Welke

The Complexity Reduction Trajectory - Enabling e-Systems at what Cost ?
Richard J. WELKE, Professor, Georgia State University, USA

Richard J. WELKE received his BSE (IE) degree from the University of Michigan and an MBA and Ph.D. from SUNY at Buffalo in New York. He brings to his current position as Director of the eCommerce Institute and its Center for Digital Commerce, a unique blend of real-world and international academic qualifications. As a practicing professional he began his work experience at General Motors Research Laboratories in 1961 working on the world's first CAD/CAM project for then Fisher Body in Detroit, Michigan on an IBM 709 tube/transistor computer and later as a developer for Michigan Consolidated Gas Company. He has owned and managed two CASE software development and consulting companies based in Canada and the U.S. One of these developed and distributed the first commercial CASE product - PSL/PSA. He has held the position of CIO at both Law Group and H.J. Russell and Company (both engineering consulting firms in Atlanta, GA).
As an academic, Dr. Welke has held professorial appointments at McMaster University in Canada, Erasmus University in the Netherlands, and Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia. He has been a visiting professor at Tilburg University (NL), the University of Toronto (CAN) and Eastern Michigan University. At Georgia State, Dr. WELKE was head of the Computer Information Systems department, and oversaw its emergence as one of the top ten academic I/S departments in the U.S. He has been the principle investigator or co-investigator on a number of funded research projects with a combined value of over USD three million. Dr. WELKE is a founding member of the ICIS conferences and of IFIP WG 8.2. He has been the chairperson or program chair of several ICIS and IFIP conferences and received the IFIP Outstanding Service Award for his service to the international informatics community. He is, or has been, an associate editor of four academic journals as well as an academic book series.
Dr. WELKE was co-founded the GeM (Global eManagement) executive masters degree education consortium and was its inaugural chairperson. He has had his research published in over fifty books, refereed journals and conference proceedings, including MISQ, CACM, Information Systems, Information Systems Journal, Information Technology and Management, Informatie, and Database. Dr. WELKE's research focuses on ICT-enabled process innovation. His perspective is drawn from the areas of meta-system specification and representation, and transformational methodologies.

rwelke@gsu.edu

Abstract

The business environment for most organizations is far more complex than it has ever been. In no small part this is a direct consequence of information and communication technology applied and networked on a global scale. One can take this a step further and hypothesize that those organizations capable of effectively managing ever greater complexity are at a potential competitive advantage. There are, however, well-known limits to a human's ability to perceive and manage complexity, both in design and execution.
This seeming paradox is mitigated by a number of complexity reduction techniques that manifest themselves in how we design systems and how the resulting systems are engaged at the individual, organizational, and inter-organizational levels. Some current examples of these manifestations are: standards, frameworks, componentization, patterns, normative modeling, and best practices, to name a few. Moreover, these build in layers, seemingly allowing us to surmount ever greater levels of complexity. In general, IS has already progressed in this trek to the point where our developmental artifacts nearly match how non-technical organizational members perceive their business activities.
This paper offers a critical examination of this trajectory of complexity "conquest" from a number of perspectives as well as some of the consequences that are already negatively impacting the IS profession.