The Development and Application of Resource Dependence ...

Asia Pacific Management Review 15(2) (2010) 187-206

www.apmr.management.ncku.edu.tw

The Development and Application of Resource Dependence Perspective in Information System Research: Informetrics and Network Analysis Fu-Sheng Tsai a,*, Julia L. Lin b, Shih-Chieh Fang c a

Department of Business Administration, Cheng-Shiu University, Taiwan b College of Management, I-Shou University, Taiwan c Department of Business Administration, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan Accepted 20 February 2009

Abstract This study investigates the development and applicability of the Resource Dependence Perspective (RDP) as a critical building-block for Information Systems (IS) research. First, the paper reviews the essential ideas of RDP and its intersection with IS research. Second, we conduct an Informetrics analysis on the development of RDP per se based on citations in RDP-related studies. Third, we explore the application of RDP in the IS field using a network analysis of current published studies and author communities. Major findings indicate that RDP serves as a rigorous rationale for Information System related studies. Furthermore, we found that the research community, composed of IS researchers applying RDP, is growing and shows great potential. We offer a scholarly review and critique of possible future trends and research opportunities related to RDP in the IS area. Major practical suggestions include (a) promoting strategic IS research (practical studies), (b) enhancing collaboration in the IS researcher community and (c) conducting multilevel research. Keywords: Resource dependence perspective, information systems research, informetrics, network analysis 1. Introduction1 Organization theory facilitates explanations for phenomena in and around organizations, including dynamics of organizing technology and information systems (IS) (Besselaer et al., 1991; Gottschalk and Solli-Sæther, 2005, 2006). The Resource Dependence Perspective (RDP) of Pfeffer and Salancik (1978) is one of the major applications of the concept of open systems in Organization Theory. RDP is increasingly applied in information systems research, as this study demonstrates, because governance of IS and related organizational activities is deeply involved with resource (and information as resource) generation, seeking, planning, and coordination for power and dependencies (Al-Mashari, 2002; Borgman et al., 2005; Howcroft and Light, 2006; Phan, 2002; Rao, 2000). Enterprises undertaking information system implementation and development are usually enablers, or are dependent on it. Globalization and democratisation, increasing uncertainty, and intense competition in the business environment have triggered a need for rapid information processing organizations and their supporting systems. Commitments and integration of multiple business components and information systems generate an increasing possibility of dependency, whether in internal system contexts such as inter-unit coordination or external contexts like supply chain management or consumer relationship management (Wu et al., 2004). Technology and information systems in organizations intervene in this transformation by offering flexibility

*

Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected] ; [email protected]

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and agility (Palanisamy, 2005). Information systems are contextualized and multi-faceted, beyond merely the technology itself, although technology plays an important role in it. Therefore, it is useful to investigate on IS phenomena by applying RDP, a perspective that emphasizes dealing with inter-dependencies and uncertainties between an organizational system (and its sub-systems) and its external environment, since information system activities are critical organizational activities accounted for by the context where the organization is embedded (Phan, 2002). When viewing information systems as they organize the complex, multiple parties of constituents including human beings, processes, technologies, and designs, (Boudreau and Robey, 2005), investigating the nature of systems and resource coordination under the perspective of RDP becomes crucial. Systematic study on scientific researcher community and their publication patterns in literatures of a scientific discipline is beneficial for the accumulation and progress of both academic and practical knowledge (Cronin and Franks, 2006; Holsapple, 2007; Larivière et al., 2007; Small, 1973). However, to our knowledge, few publications provide systematic research on RDP’s development and its applications in IS research. Systematic research should be encouraged to produce more robust understandings of the theoretical foundations and investigation of Information Systems as a scientific field (Avison et al., 2001; Dhillon and Backhouse, 2001; McGrath, 2005; Orlikowski and Baroudi, 1991; Richardson and Robinson, 2007). Based on the strategic importance of RDP for the information system management studies, one of the critical quests for researcher is to investigate the theoretical attributes, major constituents (authors with seminal impact), and developments, as well as past and possible future trajectories by adopting scientific analyses based on materials deviating from the literature (Etemad and Lee, 2002). Research on the publication patterns benefits our understanding of the scientific development of the IS area (Prasad and Tata, 2005). Furthermore, both the high relevance and the high applicability of RDP in IS strengthen the necessity to gain knowledge of the progress of RDP in the IS field. Conceptual reviews of the literature help to reveal the issues at stake quite well, but complementary quantitative analysis of recent publications may push the understanding further. Given this, the present study responds to such a necessity for research by adopting a comprehensive methodological approach which combines qualitative content reviews, quantitative Informetrics analysis, and network analysis (Latour, 1986; Price, 1970; Wasserman and Faust, 1994). The purpose is to clarify the epistemological attributes of the human and intellectual networks of RDP and its application in the IS area. On the one hand, our intent is to demonstrate the usefulness of Informetrics in sketching the development of RDP by providing statistics-based evidence and a snapshot of the status quo of RDP. On the other, this study offers new insights into, and criticism of, the theoretical applications of RDP in information systems research. The empirical evidence is also shown in the results of network analysis of the socially interweaving human and information networks among researchers in the area (Cronin and Franks, 2006; Hara et al., 2003; Johnson, 2007), which benefits our understanding of the academic development of RDP in IS area in terms of both publication accumulation and researcher community activities. In sum, our research questions include: How has RDP developed as an organizational theoretical perspective in past decades? What are the potential applications of RDP in IS research? What is the current status quo and possible future development of the RDP-applying IS researcher community? 2. Resource dependence perspective and information systems RDP amply recognizes the internal-external nexus and its integration. Under this view, an organization should be viewed as an open system and not be considered as an entity focused only on internal affairs as a closed system (Pfeffer and Salancik, 1978). Instead, there should

