Monday, June 16, 2008, Hotel Golf Jupiter 1, 14:00 - 15:30 

Chair:
Martin Smits, Associate Professor of Information Systems and Management,
Tilburg University, The Netherland

Panelists:
Rainer Alt, Professor of Information Systems
University of Leipzig, Germany
Stefan Klein, Professor of Inter-organizational Systems
ERCIS, Münster University, Gemany
Hannu Salmela, Professor
Institute of Information Systems Sciences, Turku School of Economics, Finland
Rolf T. Wigand, Jerry L. Maulden - Entergy Chair and Distinguished Professor of Information Science and Management,
Donaghey College of Information Science and Systems Engineering (CyberCollege), Department of Information Science, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, United States

Panel outline

Despite the critical role of IT in inter-organizational arrangements, the coordination of IT decisions within business networks is a fairly unexplored area, both in research and in practice. The processes through which the orchestration of IT in networks takes place are largely hidden and it is unclear how IT orchestration affects (and is affected by) the design of intra- and inter-organizational business processes, and, ultimately, business network performance. We define the orchestration of IT in networks as “managing business processes and IT processes within and across organizations in business networks aiming to improve organizational and business network performance”.

The panel will focus on the interactions between business governance and IT governance at the network level, using the well known strategic alignment model and the extension of this model for analysis at the network level (see e.g. Torabkani et al, Bled 2007). The aim of the panel is to provide empirical evidence for linkages (coordination) between business and IT planning at the network level. The panel will address questions like: How does governance operate? Which types of governance are effective?

The panel will start with short presentations of cases of IT enabled business networks, illustrating the wealth of different network types, network relations, and market relations. Each case illustrates the planning of IT and business on the network level. The main part of the panel will identify a variety of perspectives (lenses) for the analysis of business governance and IT governance in networks. Lenses may include ‘types of coordination (contracts, hierarchies, and markets) in business networks’, ‘different levels of performance measurement’, ‘different management domains for information resources, applications, and IT infrastructure’. The third and last part of the panel will identify directions and methodological issues for research and management issues regarding IT-governance in network organizations. A substantial effort will be made to involve the audience in the identification of perspectives, directions for research, and management issues.