Organization Systems and Technology Track

Track Chair

Community Informatics

We take a wide view of community informatics so as to include relevance to developing as well as developed countries and rural as well as urban communities. As such CI is a technology strategy or discipline which links economic and social development efforts at the community level with emerging opportunities in such areas as electronic commerce, community and civic networks and telecentres, electronic democracy and on-line participation, self-help and virtual health communities, advocacy, cultural enhancement and others. We welcome papers that contain original ideas and examples of practical application and implementation of information technology in CI contexts.

As the CI approach is integrating the insights of Sociology, Social Psychology and Anthropology with the broader understanding of applied systems, there is a considerable interest in linking these understandings into the remarkably parallel processes of “virtual” communities. The dialogue between those with an interest in “geo-communities” and those concerned with “virtual communities” proved to be an exceptionally rich one at HICSS-34 and it is proposed to extend and deepen that dialogue at HICSS-35. In that context we have included as co-Chairs for our Mini-track those with an interest in both geo and virtual communities.

Minitrack Chairs:

Competitive Strategy and Information Systems (Cross-listed with Internet & Digital Economy)

The following areas are suggestive of the range of topics that are considered suitable:

• Detailed case studies of individual strategic IS, and their impact on the innovator, their impact on its competitors and customers, and resulting changes in the structure of the industry
• Industry studies on the use of IS, and the relationship between use of systems and market share, profitability, or other measures of competitive advantage and firm performance
• Competitive strategy in e-commerce and e-business settings
• Economic analyses of strategic and competitive IS or topics within the general area of the economics of information and IS
• Implications of IT on the competitive structure of industries, and implications for firm strategies
• Implications of emerging ITs for organizational design and the relationships among organizations
• Managing the risk of large scale implementations, including the special risks of implementing strategic information systems and managing organizational change
• Organizational strategy for emerging and enabling technologies in e-commerce

Minitrack Chairs

Creativity in Information Systems

Topics of particular interest are categorized below according to the “4P” framework of creativity. However, the list should only be used as a conceptual guide. Additional topics relevant to creativity in information systems are welcomed.

Person Technology’s ability to enhance an individual’s creativity including fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration. Characteristics of IS personnel that affect their creative performance including curiosity, humor, tolerance for ambiguity, and spontaneity. Evaluation of the impacts of perceptual characteristics such as spatial and verbal acuity on creative performance.	Process Critical evaluation of the theories concerning how creativity occurs. Descriptions and evaluations of popular techniques to support creative performance including brainstorming, pattern switching, and frame breaking. Methods and tools to support end-user acceptance of new communication and information technology innovations including ROI, payback and competitive advantage.
Product Descriptions and critiques of evaluation methods used to determine the “creativity” of outputs including ideas, products, and services. Theoretical discussions and/or case studies of how creative outputs become strategic innovations.	Place Characteristics of the IS environment that enhance creativity. Environmental rewards and constraints that enhance and/or hinder creativity. Culture and norms of IS personnel and end-users concerning creativity and innovation.

Minitrack Chair

Data Warehousing

This minitrack includes all aspects of data warehousing, whether it be extracting, cleaning, and aggregating data from source systems; maintaining the data on appropriate data stores (e.g., relational, multi-dimensional databases); and accessing the data through various applications. It also includes managerial and technical issues associated with data warehousing. Authors are encouraged to submit papers that investigate current trends in applying data warehousing, such as mobile computing, knowledge portals, and customer relationship management as well as results on more conventional applications such as OLAP and executive information systems.

The minitrack will serve several general data warehousing areas: applications, process, and managerial and technical issues. Each area can address a number of categories, as listed below:

Emerging Trends in Data Warehousing

• Customer Relationship Management
• Mobile computing
• Zero latency applications
• Knowledge portals

Data Warehousing Applications

• Data warehousing and the Web
• Data warehousing and enterprise resource planning (ERP)
• E-commerce
• Data mining
• Decision support systems
• Executive information systems
• Graphical information systems
• End user queries
• OLAP/ROLAP/MOLAP
• Packaged solutions

Data Warehousing Process

• Data extracting, cleaning, and transforming
• Meta-data management
• Integration of data warehousing with ERP
• Data quality
• Data storage architectures and solutions

Managerial and Technical Issues

• Benefits and business value from warehousing
• Case studies
• Current practices
• Security and privacy
• Industry-specific warehouses
• The role in knowledge management
• Development methodologies
• The economics of data warehousing

Minitrack Chairs

ERP System Issues and Answers

The inter-company transactions may involve substantially more complexity because they involve communication between disparate ERP systems and legacy systems. The methodologies and research involved in this linking activity has been termed Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) and it enables the extension of ERP systems beyond the business processes of a single organization.