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be steady interactions between an organization and its environment to achieve an optimal effectiveness of system performance. The main concern of management as described by researchers is that a variety of resources taken from the environment of an organization must be put to best use in order for the organization to survive in a demanding and changing environment. Thus, an organization’s survivability depends upon its ability to extract resources from its environment. By coping well with the many constraints and uncertainties during the process of extracting resources from the environment (Thompson, 1967), an organization can elevate its existing system capacity and transform itself into a more sophisticated system capable of handling tasks that are more complex (Hong, 2002; Kearns and Lederer, 2004; Swanson, 1985). The fundamental assumption of the Resource Dependence Perspective is that overall resources are limited, and the survival and prosperity of a given organization relies on input from other organizations. Organizations do not have sufficient resources to be independent and, therefore, must form coalitions to survive (Yuchtman and Seashore, 1967). This perspective explains why RDP considers organizations as coalitions of internal and external groups seeking mutual benefit. The more an organization depends on the limited resources from the external settings, the higher is its instability. Necessary resources, new technologies, accumulated expertise and experiences need to be integrated in order to overcome this instability. Consequently, the more it depends on the resources from the environment, the higher the rate of interactions between the organization and its environment (Laumman et al., 1978; Pfeffer and Nowak, 1976). However, the environment does not bind organizations passively. Organizational systems should act proactively to manage the environmental conditions. Information is itself critical resource for organizations. The way information is coordinated, controlled, or disseminated is even more important because small changes can have profound effects on the inter-dependence relationships for all parties involved (Orlikowski, 1991; Pettigrew, 1972; Tan et al., 2005). Moreover, an increasing degree of openness, specialization, and globalization in a competitive environment has made the research on information imperatives in organizations more aware of dependencies and risks stemming from systematic exchanges (Gonzalez et al., 2005; Oh et al., 2006). An important part of Information Systems research involves exploration of power, dependencies and governance for the internally and externally, tightly- or loosely-coupled, information- and resource-depending relationships (Allen et al., 2000; Gallivan and Depledge, 2003; Howcroft and Light, 2006; Jun et al., 2000; Swanson, 1985). In essence, resource dependency occurs in information systems as there are relationships and infrastructures within which the system components interact (Phan, 2002). Hence, the multiple paths of mutual dependence in IS phenomena call for further studies to investigate the development and use of RDP in IS area. We provide an analysis of the research and applications of RDP following its evolutionary trajectories by performing Informetrics and network analysis of publications and citations in RDP and IS literature. 3. Methodology 3.1 Informetrics The Informetrics approach is commonly applied in studies of the scientific and scholarly literature. As Etemad and Lee (2002) have noted, Informetrics “…can, by examining citations, reveal and verify the antecedents of an emerging field, and identify the distinguishing features of its emerging knowledge networks in terms of the identity of scholars in the field, the nature of their scholarly works, and the extent of their use by others…”. In short, this approach is a quantitative way to know the scholarly structure of a field. The methodological technique can 189


be summarized as follows. First, a set of criteria is set up to govern the collection of the data or the “sample” (i.e. generally the filtered selected papers and the citations listed in those papers) for the analysis. The bulk of data for this research were collected on the basis of the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) from Thompson (the former Thompson ISI) publications during the period of 1992 to 2003. This is a time that puts emphasis and attention to the internal and external dependencies both in academia and in business practice. Based on this, we believe this period of time is suitable to investigate our major research goal of understanding the recent development of RDP, and its body of theory and applications in IS area. Keyword searches in multiple entries of the database (the “resource AND (∩) dependence”) with precision filtering methods on the subject title, abstract, and research methodology were used, resulting in 84 papers identified by computer queries. Next, we reviewed these selected journal articles to check the suitability of inclusion. For reasons such as off-topic content, or semantic or Table 1. Structural characteristics of the sampled articles. No. of Percentage a papers

Serial Discipline ξ Journal title 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 Sum

