Background: The notion of IT strategies has changed during recent years, because our perspectives towards IT in the organizations have changed. We expect IT to be fulfilling business goals and lever-age business opportunities and we have strengthened the role of IT in the supply chain. Our individual view on IT, whether it is strategic or supportive, whether the infrastructure should be standard-ized or individualized etc., most likely affects how IT strategies are interpreted and conducted in the organization. This is critical in companies who have their subsidiaries on foreign land. It is not obvi-ous that managers in different countries interpret the IT strategy the same way, just because it happens to be the same company. In most large global coalitions, a common central strategy for IT is the standard. I have chosen to examine Argentinean subsidiaries to Swedish companies as an example. Eight research questions were formulated, with the purpose of finding what is included in a generic IS/IT strategy, if the perspectives of managers are in line with the theory, whether views are consistent throughout the concern, and determine the challenges of global IS/IT management. Purpose: This paper aims at finding the generic parts in a IS/IT strategy formulation and explain how business management and IT specialists of global coalitions interpret the concept IS/IT strat-egy. A sub-purpose is to define the priorities in global IS/IT management. The analysis of the paper culminates in a model - “the interpretation of IS/IT strategies”, with the ambition to give guidelines for managers and strategy formulators in a global environment. Method: The study is of qualitative, exploratory and explanatory type, it has a descriptive part and a theory enhancing rational. By a thorough literature study and a pre- study I wished to explore and shed light on the perplexities in IS/IT management, nationally and globally. The broad research spectrum was a conscious choice to cover the complex area of IS/IT strategy and the various people affected. By conducting interviews; through questions and observations I also aimed at describing and explaining how IS/IT strategies are interpreted in practice. As a result of my hermeneutic research approach I am drawing conclusions from the similarities and dissimilarities I found in the different perceptions and relate it to the result of previous studies. The idea is thus to combine these insights in order to enhance theory in the area. Analysis and result: what could be determined from the analysis is: • IS/IT strategy composed of strategic planning, alignment between business- and IT, competitive advantage, knowledge management, responsibilities, system architecture, interaction and security. • No “generic” strategy exists. A good strategy for a global coalition is forward-looking and flexible and frequently evaluated. The strategy gives competitive advantage if leveraged; the results are related to IS paradigm view. • IT people proves short sighted while business/strategy management have long term perspective, which contradicts Earl, (1999). The difference could be due to culture in this case. The organiza-tional structure does not determine IT architecture, which contradicts King Sethi (1999). • Managers and IT people are generally not in agreement. Interpretations of strategy are not consistent in global firms. Managers and not IT people need to take responsibility for the formulation and realization of the strategy. This is in accordance with Axelsson, (1995). The implications to managers are: The organizational structure chosen should not be steering the politics for architecture, moreover that IT specialists with a technical view can not be responsible for strategy work or global standards. Managers are encouraged to develop knowledge management, to include intellectual assets in the IS/IT strategy and work with culture enhancement programs.

