چشم انداز قابلیتهای دینامیکی مدیریت پرتفولیو پروژه IS

Organizations use information systems project portfolio management (IS PMM) to reconfigure their IS resources and capabilities to match changing market and economic conditions. IS PPM can therefore be characterised as a dynamic capability. We investigate how firms developed and adapted IS PPM to match the turbulent recessionary conditions witnessed after 2008–2009. This study contributes to an understanding of IS PPM by identifying the constituent dynamic capabilities and providing empirical examples of adaptation. To our knowledge, the study is the first to apply the notion of second order dynamic capabilities to the IS domain and also makes an important contribution to the more general concept of dynamic capabilities by providing empirical evidence and theoretical justification of the increased detailed, centrally controlled and analytical nature of IS PPM dynamic capabilities in recessionary conditions.

Strategic information systems (IS) literature stresses how increased dynamism in the environment necessitates that firms are agile and can reconfigure their capabilities and resources rapidly (Merali et al., 2012 and Tanriverdi et al., 2010). Projects are often the main vehicle for delivering new IS-based business capabilities and for achieving resource reconfiguration in firms. Thus, the reconfiguration required to match and even create market and environmental change relies on identifying, prioritizing and executing appropriate projects (Jeffery and Leliveld, 2004 and Ward and Peppard, 2002). This selection, evaluation and implementation of information systems projects is called ‘IS project portfolio management’ (IS PPM) and is considered a key component of IS strategies in dynamic environments (Earl, 1993, McFarlan, 1981 and McFarlan et al., 1983). We adopt a socio-technical view of IS PPM, where the human aspects are both as important as, and entangled with, technical aspects (Orlikowski and Scott, 2008). IS PPM may include only projects that are considered as IS projects by the organization, or they may also include other projects that have a significant IS component (e.g. change projects, new product or service projects). As we discuss in the Research Methods section of this paper the firms studied demonstrated both approaches to IS PPM. Whilst some IS researchers and practitioners may wish to focus only the management of IS projects, this does not reflect the reality of IS PPM in many organizations and also impoverishes the role and contribution of IS professionals to other types of projects within their organizations. The concept of dynamic capabilities provides a means of understanding how firms change their underlying resources and capabilities (Eisenhardt and Martin, 2000, Helfat and Peteraf, 2009 and Teece et al., 1997). Since IS PPM is directed at achieving changes to resources and capabilities, we suggest dynamic capabilities offer an appropriate lens through which to explore IS PPM. Other scholars have characterised PPM2 in the new product development domain as a dynamic capability (Killen, 2008 and Killen and Hunt, 2010). However, their characterisation of PPM as a single, monolithic dynamic capability provides limited insight and understanding. We therefore identify the constituent dynamic capabilities that contribute to IS PPM. More detailed component dynamic capabilities enable practising managers to determine the detailed activities, costs and timescales incurred in their development and maintenance. A more detailed consideration also enables exploration of the differential distribution of the component capabilities across firms and helps managers understand how to develop IS PPM as a means of gaining competitive advantage. Identification of the component capabilities also aids researchers in studying how firms adapt IS PPM in turbulent market conditions. To date, research on the nature of dynamic capabilities has examined markets that are turbulent from rapid expansion (e.g., Drnevich and Kriauciunas, 2011 and Koch, 2010). However, little is known about how dynamic capabilities change as a result of turbulence and uncertainty caused by recessionary conditions. As the global financial crisis of 2008–2009 and the subsequent prolonged global recession have demonstrated, firms need to adapt their IS PPM and other dynamic capabilities to meet, not just expansionary, but also recessionary conditions. Our study addresses the following two research questions: (1) what are the constituent dynamic capabilities that contribute to IS PPM and how do firms develop these? (2) how do firms adapt the dynamic capabilities constituting IS PPM to match turbulent recessionary conditions? We begin with a review of prior literature on IS PPM, including its role in IS strategic planning. We then provide an overview of the dynamic capabilities literature, again emphasising studies undertaken in the IS and PPM domains. We next describe the case study method adopted for the study and present the findings using data drawn from the case studies. We conclude with a discussion of the findings and suggestions for further research.

