sharing and exchange between 8 participating government agencies
• Phase 3: Develop facility that supports data sharing and exchange with Single Windows of other countries
• Phase 4: Extend the service coverage full scale – Adopt ebXML-based protocol for secure data exchange – Make use of electronic watermark – Revise rules and regulations to support the submission and processing of supportive
documents in an electronic format
OEC organized several meetings between 2004-2007 to discuss the project with
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respective government agencies. The reported prepared for OEC by the university
professor who served OEC as an external consultant was used as an input. The discussion
with other government agencies resulted in the following recommendations.
– If OEC decided to push forward the initiative, it should redevelop the product of its
first phase Single Window project as the current one did not support the actual
business process from the perspective of both service providers (government
agencies) and customers (exporters).
– If OEC decided to have the Single Window Entry system redeveloped, it had to make
sure that the contractor thoroughly conducted business process analysis, business
process redesign, and data harmonization as well as properly incorporated the
outcome of those activities in the design of the system.
– If OEC decided to have the Single Window Entry system redeveloped, in addition to
the funding it allocated to the redevelopment of the Single Window Entry system,
which included the thorough business process analysis, business process redesign,
and data harmonization, it had to provide funding sufficient for the development of
back-end information systems of participating government agencies, and a facility
that supported data sharing and exchange. Without the last two components, the
Single Window Entry system could not operate effectively.
– Because the project that OEC was shooting for was similar to the project that the
Cabinet, during its meeting in December 2005, appointed Royal Thai Customs to lead
the implementation and the project that Minister of ICT was about to pass the budget
to Royal Thai Customs, OEC should avoid repetition of work and consider dropping
the plan and supporting Royal Thai Customs in the preparation of groundwork
including the conduct of business process analysis, business process redesign, and
data harmonization instead.
– OEC should consider repositioning itself as National Trade Facilitation Body with
roles and responsibilities listed in UNECE Recommendation No. 4: National Trade
Facilitation Bodies and its Guidelines. As UNCTAD mentioned in UNCTAD Trade
Facilitation Handbook Part I: Trade Facilitation Bodies, Lessons from Experience,
Thailand had two entities, i.e., one established under ASEAN Framework Agreement
on the Facilitation of Goods in Transit and the Agreement on Facilitation of Interstate
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Transport and another under the work undertaken by Asian Development Bank. They
were somehow inactive. “There is a genuine risk of overlap and duplication in
carrying out trade and transportation facilitation measures under various agreements.”
These recommendations were memes that were presented to OEC. OEC chose to
continue its Single Window Entry project but disregard the recommendations. However,
according to one of the project consultants, after OEC was struck with the meme that the
project would never be completed as participating government agencies were technically
not ready, they called it off.
7.2.3. Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MICT)
In 2009, MICT picked up the project. It commissioned the design and development of
Single Window Entry prototype. The Single Window Entry pilot project37 was successful.
As the developer described: “We’re able to enter data once. Then, the [Single Window
Entry] application generates multiple applications [requests for regulatory documents]
as needed and forwards those applications to respective government agencies.” The
ebXML Messaging Service attached to the Single Window Entry application supported
the exchange of data using ebMS version 2, the creation and verification of digital
signature, the encryption and decryption of electronic data, as well as the sending,
resending, and status notification of electronic message. In addition to the prototype, the
project also delivered two important recommendations or memes that were perceived as
crucial for bringing Single Window Entry that follows the definition of Single Window
Entry in Recommendation 33 [by UNECE] to life. In lead consultant’s words:
– “We propose that Single Window Entry is to be offered by VAS [value-added service 37 The Single Window Entry pilot project involved: – The analysis and redesign of relevant business processes; – The harmonization of data requirements using UN/CEFACT approach; – The implementation of an open source Single Window Entry [centralized e-form] application and
ebXML messaging services used in the export of sugar and jasmine rice as well as the import of dangerous goods;
– The organization of workshops to promote the centralized e-from program to software houses, value-added service providers, importers, exporters, and relevant government agencies; and
– The organization of trainings about data exchange and electronic document technologies.
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providers] as VAS have been providing traders with front-end application that allows
them to electronically submit required data to Customs for customs declaration
purpose and data that traders have to send to Customs are mostly required in the
application for permits or certificates too.”
– “Another thing that has to go hand in hand with Single Window Entry is to be
provided by government agencies. It is the web application that is capable of
receiving digitally signed messages transmitted with either ebXML- based or web
service protocol.”
According to the lead consultant, Royal Thai Customs was informed about the project.
He, however, reported that “they took the ideas but I haven’t seen them doing anything.”
7.2.4. Royal Thai Customs
Like NESDB, OEC, and other government agencies, in early 2000s, Royal Thai Customs
was infected with the paperless trading meme. At the very beginning, Royal Thai
Customs’ perspective on paperless trading was rather inward. The focus was more on
automating the customs procedures that occurred within the boundary of Royal Thai
Customs. The inward-looking perspective of paperless trading that infected Royal Thai
Customs at that time resulted in Royal Thai Customs’ perspective on ThaiNSW project.
According to the NESDB expert, when ThaiNSW was endorsed as a national flagship:
“It was clear that Royal Thai Customs did not want to take the lead. They said ThaiNSW
had a lot to do with IT implementation that touched upon the jurisdiction of several
government agencies so it should be the responsibility of MICT.” Through NCC, NESDB
consequently proposed to the Cabinet to appoint MICT as a lead agency. The proposal
was approved in March 2004.
The expert from Royal Thai Customs reported that 2004-2007 was the period where
“Thailand Single Window e-Logistics [ThaiNSW] seldom moved.” The inward-looking
perspective of paperless trading that infected Royal Thai Customs also accounted for
Royal Thai Customs’ compulsion to revolutionize its information systems in that period.
Time and effort were spent on migrating its system from the mainframe architecture to
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the client-server one. Its action was justified by the meme that placed a great emphasis on
bringing the quality of customs operation to the world standard and supported by the
memes that were technology related like ebXML, PKI, and digital signature.
Around mid 2000s, the actions that Royal Thai Customs took showed some evidence of
change in its perspective toward paperless trading. According to 2005 Individual Action
Plan for Thailand: Highlights on Trade Facilitation Work cum Progress of
implementation of Trade Facilitation Action Plan “Royal Thai Customs signed an MOU
with Port Authority of Thailand, Airports of Thailand Public Company Limited, and Thai
Airways International Public Company Limited. It enables faster customs clearance
through exchange of movement of goods information via electronic means and simplified
customs procedures.” Royal Thai Customs also began to think about linking license data
with the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Industry, and the Board of Investment.
The evolution of Royal Thai Customs’ perspective toward paperless trading was driven
by the memes that addressed the complexity of the international trade transactions. The
deactivation of the meme which suggested that “ThaiNSW had a lot to do with IT
implementation that touched upon the jurisdiction of several government agencies so it
should be the responsibility of MICT” was caused by the meme that associated paperless-
trading enabling technological solutions with the establishment of an ASEAN Economic
Community with the end goal of the economic integration stipulated in ASEAN Vision
2020. As the expert from Royal Thai Customs mentioned in the meeting with
representatives from NESDB, Ministry of Commerce, and MICT: “ASEAN Single
Window, as a matter of fact, is part of e-ASEAN. And e-ASEAN is one of the eleven
programs that will contribute to the establishment of ASEAN Community. If any of the
programs is missing, ASEAN 2020 vision will never be achieved.” It was also reinforced
by the meme that contained ASEAN Single Window implementation timeframe, i.e.,
“The ASEAN Single Window shall be fully operational by 2012 at the latest, with the
NSWs of ASEAN-6 operationalised by 2008, and the NSWs of ASEAN-4 no later than
2012.”
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Those memes drove Royal Thai Customs to request, through Minister of Finance, the
Cabinet to approve the establishment of Mutual of Understanding with customs
administration from ASEAN member countries under the Agreement and Protocol to
Establish and Implement the ASEAN Single Window and appoint it as a lead agency for:
– The implementation of data exchange hub (also known as ebXML gateway) or a
router that provided a standardized and regulated ebXML standard-based
environment for seamless and secured routing of permit/certificate data between
Royal Thai Customs and participating government agencies;
– The integration of data exchange hub and information systems of participating
agencies; and
– The electronic exchange of trade-related data between ThaiNSW and NSWs of other
ASEAN countries.
With close consultation with Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the recognition that Royal
Thai Customs possessed in-depth knowledge of relevant business domain and relevant
technologies, the Cabinet approved the requests in December 2005.
As a lead agency, Royal Thai Customs had to coordinate ThaiNSW implementation with
local stakeholders. The meme that addressed the necessity of having institutional
mechanism in place to ensure interagency collaboration led Royal Thai Customs to
establish several communicative platforms where it could discuss with experts from
participating government agencies as well as trade and transport communities the
practicalities of ThaiNSW implementation. Those interagency collaborative platforms for
interagency collaboration included:
– Steering Committee on ThaiNSW Development
– Technical Working Group
– Steering Committee on Regulatory Framework and Quality Assurance
– Legal Working Group
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Table 7.2.4-1: Interagency collaborative platforms
Interagency Collaborative Platform Mandate Steering Committee on ThaiNSW Development (Resolution issued by Royal Thai Customs) Chairmanship: Director General, Royal Thai Customs Membership: Representatives from government agencies participating in the NSW project as well as representatives from MICT, Bureau of Budget, Department of Business Development, and Bank of Thailand
– Develop the action plan for ThaiNSW implementation
– Ensure that NSW is implemented according to the action plan
– Establish working groups to 1) analyze business processes and data under the scope of ThaiNSW implementation and 2) develop data interoperability framework that conforms with international standards as well as the Agreement and Protocol to Establish and Implement the ASEAN Single Window
Technical Working Group (Resolution issued by Steering Committee on ThaiNSW Development) Chairmanship: Director, Information and Communication Technology Division, Royal Thai Customs Membership: Experts from government agencies that are involved in the administration of cross-border trade and representatives from trade and transport related associations
- Develop a standard-conformant guideline that facilitates the sharing and exchange of data between ThaiNSW and participating information systems
- Develop a standard-conformant guideline that facilitates the deployment of PKI and digital signature
- Develop Nation Standard Data Set which involves the alignment of data formats with WCO Data Set, UNTDED, UN/CEFACT Core Component Library (CCL) and ASEAN Data Set
- Develop a data model to specify data structure and format to be used by ThaiNSW and participating information systems
- Provide a list of recommended changes to relevant laws, rules, and regulations necessary for the operation of the ThaiNSW
- Support cross-border data integration according to national policy directives and international agreement
- Complete the designated tasks within the specified timeframe
- Coordinate the integration of data with relevant agencies
- Report the progress to the Steering Committee on ThaiNSW Development every 3 months
Steering Committee on Regulatory Framework and Quality Assurance (Resolution issued by Royal Thai Customs) Chairmanship:
– Examine business processes that are related to the administration of international trade transactions as well as associated time, costs, fees, laws, rules, regulations, and the degree of difficulties in completing them
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Director General, Royal Thai Customs Membership: Experts from government agencies that are involved in the administration of cross-border trade and representatives from trade and transport related associations
– Develop guidelines and standards for service delivery and propose them to relevant agencies for consideration
– Support, oversee, and assess the performance of participating agencies against the defined guidelines and standards
– Report the progress and difficulties to the Steering Committee on ThaiNSW Development every 2 months
Legal Working Group (Resolution issued by Sub-committee on Data Integration for Import, Export, and Logistics) Chairmanship: Deputy Director General, Royal Thai Customs Membership: Experts from Office of the Council of State of Thailand, MICT, and government agencies that are involved in trade administration
Revise existing laws, rules, and regulations to support the integration of information that facilitates import, export, and logistics (E.g., Electronic Transaction Act 2001 is now under a revision. The revised Electronic Transaction Act will further enhance information sharing in the paperless environment among relevant government and business sectors.)
The tasks of these interagency collaborative platforms (Table 7.2.4-1) were guided by
various memes listed under the implementation approach of the action plan for three-year
ThaiNSW implementation (Table 7.2.1-2).
Royal Thai Customs had knowledge of Single Window concepts put forth not only by
UNECE, but also by ASEAN and WCO (Table 7.2.4-2). Evidently, these concepts were
frequently mentioned in Royal Thai Customs’ messages to the public, as the expert from
Royal Thai Customs said, “for the sake of honoring the concepts’ owners.” However, the
concepts, regardless of where it came from, were not implemented in its entirety. Royal
Thai Customs’ decision was influenced by the “we will take care of the part that has to
do with us” meme. This meme led Royal Thai Customs to limit its effort to the
implementation of e-Licensing module and the gateway which facilitated the sharing and
exchange of data between Royal Thai Customs and government agencies involved in the
administration of goods movement across border as well as between ThaiNSW and
Single Windows of other countries. It also led Royal Thai Customs to set aside the
implementation of Single Window Entry system, which supported one time submission
of the same piece of data.
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Table 7.2.4-2: Various Single Window Concepts
ASEAN38 The National Single Window is a system, which enables: a) a Single Submission of data and information; b) a Single and Synchronous processing of data and information; c) a Single Decision-making for customs release and clearance of cargo. A single decision-making shall be uniformly interpreted as a single point of decision for the release/clearance of cargoes by the Customs on the basis of decisions, if required, taken by line ministries and agencies and communicated in a timely manner to the Customs.
UNECE39 A Single Window is described as a facility that allows parties involved in trade and transport to lodge standardized information and documents with a single entry point to fulfill all import, export, and transit-related regulatory requirements. If information is electronic, then individual data elements should only be submitted once. WCO40 A Single Window Environment is a cross border, ‘intelligent’, facility that allows parties involved in trade and transport to lodge standardized information, mainly electronic, with a single entry point to fulfill all import, export and transit related regulatory requirements.
In the meeting with National Logistics Committee (NLC), Royal Thai Customs injected
the meme of having the three private companies who had been providing the data
exchange gateway for B2G and G2B data exchange since the EDI period leverage their
service to cover G2G and cross-border transactions in the hope to secure the mandate for
those companies. With the clear mandate, the expert from Royal Thai Customs reported
that those companies would agree to expand their service coverage. However, the idea
was not taken. Royal Thai Customs ended up contracting out both the development of e-
Licensing module and the data exchange gateway to a local IT firm.
