Multi-channel provisioning of public services - Department of ...

change creation, pro-action, reaction, and learning. They are passive and active strategies to embrace
change and to strengthen the dynamic capabilities of the organisation through learning. This
classification of agile activities into passive and active additionally indicates the timing of activities
with respect to the changes that occur.
Robustness or resilience is the ability to endure all transitions caused by foreseen or unforeseen
changes, or the degree of change tolerated before deterioration in performance occurs without any
corrective action (Hashitnoto, 1980). As robustness is a result of non-action it is not classified as an
agile activity itself, but it is rather the result of a given configuration of dynamic capabilities.
3.3 Resource flexibility and flexibility in an information systems perspective
Resource flexibility is defined as the ability of a resource to be used for more than one end product
(Duncan, 1995). The greater the flexibility of the resource, the more options the firm has for
diversifying into less related end products. IT-Infrastructure flexibility can be understood as the degree
to which its resources are shareable and reusable, and is described through connectivity, the ability of
any technology component to attach to any other component; compatibility, the ability to share any
type of information across any technology component; and modularity, the ability to add, modify and
remove any component with ease and with no major overall effect (ibid). The first capabilities are
strongly related to that of interoperability.
Flexibility within computer science and information systems development is different from that of a
common (interpretative) understanding of the term: It denotes either flexibility for further changes, or
flexibility in the pattern of use (Hanseth et al., 1996). This means that the processes, methods and
technologies through which the information system components have been developed affect the
irreversibility and the interpretative flexibility of these components, and that these processes may
support flexibility of use and further changes as well. This might be called anticipated and alternating
flexibility (ibid).
In an inter-enterprise setting, Gosain et al. (2005) propose that coordination outcomes, allowing for
flexibility goals to be attained, can be achieved through advance structuring (Appropriately structuring
inter-organisational information flows and interconnected processes in order to reduce the effort
involved in adjusting to changing business environment) and dynamic adjustment (Using ITsupported
learning and adaptation to effectively and quickly reconfigure a set of inter-organisational
processes supporting the changed business environment) (ibid).
3.4 Service and process flexibility
Gong et al. (2009) defines service flexibility as the ability to allow outsourcing or in-house handling of
single services. In BPM systems, the process itself can be static, predefined, based on knowledge or
business rules (ibid), or dynamic or ad hoc. It is common to distinguish between straight through
processing, where the goal is to achieve full process automation, and case handling, where the process
is too variable or complex to model in a single diagram (van der Aalst et al., 2003). Process models for
public service provisioning can additionally be descriptive, acting as guidelines for physical services
rendered, or as support for knowledge workers in case handling. In those situations, the process can be
data or context-driven, providing support for alternative routes depending on the status of the
current process. Interactive process models/active models are processes that can be partially automated
and partially manually executed. (Krogstie and Jørgensen, 2004). The model diagram and the
supporting information system are connected so that changes in the model are reflected within the
information system (Lillehagen and Krogstie, 2008).
Schonenberg et al. (2008) suggests a taxonomy for process flexibility involving flexibility by design
(incorporate alternate execution paths within a process model at design time); flexibility by deviation
(the run-time deviation from the prescribed execution of a process instance); flexibility by
underspecification (enabling an incomplete process, similar to that of an interactive process model, to
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