IS6600 - Seminar 1

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IS6600 - Seminar 1

• Global IS KM Applications in Organisations -
  Introduction

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Introductions Me!

• In HK since 1991 Travels in 60 countries.
• Teaching non-technical IS courses to MSc and MBA
  students
• Research involves China-focused
• knowledge sharing in SMEs
• virtual and distributed work
• IT-enabled organisational change
• Web http//www.is.cityu.edu.hk/staff/isrobert
• Email isrobert_at_cityu.edu.hk

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Topic Coverage

• 1. Introduction Culture The Web 2.0 Manager
• 2. Web-based Applications and Cases
• 3. Global IT Offshoring / Outsourcing
• 4. IS for Decision Executive Support
• 5. Knowledge and its Management in Organisations
• 6. Knowledge and Culture
• 7. Leadership, Guanxi (Relationships) and
  Knowledge
• 8. Extended Knowledge Cases Eastwei RuderFinn
• 9. How could we manage people (and knowledge)
  better?
• 10. Information, Knowledge and Strategy
• 11. Green IT
• 12. Project Presentations (6-9 groups)
• 13. Wrap-up, Revision.

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Resources

• Course Website
• http//www.is.cityu.edu.hk/staff/isrobert/IS6600.h
  tm
• These notes are not comprehensive, i.e. if you
  come to class, you will hear, see and do many
  things that are not visible in the notes.
• So please do come to class. On time if possible,
  but late is better than never.

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Learning Styles

• I expect that you will engage with the learning
  process
• Participation and interaction
• Listen, reflect, challenge and criticise
  (constructively)
• Each class will have
• Opportunities for interaction, discussion,
  debate, as well as your own work-life examples
• White time -
• I will assess your individual participation in
  each class

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Assessment Patterns Grading

• Coursework 40
• Team Project (2-5 person teams)
• In Class Discussion 20
• Minimum 70 attendance (9 classes) is required.
• If you cannot come to a class, please let me know
  in advance.
• Exam (open book/web) - 40
• Note 1 Passing is optional!
• Note 2 You must pass exam and coursework to pass
  the course as a whole.
• Note 3 Please do not plagiarise if you do, you
  will fail!

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Grading Definitions

• A Excellent
• Strong evidence of original thinking, analysis
  synthesis extensive knowledge base
• B Good
• Good awareness of the importance of the subject
  some analytic ability reasonable understanding
  of issues literature
• C Adequate
• Understanding is reasonable, but much room for
  improvement
• D Marginal, minimal familiarity with the subject
• F Very weak

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Rationale

• I developed IS6600 because of
• The lack of a high level KM IS course
• A long term personal interest in the topic
• My sense that other courses in this area are too
  orthodox and we need to push the boundaries a
  bit
• IS6600 follows and complements
• IS5313, IS5743, IS6921

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Course Goals

• Explore and investigate advanced IS KM topics
  from a global perspective in the organisational
  context.
• What is global? Globalisation?
• What is advanced?
• Cutting edge technologies?
• Future trends?
• Solutions to complex problems?
• Roughly a 50-50 (IS-KM) split on materials.

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East or West?

• Too many textbooks and gurus assume an East-West
  split
• Either you are Eastern or Western
• But globally, the picture is a little more
  complex!
• There is also North and South
• Developing and Developed
• There are multiple, competing perspectives

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A Few Major Global Companies

• HSBC BoC
• CX, QF SQ
• OOCL, APL, Mitsui, Mitsubishi
• PG, Philips, Nokia, Sony, Ericsson
• Shell, Exxon, BP, CNOC
• Monsanto, Unilever, Li Fung, Nestlé
• They are all different, yet all global and all
  rely on IS extensively

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So What are Global IS?

• Systems used by single organisations across two
  or more nations?
• Systems used individually by many different
  organisations in many nations around the world?
• What makes Global Information Systems so special,
  important and problematic?

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• Technology and Globalisation are rapidly
  transforming
• the nature of work
• the way we work
• the way we think about work
• Work Places? Spaces? Clouds?

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Look at Cisco

• For their 2009 annual summit of 3100 executives,
  no one flew anywhere!
• They all participated virtually with video
  links and IM communications
• It saved a lot of and time
• It also improved interaction.
• Less , more productivity?
• Can cheaper be better?!

