Information Technology and Globalization Bob Galliers, Provost, Bentley

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Information Technology and Globalization
Bob Galliers, Provost, Bentley
1st International Conference on Information
Systems and Technology Management São Paulo,
Brazil 21-23 June 2004
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Information Technology and Globalization the
need for trans-disciplinary and cross-cultural
approaches in the field of Information Systems
Bob Galliers, Provost, Bentley
1st International Conference on Information
Systems and Technology Management São Paulo,
Brazil 21-23 June 2004
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Bentley?
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Not this kind of Bentley!
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Bentley the USs first business university

• Bentley is a business university. We do for
  students interested in business and related
  professions what the leading technological
  universities do for students of science and
  engineering.

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The campus
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Center for Marketing Technology
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The Trading Room
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Todays agenda

• To surface issues facing the IS academy in the
  context of globalization
• IS in multi-national companies
• Focusing on
• cross-cultural issues
• trans-disciplinary approaches
• Three case vignettes

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Three vignettes

• Case company A
• Corporate intranet for knowledge sharing
• Case company B
• Socio-technical approach to knowledge sharing
• Case company C
• Software development sans frontiers

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Case Company A background

• Global bank
• HQ on the continent of Europe
• 70,000 employees
• 70 countries
• Formed following merger of two banks
• 5th highest spender on IT in Europe
• Highly decentralized

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A crisis looms large

• Key account lost why?
• Inability to adopt similar procedures and provide
  similar services in different countries
• Exasperated with inability to present a common
  face worldwide
• Business goes to a rival bank

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The response?

• The Networked Bank
• Pilot intranet project sharing knowledge across
  functions and geographically dispersed sites
• Common adoption of defined best practices
• Integration of procedures and services

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The outcome?

• During the 18 month life of the pilot
• 150 known intranets in individual departments in
  different countries!

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The outcome?

• During the 18 month life of the pilot
• 150 known intranets in individual departments in
  different countries!
• Existing boundaries between functions and
  dispersed business units reinforced

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The response?

• A strategic workshop

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The response?

• A strategic workshop
• Bankers and IT executives
• 2 days _at_ company HQ

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The response?

• A strategic workshop
• Bankers and IT executives
• 2 days _at_ company HQ
• 2 problems
• Bankers too busy to attend both days

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The response?

• A strategic workshop
• Bankers and IT executives
• 2 days _at_ company HQ
• 2 problems
• Bankers too busy to attend both days
• IT execs focused entirely on a technological
  solution on the second day a corporate portal

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The outcome?

• Within 10 days, the bank was the proud owner of
  six or seven corporate portals
• Each with its own characteristics and
  idiosyncrasies

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The outcome?

• Within 10 days, the bank was the proud owner of
  six or seven corporate portals
• Each with its own characteristics and
  idiosyncrasies
• with more on the way!

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Post-hoc analysis

• Vision of global bank in stark contrast to
  existing culture and structure
• History of growth through MA
• Each bank left to own devices
• No previous attempt to standardize
• Culture of decentralization
• Intranet concept adopted by each unit, for its
  own purposes

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Case Company B background

• Multinational chemical corporation
• Serving several industry sectors
• 102 different countries
• 1000 different chemical products
• Importance of knowledge sharing across company
  long recognized
• but traditional methods used (globe-trotting
  experts postal services)

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The chairman responds

• Design and implementation of a global intranet
  forum
• Industry-specific directories
• Open access to all
• Initial response very positive

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The chairman responds

• Design and implementation of a global intranet
  forum
• Industry-specific directories
• Open access to all
• Initial response very positive
• but cultural and linguistic problems soon
  surfaced

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Where to from here?

• Four independent regional forums serving specific
  geographical region
• Similar internal structures but
• different languages

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Where to from here?

• Four independent regional forums serving specific
  geographical region
• Similar internal structures but
• different languages
• Replicated solutions in different regional forums
• Considerable overlap and differing interpretations

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Back to the drawing board

• Further discussions across the whole company
• Importance of addressing industry diversity
  surfaced
• Forums reorganized global/industry-based
• Knowledge sharing stimulated by new role of
  intranet facilitator

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Intranet facilitator role

• Experts in given area
• Responsible for ensuring that knowledge generated
  was useful and accurate
• Queries addressed promptly
• Volunteer section leaders followed

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Reflections

• The intranet generated knowledge sharing, but
  only after
• 1) boundaries had been created Good fences
  make good neighbors
• 2)human experts facilitated electronic
  communications

Robert Frost, Mending a Wall
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Case Company C background

• Founded in 1946
• Headquartered in Boston, MA
• The largest mutual fund company in the United
  States
• More than 880 billion under management as of
  June 30, 2003
• More than 19 million customers company wide
• Products include mutual funds, brokerage,
  insurance

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Globally distributed software development

• Information services in financial markets
• A profit center competing for company business
  with third parties
• USA, Ireland, India
• India a threat to Ireland, and esp. USA
• Low cost imperative
• Standardized technology, software, methodology
  imposed top-down

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Summary of Preliminary Findings

• 1. The importance and challenge of
  building team cohesion among distributed
  personnel
• Recognizing the role of team cohesion as an
  important variable in team productivity
• Installing project initiation techniques that
  increase cohesiveness of the team

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Summary of Preliminary Findings

• 2. The need to develop integrative and
  collaborative work among distributed teams
• Providing the social networks to develop rapport,
  relationships, and trust among team members
• Balancing formal and informal communications
  among team members
• Building and creating in-company understanding to
  circumvent cultural differences

