Categorizing nations

1
Categorizing nations

• Advanced Countries
• United States
• European countries
• Australia
• Newly Industrialized Countries
• Singapore
• Developing Countries
• India
• Lesser Developed Countries
• African countries

2
Advanced countries US top 5 issues

• Aligning IS and corporate goals
• Instituting cross-functional systems
• Organizing and utilizing data
• Reengineering the business processes through the
  use of technology
• Improving IS human resource

3
Advanced countries Europe top 5 issues

• Instituting cross-functional systems
• Improving IS human resource
• Reengineering the business process through the
  use of technology (tied for 3rd place)
• Cutting IS costs (tied for 3rd place)
• Creating an information architecture

4
Advanced countries Australia top 5 issues

• Improve IT strategic planning
• Building a responsive IT structure
• Aligning IS and corporate goals
• Effective use of data resources
• IS for competitive advantage

5
Newly Industrialized Countries Singapore top 5
issues

• Measuring and improving IS effectiveness
• Managing end-user computing
• Keeping current with new technology
• Integrating data, office automation, and
  telecommunications
• Training

6
Developing countries India top 5 issues

• Understanding contribution of IS
• Human resources for IS
• Quality of input data
• Educating senior managers about IS
• Developing user-friendly systems

7
Lesser Developed Countries African top 5 issues

• Obsolescence of hardware
• Obsolescence of software
• Proliferation of mixed vendor shops
• Availability of skilled MIS people
• Government interference in computer market

8
IS Concerns vary by country

Infrastructure Issues
Operational Issues
Management and Control Issues
Strategic Issues
Under-developed countries
Developing countries
Newly Industrialized
Advanced countries
(from Palvia and Palvia, 1996)
9
And what about companies that operate in all
environments?
10
Based on the Issues.

• Number of country specific factors influence
  issues rankings
• The issues themselves are often a reflection of
  the economic development of a nation
• Global IS managers must be aware of the specific
  country issues and the factors that influence
  them

11
Dimensions Influencing Key IS Issues
National Culture
Key IS Issues
Technological Status
Political/Legal Environment
Economic Structure
12
Technological Status

• Pagers in China?
• Telephone lines in Estonia
• Economic status affects this factor
• Gulf countries became economic powers in the
  1970s and only recently started investing in
  infrastructure

13
Political and Legal environment

• Political transformation in Eastern Europe has
  impacted businesses, and in turn, IS and IT
• EU laws will require great changes in existing
  systems and procedures
• Restrictions in Internet use in various countries
  affects Electronic Commerce

14
Economic structure

• Level of economic advancement influences the IS
  issues that are important
• Usually indicated by GDP

15
IS Concerns vary by countryGDP

Infrastructure Issues
Operational Issues
Management and Control Issues
Strategic Issues
Under-developed countries
Developing countries
Newly Industrialized
Advanced countries
(from Palvia and Palvia, 1996)
16
Cultureisnt everyone basically the same?

• Japanese prefer fax to email
• Israelis are not big users of word-processing
  packages
• Indian programmers are too polite
• In Spain, the OK symbol is considered vulgar
• Malaysian programmers may be fluent in English
  but have no idea of slang terms.

17
What is Culture?

• culture is defined as an integrated system of
  learned behavior patterns that are characteristic
  of the members of any society. It includes
  everything a group thinks, says, does, and makes
  its customs, language, material artifacts, and
  shared systems of attitudes and feelings -
  Czinkota, et al (1996), p.298

18
Global Information Systems

• Information Technology (IT) facilitates the
  global transformation of business
• Crossing border poses challenges to technology
  managers
• geographic
• legal
• cultural
• temporal
• need radical changes to existing technology
  infrastructures and management

19
Types of global enterprises

• Devised by Bartlett and Ghoshal (1989)
• International
• Global
• Multinational
• Transnational

20
The International Strategy

• Subsidiaries leverage parent competencies
• Coordinated federation

21
Global

• RD, manufacturing done at HQ
• Strategic decisions are centralized
• Central hub

22
Multinational

• Multidomestic
• Aims at local responsiveness
• Knowledge developed/retained at subsidiary level
• Decentralized federation

23
Transnational

• Shared decision-making
• Complex coordination
• Centers of excellence
• Dispersed resources
• Integrated network

24
Jarvenpaa and Ives (1993)

• Built on work by Karimi and Konsysnki
• Based their work on Information Processing Theory
  (Galbraith 1973)
• Good fit when information processing capacities
  of firm match requirements of environment and
  technology
• Jarvenpaa and Ives develop typology of 4 global
  IT management configurations

25
The Global IT Strategies

• Intellectual Synergy
• Headquarters Driven
• Independent IT Operations
• Global Integrated IT
• IS managers strive for best fit between above
  strategy and perceived global strategy

26
Intellectual Synergy

• Includes several global systems
• Each likely to be tailored for individual use
• Each run independently by the subsidiary
• Subsidiary-HQ IS relationship characterized by
• Personal contacts
• Cooperation
• Shared learning

27
Headquarters Driven

• All IT-related decisions made by headquarters
• Goal is
• To achieve efficiency
• To avoid duplication of development effort

28
Independent IT Operations

• Independent systems initiatives in each
  subsidiary
• Focus on local responsibility
• Few, if any, common systems through the firm
• Fosters sense of systems ownership

29
Global Integrated IT

• Strives for worldwide integration of IT that
  supports core competencies of firm
• Dispersed resources
• Numerous common systems
• Applications for non-core areas run locally

30
Empirical Findings

• Data collected from 109 global companies
• Moderate level of fit number of misfits
• Misfits explained by problems with
• Hardware/software vendor support quality
• Telecommunications support
• Senior management support for IT
• Pressure for cost savings
• Subsidiary resistance