ItAIS 2015 – XII Conference of the Italian Chapter of AIS

Co-Chairs: F. Bolici (U. Cassino), F. Virili (U. Sassari), A. Zardini (U. Verona)

ICTs are part of corporate transformations in today competitive environments, often enabling new organizational forms and business models both in Public and Private Sector. The vast majority of change projects imply redesign and adaptation of ICT solutions, and in many cases they are entirely centered around these technologies. Organizations expect to use the new ICT to run new processes, innovate products and services, gain higher responsiveness, and implement new corporate environments aimed at transforming their internal structures into better achieving organizations.

To date, both practice and literature have widely shown that the effective implementation of new ICT is one of the most challenging tasks faced by managers, since it requires people to understand, absorb and adapt to the new requirements. The capacity to absorb and to fully implement the adoption of new ICTs is a key factor to gain extra competitive abilities, because the ultimate impact of ICT is mediated by a number of factors, many of which require an in-depth understanding of the organizational context and human behavior.

Despite the many change strategies and tactics applied so far and the fact that many research findings have associated successful tactics with organizational contexts, it is proving difficult to develop a comprehensive theory of ICT-enabled change management and change implementation. Empirical investigation must be conducted hand-in-hand with theory building if we want to better interpret today’s corporate environments. This Track, welcoming contributions representing a wide range of perspectives and approaches, encourages the interplay of theoretical and empirical research with practice and professional views and experiences.

Topics include (but are not limited to):

• Change management: successes or failures;
• Enablers (and/or inhibitors) of ICT-related change success;
• Relationships between ICT and business strategy;
• Change management theories, methodologies, techniques and tools;
• Analysis of the interaction of actors (individuals, groups, organizations and networks) and information technology during change processes;
• Bottom-up and top-down change processes;
• Change processes in technology development, adoption, deployment in multi-cultural environments;
• Theories and tools to interpret ICT-related changes;
• ICT-enabled new business models emergence and implementation.

Co-Chairs: P. Bednar (U. of Portsmouth, UK), F. Cabitza (U. Milano Bicocca), V. D’Andrea (U. of Trento)

IS research could be described having two different agendas in mind. Technical systems: represented by artifact focus. Human systems: represented by work design focus. Socio-technical approaches can be used within both these areas of interest and paradigms and indeed allow to break down barriers between too narrowly focalized researches by acknowledging the entangled nature of the technical and the social components in human activity systems (Trist, 1981). Since technical systems have been recognized to be intrinsically if not intentionally incomplete and perpetually in the making (Kallinikos, Aaltonen, & Marton, 2013), the design and re-design of socio-technical systems should be conceived as a continuous process involving innovators and recipients dealing with complex and evolving artifacts (Mumford, 2006) which can not be decoupled from the soft, social, cultural and even psychological components (Silver & Markus, 2013). Socio-technical approaches are historically grounded on a combination of humanistic principles. Part of the key contemporary agenda however, is looking on the ability to recognize the editable, interactive, open, and semiotic nature of digital artifacts. This in turn requires attention to be put on the intentionally pursued revision of contextually relevant action of the social environment.

In this track, we want to focus on design-oriented IS research inspired by socio-technical principles (Baskerville, Pries-Heje, & Venable, 2009), the materiality of digital artifacts (Leonardi, 2011, 2013) and their capability to enable pragmatic significance in situated material configurations (Beynon-Davies, 2011, Mattozzi, 2015). This would include IS oriented discussions of innovation and purposeful problem solving, characterized by the design and implementation of digital artifacts, with a particular attention to individual and / or organizational contexts. Appropriate methodologies can include re-interpreted and re-contextualized components from engineering, computer science, information system, management, social sciences including behavioural sciences.

Subjects of socio-technical and / or design oriented IS research can be problem analyses, systems theories, models of any kind, methods of any kind, or reflective reports on the actual IS instantiations in companies, government agencies or in private households. Also welcome is meta-research that reflects socio-technical and design oriented IS research, and proposes either methodological or epistemological advancements.

References

Baskerville, R., Pries-Heje, J., & Venable, J. (2009). Soft Design Science Methodology. In DESRIST ’09 .

Beynon-Davies, P. (2011). Significance: exploring the nature of information, systems and technology. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Kallinikos, J., Aaltonen, A., & Marton, A. (2013). The Ambivalent Ontology of Digital Artifacts. MIS Quarterly , 37(2), 357–370.

