Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Managerial challenges to realizing IT shared services in a public university

Managerial challenges to realizing IT shared services in a public university Many governments and public organizations are turning to shared service arrangements to decrease costs while increasing service levels. This paper aims to elucidate the fine-grained challenges managers face as they adjust to working under a shared service arrangement.Design/methodology/approachA two-year longitudinal ethnographic field study followed the IT shared service transformation process at a large public university. Meeting observations, emails, documents and interviews were used in the qualitative analysis.FindingsThe research identifies 11 challenges faced by management undergoing a transition to shared services. The authors use a taxonomy of management challenges based on the organizational perspectives literature (Knol et al., 2014) to organize the challenges and relate them to prior literature.Research limitations/implicationsThe novel findings include the importance of changing organizational culture, balancing dual interests of cost and customer focus, establishing a sense of urgency and achieving process standardization through practicing when adopting a shared service arrangement. The results from a single case study may not by generalizable to other organizations.Originality/valueThis study provides a nuanced and fine-grained understanding of the managerial challenges of adopting IT-shared services. This unique longitudinal data set describes in nuanced detail the challenges faced by frontline managers. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy Emerald Publishing

Managerial challenges to realizing IT shared services in a public university

Download PDF
17 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/emerald-publishing/managerial-challenges-to-realizing-it-shared-services-in-a-public-Qy24aTgYow
Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
© Emerald Publishing Limited
ISSN
1750-6166
DOI
10.1108/tg-04-2018-0030
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Many governments and public organizations are turning to shared service arrangements to decrease costs while increasing service levels. This paper aims to elucidate the fine-grained challenges managers face as they adjust to working under a shared service arrangement.Design/methodology/approachA two-year longitudinal ethnographic field study followed the IT shared service transformation process at a large public university. Meeting observations, emails, documents and interviews were used in the qualitative analysis.FindingsThe research identifies 11 challenges faced by management undergoing a transition to shared services. The authors use a taxonomy of management challenges based on the organizational perspectives literature (Knol et al., 2014) to organize the challenges and relate them to prior literature.Research limitations/implicationsThe novel findings include the importance of changing organizational culture, balancing dual interests of cost and customer focus, establishing a sense of urgency and achieving process standardization through practicing when adopting a shared service arrangement. The results from a single case study may not by generalizable to other organizations.Originality/valueThis study provides a nuanced and fine-grained understanding of the managerial challenges of adopting IT-shared services. This unique longitudinal data set describes in nuanced detail the challenges faced by frontline managers.