The development of e-Licensing module and the data exchange gateway for G2G and
cross-border transactions was dictated by memes outlined in the Terms of Reference 38 Agreement to Establish and Implement ASEAN Single Window signed by authorized person of respective Governments on December 9, 2005 at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. 39 Introduced to Thailand for the first time by Jean Kubler, Chief – Global Trade Solutions Branch, Trade Development and Timber Division, UNECE at APEC Symposium on ebXML for Internet Paperless Trading and Collaborative e-Business, Bangkok, July 21, 2004 40 WCO, Single Window Information Store, Available at URL: http://www.wcoomd.org/en/topics/facilitation/activities-and-programmes/single-window/single-window.aspx?p=1
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(ToRs). Those memes set out features and functions of the project’s final outputs. For
example:
– The developers adopted ebXML framework in the implementation of e-Licensing
module and the data exchange gateway for G2G and cross-border transactions simply
because the ToRs indicated that: “The system must comply with the ebXML
framework defined by UN/CEFACT and OASIS which consists of at least four
components, i.e., message service, registry service, trading partner information, and
business process specification.”
– In a similar manner, they implemented a public key infrastructure capable of
encrypting and embedding a digital signature in a message; decrypting and verifying
a digital signature; authenticating a digital certificate; interacting with other
information systems internal to Royal Thai Customs; and storing and managing users’
digital certificates, because it was listed in the ToRs as one of the requirements.
In addition to the memes listed in the ToRs, the developers had to implement the new
memes that Royal Thai Customs passed to them as they emerged. For example:
– The developers had to adjust the property of tax identification number in the database
and relevant message schemas after they learned from Royal Thai Customs about the
new convention for generating tax identification number that Department of Business
Development introduced which changed the characteristics of tax identification
number from 10 digits to 13 digits.
– Royal Thai Customs’ decision was influenced by “providing different participating
government agencies with the exact set of data that they wanted was a hassle” meme.
Because of that meme, the developers were no longer required to develop different
message schemas for different messages to be sent to individual government agencies
participating in ThaiNSW cooperative venture. This particular meme forced other
government agencies to adjust their back-end system in order to be able to receive
and process data from Royal Thai Customs. As the interviewee who helped
Department of Land Transport implement G2G data exchange with Royal Thai
Customs said: “They [Royal Thai Customs] said we’re going to send you
[Department of Land Transport] everything [in the updated Customs Declaration]
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and you do whatever you have to do to get the data you want. So, Department of Land
Transport had to change their back-end system so they can receive data from all
those hundred something data fields and write a program to extract the data they
need. This is what Department of Land Transport told me. I guess it applies to other
government agencies too.”
– The process where Royal Thai Customs electronically sent updated Customs
Declaration data to government agencies whom it received the permit/certificate data
from upon the release of goods from customs control through e-Licensing module
was also influenced by the meme that was not listed in the ToRs. Another interviewee
who helped Department of Land Transport implement G2G data exchange with Royal
Thai Customs said: “But I wonder if the Customs knows how to do it. In the original
model, Department of Land Transport has to send a request for data about car import
to Customs, and then Customs responds with the data of car import. Now, they aren’t
using this model. Instead, they set the time they want data to be sent. The system then
sends all data [in the updated Customs Declaration] to Department of Land
Transport accordingly. And Department of Land Transport filters whatever data they
want by themselves. It becomes one-way communication, no more request-response.”
In this section, I have discussed 142 memes; 28 of which are what Brodie (1996)
categorized as distinction memes, 82 strategy memes, and 32 association memes.
Following a configuration analysis approach to study IOIS adoption proposed by
Lyytinen and Damsgaard (2011), most of these memes fall into one or more than one of
the five dimensions, i.e. organizing vision, key functionality, mode of interaction,
structure, and mode of appropriation. Based on the collected data, technology is the
dimension that Lyytinen and Damsgaard’s approach does not account for.
The story of memes presented earlier, regardless of the categories they fall into, helps
demonstrate the power of memes. It explains what they can do to drive the uptake of a
large-scale IOIS project. Like “genes tell the cell to make a certain protein that has a
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specific job or function in the body,41” we see:
– Memes (organizing visions) that convince the country’s top-level management to
provide commitment, institutional support, and financial support for the
implementation of ThaiNSW;
– Memes (organizing visions) that motivate all the stakeholders from both public and
private sectors at the middle management level and operational level to participate;
– Memes that provide basic design parameters (key functionalities, mode of interaction,
structure, and mode of appropriation), and raw materials (technologies) necessary for
the existence of ThaiNSW. Those memes dictate the features of ThaiNSW. They
instruct the developers what to do.
Like genes, memes serve as raw materials for natural selection. They are used selectively.
Their impact becomes visible only when they are activated. For example, we saw
variations in Royal Thai Customs’ perspective toward paperless trading, i.e., inward-
looking and outward-looking. When the inward-looking one was activated, Royal Thai
Customs’ IS project in that period was limited within the boundary of Royal Thai
Customs. When that variation of paperless trading was suppressed and the one with
outward-looking perspective was activated, we saw Royal Thai Customs redefine the
scope of its IS work which expanded from within the boundary of Royal Thai Customs
itself to cross-organization and cross-border.
There are also memes that have not yet been incorporated into ThaiNSW, such as those
related to the implementation and operation of a Single Window Entry application. The
benefits that those memes can bring are foreseeable. However, those benefits will never
be realized until relevant memes are activated. Before we dive into memes’ selection
criteria, I would like to attend to factors that drive the emergence and evolution of
memes. With a better understanding about a life of these micro elements, more light will
be shed on how ThaiNSW emerged and evolved into its current form.
41 American Cancer Society. (2011). Oncogenes, Tumor Suppressor Genes, and Cancer. Available at URL: http://www.cancer.org/oncogenes-tumor-suppressor-genes-and-cancer-pdf
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CHAPTER 8: THE ORIGIN OF THAINSW-RELATED MEMES
(PROPOSITION 2)
Analogous to the biological world, memes emerge in response to environmental forces
and evolve into different variations through refinement and adaptation to new situations
and problems. As Lamarck (1914) suggested, the emergence of new characters and
structures of living organisms are controlled by the environment and their interaction
with the environment. Lamarck’s claim was supported by Darwin (1909). Their belief
that the environmental forces provide the external conditions for life is elaborated in the
concept of the Goldilocks zone, rare earth hypothesis which has raised a great deal of
controversy among astrobiologists and scientists in related fields, and the Oparin-Haldane
hypothesis. The accuracy of these hypotheses is doubted. However, the fact that “We
exist here on Earth. Therefore Earth must be the kind of planet that is capable of
generating and supporting us … with just the right conditions for life” (Dawkins, 2008,
pp. 162-164) is unarguable.
Lamarck (1914) also found the events such as anthropological, climatic or geological
changes to have impact on the world of the living beings. As shown in several other
scientific evidence (e.g., Forgaty, 2006; Burger, Kirchner, Bramanti, Haak, and Thomas,
2007; Steele, Lindley, and Blanden, 1998), they caused some species to undergo an
apparent rapid genetic transformation (Steele, 1979). Similarly, in the context of an IOIS
like ThaiNSW, the environmental forces that trigger or induce the emergence of new
memes and variations, which in turn provide raw materials for an IOIS to emerge and
evolve, can be in multiple forms. In line with the findings from several studies that
investigated how variables in the external environment, including competitive pressure,
government pressure, business partner power, and support from the initiator, force or
facilitate IOIS adoption (Robey, Im, and Wareham, 2008), data suggested that social,
economic, and political happenings were the environmental forces that caused the memes
crucial for a life of ThaiNSW to emerge and evolve. The role of catastrophic happenings
was not significant in ThaiNSW case as I speculated. In addition to the environmental
forces, I also found instances where the emergence of one meme was driven by the
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existence of other memes.
8.1. Social happenings
Social happenings are any phenomena that entail human aggregates and their behavior.
They are generally influenced by moral principles, values which can be viewed as either
desirable or undesirable, and experiences from the past.
The corruption within the customs service was an example of a social happening that led
to the emergence of Royal Thai Customs’ vision that addressed three values including
honest, transparent, and modern in the late 1990s. These values were memes that Royal
Thai Customs endorsed as an organizational vision. They emerged in response to
businesses’ complaints about customs officers’ demands for unrecorded cash
transactions. Deputy Director General of Royal Thai Customs at that time described:
“There are too many tables in customs offices and at some, only some, you have to pay
tea money … A transaction that once took five hours will just take five minutes once it is
working.”42 According to Deputy Director General of Royal Thai Customs, the
corruption within the customs service had to be stopped. Modernizing customs’ operation
by “creating an on-line system” was what he said Royal Thai Customs saw as a way to
correct the situation. Corruption as a social happening is also a motivation behind the
application of information and communication technology in the government sector both
at a local level and nationwide elsewhere (Kim, Kim, and Lee, 2009). Increased
transparency is often cited as one of the rationales for e-government initiatives (Northrup
and Thorson, 2003).
Royal Thai Customs’ visions evolved. The addition of a value that placed a great
emphasis on bringing the quality of customs operation to the world standard to the
organizational vision was also an eventual consequence of a social happening. It was
Royal Thai Customs’ response to the phenomenon where, as globalization intensified,
42 Crampton, T. (1997). “Economic Scene: Thailand to Privatize Customs Department,” The New York Times, Available at URL: http://www.nytimes.com/1997/08/02/business/worldbusiness/02iht-thai.t.html
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customs administrations worldwide had been institutionalized that their role was no
longer limited to revenue collection, but facilitation of the international trade as well. For
this reason, the evolution of Royal Thai Customs’ organizational value could be seen as a
phenomenon that emerged from the redefinition of customs administration as an
organizational field. From the perspective of Scott and Meyer (1991), the redefinition of
customs administration as an organizational field was driven by institutional
environments, which are rules and requirements to which customs administrations must
conform if they were to receive support and legitimacy. By bringing the quality of its
operation to the world standard, the customs clearance process was expected to be more
convenient and faster to traders. Because less time was required to complete customs
clearance process, traders had more time to focus on their core business, i.e. trading.
The emergence of Royal Thai Customs’ perception toward paperless trading and its
evolution from inward-looking to outward-looking were also outcomes of social
happenings. Clearly, Royal Thai Customs’ inward-looking perception toward paperless
trading which limited the automation of customs procedures within the organizational
boundary of Royal Thai Customs was influenced by the way Thai government agencies,
Royal Thai Customs included, had operated. Each operated according to the law in which
its organization was organized. Each focused only on its own business. It was not only
because each avoided taking more work, but also because each avoided overstepping
organizational boundaries. This inward-looking perception was shaped by organizational
culture. The trait of outward-looking perception toward paperless trading exhibiting in
Royal Thai Customs began to appear after Royal Thai Customs learned, through the
interaction that it had with professionals operating in the domain of the international
trade, what was claimed to be the fact about the complexity of the international trade
transactions. The trait of Royal Thai Customs’ outward-looking perception toward
paperless trading became more visible after Single Window implementation was made a
collective action that each ASEAN member country had to be completed within the
timeframe.
The way Thai government agencies operated, as discussed above, together with the role
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of the organization that the expert from NESDB represented implied the existence of
social division of labor. Such social division of labor was viewed as a social happening
that drove the expert from NESDB who was in charge of identifying strategies to boost
country’s competitiveness to perceive himself as “a champion” in pushing government
agencies who were stakeholders of the ThaiNSW to collaborate. It did not emerge as a
result of “a static embedded capability or stable disposition of actors, but rather an
ongoing social accomplishment, constituted and reconstituted as actors engage the world
in practice” (Orlikowski, 2002, p. 249). The resulting division of labor also drove the
expert from NESDB and his team to suggest “effective institutional mechanism with
support from the Prime Minister” as a meme to “promote the collaboration between
participating government agencies and the partnership between public and private sector”
necessary for driving ThaiNSW implementation forward.
The expert from NESDB mentioned that: “They [local stakeholders] see the necessity of
having the Single Window. They perceive themselves as part of a whole. If they don’t go
on board, the country will lose its ride to a better place in the international trade.” The
image that the NESDB expert said local stakeholders perceived of themselves was also a
meme that was an outcome of a social happening. It was a product of “a highly
collectivist country”43 where “individuals define themselves as aspects of a collective”44
and where individuals “give priority to the goals of that of collective rather than to their
personal ones.”45
I mentioned about a case where a lawsuit was filed against Royal Thai Customs when it
attempted to make the use of the EDI-based customs automation system mandatory. The
Administrative Court ordered Royal Thai Customs to keep the manual system. The order
was considered as a meme that emerged from social happenings. The first social
happening in this example was the lawsuit itself. The second social happening was the
court ruling, which was based on the constitutional principle of equality – “Unjust
discrimination against a person on the grounds of the difference in origin, race, …
43 The Hofestede Centre. What about Thailand? Available at URL: http://geert-hofstede.com/thailand.html 44 Spielberger, C. D. (2004). Encyclopedia of Applied Psychology. Boston, NY: Elsevier Academic Press. 45 Ibid.
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personal status, economic or social standing, religious belief, education, or
Constitutional political views, shall not be permitted. Measures determined by the state to
eliminate obstacles to or promote person’s ability to exercise their rights and liberties
shall not be deemed as unjust discrimination…”46
Social happenings also contributed to the emergence of memes in the technological
realm. RSA Algorithm for digital signature and encryption, which was Royal Thai
Customs’ choice of security measure for all electronic transactions routing though
ThaiNSW are examples of memes that emerged in response to computer crimes which
have become a social issue of the information age. Their emergence responded to the
need to prevent the computer crimes from being committed, investigate them once
committed, and deal with them in legal term. As the inventers of RSA Algorithm for
digital signature and encryption mentioned,47 “If electronic mail systems are to replace
the existing paper mail system for business transactions, ‘signing’ an electronic message
must be possible. The recipient of a signed message has proof that the message
originated from the sender. This quality is stronger than mere authentication (where the
recipient can verify that the message came from the sender); the recipient can convince a
‘judge’ that the signer sent the message. To do so, he must convince the judge that he did
not forge the signed message himself!”
Likewise, internationally accepted standards that ThaiNSW employed ranging from
communication protocol (i.e., x. 435 and ebMS 2.0) to message format (i.e., EDI and
XML), message structure (i.e., UN/EDIFACT 95B and 96B and ASEAN Data Model),
data format (i.e., UNTDED and WCO Data Set for WCO Data Model 2.0), and code (i.e.,
HS Convention for the classification of goods) as well as the meme from the Revised
Kyoto Convention that promoted the use of relevant internationally accepted standards
when automating customs procedures and the memes from APEC Blueprint for Customs
Modernization that called for the adoption and support for the UN/EDIFACT and HS
Convention were products of social happenings. The need for information systems from
46 Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand, B.E. 2540 (1997) 47 Rivest, R.; A. Shamir; L. Adleman (1978). "A Method for Obtaining Digital Signatures and Public-Key Cryptosystems," Communications of the ACM, 21 (2): 120–126.
