Speaker:

Asif Qumer Gill, University of Sydney

Venue:

Room 214/215, H69 - Economics and Business Building

Title:

An Agile Approach to Context Aware Cloud Adaptation

Description:

Organizations have shown a significant interest in the adoption of cloud technology-enabled operating environment. While many organizations are interested in adopting cloud technology-enabled operating environment suitable to their local circumstances, there is little guidance available on how to do so. We propose the iterative development and evaluation of a context-aware cloud adaptation (CACA) framework construct, based on agile philosophy and Actor-Network-Theory, by applying a design science research approach. This framework, whilst still under development, can be useful in assisting organizations to develop self awareness of their cloud adoption readiness, while at the same time being able to iteratively self assess, adopt and improve an appropriate cloud technology-enabled operating environment for their business by obtaining, modeling, processing and managing contextual information for their economic and competitive advantage. This seminar presents our ongoing research in this emerging area of cloud technology-enabled business transformation and highlights how businesses can best deal with the challenge of context-aware cloud assessment, adoption and improvement.

Speaker:

Petri Hallikainen, University of Sydney

Venue:

Room 214/215, H69 - Economics and Business Building

Title:

Transformational Journey of a Retail Organisation Towards Bi-Influenced Strategy Creation

Description:

The research examines how the upward and downward strategic influence of the head of the BI unit in the case organization evolved over time and the BI perspective became legitimate in the organization. The analysis covers a decade long period of time. We engaged in an Action Research (AR) inquiry where the change process was explored through the first-hand experiences of one of the co-authors. The model of the strategic agency of middle managers was applied in the analysis. Our study demonstrates that a reciprocal relation between top management and head of the BI unit is necessary for enabling the interaction between BI and strategy making. This interaction capability could help organizations find those innovative solutions that make a difference in the market place and provide the competitive edge over the competitors.

Speaker:

Deborah Bunker, University of Sydney

Venue:

Darlington Centre School Building, Meeting Room 11

Title:

Historical Narrative: Understanding and Learning from IS Strategising Failure

Description:

This seminar will look at the historical narrative of an ICT outsourcing initiative by the Australian Federal government from 1996-2001. Three different narrative perspectives, which are embedded within the Perspectival ITS Management Model (PISTM - Bunker 2004), are utilised to highlight the "competing voices" (Curthoys & McGrath 2009) that ultimately contribute to the strategising failure. These narrative accounts were constructed through the examination of secondary data sources which documented the outsourcing initiative. Through this approach we learn that "whole of government" and individual departmental contextual assumptions were made regarding technological skill sets, system outcomes, conceptual expression, building techniques and organisational culture, which were different to those embedded in the artifacts created and used to produce the outsourcing strategy. It is explained how these differences in assumptions caused Federal Government ICT outsourcing to fail in 2001. It is then suggested how this narrative approach allows us to better understand and learn from what occurred in this case. 

Speaker:

Kai Riemer, University of Sydney

Venue:

Darlington Centre School Building, Meeting Room 11

Title:

Place-making: A Phenomenological Theory of Technology Appropriation

Description:

The topic of this talk is the introduction of new technologies into organisational practices. While IS textbooks conceive of IS introduction largely as a decision process, a body of literature has emerged characterizing the phenomenon as a time-extended appropriationprocess, whereby users adapt and integrate a technology into their everyday practices. However, research in this field, typically aimed at explaining the variation in (unintended) outcomes, has struggled to grasp how exactly both the technology and the practice change during appropriation. We argue that appropriation research has been limited by certain commitments at the ontology level to a widely held dualist worldview. Against this background we develop a phenomenological theory of appropriation based on Martin Heidegger's analysis of equipment. On this view, technology goes from being an object with properties when inspected upon first encounter, to a specific means for the enterprise of the practice, captured in the notion of equipment. Equivalently, we can say that technology moves from the foreground as a thing to be evaluated to the practice background where it lends intelligibility to other entities and events. We show that this transformation occurs through a practice of actively performed place-making in which the technology is accommodated in the practice among existing equipment, practical logics and social identities. We illustrate our theory with a rich case study of social media appropriation, making methodological use of the novel feature that self-referential user conversations are captured within the technology, providing access to direct evidence of the appropriation phenomenon. The paper contributes a more nuanced sociomaterial account of the simultaneous transformation of technology and practices occurring in technology introduction.