Journal of Strategic Information Systems

1. Introduction
   The CFP for this special issue emphasises the strategic nature of Information Systems (IS) and calls for the re-invigoration
   of the Strategic Information Systems (SIS) research agenda. In this paper we examine the way in which SIS research has
   engaged with changes in the IS field over the past decades before moving on to examine whether the present is a pivotal
   moment for the trajectory of SIS research. We then speculate on what challenges the future might bring and how the SIS
   research domain should prepare itself to address these.
   Our direct contribution to the call is the identification of the following four priorities for change in the domain as it moves
   from the present to the future: conceptualisation of the SIS Domain as a Complex Adaptive System for the co-evolution of
   Physical and Social Technologies; the adoption of the network paradigm; access to a science of networks; and adoption of
   Complexity Science as an articulation device within SIS and across disciplines. In the process of doing this we also make
   two other contributions to the SIS literature:
   First, our examination of the past is through the analysis of the SIS research trajectory as evidenced by SIS publications in
   MIS Quarterly (MISQ), Information Systems Research (ISR) and the Journal of Strategic Information Systems (JSIS). There already
   exists a cumulative literature base of reviews tracking the evolution of the content of SIS research, and the emergence of
   dominant themes over the years. The purpose of our analysis is complementary and distinct: it is to develop a meta-level
   systemic perspective of the dimensions of change in the SIS domain as it accommodates the changes in IS research and
   0963-8687/$ – see front matter 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
   http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jsis.2012.04.002
   ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 (0)24 7652 2456; fax: +44 (0)24 7652 2736.
   E-mail addresses: Yasmin.Merali@wbs.ac.uk (Y. Merali), A.Papadopoulos@hull.ac.uk (T. Papadopoulos), tanveenad@gmail.com (T. Nadkarni).
   Journal of Strategic Information Systems 21 (2012) 125–153
   Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
   Journal of Strategic Information Systems
   journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/ locate/ jsis
   practice over time. We contribute to the extant literature by drawing on Nelson’s (2003) theorisation of coevolution of Physical
   and Social Technologies to define the SIS domain as a Complex Adaptive System for the coevolution of these technologies
   at all scales of organisation. Our analysis suggests that the SIS domain has the adaptive capacity to move smoothly from the
   present to the future.
   Second, we contribute to the emerging literature on the need for a fundamental shift for SIS research and practice in order
   to deal with the increased turbulence, uncertainty and dynamism in the competitive landscape (e.g. El Sawy et al., 2010;
   Nevo and Wade, 2010; Pavlou and El Sawy, 2006; Pavlou and El Sawy, 2010; Tanriverdi et al., 2010). Many of the papers
   in that vein have used concepts from complexity science to articulate the key features that need to be addressed in the current
   and future ‘‘quests’’ for SIS researchers. We contribute to this body of work by establishing the need to move from a
   descriptive use of Complexity Science concepts to a more analytic, modelling-based approach to understand the relationship
   between network dynamics and structure in the emerging global, networked competitive context. Our analysis indicates
   that the transition from the present to the future can be achieved more smoothly than suggested in some of the current
   publications.
   The rest of this paper is organised as follows. In the next section we analyse the evolutionary trajectory for SIS
   research between 1980s and 2011, and identify five dimensions of change associated with the accommodation of
   changes in the IS field over a 33 year period. In Section 3 we introduce Nelson’s (2003) theorisation of the co-evolution
   of Physical and Social Technologies and develop a perspective on the evolutionary capacity of the SIS domain and its relationship
   with the wider strategic management frame. In Section 4 we interrogate the present state of the SIS domain in
   the context of the emerging literature on the need for a fundamental shift for SIS research to accommodate the increased
   turbulence, uncertainty and dynamism in the competitive landscape. We show the relevance of Complexity Science concepts
   and the centrality network dynamics in this discourse, and in Section 5 we articulate the nature and implications
   of the SIS domain as a Complex Adaptive System and develop our four propositions about the changes to be incorporated
   into the SIS domain as it continues to evolve and adapt to confront future challenges, followed by the conclusion in
   Section 6.