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different organizations which might operate on different technological platforms to
exchange messages, commonly interpret data in those messages, and automatically
process them to achieve desirable business goals created the condition for their existence.
8.2. Economic happenings
Economic happenings denote the situations that deal with the allocation of resources and
their use in terms of efficiency and effectiveness. Efficiency is a relationship between the
amount of resources invested and the quality of results produced. For an operation to be
efficient, it must produce the desired outputs with the lowest possible resources.
Effectiveness, on the other hand, focuses on the quality of results. Economic happenings
also include any events that postulate market structure, which has implications on market
condition and the ability of businesses and even a country to compete. While the
economic happenings that are centered around the issues of efficiency and effectiveness
are often addressed as the operational impacts of IOISs in IOIS research, the business
environment where an IOIS operates are seen as part of the external environment that
forces or facilitates IOIS adoption (Robey et al., 2008).
The meme that promoted “the adoption of EDI to facilitate export and import procedures
[customs clearance and customs release to be exact]” which propagated from World
Customs Organization (WCO) to the Delegates from Royal Thai Customs who attended
the WCO meeting in Belgium in late 1990s was one of the examples of meme that
emerged in response to economic happenings. The review of several cases of EDI
adoption in customs domain mentioned in UN publications and various APEC events
suggested that this particular meme might have its origin in Australian Customs.48
Australian Customs came up with this meme, as it needed a measure that could help it
“deal effectively with continually increasing international trade and the pressures of
containing costs.”49
48 Grant, G. (1999). “At the Forefront of Electronic Commerce,” Manifest: Journal of the Australian Customs Service, Vol. 2. No. 1, Available at URL: http://www.customs.gov.au/webdata/minisites/april99/page17.htm 49 Ibid.
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Yet, the adoption of EDI in customs domain was just an evolving variation, through
recontextualization, of EDI adoption meme. “The true genesis of EDI [adoption]
occurred in mid-1960s.”50 The first electronic transmission was in transport industries.51
Again, the idea to make use of EDI in a transport industry was driven by economic
happenings. “The transportation industry recognized that the abundance of paperwork
was beginning to present a problem. Transportation companies were forced to process
tremendous amounts of paperwork in order to conduct their businesses. The time-
consuming nature of this paperwork was slowing the movement and consignment of
shipments.”52 The meme that promoted EDI adoption in a transport industry later
evolved, through recontextualization. Similar to the idea to make use of EDI in transport
industry, the recontextualization of EDI in retail industry was driven by an economic
happening which triggered the need for “more reliable communication that eliminated
human error in transferring printouts manually from one system into other systems.”53
Economic happenings were undoubtedly the reason behind the emergence of memes that
dictated ThaiNSW functions. For example, memes like the concept of pre-arrival release
and the principle of risk management listed in APEC Blueprint for Customs
Modernization were part of the answers that the Customs Administrations of APEC came
up with after “searching for faster, less costly and better way to facilitate trade and
protect borders.” Note that these concepts did not originate in APEC Sub-Committee on
Customs Procedures (SCCP). APEC SCCP, whose members were customs officers from
APEC member economies in consultation with representatives from business
communities, merely consolidated them as they were seen as best practices that customs
administrations in the APEC region should consider implementing. The review of
Technical Notes produced jointly by World Customs Organization (WCO) and UNCTAD
suggested that the concept of pre-arrival release and the concept of risk management in
customs procedures could be traced back to Article VIII of GATT 1994 (Fees and
50 Millman, H. (1998). “A Brief History of EDI,” InfoWorld, Vol. 6, No. 14, p. 83. 51 Vanderbist, D. (2002). XML Versus EDI: Literature Research Paper. 52 E-Commerce and EDI Basics. Available at URL: http://edinotes.blogspot.com/2011_11_23_archive.html 53 Vasters, C.F. (2001). BizTalk Server 2000: A Beginner’s Guide. Osborne/McGraw-Hill, p. 6.
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Formalities connected with Importation and Exportation).
Pre-arrival release was described as a procedure that allowed traders to submit data
required for customs clearance prior to the arrival of goods for advance processing. It
emerged in response to the long delays resulting from customs clearance and release at
point of entries. “Since data is communicated by traders prior to arrival, Customs and
traders will have a chance to better organise its work.”54 It was argued that “better use
of human resources”55 could be achieved.
Risk management was identified as a technique that allowed customs officers to
efficiently expedite the clearance of goods. It emerged in response to “a common
characteristic of Customs work [which] is the high volume of transactions and the
impossibility of checking all of them … Risk management involves risk analysis and risk
assessment are analytical processes that are used to determine which risks are the most
serious and should have priority for being treated or having corrective action taken. By
selectively categorizing goods and passengers for verification a more rapid release and
clearance can be achieved … Following implementation of risk-based clearance,
Customs staff can concentrate efforts on fewer consignments, and staff can be deployed
more efficiently.”56
In addition to the need to improve efficiency in the customs clearance process, these
concepts were also seen as solutions to lower transaction costs and thus improve market
condition for traders. With old-fashioned procedures, the time taken to complete customs
clearance process could be as high as one to two weeks. The procedural delays at borders
caused the stagnation of goods in the warehouse which in turn raised storage costs and
added up to the cost of goods to consumers. Worse, the procedural delays could also
cause the stagnation in the production chain, which definitely generated enormous lost to
the businesses. 54 UNCTAD and WCO. (2008). “Technical Note No. 15: Pre-Arrival Customs Processing,” UNCTAD Trust Fund on Trade Facilitation Negotiation. 55 Ibid. 56 UNCTAD and WCO. (2008). “Technical Note No. 12: Risk Management in Customs Procedures,” UNCTAD Trust Fund on Trade Facilitation Negotiation.
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High costs that Royal Thai Customs had to pay in order to maintain the system that
operated on mainframe was the economic happening that led to the emergence of
“maintaining the open system is cheaper than maintaining the mainframe” meme.
Having its customs automation system migrated from mainframe to client-server
environment, “The Thai Customs Department is now able to support new applications
that will enable it to better serve its customers and to more effectively manage import and
export procedures. The savings from the annual mainframe maintenance fees amounted
to 110 million Baht (approx $3M USD). Coupled with the instant productivity that users
gained from this transparent migration, the Customs Department was able to realize a
quick ROI.”57
Economic happening was also the force that drove the emergence of the meme that
encouraged the adoption of ebXML technology to enable paperless trading in Thailand.
As the university professor whom I interview said: “I started looking into technologies
that enabled paperless trading when I served as a director of e-Commerce Resource
Center. NECTEC borrowed me from the university. They wanted me to help them
promote e-commerce, which included electronic exchange of data across organizational
boundaries. It was also at the time when I formed a research institute at the university.
Like our name – Institute for IT Innovation, we were interested in finding innovative
technologies that enabled us to strengthen national competitiveness in terms of
international trade. We were interested in finding out how we could improve customs as
well as export and import related procedures.”
ThaiNSW implementation approach, furthermore, was influenced by economic
happenings characterized by resource scarcity. It led to the emergence of the meme that
instructed the implementation of Single Window in increments. As one of the
interviewees said: “Money is one thing. It is unlikely for them to secure enough money
for a one-time implementation of a humongous project. Human resource is another. They
[Royal Thai Customs] don’t have enough staff to handle what’s on their to-do list at
57 Yip In Tsoi. Case Study – Royal Thai Customs. Available at URL: http://www.yipintsoi.com/so_mainframe.html
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once. Even though they outsourced the work to vendors, they still have to oversee it. They
can’t just let vendors go talk to those 30 something participating government agencies on
their own. Without their supervision, they can’t be sure that the vendors are on the right
track.” One of the senior Customs officers argued along the same line. He said: “Our
vision, our goal, and the way we design system architecture goes beyond government’s
policy and our obligation with ASEAN. We’re aiming toward global connectivity. We can
do it now. We just don’t have budget and staff.”
Economic happenings characterized by resource scarcity also led to the emergence of the
meme that suggested Royal Thai Customs that “providing different participating
government agencies with the exact set of data that they wanted was a hassle,” therefore,
it was not a must. Resource scarcity forced Royal Thai Customs to ignore data
requirements of other government agencies.
Resource scarcity led to the evolution of memes that were related to the process whereby
Royal Thai Customs electronically sent the updated Customs Declaration data to
government agencies whom it received the permit/certificate data from upon the release
of goods from customs control. As the interviewee who helped Department of Land
Transport implement G2G data exchange with Royal Thai Customs mentioned: “In the
original model, Department of Land Transport has to send a request for data about car
import to Customs, and then Customs responds with the data of car import. Now, they
aren’t using this model. Instead, they set the time they want data to be sent. The system
then sends all data [in the updated Customs Declaration] to Department of Land
Transport accordingly. And Department of Land Transport filters whatever data they
want by themselves. It becomes one-way communication, no more request-response.”
Similarly, the one-way communication was applied to the routing of data from Royal
Thai Customs to Plant Varieties Protection Division, Department of Agriculture. As one
of the interviewees commented: “when permit and certificate issuing agencies send
permit and certificate data to Customs, Customs said they have to wait for response
messages from Customs. If they don’t get the response messages from Customs, they have
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to continue working with the manual procedure … Customs, on the other hand, agrees to
electronically send the updated Customs Declaration data to those government agencies
to report the actuality of export and import. However, it refuses to receive the response
messages from those government agencies. It also refuses to guarantee the success of
message transfer. It said it doesn’t have sufficient staff. So, there is no way for those
government agencies to validate and verify the data received from Customs.”
Like the exchange of electronic messages between Royal Customs and members of trade
and transport communities (B2G and G2B), the exchange of electronic messages between
Royal Thai Customs and other government agencies (G2G) had to be routed through
ebXML gateway. The expert from Royal Thai Customs proposed a meme in the meeting
with representatives from NESDB, Ministry of Commerce, and MICT that there was no
need to build another ebXML gateway for G2G transactions as three private companies;
each had been operating the ebXML gateway, were willing to invest to extend their
services to cover G2G transactions. This particular meme is another example of a meme
that could be classified as a meme that emerged from an economic happening. As the
expert from Royal Thai Customs said in the meeting: “Under the existing circumstance,
we’re trying to make the best use of what we have. The three ebXML gateway operators,
the government hasn’t paid a dime. They invested themselves and charged users for the
transaction fees. When I asked them if extending their service to cover G2G transactions
is possible, they said very easy. They just need a clear mandate.” This meme, somehow,
had never been activated.
8.3. Political happenings
The political happenings are any events that occur to generate demands for the uptake of
certain values and to mobilize support for the demands generated. These political
happenings play an important role in creating techno-economic and socio-political
motivations, which not only affect implementation activities but also post-
implementation outcomes (Smith, Rahim, Shanks, and Johnston, 2008). They also
include any events that involve the use of rhetorical discourse, such as high-level
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objectives that are the basis for initiating and justifying the project – “the answer to the
why are we doing this? question” (Smith et al, 2008, p. 568), or some kind of incentive to
influence others and secure either personal or collective interests.
In the context of ThaiNSW, memes that emerged in response to the political happenings
were those that the expert from NESDB and his team came up with and used as means to
get buy-in, commitment, and support for ThaiNSW implementation from potential
stakeholders at all levels. These memes often were facts and figures. As the NESDB
expert brought up during the interview: “We used numbers to confirm and reconfirm the
case.” They carried the information about the problems that Thai economy is facing and
the potential return from having ThaiNSW in place. Because they were grounded in
economic rationale, perceived threats in the international trade, and potential benefits of
the project towards increasing national competitiveness, they drove the motivation to
participate among all stakeholders. They helped NESDB generate demands for the uptake
of trade facilitation measures like ThaiNSW and secure both institutional and financial
support that it needed.
Table 8.3-1: Examples of Memes that Foster the Uptake of ThaiNSW
Problem Benefits of ThaiNSW Meme 1: Thailand’s total logistics cost in 2001 was equivalent to 19% of GDP which was really high when compared with those of EU, USA, and Japan which were equivalent to 7%, 10%, and 11% of GDP respectively. Meme 2: 65% of the time it takes to move the goods across the border was spent on the paperwork and 35% on transportation arrangement. Meme 3: Although IT has been applied to boost up the efficiency, the existing systems are standalone. They don’t link with each other. The format of data used in those systems aren’t standardized. Meme 4: Traders still have to deal with several government agencies as those agencies can’t share data with each other. This inefficiency means non-value added cost to businesses.”
Meme 5: An average trade transaction cycle time is expected to decrease from 24 days (in 2004) to 14 days by 2011. Meme 6: The clearance of goods at borders can be completed in 30 minutes. Meme 7: The reduction of logistics cost by 5% of GDP would give the country approx 7.5 billion USD in return.
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“We’ll make our country the trade and investment hub with a world-class logistics
system in Indochina” was another example of memes that emerged for a political reason.
The expert from NESDB together with a team of consultants from Thailand’s most well-
known and respected academic institution came up with this idea shortly after he was
assigned to identify strategies to boost country’s competitiveness. During the interview,
the expert from NESDB briefly shared the story of how he and his team came up with the
idea. He said: “We looked at Korea and Hong Kong, how they position themselves as
logistics hub. The idea is sound. It really makes sense. We looked at our geographical
location. We’re sitting in the middle of Indochina. First, we came up with the idea to
promote Thailand as a logistics hub. It’s a gimmick. It sounds catchy. But we thought the
term is misleading. We don’t want to be logistics hub like Singapore. Honestly, we don’t
want other people to use our road, our infrastructure. Rather, we want to turn ourselves
into a trade hub and then complement it with excellent logistics.”
This particular meme was adopted as a vision of Thailand’s logistics development
strategy. Several senior government officials had repeatedly addressed it in various
occasions. It played an important role in reinforcing a sense of patriotism embedded in
the Thai society. It made potential stakeholders of ThaiNSW “perceive themselves as
part of a whole” and cooperate as they felt that “If they don’t go on board, the country
will lose its ride to a better place in the international trade.”
The emergence of the meme to “[make] the response through services provided through
the manual system way slower than the services provided through the electronic system”
was also driven by a political happening. Royal Thai Customs came up with this idea
after it could not legally make the use of the EDI-based customs automation system
mandatory. It offered faster service provided through the electronic system as a
remunerative incentive to generate the demand for the use of the customs automation
system where significant amount of money, effort and time were invested to have it in
place.