Non-profit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly (NVSQ) GM Journal of Management (JM) GM Organization Studies (OS) HMP Health Services Research (HSR) GM Journal of Business Research (JBR) ENP; INOV Journal of Business Venturing (JBV) GM; IM Journal of International Business Studies (JIBS) GM Journal of Management Studies (JMS) GM Academy of Management Journal (AMJ) GM Academy of Management Review (AMR) SM Strategic Management Journal (SMJ) GM Administrative Science Quarterly (ASQ) GM; NPO Administration and Society (AS) NPO Accounting Organizations and Society (AOS) NPO Administration in Social Work (ASW) The Journal of Health Care Organization HMP Provision and Financing Quarterly (JHCOPFQ) NPO Journal of European Public Policy (JEPP) HMP Journal of Healthcare Management (JHM) NPO Journal of Air Transport Management (JATM) INFOM MIS Quarterly (MISQ) Omega-International Journal of Management GM science (OIJMS) OB Research in Organizational Behaviour (ROB) OSOCIO Social Forces (SF) OSOCIO Sociological Inquiry (SI) NPO

a

8

11.42%

6 5 4 4 4 4 4 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

8.57% 7.14% 5.71% 5.71% 5.71% 5.71% 5.71% 2.85% 2.85% 2.85% 2.85% 2.85% 2.85% 2.85%

2

2.85%

2 2 2 2

2.85% 2.85% 2.85% 2.85%

2

2.85%

2 2 1 70

2.85% 2.85% 1.42% 100%

2 digit decimals. Categories are based on the general division of scientific areas in management; NPO = Non profit management; GM = General management coverage; HMP = Healthcare Management and Policies; ENP = Entrepreneurship; INOV = Innovation; IM =International Management; SM = Strategic management; INFOM = Information management; OB = Organizational Behaviour; OSOCIO = Organizational Sociology (or sociology within and between organizations). Editorial policies of the journals were reviewed.

ξ

190


phraseology issues in the search, an expert review and a careful check of the extracted papers is necessary. For instance, studies from the environmental management discipline typically include words like “resource” and “dependence” in their titles and abstracts, though the content of the papers is not relevant to our topic. As a result, 14 out of the 84 extracted papers were eliminated via expert judgment and agreement among the researchers. Consequently, 70 papers in total were considered qualified for this research. Because our selection procedure and criteria were rigorous, we generated only a small group of sampled papers (N = 70). The rigorous procedure enables us to screen out papers that are not representative of RDP studies. Thus the 70 papers and the 4,152 (see below) citations they contain satisfy the conditions for validity. From them 4,152 references (cited papers) were extracted and used for analysis. Table 1 shows the names of extracted journals, the number of papers, and the distribution. Although our sample papers come from a single database, this adopted database (SSCI) can be considered to be representative and valid due to its rigid journal (and paper) selection, high-quality data collection and reputation among management scholars. A single database also avoids the danger of the inclusion of overlapping citations (an identical paper listed in SSCI and other indexing databases like EBSCOhost). 3.1.1 Results and discussions of informetrics Table 1 gives the 70 papers selected from the fields of General management (GM), Nonprofit Organization (NPO, Strategic Management (SM), Healthcare management and policy (HMP), Entrepreneurship (ENP), International management (IM), demonstrating the variety of issues and disciplines that deal with RDP phenomena. As the management field has a strong sense of pragmatic implications and values, our results show that RDP is indeed applicable to many sub-disciplines. Table 2 shows the categories of the articles (or the subject areas) and depicts the selection criteria of the research field. It shows that the RDP approach has been used by many researchers. Among the itemized dimensions of the 70 sample articles, references to “interorganisational relationship” and “network management” are the highest (27.12%). “Stakeholder strategy” ranked third with 17.14% citations. These findings support the applicability of using RDP to conduct research on both internal and external alliances. Management of non-profit organizations and medical organizations comprise 18.57% and 12.85%, respectively. RDP thus appears to be a useful analytical perspective for understanding specific organizational behaviour. Though less popular than interorganisational relationship or network management issues, human resources (5.71%) and technology management (1.43%) supports our previous argument that the basic idea of RDP deals with not only external factors but also internal forces. Further, it is evident that the effort to extend RDP to various levels of analysis (Rousseau, 1985) has drawn attention. Table 3 lists the top 19 cited papers. The seminal work by Pfeffer and Salancik (1978) is the most cited. This result is close what might be expected. Surprisingly, many other frequently cited papers were written during the 80s and 90s, yet do not have a strong focus on RDP (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983; Oliver and Ebers, 1998). This shows that the RDP’s theoretical core drew less attention from researchers after the late 70s and early 80s, after RDP research had been ongoing for some time (cf. Finkelstein, 1997). Another interesting fact is that the top 19 cited works occupied only 264 out of 4,152 citations (6.35%). This suggests that while certain works are considered classic, the field has generated a robust and wide-ranging discourse.

191

Specific Topics

Table 2. Academic content of the sampled articles. Representative sampler selected（Author-Year-Title-Source）

RDP theoretical works

a

2-digit decimal.

