Embedded Files
Abstract:
The proliferation of mobile information and communication technologies has led to a profound change in the way people work, communicate, and collaborate and conduct business. However, businesses today are just beginning to recognize the importance and potentially transformative impact of enterprise mobility.
While the concept of enterprise mobility continues to emerge in the management and technology literatures, it is still not well understood.
This special issue brings together global, multi-disciplinary perspectives from leading scholars and practitioners on the value and transformative impact of enterprise mobility on work, technology, and organizations, discusses critical enablers and strategies, and provides case study insights.
Introduction:
The logic for enterprise adoption and use of mobile information andcommunication technologies (ICT), such as laptops, smart phones and other handheld devices, is well recognized.
Any technology that can deliver tangible business benefits, by making information more accessible, is generally considered a good thing. Initial case studies have supported these propositions; commonly observed benefits of enterprise mobility include higher levels of end-user convenience, efficiency, productivity, decision-speed, and process improvement [8].
However, this was not always the case. When enterprises first began to evaluate and adopt mobile ICT, the underlying technology enablers were still fairly immature and often failed to deliver on the expected benefits.
Similarly, enterprises were not adequately “ready” to embrace mobile ICT; they often lacked a technological infrastructure, business processes, human resources, leadership, and organizational culture that could facilitate and accelerate enterprise mobility implementations [9].
The predictable outcome was widespread disappointment.
Many considered mobile ICT to be another hyped up technology with only little enterprise value.
Today, much has changed. The underlying technology has improved significantly.
The central pieces of the mobile data equation, which we refer to as the mobile DNA (devices, networks and infrastructure, and applications), are all falling into place: devices are becoming more suited for mobile data use, wireless networks are maturing and becoming increasingly ubiquitous and capable of handling higher data throughput, and value-added mobile applications are rapidly emerging.
Likewise, enterprises are realizing the long-term, strategic benefits that enterprise mobility can deliver: efficiencies, cost savings, new competitive advantages and core competencies – all capable of fundamentally transforming existing organizational, business model and strategy paradigms [5,13].
With these opportunities in mind, many enterprises are preparing for a mobile future.
The perfect storm of technology enablers and increasing levels of enterprise readiness has led to a growing number of organizations adopting, implementing and using mobile ICT in a wide variety of industries and contexts to varying extents [10].
The differences in these implementation levels can be generally attributed to where organizations place their view of enterprise mobility on the continuum (see Fig. 1) [3].
Some define enterprise mobility narrowly and tactically.
In this view, point-solutions, such as mobile email, dominate.
These implementations tend to primarily focus on basic communication and productivity improvements.
Others define enterprise mobility more broadly and strategically. In this instance, the focus is on strategic and large-scale enterprise wide implementations (e.g. mobile CRM) that enable organizations to create new core competencies, gain and sustain competitive advantages, and define new markets.
As the number of enterprises using mobile ICT increases, it becomes imperative to have a more complete understanding of what value and impact it has, what drives and enables it, and in what ways it can and will transform the nature and practices of work, organizational cultures, business processes, supply chains, enterprises, and potentially entire markets [4].
Enterprise mobility is therefore a topic of great interest to both scholars and practitioners [2].
Despite the importance of enterprise mobility as a topic area, the literature to date is relatively sparse [14].
Few papers have been published in premier management, information systems, engineering, and organization science journals. However, there are signs that this is changing.
An online bibliographical database dedicated to the mobile business literature has emerged (www.m-lit.org) and some mobile communications journals (e.g. International Journal of Mobile Communications) have shifted their focus to include enterprise mobility related topics.
An IEEE conference dedicated to mobile business was established in 2002 and has produced several research articles exploring issues related to enterprise mobility.
In 2007, a research track on Mobile Enterprise and Workforce support attracted numerous papers that investigated technical, economic, and social issues of mobile ICT in enterprises. In summary, these activities provide an indication that there is a growing interest in the study of enterprise mobility by a broad community of scholars [11].
This volume aims to contribute to and extend both our theoretical and practical understanding of enterprise mobility by exploring the necessary strategic, technological, and economic considerations, adoption and implementation motivators and inhibitors, usage contexts, social implications, humancentered design issues, support requirements, and transformative impacts.
The main objective of this special issue is to discuss applications, technologies, strategies, theories, frameworks, contexts, case studies, and analyses that provide insights into the growing reality of enterprise mobility for scholars and practicing managers.
Conclusions:
The emergence of mobile ICT within the enterprise has resulted in a paradigm shift of how business is conducted now and in the future.
Business professionals, mobile workers, and field staff can now remain as productive outside the office as they are within the office.
Mobile ICT provide workers the means to access and utilize work-critical data and information wherever and whenever they need it.
However, these benefits represent only the tip of the iceberg. Enterprise mobility solutions have the potential to fundamentally transform organizations, supply chains, and markets.
As mentioned at the outset of this article, the literature on enterprise mobility is relatively sparse when related to the breadth and importance of the area. In order to address this gap, the material that follows purposely includes both practitioner and academic perspectives.
Taken together, the thirteen articles in this special issue represent a significant step forward in our collective theoretical and practical understanding of enterprise mobility and set the stage for numerous future research opportunities.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse