Competitive agility and the challenge of legacy information systems
Industrial Management & Data SystemsPublished 1 February 2002
Sabine Reddy, Ram Reddy
Citations38
SJR quartileQ1
SJR score1.28
SNIP1.37
Generate an AI Snapshot to get a quick, structured summary of this paper.
Study Snapshot
ObjectiveStudy objective
MethodsResearch methodology
PopulationPopulation studied
Sample sizeSample sizes
OutcomesStudy outcomes here
ResultsStudy results comes here
LimitationsResearch study limitations comes here
A concise AI-generated summary of the paper will appear here once you click Generate AI Snapshot.
TL;DR
This paper uses the popular concept of the organizational life cycle to demonstrate how and when to respond to new competitive challenges and opportunities of large multinational corporations with their legacy information systems.
Abstract
Using a case study in the temporary services industry, this paper illustrates the common concerns of large multinational corporations with their legacy information systems. The paper uses the popular concept of the organizational life cycle to demonstrate how and when to respond to new competitive challenges and opportunities. Organizational and systems rigidities faced by large and mature firms are identified. These rigidities include: a multitude of diverse and globally dispersed systems that need to remain operational while new systems are being implemented, thus diverting staff attention from development to maintenance; formalized, but possibly outdated business processes are embedded into existing information systems; within each functional area, “ownership” relationships exist regarding business processes and related IT systems; and difficulties in achieving cross‐functional consensus for cross‐functional systems.
Keywords
Business, Management and Accounting
Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors
16,836 Citations1980Michael E. Porter
Academy of Management ReviewOrganizational Strategy, Structure, and Process
7,092 Citations1978Raymond E. Miles, Charles C. Snow +2 more
Competing for the Future
5,331 Citations1994Gary Hamel, C. K. Prahalad
PubMedPutting the enterprise into the enterprise system.
3,278 Citations1998Thomas H. Davenport
The author discusses the pros and cons of implementing an enterprise system, showing how a system can produce unintended and highly disruptive consequences and cautions against shifting responsibility for its adoption to technologists.
American Economic ReviewEntry, Exit, Growth, and Innovation over the Product Life Cycle
2,479 Citations1996Steven Klepper
Communications of the ACMThe productivity paradox of information technology
2,430 Citations1993Erik Brynjolfsson
The increased interest in the «productivity paradox,» as it has become known, has engendered a significant amount of research, but thus far, this has only deepened the mystery.
Strategic Management JournalInformation technology as competitive advantage: the role of human, business, and technology resources
2,008 Citations1997Thomas C. Powell, Anne Dent‐Micallef
The findings show that ITs alone have not produced sustainable performance advantages in the retail industry, but that some firms have gained advantages by using ITs to leverage intangible, complementary human and business resources such as flexible culture, strategic planning-IT integration, and supplier relationships.
MIS QuarterlySustaining IT Advantage: The Role of Structural Differences
922 Citations1991Eric K. Clemons, Michael C. Row
This work identifies and examines some opportunities for deploying IT to leverage structural resource differences among firms, including differences in vertical integration and diversification as well as differences in the quality and organization of key resources.
Journal of EconometricsSelection corrections for panel data models under conditional mean independence assumptions
910 Citations1995Jeffrey M. Wooldridge
Journal of the Operational Research SocietyShaping the Future: Business Design Through Information Technology.
736 Citations1993Gary Dakin, Peter G. W. Keen
Long Range PlanningHow to manage an IT outsourcing alliance
674 Citations1995
The authors offer their suggestions for determining when to outsource and how to structure and manage the resulting alliance, and view the outsourcing agreement as a strategic alliance and manage it as such.
MIS QuarterlyInformation Technology and Corporate Strategy: A Research Perspective
648 Citations1986J. Yannis Bakos, Michael E. Treacy
The major efforts to arrive at a relevant framework are surveyed and the focus then turns to the major research issues in understanding the impact of information technology on competitive strategy.
