* CALL FOR PAPERS *

* Special Issue of the Journal of Management Information Systems *

* Information Technology and Organizational Governance: Symbiosis and Dynamics *

SPECIAL ISSUE CO-EDITORS

Amrit Tiwana, University of Georgia

Benn Konsynski, Emory University

N. Venkatraman, Boston University

* Complete information available in printable PDF @ http://JMISgov.myweb.uga.edu

Information technology (IT) has spawned previously unfeasible forms of organizational governance, and these new logics have simultaneously amplified the need for effective IT governance. For example, contemporary platform-centric ecosystems (such as Apple’s iOS community and Android’s developer network), open source development (e.g., Ubuntu Linux), knowledge creation platforms (e.g., Starbucks’ idea-generation wiki), knowledge aggregation platforms (e.g., Wikipedia), self-organizing digital networks (e.g., peer-to-peer systems such as Folding @ Home and SETI that facilitate massively-distributed collaboration), and similar mass-collaboration-oriented organizational arrangements were previously unfeasible. These emergent governance arrangements have altered the conventional notions of organizational boundaries and have ushered in network-forms different from those found in traditional industry configurations.

How organizations govern their IT activities has similarly evolved into an intricate mosaic of dispersed decision rights spanning organizations, entities, and institutions—often involving a multiplicity of stakeholders. Such IT governance arrangements defy the conventional characterization of centralization-- decentralization or insourcing—outsourcing of IT activities pervasive in the extant IT governance literature.

The goal of this special issue is to foster groundbreaking theory development and empirical research at the interface of information technology and organizational governance. The scope of this call is intentionally broad, with an emphasis on the symbiotic and dynamic relationship between IT and organizational governance. We particularly encourage research on two broad themes: (a) IT-enabled governance of new organizing logics, forms, and configurations and (b) governance of IT activities and artifacts.

SPECIAL ISSUE EDITORIAL BOARD

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- Andrew Burton-Jones, University of British Columbia

- Ashley Bush, Florida State University

- Samer Faraj, McGill University

- Eric van Heck, Erasmus University

- JJ Hsieh, Hong Kong Polytechnic University

- Jerry Luftman, Stevens Institute of Technology

- Arvind Malhotra, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

- T. Ravichandran, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

- Gautam Ray, University of Minnesota

- Mani Subramani, University of Minnesota

- Huseyin Tanriverdi, University of Texas at Austin

TOPICS

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Two broad illustrative sets of research problems that the special issue is particularly interested in—but not limited to—include the following.

a. IT-enabled governance of innovative organizational forms and arrangements:

- Realization and governance of massively-distributed IT-enabled organizational form

- Platform-centric ecosystems (such as iOS, Android, Linux) where software “cores” enable coordination and integration of the autonomous work of thousands of volunteer collaborators

- IT-enabled repartitioning of decision rights, especially as the strategic assumption of information scarcity gets replaced by information abundance (e.g., via sense making based on massive amounts of real-time data using business analytics)

- Configurations of control mechanisms in such massively-distributed organizational arrangements such as global expertise networks, mass-collaboration networks, and product co-creation communities

- Dynamics of control evolution, particularly where control is observed in the absence of conventional principal-agent relationships

- Evolutionary dynamics, survival, and mortality of such organizational arrangements

- The role of IT architecture as a coordination device, especially in massively-distributed organizational arrangements where conventional coordination devices such as hierarchical authority do not readily scale.

b. Governance of information technology activities and artifacts:

- Co-evolution of organizational governance and IT governance

- Nuanced conceptualizations of IT governance as partitioning of different classes of decision rights among multiple stakeholders within and across conventional firm boundaries

- The dynamics of IT governance evolution, particularly its temporal oscillation between extremes of centralization and decentralization

- Consequences of misfits between IT governance arrangements and environmental dynamics

- The role of IT governance in creating ambidextrous, resilient, or self-organizing organizations

- The interplay between IT governance and national borders

- Alignment of IT governance and IT architecture at the firm, interfirm, or network level

- The interplay of modularity in IT architecture, organizational configurations, and processes

- Plural forms of IT governance that simultaneously exploit the advantages of vertical integration and outsourcing.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:

Submitted papers must make a significant and novel contribution to theory, complemented by the appropriate evidence. All research methodologies are welcomed. Strong preference will be given to papers that contribute distinctive, non-trivial IS-centric insights to theoretical perspectives in IS or the reference disciplines, rather than to applications of existing theories to an IS context. Some potentially promising theoretical perspectives where an IS lens might contribute distinctive, original insights include Transaction Cost Economics, Evolutionary Selection, Real Options, Modular Systems Theory, and Agency Theory.

Submissions to: JMISgov@uga.edu

Deadline for required extended abstract submissions – September 30, 2011