Inf Technol Manage (2006) 7:239–247 DOI 10.1007/s10799-006-0274-x
A synthesizing framework for technology and content choices for information exchange Giri Kumar Tayi · Bin Srinidhi
C Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2006
Abstract In this paper, we develop a synthesizing framework for information exchange. In particular, we identify the drivers of both the content of information exchange as well as the choice of the technology used to facilitate information exchange across multiple organizations. Our first driver is the inter-organizational architecture. Unlike the general architectures developed by Williamson [11] and Adler [1], we focus specifically on the effect of architectures on information exchange. We classify the existing architectures in three dimensions, namely, customization, information sharing or trading and closed or open networks. Such a classification enables us to identify particular architectural characteristics that affect content and technology choices. Our second driver refers to the characteristics of the information, the system, the network and the regulatory environment that affect the credibility and usefulness of information exchange for the participants. Our third driver is the incentive structure in the architecture. Only the information that is deemed to be mutually beneficial by all participants will get exchanged. The incentive structure highlights the cost-benefit trade-offs of indiG. K. Tayi () School of Business, University at Albany, SUNY, Albany, NY 12222 e-mail:
[email protected] B. Srinidhi School of Accounting and Finance, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong e-mail:
[email protected];
[email protected]
vidual participants. We also place all the five papers accepted for this special issue within this synthesizing framework. Such positioning allows us to identify potential areas for future research and exploration. Keywords Information exchange . Technology choice . Content choice . Framework . Multiple organizations 1 Introduction In our call for proposals for the Special Issue on Information Sharing across Multiple Organizations, we articulated a theme in which we envisaged organizations in both the public and private arena deploying information and communication technologies to enhance productivity of their internal operations, processes and managerial activities. In particular, we visualized interconnected organizations that used these technologies to share relevant information reliably among each other in the context of the incentives provided by the network setting. The design and management of information exchange across multiple organizations, therefore, is a critical part of improving inter and intra organizational productivity which is in turn, a critical aspect of maintaining competitiveness. In the following section of this paper, we present and describe the framework. In the third section, we discuss the positioning and the contribution of the five papers in the context of this framework. In the concluding Springer
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section, we discuss future possibilities and potential for research in this area. Like all special issues, this issue could not have been produced without significant contributions from several individuals. We sincerely appreciate the expertise, time, and effort of the reviewers who have helped us select five high quality papers. We thank the contributing authors for choosing this special issue as an outlet for their research. Finally, we appreciate the advice and support provided by the Editors-in-Chief in producing this special issue. 2 The framework: Description In this section, we develop a framework to explain the forces driving the technology and content choices for information exchange. Our view of information exchange encompasses both the sharing and trading of information across multiple organizations. We posit three primary inter-related drivers. 2.1 Driver 1: Inter-organizational architecture The inter-organizational architecture refers to both formal and informal interactions among multiple organizations to achieve shared objectives. Earlier studies such as Williamson [11] have classified interorganizational architectures into two forms—Market and Hierarchy. The interactions among organizations in Market architecture are guided by the price mechanism in a free market. The interactions in Hierarchy architecture are guided by an explicit authority structure. Adler [1] expands this typology to include Community architecture where the guiding principle of interaction among organizations is the trust in the system. In contrast to these general inter-organizational architectures, we propose an architectural typology that is particularly appropriate for information exchange in multiple organizations.
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The trade-off for each organization in this architecture is between the loss of information rent (when private information is shared) and the share of the increased gain to the supply chain.
2.1.2 Complementary architecture In this architecture, organizations (such as social service agencies) interact to provide similar or complementary services or products to a community. The information about the services provided by other organizations is useful in reducing waste and improving the effective use of resources by each member organization. In this case, the shared benefit of information exchange outweighs information rent for each organization. This architecture is typically characterized by a lack of incentives to collect and communicate information that might be useful to other members—a moral hazard situation where the effort in collection and communication of information is seen as an unnecessary cost. As a result, Nash equilibrium with noncommunication might prevail in which no member organization has a unilateral incentive to collect and disseminate information but all of them will be better off with information exchange.