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8.4. Catastrophic happenings
The catastrophic happenings are basically man-made or natural disasters. According to
Westmark (2004), they can be accidental, intentional, or unintentional. The accidental
threats include any kinds of errors (e.g., software, hardware, human). The intentional
threats include sabotage, intrusion, and terrorist attacks. The unintentional threats can be
either acts of nature or acts of war. These threats, regardless of the category they belong,
“may prevent the system from providing services to the user in the prescribed amount of
time or may prevent the system from providing the services at all” (p. 3). In ThaiNSW
context, I could not identify any meme where its emergence or even its adoption was
triggered by a catastrophic happening. I suspected that it was either because Royal Thai
Customs had preventive measure in place or because it did not consider natural or man-
made disasters as its priority or because none of the natural or man-made disasters had
ever happened.
However, there were two projects that Royal Thai Customs carried out in collaboration
with the US government. The ideas underlying these two projects emerged as a response
to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Container Security Initiative (CSI) was the
first project. The objective of the project was to “increase security for maritime
containerized cargo shipped to the United States.”58 This project allowed U.S. Customs
and Border Protection to station two officers at the port of Laem Chabang and work with
Thai customs officers in “screening any containers identified as a potential terrorist
risk.”59 Megaports Initiative (MI) was another project. It intended to improve “detection
capabilities for special nuclear and other radioactive materials in containerized cargo
transiting the global maritime shipping network.”60 Under this project, National Nuclear
58 U.S. Customs and Border Protection. (2011). CSI: Container Security Initiative, Available at URL: http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/trade/cargo_security/csi/ 59 U.S. Customs and Border Protection. (2003). Kingdom of Thailand Joins Container Security Initiative to Target and Pre-Screen Cargo Destined for U.S., Available at URL: http://www.cbp.gov/archived/xp/cgov/newsroom/news_releases/archives/cbp_press_releases/062003/06102003.xml.html 60 National Nuclear Security Administration, Megaports Initiative, Available at URL: http://nnsa.energy.gov/aboutus/ourprograms/nonproliferation/programoffices/internationalmaterialprotectionandcooperation/-5
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Security Administration, US Department of Energy helped install radiation detection
equipment and alarm communication systems at Laem Chabang seaport as well as
provided training to Thai customs officers and other technical support to ensure the long-
term sustainment and viability of installed radiation detection systems.61
8.5. A Chain of recurring environmental forces
Like an organic life, which originated from series of chemical events (Dawkins, 2008),
the historical analysis of the life of a Single Window concept suggested that the
emergence and evolution of a meme could be driven by a continuous series of various
environmental forces. The ongoing changes in the environmental landscape were shown
to have significant influence on how this particular meme was formed.
Single Window is not a brand-new concept. I found its principle rooted in the idea
formulated under United Nations Layout Key (UNLK) and UNCTAD’s trade facilitation
promotion program so-called Trade Point.
Figure 8.5-1: Evolution of Single Window concept
The definition of Single Window by UNECE, which had been recited all over the world,
suggested that Single Window consisted of “a single entry point … for traders to submit
information to governments so as to fulfill import- or export-related regulatory
61 Ibid.
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requirements.”62 The single entry point concept very much followed a key principle of
UNLK63 that UNECE launched in 1963 to promote data reusability by encouraging the
use of a reprographic one-run method64 for the production of several trade documents in a
single instance. It emerged in response to the situation classified under an economic
happening where “Managing the various documentary requirements becomes
problematic as the information need to be submitted to different agencies in different
countries and languages, on difference forms, and with various supportive documents
attached to them. National and international businesses, traders and transport operators
have to cope with numerous documents and forms (sometimes up to 40 originals), often
containing redundant and repetitive data and information (200 data elements on
average).”65 With the one-run method, identical piece of data were entered and checked
once. They were reproduced and transferred with fewer mistakes. Documentary
compliance could be achieved with less time and cost.
The definition of Single Window by UNECE also resembled the idea of trade facilitation
centre66 under UNCTAD Trade Point Program, which was launched in 1992 as part of a
larger trade facilitation initiative. Its emergence was driven by a political happening,
which called for a new trade facilitation flagship program to replace the one that
advocated the establishment of National Trade and Transport Facilitation Committees
(NTTFCs) that began to fade away. As noted by one of the interviewees, “They
[NTTFCs] were seen as being too bureaucratic and too expensive.”
62 UNECE. (2005). Recommendation No. 33: Recommendation and Guidelines on Establishing a Single Window to Enhance the Efficient Exchange of Information between Trade and Government. Geneva: United Nations. 63 UNLK specified paper size, document margin, document lay out, specific locations for specific data elements, and formats in which data were to be presented. To produce several trade documents at once, carbon papers were required to be inserted between UNLK-aligned forms. The master document which was placed on the top of the stack served as a single point for data entry. 64 UNECE. (2002). United Nations Layout Key for Trade Documents: Guidelines for Application. Geneva: United Nations. 65 UNCTAD and UNECE (2011). “Technical Note No. 13: Simplification of Trade Documentation Using International Standards,” UNCTAD Trust Fund on Trade Facilitation Negotiation. 66 Trade facilitation centre is where participants in foreign trade transactions (e.g. customs, banks, chambers of commerce, freight forwarders, transport and insurance companies) are grouped together under a single physical roof or linked virtually to the Trade Point so as to provide all required services for trade transactions.
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With Trade Point Program as a new initiative, UNCTAD could generate demands for
resources, mobilize support, and sustain continuous funding for its larger trade
facilitation initiative. The need to secure resources and mobilize support for Trade Point
Program was in turn a political happening that forced UNCTAD to come up with the
meme that justified the establishment of Trade Point program, i.e. the benefits that the
program could bring including the improvement of trade efficiency and the reduction of
trade transaction costs.
I learned from one of the interviewees that UNCTAD and UNECE were working very
closely in the area of trade facilitation. While UNCTAD was helping developing
countries integrate their economies into the world economy though Trade Point program,
UNECE by Trade and Timber Division was making policy recommendations, developing
standards for use in trade, and promoting the implementation of those recommendations
and standards including those related to NTTFCs. The two organizations could neither
build nor maintain the momentum in trade facilitation with what they were doing. They
were losing the social ground for trade facilitation. This social happening triggered trade
facilitation experts in UNECE to reevaluate what they were doing and think about the
strategy to revive this area of work.
In 2001, UNECE received an official visit from a small group of experts in trade
automation from Singapore. The group was led by two female delegates who were
described as “smart, knowledgeable, and energetic.” The objective of their mission to
Europe was to look for new ideas for the creation of integrated IT platform that would
help trade, transport, and logistics community manage the flow of commercial and
regulatory information between shippers, freight forwarders, carriers and financial
institutions to facilitate the flow of goods within, through and out of Singapore.
At that time, UNECE was working with UN/CEFACT, as part of the UNeDocs project,
on developing the data model that would provide trade, transport, and logistics
community with a framework for aligning data requirements for paper and electronic
information exchange across the international supply chain. UNeDocs fascinated the
experts from Singapore. One thing led to another. They invited the officer in charge of
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UNeDocs project to speak at a conference that they planned to organize in Singapore in
2002.
The officer in charge of UNeDocs project accepted the invitation. It was not only because
the conference itself was interesting, but also because of the good impression that he had
from face-2-face and email communications with the Singaporean representatives. In
addition, the conference would be held in the tropics. It would allow him to escape from
wet and cold Geneva for a week. At the conference, the officer from UNECE learned
more about Singaporean TradeNet. It made him think about the benefits that TradeNet
had on trade facilitation as well as trade security, which had become an additional area of
UNECE work programs initiated as a response to the catastrophic happening, i.e., 9/11
tragedy.
Shortly after learning about TradeNet, the officer in charge of UNeDocs project and his
colleagues were introduced to Malaysian DagangNet. “It was when we really understood
that this [the operator of DagangNet] would replace NTTFC which was still the
backbone of UNECE trade facilitation work at that time. Essentially, they [DagangNet]
do what the PRO Committees [NTTFCs] are supposed to do, that is process alignment,
document alignments, process simplification, and process automation. So it is a demand-
driven, market-driven approach. It is a public-private partnership.”
The expert from UNECE learned about TradeNet and DagangNet when UNCTAD was
about to lose its grip on Trade Point. What TradeNet and DagangNet possessed, as a
matter of fact, partly fitted the idea of trade facilitation center that Trade Point was
hoping to establish in participating countries.
To maintain the momentum of issues related to trade facilitation, UNECE revived the
concept of trade facilitation center under Trade Point Program by combining it with
UNLK’s one-run principle, making it more focused, and renaming it to Single Window.
The expert from UNECE described Single Window as: “Nothing else but the marketing
term for document simplification, process simplification, and automation in a cross-
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border context.” UNECE by Trade and Timber Division first published the concept paper
on Single Window in 2003. Since then, the concept has been subject to further
refinement, e.g. by UNECE (2004), SITPRO, UK (2005), ASEAN (2005), and WCO
(2008).
Substantial modification to the definition of Single Window was made in 2011. In the
new definition, Single Window is no longer “a facility that allows parties involved in
trade and transport to lodge standardized information and documents with a single entry
point to fulfill all import, export, and transit-related regulatory requirements,”67 but “a
facility that allows government agencies to access data required in the administration of
cross-border movement of goods from ERP systems of Authorized Economic
Operators.”68 Smart Single Window was an outcome of a collaborative work between
UNECE and CASSANDRA, an EU-funded project. This reconceptualization of Single
Window to Smart Single Window was also political. As the expert from UNECE added:
“Once the theme [Single Window] is over-sold, it will be replaced by something else.”
It should be noted that the reconceptualization of Single Window to Smart Single
Window was based on the idea of data pipeline, which suggested that Customs and other
border agencies should receive information about the cargo that they are expecting as
soon as it becomes available in the supply chain. This data pipeline meme was a response
to catastrophic happenings of Lockerbie and 9/11.69
8.6. Pre-existing memes
I found memes whose emergence did not fall into any of the categories mentioned above.
Memes that fell into this group emerged in response to pre-existing memes. They served
as “additional harmonious adjustments” (Steele, 1981, p. 3) that allowed traits of pre-
67 UNECE. (2005). Op cit. 68 van Stijn, E., Hesketh, D., Tan, Y., Klievink, B., Overbeek, S., Heijmann, F., Pikart, M., and Butterly, T. (2011). “The Data Pipeline,” Global Trade Facilitation Conference 2011 – Connecting International Trade: Single Windows and Supply Chains in the Next Decade 69 Hesketh, D. (2010). “Weaknesses in the supply chain: Who packed the box?’, World Customs Journal, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 3-20.
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existing memes to be properly expressed. Similar to the hypothetical pre-giraffe whose
the mutant gene ‘long neck’ emerged in response to the environmental force, for the long
neck to be properly expressed, there must be an emergence of genes that instruct its heart,
its circulatory system, its semicircular canals, its intervertebral discs, its postural reflexes,
and so forth. The followings are a few examples of harmonious adjustments from
ThaiNSW case.
– Revenue Department’s idea to adopt company registration numbers that Department
of Business Development generated as company tax identification numbers; which
changed the characteristics of tax identification number from 10 digits to 13 digits,
led to the emergence of 1) the meme that instructed Royal Thai Customs to adjust the
property of tax identification number in the database and relevant message schemas
and 2) the meme that instructed value-added service providers to adjust the front-end
application accordingly.
– “Department of Land Transport’s data integration project with Royal Thai Customs?
It is now in the maintenance period. We don’t have to do anything else but
reconfigure the system whenever Customs makes adjustment to the e-Licensing
module. The back-end system on our side is actually working. And we didn’t have to
do anything until the past month or two. It was after Customs changed the IP address.
Because of that change, we needed to reconfigure the system.”
I also found some of the pre-existing memes that served as resources for the conception
of new memes “just as the genes for animals could not come into existence on this planet
until the evolution of plants have paved the way (creating the oxygen-rich atmosphere
and ready supply of convertible nutrients)” (Dennett, 1990, p. 128). Web-based EDI,
ebXML and web services were memes that built on technological memes related to
Internet technologies and standards such as HTTP, TCP/IP, mime, SMTP, ftp, UML, and
XML. RSA Algorithm for digital signature and encryption was a meme that was made
possible by the idea of factorization. Concepts like paperless trading as well as Single
Window and its variations could exist because technologies necessary for its
implementation existed. The reconceptualization of Single Window to Smart Single
Window was also made possible by pre-existing meme, i.e., cloud computing.
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CHAPTER 9: SELECTION – A DETERMINANT OF SUCCESSFUL MEMES
(PROPOSITION 3)
According to Dawkins (2010), some memes are more successful than others. He argued
that successful memes are ones that get copied with minimal change, spread rapidly to
relevant population, and last very long in the meme pool. He summarized the quality of
successful memes in three words. They are copying-fidelity, fecundity, and longevity.
Copying-fidelity aspect of a meme can be measured by the degree to which a meme is
accurately reproduced, fecundity by the rate at which a meme spreads to relevant
population, and longevity by the duration that a meme sticks in a meme pool (Chielens
and Heylighen, 2005).
The analysis of memes collected from ThaiNSW case suggested that those memes have
lived very long and spread to the relevant population rather fast with relatively high
degree of copying-fidelity. It also uncovered the fact that the rate in which memes spread
to their relevant population was highly time-dependent. That is, the rate in which the
concept of Single Window got passed on to its relevant population, for example, was
relatively slow right after it was conceived. It was a topic of discussion only in UNECE
where the concept was conceived and in UN/CEFACT it was promoted as a one of the
work programs. After a group of handful experts from UNECE and UN/CEFACT,
through publications as well as public and private talks in various occasions, shared with
the communities outside UNECE and UN/CEFACT, the rate in which the Single
Window concept was reproduced spiked.
Eventually, policy-makers and practitioners in trade facilitation domain worldwide knew
about the Single Window concept. They also discussed it with those who might be
benefit from it in their close proximity. Local and international events were organized
over and over again to further promote the concept and how to realize it. The concept of
Single Window put forth by UNECE around 2003 was at its peak from 2004-2010. Then,
it became saturated. The saturation of Single Window concept let to the
reconceptualization of Single Window. The concept of Smart Single Window emerged as
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a result.
Single Window concept put forth by UNECE is an example of a meme that got copied
with minimal change, spread rapidly to relevant population, stayed viral for a very long
period of time, and still has its place in the meme pool. In Thailand, this particular meme
appeared in various project documents. It had been rehearsed word by word in meetings
as well as awareness raising and capacity building events over and over again. It
definitely got caught on in the meme pool. Yet, a trait of “a single entry point… for
traders to submit information to governments so as to fulfill import- or export-related
regulatory requirements” which constitutes most part of the Single Window concept is
still missing from ThaiNSW. This finding let me to conclude that a successful meme is
not just a meme with copying-fidelity, fecundity, and longevity. Rather, it is a meme that
is activated. In ThaiNSW context, it is a meme that is selected for implementation.
