Papers by Robert B. Johnston
Proceedings of the 39th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS'06), 2006
Many proposals for electronic payment systems (EPS) have been made but the great majority have fa... more Many proposals for electronic payment systems (EPS) have been made but the great majority have failed to achieve widespread adoption. The reasons why some proposals succeed and others fail remains unclear. The successful operation of these systems depends on the cooperation of a number of stakeholders including consumers, merchants, financial institutions and infrastructure providers. In this paper we analyse the conditions for success in terms of the benefits and costs of the system to these stakeholders. On the basis of theoretical arguments, we present two hypotheses about the necessary (but not sufficient) conditions for successful diffusion of an EPS: the distribution of costs benefits and risks among stakeholders must be mutual; and a critical mass of customers and merchants must be provided for the EPS by the financial or technology infrastructure partners. We illustrate the arguments with three case studies of recent attempts to create new electronic payments systems.
International Journal of Electronic Commerce
Increasingly, large retail companies are finding that the traditional vision of Electronic Data I... more Increasingly, large retail companies are finding that the traditional vision of Electronic Data Interchange, using a value-added network with expensive message-translation software and private wide-area networks, is unable to deliver its promise of paperless trading with their ...
can be gained by carefully specifying the network level of analysis. Better understanding of the ... more can be gained by carefully specifying the network level of analysis. Better understanding of the way IOIS are shaped can greatly assist in evaluating the extent to which adoption experiences in one industry or country can be validly used to inform policy choices in another industry or country.
Inter-organisational Information Systems (IOIS) are computer-based systems shared by, or connecti... more Inter-organisational Information Systems (IOIS) are computer-based systems shared by, or connecting, several organisations. The on-going use and evolution on long time scales of these large scale socio-technical systems challenges naive theories that give causal primacy to the material constraints and affordance of the technology, or to social forces such and power and norms, or to rational impetus such as visions of efficiency through standardisation. Recently, several authors have drawn on a "mutual shaping" approach which posits that the causal impetus of the material and social can be considered as interleaved episodically in time. While this approach attempts a more balanced treatment of the social and the material it does so by enforcing an asymmetry between these, both conceptually and temporarily, in a desire to maintain a unidirectional theory of causality that is at odds with both systems theory and reproductionist social theory.
Much discussion of research validity in IS draws on the Empiricist tradition which presents an im... more Much discussion of research validity in IS draws on the Empiricist tradition which presents an impoverished account of reality, making it difficult to formulate issues of validity that are pertinent to a practitioner-oriented discipline. This is particularly true for external validity, which refers to the applicability, or relevance, of research to phenomena in the boarder environment of practices, but also
Abstract Inter-organisational systems (IOS) are of great importance to businesses as these system... more Abstract Inter-organisational systems (IOS) are of great importance to businesses as these systems enable different organisations to work together through the exchange of information. Despite this significance, the diffusion of IOS is disappointingly slow. There ...
As part of an international empirical study we have developed a high-level theory of the structur... more As part of an international empirical study we have developed a high-level theory of the structure and evolution of inter-organizational information systems (IOIS), but face two issues in testing this theory; the very large set of factors possibly influencing IOIS and need to bound a complex research object. We describe a novel solution involving an explicitly theory-driven coding of our raw empirical data to produce a new interpreted "meso-level" ground upon which to derive and test predictions. To justify this approach, we first give a pragmatic analysis which traces the problem to the traditional choice between top-down (deductive) and bottom-up (inductive) methods for linking theory and data. We then assess the validity of our approach against standard philosophical positions. We find that a hard Empiricist view commonly espoused in information systems would not admit our approach but that Critical Realism does and suggests a conceptual interpretation of our meso-level.
Adoption of inter-organizational systems (IOS) to improve supply chain efficiency has proved to b... more Adoption of inter-organizational systems (IOS) to improve supply chain efficiency has proved to be difficult because it spans organizational boundaries. Most IOS adoption studies have employed the factor approach that typically involves an identification of situational factors that affect the adoption by individual firms. This study argues that such an approach is unable to completely capture the richness of IOS adoption experience of organization and demonstrates the necessity to use a dynamic interactional model of IOS adoption to overcome the limitations of the factor approach. Using the findings of Category Management adoption in Australia, the paper illustrates how the dynamic interactional model captures the reciprocal interactions between the adopting firms with their inter-organizational environment in the course of adoption.
The idea of this workshop is to introduce the beer distribution game as a means to im-prove teach... more The idea of this workshop is to introduce the beer distribution game as a means to im-prove teaching business-to-business eCommerce to both freshmen undergraduate stu-dents, as well as executives and masters students. In doing so, the aim of this workshop is threefold: Firstly, we want to introduce the beergame as a useful role-play teaching method by playing a demonstration game with all interested workshop participants during the workshop session. For doing so, we use a software that was developed at the Univer-sity of Muenster and that can easily be administered in the workshop using an ad-hoc network of laptop computers. Secondly, we want to demonstrate how the beergame can be used to provide students with a more profound understanding of the reasons why eCommerce technologies are used in contemporary supply chains to exchange informa-tion and to facilitate collaboration. Finally, we want to share with the Bled community our experiences in using the beergame in eCommerce courses and also make available our software under a free-to-use educationware licence model.
... The term Just-In-Time refers to an ideal state of affairs rather than to a particular system ... more ... The term Just-In-Time refers to an ideal state of affairs rather than to a particular system for realizing that state (Cowton and ... that promise to reduce order generation and receiving times are frequently recommended, or even claimed to be essential for JIT (Banerjee and Golhar ...