2. The past: evolutionary trajectory for SIS research: 1980s to 2011
   In this section we sketch out the SIS research trajectory through a review of the articles published in MIS Quarterly (MISQ),
   Information Systems Research (ISR) and the Journal of Strategic Information Systems (JSIS) from January 1978 through to 2011
   (inclusive) in relation to the emerging IT capabilities and their deployment in the wider context. The Journal of Strategic Information
   Systems (JSIS) was chosen for its specialisation in SIS. MISQ and ISR were chosen because they are ranked first and
   second respectively in the AIS list, and recognised in the extant IS literature as the top ‘‘pure MIS’’ journals (Rainer and Miller,
   2005).
   To build a boundary for the timeline of the 33 year trajectory we based our analysis on the most prominent literature,
   based on the profiles of these journals. The 33 year period was split into three sections, namely from 1978 to 1990, 1991
   to 2000, and 2001 to 2011. This allows enough time for research topics to go through a large part of their life cycle (Sidorova
   et al., 2008). The data was collected using the embedded search-tools of MISQ, ISR, and JSIS websites. Our search was conducted
   using appropriate keywords related to SIS, including ‘‘Strategic Information Systems’’, ‘‘Information Systems Strategy’’,
   ‘‘strategic information’’, ‘‘competitive advantage’’, ‘‘business strategy’’, ‘‘information strategy’’ and ‘‘IS strategy’’ within the title
   or abstract of the journal article. The search covered the years 1978–2011 for MISQ, and 1990–2011 for ISR and JSIS (both
   established in 1990) and yielded a total of 170 research articles: 26 published in the period 1978–1990, 104 in 1991–2000 and
   40 in 2001–2011. Table A1 in Appendix A contains a themed summary of the journal articles covered in this scan.
   Our analysis followed the argument by Sidorova et al. (2008) that the intellectual core and identity construction of the
   discipline can be revealed by ‘‘aggregating individual research papers at a higher semantic level’’ (p. 470). Additionally,
   our analysis reflected the view that the published research is the reflection provided by the key stakeholders in the field
   (those publishing in the top tier journals) of the SIS identity, following the stakeholder approach to the SIS field (Scott
   and Lane, 2000).
   Following Chen et al. (2010), and given that our search yielded a relatively small sample of abstracts, we conducted a
   manual scan and analysis of all the abstracts (detailed in Table A1 of the Appendix A) and a selection of highly cited papers
   and review papers (detailed in Table A2 of Appendix A) to interpret and highlight significant themes and contextual features
   associated with the extant SIS literature in the 3 successive decades. Our articulation of the trends across the decades contextualises
   the SIS discourse within the wider IS literature and triangulates the account of technological evolution and adoption
   in the three eras with the Gartner reports on industry trends over the relevant timeframe. We thus arrived at a
   categorisation based on the analysis of the topics to obtain a longitudinal and evolutionary view of the SIS field.
   In our discussion of results we review our findings in light of the results of extant surveys that deploy both, quantitative
   techniques (e.g. Sidorova et al., 2008; Taylor et al., 2010) and qualitative approaches (e.g. Chen et al., 2010; Ward and Peppard,
   2002). Our treatment thus provides a coherent perspective on the evolutionary features of SIS research over the decades,
   complementing extant accounts that focus on persistent features.
   The rest of this section presents a synthesis of our findings about the trends in the SIS literature over the three decades in
   the context of developments in the IS field over that period.
   126 Y. Merali et al. / Journal of Strategic Information Systems 21 (2012) 125–153
   2.1. The 1980s: corporate positioning of SIS: strategic framing and planning for strategic advantage
   The SIS literature in the 1980s was largely concerned with getting corporate recognition of the strategic import of IS and
   getting SIS onto the corporate management agenda (e.g. Brancheau and Wetherbe, 1987; Dickson et al., 1984; Hackathorn
   and Karimi, 1988; King, 1978; Pybyrn, 1983; Tavakolian, 1989) by aligning SIS with Business Strategy. This focus resonates
   with Taylor et al.’s (2010) observation that the IS field in general was focused on establishing a distinctive identity for itself
   the 1980s. Our analysis of SIS papers for this period reveals two inter-twining strands: the first makes a case for information
   and systems as a source of strategic advantage, the second makes a case for the strategic importance of information systems
   based on their role in enabling and enhancing business strategy formulation and implementation.