2.1.3 Information trading architecture In this architecture, some organizations (such as Gartner group) have unique expertise and resources to collect high-value information that is useful to a number of other organizations. A market in which information is valued and traded among information suppliers and beneficiary organizations characterizes this architecture. In this setting, information providers typically establish a brand image and differentiate themselves from other providers in specific dimensions.
2.1.1 Supply chain architecture
2.1.4 Information supply architecture
Here, the organizations are related to each other in customer-supplier relationships. Correspondingly, the transfer of information in a supply chain is normally focused on adding value to the entire supply chain in a sub-game perfect equilibrium. In other words, any information transfer should make each one of the members in the supply chain (at least weakly) better off.
In this setting, select organizations collect information of a general nature, thereby reducing the search cost for other member organizations. Wall Street Journal is an example of an information provider that collects and presents market data and analysis. This information is not private and could have been collected individually by the subscribers. However, this would result in high
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INFORMATION TRADING
INFORMATION SHARING
CUSTOMIZED
NFORMATION TRADING ARCHITECTURE Closed, customized and information trading architecture
INFORMATION SUPPLY ARCHITECTURE Open, non-customized and information trading architecture
OPEN NETWORK
CLOSED NETWORK SUPPLY CHAIN ARCHITECTURE Closed, customized and information sharing network
COMPLEMENTARY ARCHITECTURE NOT CUSTOMIZED
Open, non-customized and information sharing network
Fig. 1 Organizational architectures and their positioning
collection costs for them. Therefore it is more efficient for select organizations to collect and supply such information. In Fig. 1, we depict a three-dimensional space within which each of these architectures is uniquely positioned. The first dimension describes whether the architecture is a closed or an open network. In a closed network, a new organization is allowed to join only if that organization becomes part of a structured information exchange regime. For example, in a supply chain, new entrants are required to adhere to the existing structured information regime for mutual benefit. On the other hand, an open network is one that can be easily subscribed to, and does not require adherence to any particular exchange protocol. Complementary and Information Supply architectures are open networks. The second dimension spans the range from information trading at one end to information sharing at the other. In information-trading, the provider trades the information for financial consideration. On the other hand, information-sharing does not involve any financial consideration since it is deemed to be mutually beneficial.
The third dimension is based on the user perspective and spans the range from customized information that is useful to specific customers to non-customized information that could be useful to a large number of customers. Providers of customized information need to have the knowledge of the particular user requirements and perhaps collect and develop information that provides maximum benefit to that particular user. On the other hand, non-customized information is one that is common to all the users and does not require tailoring of information to suit individual users. For example, in the information supply architecture, the Wall Street Journal or the Lexis-Nexis databases are not customized to specific users but consider the general demand by all potential users. The information product is not altered to be more useful to one particular customer. (It is possible that it is customized to each customer segment—such as the Asia edition of the Wall Street Journal, but yet, the customization is not at the customer level.) In contrast, the information trading architecture often entails an information exchange where the information is collected, developed and presented in a particular design and form that is most appropriate for a specific client. Financial analyst’s reports, for Springer
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example, could be customized to the needs of a particular client. The customization could be in the content of the information or it could be in the technology used to exchange the information or both. Figure 1 gives the positioning of the four different architectures discussed above. The Supply Chain architecture is a closed network with customized information sharing. On the other hand, Information Trading architecture is also a closed network with customized information that is traded instead of being shared. The information supply architecture is an open network where non-customized information is traded. The Complementary architecture, on the other hand, is an open network where non-customized information is shared. 2.2 Driver 2: Information characteristics The diverse tasks and activities undertaken by the member organizations require information with certain context-specific characteristics or attributes. These characteristics are classified into four categories: 2.2.1 Characteristics inherent to the information that affect credibility This set of characteristics includes reliability and relevance. Reliability refers to representational faithfulness and verifiability. For example, when we want to measure the cost of producing the product, we employ inter-temporal and inter-product allocation rules that might result in a reported cost that is different from the true economic cost of producing the product. The greater the reported cost potentially deviates from the true cost, the lower is the representational faithfulness and the less reliable is the reported cost. Furthermore, if we use the appraised fair value of the resources consumed rather than the historical cost, such cost is less verifiable and the resulting product cost is less reliable. Relevance increases when information is timely and has predictive value. Reliable information that is not relevant is still not useful for decision making. Similarly, relevant information that is not reliable is also not useful for decision making. These characteristics are important in improving the credibility and value of the information to the user.
