Board Information Technology Governance and Business Agility

The goal of this paper is to empirically investigate and analyze the board's involvement in the information technology governance (ITG) function and how the ITG degree has implications for enterprise agility and financial performance. The analysis primarily relies on perceptual metrics. That is board members' views on the importance and impact of the decisions considered and made on the business outcome. The contribution is reflected in the relation of several of the most significant enterprise resources in complex conditions. The approach seeks to determine whether enterprise agility and business performance are the result of a higher degree of ITG or are critical elements of contingency. The test results show that enterprise agility has a significant indirect impact between ITG attainment and performance and that predefined IT role factors drive this relationship. The limitation of the research is that the capital market is not sufficiently developed in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the responsibilities of the IT supervisory and audit bodies are not fully formulated.

What impacts do behaviour-based and buffer-based management mechanisms have on enterprise agility?

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of behaviour-based and buffer-based management mechanisms on enterprise agility using the lens of the agency theory. Design/methodology/approach This study is based on data collected from 185 manufacturing enterprises using a survey instrument. The authors employ structural equation modelling for data analysis. Findings The results of this study show that buffer-based mechanisms used for dealing with agency uncertainty of supplier/buyer not only have a positive impact on agility of enterprises, but are also contingent on the behavioural interventions used in the relationship with a supplier/buyer. Behaviour-based mechanisms also positively impact enterprise agility through mitigating the likelihood of supplier/buyer opportunism. Practical implications This study demonstrates that buffer- and behaviour-based management mechanisms can be used as complementary approaches against agency uncertainties for enhancing enterprise agility. Therefore, for enterprises to boost their agility, it is vital that their resources and capabilities are fairly distributed across entities responsible for creating buffers through functional flexibility, as well as individuals and teams dealing with stakeholder engagement, in particular, suppliers and buyers. Originality/value The authors use the lens of the agency theory to assimilate and model characteristic agency uncertainties and management mechanisms that enhance enterprise agility.

Ontology-Based Representation of Meta-Design in Designing Decision Workflows

Utilizing the enterprise capital related the knowledge of design processes has become crucial to improve enterprise agility and respond to shifts or changes in markets. The complexity and uncertainty of design raise the challenge of capturing tacit knowledge and the ability to aid in designing design processes. In this paper, ontology is proposed for capturing, representing, and documenting the knowledge related to hierarchical decision workflows in the meta-design of complex engineered systems. The ontology is developed in the context of decision support problem technique (DSPT), considering the requirements being able to guide assistance in designing design workflows, and integrating problem, product, and process information in a design decision-making process. Then, the approach for building procedure of process templates is presented to facilitate the reuse of the populated template instances in future design. Finally, the meta-design of the heat exchanger in a small thermal system is presented as an example to illustrate the effectiveness of this approach.