   The first strand concurred with Porter and Millar’s, 1985 Harvard Business Review article highlighting the role of information
   systems in internal (value chain) and external (industry value system) integration and the role of information in
   competitive positioning. Scholars theorised about the value of information as a strategic resource (King, 1978, 1983,
   1985) and its deployment as a strategic weapon (e.g. Doll and Vonderembse, 1987; Jarvenpaa and Ives, 1990; Kim and Michelman,
   1990; Rackoff et al., 1985) for competitive positioning. The IS literature began to single out applications as Strategic
   Information Systems (SIS): ones that constituted the source of competitive advantage by conferring distinctive capabilities or
   positioning advantages on first movers. These tended to be novel applications targeted at specific business processes and
   functions – for instance airline booking systems (Copeland and McKenney, 1988), Computer Integrated Manufacturing (Doll
   and Vonderembse, 1987), or provided specialised decision support and planning functionality – for instance Videotex
   (Kusekoski, 1989); Computer Assisted Planning (Doyle and Becker, 1983), Executive IS and Decision Support Systems (Sherif
   and El Sawy, 1988).
   The second, closely related strand was concerned with developing Information Systems Strategies and ensuring their
   alignment with Business Strategy. Much of the discourse here focussed on the importance of, and methodologies for, Strategic
   Information Systems Planning (SISP) and evaluation (e.g. Highsmith, 1981; King, 1985; Lederer and Mendelow, 1988;
   Lederer and Sethi, 1988; Selig, 1982; Watson, 1990).
   The literature highlighted the importance of linking strategising and planning with internal alignment of applications
   development and strategic planning (Lorin et al., 1987). In practical terms this alignment was sought through improved SISP
   – the research challenge was cast as the quest for methodologies for systematic planning and evaluation (King, 1978; Lederer
   and Sethi, 1988) in order to deliver the promise of strategic positioning and competitive advantage through IS information
   systems implementation. From the development end, the quest was for structured systems planning and development
   methodologies (Hackathorn and Karimi, 1988; Highsmith, 1981), and getting recognition for the strategic role of the IS function
   in maintaining organisational effectiveness and agility in the evolving competitive landscape (Swanson and Beath,
   1989).
   To summarise, the 1980s represent the decade in which SIS research and practice became established as significant features
   in the wider strategy frame. The research themes established in this decade persisted over the next three decades
   (Chen et al., 2010; Luftman and Kempaiah, 2008).
   2.2. The 1990s: seeking integration across intra- and inter- organisational boundaries
   Alignment of SIS with Business Strategy was still the dominant issue on the management agenda as evidenced by survey
   data (Galliers et al., 1994). However, compared to the 1980s, SIS scholars paid greater attention to organisational, social and
   relational aspects affecting alignment. The academic literature focused on IT leadership and the role and requisite competencies
   of CIOs (Applegate and Elam, 1992; Roepke et al., 2000; Stephens et al., 1992; Watson, 1990), and the importance
   of business champions (Beath, 1991) for establishing the strategic position of IS in business. The shift was towards a more
   integrated IS-Business relationship and shared objectives between IS and Business leadership. It also advocated the participation
   of senior executives in SISP (Emery, 1990), a close intellectual and social CIO-CEO alignment (Reich and Benbasat,
   2000, 1996) and the development of a broader, more externally focused perspective for realising the strategic potential of
   IT (Bergeron et al., 1991; Earl, 1993; Watson, 1990).
   The Corporation of the 1990s (Scott Morton, 1990) presaged the 1990s as the decade for transformational change, and this
   was reflected in the SIS literature as writers recognised that strategic exploitation of these advances in IT would entail making
   substantial organisational changes, citing Hammer’s 1990 Harvard Business Review paper ‘‘Reengineering Work: Don’t
   Automate, Obliterate’’ (Emery, 1991). Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) was perceived as ‘‘revolutionary change’’,
   and its strategic importance was predicated on IT-enabled cross-functional process integration to deliver business processes
   with improved efficiency and an enhanced customer value proposition by reducing production costs and transaction costs
   (Currie and Willcocks, 1996; Earl, 1994; Hammer, 1990; Lacity et al., 1997; Mumford, 1994; Rao and Jarvenpaa, 1991; Sutherland
   and Remenyi, 1995; Venkatraman, 1991; Willcocks and Smith, 1995).
