The Resource Based View [Video + Slides]

The Business Value of IT is a dominant focus of my research and teaching, and this topic draws heavily from the Resource Based View (RBV). During our discussions on the value of IT in #hkuiom, we often talk about IT resources and capabilities. While the RBV is covered in detail during the Strategic Management courses at the MBA level, it helps to provide the students a brief overview of it as part of the IT resources and capabilities discussion.

 

Strategy – It’s game of life (Photo credit: Anil Jadhav)

 

I’ve found the below mini-lecture video by David Kryscynski, my senior colleague from the Emory Doctoral Program, to be very helpful in this endeavor.

 

 

In the past, I’ve used these slides (The Resource Based View) to communicate the difference between the ‘5 Forces’ view (something that most audiences are well versed with) and the RBV, along with a brief on how competencies fit into the picture.

ICIS 2012 Update

One of my research papers was recently nominated as a candidate for the Best Paper award at the 2012 International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS), the flagship conference and most prestigious gathering of information systems researchers in the world. Titled “Juggling Paradoxical Strategies: The Emergent Role of IT Capabilities”, the paper has been co-authored with Benn Konsynski, the George S. Craft Distinguished University Professor of Information Systems & Operations Management at Emory University. In this study, we assert that in the 21^st century, different IT capabilities act in differing ways to individually and jointly enable or impede firms to simultaneously pursue paradoxical strategies as an emergent means of attaining competitive advantage.

Paper presentation at ICIS 2012

Such an ability to follow two conflicting strategies at the same time is termed organizational ambidexterity. Firms which concurrently engage in the paradoxical strategies of exploration (or radical innovation) and exploitation (or incremental innovation) are able to address the needs of new and existing customers and thereby attain higher competitive performance. Our research finds that Transform IT capability, which leads to redefining and recreating business practices, strongly supports this instance of ambidexterity. On the other hand, IT Informate Capability, which results in greater information access across the organization, and IT Automate Capability, which facilitates automation of existing business processes, both hamper ambidexterity by ossifying business processes and reducing flexibility. Transform IT capability reduces these harmful effects. Our findings also suggest that a balance of IT Automate, Informate and Transform capabilities enables organizational ambidexterity, hitherto a challenging competitive possibility.

Data for the study was gathered from 352 manufacturing firms of all sizes in high growth sectors in India – a setting that provides an exemplar for the world’s enterprises undergoing rapid changes in the 21^st century. These findings not only showcase the emergent role of IT in facing the complexities inherent in juggling paradoxical strategies, but also throw light upon previously unexplained variance in IT payoffs in the emerging economy and small and medium enterprise contexts.

A link to the paper in the conference proceedings is here.

Mobile App Strategy

The rapid proliferation of smartphones demands a rethink on the IT strategy front. This article suggests that CIOs should designate a ‘CMO’, who is responsible for taking advantage of the powers of customer engagement and empowerment that are provided by mobile apps.

 

The first step in CIO’s mobile strategy is to create the office of the chief mobility officer and a supporting mobile architecture team.

 

Apple iPhone 3GS, Motorola Milestone and LG GW60 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Mobile apps give rise to several challenges, including multi-channel conflicts, a deluge of data and activity, and transaction-based business process atomization. This requires changes to the business (transaction-based interactions thinking) and technology (scalable architectures) fronts of the firm’s strategy.

Read more at Page 1 Five tips on developing a mobile app strategy – CIO UK Magazine.