I have several areas of interest, which are summarized below.
Based on feedback from executives, professionals, peers, students, or readers, they will further evolve.
The type of research I am interested in will likely continue to be a mix of conceptual and empirical.
Despite the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK), there are continuing high levels of failure
of projects that are I.T.-intensive, low esteem of project management disciplines held by senior executives, and continuing
frustrations expressed by (I.T.) project management professionals. Also, companies are struggling with how to
tie management of (I.T.) projects focused on value to systems development methods that enable shorter cycles and
interactive design. Hence, there is a clear need to transform management of I.T.-intensive projects.
With an expert panel of dedicated project management professionals, we have started to focus on
"Value-Driven Change Leadership" (VDCL) a new paradigm for the management of I.T.-intensive projects,
with the objective to reduce the rate of failure of I.T.-intensive projects.
Click here for a recent paper.
The question of how organizations can make strategic use of I.T. is essentially a variation of the question: What can an organization do to be strategically more successful? The reference domain to help answer this question is Competitive Strategy. I have explored various questions.
A question regarding competitive strategy is whether (the often-cited) "first-mover advantage" prevails or "follower advantage."
In a multi-year research program of various IT-intensive industries, including "platform industries",
we found (fast-) follower advantage to be prevalent. We also tried to find out why (fast) followers often win.
Click here for a recent article.
In the past, various theories have been advanced, e.g. resource-based or knowledge-based theories of the firm. Prof. Jeff Williams at Carnegie Mellon University developed an approach (Sustainability Analysis) that addresses dynamics of competitive strategy: How fast do (competitive) changes take place? We researched the implications of Sustainability Analysis for IT Strategy?
Acknowledging we are living in the Information Age, we studied "Information Industries." How do firms compete that only sell information? What are their strategies? What is the basis of competition? With the "information economy" becoming a more important topic every day, such questions become more important and urgent to address.
Insights into whether a company's strategy is sensible or not can inform decisions about investments in that company. In this way, strategy, finance and I.T. come together and have blended into my long-standing interests in personal investing. Extending fundamental principles of investing (e.g., balanced allocation across diversified investments) with insights into whether return patterns will persist or revert to the mean, has led me to formulate the DIAL (TM) framework. DIAL stands for Dynamic Index Allocation. Combining these interests with my love of education, I enjoy giving seminars about personal investments.
Click here for information about my seminar about "Fundamental Principles of Personal Investing", as part of the Continuum program at Loyola University Chicago.