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2.2.2 System characteristics that affect credibility The information system determines the security of the information that is collected and disseminated, the access that is provided to internal and external agents, and the transparency of the reported information. These are also important for the information to be credible to the user. For example, if the security of the information is compromised, the original producer of the information might be less willing to exchange the information. Other agents will rationally anticipate this reluctance and reduce the amount of trust they place in the information. The required trust in the system by the user is critical, especially in contexts such as credit card payment information systems where the negative consequences of failure are very high. This could drive the choice of technology and information content. The second system characteristic is the access that is allowed to different agents. The governance structure (internal control system) defines who gets access to what information at what time and who has the authority to change or input the information. A well-defined and sound governance structure in all the organizations increases the trust (of all participants) in the system and could result in more information exchange. It also affects the choice of technology because the chosen technology should support such a governance structure. The third system characteristic is the transparency of the information. For example, the amount of debt held by an organization might be disclosed but transparency is increased if this information is supported by the disclosure of the maturity and other terms and conditions of the debt. In addition to security, access and transparency, there are many other system characteristics that affect information exchange and technology choice. One such characteristic is the ability of the system to maintain privacy. For example, in the information system about patient health, privacy is critical. The patients’ perception of privacy protection by the system influences their credibility in the system and the extent to which they find the system useful. Therefore, the level and nature of information exchanged between the patient, the caretakers and the insurance company is affected by the capability of the system to protect patient privacy. The choice of technology should therefore allow for appropriate privacy restrictions.
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2.2.3 Network characteristics An example of a network characteristic is the number and nature of participants involved in information exchange. This affects the value the participants accrue from such an exchange. This effect could vary across different architectures. For example, in supply chain architecture, the network effects are not dominant because the membership is involuntary and limited. In contrast, for complementary and trading architectures, network effects might play a dominant role. The network itself might have an effect on the information characteristics. Consider the information exchange in Ebay that will become more valuable to each participant as the number of participants increases because it creates a wider market. The search cost is another characteristic that is affected by the network. The search cost could exponentially increase as the network size increases. This might prompt a technology choice based on lowering the search cost. A case in point is the search technology employed by Google. As their network grows, the reduction of search cost becomes more critical for them. 2.2.4 Regulatory characteristics An important regulatory characteristic is whether the information exchange is voluntary or mandated by law or regulation. Other regulatory characteristics include constraints on the timing, content, format and direction of information flow. If the disclosure of information is mandated, the regulator might in fact, choose the technology and the platform for facilitating information exchange. Even if the regulator does not specify the technology and content choices directly, such choices have to be made to satisfy both current and potential regulatory constraints. Therefore, the regulatory characteristics have an important effect on both technology and information content choices in information exchange. 2.3 Driver 3: Incentives The third primary driver is the incentive structure in the architecture. Information exchange is feasible if and only if every organization in the architecture has an incentive to participate in such an exchange. For example, in supply chain architecture, private information (the retailer has the demand information, the manufacturer has cost information etc.) can be exploited to extract in-
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formation rent. The trade-off is the following. By sharing the information, the information owner forgoes the information rent. Yet, the total value in the supply chain might increase. The privately informed organization is willing to exchange information if and only if its share of the incremental value is expected to be higher than the lost information rent. Therefore, the only feasible information exchange is sub-game perfect, i.e., at every stage of information exchange, every party is at least weakly better off with the information exchange than without it. While this is a critical feasibility constraint on information exchange in supply chain architectures, it might not be critical in complementary architectures. In the case of complementary architecture, the information rent for private information is marginal. However, the direct cost of collecting and disseminating the information might be high enough to dissuade voluntary transfer of information. For example, a social worker might find it cumbersome to collect and upload the information even though there is no information rent involved. This could well prevent an effective information exchange. Therefore, even in these contexts, an incentive structure should be created to induce collection and exchange of information. Using an appropriate technology could reduce the cost and facilitate information sharing. Both the inter- and intra-organizational incentive structures are therefore primary determinants of what information gets exchanged and the choice of technology for such exchange. 