Leonardi, P. (2011). When flexible routines meet flexible technologies: Affordance, constraint, and the imbrication of human and material agencies. MIS Quarterly , 35(1), 147–167.

Leonardi, P. (2013). Theoretical foundations for the study of sociomateriality. Information and Organization , 23(2), 59–76.

Mattozzi, A. (2015) Rewriting the script, A methodological dialogue about the concept of “script” and how to account for the mediating role of objects. Forthcoming. A draft is avalable at http://www.utwente.nl/bms/steps/research/colloquia_and_seminars/colloquia/bestanden/2011-2012/mattozzi_rewriting_script.pdf

Mumford, E. (2006). The study of socio-technical design: reflections on its successes, failures and potential. Information Systems Journal , 16, 317–342.

Silver, M. S., & Markus, M. L. (2013). Conceptualizing the SocioTechnical (ST) Artifact. Systems, Signs & Actions, 7(1), 82–89.

Trist, E. (1981). The evolution of socio-technical systems – a conceptual framework and an action research program. Occasional Paper, 2, 1–67.

Co-Chairs: R.C.D. Nacamulli (U. Milano Bicocca), L. Solari (U. degli Studi di Milano), N. Cornelius (Bradford U., UK) [to be confirmed]

The recent advances in information and communication technologies (ICT) and the growing pervasive presence of ICT in companies’ lives have had broad transformational organizational effects and have posed new challenges for human resource management. Experimentations in terms of HR processes such as automatization or exploring new ways of structuring work processes, new forms of working such as teleworking and virtual teams, the use of BigData and analytics tools, the adoption of enterprise social networks in order to eliminate functional boundaries, the focus on gamification and serious games, are only some of the processes that HR departments have undertaken in light of the digitalization and technology innovation pressure. These processes have important consequences on the way in which people interact and learn at work by allowing the share of knowledge and expertise and emphasizing bottom-up participation dynamics. But they are redefining also organizational boundaries in new, unexplored ways and reshaping the role of the HR department and HR managers. What are the consequences at the individual, social and organizational level of these trends? Are HR department and managers fully aware and ready to manage this digitalization wave? How HR studies can contribute to the design of information systems?

The aim of this track is to provide new insight into the impact of ICT on the HR function and HRM processes. By linking together these two research streams, the goal is to generate a fruitful debate aimed at analysing the consequences of ICT adoption in HR processes (e.g. the implication in terms of individual behaviour, social interaction, organizational change) and how these aspects can guide HRM system design.

Types of contributions:

• Current trends in HR management enabled by ICTs advances
• Developing digital competences and the role of HRM
• Developments and applications of enterprise social networks
• New forms of working and social dynamics enabled by ICT (e.g. teleworking, virtual teams, etc.)
• Best practices and experimentations in terms of HR practices via the adoption of ICTs
• Digital technologies fostering formal and informal learning at the workplace

Co-Chairs: F. De Cindio (U. degli Studi di Milano), P. Depaoli (U. LUISS), T. Federici (U. of Tuscia)

The phenomenon of eParticipation is rapidly evolving both for the continuing diffusion of information and communication technologies (ICT) and for the growing number of heterogeneous actors (e.g. public bodies, private local and global organizations, movements, individuals). Moreover, the digital interaction concerns different levels and processes of participation: sharing practices, consultation and decision-making.

The issues at stake are several, e.g.: availability of open data to be exploited for public as well as private purposes, new empowered relationships between citizens and their governments (e-petitioning, e-consultations, online deliberation, etc.), new political bodies, role of socio-technical infrastructures, new forms of control, advent of different forms of crowdsourcing, and so on.

Furthermore, within a single organization, co-operation and co-decision systems concerning actors and stakeholders are changing, affected as they are by digitalization. This evolution appears to take place across the board: in public and private companies, in non-profit organizations, in political parties and movements.

This track aims at promoting the e-Participation discourse through:

• Studies on changes in the participation forms;
• Research on opportunities and threats, impediments and problems, concerning the diffusion of eParticipation;
• Reflections on the possible changes in organizational structures and stakeholders’ role, needed for (or deriving from) the adoption of eParticipation practices;
• Contributions to theory building in eParticipation research.