9.1. Primary selection criteria
The close examination of memes that were selected for implementation suggested that:
– All of them were perceived as mostly advantageous either to the environment or to
the existence of ThaiNSW and its components; and
– All of them were in the human capacity to implement.
9.1.1. Memes perceived as mostly advantageous either to the environment or to the
existence of ThaiNSW and its components
Memes emerge and then evolve into different variations. Customs automation systems
that were put in place throughout the world, for example, were developed for the same
objective, i.e., to facilitate customs clearance and release. Nevertheless, there exhibited
variance among those systems. After studying multiple customs automation systems from
several countries, the expert from Royal Thai Customs reported that he and his team
chose to look up to the Australian model. They argued that the Australian model was the
model that best fitted the requirements of customs operation in the Thai context.
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According to the task-technology fit theoretical model developed by Goodhue and
Thompson (1995), a good fit between the information system and the tasks it supports is
a necessary condition for the positive impact of the information system on performance
to occur. Without the foreseeable benefits to its environment, its existence would be at
risk. Resources and efforts spent on its implementation would be wasted. For this reason,
the Australian model was seen as mostly advantageous to the environment and to the
existence of Thai customs automation system where ThaiNSW emerged from.
Memes that described the complexity of the international trade transactions, Thailand’s
logistics cost per GDP in comparison with other countries, the operational inefficiency
from duplicated and redundant procedural and documentary requirements that local trade
and transport communities were confronting, as well as responsibilities that Thailand held
as a member of regional communities together with government’s vision and policies
related to logistics development are examples of memes that were hand-picked from the
meme pool to be used as justifications for the implementation of ThaiNSW. All these
memes were grounded in economic rationale. From the perspective of Smith, Rahim,
Shanks, and Johnston (2008), they were chosen, as they were perceived as the best
arguments that best justified the establishment of ThaiNSW and thus effectively
motivated stakeholders from the top-level management to those at the operational level to
support its implementation. According to the NESDB expert who perceived himself as “a
champion” in pushing government agencies who were stakeholders of the ThaiNSW to
collaborate in this cooperative venture, those memes were mostly advantageous to the
existence of ThaiNSW. They enabled him to create a momentum for ThaiNSW
implementation. Without all the local stakeholders on board, this particular module of
ThaiNSW would not come to its existence.
Royal Thai Customs’ decision to switch the architecture underlying its system from
mainframe to client-server and replace Unisys IX 5604 mainframe with Sun E12000
server in the pursuit of open system philosophy was driven by the meme which held that
“maintaining the open system is cheaper than maintaining the mainframe.” It
demonstrated an instance where a certain meme was selected for the sake of ThaiNSW
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existence. Without sufficient resources to maintain it, ThaiNSW would cease to exist. As
Swanson (1999) argues: “IS is maintainable to the extent that its maintenance, operation,
and use is economical in its use of resources… Imagine, now, that the maintainability of
a particular system can be increased, say, by migrating it to a standard platform…
Clearly, the maintenance effort could now be reducible without necessarily reducing the
resulting accomplishment. However, maintenance can also be said to be economical of
the use of resources to the extent that the maintenance accomplishment is maximized for
a given level of effort. Thus, with increased maintainability, it should be possible
alternatively to sustain the maintenance effort and thereby accomplish more with it. (pp.
65-68)”
With an increased maintainability, the information system’s useful life is likely to be
extended. Additionally, client-server technology enabled ThaiNSW to cost-effectively
adapt to the increasingly complex trading environment. Given that it provided more
“horsepower for high volume transactions,” it allowed Royal Thai Customs to scale up its
services in response to an increase in B2G and G2B transaction volume and expand its
services to cover G2G transactions and transactions with Single Windows of other
countries.
Royal Thai Customs also approved the migration of its database from RDMS 2200 to
Oracle RDBMS. Again, the meme was activated because it was perceived as mostly
advantageous to the existence of the systems that constituted ThaiNSW. The database
migration is rather adaptive maintenance, which occurs as a result of “impending changes
in the system’s data and processing environment” (Swanson, 1999, p. 66)
As the expert from Royal Thai Customs said, “we changed the system, we had to change
the database.” Likewise, the meme that instructed Royal Thai Customs to adjust the
property of tax identification number in the database and relevant message schemas to
reflect the new tax identification number scheme and the meme that instructed value-
added service providers to adjust the front-end application accordingly were selected for
implementation as they had a crucial importance in bringing to life data integration
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between government agencies participating in ThaiNSW cooperative venture.
The similar pattern was found in Department of Land Transport’s decision to “change
their back-end system so they can receive data from all those hundred something data
fields and write a program to extract the data they need” in response to Royal Thai
Customs’ decision not to send Department of Land Transport just the data that it wanted
but “everything [in the updated Customs Declaration].” If Department of Land
Transport had not adjusted its system, G2G data sharing with Royal Thai Customs would
not have existed. These memes were examples of memes that emerged as “additional
harmonious adjustments.” Their activation was likely to be mostly advantageous to the
existence of ThaiNSW components in the sense that it allowed traits of pre-existing
memes to be properly expressed and thus visible at the macro level.
Department of Land Transport chose to activate the meme that suggested the replacement
of open source messaging gateway (Lighthouse) with the commercial one (Axway) for
the same reason. The switch to the commercial messaging gateway was perceived as
mostly advantageous to the existence of interconnectivity between Department of Land
Transport and Royal Thai Customs. According to the interviewee whom Department of
Land Transport contracted the project to, “Axway has easy-to-use configuration system.
Lighthouse doesn’t. Configuring Lighthouse has to be done at the file system. This makes
it very difficult to use. It also supports many file formats. True, now we only care about
XML. But in the future, we’re not sure.”
The suggestive list of IS maintainability conditions (i.e., compatibility,70 integrity,71
simplicity,72 usability,73 extensibility,74 stability,75 and familiarity76) that Swanson (1999)
70 Compatibility – The extent to which the system employs institutionalized data and technology 71 Integrity – The extent to which the system provides for reliable, error-free processing 72 Simplicity – The extent to which the system invokes relatively few, straightforward procedure 73 Usability – The extent to which the systems offers convenience and functionality well suited to the organizational task 74 Extensibility – The extent to which the system may be extended to meet new requirements and needs 75 Stability – The extent to which the system can accommodate environmental change and adaptive interventions 76 Familiarity – The extent to which the system is known by the people who work with it
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puts forth can, in fact, be considered as determinants for application software selection.
The conditions of simplicity, usability, and extensibility were found implicit in the above
interview statement.
The web-based application that allowed SMEs to electronically submit Customs
Declaration to Royal Thai Customs was another meme that Royal Thai Customs
implemented, even though it suspected that this option would not be popular “as users
had to rekey necessary data which were already in their company system.” To Royal
Thai Customs, the memes was perceived as advantageous to the existence of the EDI-
based customs automation system. It was seen as measure that could help encourage
widespread use of the system and institutionalize the electronic submission of Customs
Declaration as a practice among members of trade community. As Markus and Keil
(1994) point out, unused or underused system yields no return on investment. The
resources spent on developing or acquiring it are wasted. It allowed SMEs; who did not
want to invest in the front-end application that came with a necessary interface that
complied with the specifications defined by Royal Thai Customs and a connection to the
EDI switching gateway, to electronically submit Customs Declaration to Royal Thai
Customs free of charge.
Like living organisms, the existence of ThaiNSW components and even ThaiNSW as a
whole was determined by its use. It follows the same line of argument that Lamarck
(1914) puts forth, i.e., “a more frequent and continuous use of any organ gradually
strengthens … while the permanent disuse of any organ imperceptibly weakens and
deteriorates it, and progressively diminishes its functional capacity, until it finally
disappears (p. 113).” Royal Thai Customs’ activation of the meme to “[make] the
response through services [customs declaration processing] provided through the
manual system way slower than the services provided through the electronic system” was
therefore perceived as mostly advantageous to the existence of the EDI-based customs
automation system where ThaiNSW emerged from. According to the expert from Royal
Thai Customs, “the use of the manual system eventually disappeared” as a result.
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In fact, each time Royal Thai Customs was thinking about upgrading its system, the end
users from trade and transport communities were among Royal Thai Customs’ main
concerns. To ensure that there would be no disruption in the system usage which could
affect the existence of the system as a whole in the transition from EDI to ebXML, Royal
Thai Customs chose to activate the meme that suggested the deployment of a data
translation module at three data exchange hubs and that the data translation module must
be in line with a data architecture defined by Royal Thai Customs. The expert from Royal
Thai Customs reported that with the translation module in place “the users almost don’t
have to change anything [adjust their enterprise systems or office applications that are
integrated with the front-end application in order to electronically communication with
Royal Thai Customs] … the transition was barely noticeable.”
The switch from EDI to ebXML was also the meme that Royal Thai Customs chose to
implement, as it was perceived as mostly advantageous to the existence of a customs
automation system. The primary goal, according to the expert from Royal Thai Customs,
was to enhance the security in the transmission of the digital documents. The decision
was influenced, partly if not all, by a lawsuit between Royal Thai Customs and a trader
over an EDI-based transaction. The lawsuit posed a threat to the existence of a customs
automation system. It revealed the fact that the system could not properly address the
repudiation issue. Thus, any transactions made through the system were not covered by
the Electronic Transaction Act B.E. 2544 (2001). In other words, no legal effect could be
enforced on messages exchanged through the first-generation customs automation system
as those messages did not fulfill the legal requirements of writing, signatures, and
original specified in the Act. Such legal requirements served as a basis for forensic
inspection (Schmidt and Loebl, 2005).
9.1.2. Memes in the human capacity to implement
Memes that were selected for implementation must be in the human capacity to
implement. Robey et al. (2008) categorize these memes as organizational readiness which
refers not only to the internal resources required to undertake an IOIS initiative, but also
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the readiness of partners in the IOIS cooperative endeavor. They are associated with non-
motivational factors including the availability of requisite opportunities and resources
such as time, money, skills, and cooperation of others, which partly determine whether
any actions will be taken (Ajzen, 1991).
This criterion was found embedded in the principles that the expert from Royal Thai
Customs followed when he planned IT investment, identified projects to implement, and
formulated strategies that hopefully led to successful implementation, i.e., “Think ahead.
Think out of the box. Create something new, something better, something that we’re
capable of creating, something that everyone can accept.”
What the expert from Royal Thai Customs referred to as “something we’re capable of
creating” had to do with the availability of resources. As one of the interviewees said:
“Money is one thing. It is unlikely for them to secure enough money for a one-time
implementation of a humongous project. Human resource is another. They [Royal Thai
Customs] don’t have enough staff to handle what’s on their to-do list at once. Even
though they outsourced the work to vendors, they still have to oversee it. They can’t just
let vendors go talk to those 30 something participating government agencies on their
own. Without their supervision, they can’t be sure that the vendors are on the right
track.” The expert from Royal Thai Customs also argued along the same line: “Our
vision, our goal, and the way we design system architecture goes beyond government’s
policy and our obligation with ASEAN. We’re aiming toward global connectivity. We can
do it now. We just don’t have budget and staff.”
In addition to resource constraints that Royal Thai Customs faced, “something we’re
capable of creating” was affected by memes that reflected the readiness of participating
parties. In case of G2G and cross-border data exchange, there was evidence that the
knowledge of participating parties’ readiness level was incorporated into the action plan.
Participating parties’ readiness level was determined based on the willingness and
commitment of participating parties to work with Royal Thai Customs in enabling A2A
integration, funding, and the capacity of existing back-end system.
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9.2. Secondary selection criteria
Figure 9.2-1 Application frequency of codes related to meme selection criteria generated
by Dedoose
Yet, the data from the ThaiNSW case suggested that not all memes that were perceived as
advantageous to the environment or to the existence of ThaiNSW and its components and
all memes that were in human capacity to implement got activated.
As pointed out earlier, a trait of a meme like “a single entry point … for traders to submit
information to governments so as to fulfill import- or export-related regulatory
requirements” has still been missing from ThaiNSW. Surely, it was perceived as
advantageous to the environment and was demonstrated as achievable. Likewise, Royal
Thai Customs’ recommendation to authorize three private companies; each had been
operating the ebXML gateway, to extend their messaging services to cover G2G and
cross-border transactions had never been activated either despite the fact that it was
perceived as mostly advantageous to both the environment and the existence of the
component of ThaiNSW and that, according to the three private companies, it could be
easily implemented.
Additionally, memes emerge and then evolve into different variations. EDI, ebXML, and
Web Services are quite different. Yet, they all are variations of a single theme, i.e.,
methods of data transmission via electronic means. ANSI-X12 and UN/EDIFACT are
also variations of a single theme. They both provide message structures, data
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representation formats, and the conditions regarding their occurrences EDI-based
messages. Similarly, in addition to Axway, there are other software vendors that provide
ebXML messaging gateway. Clearly, all these memes were in human capacity to
implement. They were perceived as advantageous to the environment or to the existence
of ThaiNSW and its components. Yet, not all of them were activated in ThaiNSW case.
Figure 9.2-2: Cooccurrence of selection criteria
As shown in Figure 9.2-2, the insights from ThaiNSW case revealed a few criteria that
affected the selection of memes that were perceived as advantageous to the environment
or the existence of ThaiNSW and its components and memes that were in the human
capacity to implement. They suggested that memes that fell into at least one of the
following criteria and were not in conflict with any of those criteria were likely to be
selected for implementation and thus precipitated the emergence and evolution of
ThaiNSW.
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– Memes that were perceived as conveniently realizable;
– Memes that were perceived as mostly replicated;
– Memes that were remembered as fulfilling expectations and needs of users;
– Memes that were recognized as conforming to government policies, rules, and
regulations;
– Memes that by chance came to be known right when they were desperately needed;
and
– Memes that served as responses to provocation.
9.2.1 Memes perceived as conveniently realizable
The perception on how conveniently realizable the memes were was associated with the
level of difficulty and risk involved in meme implementation. The expert from Royal
Thai Customs made it clear when he reported why Royal Thai Customs did not attempt to
implement e-Declaration, e-Payment, e-Manifest, and e-Container at the same time. “We
chose [to implement] the easy one [meme] with low risk first to learn about any problems
that might occur,” said the expert from Royal Thai Customs. Those modules were not
deployed at all customs checkpoints at once. The expert from Royal Thai Customs
pointed out that: “We launched [e-Declaration] at Don Muang export checkpoint first
because most of the export consignments were duty free, so low risk. Yet, we had to deal
with unhappy people. Small [customs broker] companies were closed down. Many people
went unemployed. Many people weren’t pleased as the system, to some extent, made tea
money disappear.”
