Requirements for the Summary-Reflection Paper:
For each reading article, you are responsible for writing a summary-reflection essay. This essay should reflect your reflections of the concepts and theoretical frameworks discussed and the confusions you may have.Rather than simply repeat or even copy/paste from original reading materials, please focus on your understanding of the concepts and theoretical frameworks. To be more specific, besides a brief summary, you should have a major section dedicated to the confusions you have with the concepts and models in the reading materials. You should comment on those concepts and models with your own opinions based on working experiences, readings from the library, and reflections of your previous learning.
If you just repeat abstract concepts from the reading materials, you will not earn a high score. You should connect concepts with job/internship experiences.
127131 439..465 The role of IS architecture planning in enhancing IS outsourcing’s impact on IS performance Its antecedents and an empirical test Zhengzhong Shi Chalton College of Business Administration, University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, North Dartmouth, Massachusetts, USA Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual model on the role that information systems (IS) architecture planning plays in enhancing IS outsourcing’s impact on IS performance and to empirically test the model. Design/methodology/approach – Survey data were gathered and structural equation modeling technique is used to test hypotheses. Findings – The empirical test clearly demonstrates the important role that IS architecture planning plays in enhancing IS outsourcing’s impact on IS performance. In other words, it shows that IS architecture planning provides a blueprint for establishing necessary technical and administrative platforms, based on which IS outsourcing can be effectively implemented to positively impact IS performance. Consequently, the key proposition in the conceptual model of the study has been empirically validated. Research limitations/implications – The relatively low response rate requires future studies to re-validate the model to test the robustness of the findings. The fact that 75 percent of respondents are IS managers/directors may produce inflated responses on IS performance and future studies with more balanced IS and business managers’ participation can help to further verify the model. Future research can also investigate how web compliant-based technologies such as SOA and XML can enable high levels of modularity to improve IS outsourcing effectiveness for better IS performance. As to control variables, the extent of IS outsourcing and the level of IS architecture maturity may be incorporated in a refined model to better test the role IS architecture planning plays in enhancing IS outsourcing’s impact on IS performance. IS outsourcing effectiveness may be added to the model as a bridge linking IS outsourcing competences to IS performance. A longitudinal study can be conducted to analyze the dynamics of how IS architecture planning can impact IS outsourcing informed buying and help one to understand the portfolio of outsourcing control mechanisms in a multiple outsourcing projects setting. Practical implications – The empirical support of the key proposition that IS architecture planning enhances IS outsourcing’s impact on IS performance makes it very clear that IS management should make due efforts to improve their understandings of various IS components, associated business processes, and their interactive relationships for better IS outsourcing management. Further, the identification of the antecedents of IS architecture planning will enlighten practitioners about how to improve their IS architecture planning competence. Originality/value – The paper builds on previous research to provide further empirical evidence on the role that IS architecture planning plays in enhancing IS outsourcing’s impact on IS performance. Keywords Information systems, Process planning, Outsourcing, Performance management Paper type Research paper The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/1741-0398.htm IS architecture planning 439 Received April 2009 Revised September 2009 Accepted November 2009 Journal of Enterprise Information Management Vol. 23 No. 4, 2010 pp. 439-465 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 1741-0398 DOI 10.1108/17410391011061762 Introduction Selective information systems (IS) outsourcing (i.e. a combination of outsourcing and in-sourcing) has been proposed as a better option than total in-sourcing and total outsourcing in IS sourcing management (Quinn and Hilmer, 1994; Lacity et al., 1996). Naturally, an immediate challenge for successful IS outsourcing is to select the right parts of a firm’s IS infrastructure and associated business processes for outsourcing (Ross and Beath, 2006) and then safely and effectively separate the selected IS/business outsourcing components from the whole infrastructure and at the same time securely and seamlessly integrate those components with what will be kept inside a firm (Tanriverdi et al., 2007; Schilling, 2000). Furthermore, how well this IS outsourcing challenge has been dealt with is indeed reflected in firms’ performance (Daniel et al., 2009). To successfully meet this challenge, management has to have in mind a clear picture of all the IS/business components and their interrelationships to make wise decisions on what should be outsourced and what should be in-sourced. And this argument is in agreement with the conceptualized relationship between the level of architectural maturity and IS outsourcing success in Ross and Beath (2006). More specifically, to outsource IS architecture components and related business processes selectively and successfully, modular business process designs and relevant detachable IS architecture elements are required (Tanriverdi et al., 2007) and we believe that IS architecture planning is responsible for planning and incorporating these modularization requirements into a firm’s IS architecture design to enable the best possible IS outsourcing options (Ross, 2003) for their largest positive impacts on IS performance. With a comprehensive IS architecture planning exercise, IS management could improve their knowledge of all needed IS components, IS services and their interactive relationships with various business processes. Consequently, with a deeper knowledge of all these demand side constituencies, firms could better manage their IS outsourcing contracts and IS vendors to provide more effective IS outsourcing services (Shi et al., 2005). However, except for a few related case studies on the impact of IS architecture maturity on IS outsourcing effectiveness (e.g., Ross and Beath, 2006), empirical tests of the role of IS architecture planning in enhancing IS outsourcing’s impact on IS performance are still lacking and this current study is to make an effort to further conceptualize and test this enabling role with a large scale survey data. Further, to help practitioners improve their IS architecture planning capabilities, antecedents of IS architecture planning are also investigated. We believe that this investigation, in conjunction with the test of the role of IS architecture planning in enhancing IS outsourcing’s impact on IS performance, will help practitioners form a comprehensive view of the need and the ways to improve their IS architecture planning capabilities for successful selective outsourcing. Theoretical development and hypotheses Modular system theory A modular system consists of both components, within which sub-components have tight connections and intense interactions, and loose couplings among themselves. This kind of design enables separatability and flexibility of recombination at the JEIM 23,4 440 component level for better adaptation and fitness to environmental changes (Schilling, 2000; Tu et al., 2004) and because of its separatability and flexibility of recombination at the component level, a modular system makes outsourcing possible. For example, a product can more or less be treated as a modular system, meaning that components are dependent on and independent from each other to some degrees simultaneously and product innovations can be categorized into incremental, modular, architectural, and rapid innovations depending on the extent of changes in both product components themselves and the relationships among themselves (i.e. product architecture) (Henderson and Clark, 1990). It is obvious that knowledge of component technologies and understanding of the product architecture are necessary for these innovations to be possible. Consequently, it is without doubts that to outsource component production/service activities (as a kind of product innovation) is not feasible without these knowledge and understanding. We believe that to some degree, an information system can be treated as a modular system-based product that is used to meet the information needs of all types of users, including a firm’s internal employees, external customers, and other partners. Consequently, following the logic between product innovation and component production/service outsourcing, IS outsourcing, as an innovative mechanism of providing some IS components’ services, is impossible without a thorough knowledge of all technology/business components and their interactive relationships. IS/business components and their relationships working as a modular system An information system, as a product of IS management, has many technology components and there are many interactive relationships among them. IS outsourcing, as a mechanism of producing IS services, demands knowledge of various technology components and associated business processes and understanding of their interactive relationships, i.e. architectural knowledge. Figure 1 demonstrates the four categories of business and IS components and their interactions, including in-sourced IT components (e.g., networks and database management), outsourced IT components (e.g., application development and maintenance), in-sourced business process components (e.g., marketing, sales, and product design), and outsourced business processes components (e.g., accounting, manufacturing, and customer service). These in-sourced and outsourced IS components and their interactions form a firm’s IS architecture. The relationships among these different business and IS components can be very complicated. Both an in-sourced and an outsourced business process can be supported by an in-sourced or/and an outsourced IS component. And thus, it is required that in-sourced and outsourced IS components/business processes should be integrated properly to accomplish organizational goals. Further, when a firm decides to outsource some additional IS/business components after its initial outsourcing execution, incremental changes or radical transformations of some other IS/business components as well as related interacting processes are required because of the interdependent nature of all the components and the complexity of their interactive relationships (Mani et al., 2006). The potentially serious problem associated with these changes and transformations is that they may very well destroy the usefulness of existing architectural knowledge (Henderson and Clark, 1990), which is embedded in the IS architecture planning 441 existing procedures and information processing routines of various inter-organizational relationships. Consequently, these changes and transformations, if not handled properly, may significantly damage firm performance over time and form a real operational risk for organizations. In order to reduce or eliminate this risk, first, it is proposed in this paper that IS architecture planning can help by: . enabling a firm to design well-thought interface standards among various IS and business components (Ross, 2003; Ross and Beath, 2006, Rottman and Lacity, 2006, McDonald, 2007; Venkatesh et al., 2007); and . expanding the spectrum of outsourcing alternatives, which together help unleash the opportunity of choosing and implementing the best sourcing mechanisms (Tanriverdi et al. 2007). This is because IS architecture planning refers to a set of actions taken by IS function to “create a coherent blueprint for both an administrative and a technical platform that responds to both current and future business needs” (Feeny and Willcocks, 1998). Through intensive architecture planning exercises, planners should obtain a comprehensive view of various technical and administrative components and their interrelationships embedded in a firm’s IS architecture and business infrastructure. It is believed that this comprehensive view lays the foundation for a firm to design business processes and their supporting IS architecture elements at a higher modular level (Ross and Beath, 2006), enabling more sourcing options (Tanriverdi et al., 2007) for successful selective IS outsourcing management. Second, as Aron et al. (2005) indicated, to deal with operational risks such as lock-in with a certain service provider, vertical chunkification (i.e. dividing IS/business Figure 1. In-sourced and outsourced IS/business components and their relationships JEIM 23,4 442 processes into different parts and each part could be outsourced to different vendors) and horizontal chunkification (i.e. the same IS/business processes could be assigned to several vendors to foster competition and enable performance comparisons) are required. And it is