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Culture

• Patterned ways of thinking, feeling and reacting
• Behaviour styles
• Negotiating techniques
• Protocol
• Business practices
• Cultural misunderstandings can threaten or even
  destroy your efforts in a foreign
  culture/country.
• Where is foreign? Where is local? How local are
  the locals? Who are the foreigners? Am I local or
  foreign? Are you?

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Understanding Culture

• is not just about observing.
• the same behaviour can have different meanings
  and different behaviours can have the same
  meaning Schneider Barsoux, 1997
• Why do people behave in this way?
• What are their underlying values and beliefs?
• Do we really live in a global village?

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What is Culture?
HUMAN NATURE universal to laugh to cry
CULTURE group level construct When is it
appropriate to laugh? to cry? Where is it
appropriate to laugh? to cry? way of life
passed down from one generation to the next
through education and experience Concise
Columbia Encyclopedia collective programming of
the mind Geert Hofstede
PERSONALITY individual each of us laughs / cries
at different times / places
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Iceberg Model of Culture
Behaviour
Attitudes
Assumptions
Values
Beliefs
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Culture Above the Surface

• Greetings
• How should you greet someone?
• kiss, hug, bow or shake hands
• Does it depend on who they are, who you are?
• Dress
• What is appropriate attire at work? at a funeral?
• Punctuality
• What does it mean to be on time?
• How quickly should you reply to an e-mail?
• Gift giving
• Should you give gifts to business associates?
• What should you give?
• Corporate Logos
• What projects the right or wrong image?

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Culture Below the Surface

• Attitudes
• I cant live without a Blackberry
• Assumptions
• Women/Girls make the best negotiators
• Values
• Money is more important than anything else
• Beliefs
• My purpose in life is

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Culture Story 1 Ethics

• Your good friend is a programmer at HK Airport.
  Last night, he told you that he wrote a virus for
  fun and it leaked out, infecting a cargo handling
  system and causing an accident last year where
  three workers were killed.
• The official investigation indicated that no one
  individual should be held accountable the IT
  Dept takes collective responsibility.
• What will you do? What if no one was killed?
• What is the role of your cultural values in
  reaching a decision? Would everyone react the
  same way?
• What does collective responsibility really mean?

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Culture Story 2 KMS Design

• You are designing a new KMS for a Hong Kong
  consulting firm.
• The system should capture knowledge from
  employees and make it available to other
  employees current and future.
• You interview current employees so as to
  establish their current knowledge practices.
• Many say that they never share they consider
  that knowledge is a personal asset.
• Others say that they share with members of their
  guanxi-network.

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Culture Story 2 KMS Design

• What are you going to recommend to management?
• Is there a culturally better solution than a
  KMS?
• Is a strongly centralised system for knowledge
  always good?
• Should we allow individual employees to choose
  with whom they share, or not to share at all?
• Do we need to control the knowledge sharing or
  can we let knowledge be free?

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Colours in Different Cultures
Adapted from Russo Boor (1993)
http//webdesign.about.com/od/color/a/bl_colorcult
ure.htm
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Corporate Logos
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Culture and Workplace Issues

• Global transfer of IS applications is not
  automatic or problem-free.
• Systems designed for one culture may not work in
  another culture
• Few researchers have investigated these issues -
  probing the iceberg.
• Most textbooks assume a monocultural,
  ethnocentric and universalist perspective
• If it works for us, itll work for them
• They are human arent they?!

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Culture and Workplace Issues

• Limited understanding of why failures occur
  beyond the generic culture explanation.
• Descriptions of successful global IS stories
  but little in the way of detailed understanding
• Why is it successful?
• What are the critical success factors?

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The Web Unlimited Information Opportunity or
Hazard?

• In late summer 1994, a mathematics professor
  found errors in Intels Pentium Processor.
• When Intel refused to respond, he posted his
  comments on a website.
• Later, Intel announced that the error would only
  happen once in 9 billion calculations. Critics
  disagreed, noting that one would never know if a
  calculation was correct or not.
• Within 1 month, IBM stopped shipping
  Pentium-based PCs.
• In November, Intel admitted the problem, and
  offered a replacement chip if you can prove the
  need.
• By late December, following huge public outcry,
  Intel offered the replacement chip to anyone who
  asked.

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In 1994

• Who had Internet access?
• Globally, less than 1 of the population
• Who read newsgroups on the web?
• Even fewer people.
• Search engines were primitive and missed a lot of
  content.
• Internet-literacy was low.
• Were you Internet literate in 1994?