192

Percentage a

2

2.85%

13

18.57%

8

11.42%

1

1.43%

12

17.14%

19

27.12%

2

2.85%

9

12.85%

4

5.71%

70

100%


192

Finkelstein-1997-Interindustry merger patterns and resource dependence: A replication and extension of Pfeffer (1972)-SMJ Weick-1996-An appreciation of social context: One legacy of Gerald Salancik-ASQ Organizations as nonFroelich-1999- Evolving resource dependence in nonprofits organizations-NVSQ profit micro-societies Abzug-1999- Nonprofits in organizational sociology's research traditions-NVSQ Corporate governance Hillman, Cannella and Paetzold-2000-the resource dependence role of corporatedirectors-2000-JMS Daily, Mcdougall, Covina, Dalton-2002-Governance and strategic leadership in entrepreneurial firms-JM Technology management Tillquist, King, Woo-2002-a representational scheme for analyzing information technology and organizational dependency-MISQ Stakeholder strategies Frooman-1999- Stakeholder influence strategies-academy of management review Mckay-2001-Organizational responses to an environmental bill of rights-OS Interorganisational Medcof-2001-Resource-based strategy and managerial power in networks of relationship and internationally dispersed technology units-2001-SMJ networks Dant and Gundlach-1999-The challenge of autonomy and dependence in franchised channels of distribution- JBV Banerji and Sambharya-1996-Vertical keiretsu and international market entry-JIBS Multinational corporate Blumentritt and Nigh-2002-The Integration of Subsidiary Political Activities in Multinational-Corporations-JIBS Health care institution Proenca, Rosko, Zinn-2000-Community orientation in hospitals: An institutional and resource dependence perspective-HSR Zinn, Mor, Castle, Intrator, Brannon-1999-Organizational and environmental-factors associated with nursing-home participation-HSR Human resource Sully, Schon, Nancy-1996-Toward an integrative model of strategic international human management resource management-AMR Ingram and Simons-1995-Institutional and resource dependence determinants of responsiveness to work-family issues-AMJ Sum

#


Table 3. Sorted citation frequency based on the citations extracted .ξ # of Being Cited / per Source Year Title Citation sample article Book 1978 Pfeffer-J-1978-External-Control-Org 66 94.28% a ASR 1986 Dimaggio-Pj-1983-Am-Sociol-Rev-V48-P147 18 25.71% Book 1975 Williamson-Oe-1975-Markets-Hierarchies 16 22.85% Book 1967 Thompson-Jd-1967-Org-Action 16 22.85% ASR 1962 Emerson-Rm-1962-Am-Sociol-Rev-V27-P31 16 22.85% AMR 1991 Oliver-C-1991-Acad-Manage-Rev-V16-P145 12 17.14% Book 1967 Lawrence-Pr-1967-Org-Env-Managing-Dif 12 17.14% Book 1985 Williamson-Oe-1985-Ec-I-Capitalism 10 14.28% AMR 1984 Ulrich-D-1984-Acad-Manage-Rev-V9-P471 10 14.28% ASQ 1980 Provan-Kg-1980-Adm-Sci-Q-V25-P200 10 14.28% Book 1982 Pfeffer-J-1982-Org-Org-Theory 10 14.28% AJS 1977 Meyer-Jw-1977-Am-J-Sociol-V83-P340 10 14.28% JFE 1976 Jensen-Mc-1976-J-Financ-Econ-V3-P305 10 14.28% AMR 1990 Oliver-C-1990-Acad-Manage-Rev-V15-P241 8 11.42% ASQ 1974 Jacobs-D-1974-Adm-Sci-Q-V19-P45 8 11.42% AJS 1977 Hannan-Mt-1977-Am-J-Sociol-V82-P929 8 11.42% Sociology 1972 Child-J-1972-Sociology-V6-P1 8 11.42% Book 1964 Blau-Pm-1964-Exchange-Power-Socia 8 11.42% ARS 1976 Aldrich-He-1976-Ann-Rev-Sociology-V2-P79 8 11.42% a

ξ

Being cited / per sample article (n = 70). Only top 19 were listed (264 cited times out of the 4152 (6.35%)).

The citation patterns show that on the whole, the literature structure of RDP is flat and widely distributed. The necessity of the relationship between the citing and the cited, and the relationship between the cited and the cited, may be weak or unclear. More analysis of the cocitation patterns (Small, 1973) or citation coupling (Kessler, 1965), might be helpful in elucidating the complex relationships between the various papers in the field (more detail is presented in the next section on network analysis). To identify the most influential researchers in this field, searches for most cited authors were performed, and the results compiled in Table 4. Last and first name of the authors were used as search keywords to ensure data were precisely collected. For instance, Jeffery Pfeffer and Jeff Pfeffer will be automatically recognized as different references from Josh Pfeffer or Kelly Pfeffer. Pfeffer and Salancik (1978) ranked as the most cited paper in the field. On average, 1.828 papers of J Pfeffer’s were cited by a sampled paper. This argument is on the first-author calculation basis. For methods that split the separate contribution of authors in the same paper, see Morrison and Inkpen’s (1991) detailed guidance. We give credit automatically to the associated here but do not specifically identify them. Table 4 shows that papers by Pfeffer and Salancik were cited 66 times in the 70 sample papers, with a 94.28% citation rate. Almost all research conducted in or with RDP referred to their work.

193

Table 4. Combined analysis for the most cited scholars.

PFEFFER

J.