   The 1990s also witnessed the emergence of e-business models, with SIS researchers taking a wider strategic perspective
   to analyse the electronic market place and the transformational impact of IT on market efficiency and competitive behaviour
   (Bakos, 1991; Baets, 1992; Bakos and Brynjolfsson, 1993; Brynjolfsson and Urban, 2001; Chan et al., 1997a,b), based on the
   economics of information. The 1980s’ notion of IT as a source of competitive advantage came under close scrutiny in the
   1990s. In addition to advocating the use of more stringent economic models and external intelligence to make decisions
   about strategic IT investments (Bacon, 1992; Barua et al., 1991; Bergeron et al., 1991; Hasan and Lampitsi, 1995; Kim
   Y. Merali et al. / Journal of Strategic Information Systems 21 (2012) 125–153 127
   et al., 2000), SIS researchers examined first-mover and follower dynamics for IT-based innovations in the competitive landscape
   and pointed to the importance of key strategic resources and prerequisites for sustainable IT-derived competitive
   advantage (Clemons and Row, 1991; Kettinger et al., 1994). The literature on the Information Economy in the 1990s and
   early 2000s (e.g. Bakos, 1991; Brynjolfsson and Urban, 2001; Evans and Wurster, 2000; McKenney et al., 1997; Shapiro
   and Varian, 1999; Watson et al., 1998) focused on the new business models that were enabled by the Internet. However,
   literature also discussed the contradiction between the remarkable advances in the use of IS for competitive advantage
   and the relatively slow achievement of this advantage and the subsequent slow growth of productivity, the so called ‘‘productivity
   paradox’’ (e.g. Avison et al., 1999; Brynjolfsson, 1993; Watson et al., 1998).
   The theme of requisite capabilities and competencies for sustained competitive positioning (Andreu and Ciborra, 1996;
   Clark et al., 1997; Fitzgerald, 1993; Lederer and Hannu, 1996; Levy and Powell, 2000; Kearns and Lederer, 2000) was echoed
   by writers focussing on wider human resource management issues for CIOs to address: they advocated the adoption of reusability-
   based strategies (Apte et al., 1990; Banker and Kauffman, 1991) and organisational transformation to ensure changereadiness
   in order to deliver SIS in short cycle times (Clark et al., 1997). Knowledge management (KM) and Knowledge-Based
   Strategy (KBS) appeared in the SIS literature early in 1990s (e.g. Applegate and Elam, 1992; Andreu and Ciborra, 1996; Galliers,
   1999; Huysman et al., 1994; Maletz, 1990), highlighting the importance of knowledge exchange between individuals
   and the utilisation of IT-based knowledge management environments to advance the development of communities of
   experts.
   To summarise, systemic integration is a recurring theme in the SIS literature from the 1990s, and the emergent pattern at
   the end of the decade suggests that the scope of strategic alignment had extended to integration across intra- and interorganisational
   boundaries with the emergence of new ICT-based process- and business-models. This also resonates with
   Taylor et al.’s observation that inter-organisational systems appeared as a dominant theme in IS research in the 1990s.
   2.3. The 2000s: the era of webs and networks
   SIS researchers in the 2000s continued to explore the themes of integration, capability- and relationship-based competition,
   and the role of information, knowledge and social context in shaping the IT-derived competitive advantage for firms.
   However the contextualisation of the 2000s was extended to include networks and network dynamics in the competitive
   context (e.g. Kane and Borgatti, 2011; Preston and Karahanna, 2009; von Krogh, 2009; Yoo et al., 2010). Analysis of internal
   network relationships (e.g. Tillquist et al., 2002) and industry-wide network dynamics (Subramani, 2004) was seen as an
   important component of strategic IS design. The relational capital incorporated in these networks was seen as a source of
   value creation and competitive advantage based on sharing business processes and domain knowledge.
   The importance of organisational deep structure and social dynamics (including core values, distribution of power and
   mechanisms of control) in influencing the implementation of strategic IS was a parallel theme (e.g. El Sawy et al., 2010; Hahn
   et al., 2009; McLaren et al., 2011; Pavlou and El Sawy, 2006; Silva and Hirschheim, 2007). Increasingly the literature focussed
   on cross-boundary projects and relationships, highlighting the importance of inter-personal relationships, shared information
   and knowledge process for achieving positive outcomes (Enns et al., 2003; Rai et al., 2009).