2.4 Synthesis The three primary drivers described above are depicted in the synthesizing framework presented in Fig. 2. A significant aspect of the framework is that the three drivers influence each other. The inter-organizational architectures influence the system characteristics such as the governance system, security, access controls and transparency of reporting. Furthermore, the relationships between organizations in the architecture might also influence the reliability and relevance of information. In a similar vein, the relationship between organizations in a specific organizational architecture influences the incentives that enable exchanging information either by sharing or by trading. The incentives in turn, affect the compliance of organizations to the “rules of the game”. The need for certain types of incentives could also be the root cause for the existence of particular organizational architectures. Overall, there Springer
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INFORMAT ION
TECHNOLOGY CHOICE
CHARACTERISTICS
INTERORGANIZATIONAL ARCHITECTURE
INCENTIVE STRUCTURE
INFORMATION CONTENT CHOICE
Fig. 2 The framework to explain technology and information content choices for information exchange
is intensive interaction among the three drivers. Therefore, any analysis of technology choices and/or information content choices should consider the three primary drivers individually and collectively.
3 Positioning of the papers in the framework After a rigorous review process, five papers were accepted for inclusion in this special issue. The framework for technology and information exchange choices in the context of multi-organizational architectures presented in the previous section includes and builds upon the ideas and concepts developed in the accepted papers. In this section, we seek to position the five accepted papers within this framework with the goal of synthesizing the theoretical concepts, the practical examples and application software that have been described in these papers. With the widespread use of information technology in all sectors of the economy, new forms of IT enabled mechanisms such as electronic markets are dramatically changing the traditional ways of exchanging goods, services and information [10]. Clearly these mechanisms are attractive since they enhance the productivity, broaden the range and expand the reach of the transactions that can occur across individuals, organizations and institutions. However, exchange of goods and information via these mechanisms is not Springer
without costs and risks. Analyses of organizational architectures that support these mechanisms include an examination of the costs of searching, identifying and locating buyers and sellers, making price and quality comparisons. Further, the information asymmetries and improper alignment of incentives among the members of the architecture can reduce transaction transparency, lower the quality of the information being shared and hence pose risks for some members of the architecture [9]. In the paper “Decision Management: Design and Use of an Intelligent Intermediary to aid in Information Sharing” [3] the author Alea M. Fairchild identifies and elucidates the organizational and technological issues that influence the design of an intelligent matching system. This system could function as an intermediary or as an aid on behalf of a client or on its own to facilitate information acquisition and sharing across an architecture which may be either open and non-customized, or closed and customized. The paper posits a business transaction, as being characterized by a sequence of sub-processes—information gathering, negotiation, settlement and/or after sales logistics—any or all of which may benefit from intelligent matching systems which could facilitate automation and streamlining of the transaction processes. Further, intelligent matching is viewed as playing a key role in building trust, in enabling large-scale information collection, filtering and exchange, in ensuring an appropriate match
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between buyers and sellers who may be geographically dispersed and in allowing members of the architecture to customize their products and services. The paper discusses the impact of the level of complexity and the scope (range and reach) of the transactions on the use and design of intelligent matching systems. There is a limitation as to the number of members that can participate in the matching effort without lowering the quality of the information being exchanged. In addition the paper outlines several technological preconditions for the successful implementation of intelligent matching systems. An infrastructure that allows for wide access to the operating systems and data repositories, an ability to achieve coordination and control of workflow that may originate among the members of the architecture, application services that make sharing access and information seamless and interfaces that enable external users to access the components