For today's organizations to fully optimize their two major priorities;which are reducing cost and increasing revenue, they need to be involved in continuous modifications and constant renewals of right mechanism towards alignment between business and IT strategies. This paper investigates issues in strategic alignment, the specifics were: What causes time lag between business-IT strategy implementation, how can organization manage this time lag better, and finally how alignment can be achieved in business-IT strategy. Thorough literature review has been carried out, to come up with causes of time lag between business-IT strategy. Then, two case studies together with three experts' interviews have been conducted in order to validate causes of time lag in business-IT strategy. The results shows that, lack of understanding of IT departments by business department, and lack of understanding of business department by IT department and protocol rigidity are the major causes of time lag that exists between business-IT strategy. While, the lesser factors were: not using the IT departments in defining the business strategy and usage of business terminologies by business department in communicating with the IT department

Stockholm's healthcare system faces increasing strains on its resources. In order to address these issues, the Stockholm county council has devised a plan for future healthcare, as well as a strategy for IT to accompany this future vision. This master’s thesis investigates inhibitors and facilitators facing this IT-strategy and subsequently evaluates its efficacy based on interviews with individuals with extensive knowledge of Health IT in Sweden. This study employs a holistic and socio-technical perspective on eHealth and healthcare IT, regarding the object of study as an information infrastructure. Defining eHealth in the interview study proved to be a dubious task and is suggestive of a potential inhibitor for the IT-strategy. The study has located the facilitators and inhibitors in three domains: the sociotechnical, institutional and within how healthcare, patients and healthcare professionals are constituted. Important facilitators include stakeholder involvement, where the more engaged citizen is a promising resource. Certain design choices, an appropriate innovation support structure as well as a close attention to work practice development could facilitate the achievement of the goals in the strategy. Many aspects of the institutional environment are potential inhibitors. The strategy for implementation was found to be vague and is thus regarded as difficult to properly evaluate, apply, and follow-up. Furthermore, it is not evident from the way it is phrased what role citizens will have in the development process. While work practice development is mentioned as a substrategy, the corresponding implementation strategy needs elaboration in order to ensure that this aspect is accounted for. In light of the interviewee’s discussion on interoperability, the potential attributed to the Service Platform in the implementation strategy seems overestimated.

The aim of the thesis is information strategy development for a particular nonprofit foun- dation in the Czech Republic that would mark the strategy as a valuable contribution to its organizational planning. Then these thesis point theoretical findings, which has not been clear in the beginning and which are probably generalizable. The development method was designed specifically for OSF in Prague and is based on MMDIS, COBIT a Gartner IT strategy framework. These approaches are discussed in the theoretical part, then, in the analytical part, are inputs to the information strategy that are followed by the information strategy itself. The conclusion deals with the foundation feedback and names potentially generalizable findings. Despite them, the thesis contribution is in description of a real in- formation strategy development process in the Czech foundation environment with includ- ed feedback. It can inspire other works focused practically in the field of nonprofit and information technology or it can be a contribution to the theoretically focused works to discuss their findings.

Information systems and technology strategy has been discussed by many researchers and authors over last three decades. The concepts of business alignment, competitive advantage, value generation etc. have been elaborated and still similar discussions continue. While the advances in IS/IT strategy formulation were being made, the businesses were changing their operating models. More specifically they became global businesses active in multiple geographies at the same time. This research aims to provide deeper understanding of IT developments in global organizations as manifested in the changing social and political environment of the organization and the reciprocal effect of social and political changes on IT strategies. Further it aims to investigate whether the relevant theories and concepts can be integrated to develop a new model that can incorporate the socio-political aspects into IS/IT strategy formulation. To achieve this objective the literature survey was conducted to explore available published papers in the sphere of IS/IT strategy formulation. Considering that the applicability of information systems and technology falls into the sphere of social sciences, the research design focused on the qualitative approach. The primary method of data collection was through semi-structured interviews with IT managers. This was complemented by interviews with business managers and consultants. Further the experiences of the researcher in the earlier role of practitioner were taken into account. Using grounded theory approach the information collected through interviews, own experiences and the data gathered from literature survey were used to develop a new model of IT strategy formulation. The model addresses the context part of IT strategy formulation process. This model development is aimed to counter and account for the political and social aspects of strategy development and deployment in global corporations characterised by diversity of cultures, attitudes and behaviours.

