شرح مسئولیت اجرا: تجزیه و تحلیل محتوایی اسناد برنامه ریزی استراتژیک سیستم های اطلاعات / فناوری

The need for improved implementation of IS/IT strategy has been emphasized in both empirical and prescriptive research studies, and responsibility has been identified as an important predictor of implementation. This research collected strategic IS/IT plan documents in Norway. Based on content analysis of the documents, descriptions of responsibility for implementation were found in 50% of the plans. In plans with such descriptions, responsibility was primarily concerned with systems ownership as a result of large projects. Out of 55 descriptions of responsibility, 32 were concerned with users, 13 with managers, and 10 with developers.

The lack of implementation of formal information systems/information technology (IS/IT) strategy has become a major challenge to IS/IT executives [1]. In the research literature, implementation barriers were identified by scholars such as Earl [2]. Galliers [3], Lederer and Sethi [4], and Premkumar and King [5]. In an empirical study of content characteristics of formal IS/IT strategy to predict the extent of plan implementation, descriptions of responsibility for the implementation was found to be the most important predictor [6]. Based on previous findings [6], this research is concerned with the following research question: “How is responsibility for implementation described in strategic IS/IT plans?” The research attempts to contribute to theory on implementation responsibility. This article presents results from a content analysis of strategic IS/IT plan documents in Norway. The present article adds to the knowledge established in earlier research by investigating general findings from survey research [6] through specific content analysis of documents. Although earlier research indicates that the main factor to facilitate implementation of planned strategic change is identification and description of responsibility, this research identifies how responsibility is described in such plans. The ambition of this article is to discuss how implementation responsibility can be described in strategic IS/IT plans to improve the extent of implementation.

A content analysis to identify implementation responsibilities was carried out on 41 Norwegian IS/IT strategy documents. It was found that descriptions of responsibility in strategic IS/IT plans were more concerned with general responsibilities of departments such as the IT department and functions such as systems owners, rather than specific responsibilities for implementation activities. Users were more frequently responsible for implementation activities than managers and developers. Practitioners such as IS/IT directors and CIOs can use results from this study to revise documents for improved descriptions of implementation responsibility. Such descriptions will help them implement their plans to a greater extent than before. Researchers can use these results to explore responsibility in future case studies. Dimensions of implementation responsibility—such as budget, benefits, and projects—should be developed as research constructs and measured in future research. Furthermore, lack of implementation is a concept that is limited to the extent of implementation. Future research may want to explore the link between responsibility and implementation success, rather than the link between responsibility and implementation extent.