of the matching system are the critical elements that need to be present. The paper “Inter-Organizational Networks for Knowledge Sharing and Trading” [6] by Mentzas, Apostolou, Kafentzis and Georgolios presents a typology of inter-organizational architectures when information and knowledge flow across organizational boundaries. They focus on two dimensions in their typology. The first dimension is the locus of control on processes that enable information flow. This dimension refers to the “openness” of the network for organizations to join and participate. At one end, the network is selectively open only for member organizations that fulfill stringent requirements. At the other end, the network is open to new members who can freely join. The second dimension in their paper is the nature of knowledge exchange. Knowledge and information can be shared freely among the member organizations at one end of this dimension. At the other end, information is traded. We expand on the typology presented in the Mentzas et al. paper by adding the customization dimension. We believe that technology and information exchange choices will be systematically different depending on whether the architecture is customized or a noncustomized. Another important distinction between our framework and the typology developed in Mentzas et al. paper is that our framework is specifically oriented towards making the optimal choice of technology and information exchange, rather than presenting a general typology of architectures or networks.
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The paper by Huesemann [4] “Information Sharing Across Multiple Humanitarian Organizations” focuses on a complementary architecture involving humanitarian organizations. These form an open, non-customized information-sharing network with shared objectives about relief activities in the short term and development projects in the medium and long term. Information on the services provided, the needs of the recipients, the problems encountered and the facilities available will be accessible to any humanitarian organization involved in development projects in a community. This information might be valuable to other humanitarian agencies. In effect, all the agencies will benefit by information exchange. The universal benefits of information exchange make the sharing of information (rather than trading) more appropriate for this architecture. In this setting, information is like a public good. The member organizations might be reluctant to collect and exchange information with other member organizations, because the unilateral effort involved in collecting it is not perceived to yield adequate organizational benefits even though collection and sharing of information is collectively beneficial to all member organizations. The absence of a developed market for information exchange precludes the formation of a price that reflects all the relevant information. This makes information sharing particularly valuable to all member organizations. Huesemann calls the gap between the need for information, and the incentive to collect it, as the “broken control loop”. Huesemann’s paper focuses on the technology choice in this context. He recommends the Development Information Exchange System (DIES), an application software whose main advantage is that it is a loosely coupled system architecture that can handle heterogeneous data and systems from different organizations. As in any complementary architecture, the organizations might not use similar systems that can be seamlessly integrated. They are more likely to collect data using their own system rather than using a common platform. As a result, the technology choice is governed by a system that can simultaneously “talk” with many different systems. This technology choice reduces the information collection and dissemination costs for all the organizations. If incentives could be provided for the firms to collect and share information, this would result in a synthesis of diverse information and a reduction in information asymmetry among the member organizations. In effect, this increased information made available by sharing Springer
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helps each member organization become more efficient, enhance transparency and reduce waste and other costs. In their paper, “Knowledge Sharing in Crossboundary Information System Development in the Public Sector” [8] Pardo, Cresswell, Thompson and Zhang present two case studies on complementary architecture in a public sector setting. In the first case, the information exchange is among state agencies, and in the second, the information exchange extends across state and local governments. Interestingly, the authors point out that in a decentralized structure, the local government agencies are wary of the possibility of state government interference and this introduces incentive, risk and trust factors that one would not normally associate in a purely complementary architecture. When the information needs to be exchanged across the local and state governments, basic trust needs to be established, which helps in the development of relationships, which in turn, helps in the development of interactions. Information exchange occurs efficiently only when all the parties perceive the interactions to be in their best selfinterest. An important contribution of this paper to the framework is the notion of trust among the parties exchanging the information. When level of trust is high, an efficient information exchange can take place more speedily. When the level of trust is low, explicit incentives need to be provided for information exchange. By implication, if the trust improves over time, the need