Nordic Contributions in IS Research

Recent literature reveals the increasingly important role of ICT within innovation in services. The heterogeneity of existing literature on the topic makes it harder to identify the main problem areas and to spot the critical knowledge gaps when planning and executing research on ICT and innovation in services. This paper aims at outlining how scholars have investigated the relationship between ICT and innovation in services so far, by analyzing the fragmented body of knowledge available on the topic, to strengthen the problem area as field of study and support its progress. The results of the literature review were derived through a concept-centric analysis of the existing research on ICT and innovation in services. The outcome of the literature review is a conceptual typology that organizes and summarizes the body of knowledge on ICT and innovation in services, and reveals the critical knowledge gaps along with an agenda for future research.

Software-based information systems must be developed and implemented as a part of business change. This is a major challenge, since business change and the development of software-based information systems usually are performed in separate processes. Thus, there is a need to understand and manage the relationship between these two kinds of processes. In this paper we draw on a longitudinal case study. We suggest a framework to analyze the case as interaction between software development processes and organizational change processes. In the analysis we find that the framework enables us to understand critical events in the case, what led to the events, and what the consequences are. We discuss the implications for information systems research and in particular we discuss the contribution to project management of iterative and incremental software development.

IS plays an important role in modernization of the public sector, and government agencies increasingly use IT for both innovation purposes and exploitation of existing opportunities. These organizations not only see IS as an enabler of business strategy but also focus on the operational and tactical benefits of IS. However, although IS management has been studied at the strategic level, middle management has not received the same attention. Existing research has, for example, investigated the relationship between the CIO and top management, but no studies have looked at the relationship between IT and middle management in bridging the gulf between the strategic and operational level and bringing about IS benefits to the organization at the tactical level. This article addresses this research gap by exploring the relationship between IT and middle management in government agencies across four Danish municipalities. Based on an exploratory, multiple case study we develop a descriptive model of the dynamic relationships between IT managers and line managers in public organizations. The model describes four archetypes – craftsmanship, entrepreneurship, partnership, and companionship – depending on the level of involvement (arm’s-length versus embedded) and the envisioned role of IT (management versus leadership). The model is a powerful vehicle for understanding and possibly changing the relationships depending on the needs and visions of the organization wanting to increase its e-government maturity.

An ambition for a democratic information society is providing services that maintain and even enhance citizens’ mastery and control of their environment. Analyzing public services from a citizen autonomy perspective can indicate where the service and its IT-systems do not support user autonomy. We analyze a public service and discuss it as a sociomaterial entanglement. Based on our data on citizens’ use of a public service we identify a need to distinguish between entanglements and imbrications and suggest a notion of disentangling in order to characterize the way in which the public service advisors help the citizens. Experiencing the service as an imbrication enables the citizen to see and act, while an entanglement seems impossible to handle without a certain level of competence. Different types of entanglements need different types of competencies to address them. Finally, we discuss how the notion of disentangling tax issues can support citizen autonomy.

In the context of situated elderly care this paper discusses the intertwined relationship between organizational security objectives, technology, and employees’ security behavior. We use findings from a single case study to aid in our understanding of how managers sought to create a secure work environment by introducing behavioral security technology, and how employees appreciated the new security software in everyday routines. Theoretically the case study is informed by sociomateriality in that it employs the notion of technological affordances of behavioral security technology. Findings show that security technology material is an integral part of security management and security in use, and that both the technical actor and human actors contributed to cultivation of the information security practice in the elderly care center.

The interactive society is also the interdependent society, and this poses challenges to the IS field’s conceptualization of what design entails. ICTs are intimately intertwined with work practices, institutions and with other technological systems, and the resulting assemblage exhibits a complexity that challenges design interventions. Relevant conceptualizations from the IS field should be further developed to help us come to grips with the challenges. The nature of design is explored through two empirical vignettes. Both vignettes illustrate design “in the large”, involving more participants, different objectives and multiple types of tasks relative to classical instances of software or systems design. The interdependencies’ implications for design are examined, and a conceptual decomposition of interdependencies is proposed. The three-dimensional decomposition into spatial extent, functional coverage and temporal duration can potentially be used for a more proactive approach to intended and unintended interdependencies during design “in the large”.

In this paper, we discuss how to evaluate (models and instantiations), which criteria for goodness that are applicable within different research approaches. In the prevalent (positivist) research we are accustomed to ask whether a certain model truthfully describes an object under study, and how useful is a new IT artifact. But researchers can also take other perspectives than the prevalent one on the world, e.g., interpretive or critical. In addition to models, researchers can also evaluate a wider information system than the new IT artifact only. We restrict our consideration into design research, the models developed and the outcomes constructed. We must model the old system in the problem space and the new system in the solution space. We therefore collect and analyze various guidelines for modeling from different perspectives (positivist, interpretive and critical). Concerning design outcomes we pay attention to different stake holder groups and their different evaluation criteria.

This paper presents a model explaining industry-wide information systems integration. Using a theoretical frame of value configuration analysis and information systems (IS) integration extent we find that the IS integration was inhibited by incompatible value integration. On the other hand product sensitivity, continuous production process and presence of “value chain captains” – powerful actors dominating the industry - led to higher levels of integration.

In this paper we provide a framework for how to combine design science research with a Living Lab approach. Whereas Living Labs have a main focus on innovation, it is also important to involve researchers that need to follow a more rigid research approach to be able to produce research papers. The framework is illustrated through reports from a case using the combined framework in connection to research and innovation in the Wireless Trondheim Living Lab (WTLL). WTLL focus on research and development of mobile applications and services. The case, following the development and design science research related to one such service, MSIS (Mobile Student Information System)/Campus-Guide, provides evidence on one way these approaches can be combined, enabling more involvement of researchers in innovation processes and vice versa. The generalisability of the approach is not proved though, and further research will look on how we can utilize the described approach in other settings.