<p>Information system (IS), in other words computerised programs and application that a company uses is a central part in its organisation. Information technology (IT) is the hardware and infrastructure that an IS uses. IS and IT is then related to each other and several use the term IS/IT to describe the two words. Several small enterprises (10-49 employees) use IS/IT to a higher extent in order to work efficiently and many firms should not work without IS/IT. Because small enterprises are a major part in the economy for western world countries’ they find it important that these enterprises are efficient. A business plan is essential in order to make an enterprise work efficient. A business plan is important if the company should borrow money from bank or administer money from financiers. A business plan normally contains the company’s vision statement, mission statement, goals, business strategy and action items. In this thesis we only focus on strategies because we want to limit our research and because we have an interest of strategies in general. The business strategy is a roadmap which includes information about how the enterprise could fulfil its business plan’s goals. It is therefore impor-tant that the business plan and the business strategy are linked to each other, for example will the strategy suffer if the goals are poorly stated. To have this relation it is impor-tant to have a strategy that is explicit, this type of strategy is made through a planning process which is documented. The other type is called implicit and is made through activities for the different divisions of the enterprise, which is not documented.</p><p>To make the right decisions and investments for IS/IT it is essential to have an IS/IT strategy, which could be used for the company to reach IS/IT-goals and objectives.</p><p>The main question for this thesis is: How does IS/IT strategy influence business strategy within small service enterprises in Sweden and what factors can improve IT strategy’s impact on business strategy in small Swedish service enterprises? The purpose is to investigate how IS/IT strategy influences and improves business strategy in small Swed-ish service enterprises. We also aim to study how IS/IT strategy is applied in small Swedish service enterprises.</p><p>We did our empirical research on six small service enterprises in Jönköping. Three of the respondents had a documented explicit business strategy and none of them had an explicit IS/IT strategy. All the respondents said that they did not prioritise to keep the strategy updated and that the day-to-day issues were more important. The result is that we did not find any factors in IS/IT strategy that improved the business strategy in small Swedish service enterprises. The characteristics that the enterprises do not work with these issues and is seldom applied. The enterprises are more interested in day-today issues, our result differs therefore from the literature in this subject.</p> / <p>Informationssystemet (IS) det vill säga datoriserade program och applikationer som ett företag använder sig av är en central del i verksamheten. Informationsteknologi (IT) är hårdvaran och infrastrukturen som IS använder sig av. I och med detta är IS och IT starkt relaterade till varandra och flera brukar benämna detta med IS/IT. Flera småföre-tag (10-49 anställda) använder sig i allt större utsträckning av IS/IT i deras verksamheter och många skulle inte kunna fungera utan IS/IT. Hit hör även att småföretag är en be-tydande del flera länders ekonomi. För att ett företag ska kunna fungera effektivt bör det finnas en affärsplan som är elementär då företaget ska ta lån av bank eller förvalta pengar från finansiärer. I en affärsplan finns vanligen en vision, affärsidé, mål, strategi, nätverk, Produkt/tjänst inklusive prissättning, marknadsplan (kunder, marknad, konkur-renter, marknadsundersökning), budgetar och tid- och aktivitetsplan. I denna uppsats inriktar vi oss endast på strategier eftersom vi vill begränsa uppsatsen och vi har ett stort intresse för strategier. En strategi är ett tillvägagångssätt för att uppfylla företagens uppsätta mål. Det finns dock en relation mellan de olika delarna i affärsplanen och de är inte helt skilda från varandra, exempelvis så blir strategin med största sannolikhet bristande om målen är dåligt utformade. För att ha denna relation är det vikigt att ha en explicit strategi. Denna typ av strategi är framtagen genom en planeringsprocess som är dokumenterad medan en implicit är utvecklad genom händelser inom företaget som inte är dokumenterade.