2

WILLIAMSON

OE

52

0.742

3

DIMAGGIO

PJ

40

0.5714

4

DAVIS

GF

36

0.5142

5

SCOTT

WR 30

0.4285

6

OLIVER

C

26

0.3714

7

EMERSON

RM 22

0.3142

8

HANNAN

MT

22

0.3142

9

KOGUT

B

22

0.3142

10 MEYER

JW

22

0.3142

11 MILLER

D

20

0.2857

Rank Name ξ

U. of Pennsylvania Yale U. Yale U.

Background a Expertise Organization Theory, Power/dependence in/between organizations Transaction cost economics

194

Economic sociology, Network analysis Northwestern U. Corporate governance; organization theory; financial globalization; social networks; social movements. Stanford U. Institutional theory, Social movements York U. Institutional theory Inter-organisational relations U. of Washington Power dependence; Social Exchange Theory Stanford U Organizational ecology, Strategy and employment relations, U. of Organizational Networks; Pennsylvania Corporate governance; Innovation Stanford U spread of modern institutions around the world McGill U. Organizational change, Strategy

Influential works for RDP PFEFFER-J-1978-EXTERNAL-CONTROL-ORG PFEFFER-J-1976-ADM-SCI-Q-V21-P398 PFEFFER-J-1972-ADM-SCI-Q-V17-P382 WILLIAMSON-OE-1975-MARKETS-HIERARCHIES WILLIAMSON-OE-1985-EC-I-CAPITALISM DIMAGGIO-PJ-1983-AM-SOCIOL-REV-V48-P147 DAVIS-GF-1994-ADMIN-SCI-QUART-V39-P141

SCOTT-WR-1987-ADM-SCI-Q-V32-P493 SCOTT-WR-1992(1998)-ORG-RATIONAL-NATURAL OLIVER-C-1991-ACAD-MANAGE-REV-V16-P145 OLIVER-C-1990-ACAD-MANAGE-REV-V15-P241 EMERSON-RM-1962-AM-SOCIOL-REV-V27-P31 HANNAN-MT-1977-AM-J-SOCIOL-V82-P929 HANNAN-MT-1992-ORG-ECOLOGY KOGUT-B-1988-STRATEGIC-MANAGEMENT-V9 MEYER-JW-1977-AM-J-SOCIOL-V83-P340

MILLER-D-1984-ORG-QUANTUM-VIEW MILLER-D-1986-ADMIN-SCI-QUART-V31-P539 12 POWELL WW 20 0.2857 Stanford U Institutional analysis, Non-profit POWELL-WW-1991-NEW-I-ORG-ANALA Organization Management (DIMAGGIO-PJ-1983-AM-SOCIOL-REV-V48-P147) 13 BLAU PM 16 0.2285 U. of Chicago Power; Social Exchange BLAU-PM-1964-EXCHANGE-POWER-SOCIA a Data source: Various sources including biographical books, official web site of universities, journals. Adoption year is based on their publication year of the influential articles; ξ The calculation is on the first-author basis. To see more detail, please refer to the Morrison and Inkpen (1991) work.

194


1

Being Cited / # per sampled cited Affiliation article 128 1.828 Stanford U.

1992-96 3

1997-06+ 9 17 (17)

1992-96 0

1997-06 4 11 (11)

1992-96 1997-06 4 8 Φ 24 (25 )

MIS Quarterly (MISQ) (4.978) 1992-96 2

1997-06 8 29 (32)

Internet-based interorganizational systems; Enduser dependency and IS performance; EDI and partnership (3@); Electronic commerce adoption; Environment and IS project performance; Interorganizational IS; Data standard; IT and social interplay; IT and conflict management

IT outsourcing; IS and mechanism design; IS and organizational theory; Teambased IS development;

IS outsourcing (3); Knowledge exchange and IS research; EDI and system integration; EDI partnership; IS re-engineering; IT and competitive strategy; Strategic MIS; Business Process Change Management (2); Electronic integration and business network

Inter-organizational IS; Interorganizational EDI; IS design; B2B initiative; Supply chain Mgt; IS resources and environment; EDI adoption; Power and IT impact; IT and inter-organizational relationship;

Method

Statistical (conventional survey) (10); Case study; Interview

Survey research (statistical)(2); Conceptual review; Qualitative research

Survey research (statistical)(7); Statistical (archival); Interview+statistical ; Case study(2); Conceptual review

Statistical (EFA+CFA+SEM)(2); Interview + Statistical(Cluster analysis); Conceptual review; Meta-triangulation; Dependency network diagrams (DNDs); Qualitative (story, narrative, etc.) (2); Interview; Qmethodology

195

Research Context

*

2005 impact factor; + Final search date in database is July 25, 2006; Φ An author may show up more than once in the same journal; @ number of papers. N = 38 (The analysis tend to be anonymous and based on a whole network. Detailed information and excerpts of RDP concepts of each sampled paper could be retrieved from the first author if necessary.)

195


Journal title (Abbreviation) Published year Paper number Author num.

