It Takes Two to Tango: The Fit Between Network Context and Inter-Organizational Strategic Information Systems Planning

The view of evaluating Strategic Information Systems Planning (SISP) process and effectiveness has matured. The inter-organizational view or network view however is understudied. The introduction of information strategy in networks seems to be more reactive than proactive; many organizations continue to use SISP as a way to support their internal decision-making process without actually co-operating with their business partners. This paper aims at qualitatively exploring and validating respectively context and process dimensions in two inter-organizational cases: a network of municipalities in Finland and a network of healthcare organizations in the Netherlands. The first case study explores the network context and results in a theory on how network context influences inter-organizational SISP. It seems that the inter-organisational SISP process is influenced by 1) the external environment, 2) the network context 3) the nature of the planned (inter-organizational) information systems and 4) resources committed to the inter-organizational SISP process. The role of trust and complexity of the planning environment are handled. The second case study shows that the traditional SISP process dimensions are incomplete in an inter-organizational context. The result of this case study is the recommendation to add three process dimensions: contingency, certainty and contractual agreements.