Inter-organizational Information Systems

Based on a literature survey, we aim to answer our main question: "How should we plan and execute logistics in supply chains that aim to meet today's requirements, and how can we support such planning and execution using IT?" Today's requirements in supply chains include inter-organizational collaboration and more responsive and tailored supply to meet specific demand. Enterprise systems fall short in meeting these requirements The focus of planning and execution systems should move towards an inter-enterprise and event-driven mode. Interorganizational systems may support planning going from supporting information exchange and henceforth enable synchronized planning within the organizations towards the capability to do network planning based on available information throughout the network. We provide a framework for planning systems, constituting a rich landscape of possible configurations, where the centralized and fully decentralized approaches are two extremes. We define and discuss agent based systems and in particular multi agent systems (MAS). We emphasize the issue of the role of MAS coordination architectures, and then explain that transportation is, next to production, an important domain in which MAS can and actually are applied. However, implementation is not widespread and some implementation issues are explored. In this manner, we conclude that planning problems in transportation have characteristics that comply with the specific capabilities of agent systems. In particular, these systems are capable to deal with interorganizational and event-driven planning settings, hence meeting today's requirements in supply chain planning and execution.

The deployment of the emerging concepts of information technology, strategic alliances, and business process re-engineering within the intra/inter-organizational context have become a popular prescription in enhancing supply chain management. This paper reviews the theoretical foundations for the study of inter-organizational relationships within a supply chain management context, and analyzes the contingencies of deploying inter-organizational information systems (IOIS). A framework is proposed which deploys IOIS from an IOIS provider's perspective. The framework is discussed from the viewpoint of using a strategic information system within the context of the China to Hong Kong to importing country supply chain.

The travel and tourism sector has emerged as one of the most important sectors for developing as well as developed countries. Tourism incorporates many of the features of the information society such as globalization, mobility and information richness. People from all nations, social rank, and professions are potential tourists. Tourism links a worldwide supplier community with consumers, equally distributed worldwide.

Since the 1980s, the retail and consumer goods industries have been making very extensive use of EDI-based data exchange. They subsequently developed the vision of Efficient Consumer Response (ECR) in order to integrate their demand and supply chain activities more ...

The use of information technology (IT) is considered a prerequisite for the effective control of today's complex supply chains. Despite the acknowledged importance of the use of IT in supply chain management (SCM), the number of empirical studies assessing the use of IT in the supply chain context is limited. Based on empirical data from 16 Finnish industrial and service companies this paper presents a classification of the ways in which companies use IT in SCM, and examines the drivers for these different utilization types. According to the findings of this research, the use of IT for SCM purposes can be divided into 1) transaction processing, 2) supply chain planning and collaboration, and 3) order tracking and delivery coordination. The findings further suggest that the drivers between these three uses of IT in SCM differ.

Purpose -The objective of this paper is to identify and measure the perceived importance of barriers in the SME community to the adoption of internet business procurement and supply chain solutions. Design/methodology/approach -This was a telephone survey of a sample of 173 Canadian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), stratified by size of company (small and medium) and according to whether they were distributors, retailers or manufacturers. The data were analyzed statistically through an analysis of variance approach. Findings -Few differences were found between SME internet adopters and non-adopters. There is a need for education for all SME management on the benefits and drawbacks to using e-business solutions. Inter-organizational information systems that are required to link supply chain partners can be a serious barrier to online solutions. There is a significant dependency among supply chain partners in decisions on adopting online links. Flexibility, agility and ability of SMEs can help them to use partial e-business solutions for low volumes of business, but this approach can be very ineffective when transaction volumes are large. Practical implications -The results from this paper can help to direct future efforts to encourage SMEs to adopt e-business solutions. Originality/value -This study differs from other SME e-business adoption studies, in that it includes relationships with supply chain partners that play a large role in the adoption of innovative e-business solutions, transaction volumes which, for many SMEs that have not adopted e-business, may be too small to justify automated supply chain linkages, and transaction volumes with a company's biggest customer or supplier.

