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IS6600 - Seminar 1

Global IS & KM Applications in Organisations -

Introduction

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Introductions – Me!• In HK since 1991; Travels in 80 countries.

– Non-technical IS courses to MSc and (E)MBA students

– Research methods to DBA & PhD students• Research involves China-focused

– Knowledge sharing in SMEs– Virtual and distributed work– IT-enabled organisational change

• Web http://www.is.cityu.edu.hk/staff/isrobert

• Email isrobert@cityu.edu.hk

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Topic Coverage1. Introduction; Culture; The Socially-Networked

Manager 2. Web-based Applications and Cases 3. Global ERP Cases4. Global IT Offshoring / Outsourcing5. Social Networking @ Work: Global and China

Perspectives6. Knowledge and its Management in Organisations7. Knowledge and Culture8. Information, Knowledge & Strategy9. How could we manage people (and knowledge)

better?10. Big data and Surveillance11. Green IT12. Project Presentations13. Revision.

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Resources

• Course Website– http://www.is.cityu.edu.hk/staff/isrobert/

IS6600.htm

• These notes are not comprehensive, i.e. if you come to class, you will hear, see and do many things that are not visible in the notes.

• So please do come to class. On time if possible, but late is better than never.

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Learning Styles

• I expect that you will engage with the learning process– Participation and interaction– Listen, reflect, challenge and criticise

(constructively)• Each class will have

– Opportunities for interaction, discussion, debate, as well as your own work-life examples

• I will assess your individual participation in each class

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Assessment Patterns & Grading• Coursework – 40%

– Team Project (4-6 person teams)• In Class Discussion – 20%

– Minimum 70% attendance (9 classes) is required.– If you cannot come to a class, please let me know in

advance.– This is not an attendance mark – it is a participation mark.

• Exam (open book/web) - 40%

• Note 1: Passing is optional!• Note 2: You must pass the exam and the

coursework to pass IS6600 as a whole.• Note 3: Please do not plagiarise – if you do, you will

fail!

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Grading Definitions • A: Excellent

– Strong evidence of original thinking, analysis & synthesis; extensive knowledge base

• B: Good– Good awareness of the importance of the

subject; some analytic ability; reasonable understanding of issues & literature

• C: Adequate– Understanding is reasonable, but much room for

improvement• D: Marginal, minimal familiarity with the

subject• F: Very weak

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Rationale

• IS6600 is designed to be a capstone course for the EBKM programme

• IS6600 follows and complements – IS5313, IS5743, IS6921

• IS6600 is also deliberately intended to be iconoclastic– We need to be creative and explore

new ways of applying IS in organisations

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Course Goals• Explore and investigate advanced IS &

KM topics from a global perspective in the organisational context.– What is Global? Globalisation?

International?– What is ‘advanced’?

• Cutting edge technologies?• Future trends?• Solutions to complex problems?

– Roughly a 50-50 (IS-KM) split on materials.

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East/West? North/South? Global?

• Many academics and pundits assume an East-West split (dichotomy)– There has long been a Western

hegemony!• Globally, it is a little more

complex! – There is also North and South– Developing and Developed– There are multiple, competing

perspectives– There are few “correct” practices, but

many cultural alternatives

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A Few Major Global Companies• Banks: HSBC, CityBank, BoC• Aviation: CX, CZ, QF & SQ, FX, Boeing,

Airbus• Shipping: OOCL, APL, MOL, MSC,

ShunFeng• Consumer: P&G, Samsung, Nestle, Kraft,

Unilever, Swire, Philips, Sony-Ericsson, Huawei

• Oil: Shell, Exxon, BP, CNOC, Halliburton, Husky

• Pharma: Roche, Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline,…

• Web: Amazon, Alibaba, Wikipedia, Guardian

• They are all different, yet all global and all rely on IS extensively

Global Events

• Companies organise global annual summits– They bring together their senior

executives for discussions and planning

• This involves lots of – travel – money – time– inconvenience

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But Look at Cisco (www.cisco.com)

• Each year, they organise a global virtual partner summit for CIOs.

• Everyone participates virtually – with video links/chats and IM

• It saves a lot of $$$ and time• It also improves interaction.

– Less $, more productivity?– Can cheaper be better?!

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Then What are Global IS?

• Systems used by single organisations across two or more nations?

• Systems used individually by many different organisations – in many nations around the world?

• Systems that track the online activities globally for a single customer?

• And what issues do these GIS encounter?

Technology and Globalisation have

transformed the nature of work

the way we workthe way we think about

work

Work Places? Spaces? Clouds?

Global Spam

• We all get spam emails – 70+% of email is spam

• Spam is a global phenomenon– Nigerian 419, V!@gra scams, etc.

• Spam is a global business (opportunity)– If you can get a 0.2% response rate…

• Combatting spam needs global solutions 16

The Route Behind the Spam• “In 2011, researchers analysing

the money trail behind one email, advertising Viagra-style drugs, found that the web domain involved was registered in Russia, hosted in Brazil and managed in China, taking payments through a Turkish server to an Azerbaijani bank, with the product eventually dispatched from Chennai in India”.

• How much more global could that be?!

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/09/why-spammers-are-winning-junk-mail

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Culture

• Patterned ways of thinking, feeling and reacting– Behaviour styles– Negotiating techniques– Protocol– Business practices

• Cultural misunderstandings can threaten or even destroy your efforts in a foreign culture/country.– Where is foreign? Where is local? How local are

the locals? Who are the foreigners? Am I local or foreign? Are you? Does it matter?

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Understanding Culture• … is not just about observing.• “the same behaviour can have different

meanings and different behaviours can have the same meaning” [Schneider & Barsoux, 1997]

• Why do people behave in this way?• What are their underlying values and

beliefs?• Do we really live in a global village?

– Is the world flat?!• “We do not see things as they are … we

see things as we are” – Anaïs Nin.

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What is Culture?HUMAN NATURE

universalto laugh to cry

CULTURE a group level construct, but…

When is it appropriate to laugh? to cry? Where is it appropriate to laugh? to cry?

way of life passed down from one generation to the next through education and experience – Concise Columbia Encyclopedia

collective programming of the mind – Geert Hofstede

PERSONALITYindividual

each of us laughs / cries at different times / places

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Iceberg Model of Culture

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Culture Below the Surface

• Attitudes– “I can’t live without my iPhone”

• Assumptions– “Women are always correct”

• Values– “Money is more important than anything else”

• Beliefs– “My purpose in life is …”

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Culture Above the Surface• Greetings

– How should you greet someone?Kiss, hug, bow or shake hands?

– Does it depend on who they are, who you are?

• Dress– What is appropriate attire at work? At a funeral?

• Punctuality– What does it mean to be “on time”?– How quickly should I reply to an e-mail?

• Gift giving– Should you give gifts to business associates? – What should you give?

• Corporate Logos– What projects the “right” or “wrong” image?

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Colours in Different Cultures

ColourCulture

Red Blue Green Yellow White

Anglo Danger, Fire, Stop

Strong;reliable

SuccessSafety

Coward Purity

French Aristocrat Freedom; peace

Crime Lucky; temporary

Neutral

Chinese Happy;Success

Heaven ---- Wealthy; powerful

Death; purity

Japanese Anger; danger

Criminal Young; energetic

Grace; nobility

Death

Arab Death Virtue Fertile; strong

Happy; wealthy

Joy

Indian Life --- Wealth; fertile

Success Death

Adapted from Russo & Boor (1993) http://webdesign.about.com/od/color/a/bl_colorculture.htm

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Corporate Logos

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Culture Story 1 – Ethics• Your good friend is a programmer at HK

Airport. Last night, he told you that he wrote a virus for fun and it leaked out, infecting a cargo handling system and causing an accident last year where three workers were killed.

• The official investigation indicated that ‘no one individual should be held accountable – the IT Dept takes collective responsibility’.– What will you do? What if no one was killed?– What is the role of your ‘cultural values’ in reaching a

decision? Would everyone react the same way?– What does “collective responsibility” really mean?

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Culture Story 2 – KMS Design• You are designing a new KMS for a Hong

Kong consulting firm.• The system should capture knowledge

from employees and make it available to other employees – current and future.

• You interview current employees so as to establish their current knowledge practices.

• Many say that they never share – they consider that knowledge is a personal asset.

• Others say that they only share with close friends and colleagues.

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Culture Story 2 – KMS Design• What are you going to recommend to

management?– Is there a culturally ‘better’ solution than a

KMS?– Is a strongly centralised system for

knowledge always good?– Should we allow individual employees to

choose with whom they share, or not to share at all?

– Do we need to ‘control’ knowledge and knowledge sharing or can knowledge be free?

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Culture and Workplace Issues• Global transfer of IS applications is not

automatic or problem-free.– Systems designed for one culture may not

work in another culture• Few researchers have investigated

these issues - probing the iceberg.• Most textbooks assume a monocultural,

ethnocentric and universalist perspective– “If it works for us, it’ll work for them”– “They are ‘human’ aren’t they?!”

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Culture and Workplace Issues

• Limited understanding of why failures occur beyond the generic “culture” explanation.

• Descriptions of successful global IS stories – but little in the way of detailed understanding– Why is it successful?– What are the critical success factors?

Culture and Work

• Telework (working from home, from a remote site) has become popular in some countries, esp. US, Canada, Australia.– Up to 10% of the workforce teleworks

regularly• Yahoo! Recently cancelled all

telework practices! – Cited need for a ‘working-together’

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Work Culture

• Together or Apart?• Individualism or Collectivism?• Control or Freedom?• Telework has rarely been popular

in HK.• How about China?• Why?