Strategies and policies for the adoption and development of interorganizational systems require f... more Strategies and policies for the adoption and development of interorganizational systems require further understanding of the theoretical background to these systems. An argument is made for development of theory that is multi-level, processual and has an emergent perspective. Such theory is needed to deal with a context where environmental influences are important in addition to complex interactions between organizational activities at the micro-level and industry structure at the macro-level. The use of structuration theory as a vehicle to advance further understanding is explored. An illustration is given of application of this theory in the development of supply chain management in the beef industry.
attempts to link complex data types such as CAD drawings with traditional EDI documents, on-line ... more attempts to link complex data types such as CAD drawings with traditional EDI documents, on-line catalogues and various Internet marketing initiatives.
Recently, IS researchers have borrowed theories from other academic fields in the hope of enrichi... more Recently, IS researchers have borrowed theories from other academic fields in the hope of enriching their theorising about the use, adoption and diffusion of material systems by human actors. Situated Action, Structuration theory and Actor-Network Theory (ANT) are cases in point. Arguably, rather than borrowing theories ready-made from alien disciplines, we should investigate their meta-theoretical commitments and apply these directly to IS problems. This paper argues that the notion of viewing intentional action from the "ground view" of a situated agent is the essential theoretical move underlying these theories. The notion of situated action is developed systemically as an alternative to the widespread deliberative view of action, and it is shown that the key notions of Structuration and ANT arise out of this exposition in a rather natural way. By demystifying these theories in this way, it is hoped that in future IS researchers might draw directly on the more fundamental notion of situated action in theorising the role of IT/IS in human intentional action.
ABSTRACT: The development in the late 1980s of two-dimensional bar code symbols capable of storin... more ABSTRACT: The development in the late 1980s of two-dimensional bar code symbols capable of storing kilobytesof information in a single symbol and unlimited data in multiple symbolshas led to the suggestion that the bar code could be used as a medium for transmitting ...
The IOS Adoption Motivation (IAM) model is a theoretical framework that relates organisational mo... more The IOS Adoption Motivation (IAM) model is a theoretical framework that relates organisational motivations for IOS adoption to IOS adoption processes. The IAM model which was tested in the Australian pharmaceutical industry however requires additional validation. We have thus applied the IAM model to understand IOS adoption processes of a supplier that operates in the Australian automotive industry. Interesting variations in the IOS adoption processes between two stages of EDI adoption were observed which are explained in terms of the model. The findings provide broad support for the IAM model, and will be useful to IT managers responsible for managing IOS.
Efficient Consumer Response (ECR) is a grocery industry supply chain management strategy, making ... more Efficient Consumer Response (ECR) is a grocery industry supply chain management strategy, making use of electronic commerce and other innovations, to make the industry more efficient internally and responsive to consumer needs. Despite the many potential benefits obtainable from ECR, several studies indicate that the diffusion of ECR has been slow in many regions. There are many factors to which this slow uptake may be attributed, one of which is dissatisfaction with the program. In this paper, we attempt to identify factors that affect satisfaction with ECR, which will, in turn, affect the diffusion of the program. Since it is difficult to find a single measure of ECR success, we argue that satisfaction with ECR can be used as a surrogate measure of success. For the purpose of this study, an ECR survey of the Australian grocery industry was re-analysed. The results of this study indicate that external factors such as the type and size of companies are independent of ECR satisfaction. However, a number of factors essentially internal to the company that affect ECR satisfaction were identified by analysing the differences between the 'Satisfied' group and 'Not Satisfied' group. As a conclusion, a number of determinants of success with the ECR program are presented. This study provides incremental understanding of the determinants of ECR success, based on the Australian experience.
Interorganizational systems (IOS) adoption requires cooperation and collaboration between trading... more Interorganizational systems (IOS) adoption requires cooperation and collaboration between trading partners and, therefore, is reliant on the nature of their relationships. There has been some research that examines the match between the different types of relationships and different types of IOS adoption and how IOS adoption moves from a simple system to a more sophisticated system. However, these studies do not precisely define the important constructs needed to understand this adoption progression, which makes them difficult to be used for empirical research. This research introduces a new model, which is called "IOS Adoption Maturity" model, to explicitly illustrate how organizations progress from one level of IOS adoption to the next level. Based on the previous studies, we define three important constructs (IO relationship intimacy, IOS sophistication and IOS adoption maturity) in the model. With this model, the dynamics of IOS adoption progression can be better examined empirically.
The adoption of ECR has been slow in many regions, despite its many potential benefits to manufac... more The adoption of ECR has been slow in many regions, despite its many potential benefits to manufacturer, distributor and retailer within a supply chain through reduction of inventory level and operating costs. There has not been any well developed theory that can explain this slow uptake. In this paper, we argue that the inherent characteristics of ECR have actually created barriers to it own adoption. As an inter-organisational system, ECR adoption requires cooperation and trust between trading partners, which are not likely to happen unless costs, benefits and risks of ECR implementation can be mutually shared. We show using two case studies conducted within one supply chain that an unequal distribution of costs, benefits and risks among manufacturer, distributor and retailer is inherent in the implementation of Cross-Docking, which typifies the overall ECR program. We also describe how one party in the supply chain is attempting to solve this problem of mutuality. The findings of this study lead to a new direction in understanding the barriers to adoption of ECR and inter-organisational systems in general.
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Papers by Robert B. Johnston