Single Window entry, on the other hand, was the meme that had not been implemented,
even though it was recognized as an item to-be implemented since 2004. Royal Thai
Customs who was designated as an agency responsible for its implementation did know
that the implementation was technically feasible. The prototype for Single Window
Entry, as a proof-of-concept, had been successfully developed in the context of jasmine
rice and sugar export and dangerous goods import under the project commissioned by
Ministry of Information and Communication Technology. Royal Thai Customs,
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somehow, did not consider it as a meme that was conveniently realizable.
One of the interviewee commented that the implementation of Single Window Entry was
extremely complicated. According to him, the implementation of Single Window Entry
had two parts. The first part was the web application that served as a single data entry
point to be invested and implemented by VAS. The second part involved the reassembly
of messages at data exchange hubs and their transmission to relevant government
agencies to be invested by the government. For Single Window Entry to work, export
and import documentary requirements, which varied across products, destinations where
the products were exported to or imported from, and mode of transportation, had to be
well understood and incorporated in the implementation. As the university professor who
was in charge of developing a Single Window Entry prototype commented: “Everybody
has to come together to design to-be processes, identify all the data requirements and
harmonize them. Laws and regulations must be adjusted. With more than 30 parties, high
degree of interagency coordination and collaboration is required. Change management
must be carried out.”
The university professor added that given that the investment of the second part was on
the government, Royal Thai Customs as a lead agency had to prepare the budget not only
for itself but also for the other government agencies. It had to go through the bureaucracy
to get the project approved. The nature of the government procurement that went beyond
a boundary of one government agency made it worse. Royal Thai Customs was definitely
aware of the fact that this kind of project usually came with complications especially
when it came to a project sign-off. “They chose to do something that’s safer,” as a result.
The insights from the interviewee who helped Department of Land Transport implement
G2G data exchange with Royal Thai Customs and the interviewee who worked with
Plant Varieties Protection Division, Department of Agriculture also indicated that Royal
Thai Customs tended to ignore others’ requirements and chose to implement memes that
were most convenient to them.
– According to the interviewee who helped Department of Land Transport: “In the
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original model, Department of Land Transport has to send a request for data about
car import to Customs, and then Customs responds with the data of car import. Now,
they aren’t using this model. Instead, they set the time they want data to be sent … It
becomes one-way communication, no more request-response.”
– Similarly, the one-way communication was applied to the routing of data from Royal
Thai Customs to Plant Varieties Protection Division, Department of Agriculture. As
one of the interviewees commented: “… when permit and certificate issuing agencies
send permit and certificate data to Customs, Customs said they have to wait for
response messages from Customs. If they don’t get the response messages from
Customs, they have to continue working with the manual procedure … Customs, on
the other hand, agrees to electronically send the updated Customs Declaration data
to those government agencies to report the actuality of export and import. However,
it refuses to receive the response messages from those government agencies. It also
refuses to guarantee the success of message transfer. It said it doesn’t have sufficient
staff. So, there is no way for those government agencies to validate and verify the
data received from Customs.”
– In addition to the data sharing process, the content of the message that Royal Thai
Customs shared with other government agencies was based on its convenience as
well.
A meme that encouraged private companies (VAS: value-added service providers) to
provide an interface for members of trade and transport communities to electronically
communicate with Royal Thai Customs was activated for the same reason. It saved Royal
Thai Customs from additional investment and humongous workload. With this meme,
participating VAS would develop the front-end application that complied with the
specifications defined by Royal Thai Customs and sold it with maintenance services to
potential clients from trade and transport communities. With close communication with
Royal Thai Customs, VAS would be able to configure their system to correspond to any
changes in technical, procedural, or documentary requirements that Royal Thai Customs
introduced. Because of the closer relationship that it had with Royal Thai Customs, Royal
Thai Customs also relied on VAS in keeping members of trade and transport
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communities informed about any changes it made to procedural and documentary
requirements.
9.2.2. Memes perceived as mostly replicated
I spotted several memes that got activated because they were perceived as mostly
replicated. Best practices, which denote practices that are over-used and that are proven
to produce desirable outcomes, were examples of those memes. They were criteria that
determined Royal Thai Customs’ actions. As the expert from Royal Thai Customs
stressed, “all our decisions were supported by internationally best practices.” They
included “recommendations from World Customs Organizations and the United Nations
as well as what we learned from lessons of other countries.” Examples of memes that
were selected because they were considered as best practices included:
– “The application of EDI to facilitate export and import procedures [customs
clearance and customs release to be exact]” recommended by World Customs
Organization which the experts from Royal Thai Customs and his team learned
during their mission in Belgium in late 1990s
– The creation of an online system which several governments worldwide perceived as
a powerful measure for improving transparency and combating corruption within the
customs service
– The phasing [incremental development] approach, which the expert from Royal Thai
Customs claimed, “every organizations throughout the world develop electronic data
exchange using phasing approach…”
– Ideas underlying system’s features and functions of Thailand’s EDI-based customs
automation system drawn from WCO Revised Kyoto Convention and APEC
Blueprint for Customs Modernization.
– The use of UN/EDIFACT as a rule to define properties of the messages and its
content which, according to the expert from Royal Thai Customs, it was chosen
because “it was recommended by World Customs Organizations and the United
Nations.”
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Evidently, NESDB also considered best practices as criteria for meme selection. The idea
underlying the famous vision to turn Thailand into Indochina trade and investment hub
with a world-class logistics system and to enhance country’s competitiveness had a root
in the idea that Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore positioned themselves as logistics
hubs. Perceived it as a best practice, NESDB adopted the idea. As the NESDB expert
said: “The idea is sound. It really makes sense,” although later NESDB modified it to fit
the context of Thailand.
Similarly, according to the former employee of the Institute for IT Innovation, the fact
that MICT people who were frequently on mission to events like APECTEL and AFACT
where representatives from member countries updated one another about Single Window
development in their home countries perceived Single Window as a meme that were
mostly replicated, more or less, contributed to the incorporation of Single Window to
MICT plan. “I think they saw what others are doing so they want to do it too,” said the
former employee of the Institute for IT Innovation.
The university professor who chose to promote ebXML adoption reported that: “We
weren’t the only one choosing [ebXML Messaging Service]. We chose it because other
countries in the region [Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Taiwan], everybody chose it.” For
the expert from Royal Thai Customs, however, this was not the case. He did not perceive
ebXML as a mostly replicated meme. He said: “Many countries [ASEAN member
countries] don’t want to use it because it’s too difficult to implement. They don’t think
better system security is necessary … They’re still using the old messaging standard that
we no longer use.” For him, ebXML was chosen for different reasons.
In addition to best practices, the data indicated that a few standards were adopted
because, among other reasons, they were perceived as mostly replicated. During the EDI
era, Royal Thai Customs chose UN/EDIFACT over ANSI-X12. It was because they
believed that ANSI-X12 did not get replicated as much as UN/EDIFACT. As the expert
from Royal Thai Customs noted: “There were many EDI standards at that time, for
example, ANSI-X12 which was very popular in the US. But not for the rest of the world.
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They chose UN/EDIFACT.” The decision to apply RSA Algorithm for digital signature
and Triple DES for encryption in ebXML-based electronic messages followed the same
rationale. The expert from Royal Thai Customs said it strictly followed the
internationally accepted standards. He believed that “using what other countries used”
would allow Royal Thai Customs to proceed to exchange messages with its partners
“without having to talk [discuss the practicalities of data exchange] much.”
From institutional theory’s point of view, the meme selection criterion where memes are
selected for implementation because they are perceived as mostly replicated represents
the operation of both normative and cognitive mechanisms of institutionalization. By
choosing to implement memes that are mostly replicated in the organizational field,
ThaiNSW, like other e-government systems (eg., Kim, Kim, and Lee, 2009; Gil-Garcia
and Martinez-Moyano, 2007), is moving toward isomorphism.
9.2.3. Memes recognized as conforming to government policies, rules and regulations
Government policies dictated the selection of features and functions to be included in
ThaiNSW. As posited in the institutional theory, it provides the coercive mechanism of
institutionalization that shapes organizational action through political influences.
According to Royal Thai Customs, e-Licensing module which facilitated A2A data
exchange between Royal Thai Customs and those 35 government agencies was an
example of a meme that were selected for implementation because it conformed with the
government policy and the agreement that Thailand made with other ASEAN countries.
It was also the same reason why those 35 government agencies chose to go on board. As
the expert from NESDB; who perceived himself as “a champion” in pushing government
agencies who were stakeholders of the ThaiNSW to collaborate, suggested, in order to
get their buy-ins and willingness to participate, several meetings were arranged with an
aim to educate them on policy framework where ThaiNSW resided and to foster common
understanding about the initiative.
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The activation of the idea to migrate the customs automation system from EDI to
ebXML, on the other hand, was the Royal Thai Customs’ attempt to better address the
repudiation issue, and thus satisfied the legal requirements set forth in the Electronic
Transaction Act B.E. 2544 (2001). It could be seen as an act that was shaped through
legislative influences, which took place when the coercive mechanism of
institutionalization was brought into play. A few words about ebXML learned from the
university professor who spent several years in promoting the adoption of ebXML was in
line with the article from InformationWeek published in 2001. “You could think of
ebXML as the successor to electronic data interchange … It allows for the use of any
application-level protocol, including … cryptographic techniques, to implement strong
security … and digital signatures can be applied to individual messages or a group of
related messages to guarantee authenticity.” With the security features embedded in
ebXML, the university professor added: “We are assured that we communicate with the
people who are who they claim to be. We will know if they receive the message … or if
someone tampers with the content of the message during the digitally signed
transaction.” Such information regarding the e-transaction could be used as proof in the
court of law.
Rules and regulations also affected how a component of ThaiNSW was realized. There
was an instance where the meme that did not meet rules and regulations was not selected
for implementation. It was Royal Thai Customs’ recommendation given to
representatives from NESDB, Ministry of Commerce, and MICT which suggested the
government to authorize the three commercial ebXML gateway operators to include G2G
and cross-border transactions in their messaging service coverage. The recommendation
represented the meme that was advantageous to the existence of ThaiNSW, the meme
that could be implementable at ease, and the meme that was remembered as fulfilling
expectations and needs of Royal Thai Customs. Yet, the recommendation was not
approved. “The problem is that the procurement regulations doesn’t support what
Customs recommended. The big project like this is prone to criticism. I’m not sure if any
of us want to take the risk,” said the representative from NESDB.
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9.2.4. Memes remembered as fulfilling expectations and needs of users
The data from ThaiNSW case, moreover, indicated that memes that were remembered as
fulfilling expectations and needs of users were likely to be selected for implementation
and thus preserved. For example, there were quite a few messaging gateways that were
certified for ebMS 2.0 interoperability. Yet, Department of Land Transport approved the
procurement of Axway over other ebXML-based commercial messaging gateway. The
interview with the lead consultant who helped Department of Land Transport establish
A2A data exchange with Royal Thai Customs informed that Axway was recommended to
Department of Land Transport because: “We can’t demonstrate to our client how other
messaging gateways are better than Axway. Most importantly, Customs has been using it.
There’re also plenty of successful cases we can make reference to.”
This selection criterion also operated on the idea to “leave Single Window Entry in the
hand of VAS.” In addition to provide front-end applications and counter services that
facilitated trade and transport communities in B2G and G2B data exchange with Royal
Thai Customs, a system architect in the Single Window Entry pilot project suggested that
VAS should be given the opportunity to venture out their businesses into a bigger scope,
i.e., the front-end applications should also support the B2G and G2B exchange of
documents used in the application and processing of permit/certificate between
businesses and other government agencies. According to the Single Window Entry pilot
project’s manager: “VAS, we’ve had them since the EDI era. TIFFA is an example of
VAS. It’s been working pretty well. Currently, the model supports the electronic
submission of Customs Declaration [and other documents used in customs clearance
process]. When a list of documents extends, why does Customs have to jump in? Those
VAS are doing a good job in handling it. Old stuff is good. Why change, right? Changing
means more investment. We can’t just change.” It should be noted that Single Window
Entry has not yet been implemented. When it is, it is anticipated that this meme will be
activated.
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Royal Thai Customs picked up the idea to authorize three commercial ebXML gateway
operators to extend their messaging services to cover G2G and cross-border transactions.
Even though this meme did not get activated because it did not conform to the
procurement regulation, it was worth stating that Royal Thai Customs chose to present it
to representatives from NESDB, Ministry of Commerce, and MICT on the ground of this
selective criterion. As the expert from Royal Thai Customs said: “For the three providers
that have been working with us for over ten years, I can guarantee you, their potential is
greater than those foreigners.”
I also found a meme that got deactivated because it was not remembered as fulfilling
expectations and needs of users. It was a web-based interface that was developed to
provided SMEs another option to submit Customs Declaration. This web-based interface
was not welcomed by its targeted users. The only thing it did was to provide a channel for
SMEs to electronically submit Customs Declaration to Royal Thai Customs and facilitate
Royal Thai Customs to electronically communicate with those SMEs during the
processing of the Customs Declaration. It did not make the preparation of electronic
Customs Declaration easier. “Users still had to rekey necessary data which were already
in their company system.” Clearly, from Markus and Keil’s (1994) perspective, the web-
based interface, although technologically successful, was underused due to bad business
system design. The fact that this particular feature of a customs automation system was
not popular progressively reduced its significance and eventually made it disappear. Like
Lamarck (1914) argues, “a more frequent and continuous use of any organ gradually
strengthens … while the permanent disuse of any organ imperceptibly weakens and
deteriorates it, and progressively diminishes its functional capacity, until it finally
disappears (p. 113).”