Toward a Contingency Theory of Business Strategy
581 Citations1990Charles W. Hofer
Administrative Science QuarterlyRoutine Technology, Social Structure, and Organization Goals
572 Citations1969Jerald Hage, Michaël Aiken
California Management ReviewOrganizing and Leading “Heavyweight” Development Teams
444 Citations1992Kim B. Clark, Steven C. Wheelwright
Strategic Management JournalCompetitive strategy under uncertainty
407 Citations1987Birger Wernerfelt, Aneel Karnani
Information & ManagementInformation systems for sustainable competitive advantage
326 Citations1986Eric K. Clemons
General conditions that appear necessary for sustainable competitive advantage are developed and are augmented with data on a few unsuccessful attempts to exploit information technology and with economic theory where appropriate.
MIS QuarterlyInformation Systems For Competitive Advantage: Implementation of a Planning Process
240 Citations1985Nick Rackoff, Charles Wiseman +1 more
Management ScienceCompeting in Product and Service: A Product Life-Cycle Model
221 Citations1997Morris A. Cohen, Seungjin Whang
Journal of Business StrategyAN ERP GAME PLAN
187 Citations1999Stephen P. Laughlin
Don't believe vendors who tell you it will be easy to implement an enterprise resource planning system; it won't be, but it's not impossible, either.
Southern Economic JournalSurvival of Firms over the Product Life Cycle
151 Citations1997Rajshree Agarwal
Journal of Management Information SystemsThe Congruence between a Firm’s Competitive Strategy and Information Technology Leader’s Rank and Role
123 Citations1996Jahangir Karimi, Yash P. Gupta +1 more
Based on the responses from 213 IT leaders in the financial services industry, this study found that the rank and role of a firm's IT leader must be aligned with the firm's competitive strategy.
International Journal of Purchasing and Materials ManagementThe Product Life Cycle: A Tool for Functional Strategic Alignment
120 Citations1998Laura Birou, Stanley E. Fawcett +1 more
Journal of Management StudiesSystems for Sustainable Organizations: Emergent Strategies, Interactive Controls and Semi‐formal Information
81 Citations1998Charles S. Osborn
Journal of Organizational Change ManagementConsulting in mergers and acquisitions
69 Citations1997Mitchell Lee Marks
MIS QuarterlyCompetitive Information Systems in Support of Pricing
66 Citations1986Cynthia Mathis Breath, Blake Ives
Two familiar information systems concepts, the Anthony framework and information attributes, are combined to produce a methodology for identifying one class of competitive information systems, systems in support of product pricing.
Information Systems ManagementDO STRATEGIC SYSTEMS REALLY PAY OFF?An Analysis of Classic Strategic IT Cases
36 Citations1995William J. Kettinger, Varun Grover +1 more
Factors that enhance sustainability and a diagnostic tool for ranking systems in your company's IS portfolio are provided and some of the more famous strategic systems in business are studied.
Journal of Management StudiesORGANIZATION DESIGN AND THE LIFE‐CYCLES OF PRODUCTS [1]
31 Citations1985Lex Donaldson
International Journal of Technology ManagementInformation technology mediated Business Process Management - lessons from the supply chain
30 Citations1999Frederick Hewitt
It is possible that the adoption of a Business Process Management (BPM) approach, combined with the use of existing information processing techniques to interrogate and surround the legacy systems may prove to be the most acceptable solution to the legacy system problem.
Communications of the ACMLegacy object modeling speeds software integration
25 Citations1998W. B. Noffsinger, Robert Niedbalski +2 more
Handed down from a previous generation of developers, often with a long history of adaptation to the enterprise, the ‘legacy’ now exists in an almost exclusively physical form frequently with inadequate or absent user and technical documentation.
Academy of Management ReviewStrategic Self-Renewal: A Planning Framework for Today
22 Citations1984Balaji S. Chakravarthy