Event management is a problem in the supply chain context that requires a solution with the goal of mitigate the event effect during the execution plan. We present an autonomous agent-based approach to support a system for this problem. Our proposal introduces two novel aspects: we conceive the system as a collaborative inter-organizational information system and we aim to provide autonomous mechanisms for the system to perform proactive control actions. We develop an example illustrating the principal concept and how this decomposition and collaborative negotiations allow finding a solution to an exception.

This paper shows the application of Grounded Theory (GT) method, particularly the Straussian approach to GT, in a research project that studies the role of managers during and after the implementation of an inter-organizational information system (IOIS). We present the steps followed -sampling, data collection, analysis, and literature comparison-paying special attention to the intricacies that arose during the research process, and we reflect on the lessons learned from using GT in an interpretive case study. The paper shows: first, the application of the coding paradigm proposed by Strauss and Corbin to analyse process data; second, how action diagrams can help structure and report on process data; and, third, the importance of flexibility, creativity, and keeping an open mind when using GT analytical tools, given that various avenues may be apparent before a plausible theory starts to emerge. We consider the paper illustrates some experiences that may inform others in their GT research process.

Purpose -The aim of this paper is to understand why a collaborative innovation, such as radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology, engenders seemingly opposite buyer-seller relationship reactions among members of a supply chain. Design/methodology/approach -The researchers carried out a three year exploratory multiple case study using the grounded theory approach through participant-observation and collaborative action research. The research project culminated in a fully functional RFID proof of concept solution which involved multiple layers of a retail supply chain. The researchers chose the retail industry for the study because it provided the ideal conditions to answer the research question. Findings -The results highlight the role of supplier-buyer relationships as both crucial antecedents that shape RFID infrastructure and the consequence of RFID implementation. Specifically, the impact on and of eight key dimensions was considered, namely communication and information sharing, cooperation, trust, commitment, relationship value, power imbalance and interdependence, adaptation, and conflict. The paper also positions open-loop RFID projects as supply chain inter-organizational systems and presents a model to analyze such initiatives.

Much of the research on performance management (PM) for collaborative enterprises (CE) is based on qualitative considerations and does not consider the impact of modern Information Systems both on the collaborative/competitive dimension of firms and on the PM process. The peculiarities of the different types of CEs are not clearly addressed and managed and the performance measurements are often oriented to specific aspects rather than to assess the over-all quality of business. Moreover, in several proposals, the skills and the time required to the managers of CEs are far from those available in the largest part of existing SMEs. In this scenario the objective of the paper is to discuss how enterprise modeling techniques can contribute to enhance the governance of collaborative enterprises.

This paper focuses on the intersection of two important trends: 1) the growth of Internet based business-to-business electronic marketplaces that have proliferated in many different industries, largely built on hopes for large scale efficiencies in the area of transaction costs, and 2) the renewed interest on geographically defined business clusters in studies of economic growth and innovation. Juxtaposing these two topics, the basic argument is that a primary weakness of most B2B hubs is the dominance of efficiency-related services and the relative lack of social/relationship building services that are so important to the formation of stable business trading relationships. Conversely, evidence from successful geographically defined business clusters suggests that location and proximity facilitate the formation of social capital and interfirm relationships in many ways that do not require inter-organizational information systems. Thus, inter-organizational systems (like B2B hubs) are likely to be underused in geographically defined clusters. We conclude that successful collaborative e-commerce in geographical business clusters must recognize and complement the rich communications and pre-existing relationships that have served to enhance trust and cooperative behavior, rather than attempt be a substitute for such communication and relationships.

