Toward a New Theory of the Contribution of the It Function in Organisations - Article Example

Article Review Name: Module Title and Number: Course Instructor: Date of Submission: Article Review Introduction The information technology (IT) function in organizations has transformed over the years due to the evolution of technology. This transformation has changed the way IT is used and managed in the organisation (Guillemette & Paré 2012, p.530). The transformation of IT functions in the organization is challenging for chief information officers (CIOs) because they have to constantly re-align the functions with the changing corporate strategies and objectives. This paper reviews a study by Guillemette and Paré (2012) on the challenge facing CIOs in aligning their IT functions with their corporate objectives. The review will provide a brief summary of the study and discuss the research approach used, the research methods, and the reliability of the findings and validity of the conclusions. Summary of the Study Guillemette and Paré (2012) argue that CIOs face two challenges with regards to alignment of the IT function to the business objectives. The first challenge is their limited understanding of organizational expectations and needs about IT. The second challenge is the cultural assumptions of top managers on the influence of IT in the organisation. Common assumptions are that technologies are survival measures or that IT should be controlled to reduce operational costs. These assumptions are driven by top management’s expectations on the value of IT skills, direction of IT use, centrality of IT to the business strategy and justifications for investment. Guillemette and Paré (2012) investigate these challenges by proposing and testing a theory on IT contributions to business objectives. The purpose of their study is to propose a theory on the role of IT functions in the organization to help CIOs meet top management expectations and align the function with the corporate objectives. The objectives of the study are to explain the role of IT function in the organization using ideal profiles derived from the typological theory and to describe the theoretical constructs influencing the management’s perceptions of IT. Research Approach and Philosophy Guillemette and Paré (2012) conducted a field study to investigate the role of the IT unction in 24 organizations in Canada. The aim of the field study was to investigate the type of IT profiles adopted by these organizations, the influence of each profile on the organization and the contingency factors affecting the adoption of the authors’ ideal profiles for CIOs. The field study was based on the grounded theory methodology. According to Zikmund, Babin, Carr and Griffin (2013, p.141), the grounded theory is an inductive analysis in which researchers pose questions to respondents. Researchers develop these questions from information given by respondents or from historical records. These questions help the researcher identify a possible explanation for a particular problem. The grounded theory methodology is common in qualitative studies where text analysis is supported by respondent interviews to help the researcher understand why a certain event or phenomenon occurs (May 2011). The use of grounded theory approach in the article helped Guillemette and Paré (2012) to use semi-structured interviews for data collection. Zikmund, Babin, Carr and Griffin (2013, p.141) observe that grounded theory is one of two approaches used in semi-structured interviews. The other approach is phenomenology. The advantages of grounded theory approach for the authors is that it helped them discus specific issues on the challenges of IT alignment and top managers’ perceptions on the influence of IT on business strategies. Grounded theory also helped the authors to interpret their results more easily because they had already identified a focus of their research study. Moreover, grounded theory supports qualitative research in that it helps researchers to analyze their recorded observations in the form of themes and topics. Lastly, grounded theory approach is more cost effective in semi-structured interviews than in focus groups or in depth interviews (May 2011). The only drawback with using grounded theory for semi-structured interviews is that the approach is not flexible. This rigidity hinders researchers from developing novel or creative explanations (Zikmund, Babin, Carr & Griffin 2013, p.141). This drawback means that the authors could not provide innovative explanations for the IT alignment problem affecting CIOs and top managers of dynamic organizations. Strengths and Weaknesses of Research Methods The article used semi-structured interview method. A two-part interview was created for the study. In the first part, the authors began each interview with broad questions on the function of IT in the organization. They then posed specific questions on the IT models and profiles used in the respondents’ organizations. These questions were derived from the themes from literature namely, skills, governance, activities and relationship of IT with business units. In the second part, the authors sought to determine the profiles adopted by each respondent’s organizations. This was to help them determine the validity of the typology theory. The authors also posed specific questions on the influence of IT on the organization and the reasons for adopting particular profiles. The authors recorded each interview and transcribed the recordings and the notes during the interview. They coded the transcriptions to come up with a profile of each company. Twenty-four profiles were created for each respondent. Each profile described the company number, industry, sales, the size of workforce, the size of IT staff, the seniority of the CIO in the company and the seniority of the CIO in the IT field. The authors then used immersion style to develop a coding scheme based on the company profiles and five profiles from the literature review section. They also used pattern matching to compare the theoretical profiles with thirty-three profiles derived from the data (Guillemette & Paré 2012). Semi-structured interviews presented a number of advantages for the study. Firstly, it allowed the researchers to write down the questions and the responses in essay-form. Zikmund, Babin, Carr and Griffin (2013) agree that the interview questions are in written form and allow respondents to provide essay responses. The questions give the respondents the freedom to write