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the role of inter-organisational systems in  collaborative networks

PRTLI_INTERORG

This is one of the five major Whitaker Institute projects financed under Cycle 3 of the PRTLI (Programme of Research in Third Level Institutions) managed by the Higher Education Authority under the Irish Government's National Development Plan.

Background

Traditionally, organisations have competed on the basis of three strategic imperatives; (i) efficiency, (ii) quality, and (iii) flexibility (Suarez et al., 1995). Flexibility has become the new competitive battle area (De Meyer et al., 1989; Lambert and Peppard, 1993). For some, flexibility has become 'a bedrock strategic dimension' (Das and Elango, 1995).
One avenue through which organisations can create flexibility is through using collaborative networks (Harrison, 1994; Eloranta et al., 1995).
Indeed, Powell (1990) argues that networks of organisations may in fact be in the process of becoming the signature institutional form of this era. Such networks provide greater flexibility than that achievable through the vertical integration of a single organisation (Cooke, 1988; Sayer, 1989). Such networks facilitate the by organisations to focus on their 'core competencies' (Hamel and Prahalad, 1994).

The fundamental enabler of such networks is IT (Venkatraman, 1994). It enables the network by facilitating rapid information exchange between firms (Harrison, 1994; Richardson, 1996). Such systems are referred to as Inter-organisational Systems (IOS) in the Information System literature. At an organisational level Golden and Powell (forthcoming) found that certain organisational factors were related to the degree of flexibility obtained from IOS. Further Golden and Powell (1999) demonstrated at an exploratory level that IOS facilitates diverse levels of flexibility at the level of the network or value chain.

The purpose of the proposed research is to extend previous research by Golden and Powell. It seeks to investigate the extent to which Inter-organisational Systems facilitate flexible regional inter-firm networks. This will be achieved by investigating: the role of IOS in facilitating inter-firm collaboration, the extent to which IOS facilitates flexible inter-firm networks, the extent to which IOS assists organisations in focusing on their 'core competencies', and the key factors for success in creating IOS to support flexible collaborative networks.

Project Leader:

Dr Brian Donnellan

Participants:

Dr Tom Acton

Dr Brian Donnellan

Dr Willie Golden

Eoin Higgins

Murray Scott

Eoin Whelan

Dr SusannaXin Xu

Technical Description

Task 1

Investigation of previous research on IOS and collaborative networks

While literature exists on these two phenomena - IOS and collaborative inter-firm networks little research has been conducted which investigates the inter-dependence of the two distinct areas of research. The purpose of this task is to conduct an extensive literature review that would provide a synthesis of these two research areas. Such research will extract the common threads and divergent issues within the two phenomena. The outcome of this research will be a theoretical model which identifies the relationships between IOS technology and the degree of flexibility achieved in inter-firm networks.

Task 2

Preliminary investigation of the influence of IOS on flexible inter-firm networks

This task seeks to legitimise the theoretical model developed in task 1. It will be completed by firstly conducting in-depth interviews with firms that make use of IOS as part of their inter-firm collaboration. The unit of analysis will be the network - to the extent that what is under investigation is the extent to which the collaborative network, facilitated by IOS competes against other networks and vertically integrated organisations. The purpose of such research is to refine the theoretical model and develop a set of constructs that can be tested.

Task 3

Detailed investigation of the influence of IOS on flexible inter-firm networks

This task will use a postal questionnaire that will seek to provide statistical rigour to the model that was created in Task 1 and refined in Task 2. The outcome of this task will be identification of the key factors that are related to the degree of flexibility achieved from IOS in inter-firm networks. As a result of such analysis a prescriptive model of best practice will emerge

Publications, presentations etc, for this project:

Please visit the Project Participants' webpage for details of publications associated with this research.

 

    

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