Organizations have made a significant effort to implement software for planning and scheduling, but disruptive event management is still a problem to be solved. Since a disruptive event can affect the overall performance of the supply chain, SCEM (Supply Chain Event Management) systems presenting different automation levels such as monitoring, alarm and decision support have been proposed. However, the management of disruptive events, taking into account the distributed nature of the supply chain, the members' autonomy and the ability to exert corrective control actions, has been identified as a problem that requires further research. This work presents an agent-based approach for the SCEM problem, which can perform autonomous corrective control actions to minimize the effect of deviations in the plan that is currently being executed. These control actions consist of a distribution of the variation between supply chain members, using the plan's slack in a collaborative way. An innovative feature of this approach is its focus on resources, which are affected by disruptive events in a direct way. Based on this approach, a SCEM system is designed as a net of control points defined on resources connected through supply process orders. Two novel aspects are the distributed collaborative inter-organizational architecture of the SCEM system and a Double Contract Net Protocol. This protocol allows a set of resource:representing agents to interact through an agent, representing a supply process order as a mediator. An application to a case study of the Multi-Agent SCEM system implemented with JADE is provided.

Interorganizational Information Systems (IOIS) will play a relevant role in shaping competition in the next years. Even though companies have become extremely efficient in
managing information and logistics inside their boundaries, communication and coordination among partners is still far from effective. Both obsolete technologies and very scarce ICT supported interorganizational process are found in practice. In a global market where the entire supply chain is involved in company success, the proper design and implementation of an IOS is becoming mandatory. SMEs, and in particular those
inside industrial aggregations, could greatly benefit from IOIS implementation, however a widely accepted IOS adoption theory is still lacking. Focusing on the description of an industrial aggregation this paper proposes a framework, its implementation and a field test on 70 companies belonging to an industrial district, to understand the relationships
among aggregation’s main players. The analysis of the results proved that this approach offers useful insight for the comprehension of the aggregation and suggest its use as a
pre-design IOIS tool.

Developed during the 1980's, Inter Organizational Information Systems will be intensively implemented within industry during the 1990's. These Inter Organization Systems (IOS) will have very different structural impacts due to the logic which will drive their implementation. Three different scenarios can be forecasted: -IOS will be implemented to enhance the efficiency of existing business relationships, by automating routine operations and reducing the costs of informational exchanges. For instance EDI systems are used to avoid the duplication of data capture, to enhance the accuracy of processed information, to reduce the delays, and to enable a more efficient management of inventories; but the coordination process among partners remains unchanged.

This chapter describes the relationship between trust and transaction cost in supply chain operations. Empirical findings from several research studies on trust and transaction cost in supply chain operations will be presented in support of the argument for managing ...

This paper focuses on the intersection of two important trends: 1) the growth of Internet based business-to-business electronic marketplaces that have proliferated in many different industries, largely built on hopes for large scale efficiencies in the area of transaction costs, and 2) the renewed interest on geographically defined business clusters in studies of economic growth and innovation. Juxtaposing these two topics, the basic argument is that a primary weakness of most B2B hubs is the dominance of efficiency-related services and the relative lack of social/relationship building services that are so important to the formation of stable business trading relationships. Conversely, evidence from successful geographically defined business clusters suggests that location and proximity facilitate the formation of social capital and interfirm relationships in many ways that do not require inter-organizational information systems. Thus, inter-organizational systems (like B2B hubs) are likely to be underused in geographically defined clusters. We conclude that successful collaborative e-commerce in geographical business clusters must recognize and complement the rich communications and pre-existing relationships that have served to enhance trust and cooperative behavior, rather than attempt be a substitute for such communication and relationships.

Thus, the ability to deal quickly and seamlessly with everyday unplanned events is critical to maintain the overall performance of the supply chain. In order to develop tools to promote the collaborative management of such events, agent-based technology takes advantage of agents' ability to make autonomous decisions in a distributed context. Collaborative Event Management (CEM) is an approach designed to improve agility in a context where planning decisions are supported by a distributed advanced planning system (d-APS). This paper proposes an agent model geared with tools to collaboratively picm operations to deal with unplanned events.

Thus, the ability to deal quickly and seamlessly with everyday unplanned events is critical to maintain the overall performance of the supply chain. In order to develop tools to promote the collaborative management of such events, agent-based technology takes advantage of agents' ability to make autonomous decisions in a distributed context. Collaborative Event Management (CEM) is an approach designed to improve agility in a context where planning decisions are supported by a distributed advanced planning system (d-APS). This paper proposes an agent model geared with tools to collaboratively picm operations to deal with unplanned events.