9.2.5. Memes known right when desperately needed
In addition to choosing to promote the adoption of ebXML because perceiving it as the
meme that was mostly replicated, the university professor who recommended Royal Thai
Customs to consider ebXML as an alternative to EDI chose to promote it because it was
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the best messaging technology available when he was mandated to “help them
[NECTEC] promote e-commerce which included electronic exchange of data across
organizational boundaries.” ebXML came to life around the time “[he was] interested in
finding innovative technologies that [could help] improve customs as well as export and
import related procedures.” As he mentioned: “Back then around 2002-2003, there were
many technologies that were developed to enable A2A data exchange. Web service was
one of them. But web service at that time didn’t address issues like security, quality of
service, and reliability. ebXML, on the other hand, came with SOAP that dealt with the
security flaws…”
The expert from Royal Thai Customs also saw the weakness of web service in that
regard. He chose ebXML over web service not only because it enabled him to bring about
the system capable of having data messages generated, stored, and, communicated in the
manner that satisfied the legal requirements set forth in the Electronic Transaction Act
B.E. 2544 (2001), but also because “web service was not reliable especially when it came
to high volume transactions.” ebXML was the best option available to Royal Thai
Customs at the time when it was needed the most. This particular selection criterion was
also operated when Royal Thai Customs decided to adopt X.400-based X.435 as a
messaging protocol for the EDI-based customs automation system.
These instances of meme selection are apparent in the context of information retrieval.
Based on the concept of serendipitous information retrieval (Toms, 2000), the search for
the technology that had the potential to replace EDI could be considered as deliberate
whereas its outcome was not. The outcome of the technology search was rather a result of
accidental, incidental or serendipitous discoveries. Given that those who conducted the
information search knew or partially knew something about the information they were
seeking, it was natural for them to choose the item that they found most relevant to them
and best fit the information search criteria at that particular time.
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9.2.6. Memes serving as responses to provocation
The expert from Royal Thai Customs shared a story of two memes from ThaiNSW case
that were activated in response to a provocation. As he said: “People criticize NSW for
not being readily available to do what it’s supposed to do. The truth is, it’s not the NSW
that’s not ready but other participating agencies, some from the government sector and
many from the private sector “You could think of ebXML. So as a proof, we
implemented data integration with other countries. If NSW is not ready, how can cross-
border data exchange be done!” The first meme was B2B exchange of Customs Export
Declaration and Invoice messages between Thailand and Laos. The second one was B2G,
G2G, and G2B exchange of Certificate of Origin used among ASEAN countries known
as ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement (ATIGA Form D) with Customs Department of
Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Vietnam.
Following Skarlicki and Folger (2004), Royal Thai Customs’ activation of those memes
could be framed as an organizational retaliation to the provocation, which involved
verbal assaults that jeopardized self-esteem of one or more customs officers. Skarlicki
and Folger (2004) identify several forms of retaliatory behavior. In line with the case,
they note that “acts of retaliation can also have potentially functional consequences …
Just as conflict can sometimes be used constructively for change” (p. 379).
9.3. The role of predominant interactor and perception on meme selection
Latour (2005) posits that “if any action has to be transported from one site to the next,
you now clearly need a conduit and a vehicle” (p. 174). The functions of a vehicle with a
conduit, which Hull (1988) referred to as an interactor, go beyond housing and carry
memes around. They “[interact] as a cohesive whole with [their] environment in such a
way that causes replication to be differential” (Hull, 1988, p. 408).
Blackmore (1999) argues that “effective transmission of memes depends critically on
individual preferences, attention, emotions, and desires” (p. 58). These individual
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attributes were affixed to the interactor. They are directly tied to other memes, i.e., the
values, beliefs, and practices embedded in the social setting in which memes were
propagated. They determine which memes are selected for transmission in the first place.
They account for variations in a particular meme. The findings from the ThaiNSW case
show that those individual attributes also affected how memes were perceived. The
perception on memes, in turn, determined which memes were selected to be incorporated
into ThaiNSW.
Interestingly, it does not seem like emotions and desires can join the list of individual
attributes that influence the trajectory of ThaiNSW implementation as there is nothing
personal about ThaiNSW implementation. However, the example of the memes that were
chosen for implementation as they served as responses to provocation demonstrated that
it would be naïve not to include those attributes to the list.
The findings from ThaiNSW case also show that perception often varied from person to
person. Different people perceived the same meme differently. From SCOT’s theoretical
point of view, different perception on a particular meme is basically an outcome of the
interpretative flexibility where the particular meme is open to more than one
interpretation. In the case like this, it was the perception of the ‘predominant interactor’
that counted.
A university professor whom Ministry of Commerce hired as a consultant proposed that
the government should grant a concession to develop and operate the ebXML gateway
for G2G and cross-border transactions to one of the big e-Government solution providers
from Singapore or Korea. He perceived it as advantageous because: “First something
they think it’ll take 10 years to develop will take only 2 years. Second, the government
doesn’t have to spend a penny. Third, to be an operator, they’ll partner with a Thai
company. Fourth, they have experience. They can give us right away their blueprint. And
it’ll serve as a building block.”
The meme that a university professor working for Ministry of Commerce perceived as
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advantageous to the existence of ThaiNSW was not considered advantageous at all from
Royal Thai Customs perspective. To Royal Thai Customs, the meme that suggested the
government to authorize the three commercial ebXML gateway operators to extend their
messaging services to cover G2G and cross-border transactions was the way to go. As the
expert from Royal Thai Customs argued: “I think we can make extension from what we
have. This can be done and it can be done right away. I’m not sure what’s going to
happen if we let different providers do it. And they have to start from zero. I’m not sure
how ready they are. For the three providers that have been working with us for over ten
years, I can guarantee you, their potential is greater than those foreigners. The solution
providers from those countries will come in with expensive technology and know-how.
Language is another barrier and culture as well.”
The recommendation from Royal Thai Customs, somehow, did not get approved as
NESDB, the government’s think-tank, perceived it as not conforming to the procurement
regulations. As a lead agency in ThaiNSW implementation, Royal Thai Customs, at the
end, chose to outsource the development of the ebXML gateway for G2G and cross-
border transactions to the Thai leading system integrator and solution provider who had
been assisting Royal Thai Customs automating its operation since late 1990s. The role of
Royal Thai Customs as a predominant interactor was apparent in the communication that
it had with other participants in the cooperative venture of ThaiNSW throughout the
project execution stage.
Additionally, the perception of a person toward a particular issue or a particular thing can
vary at different time. Royal Thai Customs’ perception toward the paperless trading
meme, for example, was rather inward when they first learned about it. They did not want
to lead ThaiNSW implementation which “had a lot to do with IT implementation that
touched upon the jurisdiction of several government agencies” because they did not
perceive the idea as mostly advantageous to their existence. The focus was more on
automating the customs procedures that occurred within the boundary of Royal Thai
Customs and perfecting it.
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Their perception toward the paperless trading meme later changed to the one that was
rather outward. The perception change was triggered by new information available to
them, i.e., the memes that addressed the complexity of the international trade
transactions. It was further stimulated by the outcome of the political dialogue that
Thailand had with other ASEAN member countries, e.g., the idea of ASEAN Economic
Community, ASEAN Vision 2020, and e-ASEAN. The change in this micro element had
tremendous effect on the perception of Royal Thai Customs toward “IT implementation
that touched upon the jurisdiction of several government agencies.” The idea of being a
lead agency in ThaiNSW implementation was no longer perceived as disadvantageous to
its existence, but advantageous. To the advantage of its existence and the existence of
ThaiNSW, Royal Thai Customs chose to approach the Cabinet to seek its approval on the
establishment of Mutual of Understanding with customs administration from ASEAN
member countries under the Agreement and Protocol to Establish and Implement the
ASEAN Single Window and the appointment of Royal Thai Customs as a lead agency in
implementing ThaiNSW. This was how Royal This Customs turned itself to be a
predominant interactor in ThaiNSW implementation.
Again, the role of Royal Thai Customs as a predominant interactor was very strong
during the execution stage. Other players chose to follow the memes that Royal Thai
Customs put forward, despite the fact that those memes were in conflict with their
business requirements, as they still perceived them as advantageous to the existence of
ThaiNSW. During the initiation stage, on the other hand, the role that the expert from
NESDB played in driving the interagency collaboration in the ThaiNSW endeavor was
undeniable. With relevant memes, he successfully convinced all the stakeholders to go on
board. He shaped their perception toward ThaiNSW. He was able to gain stakeholders’
trust because he represented ‘Sapapat,’ the central agency that handles national policies.
In addition, according to Perloff (1993), this third-person effect is likely to appear when
the message contains recommendations that are not to be personally beneficial.
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CHAPTER 10. COEVOLUTION BETWEEN THAINSW AND SOCIAL
INSTITUTIONS/COMMUNITIES PARTICIPATING IN ITS DEVELOPMENT,
OPERATION, REGULATION, AND USE (PROPOSITION 4)
So far, we learned that environmental forces and preexisting memes constantly created
memes. We also learned that memes constituted raw materials for the design,
development, maintenance, and operation trajectories of ThaiNSW. However, not all
memes were activated. Only memes that corresponded to the selective criteria were
implemented. Only the selected memes dictated features and functions of ThaiNSW
components. They also controlled how those components were conceived. The tight
interaction between these components, in turn, made up ThaiNSW.
ThaiNSW was capable of generating and anticipating feedback. The feedback included
new memes generated by ThaiNSW itself when it operated at a state beyond the
equilibrium. For example, the enhancement of Royal Thai Customs’ e-Licensing module,
which involved CPA adjustment, caused the interruption in message exchange between
Royal Thai Customs and Department of Land Transport. Once Department of Land
Transport was aware of the situation, the adjustment was made to the CPA embedded in
ebXML messaging service gateway to restore the message exchange. The feedback also
included new memes emerging in response to new problems posed by the environmental
forces. E-Licensing module, for example, was introduced to ThaiNSW due to the
increased complexity of the international trade transactions. By anticipating new memes,
ThaiNSW evolved in a way that was believed to be advantageous to the environment or
to its existence. The evolution led to the emergence of changes in ThaiNSW properties
over time. Changes in the properties of ThaiNSW included the addition of new
components, the removal of existing components, and the replacement of existing
components with the new ones.
10.1. Pairwise or specific coevolution
The evolution of ThaiNSW was also the outcome of its coevolution with other complex
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adaptive systems (CASs), i.e., social institutions and communities that took part in
developing, regulating, maintaining, and using it. Coevolution could be pairwise where
the traits of a particular social institution created pressure that drove evolutionary changes
in the traits of ThaiNSW and the new traits manifested in ThaiNSW, in turn, altered the
way members of that social institution ran their business.
Figure 10.1-1: Example of pairwise or specific coevolution
For example, Royal Thai Customs issued a Customs Order No. 166/2545 on May 29,
2002. This Customs Order mandated traders or their customs brokers to report the actual
quantity of goods that was stuffed in the container in a template called Goods Control
List. It also required that the completed Goods Control List accompanied the
containerized cargo to the port of exit. Without Goods Control List, the containerized
cargo would not be released from customs control.
This process created additional work for customs officials. “The workload-staffing
imbalance makes it impossible for customs officers to process all the documents
necessary [especially Customs Declaration, Goods Control List, and Manifest] for
customs clearance in a reasonable timeframe. The provision of customs release
information in Goods Control List is prone to error, inaccuracy, and impreciseness. The
delay and error also occurred when customs officers match data in the Goods Control
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List with data in the manifest. These problems consequently cause long delay in the
processing of Customs Declaration. There are cases where it took traders almost a year
to collect a copy of processed Customs Declaration…”77
These traits exhibited by Royal Thai Customs led to the emergence of e-Container
module in customs automation system. This customs automation system’s new module,
in turn, improved the performance of customs officers in administering customs clearance
and release process. With e-Container, data from Customs Declaration, Goods Control
List, and Manifest were automatically matched. When there was a mismatch, customs
officers would only correct the data to reflect the actual description of goods.
I speculated that pairwise coevolution could also occur in the opposite direction where a
particular social institution modified its traits in response to the traits of ThaiNSW and
where the new traits manifested in that particular social institution created pressure that
drove evolutionary changes in the traits of ThaiNSW. Somehow, I could not spot any
instance of this particular pairwise coevolution in ThaiNSW case.
10.2. Diffuse or guild coevolution
Nonetheless, I found instances of coevolution that involved the reciprocal evolutionary
changes between ThaiNSW, Royal Thai Customs, community of traders, and community
of customs brokers. In the biological domain, this type of coevolution is known as diffuse
of guild coevolution.
77 Sorat, T. (2007). e-Container. Available at URL: http://www.tanitsorat.com/v2/showcontent.php?id=40
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Figure 10.2-1: Example of diffuse or guild coevolution
The instance of the diffuse coevolution I found in ThaiNSW case occurred when the trait
of EDI-based customs automation system, i.e., what the e-Declaration module was
capable of doing to be exact, led Royal Thai Customs to reduce the quality of service that
it allocated to the processing of customs declaration submitted to Royal Thai Customs in
a paper format. As the customs officers whom I interviewed described: “We just made
the response through services provided through the manual system way slower than the
services provided through the electronic system.”
The modification of such customs practice forced traders to give up the traditional way of
preparing and submitting Customs Declaration and submit Customs Declaration
electronically. Most trading companies adapted themselves to fulfill customs’
requirements. Some used service counters provided by Royal Thai Customs. Some
procured a front-end application with a necessary interface that complied with the
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specifications defined by Royal Thai Customs and a connection to the EDI switching
gateway from VAN EDI service providers. Some acquired what they needed to
electronically communicate with Royal Thai Customs through in-house development.
Some did not really change. They relied on customs brokers; the professionals that have
coexisted with Customs for over 100 years to assist traders in dealing with import and
export related customs formalities,78 to complete customs formalities for them.
The modification of the above mentioned customs practice forced customs brokers to
change. As the President of the Customs Broker and Transportation of Thailand said:
“After Customs moved from the paper system to the electronic system, shipping
companies [customs brokers] have to change. We have to be fast and responsive.
Otherwise, customers will choose Customs’ service counter over us. To change, we need
to invest not only in term of hardware and software, we also need to invest in human
resource.”79
In addition to e-Declaration module, EDI-based customs automation system also
facilitated the electronic transmission and automatic processing of cargo movement data,
vessel movement data, duty collection and duty payment. The number of transactions that
customs automation system handled increased. The system was later upgraded as a result.
The upgrade involved the migration from a mainframe to a client-server architecture;
from Unisys IX 5604 mainframe to Sun E12000 server; and from RDMS 2200 relational
database to Oracle RDBMS. The upgrade provided the system with more cost-efficient
way and horsepower to deal with an increase in transactions volume.
Moreover, what the EDI-based customs automation system was capable of doing and the
replacement of the traditional paper-based documentation with electronic methods in
other business domain created pressure that induced changes to Thailand’s legal
infrastructure, i.e. the development and enforcement of Thailand’s first legislation
78 Marinerthai. ‘Shipping’ [customs brokers] in IT era. Available at URL: http://www.marinerthai.com/forum/index.php?topic=7754.0;wap2 79 Ibid.