as much information as they want. In addition, having the questions in written form means that the researchers could prepare the interview questions ahead of time and administer to the respondents in their absence. This independence makes semi-structured interviews very cost effective for researchers. Secondly, the study allowed the authors to separate their semi-structured interview into general and more probing questions. This advantage of this separation is that it allows researchers to present opening questions at the beginning of the interview before they delve into probing questions. Delving into the probing questions after the general questions helps the researchers address the specific issues concerning their research problem (Zikmund, Babin, Carr & Griffin 2013). Thirdly, semi-structured telephone interviews allow more than one researcher to probe questions, monitor their interviewing skills and supervise the entire process. The involvement of the two authors in the interviews helped facilitate faster responses and supervise the entire process. Bryman (2012) agrees that telephone interviews are much simpler to monitor compared to personal interviews since the former allows interviewers to assess their mistakes in the way they ask questions or probe the respondents. The tape recordings of the interviews would help researchers to evaluate the quality of their data to improve their interviewing skills and reduce slip-ups such as incorrectly phased questions. Guillemette and Paré (2012) used inductive analysis and pattern matching when developing themes from the interview tape recordings. Lastly, pre-written semi-structured interviews are more cost effective than personal interviews. This is because researchers in personal interviews spend a lot of money and time travelling between the different respondents. The financial costs increase when the sample population is geographically dispersed. Presenting semi-structured interview questions via the telephone and computing system reduces travel costs for the researcher (Bryman 2012, p.214). Moreover, telephone interviews can be recorded entirely and used alongside computer-assisted programs to improve their cost and time efficiencies. Again, the anonymity of telephone interviews could encourage the respondents to reveal more about the research problem when they are probed. Semi-structured questions also present a number of disadvantages for the study. To begin with, a poorly worded or phrased question would affect quality of feedback from the respondents (Bryman 2012). An inexperienced researcher could phrase the open-ended questions in a manner that is likely to be misunderstood by the respondents. Wording could also confuse the interviewees and cause them to respond incorrectly. Face-to-face interviews would reduce the occurrence of this error since the interviewers could assess the interviewee’s non-verbal language to see if they have understood the question. Secondly, a semi-structured interview does not factor in the possibility of memory lapses from the interviewee. It assumes that the interviewee will remember all the facts needed to answer the questions. This could be true since Guillemette and Paré (2012) assumed that interviewees had a firm grasp of their IT challenges and their ability to align the IT function with the core business objectives. Thirdly, the way the interviewers record and process information affects the outcome of the research study (Bryman 2012). For instance, semi-structured telephone interviews do not allow the researcher to collect more than 20 minutes of responses whereas face-to-face interviews allow longer interview times. Again, semi-structured telephone interviews do not perform well when collecting information on sensitive issues (such as the respondent’s health, drug use, tax returns and household income. This is because respondents are less likely to provide sensitive information over the telephone. Furthermore, the use of call screening has a negative effect on the response rate of telephone interviews (Bryman 2012, p.215). Reliability of Results and Validity of Conclusions Bryman (2012) and May (2011) observe that researchers could improve the reliability of their findings by asking the right questions, eliminating ambiguous questions, recording the answers, verifying the authenticity of keyed responses (by comparing the recorded answers with the transcribed answers), and giving clear instructions for the questions. Guillemette and Paré (2012) achieved reliability by monitoring the transcription of their recordings so that the final transcripts were verbatim. The findings revealed that their theory could improve IT function alignment by using a proposed typology, give contingency explanations of the influence of IT functions, and propose the ideal profiles for IT functions in the respondents’ organizations. The authors also reiterated that they were confident in the reliability of their findings. On the validity of the conclusions, Guillemette and Paré (2012) explained that a quantitative analysis of each profile would have improved the validity. They observed that quantitative research provides a variety of analytical techniques, which would have supported their findings and conclusions on the recommended profiles for the respondents’ organizations. Conclusion The review has shown that the purpose of the article was to examine the challenges facing CIOs in aligning their IT function with corporate objectives and strategies. The article used grounded theory methodology which is common in qualitative studies. The methodology influenced the researchers’ use of semi-structured questionnaires to collect information on the challenges in IT alignment and the influence of IT functions on the organization (profiles). The responses were coded and transcribed verbatim to ensure the reliability of the findings. However, the authors observed that quantitative analysis would have improved the validity of the conclusions since the analyses would have examined the strengths and weaknesses of each profile created for the respondents’ organizations. References Bryman, A 2012, Social research methods, Oxford, Oxford. Guillemette, MG & Paré, G 2012, ‘Toward a new theory of the contribution of the IT function in organisations’, MIS Quarterly, vol. 36, no. 2, pp. 529-551. May, T 2011, Social research: Issues, methods and research, McGraw-Hill International, New York. Zigmund, WG, Babin, B, Carr, JC & Griffin, M 2012, Business research methods, South Western, Mason, OH. Read More