Many organizations particularly in developed countries have engaged in inter-organizational systems (IOS) to manage their business operations across the supply chain. Such systems, which are mainly based on business-to-business electronic commerce technologies, are seen to play a significant role in enabling organizations around the world to extend their supply chain and to engage in global trading efficiently and effectively regardless of their geographical locations. However, the adoption rate of IOS in developing countries is still generally very low. This creates significant challenges to achieving advanced supply chain management for organizations in the developed countries that have trading relationships with organizations in developing countries. Although an enormous number of studies have been conducted to investigate the IOS adoption phenomenon in the last three decades, currently, there is still a limited understanding of the contextual issues related to the IOS adoption i...

Sažetak Modern organizations are exposed to diverse external environment influences. Currently accepted concepts of organizational design take into account structure, its interaction with strategy, processes, people, etc. Organization design and planning aims to align this key organizational design variables. At the higher conceptual level, however, completely satisfactory formulation for this alignment doesn't exist. We develop an approach originating from the application of concepts of theoretical physics to social systems. Under ...

E d i t o r s : M . B r i a n B l a k e • m b7 @ g e o r g e t o w n .e d u M i c h a e l N . H u h n s • h u h n s @ s c .e d u Modular applications, components, and services are all ways of describing the product of an organization's efforts to embody its capabilities in autonomous software modules. In fact, the integration of services using well-established workflow paradigms could amplify an organization's capabilities with the creation of a full-blown, inter-organizational system of systems. This is the essence of Web-scale workflows. Considering the recent popularity and acceptance of service-oriented technologies, the application of such distributed systems is only limited by imagination, but it's also important to understand existing research challenges and their implications to various Web-scale workflow domains.

This paper focuses on the intersection of two important trends: 1) the growth of Internet based business-to-business electronic marketplaces that have proliferated in many different industries, largely built on hopes for large scale efficiencies in the area of transaction costs, and 2) the renewed interest on geographically defined business clusters in studies of economic growth and innovation. Juxtaposing these two topics, the basic argument is that a primary weakness of most B2B hubs is the dominance of efficiency-related services and the relative lack of social/relationship building services that are so important to the formation of stable business trading relationships. Conversely, evidence from successful geographically defined business clusters suggests that location and proximity facilitate the formation of social capital and interfirm relationships in many ways that do not require inter-organizational information systems. Thus, inter-organizational systems (like B2B hubs) are likely to be underused in geographically defined clusters. We conclude that successful collaborative e-commerce in geographical business clusters must recognize and complement the rich communications and pre-existing relationships that have served to enhance trust and cooperative behavior, rather than attempt be a substitute for such communication and relationships.

Fraud presents an immense problem for health insurance companies and the only way to fight fraud, is by using specialized fraud management systems. Current research community has focused great efforts on different fraud detection techniques, while neglecting other also important activities of fraud management. We propose a holistic approach that focuses on all 6 activities of fraud management, namely, (1) deterrence, (2) prevention, (3) detection, (4) investigation, (5) sanction and redress, and (6) monitoring. The main contribution of the paper are 15 key characteristics of a fraud management system, which enable effective and efficient support to all fraud management activities. We base our research on literature review, interviews with experts from different fields, and a case study. The case study provides additional confirmation to expert opinions, as it puts our holistic framework into practice.

Recent economic and international threats to western industries have encouraged companies to increase their performance in any manner possible. Many look to deal quickly with disturbances, reduce inventory and exchange information promptly throughout the supply chain. In other words they want to become more agile. To reach this objective it is critical for planning systems to present planning strategies adapted to the different contexts, to attain better performances. The development of integrated supply chains and the use of inter-organizational information systems have increased business interdependencies and in turn the need for increased collaboration to deal with disturbance in a synchronized way. Thus, agility and synchronization in supply chains are critical to maintain overall performance. In order to develop tools to increase the agility of the supply chain and to promote the collaborative management of such disturbances, agent-based technology takes advantage of the ability of agents to make autonomous decisions in a distributed network through the use of advanced collaboration mechanisms.