</p><p>För att fatta de rätta besluten och planera investeringar för IS/IT korrekt är det grund-läggande med en IS/IT-strategi, som kan användas för att nå målen för IS/IT.</p><p>Vår huvudfråga är: Hur kan IS/IT-strategi påverka affärsstrategi hos svenska små tjänsteföretag och hur kan denna relation förbättras? Syftet är att undersöka hur IS/IT-strategi kan påverka och förbättra affärsstrategi i små svenska tjänsteföretag. Vi ämnar också studera hur IS/IT-strategi används i små svenska tjänsteföretag.</p><p>Vi gjorde vår empiriska undersökning på sex små tjänsteföretag i Jönköping. Tre av fö-retagen hade en explicit affärsstrategi och ingen hade en explicit IS/IT strategi. Resultat är att små tjänsteföretag till största delen använder sig av implicita affärs- och IS/IT-strategier. Vi hittade ingenting som tyder på att IS/IT-strategi påverkar affärsstrategi i små svenska tjänsteföretag. Företagen är istället mer intresserade av händelser som är mer dagsaktuella, vilket skiljer sig från litteraturen inom detta område.</p>

Information system (IS), in other words computerised programs and application that a company uses is a central part in its organisation. Information technology (IT) is the hardware and infrastructure that an IS uses. IS and IT is then related to each other and several use the term IS/IT to describe the two words. Several small enterprises (10-49 employees) use IS/IT to a higher extent in order to work efficiently and many firms should not work without IS/IT. Because small enterprises are a major part in the economy for western world countries’ they find it important that these enterprises are efficient. A business plan is essential in order to make an enterprise work efficient. A business plan is important if the company should borrow money from bank or administer money from financiers. A business plan normally contains the company’s vision statement, mission statement, goals, business strategy and action items. In this thesis we only focus on strategies because we want to limit our research and because we have an interest of strategies in general. The business strategy is a roadmap which includes information about how the enterprise could fulfil its business plan’s goals. It is therefore impor-tant that the business plan and the business strategy are linked to each other, for example will the strategy suffer if the goals are poorly stated. To have this relation it is impor-tant to have a strategy that is explicit, this type of strategy is made through a planning process which is documented. The other type is called implicit and is made through activities for the different divisions of the enterprise, which is not documented. To make the right decisions and investments for IS/IT it is essential to have an IS/IT strategy, which could be used for the company to reach IS/IT-goals and objectives. The main question for this thesis is: How does IS/IT strategy influence business strategy within small service enterprises in Sweden and what factors can improve IT strategy’s impact on business strategy in small Swedish service enterprises? The purpose is to investigate how IS/IT strategy influences and improves business strategy in small Swed-ish service enterprises. We also aim to study how IS/IT strategy is applied in small Swedish service enterprises. We did our empirical research on six small service enterprises in Jönköping. Three of the respondents had a documented explicit business strategy and none of them had an explicit IS/IT strategy. All the respondents said that they did not prioritise to keep the strategy updated and that the day-to-day issues were more important. The result is that we did not find any factors in IS/IT strategy that improved the business strategy in small Swedish service enterprises. The characteristics that the enterprises do not work with these issues and is seldom applied. The enterprises are more interested in day-today issues, our result differs therefore from the literature in this subject. / Informationssystemet (IS) det vill säga datoriserade program och applikationer som ett företag använder sig av är en central del i verksamheten. Informationsteknologi (IT) är hårdvaran och infrastrukturen som IS använder sig av. I och med detta är IS och IT starkt relaterade till varandra och flera brukar benämna detta med IS/IT. Flera småföre-tag (10-49 anställda) använder sig i allt större utsträckning av IS/IT i deras verksamheter och många skulle inte kunna fungera utan IS/IT. Hit hör även att småföretag är en be-tydande del flera länders ekonomi. För att ett företag ska kunna fungera effektivt bör det finnas en affärsplan som är elementär då företaget ska ta lån av bank eller förvalta pengar från finansiärer. I en affärsplan finns vanligen en