TY - JOUR T1 - A pragmatic approach to managing enterprise IT infrastructures in the era of consumerization and individualization of IT JF - International Journal of Information Management Y1 - 2017 A1 - Mohammad Hossein Jarrahi A1 - Kevin Crowston A1 - Bondar, Kateryna A1 - Bernhard Katzy AB - Historically, organizations owned and controlled the information technologies (IT) their employees used: telephone, inter-office memos, mainframes and timesharing systems. Today, employees often want to use their own IT: not only personal smart phones and tablets, but also Twitter and Google Docs. This new trend can diversify and extend enterprise IT infrastructure, but leaves organizations struggling with technology uses that they cannot control. With the emergence of new technological paradigms in consumer markets and organizations, the management of IT infrastructure requires a more pragmatic and holistic approach that goes beyond simple technological considerations. In this paper, we present a three-part framework—technology, people and practice—that helps managers understand and mitigate these tensions. Drawing on two empirical studies of European executives and consultants form multiple management consulting firms, the paper further outlines changes taking place along the three aspects of the framework. It concludes by discussing three distinct approaches to the management of organizational IT infrastructure (passive, reactive, and pragmatic), and by offering greater insight regarding a pragmatic approach. VL - 37 IS - 6 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Alignment in an inter-organisational network: the case of ARC transistance JF - European Journal of Information Systems Y1 - 2016 A1 - Bernhard Katzy A1 - Sung, Gordon A1 - Kevin Crowston AB - We consider the processes of achieving alignment in coordinated inter-organizational networks through a case study of a system development project in ARC Transistance, a network of European automobile clubs that cooperate to provide pan-European service. The theoretical contribution of the paper is, first, an extended strategic alignment model for inter-organizational networks that distinguishes between integration of IS with business strategy and infrastructure, and what we label `accordance' between the strategies and infrastructures of the network and the member firms. Second, we propose that for a network organization, network and member strategies might be complementary as well as tightly coupled. We similarly argue that IS architectures for networks should strive for being `business strategy-neutral' to more easily accommodate the diversity of members. Finally, we discuss how the process of developing a network information system can be a driver towards network alignment, but how the lack of effective governance structures makes alignment harder to achieve. VL - 25 UR - http://rdcu.be/nvvw IS - 6 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Competency rallying for technical innovation: The case of the Virtuelle Fabrik JF - Technovation Y1 - 2008 A1 - Bernhard Katzy A1 - Kevin Crowston KW - Virtual Organization AB - Technology improves at an ever-increasing rate, but the speed at which firms can adapt their strategies and competencies to develop technological innovations and exploit market opportunities remains limited. While networks provide an option to increase agility through collaborative access to relevant external competencies, we know little about systematically managing such networks. This paper identifies a collaborative network process that we label competency rallying. We describe the set of inter-organizational routines involved in competency rallying in a case study of the interactions among the partners of the Virtuelle Fabrik, a case of an organized regional network in the manufacturing industry in Switzerland. We describe competency rallying as the (1) identification and development of competencies, (2) identification and facing of market opportunities, (3) marshalling of competencies, and (4) short-term cooperative effort for technological innovation and commercialization. The paper contributes a model that furthers the understanding of the organizational character of networks based on specific, learned network capabilities and which allows prediction of the likelihood of success of practical collaboration projects in networked organizations. VL - 28 ER - TY - Generic T1 - Competency rallying processes in virtual organizations T2 - Proceedings of the IFIP Working Group 8.2/9.5 Working Conference on Virtuality and Virtualization Y1 - 2007 A1 - Bernhard Katzy A1 - Kevin Crowston ED - Kevin Crowston ED - Seiber, Sandra KW - Virtual Organization AB - Firms face an environment changing at an increasingly rapid pace. Unfortunately, the speed at which organizations can adapt their strategies and competencies to exploit such opportunities remains limited. In this paper we weave together an external perspective on market-facing with an internal perspective on competency development and marshalling to describe the organizational activities necessary for firms to cooperate within a virtual organization. We argue that firms can address their individual limitations through a systematic process that we call “competence rallying,” with which they can access market opportunities and additional needed competencies. Specifically, we present a local process theory of how one network of firms reliably engineers and delivers manufacturing projects using an inter-organizational process that works to meet short-term market opportunities. Our theory is grounded in the experiences of the Virtuelle Fabrik project, an organized network for regional cooperation in the manufacturing industry around the Bodensee in Europe. The success of manufacturing projects in a virtual organization is predicated on specific organizational activities in four phases of the competence rallying process: 1) identification and development of competencies, 2) identification and facing of market opportunities, 3) marshalling of competencies, and 4) a short-term cooperative effort. The Virtuelle Fabrik project was started by the Institute for Technology Management, University of St. Gallen. Financial support was provided by The Swiss Commission for Scientific Research (KwF) and the Virtuelle Fabrik partner companies. The Virtuelle Fabrik project team included Günter Schuh, Bernhard Katzy, Kai Millarg, Thomas Zehnder, Stefan Eisen, and Åsa Göransson, as well as managers from the partner firms. The authors thank all of the participants in the Virtuelle Fabrik for their contributions and in particular, for the many discussions that led to the concepts discussed in this paper. The authors take sole responsibility for the work presented here. This paper has benefited greatly from discussion with Paul van Fenema, Steven Sawyer, Ping Zhang, Robert Heckman, Barbara Kwasnik, and Gisela von Dran. JF - Proceedings of the IFIP Working Group 8.2/9.5 Working Conference on Virtuality and Virtualization PB - Springer CY - Portland, OR ER - TY - BOOK T1 - Virtual Operations and Agile Organizations: workshop proceedings Y1 - 1997 ED - Bernhard Katzy ED - Kevin Crowston ED - Kumar, Kuldeep ED - van Fenema, P. KW - Virtual Organization PB - ASLIB CY - Rotterdam, The Netherlands N1 - European Agility Forum, August 21-22 1997 ER -