198
recognizing legal effect of the use of electronic records in transaction,80 known as the
Electronic Transaction Act B.E. 2544 (2001). The development of IT-related law was in
fact perceived as one of the strategies to bring about social development and building up
strength in the spheres of commerce, industry and international trade.
Section 7 of the Electronic Transaction Act B.E. 2544 (2001) stipulated that “Information
shall not be denied legal effect and enforceability solely on the ground that it is in the
form of a data message.” The Act which applied to civil and commercial transactions
using electronic means, however, specified that the information in the data message could
be recognized in the legal proceedings only if data message and its content was proved to
meet the legal requirements of writing, signatures, and original provided in Chapter 1 and
Chapter 2 of the Act. To ensure that all the transactions exchanged through the customs
automation system had legal effect, Royal Thai Customs, in turn, had its customs
automation system migrated from EDI to the one that was based on ebXML standard and
equipped with PKI and digital signature as these technologies enabled the establishment
of the system capable of having data messages generated, stored, and, communicated in
the manner that satisfied the legal requirements set forth in the Act.
10.3. Meme-for-meme coevolution or matching meme coevolution
The data suggested that the more common type of coevolution between ThaiNSW and
social institutions and communities that took part in developing, regulating, maintaining,
and using it was meme-for-meme coevolution. Recalling that both ThaiNSW and social
institutions and communities that took part in developing, regulating, maintaining, and
using it are conceptualized as CASs, meme-for-meme coevolution or matching meme
coevolution is a specific case where the activation of a meme in one CAS is dependent on
the continued activation of a meme in another CAS, and where the interaction between
the two memes leads to a single observable characteristics by which the presence or
absence of the relevant meme in either CAS may be recognized.
80 Nanakorn, P. (2002). Electronic Transactions Law in Thailand. Thammasat Review, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 52-85.
199
Figure 10.3-1: Example of meme-for-meme or matching meme coevolution
Here are a few examples of meme-for-meme or matching meme coevolution.
– The continued provision of the electronic channel for traders to submit electronic
requests for clearance was dependent on the continued activation of the pre-arrival
release that Royal Thai Customs carried. The reason why traders are still able to learn
whether their consignments are subject to inspection prior to their arrival at port of
entry or exit is simply because Royal Thai Customs still keeps the concept of pre-
arrival release activated.
– The meme that instructed Royal Thai Customs to adjust the property of tax
identification number in the database and relevant message schemas from 10 digits to
13 digits and the meme that instructed value-added service providers to adjust the
front-end application accordingly were dependent on the new convention for
generating company registration number by Department of Business Development.
The presence of 13-digit tax identification number in messages routed through
ThaiNSW is an outcome of the interaction between those micro elements exhibited in
two different complex adaptive systems.
– The absence of 10-digit tax identification number in messages routed through
ThaiNSW, on the other hand, was an outcome of the deactivation of the old
convention for generating tax identification number. Since the old convention for
generating tax identification number was deactivated, the meme that specified the
property of tax identification number, as a number with 10 digits was no longer in
activation.
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CHAPTER 11. CONCLUSION
11.1. Research recap
Past research – which was based on theoretical perspectives from diffusion of innovation
theory, path dependency theory, structuration theory, communities of practice, and the
evolutionary concepts of autopoiesis and natural drift – provides some insights about
factors that influence IOIS emergence and evolution. It, nonetheless, exhibits some
limitations in explaining the process of IOIS emergence and evolution. It can neither
explain irrational decisions toward implementing instances of IOIS structure that do not
fit organizational strategies and current capability nor the implementation of projects that
are outside organizational core competencies, which not only add risks to the
organization, but also result in less than optimum outcomes. It also cannot explain
“variations” in a particular type of IOIS, i.e., why some variations are reproduced, why
some variations are not, and why certain features and functions steadily increase in
importance while others decrease.
The limitations of past research are likely caused by restrictive scope of analysis (i.e., not
larger than organizational dyads, hub-and-spoke networks, and an industry segment) and
the examination of IOIS emergence and evolution at the macro level (i.e., IOIS of a
specific technology, an organization, or an industry) rather than at the micro level where
the emergence and evolution arise.
In response to the limitations of past research, I came up with an alternative approach to
study the process where IOIS emerges, where it evolves into its current form, and where
it coevolves with the various social institutions and communities that develop, regulate,
use, and change it. This approach advocates (i) a conceptualization of IOIS as a complex
adaptive system (CAS) residing in an organizational field; (ii) the recognition of
information, knowledge, and ideas that prescribe features and functions of IOIS as
memes; and (iii) the use of evolution perspectives from Charles Darwin and Jean-Baptiste
de Lamarck to study the genesis and dynamics of IOIS.
201
The qualitative data spanned over a period of 1995-2012. It included the happenings in
the international trade domain collected by means of document review and in-depth
interview with the experts. A multi-level analysis was conducted. The macro-level
chronological analysis revealed the origin and the evolutionary path of ThaiNSW from
1995 to 2012 (Chapter 5), patterns in its evolution (vertical, lateral, and additional
harmonious adjustments) (Chapter 5), and the coevolution between IOIS and different
species of CAS (i.e., various social institutions and communities level that develop,
regulate, use, and change it) with the same theory I used to explain IOIS emergence and
evolution (Chapter 10). The meso-level analysis revealed the path in which memes that
were crucial for major evolution in ThaiNSW propagated and the roles of key vehicles or
interactors who introduced them to Thailand and embedded them in local practices
(Chapter 6). The results of the initial analyses then served as the groundwork for the
systematic identification of ThaiNSW’s key features and functions, and thus the analysis
of ThaiNSW’s micro components, i.e., memes (Chapter 7-9).
11.2. Summary of the findings
The combination of Lamarck’s theory of acquired characteristics and inheritance and
Darwin’s theory of natural selection with memes as a unit of selection and heredity as
well as the propositions generated from the Lamarck-Darwin based theoretical
framework are proved to be useful in explaining the emergence and evolution of
ThaiNSW. In short, ThaiNSW emerged from successful implementation of selected
memes and evolved to accommodate new problems posed by the environment, which
included various social institutions and communities that develop, regulate, use, and
change it. The evidence of reciprocal evolutionary changes between ThaiNSW and its
environment that was in a form of social institutions and communities that develop,
regulate, use, and change it was also present in the case.
As confirmed by the data, the emergence and evolution of ThaiNSW revolve around
memes and their variations. The story of memes presented in Chapter 7 demonstrates
their roles in (i) convincing the country’s top level management to provide commitment,
202
institutional support, and financial support for the implementation of ThaiNSW; (ii)
motivating all the stakeholders from both public and private sectors at the middle
management level and operational level to participate; and (iii) providing basic design
parameters and raw materials necessary for the existence of ThaiNSW.
Based on the data, I was able to conclude that social, economic, and political happenings
were the environmental forces that caused the memes crucial for a life of ThaiNSW to
emerge and evolve. The role of catastrophic happenings was not significant in the
ThaiNSW case as I speculated. I suspected that it was either because Royal Thai Customs
had preventive measure in place or because it did not consider natural or man-made
disasters as its priority. In addition to the environmental forces, I also found instances
where the emergence of one meme was driven by the existence of other memes. There
were ones that emerged as “additional harmonious adjustments” that allowed traits of
pre-existing memes to be properly expressed and ones that used pre-existing memes as
resources for their conception. (Chapter 8)
The data suggested that successful memes are not just memes that get copied with
minimal change, spread rapidly to relevant population, and last very long in the meme
pool. Rather, they are memes that are selected for implementation. As discussed in
Chapter 9, in ThaiNSW context:
– Memes that got implemented were memes that (i) were perceived as mostly
advantageous either to the environment or to the existence of ThaiNSW and its
components and (ii) were in the human capacity to implement.
– However, not all memes that were perceived as mostly advantageous either to the
environment or to the existence of ThaiNSW and its components and were in the
human capacity to implement were selected for implementation.
– Rather, memes that were perceived as mostly advantageous either to the environment
or to the existence of ThaiNSW and its components and were in the human capacity
to implement were likely to be selected for implementation if they (i) were perceived
as conveniently realizable; (ii) were perceived as mostly replicated; (iii) were
remembered as fulfilling expectations and needs of users; (iv) were recognized as
203
conforming to government policies, rules, and regulations; (v) by chance came to be
known right when desperately needed; and/or (vi) were responses to provocation.
The findings from ThaiNSW case reveal the importance of perception on meme
selection. The insights from the case suggest that the perception toward a particular
meme is shaped by other memes. They include not only values, beliefs, and practices
embedded in the social setting in which memes are propagated, but also emotions and
desires.
The findings from ThaiNSW case also reveal that the perception toward a particular
meme can be varied from person to person. Different people perceived the same meme
differently. In the case like this, it was the perception of the ‘predominant interactor’ that
counted. In other words, only the perception of the ‘predominant interactor’ would be
taken into account in the meme selection process.
11.3. Limitations and opportunities for future research
The multi-level analysis of ThaiNSW case was based on data that I had access too.
Although I reviewed exhaustive list of documents from various sources and conducted in-
depth interviews with the experts, the data that I collected did not allow me to weight the
importance of the identified secondary selection criteria. The fact that ‘Convenience’
which is one of the secondary criteria codes had been applied more frequently does not
mean that it is more important than Conformance when it comes to decision-making. This
is one of the areas for future research.
The data that I collected did not allow me to specify the conditions in which each
secondary selection criterion takes effect either. For example, there are times when
memes that are perceived as mostly replicated, such as a data standard, are chosen for
implementation and times when they are not. There are also times when memes that
satisfy one of the secondary selection criteria are chosen for implementation despite the
fact that they are in conflict with another secondary selection criteria. Further research is
204
needed to uncover the conditions in which each secondary selection criterion prevails.
The data that I collected spanned from 1995-2012. Yet, I could only detect a few
instances of reciprocal changes between ThaiNSW and social institutions and
communities that develop, regulate, use, and change it. Except the instances meme-for-
meme or matching meme coevolution, the detected instances of pairwise or specific
coevolution and diffuse of guild evolution were in days where only B2G and G2B were
prevalent. The process of pairwise or specific coevolution and diffuse or guild evolution
began at about the same time, i.e., a few years after the EDI-based customs automation
was launched, but that of diffuse or guild evolution lasted a few years longer. To better
understand these kinds of phenomena, additional data must be collected in the years to
come.
While the first two limitations are associated with the collected data, the last one is
associated with the use of the qualitative approach and a single case study as research
strategies. As discussed in Chapter 4, the selected research strategies made the research
highly context-dependent. It made me reluctant to make generalization, especially on the
basis of this single case. To improve the validity of the theory, further testing of the
theory in different settings is needed.
11.4. Contribution of the research
Despite the limitations, the knowledge that I gained from this research remains valid as
an input for the collective process of knowledge accumulation in IOIS emergence and
evolution research stream. It increases our understanding about (i) the environmental
forces that favor the emergence and evolution of memes that in turn help bring IOIS to
life and help it survive through courses of environmental changes; and (ii) the
characteristics of memes that are selected to be incorporated in IOIS and memes that are
not. With better understanding on the environmental forces and the happenings in the
relevant organizational field as well as those memes, researchers and practitioners can, to
some extent, predict the intent to adopt IOIS as well as the intent to incorporate certain
205
features and functions into the system.
Better understanding on the characteristics of memes that are likely to be chosen,
particularly, gives practitioners some ideas on how they should orchestrate their ideas if
they want to have their ideas selected for implementation. As one of the interviewees
said: “Building a nationwide information system is like building a large building. There
are many stakeholders that we have to communicate with. Many times, to communicate
the same story, we have to use different messages. The messages have to be presented in
the way that catches the attention.” Different messages can be based on the same meme,
i.e., same idea but with the details customized to fit the background of the audience. They
can be different memes. According to the example given by the interviewee: “If we want
to get the executive at the national level – the Cabinet – to support ThaiNSW
implementation, we have to speak the ‘economic language.’ We have to tell them how
ThaiNSW will leverage national competitiveness. When it comes to the operational level,
we can’t rely on the argument about the benefits that ThaiNSW will bring to the country
alone. The benefits of ThaiNSW at the business process level, also, have to be laid out.”
The research also brought to life the role of the third-party predominant interactor in
large-scale IOIS project implementation, which usually involves a large number of
stakeholders. It confirms the importance of partnering with the right third-party
organization. Without good rapport and collaboration with the potential organizations
participating in it, the implementation of the project would be impossible.
This research offers an alternative approach that is proved useful in explaining the IOIS
emergence and evolution. Through the use of Lamarck’s theory of acquired
characteristics and inheritance and Darwin’s theory of natural selection combined with a
conceptualization of IOIS as a CAS residing in an organizational field and the
recognition of information, knowledge, and ideas that prescribe features and functions of
IOIS as memes, the limitations of the past research have been overcome. The irrational
decisions toward implementing instances of IOIS structure that do not fit organizational
strategies and current capability as well as the implementation of projects that are outside
206
organizational core competencies, which not only add risks to the organization, but also
result in less than optimum outcome are accounted for. Variations in a particular type of
IOIS, i.e., why some variations are reproduced, why some variations are not, and why
certain features and functions steadily increase in importance while others decrease, can
also be explained.
More importantly, this research carries methodological implications for studying IOIS
emergence and evolution. Unlike the DOI-based IOIS research, which primarily focuses
on explaining the adopter’s behavior in a single organization, this research calls for the
multi-level analysis. The outcomes of this research prove that the method employed in
this research is capable of uncovering the critical theoretical narrative that is missing
from the DOI-based study.
The outcomes of this research also demonstrate the usefulness of placing a great
emphasis the unit of selection and heredity, i.e., meme. As Jablonka (2000) mentions, it
seems easy and convenient to analyze the emergence and evolution of any CASs that
include various kinds of cultural artifact at the individual level. However, through the
CAS theoretical lens, the macro level where phenotypic expression is stored and shown
through physical characteristics is not where emergence and evolution occur (Holland,
1999; and Goldstein, 1999). The emergence and evolution of any CASs occur at the level
of social genotype or replicator represented by meme (Hodgson and Knudsen, 2006a). In
other words, changes in phenotypic expression of a cultural artifact depend ultimately on
changes in these memes. It is simply because these memes contain information that not
only dictates the physical characteristics of a cultural artifact, but also directs its behavior
in response to given environmental conditions. As Dawkins (2010) said, to study the
evolution of life, “we must begin at the beginning with the very origin of life itself” (p.
11).
207
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