for incentives decreases and the system should be redesigned to reduce the agency costs. Another important aspect of information exchange that is discussed in the paper is one of implicit and explicit knowledge. Knowledge that is formally represented and is explicit (such as a recipe) is easier to exchange than knowledge that is implicit and embedded in the organizational procedures and culture. Therefore, the process of information exchange includes the identification of implicit knowledge and its formalization as well. In contexts where the organizations exchanging information have different backgrounds, cultures and working mores, information exchange process is more involved because of the need to formalize the embedded knowledge in these different organizations and make it uniform for common exchange process. In our framework, the supply chain architecture is characterized by closed and customized information sharing. In the final paper by Masuchun, Davis and Springer
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Rangsaritratsamee, [5] the authors provide an intraorganizational information exchange system where different local planning modules communicate among themselves as well as with a central module. This exchange mechanism is conceptually equivalent to an inter-organizational supply chain architecture where the modules represent individual organizations and the central module is the initiator of the supply chain. The authors provide the design and implementation of an information exchange system for a six-stage supply network that could be implemented under both push and pull strategies for operational planning and control. This points to the feasibility of having a common information exchange mechanism that could be adopted in an inter-organizational supply chain setting where the product or the service delivery strategies could be different among organizations.
4 Future research avenues Information exchange, including both sharing and trading of information among individuals and organizations is becoming more prevalent due to the ubiquitous nature of information technology and concomitant lowering of the marginal costs of information exchange. The nature and effectiveness of such information exchange are influenced by the arrangement of entities, which we have referred to as inter-organizational architectures. In our framework (Fig. 1), we have identified four inter-organizational architectures, namely, the Supply Chain architecture, the Complementary architecture, the Information Trading architecture and the Information supply architecture. The papers in this special issue in particular, have focused more on the sharing of information among different inter- and intra-organizational entities [2] and less on the information trading [7]. This opens up avenues of research that could focus on information trading and on identifying contexts in which information trading and sharing could co-exist either as complements or as substitutes. Furthermore, the papers in this issue have briefly touched upon concepts such as trust, security and incentives in inter-organizational information exchange contexts. Given the importance of security, risk and trust [12] in any exchange, these ideas are worthy of further exploration. Although this leads to several research possibilities, we present only a few illustrative research ideas.
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One possible research opportunity is to examine the price equilibrium in an information trading setting. Unlike the price equilibrium in commodities, the scalability, security and other characteristics of information make the market behave differently. Specifically, scalability increases the marginal value of information as the demand increases. This could potentially invert the demand curve and result in equilibriums that have not been analyzed in the traditional contexts that investigate commodity trading. In a similar vein, the focus of the papers has been more on the technological and organizational aspects of information exchange than on incentive issues. A second research possibility is the examination of explicit and implicit incentives that are needed for an efficient information exchange, both in the sharing and trading settings. As mentioned in the previous section, two of the five papers discuss the level of trust needed for information exchange. A minimum threshold level of trust in the system is necessary for any information or knowledge exchange to take place [12]. As more information exchange takes place, this could lead to more interactions and relationship building. Ultimately, this will result in increased trust. Lack of trust increases agency costs in the form of additional incentives needed for ensuring honest revelation of private information. As the trust improves, it must be possible to scale back on these incentives. Future research could undertake analytical modeling of joint trust building and informationexchange processes. In addition to the models presented in Williamson [11] and Adler [1], these models could provide insight into the dynamics of varying incentives and building trust to minimize agency costs of information exchange. Much effort has been devoted in developing and accessing new technologies for information exchange. However, the implementation of information systems and exchange mechanisms could be constrained by the lack of appropriate metrics for measuring efficiency gains and losses. Therefore, research that addresses the development of measures of information exchange efficacy both in terms of resource usage as well as in terms of achieving specified goals would be valuable.
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