This paper compares inter-organizational (IO) interaction and interorganizational information systems (IOS) in public and private sector. The purpose of the paper is to explore differences and similarities between egovernment and e-business focusing IOS and interaction. This is done in order to facilitate learning between the two fields. The point of departure is two case studies performed in private vs. public sectors. A comparative study is made using IO concepts from industrial markets that characterize an IO relationship (continuity, complexity, symmetry, and formality) and concepts that describe dimensions of such relationships (links, bonds, and ties). The results from the comparative study show that there are several similarities concerning interaction in relations between organizations in the two sectors. There are also differences depending on the level of analysis (empirical level vs. analytical level). The study shows the need to be explicit regarding organizational value, end-customer or client/citizen value and the type of objects that are exchanged in the interaction.

Recent economic and international threats to western industries have encouraged companies to increase their performance in any manner possible. Many look to deal quickly with disturbances, reduce inventory and exchange information promptly throughout the supply chain. In other words they want to become more agile. To reach this objective it is critical for planning systems to present planning strategies adapted to the different contexts, to attain better performances. The development of integrated supply chains and the use of inter-organizational information systems have increased business interdependencies and in turn the need for increased collaboration to deal with disturbance in a synchronized way. Thus, agility and synchronization in supply chains are critical to maintain overall performance. In order to develop tools to increase the agility of the supply chain and to promote the collaborative management of such disturbances, agent-based technology takes advantage of the ability of agents to make autonomous decisions in a distributed network through the use of advanced collaboration mechanisms.

While inter-organizational systems (IOS) driven by supranational government (here referred to as supranational IOS or SN IOS) are increasingly being developed and implemented in practice, this phenomenon remains largely unexplored in the existing literature. What makes such SN IOS specifically interesting to study is that their development and implementation is driven by supranational bodies (rather than businesses or national governments), implying that Member States have given up some of their sovereignty and decision-making power to a higher level body and are bound to implement the decisions of this higher-level body at their respective national level. In this process Member States are driven by their own agendas, which are often diverging and even conflicting with that of the supranational government.

This paper compares inter-organizational (IO) interaction and interorganizational information systems (IOS) in public and private sector. The purpose of the paper is to explore differences and similarities between egovernment and e-business focusing IOS and interaction. This is done in order to facilitate learning between the two fields. The point of departure is two case studies performed in private vs. public sectors. A comparative study is made using IO concepts from industrial markets that characterize an IO relationship (continuity, complexity, symmetry, and formality) and concepts that describe dimensions of such relationships (links, bonds, and ties). The results from the comparative study show that there are several similarities concerning interaction in relations between organizations in the two sectors. There are also differences depending on the level of analysis (empirical level vs. analytical level). The study shows the need to be explicit regarding organizational value, end-customer or client/citizen value and the type of objects that are exchanged in the interaction.

Prior research on inter-organizational information systems has focused primarily on dyadic network relationships, where agreements about information exchange are made between two organizations. The focus of this research is on the processes through which IT decisions are made within larger inter-organizational networks with several network parties. The research draws from network theories in organization science to identify three alternative mechanisms for making network level commitments: contracts, rules and values. In addition, theoretical concepts are searched from dynamic network models, which identify different cycles and stages in network evolution. The empirical research was conducted in two networks. The first one comprises of four municipalities which began collaboration in the deployment of IT in early childhood education (ECE). The second network involves a case where several organizations, both private and public, initiated a joint effort to implement a national level electronic prescription system (EPS). The frameworks and concepts drawn from organizational theories are used to explain success of the first case and the failure of the latter case. The paper contributes to prior IOS research by providing a new theory-based framework for the analysis of early stages of building organizational networks around innovative IT initiatives.