The track welcomes papers discussing the following (not exhaustive) list of possible topics:

• eParticipation in policy-making and other forms of public decision-making processes;
• Digitally supported co-operation and co-decision in private organizations;
• Design of infrastructures and services for collaboration;
• The Polis as cradle of innovation for subjects and practices of eParticipation;
• Changes in organizational structures generated by the adoption of eParticipation;
• Barriers and limitations hindering eParticipation;
• Readiness of society: how to orientate to eParticipation citizens and politics, companies and non-profit organizations;
• Crowdsourcing of public interest data and its impact and challenges;
• Quantitative and qualitative assessment of eParticipation initiatives;
• Theories, methods, and approaches to be used in eParticipation research;
• Role of web 2.0 tools (like: blogs, wikis, etc.) and social media in eParticipation;
• Security, privacy and ethical challenges in the eParticipation field;
• Role of digital identity to foster eParticipation.

Co-Chairs: F. De Cindio (U. degli Studi di Milano), P. Depaoli (U. LUISS), T. Federici (U. of Tuscia)

The phenomenon of eParticipation is rapidly evolving both for the continuing diffusion of information and communication technologies (ICT) and for the growing number of heterogeneous actors (e.g. public bodies, private local and global organizations, movements, individuals). Moreover, the digital interaction concerns different levels and processes of participation: sharing practices, consultation and decision-making.

The issues at stake are several, e.g.: availability of open data to be exploited for public as well as private purposes, new empowered relationships between citizens and their governments (e-petitioning, e-consultations, online deliberation, etc.), new political bodies, role of socio-technical infrastructures, new forms of control, advent of different forms of crowdsourcing, and so on.

Furthermore, within a single organization, co-operation and co-decision systems concerning actors and stakeholders are changing, affected as they are by digitalization. This evolution appears to take place across the board: in public and private companies, in non-profit organizations, in political parties and movements.

This track aims at promoting the e-Participation discourse through:

• Studies on changes in the participation forms;
• Research on opportunities and threats, impediments and problems, concerning the diffusion of eParticipation;
• Reflections on the possible changes in organizational structures and stakeholders’ role, needed for (or deriving from) the adoption of eParticipation practices;
• Contributions to theory building in eParticipation research.

The track welcomes papers discussing the following (not exhaustive) list of possible topics:

• eParticipation in policy-making and other forms of public decision-making processes;
• Digitally supported co-operation and co-decision in private organizations;
• Design of infrastructures and services for collaboration;
• The Polis as cradle of innovation for subjects and practices of eParticipation;
• Changes in organizational structures generated by the adoption of eParticipation;
• Barriers and limitations hindering eParticipation;
• Readiness of society: how to orientate to eParticipation citizens and politics, companies and non-profit organizations;
• Crowdsourcing of public interest data and its impact and challenges;
• Quantitative and qualitative assessment of eParticipation initiatives;
• Theories, methods, and approaches to be used in eParticipation research;
• Role of web 2.0 tools (like: blogs, wikis, etc.) and social media in eParticipation;
• Security, privacy and ethical challenges in the eParticipation field;
• Role of digital identity to foster eParticipation.

Co-Chairs: R. Bonazzi (U. Lausanne, CH), R. Candiotto (U. Piemonte Orientale), C. Rossignoli (U. Verona),

In the last decade, organizations have found themselves facing a dilemma. On the one hand, they need to constantly reduce the enterprise budget for information technology (IT). On the other hand, IT has to contribute to the strategy and competitiveness of organizations. Information technology (IT) outsourcing is increasingly used as strategy to achieve both objectives under the shape of cloud computing, captive outsourcing (private and secure cloud) or selective near/off-shoring for software development. Moreover, new outsourcing options – such as crowdsourcing and IT consumerization – increase the number of options and challenges as well as the pace of change. This shift towards a network approach for enterprise resource management calls for new competences, methodologies and instruments to support CIOs in managing the IT infrastructure from projects to operations, as well as to help them address the constantly emerging organizational and inter-organizational changes.

Topics relevant to this track include (but are not restricted to):

• IT infrastructures and strategic challenges
• Business networks and Information Systems
• Virtual organization and extended enterprise
• Cloud technologies
• IT Management and IT value

Both theoretical and empirical papers are welcome

Keywords: Chief information officer; outsourcing; cloud computing; business networks, IT management, IT value, virtual organizations, business – IT alignment.