EAI issues revolve around establishing standardized interfaces and middleware that enable a multitude of systems to interact with each other without customized interfaces or rigid data transfer rules. The major ERP vendors are currently attacking these issues, many times with proprietary solutions. A more active involvement by the academic research community should allow for the establishment of a more open and standardized EAI environment.

Most other Information System conferences (DSI, AIS, ICIS) have ERP research tracks. Hence, the focus of this mini-track will remain on ERP issues since there are many areas of ERP research that still need to be pursued. However, the area of EAI research needs to be included in this research stream since it involves the natural extension of business transactions to include functionality within partner companies and customers.

Topics or research questions that are of particular interest include the following:

• How does ERP evolve or change the COB curriculum?
• What are the costs and benefits of ERP installations? Have expectations been realized? How do we know?
• What are the true costs of implementing an ERP and how are these costs accounting for in organizations?
• How are ERP systems being adopted by organizations? What changes do organizations go through to get and deploy an ERP? What resulting changes occur after the ERP is implemented? Anticipated or not?
• How do you manage the bolt-on problem? What are the strategies for dealing with bolt-on products? What are the issues aside from version control? How are they addressed?
• How do you keep and hire ERP specialists? How are organizations addressing the shortage of ERP specialists? Are colleges helping with the shortage or not?
• How do you manage the software development process in an ERP implementation? How can the Project management and change management research be applied here? Is this research being applied to this situation?
• What is the real value of hands-on experience with ERPs in college curricula? How do students fair in the job market with hands-on versus those with no hands-on experience?
• How does a company create “felt need” for change during an ERP implementation? How do users own the change?
• How are ERP systems being extended beyond the internal business processes? What types of system-to-system interfaces are being used?
• What EAI standards need to be in place for future expansion of ERP systems?

Minitrack Chairs

Information Systems in Global Business

1. New Business Models on a global scale.
2. Interoperability and Information Technology infrastructures.
3. Business process re-engineering and change management issues connected with the implementation of large-scale systems.
4. Global IS management.
5. Industry analyses. For example scenario planning in the evolution of global financial services.

In addition to the above themes, we will seek to maintain the international content of the research and increase the contribution from the US and Asia. We will also seek to encourage joint work by facilitating comparative studies between different regions. The focus on business examples and theory building will remain the same.

Minitrack Chairs

Information Systems, Outsourcing and Application Service Provision

Information Systems Outsourcing has undergone several changes over the last four decades. Traditional outsourcing in the 1960s and 1970s saw the introduction of the service bureau. During this period, the term facilities management was used rather than the more fashionable term of outsourcing. First wave outsourcing of this type saw companies outsourcing their mainframe and data center facilities to third-party vendors. The economics of traditional outsourcing tended to benefit the large customer, as the financial opportunities for the small and medium enterprise (SME) were limited. This era was replaced with second wave enterprise outsourcing in the 1980s and 1990s, with the growth in client server technologies, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, and other 'shrink-wrapped' off-the-shelf applications. Outsourcing practice increased widely in North America, Europe and Asia. Both private and non-private (government and federal) organizations embraced outsourcing and this led to the growth of global outsourcing providers.

Whilst outsourcing continues to gain momentum, the development of Internet technologies has led to new opportunities in the form of Industry-centric third wave outsourcing. This is where Application Service Providers (ASPs) will manage and deliver application capabilities to multiple entities from data centers over a wide area network (WAN). ASPs will target large customers and SMEs, the latter often having little experience of IS outsourcing. In North America and Europe, the ASP phenomenon is gaining ground. The Application Service Provider Industry Consortium now has over 700 members. According to some research analysts, the ASP industry will grow to $21 bn by 2003. In the light of the potential opportunities this mini track calls for papers on theoretical or research papers on the following topics:

• The evolution of IS outsourcing
• Economics of outsourcing
• IS skills and resourcing issues of outsourcing
• ERP systems
• Third wave outsourcing and the growth of the ASP industry
• ASP business models (e.g. vertical, pure-play, enterprise, horizontal and enabler ASPs)
• Pricing models for the ASP industry
• Benefits/risks of using ASPs for SMEs
• The strategic positioning of outsourcing vendors
• The business process management implications of ASP
• Business and systems integration with ASP

Minitrack Chairs

IT Governance and its Mechanisms

This minitrack will address the following items:

• IT governance within industry and government
• IT Balanced Scorecard
• Relationship between de IT BSC and the Business BSC
• IT monitoring instruments
• Application of the Cobit framework
• Application of ITIL
• IT audit issues
• Development and implementation of scorecards for the IT processes

Minitrack Chairs

Integrating IT into the Business: Contributions, Value, and Measurement

While these changes are occurring in the public and private sector, academic researchers in the Information Technology fields are still discovering, testing and validating dependent measures of IT phenomenon. Historically, this has been a major challenge to a research field that is relatively new and constantly changing. This Minitrack seeks submissions that focus on dependent measures of IT organizational and system contributions and value from the perspective of the non-IT stakeholders in an organization.

Papers in this track will not be limited to any particular research methods. Rather, the goal of this track is to showcase work that focuses on construct development and validation of dependent variables that represent IT value and contributions to business, not for profit, and government organizations.

Topics: Papers are encouraged that address the following topics (but do not exclude other relevant topics) in for profit, not for profit, and government organizations:

• Business-side dependent variables that measure IT work and performance
• The increased accountability of IT organizations for business performance
• Measurement of the business value of information technology using both qualitative and quantitative measures
• Extension of existing IT dependent variables that measure the business performance of IT organizations and systems
• Critical success factors for IT organizational and business success
• Business –based balanced scorecard measures of that integrate IT contributions to the business (government, etc.)
• Tangible measures of some of the purported benefits of IT and e-business, such as “visibility” into business processes
• Measures of how well the IT organizations and systems are integrated into the organization at large
• Measures of partnership between IT organizations and their internal and external customers
• Validation of existing theoretical constructs of IT business contributions and value

Minitrack Chairs

Moving the Organization to Convergent Technologies

Papers are encouraged that address the following topics among others:

TYPES OF STUDIES:

• Conceptual modeling
• Construct development/linkage analysis
• Architectural frameworks
• Case analyses
• Empirical studies
• Prototype development
• Hypotheses testing

• Organizational planning processes
• Development methodologies
• Service providers/outsourcing
• Reusable objects
• Project/program management
• Predicting waves of technology
• Competency assessment
• Mode of knowledge acquisition
• Personnel transition
• Innovation of new technology use
• Investment and funding
• Partnerships in convergent technologies
• Role of the Chief Technology Officer (CTO)
• Business valuation models
• e-Business marketing initiatives

• Horizontal and Emerging "waves"
• Multi-platform e-business models
• Content management
• Personalization
• Contact management
• Community technologies
• Broadband technologies
• Satellite/wireless access
• TV as an interactive platform
• Transactional TV
• Mobile technologies (Palm, cell)
• Liquid content to fill any shape
• Networking
• Storage area networks

Minitrack Chairs

Professional Ethics in Information Systems

The application of professional ethics is made problematic by the fact that accepted norms of behavior vary widely across cultures, professions and disciplines. The former of these variations is one of the most interesting, as well as the most controversial, since it challenges the viability of truly universal or global ethical principles. In some countries, certain behaviors are certainly frowned upon, but in other cultures similar behavior may receive approbation. Even within the same culture, attitudes may be polarized - ‘Software Piracy' is a good case in point, in that attitudes towards software piracy both within a particular culture and between cultures may vary from strong opposition to strong support.

Apart from formal codes of ethics, professional ethics also concerns matters such as professional indemnity. If there is a code of conduct, whether this is explicit or not, there is also the potential that one will break it, or have to take action against someone who did. Organizations then need to concern themselves with a number of salient issues such as: How might professional codes be appropriately developed, and confirmed? What are the legal and financial implications of breaking codes of ethics? How can damage or loss stemming from such infringements be prevented? How might associated risks be managed? Alternatively, one may take a contrary position and argue that a code of conduct is largely unenforceable (or at least not widely accepted) in a profession such as IS - apart from legal actions. Therefore, professionals need to have access to tools and techniques for analysing ethical dilemmas, thereby enabling them to account for their decisions. While a variety of tools and techniques exist, how do the unique aspects of ethical issues in IS alter their usefulness? What new techniques might be particularly useful in the IS profession?