Table 5. Sample information: IS studies with RDP concepts. Information & Management Information Systems Journal of MIS (JMIS) (IM) (1.524* ) Research (ISR) (2.054) (1.406)


Tables 1, 3 and 4, show that the 70 selected papers were distributed across a diversity of journals. This indicates that the selected papers have adopted RDP, along with related theories such as the transaction cost theory (Williamson, 1975; Williamson, 1985), institutional analysis (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983), organizational-technological process (Thompson, 1967), and organizational ecology (Hannan and Freeman, 1977), to investigate managerial phenomena. Rather than continuing to deepen the theoretical contents of RDP, many of the sampled papers combine classical RDP with other theories to provide explanatory frameworks for application-end research questions. Does this mean that RDP has encountered a theoretical bottleneck? The fact that only a few, recent papers on RDP tend to focus on the application side should raise attention. This is also an indication that articles referenced in this research are written from different perspectives and have credible potential for further development in the field of organizational dynamics. As the results show, the latest developments of RDP studies tend to be multidisciplinary applications, often in correspondence with a more complex organization system. In addition, the most prominent and widely covered areas of research were organizational cooperation, such as alliance management (Child and Faulkner, 1998) or organizational networks (Oliver and Ebers, 1998). Strategic human resource management issues like the formation of a top management team of directors serving as a bridge to establish internal and external relationships are also valid examples (Caswell, 1984). Overall, economic analyses of dependency and studies of social behaviour exchange may also have a joint influence on future research and its applications. Consequently, the application of RDP has been expanded from its initial research focus on inter-organizational affairs to a wider definition of systems (Oliver and Ebers, 1998). The latest development of this theory took concepts from the theory of open systems, such as the interaction mechanism and the dynamics of organizations (Gulati, 1998; Gulati and Singh, 1998). Compared to these concepts, however, RDP takes a relative micro approach in research into organization-dyad or multiple-dyads, which are complementary to a Network theory’s macro view. Thus, finding a complementary protocol among these theories has become necessary. Bibliometric approaches are mature methodologies, with specialized relational and network analysis methods, allowing the construction of complex structures that go far beyond the tables of citation frequency measures (Norton, 1999; Pritchard, 1969). To gain a deeper understanding, we conducted a second analysis of the IS field. 3.2 Network analysis of RDP in IS research Network analysis of research papers complements the previous section of Informetrics analysis because it extends our understanding of the theory structure by building and analysing the relationships among academic publications. It creates a knowledge context for the IS field and explores how the knowledge of RDP is perceived and applied by IS researchers in generating their academic contributions. Information behaviours can be influenced by social networks (Johnson, 2007). Oh et al. (2005-6) argue that a social network approach investigates the patterns of knowledge imperatives (co-authorship) in IS researcher networks, and seeks to understand how the knowledge capital of the topic and the field is accumulated. Again, we used research papers as our sample data. When understanding literature, journal characteristics represent one of the major points to be investigated (Tsay, 2004). Because the analysis purpose now turns to more specific concerns of RDP application and its implications for IS research (in contrast with to previous analysis of general theoretical body of RDP), we focused on several journals in the Information Systems area and browsed the contents of papers published in those journals during the period of 1992-2006. The criterion of inclusion of paper in featured journals is that the papers, explicitly or implicitly, adopted or contributed 196


to the resource dependency in IS-related issues, such as information system partnership (Lee and Lim, 2003). All authors of this research separately searched, read, and judged and then together discussed the suitability of the sampled papers, until a consensus on final inclusion had been achieved. Though such procedures limited the search to relatively small number of representative journals, judgment by experts can result in more precise selection. Thirty-eight papers constituted the sample. These contained 2,742 citations, all of which were included in our analysis. Further, we retrieved information about who cited these 38 sampled papers to build a more complete view of the network of studies, resulting in 492 papers. The basic distribution of the sampled papers is shown in Table 5. 3.2.1 Results and discussions of network analysis The UCINET 6.0 statistics package was adopted for our analysis. As Table 5 shows, with the small number of 38 RDP-based studies selected from IS journals, we see a small but growing interest community. According to our simple summation, the average rate of published papers, though small in total so far, grows steadily each year. Further, though the number of sampled papers from the four leading journals was small, we found a relatively great variety of research topics. According to our results, the applications of RDP in the IS field primarily deal with inter-component relationships of information systems (from individual users, technological systems, social systems, to organizations as components in cooperative IS relationships) at multiple levels in various contexts including system design and integration, IS collaboration and/or competition, and strategic IS planning. Most methodological approaches adopted are conventional, and the usage of qualitative methods, both alone and in combination with quantitative methods, is increasing. The number of papers published in the first five years of the sampling period is much smaller than that of the following ten years, demonstrating an increasing trend toward research papers that are concerned with the resource dependency phenomena in the IS field. There are different article/author ratios for each journal. Only four authors (s3, r4, l1, k4, see below for their position within the complete author network) have published papers in more than one of the four journals. We construct a relational analysis dataset that links a given sampled paper, the references cited by the sampled paper, and studies citing the sampled paper. The 38 sampled papers served as the interface for the whole knowledge network. We discuss two important forms of inter-study relationships for the development of academic communities: co-authorship and citation, basing the entire network we construct on these two relationships. Co-authorship analysis The co-authorship analysis is based on the authors of our sampled papers. Eighty (80) authors are contained in the 38 sample papers. Given that, we constructed an 80x80 matrix depicting co-authorship relations (Figure 1). At first glance, the overall pattern of the coauthorship relations (Cronin and Franks, 2006) is very fragmented, indicating that collaborative publications between IS researchers when applying RDP are aimed at a diversity of research interests. The overall degree-based centralization index (2.61%) supports the argument that though the application of the RDP is growing, integrative research programs and communities of interests have not been formed among scientists, and there is relatively little inter-area cooperation. A high level of centralization implies that network interactions are concentrated around one or a few actors (Freeman, 1979), while a low centralization score as our result shows, means more autonomy and less direct mutual participation among actors. The low centralization displayed by our result thus demonstrates fragmentation. 197