Developing IS PPM dynamic capabilities is an important means of achieving and sustaining dynamic IS strategic alignment (Gable, 2010, Merali et al., 2012 and Tanriverdi et al., 2010) and is therefore a key component of IS strategy development and implementation. Sustaining that alignment in rapidly evolving or uncertain business conditions depends on agile or responsive management decision making in terms of identifying and prioritizing investment opportunities, based on effectively ‘fusing IS and business knowledge’ (Peppard and Ward, 2004). IS PPM is a mechanism for enabling that fusion of knowledge, but depends on component capabilities to achieve both agility and sustainability. This research demonstrates that the five case study firms introduced IS PPM, or formalised their existing IS PPM approach as a response to the turbulent financial conditions of 2008–2009. It identifies the component dynamic capabilities that comprise IS PPM and discusses how the case study firms planned to adapt those capabilities to match continuing recessionary conditions. Future studies should continue our longitudinal approach, for example, in order to study how adaptations firms make to their IS PPM in certain economic conditions evolve as those conditions change. Such studies would provide a dynamic view of dynamic capabilities allowing a study of how they achieve change to underlying resources and capabilities. Such a dynamic view is missing in studies of dynamic capabilities to date, since most tend to be cross-sectional in nature. We also recognise that whilst our study of five organizations provides a degree of generalizability, which we believe is important at this early stage of the study of IS PPM dynamic capabilities, reporting findings from five case studies reduces the detail that can be provided about any individual case. Reporting such detail can explicate the extended and path dependent processes involved in establishing and adapting IS PPM, including stakeholder perspectives, resistances, affordances and negotiations. This study contributes to the academic understanding and practical application of IS PPM by identifying four constituent dynamic capabilities. The component dynamic capabilities enable managers to adopt sequences and combinations of developments that are most suited to their existing circumstances, the changes needed and the resources available. Our study suggests that the first dynamic capability, business objectives drive projects, enables managers to most effectively deploy the other three dynamic capabilities identified. However, as evidenced by the intention of all case study firms to develop all four component dynamic capabilities, each of the component capabilities makes an important contribution to the overall effectiveness of IS PPM. This study also provides unique empirical evidence of how firms adapt their dynamic capabilities associated with IS PPM to match continuing recessionary conditions. We show that the component dynamic capabilities become more detailed, highly analytic, more centralised and more consistently applied and we explain these findings as a manifestation of the move by firms to increase central control over resources and their allocation in times of resource scarcity. The findings of how dynamic capabilities change in recessionary conditions provide an important contribution to the boundary conditions of IS PPM and possibly of dynamic capabilities more generally (Zollo and Winter, 2002). We also introduced higher-order dynamic capabilities (Collis, 1994, Heimeriks et al., 2012 and Winter, 2003), which, to our knowledge, do not appear in extant studies in the IS field. Finally, in response to expressed concerns in prior research of the abstract and generic nature of dynamic capabilities (e.g., Ambrosini and Bowman, 2009 and Easterby-Smith et al., 2009), this study provides examples of dynamic capabilities specific to IS PPM and examples of their development and use to respond to the prevailing recessionary economic conditions. Although not the aim of this research, our study is consistent with the emerging field of strategy-as-practice in that we have studied the activities (praxis) performed by practitioners using and evolving dynamic capabilities (practices) and the consequent outcomes. In his recent paper Whittington (in press) argues that closer working between IS and strategy-as-practice researchers would be mutually beneficial. He suggests IS strategizing is more practice based, often more tangible and accessible than business strategizing, whereas IS strategy research could benefit from studies using a new research lens, which provides a ‘deepening’ of understanding. We believe the topic of IS PPM is one where these mutual benefits could be readily be achieved leading to new insights for both research streams.