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The Web – Unlimited Information: Opportunity or Hazard?

• In late summer 1994, a mathematics professor found errors in Intel’s Pentium Processor.

• When Intel refused to respond, he posted his comments on a website.

• Later, Intel announced that the error would only happen once in 9 billion calculations. Critics disagreed, noting that one would never know if a calculation was correct or not.

• Within 1 month, IBM stopped shipping Pentium-based PCs.

• In November, Intel admitted the problem, and offered a replacement chip “if you can prove the need”.

• By late December, following huge public outcry, Intel offered the replacement chip to anyone who asked.

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In 1994• Who had Internet access?

– Globally, less than 1% of the population

• Who read newsgroups on the web?– Even fewer people.

• Search engines were primitive and missed a lot of content.

• Internet-literacy was low.– Were you Internet literate in 1994?

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In 2015, it is a bit different• 35% of the world is online – 2.5 billion people

– More Chinese are online than Americans• Wikipedia: written by anyone & the 5th most

popular website globally• eBay/TaoBao buyers and sellers rate and

comment on each other’s performance for every transaction.

• Epinions, Amazon, and many others report customer feedback on all products.

• Avaaz delivers social activism online• Dopplr keeps you in touch with your friends’

travel movements, doodle with meetings & schedules

• Wikileaks is more informative than governments.

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The Ubiquitous Web

CNINJPAUUKDEFRFIUSHKAll

19970.010.0016724110197.91.8

20001.30.521393319154245526.1

20023.6244555739285259609.6

http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm

20069.44.567.268.462.9594362.568.769.216.0

201236.38.478.478.38279.969.585.278.268.530.0

2008195.273.875.966.464.654.762.771.469.521.9

201440.111.479.589.883.683.079.689.478.374.534.3

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Markets & Conversations

• The Internet spawns new forms of ‘speech’

• Deep linking subverts hierarchy• Better quality information comes from

other consumers, not vendors– Does anyone actually read/listen to what

the vendors say anymore?– Do the vendors know what we say about

them???• There are no secrets

– you can find anything online, good or bad, even in China (if you know how)

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What’s all this got to do with IS?• Blogs are an IS application• Blogs are a powerful weapon – in

anyone’s hands– Of offence or defence– Of propaganda or counter-propaganda– Of information or mis/dis-information

• Blogs are increasing used by senior executives

• Search engines ***love*** blogs.– http://blogsearch.google.com

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Ignore Bloggers at your Peril!• Jupiter Research Study

– Bloggers are exerting a "disproportionately large influence" on society.

– The 25% of web users who are "active" are dominating opinions and creating business trends.

– "They're not representative of the larger audience, but what they're saying does matter".

– Globally, there are hundreds of millions of blogs, and bloggers – they are better paid, better educated, and have better jobs.

– If 100 people complain online, that can be enough for a firm to pull a product from the shelf.

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Application Example (for you!)• Your company produces high-end MP3 players in

China and sells them worldwide. Your latest model, SX88, sells well and is guaranteed for 3 years.

• However, 15 minutes ago, you (the CIO) received an e-mail from your marketing director about an on-line discussion forum that reports several breakdowns of the SX88 after as little as four months.

• When you search for “SX88 failure” on Google and Baidu, you see that there are already over 1000 hits, many at blog sites.

– Hacktivists suggest Denial-of-Service attacking your servers and hacking your website to protest!

• What will you do to stop this negative publicity?

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New Lines of Defence & Offence• Executive Blog (xlog)!

– Written by an executive on own initiative.– “Straight” language – not marketing

language– Insights, opinions, wonderings, marketing.

• Jack Ma (Alibaba) http://blog.sina.com.cn/mayunblog• Li Yan Hong (Baidu) http://hi.baidu.com/liyanhong

• Employee Blog– Written by large numbers of employees with

company encouragement (e.g., HP).– Insights (technology), advice.

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Web 2 4 Work• In China, I see increasing evidence

of Web 2 applications– Weibo, Weixin, QQ, MSN, Yammer,

RTX• … being used as normal work tools

for– Marketing– Knowledge Exchange– Collaboration

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So, How Can Web 2.0 Contribute to the Value of IT?

• Can Web 2.0 enhance communication or knowledge sharing at work?

• Can Web 2.0 facilitate a new culture?

• Does a better culture improve competitive advantage?

• Do we need significant investments?– Of what? $/£/¥? Time? Creativity?

• What could we do with Web 2.0 that we are not doing now?

And Finally!

• Please watch this TED video presentation– http://www.ted.com/talks/sherry_turkle_alone_t

ogether.html

• Now, consider the implications of what Sherry Turkle says for global business about…– How we work– How we communicate– The culture we share

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