Deep and grounded understanding of complex socio-technical phenomena, such as business-to-business (B2B) information systems, requires a collaborative process of enquiry where the researcher works with practitioners to make sense and establish meaning. This suggests the need for interventionary...

Flexibility is becoming more important for organisations. Information technology (IT) has been proposed as a tool which can aid the attainment of flexibility. However, IT may also reduce an organisation's flexibility. In order to assess the extent to which IT enables or inhibits flexibility, a...

The networked organisation, or its successor, the nebulous organisation, is not just a future possibility. It already exists. We may have not noticed it by thinking that IT is the only influence in this direction. Philip Powell looks at other influences including different new technologies,...

The process by which small firms (SMEs) invest in and gain benefit from information systems (IS) is little understood. This paper analyses two alternative models of IS-based strategic change--the Focus-Dominance model (Levy et al., 2001) and stages of growth models as applied to SMEs. An...

Amid the turmoil of the current economic crisis, the wild expectations for business-to-business electronic marketplaces or ‘e-hubs’ as transformative modes of exchange for all industries have subsided. However, e-hubs continue to elicit interest in industries such as car production....

The allocation of research grants is a typical rationing problem in that demand exceeds supply, compounded by notions of fairness and legitimacy. Segmentation of fund seekers may offer the potential to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of delivery by targeting scarce resources more...

Small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) are a major component of all economies and are generally considered to be flexible, adaptive organisations. Although lagging behind their larger counterparts, SMEs are beginning to invest in information systems. Using data derived from a set of...