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In 2012, it is a bit different

• 30 of the world is online 1.5 billion people
• More Chinese are online than Americans
• Wikipedia, an online encylopaedia that is written
  by anyone and the 5th most popular website
  globally
• eBay/TaoBao buyers and sellers rate and comment
  on each others performance for every
  transaction.
• Epinions, Amazon, and many others report customer
  feedback on all products.
• Twitter delivers 140-character sound bites
  (tweets)
• Dopplr keeps you in touch with your friends
  travel movements, doodle with meetings
  schedules
• Wikileaks is more informative than governments.

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The Ubiquitous Web

• 1997
• 0.01
• 0.001
• 6
• 7
• 2
• 4
• 1
• 10
• 19
• 7.9
• 1.8

2000 1.3 0.5 21 39 33 19 15 42 45 52 6.1
2002 3.6 2 44 55 57 39 28 52 59 60 9.6
2006 9.4 4.5 67.2 68.4 62.9 59 43 62.5 68.7 69.2 1
6.0
2012 36.3 8.4 78.4 78.3 82 79.9 69.5 85.2 78.2 68.
5 38.6
2008 19 5.2 73.8 75.9 66.4 64.6 54.7 62.7 71.4 69.
5 21.9

• CN
• IN
• JP
• AU
• UK
• DE
• FR
• FI
• US
• HK
• All

http//www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm
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Why? Markets are Conversations.

• Widespread access to the Internet
• Dedicated feedback sites
• Ease of posting / publishing (e-mail, newsgroup,
  discussion forum, weblog)
• Dedicated feedback mechanisms
• Feedback aggregation
• Search engines

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Markets Conversations

• The Internet spawns new forms of speech
• Deep linking subverts hierarchy
• Better quality information comes from other
  consumers, not vendors
• Does anyone actually read/listen to what the
  vendors say anymore?
• Do the vendors know what we say about them???
• There are no secrets
• you can find anything online, good or bad, even
  in China (if you know how)

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Whats all this got to do with IS?

• Blogs are an IS application
• Blogs are a powerful weapon in anyones hands
• Of offence or defence
• Of propaganda or counter-propaganda
• Of information or mis/dis-information
• Blogs are increasing used by senior executives
• Search engines love blogs.
• http//blogsearch.google.com

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Ignore Bloggers at your Peril!

• Jupiter Research Study
• Bloggers are exerting a "disproportionately large
  influence" on society.
• The 25 of web users who are "active" are
  dominating opinions and creating business trends.
• "They're not representative of the larger
  audience, but what they're saying does matter".
• Globally, there are hundreds of millions of
  blogs, and bloggers they are better paid,
  better educated, and have better jobs.
• If 100 people complain online, that can be enough
  for a firm to pull a product from the shelf.

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Application Example (for you!)

• Your company produces high-end MP3 players in
  China and sells them worldwide. Your latest
  model, mpSX88, sells well and is guaranteed for 3
  years.
• However, 15 minutes ago, you (the CIO) received
  an e-mail from your marketing director about an
  on-line discussion forum that reports several
  breakdowns of the mpSX88 after as little as four
  months.
• When you search for mpSX88 failure on Google
  and Baidu, you see that there are already over
  1000 hits, many at blog sites.
• Bloggers suggest Denial-of-Service attacking your
  servers and hacking your website to protest!
• What will you do to stop this negative publicity?

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New Lines of Defence Offence

• Executive Blog (xlog)!
• Written by an executive on own initiative.
• Straight language not marketing language
• Insights, opinions, wonderings, marketing.
• Employee Blog
• Written by large numbers of employees with
  company encouragement (e.g., HP).
• Straight language not marketing language
• Insights (technology), advice.

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How Can We Measure the Value of IT?

• What is the value of better communication or a
  knowledge sharing culture?
• Value cannot come in a day it needs time, space
  and mistakes to evolve and mature.
• Does a better culture improve competitive
  advantage? Can the advantage come from minimal
  investment or is something more significant
  needed?
• Think out of the box. What could we do with Web
  2.0 that we are not doing now?

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Twitter

• Ive set up a twitter account called _at_is6600
• Ill use this as an additional communication tool
  for this class
• Feel free to follow me, create your own accounts
  and then tweet your thoughts on the class, on
  technology, on IS KM.