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sense of information. This transformation of information
into actionable knowledge is however paired with numerous
challenges that are slowly manifesting themselves as firms
develop organizational arrangements that focus on organizing
around information. This paper is therefore occupied with
framing, defining and describing the promises of these
technologies and the challenges they pose on organizational
arrangements. Our purpose is to analyze, debate and present
possible avenues for a new stream of research in organizational
studies.
05:02
An organizational perspective on best practice to the multicore
paradigm shift
Ericsson, Morgan; Wingkvist, Anna
Linnaeus University, DFM, Växjö, Sweden
In the early 2000s, processors hit a speed wall; it was no longer
feasible to increase the clock speed due to fundamental physics.
The power density of the processors simply became too high
and clock frequencies beyond 5GHz melted the chips. Previous
to this, clock frequencies had increased by about 30% each
year, which in essence, was a free performance gain for any
software.
Moore’s law continues to hold, but performance now scales
by increasing the number of processing cores per chip. From a
software perspective, this means that the free lunch is over. In
order to leverage performance gains, there is a need to increase
the concurrency of software. This is a revolution akin to that of
object-orientation.
Multi-core is a disruptive technology, and is causing a new
software crisis. Current software will not continue to scale
without large changes to the code to make it concurrent.
These change pose a problem, since concurrency is difficult,
and the tools, from algorithms to languages, are generally not
up to standards. The issue is further complicated by the great
differentiation of multi-core architectures; even if we had an
algorithm and language, the implementation details would
differ with respect to both algorithm and other architectures.
In this paper, we study the impact of multi-core from three
perspectives. First, we study the research and development
community, and how the state of the art is advanced during the
disruptive time. Second, we study the impact on the software
development organizations from a resource perspective, for
example the need to re-train staff. Third, we study the problem
from an organizational perspective with a focus on how the
multi-core change will affect it, for example with respect to IT
investments, gain, and risks. Each perspective contributes with
best practice.
From an organizational perspective, we find that a move to
Cloud computing, i.e. Software as a Service and Platform as
a Service, can be beneficial. These allow the organization to
move away from internal software and/or hardware, and the
costs related to development, maintenance and so on. Cloud
solutions will also offer a greater scalability, reliability, agility,
and so on, at a lower economic risk.
05:03
Management control – increasingly a case of e-learning?
Westelius, Alf
LiU, EIS, Linköping, Sweden
Traditionally, management control has been a question of
reporting and analysis of (monetary) data. Management has
been a realm for visioning, boundary-setting and dialogue. The
increasing use of computers in organizational administration
– and actual performance of organizational tasks – has lead
to an increased availability of (non-monetary) data, that
could be used to support “fact-based” management - and
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perhaps help controllers become more business relevant, when
viewed from line management and grassroots perspectives. It
is not obvious that this has led to an actual change in what
constitutes management, or even how management control is
actually enacted and experienced. Partly as a response to this,
partly as an attempt to turn the e-learning hype into something
useful, some organizations are now attempting to use the
power of digitization and the pervasiveness of computers
in contemporary life as ingredients in a novel way for
management control purposes. E-learning is designed to instill
awareness of, and knowledge in, top-management-approved
corporate values and practices and combined with e-quizzes.
Thus, management directives asking employees to study and
accept particular values and practices can now be realized
to a greater degree, and the actual employee attention and
retention of such messages can be easily monitored. How much
of the novel – and successful – image of this addition to the
management control repertoire remains after closer scrutiny? In
this article, I present my attempts to investigate such systematic
attempts to employ e-learning and e-based monitoring of
e-learning for management control purposes.
05:04
The implementation and use of an enterprise system as a
“Process of Muddling Through”
Melin, Ulf
Linkoping University, Department of Management and
Engineering, Information Systems, Linkoping, Sweden
Enterprise systems are the backbone of many firms of today.
The implementation process is complex; so is the system itself.
We need frameworks and concepts to understand complex
implementation processes and use of enterprise systems. This
paper analyse what we can learn from an enterprise system
case of an Engineering Firm, using central concepts and
line of thinking from “The Science of Muddling through”,
e.g. two approaches: by root and by branch. Elements of a
rational-planning approach (by root) are identified in the case
concerning the handling of enterprise system maintenance.
However the identification of elements compared to the second
approach (by branch), the process of muddling through, is
more outstanding. The rational-planning approach is evident
in the rhetoric encompassing the system. The muddling
through process is more evident in the everyday life with the
system. Concepts in the process of muddling through can
help us to understand and highlight a number of choices and
actions when implementing and using the system (e.g. values
and objectives, means and ends, decision making, alternative
choices and the use of theory vs. practice). However these
concepts are not sufficient alone, we need to focus on other
concepts and phenomena discussed in this paper.
05:05
The hen or the egg? IT innovations’ influence on business
strategy
Cöster, Mathias1 ; Petri, Carl2 1 2 Gotland University, Visby, Sweden; Linköping University,
Linköping, Sweden
Concepts on business strategy and management control often
underscore the necessity that companies in their strategic
process strives to first set goals and strategies and thereafter
conduct investments in organization and technologies. Studies
on the value of IT investments often come to an opposite
result though: IT enables and induces strategic change and
these changes are necessary in order to gain value from the
investment. Based on empirical studies of the Swedish graphic
industry this paper concludes that strategic development is
often an outcome of ad-hoc solutions that arise when IT is