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Summary of Preliminary Findings

• 3. Over-reliance on standardized processes,
  best practices, methodologies, standards, ICT
• While work standardization can aide in improved
  understanding and increased productivity among
  distributed teams
• Negative effects, e.g., lowering innovation,
  hurting morale, limiting application of skills
• Needs balance between imposing a global work
  culture and allowing one to emerge

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Summary of Preliminary Findings

• 4. Evolution of roles versus planned
  assignment of roles
• Emergent sense of anxiety and uncertainty over
  changing roles
• Importance of articulating - preferably
  negotiating - shared common vision of roles and
  responsibilities of different centers

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Moving from Knowledge Management to
Relationship Management

• Through Processes
• Standardized methodologies
• Best practices
• Technological pipelines
• Through Technologies

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Moving from Knowledge Management to
Relationship Management

• Through Processes
• Standardized methodologies
• Best practices
• Technological pipelines
• Through Technologies
• Through Face-to-Face

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Summary lessons

• Case A
• Focusing on IT an IT solution, or
  rather
• an organisational problem
• Case B
• Boundaryless corporations a myth
• Good boundaries (and a socio-technical approach)
  make for good solutions
• Case C
• Standardised IT/methodology necessary but not
  sufficient
• Team building communication/understanding across
  cultures

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The argument for disciplinary purity

• Excluding the IT artifact makes ambiguous the
  boundaries of IS scholarship, thus raising
  questions regarding its distinctiveness - and
  hence its legitimacy - with respect to related
  scholarly disciplines.

Benbasat Zmud, 2003 189
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The argument for disciplinary purity

• Excluding the IT artifact makes ambiguous the
  boundaries of IS scholarship, thus raising
  questions regarding its distinctiveness - and
  hence its legitimacy - with respect to related
  scholarly disciplines.
• If IS research is no different from that
  undertaken in more entrenched scholarly
  disciplines (e.g., marketing, operations
  management, organizational behavior), why should
  institutions in the organizational field continue
  to invest in this new intellectual capability.

Benbasat Zmud, 2003 189
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My counter argument

• Thomas Kuhns concept of paradigm
• Ashbys law of requisite variety
• Gibbons et al. Mode 2 thinking
• Charles Handy

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Kuhn and the concept of paradigm

• A monastic vision of science
• members of a scientific community know
  precisely the relevant research topics the
  appropriate research methods and the proper
  interpretation of results.

Banville Landry, 1989 49
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Ashbys Law of Requisite Variety

• Only variety can absorb variety

W R Ashby, An Introduction to Cybernetics, 1956
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Ashbys Law of Requisite Variety

• Only variety can absorb variety
• The more complex the problem situation, the
  greater the range of variables/approaches that
  need to be introduced.
• A counter to Descartes reductionist philosophy
• Varietys the very spice of life

W R Ashby, An Introduction to Cybernetics, 1956
William Cowper (1731-1800) The Task, Book II 606
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Knowledge production

• Mode 1
• Within a single discipline
• Mode 2
• Trans-disciplinary

Gibbons et al. The new production of knowledge,
1995
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God, it has to be said, did not see fit to
divide up the world to accord with the faculties
of universities. Charles Handy,
Understanding Organisations (1992)
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Organisational Behaviour

• A more entrenched scholarly discipline?

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Organisational Behaviour

• A more entrenched scholarly discipline?
• Hardly!
• the related theory and scientific study are
  extremely broad-based. It is an eclectic theory
  comprised of parts of sociology, psychology,
  anthropology, economics, political science,
  philosophy, and mathematics. (Kast Rosenzweig,
  1974)

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Contrasting views of Information Systems

• DisciplinarityOrganizationITInwardNarrowOB,
  Comp Sci, etc.DefinedA threat

• Trans-disciplinaritySocietyPeople/InformationO
  utwardBroadIS EmergentAn opportunity

Boundary
Artifact
Focus
Scope
Ref. disc.
Properties
Inter-disc.
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A word of caution

• beware mechanistic pooling(Knights
  Willmot, 1997)

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A word of caution

• beware mechanistic pooling(Knights
  Willmot, 1997)
• cf. boundary spanning (Tushman Scanlon,
  1981), and
• knowledge creation and exploration (Nonaka, 1994)

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Information Systems
Philosophy
Computer Science
Computer Science
Information Science
Philosophy
Systems Theory
Operations Mgmt
Strategy
Ethics
Political Science
Information systems
Mathematics
Anthropology
Organisational Behaviour
Psychology
Critical Theory

• Management Science

History
Sociology
Economics
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Implications

• Renounce the technology artifact!
• A broadly based, well-rounded education as well
  as skills/professional training
• A willingness to adapt, learn and span boundaries
• Movement on the part of professional institutions
• Changed attitudes on the part of academics

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Implications

• Renounce the technology artifact!
• A broadly based, well-rounded education as well
  as skills/professional training
• A willingness to adapt, learn and span boundaries
• Movement on the part of professional institutions
• Changed attitudes on the part of academics
• A willingness to appreciate other perspectives,
  cultures and literatures

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Some background reading

• Change as Crisis or Growth? Toward a
  Trans-disciplinary View of Information Systems as
  a Field of Study A Response to Benbasat and
  Zmud's Call for Returning to the IT Artifact
  JAIS 4(13)
• The Myth of the Boundaryless Organization CACM
  44(12)
• Electronic Commerce and Strategic Change Within
  Organizations Lessons from Two Cases, JGIM 9 (3)