Another evidence for fragmentation is the number of cliques, which indicates the existence of several internally fully interconnected sub-networks (Bron and Kerbosch, 1973). A clique consists of people who interact with all other people within that clique. In other words, a clique represents a group of people who have dense interactions. Co-authors of each sampled paper constitute a clique if any author of that study does not have collaboration with any author of other paper(s). Such individuals are deemed to have full linkages with each other within the same research project. Just 15 cliques out of all possible theoretical cliques were found, and no clique-overlap appeared in the sampled networks. The proportion of researcher overlap across different research projects thus appears to be low. However, we did find some promising signs for a tendency to form communities. The zoom-in view on the chain-shaped sub-network starting from researcher t3 (upper-right in the graphic) to c4 (down-left side) demonstrates that topics can be integrated through indirect knowledge referral and cooperation. Within that chain, the high clique-overlap score of researcher b3 implies that b3 has the potential to serve as a starting point of multi-party integration, since b3 shows up in different densely interacting groups. While researcher b3 and s3 are both highest in degree-based centrality (6.00) among the 80 authors, b3 (93.00) is much higher than s3 (10.00) in the betweeness-based centrality score. Though degree-based centrality captures dense interaction and the number of contacts, betweeness-based centrality emphasizes the ability to bridge information flows (Mehra et al., 2001). In fact, as our raw statistical data show, the high degree of centrality of s3 derives partially from the involvement of some projects within which there are a large number of co-authors, while b3 occupies a central position linking more projects, which in turn links to different studies (and groups of authors). Overall, our careful reading of this literature (the published studies of the chainshaped research network) lead us to discover that the issues of inter-boundary information and knowledge exchange, as well as the issues of IS outsourcing, are possible research topics that could draw attention and collaboration from those professionals who are interested in applying RDP in the IS studies. The paper citation matrix can inform us about the impact of specific studies in terms of their citing/cited relationship within the network. It is necessary to recall here again that our goal is mainly to compare the 38 sampled papers (the emerging community of research) and their ranking in the network. Combining the core-cited (38 x 2742) network with the core-

Figure 1. The co-authorship matrix.

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citing (38 x 492) network, we can develop a directed network, in which the relationships are asymmetric. The computerized network graphics presented here take the shape of a rose (Figure 2). This graphic clarifies our interpretation of the entire citation matrix as a knowledge influencing network. Each node represents a published paper, whereas the directed ties stand for the citation relationships. Seen from above, the center of the graphic represents the cited papers, while the circle surrounding this center is the area where most of our sampled papers are located. The farthest circles from the core represent papers that have cited our samples. The graphic thus represents a current knowledge network of the emerging community of RDP research in the IS area. This structure represents the absorption and dissemination of knowledge, and its impacts as generated by interface studies in the network (the 38 sampled papers) so that they serve as the “receptacle” of the flower, transmitting the knowledge from the “stalk” (the past references cited) and “roots” (the entirety of the disciplinary knowledge) to the “leaves” (the citing). On the other hand, the leaves (newly developed research citing samples) serve not only as nutrition absorbers but also as elements that absorb new energies from the external environment to enable another wave of knowledge production.

Figure 2. The three layered network of paper citation. However, the different sample papers have different impacts. To compare the relative impact of our 38 sampled papers, we summarized additional statistics for the structure of the citation network in Table 6. In-degree centrality is the number of incoming ties an actor has. This number could be interpreted as showing whether actors are seeking solutions for their problems (Brass and Burkhardt, 1992). We thus define an in-degree tie as the citing paper acquiring knowledge contained in at least one of the 38 sampled papers. If IM012 was cited by Citor001, then it has an incoming tie from Citor001. IM012 thus has a knowledge impact on Citor001. The greater the number of incoming ties a sampled paper receives, the higher the impact it generates. Similarly, out-degree centrality provides an index for knowledge impact that indicates the degree to which sampled papers (the papers applying RDP for IS studies)were influenced by past literature. The top 10 sampled papers with the highest indegree and out-degree centrality are listed in the table. The normalized scores provided here can eliminate the effects of different scales of reference across different journals. Overall centralization indices indicate low centralization of the network, with few cross-citations of references cited by others, and thus (again) 199


fragmented knowledge-influencing patterns. In other words, sampled papers commonly do not share a specific pool of past references. Therefore, the sample papers share few common sources of knowledge (the classic works or widely cited papers in the Informetrics study). Such a lack of common knowledge may pose a potential impediment for the emergence of a research community as scholars attempt to communicate and exchange ideas. The low matrix average density (.0004) supports this interpretation.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Avg (SD) Centr. Density

Table 6. Citation network statistics. NrmInDgr NrmOutD AvgInOut ISR003 MISQ003 ISR003 ISR004 ISR004 ISR004 JMIS08 MISQ005 MISQ003 JMIS005 ISR003 MISQ005 JMIS003 JMIS10 JMIS003 MISQ004 JMIS07 JMIS10 IM012 MISQ002 MISQ002 IM008 JMIS003 JMIS07 JMIS12 MISQ004 MISQ004 ISR001 MISQ001 JMIS005 0.14 (.19) 1.31 (.61) -2.263% 2.652% -0.0004 (matrix average)

IM = Information & Management; ISR = Information system Research; JMIS = Journal of Management Information Systems; MISQ = Management Information Systems Quarterly.

