Introduction to information systems in global business

This year’s mini-track on information systems in global business continues the tradition of applied research and original data analysis in a wide range of information technology and international business contexts. The papers cover many of the topical issues facing academics and managers working in information systems: outsourcing; productivity issues; Business to Business and supply chain innovations; implementation of ERP; marketing strategies and the emergence of global market networks. However these topics are examined with an emphasis on their global dimension. How does outsourcing change as it becomes a global process? What are the differences of B2B implementation in a developing economy compared with B2B systems in the US? How do country differences affect the global deployment of an ERP system? These are the types of issues that will be covered and discussed in the IS in global business mini-track. The downturn of stock-markets worldwide has reduced business spending on information systems and had a dramatic effect on the value and in some cases, viability of information technology companies. It has also raised the urgency for cost reduction, and in particular encouraged the use of offshore, or global, outsourcing services. The paper by Currie and Khan investigates the supply side of IT outsourcing services based on case research in twenty Indian companies. They argue that for Indian technology companies to succeed in the global outsourcing market, they must develop capabilities that enable them to move away from simple commoditized products to offer more sophisticated services that involve extensive research and development. The papers by Ganley, Kraemer and Wong, and Shao and Shu are related insofar as they analyze the economic effects of the IT industry in different countries. Ganleey et al assess the impact of IT production on the diffusion of IT within individual countries, and found a positive relationship in developed countries, and no relation in developing countries where it is assumed that the IT industry is focused on export rather than domestic use. Shao and Shu examine the productivity of the IT industry itself (rather than the more common study of how IT affects the general economy) and found that most of the increase in productivity within the IT industry is due to technological innovation in the production process. Both of these papers have significant implications on government policy and business strategy of IT companies. The second session is focused on large-scale infrastructure systems in the areas of ERP and business to business systems. The first paper by Reimers is concerned with the development and evolution of electronic commerce in China. It explores a fascinating concept of an industry-wide information system in which a set of standards for electronic commerce are agreed before the internal infrastructures centred on ERP are finalised. In the US and Europe, companies are grappling with the issues of defining inter-organizational systems after the internal systems have been implemented. The Chinese initiative leads to the intriguing possibility that the distinction between internal and external linkages will dissolve, at least from an information technology perspective. The paper by Nandhakumar, Rossi and Talvinen explores the notion of ‘ERP drift’ where the original objectives are lost through a gradual shifting of requirements over the implementation of the system. This is a well known problem in industry, and one that has received little attention from academic researchers. Fairchild and Peterson discuss the issue of infrastructure from a business perspective, and identify specific valuedrivers in different trading contexts within the financial services industry. The third session continues with the focus on infrastructure, and the paper by Thatcher and Foster explores the problem of ecommerce uptake in Taiwan using theory from the general literature on IT adoption. One interesting result from this work is that the industry differences within the same country appear to be much more significant than other government and industry factors in determining the speed and prevalence of electronic commerce. The final paper by Kuo and Smits is a detailed study of the operational performance of an international supply chain in a high-technology industry, and it identifies the importance of non-IT factors that should be in place, in addition to the use of integrated information systems with suppliers.