Pigneur

Assessing a complex, uncertain and disruptive technology landscape
Yves PIGNEUR, Professor, Université de Lausanne, Switzerland

Yves Pigneur received his master in Informatics (1977) and his PhD (1984) from the University of Namur (FUNDP).
He is currently professor of Information Systems, Head of the Information Systems Department (INFORGE) and Adjunct Dean at the Business School HEC Lausanne, University of Lausanne.
He had visiting position at the University of Lyon, University of Namur, Hong Kong University of Sciences and Technology, Georgia State University at Atlanta, the Naval Postgraduated School at Monterey, l'Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne.
He is editor of " Système d'Information et Management " and " Journal of Decision Systems ".
His research interest covers the following areas : design of information systems, management of information technology, groupware, e-commerce, ontology for e-business model, analyses of e-business.
He is author and co-author of numerous refereed publications in theses areas.
He is co-author with F. Bodart of a book on conceptual modeling of information systems (3rd edition).
He is consulting with entertainment company, bank, telecom operator, computer manufacturer, retailing company, softwares houses, internet start-ups.

Yves.Pigneur@hec.unil.ch

Abstract

Individual, team, organizational, and inter-organizational information systems have been largely investigated from many perspectives: engineering, alignment, and evaluation. Information systems supporting environmental scanning, strategic or competitive intelligence, and technology assessment, which are of prime importance for organizations, are much less investigated.
This paper aims at deriving a theoretical framework, from the properties of an emerging technology landscape or battlefield. As currently debated examples, consider the wireless and m-business industry, the digital good distribution or e-commerce, and the software industry. Such external environments are complex, uncertain and disruptive. Complexity is mainly due to a large body of auto-organized stakeholders. Uncertainty is because unpredictable dynamic futures with many open issues. Disruptiveness means non continuous development and use of technology, with inflection points (or substitute technology).
From a conceptual modeling or ontology point of view, based on these three characteristics, we suggest three main concepts for modeling an information systems dedicated to assessing such technological environments, with their properties and relationships. For dealing with complexity, "actors" are keys, with their stakeholder positioning, networks of actors, and business models. For integrating uncertainty, many kinds of "issues" should be taken into consideration, which actors will try to influence and whose the not so predictable evolution will dictate the possible futures. For coping with disruptiveness, "use", application and adoption, by the users, of the monitored technology have also to be assessed. In this technology assessment context, "influence", pressure, or power is the pertinent relationship between the 3 types of concepts.
Finally, for assessing these three main perspectives, this paper tries to integrate in the same framework different already existing decision or analysis tools. At the actor level, we distinguish the five forces model analysis, and the family of social or policy network analysis. For assessing the strategic issues of a given environment, the structural analysis and the actor-issue analysis can be integrated in the application portfolio for eliciting the issues, assess the convergences and divergences, and anticipating coalitions and conflicts. Disruption analysis can be solicited for detecting potential disruption in technology use.
The ontology and the associated analysis models we suggest for this kind of emergent information systems should help to formulate a response to control the complexity, the uncertainty and the disruptiveness of most technology-intensive environments.