4. Concluding remarks and implications We combined Informetrics and Network analytical techniques to gain a systematic understanding of the Resource Dependence Perspective’s structure and development as a scientific field (Kuhn, 1970) and its potential for application in Information Systems research. Our results indicate that, while RDP is widely applied in various disciplines, a small but growing body of research has used it in the field of information management. Based on the increasing emphasis of inter-component dependencies of information systems (Jiang et al., 2003; Malhotra et al., 2005; Phan, 2002; Teo et al., 2003; Tillquist et al., 2002; Wybo and Goodhue, 1995), we observed from the present study the potential of RDP to serve as a critical theoretical rationale in information systems research. Some issues regarding information systems are better explained by specific theoretical rationales (Hancox and Hackney, 2000). The core concept and construct of RDP has reached maturity after thirty years of its development. The theoretic framework has gone through debates, cross-checking and challenges by researchers from different perspectives, and is recognized and diversified in research applications. For the field of information systems our results demonstrate that it is just the beginning of opening a new stream of research. We believe that since (information) technology, systems, and management dependencies are inseparable issues, there is much more space to be explored. Future studies could extend this present research and investigate questions such as “the exact patterns following which the inter-disciplinary studies adopting RDP emerge in the IS field” or “the gaps between the understanding and application of RDP in IS and how such gaps could affect researchers’ approach or biases”. Specifically, the present study sheds light on the following issues deserving both scholarly and practical attention. 200


First, IS-studies adopting a RDP lens should not only “use” it; but they should also reflect on the RDP theory per se. Researchers have begun to commit to using the RDP perspective to investigate strategic issues that deal with inter-system relationships and inter-dependences (Gonzalez et al., 2005; Jun et al., 2000; Lee and Lim, 2003; Lin, 2006; Reich and Benbasat, 2000). Furthermore, locating the theoretical boundaries for RDP may be beneficial for both issue-centered studies and RDP per se. Second, the issues of cross-level influences of informational systems deserve more attention. The present study found that IS research so far has applied RDP to issues such as the information systems, and organizational or inter-organizational systems. But there is insufficient discussion of how a factor at a certain level influences another one at a higher or lower level. Organizational entities (individuals, teams, organization, or organizational allies) are not always bound by sub-systems, but act cooperatively or interdependently beyond the boundaries of system elements (Cyert and March, 1963; Pfeffer and Salancik, 1978). Because imperatives of IS deal with factors at multiple levels, it is critical to better understand the interactions of such factors. Third, our results imply a need for more research collaboration between IS researchers in order to take full advantage of RDP. The community applying RDP in IS is now developing, while its fragmentation signals the need for more between-expert collaboration. It is widely accepted that scientific ideas and knowledge are more easily generated, integrated and renewed through collaboration (Cronin and Franks, 2006; Hara et al., 2003; Latour, 1987; Liebeskind et al., 1996). Focused theme conferences, research grants, invitation for organization theory experts to study within an information system context or the reverse, are examples that could enhance research collaboration. Since resource dependency may be critical for information and system management, a better platform for knowledge exchange deserves more serious consideration. Fourth, studies can focus on the more “strategic relationship” initiatives in the intersecting rationales of RDP and IS (Lee et al., 2004; Phan, 2002). In the undesirable circumstance that an organization is not always in direct control over its resources, it has to act strategically by managing its dependencies or re-establishing connections between components and their larger systems. Organizational strategies should be created to manage, in terms of resource dependency management, these interrelationships. Proactive thinking facilitates structuring sound and meaningful goals, interrelationships and system behaviour norms (Mintzberg, 1990; Mintzberg et al., 1998). In practice, managers can measure the actual implementation of strategic initiatives for IS by a range of measures including: cross-functional guidelines; trust; mature patterns of dependence; loosely defined promises and high mutual understandings; binding agreements to settle differences, etc. These practices may help to maintain the stability of the relationship (Aldrich, 1979). 4.1 Limitations Rigorous inclusion criteria, procedures and between-expert screening of sampled papers resulted in the relatively small sample. They are collected from a period of 12 years for Informetrics analysis. In addition, a more focused sample of RDP-IS studies was filtered and selected for network analysis from a period of time (1992-2006) in which turbulences, component-system relationships, and globalization has caused resource dependencies to become a critical issue in information system research. However, since RDP research blossomed during the mid-70s, understanding RDP development since its infancy may extend the scope of viewpoints to the emergence of this theory (cf. development and application). Therefore the period of analysis could be pushed back to a time earlier than the 70s, so as to cover a greater variety of historical sources of knowledge. 201


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