Integrating the Personal IT Ecosystem in an Organizational Environment - A Design Science Project

Gaß, Oliver

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URL:	https://ub-madoc.bib.uni-mannheim.de/31688
URN:	urn:nbn:de:bsz:180-madoc-316882
Dokumenttyp:	Arbeitspapier
Erscheinungsjahr:	2012
Ort der Veröffentlichung:	Mannheim
Sprache der Veröffentlichung:	Englisch
Einrichtung:	Fakultät für Betriebswirtschaftslehre > Wirtschaftsinformatik IV (Mädche 2009-2015)
Fachgebiet:	330 Wirtschaft
Abstract:	The work force within companies is subject to constant changes. More dynamic working time models go along with greater social trends, such as the demographic change. While the generation of baby boomers has finally reached retirement age, the number of members of newer generations has been constantly increasing. Members of these new generations have grown up with modern technology and have made it an important part of their private, as well as professional life. Their technological requirements are significantly different from those of the generations before (Burke and Hiltbrand, 2011). Younger generations apply an extensive personal IT ecosystem, comprising a variety of personal systems (e.g., social networks, messaging services and apps) and devices (e.g., tablets, laptops and smart phones), to conduct their private as well as professional activities. Current research refers to this phenomenon as “the individuation of IT” (Baskerville, 2011). Many organizations however struggle to integrate these personal IT ecosystems into their enterprise system landscapes. The effects are manifold, but often negative. A poorly integrated personal IT ecosystem, for example, may lead to a decreased individual performance since the maintenance of several systems and devices is error-prone and leads to time consuming redundancies. In addition, also organizational performance suffers when important information is forgotten on personal devices and therefore never made available to other members of the organization. One negative example is organizational knowledge management (compare Alavi, 2011): on the one hand, knowledge-management is widely perceived as a possible solution to ease the effects of the demographic change by preventing the leak of expertise companies experience when older employees leave. On the other hand, current solutions seem ill prepared to integrate the personal IT ecosystem of especially younger employees into organizational knowledge-management, hindering a seamless flow of information back and forth (Hansen and von Oetinger, 2001). One obvious cause is the lack of a comprehensive understanding of the individual needs and preferences, e.g., tendency to hide information regarding the integration of the personal IT ecosystem into the enterprise system landscape. Furthermore, these individual needs and preferences must be aligned with organizational requirements, such as legal regulations or existing security policies. Further issues arise from the employed technology itself. The increasing diversity of available end-user devices and software services, but also increasing complex enterprise systems, asks for new approaches to establish an integrated IT landscape. The proposed research addresses