vision, affärsidé, mål, strategi, nätverk, Produkt/tjänst inklusive prissättning, marknadsplan (kunder, marknad, konkur-renter, marknadsundersökning), budgetar och tid- och aktivitetsplan. I denna uppsats inriktar vi oss endast på strategier eftersom vi vill begränsa uppsatsen och vi har ett stort intresse för strategier. En strategi är ett tillvägagångssätt för att uppfylla företagens uppsätta mål. Det finns dock en relation mellan de olika delarna i affärsplanen och de är inte helt skilda från varandra, exempelvis så blir strategin med största sannolikhet bristande om målen är dåligt utformade. För att ha denna relation är det vikigt att ha en explicit strategi. Denna typ av strategi är framtagen genom en planeringsprocess som är dokumenterad medan en implicit är utvecklad genom händelser inom företaget som inte är dokumenterade. För att fatta de rätta besluten och planera investeringar för IS/IT korrekt är det grund-läggande med en IS/IT-strategi, som kan användas för att nå målen för IS/IT. Vår huvudfråga är: Hur kan IS/IT-strategi påverka affärsstrategi hos svenska små tjänsteföretag och hur kan denna relation förbättras? Syftet är att undersöka hur IS/IT-strategi kan påverka och förbättra affärsstrategi i små svenska tjänsteföretag. Vi ämnar också studera hur IS/IT-strategi används i små svenska tjänsteföretag. Vi gjorde vår empiriska undersökning på sex små tjänsteföretag i Jönköping. Tre av fö-retagen hade en explicit affärsstrategi och ingen hade en explicit IS/IT strategi. Resultat är att små tjänsteföretag till största delen använder sig av implicita affärs- och IS/IT-strategier. Vi hittade ingenting som tyder på att IS/IT-strategi påverkar affärsstrategi i små svenska tjänsteföretag. Företagen är istället mer intresserade av händelser som är mer dagsaktuella, vilket skiljer sig från litteraturen inom detta område.

No description available.

<p>Background: IT-security is included in the concept of information security, which considers all the security of handling information within an organisation. Good IT-security is about finding the right level of measurement, however, it is hard to implemement new IT-solutions in an organisation, particularly within the health care field, where sensitive information are handled daily. Lately the Swedish government, together with county- and city council, understand the importance of IT and health care. Carelink, an organisation of interest, is working actively for the presumption of benefit by using IT within the health care field. During spring 2006 the Swedish government introduced a national IT-strategy. SITHS, Säker IT inom Hälso- och sjukvården, is a project running by Carelink and is based upon using Smart Cards as an identification. Smart Cards can be used as accesscards for logging on to a computersystem in an organsiation in order to secure an indentity.</p><p>Purpose: The purpose with this thesis is to investigate the assumptions for how Smart Cards, as a part of a total security solution, can increase the ITsecurity within the Healt Care field.</p><p>Method: The study was initiated with literature and suitable references to informationssecurity, Smart Cards and Healthcareinformatic. Our empirical study was carried out at Ryhov Hospital in Jönköping, one of Sweden’s newest hospitals. Both qualitative and quantitative studies were conducted, because we chose to do interviews and surveys. The interviews were conducted in order to get a deeper understanding for the organisation and the survey was made in order to investigate the attitudes among the nurses and doctors about the security of computer use.</p><p>Result: Smart Cards can, according to our studie, increase the IT-security within the Health Care field by creating a safer identification with the use of ITsupport. Smart Cards can also make the process of logging on and off to a computer system easier, which leads to better logging and mobilisation. The study also demonstrates that users are not afraid of the changes a smart card will represent within their organization.</p> / <p>Bakgrund: IT-säkerhet ingår i begreppet informationssäkerhet som avser all säkerhet vid hantering av information inom en organisation. God IT-säkerhet handlar om att hitta rätt nivå med tillhörande åtgärder och nya IT lösningar, men detta är inte enkelt att införa i organisationer och speciellt inte i vården som dagligen hanterar känslig information. Under senare år har regeringen tillsammans med landsting och kommuner fått upp ögonen för vilken nytta IT kan utgöra inom vården. Intresseorganisationen Carelink arbetar aktivt för att skapa förutsättningar att använda IT inom vården, och under våren 2006 har även regeringen presenterat en Nationell IT-strategi. Projektet SITHS, Säker IT inom Hälso- och Sjukvården, drivs av Carelink och bygger på att använda smarta kort som säker identifikation. Korten kan bland annat användas som passerkort och vid inloggning till ett datasystem för att säkerhetsställa en identitet.