   A common theme was the concern with the dynamism of the competitive landscape (D’Aveni, 1994; Eisenhardt and Martin,
   2000; Sambamurthy, 2000). IT was cited as a trigger for the dynamism due to its pervasiveness and rapid pace of change
   (El Sawy, 2003), and researchers and practitioners focused on the quest for harnessing IT capabilities for corporate agility and
   competitive positioning (Desouza, 2006; Pavlou and El Sawy, 2006, 2010; Sambamurthy et al., 2003; Weill et al., 2002).
   Associated with the wider discourse on dynamism was the question of strategizing for adaptation or transformation to
   remain competitive in the changing context. We identified three theoretical perspectives that received the attention of
   SIS writers in this period- the resource-based view of the firm (Wernerfelt, 1984), the concept of punctuated equilibrium
   (Burgelman, 2002; Gersick, 1991) and the concept of ambidexterity (Tushman and O’Reilly, 1996; Benner and Tushman,
   2002).
   The resource-based theory or resource-based view (RBV) of the firm was central to many of the publications (e.g. Nevo
   and Wade, 2010; Oh and Pinsonneault, 2007; Rivard et al., 2006; Peppard and Ward, 2004; Wade and Hulland, 2004) as an
   explanatory framework for the between-firm differences in profitability resulting from strategic IT investments. Authors
   emphasised the synergistic relationship between IT assets and organisational resources, underlining the fact that investment
   in IT was not by itself a necessary and sufficient condition for sustained competitive advantage. Co-specialisation of IT resources
   and capabilities with tacit, socially complex firm-specific resources was shown to enhance the customer value proposition
   and explain variations in performance (Nevo and Wade, 2010; Piccoli and Ives, 2005; Ray et al., 2005). They
   emphasised the importance of dynamic capabilities (Teece et al., 1997) in enabling firms to renew and re-invent their resource
   base in order to adapt to the changing competitive context and, to re-position themselves to maintain or improve
   their competitive positioning.
   Punctuated equilibrium and ambidexterity were both used as theoretical devices to explore the evolution of longitudinal
   changes in SIS alignment, and the tension between the imperatives for evolutionary and revolutionary change. Sabherwal
   et al. (2001) demonstrated the utility of the punctuated equilibrium lens (in which long periods of relative stability are inter-
   leavened with short periods of revolutionary change) for making sense of changing patterns of alignment between business
   and information strategies and business and information structures over time.
   128 Y. Merali et al. / Journal of Strategic Information Systems 21 (2012) 125–153
   The engagement with ambidexterity (Galliers, 2006; He and Wong, 2004) was associated with a discourse on the importance
   of organisational learning, and March’s (1991) articulation of exploration (experimenting with new alternatives) and
   exploitation (refinement and extension of existing competencies, technologies, and paradigms) as joint requirements for viable
   organisations. Ambidexterity entails the pursuit of both exploration and exploitation at the same time, and the SIS literature
   was concerned with the problem of dynamic alignment and challenge of maintaining a balanced approach to
   investments in exploration and exploitation for organisational learning and innovation.
   During this decade the uncertainty of the competitive context (Markus et al., 2002; Oh and Pinsonneault, 2007) and the
   potentially destabilising effects of exogenous contingencies (Silva and Hirschheim, 2007), became an explicit concern for SIS
   researchers. Markus et al. (2002) highlighted the challenge of designing systems for emergent knowledge processes in complex
   contexts where the knowledge requirements are complex, distributed across people and evolving dynamically. The
   scope of this challenge has increased to engage more external players and harness the intelligence of markets and society
   for open innovation and crowd sourcing (e.g. Chesbrough, 2003; Dittrich and Duysters, 2007; Teubner, 2007; Yoo et al.,
   2010; Watson et al., 2011), whilst Web 2.0 capabilities and the possibilities of exploiting user-generated content transform
   the scope of IS from supporting well-designed business processes, to supporting process requirements and changing user
   behaviours and in dynamic contexts. (e.g. Jiang et al., 2005; Merali and Bennett, 2011). We will return to these themes in
   Section 3 where we engage with the views of researchers from the next decade who propose that the uncertainty and dynamism
   of the competitive environment calls for a paradigm shift in SIS research agenda.

The post Journal of Strategic Information Systems appeared first on My Assignment Online.

Expert Help With This Assignment — On Your Terms