longitudinal research over extended periods, covering the entire innovation process
from agenda formation (when the idea for implementing a particular new technology
is first tabled) through to appropriation. This means that many of our research
findings are likely to provide
only a snapshot (or at least only a small movie extract)
of the ICT management process. Given the importance noted here of emergence
and evolution, this suggests a problem for those interested in this area, and poses
a significant challenge for IS research more generally. Discussion and debate as to
how to resolve this problem is urgently needed so that we prevent oversimplification
of ICT-based change which tends to highlight the failures rather than the successes.
Successes are likely to take considerable time to emerge and not be captured by
the snapshots that commonly get taken through the research process conducted in
real time. On the other hand, retrospective accounts suffer from post-hoc rational-
izing and justification so that much of the emergent and messy process of ICT-based
change is concealed (Lanzarra, 1999).
There is some additional learning that might potentially be gleaned from this
comparison. The lack of a cumulative tradition in IS has been highlighted and
criticized for some time (e.g., Keen, 1980). More recently, and in a similar vein, one
of the authors of this paper has expressed his concern regarding our propensity in
the IS field to study emerging phenomena in isolation. In doing so, he highlighted as
examples, KMS and electronic commerce at this point in the development of our
subject area (Galliers, 1999). It would seem, certainly on the face of it, that the
experience of both the airline and the bank would lend some weight to further
research in which electronic
commerce and KMS are considered as related
phenomena in the context of the kind of strategic change reported on here.
Finally, in relation to intra-organizational electronic commerce per se, there is
an important difference between the two cases that needs to be considered.
Specifically, while the bank relied wholly on a virtual space (the intranet) to facilitate
improved internal communication and collaboration, the airline incorporated an
improved physical as well as virtual space as part of its change program. The new
building designed by the airline not only co-located individuals from the different
functional areas but also created places where people could meet, either formally
and informally. Nonaka and Konno (1994) develop the concept of ‘Ba’
to highlight
the need for ‘space’
in the knowledge creating company. While some of these ‘Bas’
are virtual, others require a shared physical space. It is tempting to argue that the
airline was relatively more successful precisely because its change strategy that