</p><p>Syfte: Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka förutsättningarna för hur smarta kort, som en del av en total säkerhetslösning, kan förbättra IT-säkerheten inom hälso- och sjukvården.</p><p>Metod: Studien påbörjades med en genomgång av lämplig litteratur om informationssäkerhet, smarta kort samt vårdinformatik. Den empiriska studien utfördes sedan på Länssjukhuset Ryhov i Jönköping, som är ett av Sveriges nyaste sjukhus. Här genomfördes både kvalitativa och kvantitativa studier, då vi valde att göra ett antal intervjuer samt en enkätundersökning bland vårdgivarna. Intervjuerna gjordes för att få en djupare förståelse för organisationen, och enkätundersökningen för att undersöka attityderna till dagens datoranvändning samt hur säkerheten kring datoriseringen upplevs bland de anställda.</p><p>Resultat: Enligt studien kan smarta kort förbättra IT-säkerheten inom hälso- och sjukvården genom att skapa en säker identifiering vid användning av ITstöd. Smarta kort kan även bidra till en förenklad in- och utloggningsprocess i ett datorsystem, vilket i sin tur leder till bättre spårbarhet samt ökad mobilitet bland användarna. Undersökningen visar att majoriteten av användarna inte är emot den förändring ett smart kort kan bidra till, utan snarare tvärt om.</p>

This dissertation investigates the role of information technology (IT) in organizational strategy. Specifically, it examines how organizations can persist in turbulent competitive landscapes characterized by IT innovations. Underlying premises for this dissertation are that: (1) ubiquitous IT implies constant disruptions from digital innovation, (2) IT and practice are becoming fused, and (3) organizational strategies are dynamically linked with practice, i.e. they are reciprocally related through what organizations do rather than have. To investigate such IT strategizing processes, I outline a conceptual framework for analyzing how organizations can generate digital capability, i.e. a collection of routines for strategizing by leveraging digital assets to create differential value. Digital assets here refer to the complement of available resources and competencies for IT design and implementation. Based on the notion of dynamic capability and evolutionary theory, this framework emphasizes the importance of sensing, seizing and transforming abilities for generating digital capability. As organizational practices are becoming fused with IT scholars have argued that attempting to disentangle them analytically is futile. In a similar vein, organizational strategy is increasingly reliant on available IT resources for both formulation and execution. In the IS field it is widely acknowledged that IT has both enabling and inhibiting consequences for organizations. Drawing on the resource-based view of the firm and theory on organizational capabilities, the notion of IT capability has been widely used as a conceptual tool for analyzing these dual strategic effects of IT. Considering the explosive advances in computing, network and interaction that have resulted in IT being ubiquitous and deeply embedded in contemporary practices, recent research argues for the need to move beyond the functional view of technology implicit in the IT capability notion. A key aspect to address for such broadening of the perspective is the coevolution of IT and business practices, i.e. who (or what) leads, who or what follows, and whether such a causal distinction is meaningful. Grounded in the outlined conceptual framework, this dissertation examines how organizations can build digital capability to both enable large variation and complexity of feasible competitive actions, and reduce inhibiting effects of IT. The empirical investigation is situated in three distinct domains: boundary spanning IT innovation, transformation of existing IT resources, and hybridization of technology through digitalization of production equipment. These investigations are presented in five research papers. The dissertation contribute to knowledge of IT strategy by: (1) explicating the construct of digital capability, (2) providing a framework for coevolutionary strategizing processes, (3) presenting an empirical illustration of the coevolution of IT and business strategies, and (4) offer specific insights on design and orchestration of processes for digital capability generation.