Boundary-Spanning Co-Design Of Business and IT Systems in Organizations
It is clear that if we are to replace the waterfall model of IS design, we need a better understanding of the processes of collaborative design than that provided by the IS literature, particularly where boundary-spanning collaboration is required across knowledge “domains”. This research thread attempts to fill that gap. Organizational IS design involves stakeholders from multiple organizational communities of practice, deriving from many different knowledge domains. Each community of practice understands the organizational "world" in different ways, according to locally-derived sociocultural norms, values and knowledge. Coordinating design across these domains involves more than just teamwork. It involves mechanisms for mediating and translating local knowledge and values and for developing ways to create and manage a common set of local conventions for design: locally-meaningful language and work-practices that support the development of shared understanding. These studies compare the design issues and processes of enterprise-spanning information systems: this is a series of studies that are ongoing.
My studies have highlighted the various forms of knowledge involved in cycles of design inquiry, moving away from the current model of design as cycles of problem closure. They have highlighted the need to manage external stakeholder knowledge and expectations, to legitimize an expanding scope of inquiry as the design emerges. I have presented an alternate model of boundary-spanning design that progresses through the adoption of mobilizing visions and the productive use of shared breakdowns in understanding. I have conducted a two-year study of collaborative design management in a global e-Commerce group, which is in its second stage of analysis. Current field studies employ an action research approach to investigate how this model may be operationalized in organizational innovation and to discover if these mechanisms can lead to increased involvement of underrepresented group members in small group projects .
This page provides a brief synopsis of current and completed field studies for this project.
ENTERPRISE SYSTEMS DESIGN
Data from an eighteen-month field study of a boundary-spanning information systems definition and design group from a midsize engineering company were analyzed (Gasson 2005a; Gasson 2006). A field study was performed to examine the co-design of business and IT systems in a large manufacturing company. This revealed a view of information system design as ongoing systems adaptation across the boundaries between collaborating groups (Gasson 2005b).
GLOBAL E-COMMERCE SYSTEMS DESIGN
A two-year, longitudinal field study was performed to study information systems definition, management, and design activity coordination across group and knowledge-domain boundaries in the e-Commerce group of a global consultancy. Specifically, this study examined the coordination of distributed leadership in managing a virtual organization (Gasson and Elrod 2006a) and the coordination of knowledge across areas of individual professional expertise, management responsibility, and boundary-spanner foci of action (Gasson and Elrod 2005; Gasson and Elrod 2006b).
INTER-ORGANIZATIONAL SYSTEMS DESIGN
A longitudinal study of an inter-organizational initiative to design an information system to share patient electronic health records has recently been completed. The data are under analysis.
ACTION RESEARCH STUDIES
These studies form the final part of the project, to experiment with methods to support boundary-spanning knowledge sharing effectively, in IS definition and design. An eighteen-month, longitudinal study of a strategic financial planning group is ongoing. A further study, of early requirements analysis for a boundary-spanning information system to coordinate hospital emergency-room operations is scheduled for summer 2008.
REFERENCES:
Gasson, S. 2005a. "The Dynamics Of Sensemaking, Knowledge and Expertise in Collaborative, Boundary-Spanning Design," Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication (JCMC) (10:4), Article 14. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol10/issue4/gasson.html
Gasson, S. 2005b. "Boundary-Spanning Knowledge-Sharing In E-Collaboration," Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-38), Organizational Systems and Technology track, KM/OM/OL Cluster, AIS, Manua, Hawaii: IEEE Computer Society.
Gasson, S., and Elrod, E.M. 2005. "Managing Knowledge Across The Boundaries Of A Virtual Organization," International Conference on Knowledge Management (ICKM2005), Charlotte, NC.
Gasson, S. 2006. "A Genealogical Study of Boundary-Spanning IS Design," European Journal of Information Systems (15:1), pp 26-41.
Gasson, S., and Elrod, E.M. 2006a. "Distributed Leadership Across The Boundaries Of A Virtual Organization," in: 37th Annual Meeting of the Decision Sciences Institute (DSI-37). San Antonio, TX.
Gasson, S., and Elrod, E.M. 2006b. "Distributed Knowledge Coordination Across Virtual Organization Boundaries," International Conference of Information Systems (ICIS '06), paper KM-01, Milwaukee, WI.
Page last updated 07/23/2007, Susan Gasson (sgasson@ischool.drexel.edu)