Relevant research areas include (but are not limited to) professional ethics as it applies to:

• Academic dishonesty (e.g. data fabrication, plagiarism, etc.)
• Codes of conduct and practice
• Confidentiality agreements
• Consideration of the effects on IS practice of possible future technical developments
• Cross-cultural analyses
• Data protection and privacy
• Electronic commerce - trust, security, (mis)representation, fraud
• Electronic monitoring of employees
• Government and policy concerns
• Handling of human subjects
• Impartiality in data analysis and professional consulting
• Intellectual property rights (software piracy; data (including audio/video) piracy)
• Internet use, abuse and its impacts (including: virus/worm creation/distribution; spam email and mail bombs; web page and hyperlink copyright)
• Misrepresentation in digital media (doctoring of photos, videos and the like)
• Professional accountability
• Requirements engineering
• Systems design and development
• Teaching of ethics in IS

Minitrack Chairs:

Project Management

• Managing in multidisciplinary technical team environments
• Leadership issues in technical project management
• Team management of technology-based projects organizations
• Emerging tools and techniques for managing information system projects
• Internet-based project management
• Developing state-of-the-art project organizations
• Knowledge and skill building for project managers

Minitrack Chair

Research Methods and Approaches

1. Methodologies for researching organizational systems such as:
   • Positivist (e.g. surveys, laboratory experiments)
   • Interpretivist (e.g. grounded theory studies, phenomenological studies, ethnographies)
   • Critical theory (e.g. critical action research, critical ethnography)
   • Combinations of the above?
2. Experiences with particular research methods and approaches informing and guiding future research into organizational systems and technologies, e.g. addressing issues such as:
   • Designing, conducting, and reporting on studies within a particular research tradition.
   • Standards of quality, validity, and verification.
   • Automated support for particular research methods and techniques.
   • Ethical issues surrounding particular research methods and techniques.
3. Formulating multi-disciplinary views/approaches and combining methodological approaches, tools and techniques in research into organizational systems, e.g. combining qualitative and quantitative approaches, triangulation.

4. Matching research methodologies to organizational systems that require investigation such as:
   • Organizational forms including network organizations
   • [Inter-]Organizational communication and collaboration
   • Fostering relationships across organizations, geographical and cultural domains
   • Problem solving within organizations

Minitrack Chairs

Technology Management in the Knowledge Based Economy

The scope of the minitrack includes both issues of managing technology and the social and psychological factors, models, and processes of organizational change and technology implementation and management.

In order to cover the full cycle for technology management we explicitly ask for papers covering (some of) the following phases of the cycle:

• Planning for the use of technology
• Implementing the use of technology and the organizational changes that are enabled or necessitated by it.
• Evaluating the use of technology, using control frameworks like CMM, ITIL or COSO or COBIT.
• Evaluation of the outcomes of technology management as a start for a new management cycle.

Minitrack Chairs

Topics in Organizational Systems and Technology

Minitrack Chairs

Trends in Outsourcing of Information Systems

Recently, a shift in IS managers' concerns has been observed. A few years ago their main questions were around the question: "Should we outsource?". Now, they are asking more and more "What should we outsource?" and "How should we outsource?". Different organizational forms are taking place and different outsourcing profiles can be observed. These new trends were the main interest of the papers presented in the Y2000 edition of the minitrack.

This year this mini-track seeks to attract papers addressing various issues pertaining to outsourcing: organizational forms and alliances, contract management, decision process, impact evaluation, and so on. Case studies, presenting outsourcing arrangements and best practices, surveys, explaining outsourcing patterns or trends in the industry, as well as theoretical papers modeling contract types are welcome.

Minitrack Chairs

Virtual Work Environments

We are interested in bringing together a wide range of topics in this area, including but not limited to:

1. Use of incentives and reward systems
2. Development of organizations relationships (e.g., employee-employer and coworker relationships)
3. Effective leadership models in virtual work environments
4. Career Development and mentoring in virtual work environments
5. Use of information and communication technologies in virtual work environments
6. Role of Organizational Culture and Norms in virtual work environments
7. Social environment, sense of community, and identity in virtual work environments

Minitrack Chairs