Journal

Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy – Emerald Publishing

Published: Mar 12, 2019

Keywords: Shared services

References

  • Managing in an information age: transforming the organization for the 1990s
    Applegate, L.M.
  • Moving the governance of shared service centres (SSCs) forward: Juxtaposing agency theory and Stewardship theory
    Boon, J.
  • On the dynamics of reform resistance: why and how bureaucratic organizations resist shared service center reforms
    Boon, J.; Verhoest, K.
  • Modeling an HR shared services center: experience of an MNC in the United Kingdom
    Cooke, F.L.
  • Managing strategic contradictions in hybrid teams
    Cousins, K.C.; Robey, D.; Zigurs, I.
  • A framework for creating IT shared services: lessons from the public sector
    Cullen, T.; McIvor, R.; McCracken, M.
  • Sharing services, saving money? Five risks to cost-saving when organizations share services
    Elston, T.; MacCarthaigh, M.
  • In-sourcing HR: shared service centres in the Netherlands
    Farndale, E.; Paauwe, J.; Hoeksema, L.
  • Exploring shared services from an IS perspective: a literature review and research agenda
    Fielt, E.; Bandara, W.; Miskon, S.; Gable, G.G.
  • Resource‐based approach to IT shared services in a manufacturing firm
    Goh, M.; Prakash, S.; Yeo, R.
  • Success factors model for ICT shared services
    Hashim, N.M.; Ali, N.M.; Abdullah, N.S.; Miskon, S.; Huspi, S.H.
  • Contracting out municipal accounting: the role of institutional entrepreneurship
    Hyvönen, T.; Pellinen, J.; Oulasvirta, L.; Järvinen, J.
  • The sociomaterial practice of IT-Enabled change: a case study of a global transformation
    Iveroth, E.
  • Shared services: simple idea can be tricky to execute
    Jackson, T.
  • Motives for establishing shared service centers in public administrations
    Janssen, M.; Joha, A.
  • Simulation and animation for adopting shared services: evaluating and comparing alternative arrangements
    Janssen, M.; Joha, A.; Zuurmond, A.
  • Public-private partnerships, outsourcing or shared service centres?: motives and intents for selecting sourcing configurations
    Joha, A.; Janssen, M.
  • A set of principles for conducting and evaluating interpretive field studies in information systems
    Klein, H.K.; Myers, M.D.
  • Sourcing with shared service centres: challenges in the dutch government
    Knol, A.J.; Sol, H.G.
  • A taxonomy of management challenges for developing shared services arrangements
    Knol, A.; Janssen, M.; Sol, H.
  • Leading change: why transformation efforts fail
    Kotter, J.P.
  • Creating global shared services: lessons from reuters
    Lacity, M.; Fox, J.
  • Strategies for theorizing from process data
    Langley, A.
  • Collaborating on multiparty information systems development projects: a collective reflection-in-action view
    Levina, N.
  • Explaining information systems change: a punctuated socio-technical change model
    Lyytinen, K.; Newman, M.
  • Creating outsourced shared services arrangements: lessons from the public sector
    McIvor, R.; McCracken, M.; McHugh, M.
  • Populations, natural selection, and applied organizational science
    McKelvey, B.; Aldrich, H.
  • Creating IT shared services
    McKeen, J.D.; Smith, H.
  • Why sharing is synergy: the role of decentralized control mechanisms and centralized HR capabilities in creating HR shared service value
    Maatman, M.; Meijerink, J.
  • Understanding shared services: an exploration of the IS literature
    Miskon, S.; Bandara, W.; Fielt, E.; Gable, G.
  • Building contextual ambidexterity in a software company to improve firm-level coordination
    Napier, N.P.; Mathiassen, L.; Robey, D.
  • Shared service strategies in local government – a multiple case study exploration
    Niehaves, B.; Krause, A.
  • An integrative literature review and empirical validation of motives for introducing shared services in government organizations
    Paagman, A.; Tate, M.; Furtmueller, E.; de Bloom, J.
  • Context and action in the transformation of the firm
    Pettigrew, A.M.
  • Shared service center research: a review of the past, present, and future
    Richter, P.C.; Brühl, R.
  • A social information processing approach to job attitudes and task design
    Salancik, G.R.; Pfeffer, J.
  • Characteristics of shared service centers
    Schulz, V.; Brenner, W.
  • Definition and classification of IT-Shared-Service-Center
    Schulz, V.; Hochstein, A.; Uebernickel, F.; Brenner, W.
  • Shared services and cost reduction motive in the public sector
    Tammel, K.
  • Adopting shared services in a public-sector organization
    Ulbrich, F.
  • Seven challenges management must overcome when implementing IT-shared services
    Ulbrich, F.; Schulz, V.
  • Generic management challenges of adopting IT-Shared services
    Ulbrich, F.; Schulz, V.; Brenner, W.
  • Shared services: from vogue to value
    Ulrich, D.
  • Perspectives in organizations: resource dependence, efficiency, and population
    Ulrich, D.; Barney, J.B.
  • Job design for IT-Shared services organizations
    Uruthirapathy, A.
  • Risk management challenges of shared public services: a comparative analysis of Scotland and Finland
    Valkama, P.; Asenova, D.; Bailey, S.J.
  • Evolving to a new dominant logic for marketing
    Vargo, S.L.; Lusch, R.F.
  • The economics of organization: the transaction cost approach
    Williamson, O.E.
  • Case study: New York city office space optimization, an operational excellence in government success story
    Wiseman, J.