China IT Research Centre (CiTRC)
中国信息化与社交媒体研究中心
Agile Adoption and Strategic IT Management
1. Leveraging Digital Business Ecosystems For Enterprise Agility: The Tri-Logic development Strategy of Alibaba.comPrincipal Investigators: Professor Pan Shan Ling (Shan L Pan), Professor HUANG Lih-Hua (Fudan University, China), Associate Professor Lu Xiang Hua (Fudan University, China).Research Assistant: Mr. Barney Tan (University of Sydney). The existing discourse on IT-enabled enterprise agility views the internal organizational processes of IT capability development and organizational learning as the primary means of attaining agility, but has neglected the new dynamics of competition in the present networked economy. As Digital Business Ecosystems (DBEs) may be crucial to enterprise agility for organizations engaged in intense, inter-network competition, we apply the literature on business ecosystems to analyze the case of Alibaba.com, a B2B portal that organizes one of the largest DBEs worldwide. In doing so, a process model of how a DBE may be developed and leveraged for enterprise agility is inductively derived that sheds light on the antecedents, nature and implications of DBE development in three distinct phases. With its findings, this study contributes to a networked perspective of IT-enabled enterprise agility, and provides practitioners with a comprehensive and empirically-supported framework for the development and subsequent leverage of a DBE. Keywords: Enterprise agility, Digital business ecosystems, Organizational strategies, Case study |
2. Developing Routinized Information Processing Capabilities for Operational Agility: Insights from ChinaPrincipal Investigators: Professor Pan Shan Ling (Shan L Pan), Professor Ouyang Taohua (Bei Hang University, China).Research Assistant: Mr. Huang Pei Ying. Operational agility, which reflects the agile practices at business process level, is increasingly deemed as a significant determinant of business success in a turbulent business environment. Despite its importance, existing research provides little knowledge about how operational agility can be attained. Drawing on the classic organization theory—information processing view of firms, the main contribution of this study is that it provides a process model of developing routinized information processing capabilities for operational agility in a turbulent business environment which fulfills this theoretical gap. It indicates the significant roles played by IT-enabled information processing networks and organizational controls during the process. It also identifies three routinized information processing capabilities including information sensitivity, information fluidity, and information decomposability. This is achieved by conducting a case study of Haier, one of the largest producers of household appliances in China. This paper concludes with a discussion of potential theoretical and practical contributions. Keywords: Operational agility, Information Processing Capability, Case Study, Organization Theory |
3. Evolving IT Organizational Identity as a Source of IT-enabled Enterprise Agility in ChinaPrincipal Investigators: Professor Pan Shan Ling (Shan L Pan), Professor Ouyang Taohua (Bei Hang University)Research Assistant: Mr. Wang Zheng. Prior research has proposed that IT may hinder the attainment of enterprise agility; how to prevent this hindrance and further achieve IT-enabled enterprise agility remains unknown. Because IT organizational identity can be an important guidepost for eliminating the hindrance, the purpose of this paper is to explore how to achieve IT-enabled enterprise agility through an evolving IT organizational identity. By drawing upon recent thinking in the enterprise agility and organizational identity literature, this paper proposes a process model of IT organizational identity evolution to argue that the process of recreating an IT identity leads an enterprise to attain IT-enabled agility. In the present study, the case of China’s Haier Group is comprehensively analyzed based on the process model. Our study not only contributes to the knowledge of organizational identity and broader concepts of enterprise agility, but also provides useful means for practitioners to establish appropriate IT organizational identities over time. |
4. Boundary Spanning by Design: Aligning Boundary-spanning Capability and Boundary-spanning StrategyPrincipal Investigators: Professor Pan Shan Ling (Shan L Pan) (National University of Singapore).Research Assistant: Mr. Du Wen Yu. IT Outsourcing (ITO) has brought new challenges to the conventional engineering management. Given its nature, ITO project management is intrinsically complex and susceptible to various issues. Past research has developed a management portfolio of four main mechanisms, namely contract management, partnership management, organizational control and boundary spanning. Whereas the first three mechanisms have attracted much attention, the study on boundary spanning remains scant, adopting only the client perspective and overlooking the vendor. In this study, we fill that gap by studying boundary spanning of two ITO vendors: Neusoft and SAP Global Support Center. The data collection and analysis are guided by a novel and sound theoretical lens – the alignment between boundary-spanning capability and boundary-spanning strategy. Two alignment models have thus been derived. The alignment-form model depicts the outlook of the alignment, and the aligning-path model depicts the process of achieving the alignment. From these two models, we further derive that vendor boundary spanning happens by design. The study complements the ITO project management literature by providing a more complete picture of the boundary-spanning mechanism. It also complements the boundary-spanning literature by exploring the relationship between boundary spanners and boundary-spanning strategy. Keywords: Diffusion of IT Innovations, boundary spanning, ambidexterity, case study. |
5. Developing Agile IT Adoption in An Organization Through IT Program Implementation: A Case Study of Beijing International AirportPrincipal Investigators: Professor Pan Shan Ling (Shan L Pan) (National University of Singapore) and Professor Zuo Mei Yun (Renmin University of China).Research Assistant: Mr. Jenson Goh Chong Leng In a hypercompetitive environment, organization has been increasingly dependent upon IT systems for its survival. Consequently, many IT program implementations are initiated but often many of these high investment ventures fail to fulfill its promise. One pertinent problem is enabling the rapid adoption of the implemented IT systems by stakeholders. We posit that agile IT adoption practices are the solution to this problem because it helps an organization detects the most appropriate IT system and drives the speed and extent of the adoption of that IT system across the organization. The main contribution of this study is it provides an explanation of how agile IT adoption practices can be developed in an organization. It achieves this by using a single embedded case study design that investigates into an IT program implementation during the construction of Beijing’s International Terminal 3 Airport for the 2008 Olympics Games. Looking through the theoretical lens of the co-evolutionary of organizational control and trust upon the collected data, several inductively derived process models which detail the development of the four agile IT adoption practices are presented. This paper concludes with a discussion of implications and potential theoretical and practical contributions of these models. Keywords: Diffusion of IT Innovations, Project monitoring and control, agile IT adoption practice, case study. |
6. Attaining and Enacting Green Leadership: Insights from the Green IT Initiatives of China MobilePrincipal Investigators: Professor Pan Shan Ling (Shan L Pan), Professor ZUO Meiyun (Renmin University, China)Research Assistant: Mr. Barney Tan (University of Sydney). For Green Information Technology (IT) initiatives to have a significant and lasting impact on the environment, they cannot be implemented in isolation. Instead, there is a need for collective action among diverse stakeholders operating in inter-organizational business networks, which in turn, demands an appropriate leadership structure. Yet, the notion of ‘Green Leadership’ has never been explored. Using a case study of the Green IT initiatives of China Mobile, the largest mobile telecommunications provider in the world, this study seeks to shed light on the underlying process through which green leadership can be achieved and subsequently enacted to facilitate collective green IT initiatives. With its findings, this study presents an empirically supported process model that complements the dominant internal-oriented perspective of green IT, and provides practitioners with a useful reference for leveraging the collective resources and capabilities of their business network to contribute towards preserving the environment for future generations. Keywords: Green information technology, environmental sustainability, collective action, case study |
