Information Systems Strategic Management

Information Systems Strategic Management Steve Clarke

Lecture 1: Information Systems This Lecture Examines • The nature of the information systems domain, from theoretical and practical perspectives. • The dominant view(s) of information systems as determined from approaches to information systems development. • A comparison of ‘hard’ (technology-based) and ‘soft’ (human-centred) perspectives on information systems, and proposals for combining them. • A framework for the study and practice of information systems informed from social systems theory. Steve Clarke

Lecture 1: Information Systems Steve Clarke

Lecture 1: Information Systems • The Inadequacy of Technology-Based Approaches • Alternative ‘Soft’ Methods • The Value of Mixed Methods: • ETHICS • Multiview • Client Led Design • A Grounding in Social Theory? Steve Clarke

Lecture 1: Information Systems Steve Clarke

Lecture 1: Information Systems Summary Steve Clarke

Lecture 2: LESSONS FROM CORPORATE STRATEGY This Lecture Examines: • The general nature of corporate strategy. • Different perspectives through which strategy may be viewed, focusing particularly on the planning and patterning approaches. • An integrated approach to strategy as design or discovery as a basis for information systems strategy. • Strategy applied to different organisational contexts. Steve Clarke

Lecture 2: LESSONS FROM CORPORATE STRATEGY Steve Clarke

Lecture 2: LESSONS FROM CORPORATE STRATEGY Strategy as Patterns of Activity The Quantum Theory of Strategic Change Emergent/Incremental Strategies Mintzberg argues that ‘virtually everything that has been written about strategy making depicts it as a deliberate process’, whilst the evidence shows this not to be the case, with strategies emerging from the organisation without there having been deliberate plan. Quinn’s Logical Incrementalism Steve Clarke

Lecture 2: LESSONS FROM CORPORATE STRATEGY Forces and Forms of Organisations Entrepreneurial Machine Professional Diversified Adhocratic Strategic Approach Relates to Context ... Steve Clarke

Lecture 2: LESSONS FROM CORPORATE STRATEGY Summary: • Seeing corporate strategy as an objective process through the ‘rational-analytical’ model leads to an impoverished view of the domain. A number of alternative approaches are worthy of consideration. • Corporate strategy is enriched by considering a number of perspectives. These include culture, structure, the visionary leader, incrementalism, politics, strategy as a plan and strategy as positioning. All of these perspectives can be categorised according to the extent to which they support strategy as a rationally planned exercise, or strategy as the management of emerging patterns of activity in an organisation. • As an integrative framework for strategy, the distinction between systematic, design-focused, and systemic, discovery oriented, can be seen to encompass the major strategic views. • The belief that strategy can be approached from an entirely objective position is illusory. Strategy largely consists of ‘planning’ for the unknown, and as such must make use of subjective judgement. Steve Clarke

Lecture 3: INFORMATION SYSTEMS STRATEGY: THE THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS This Lecture Examines • An approach to social theory through which the relevant theoretical underpinning may be determined. • Information systems and corporate strategy seen in terms of a social theoretical framework. • Critical social theory as a relevant basis for information systems and corporate strategy. • Critical systems thinking as the specific theoretical underpinning to the two domains. Steve Clarke

Lecture 3: INFORMATION SYSTEMS STRATEGY: THE THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS Steve Clarke

Lecture 3: INFORMATION SYSTEMS STRATEGY: THE THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS The argument is for a complementarist approach, which sees the strengths and weaknesses in each of the three areas and argues that each one must be respected for those strengths and weaknesses. All of this is mirrored in IS and corporate strategy, where the argument is wrongly cast within the sociology of regulation. Steve Clarke

Lecture 3: INFORMATION SYSTEMS STRATEGY: THE THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS Critical Social Theory applied to IS and corporate strategy is appealing for its denial of the natural scientific principles on which study has largely hitherto been based. Seen through a scientific framework, IS appears as the design of a system to satisfy a known set of requirements - objective, verifiable requirements which are the same for all involved since they are independent of human opinion. Similarly, corporate strategy is seen as framing plans to be achieved in the future. CSoT refutes this, seeing our understanding of the world as determined by a priori conditions which are uncritically accepted. Critical theory seeks to expose these, and thereby release human beings from their ‘false consciousness’ to a position from which true potentiality can be attained. Steve Clarke

Lecture 3: INFORMATION SYSTEMS STRATEGY: THE THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS Steve Clarke

Lecture 3: INFORMATION SYSTEMS STRATEGY: THE THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS Summary • The analysis based on the sociological paradigms of Burrell and Morgan has provided a categorisation of approaches to ISS which has enabled critical development. • ISS seen from this perspective is best positioned within the radical humanist paradigm. • Within this paradigm, a relevant theoretical underpinning to IS and corporate strategy is to be found in the critical social theory of Jurgen Habermas. Developments in critical systems thinking, based on Habermasian theory, are seen to be particularly relevant to ISS. • A framework for IS strategic management based on this has been developed, and is presented within this chapter. Steve Clarke

Information Systems Strategic Management