Editorial

Strategic Information Systems in the Post-Net Era

The history of the Internet can be traced back to 1969 when ARPANET was started by the

US Department of Defense, primarily for research on networking. Since then there has

been dramatic growth in the technical capabilities and uses of the Internet. The evolution

and use of the Internet has brought added complexities to the management of

organizations. The growing importance of e-Business (in various forms and shapes),

inter- and intra-organizational communication and collaboration, virtual and new forms of

organization, the extended enterprise—just to name a few—are the results of the evolution

and use of the Internet. Thus, welcome to the ‘Post-Net Era’.

This special issue of the Journal of Strategic Information Systems is devoted to the

theme of ‘Strategic Information Systems in the Post-Net Era’. How do organizations

manage these complexities? How are strategies formulated in the post-Net era? What is

the role of information systems in the strategy formulation/formation process in the post-

Net era? Formal and/or informal systems are needed to address all these important issues.

Each paper in this issue advances our knowledge in some aspect of strategy

development/formulation/formation and the roles of Information Systems in this context.

This special issue contains articles by authors representing six countries and four

continents, thus demonstrating the global nature and interest in the subject.

In the first paper, entitled ‘Strategies for Value Creation in Electronic Markets:

Towards a Framework for Managing Evolutionary Change,’ Ray Hackney (Manchester

Metropolitan University, UK), Janice Burn (Edith Cowan University, Australia), and

Angel Salazar (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK) point out that ‘the post-Net era

is driven by such phenomena as the world wide web, mass customisation, compressed

product life cycles, new distribution channels and new forms of integrated organizations’.

The paper thus deals with electronic markets—an important phenomenon of the post-Net

era—and emphasizes a co-evolutionary approach for strategy development for value

creation. The authors present a model of e-Market strategy which features continuous

evolution of organizations and their inter-relationships. Elements of this model are:

e-market ecosystem, e-alliances, e-knowledge and e-systems. This conceptual model is

validated with relevant examples and a substantive case study. This paper contributes to

the growing body of literature that argues that traditional approaches to strategy

formulation are invalid in post-Net era, which is characterised by integration, co-existence

and co-evolution.

0963-8687/$ - see front matter q 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.jsis.2004.04.001

Journal of Strategic Information Systems 13 (2004) 87–89

www.elsevier.com/locate/jsis

The post-Net era creates its own demands on the planning and control systems for

enterprise management and their linkages with organizational strategy. Thus, the planning

and control process and the systems used for this purpose have to be examined from a

strategic perspective. Therefore, in his paper, ‘Enterprise Strategy Management Systems:

Current and Next Generation,’ Christian Wagner (City University of Hong Kong, Hong

Kong) reviews the current status of strategic information systems for enterprise strategy

management and then presents a proposal for next generation enterprise strategy

management systems. The author identifies three challenges for the post-Net era: shorter

planning and implementation cycles, frequent and rapid environmental changes and

organizations extending beyond a single company—such as extended supply chains and

virtual organizations. The next generation enterprise strategy management systems must

address these issues adequately. The paper also advances ideas beyond the post-Net era,

contributing as it does to our understanding of existing enterprise strategy management

systems, the gaps that exist in these systems and associated requirements for the next

generation. Implications for both the academic and practitioner communities are

identified.

The third paper is by Jon Beard (Webster University, USA) and Mary Sumner (Southern

Illinois University, USA). Entitled ‘Seeking Strategic Advantage in the Post-Net Era:

Viewing ERP Systems from the Resource-Based Perspective’, it examines whether ERP

systems can provide strategic advantage in the post-Net era. Using the resource-based

model of the firm the authors explore four research questions concerning ERP systems.

Their findings suggest that ERP systems per se may not provide competitive advantage.

Rather, the authors posit that the source of competitive advantage lies in the actual

management of ERP projects and their subsequent operations. The paper thus provides

valuable insights into gaining strategic advantage via ERP systems in the post-Net era.

The fourth paper in entitled ‘Proprietary Versus Internet Technologies and the

Adoption and Impact of Electronic Marketplaces’. It is written by Ellen Christiaanse

(University of Amsterdam, Netherlands), Tonja Van Diepen (University of Amsterdam,

Netherlands), and Jan Damsgaard (Copenhagen Business School, Denmark). The authors

argue that the characteristics of pre-Internet electronic marketplaces are structurally

different from Internet-based electronic marketplaces. This paper thus studies two

important research questions: how do Internet technologies influence formation of

electronic marketplaces, and how does this lead to different integration patterns? This

paper is a timely contribution to the growing literature on electronic marketplaces. It

highlights the antecedents and consequences of Internet-based electronic marketplaces,

which will be extremely informative to both practitioners and academicians alike.

The final paper is entitled ‘Beyond Strategic Information Systems: Towards an IS

Capability’ and is written by Joe Peppard (Loughborough University, UK) and John Ward

(Cranfield School of Management, UK). The authors take a fresh approach to strategic

information systems and further develop the concept of IS capability. The authors argue

that, in terms of IT evolution, IS capability can be viewed as the fourth era following data

processing, MIS and strategic information systems. IS capability concentrates on the issue

of sustainability and the attainment of continuous value through IT. Taking a resource-

based view the paper presents a model of IS capability and illustrates how IS capability

impacts business performance. This paper contributes to the theory and practice of

Editorial / Journal of Strategic Information Systems 13 (2004) 87–8988

Information Systems in organizations particularly in relation to IS/IT management in the

post-Net era.

Collectively, the papers highlight that the post-Net era offers a number of complexities,

notably a new form of enterprise popularly known in the literature as the ‘Extended

Enterprise’. Strategy formulation and support are dominated by the need for ‘integration’

‘co-existence’ and ‘co-evolution’ in the Extended Enterprise. These, together with the

sustained attainment of value through IT and its management, make for the new extended

enterprise of the post-Net era.

This special issue would not have been possible without the cooperation and assistance

of many people: most notably all the authors who responded to our call for papers, and the

many reviewers, whose insights have been of particular value in honing the arguments of

each of the papers submitted. We are only sorry that we were not able to include a number

of other contributions due to limitations of space. We very much hope you enjoy the

articles in this special issue.

Jatinder N.D. Gupta*

College of Administrative Science,

University of Alabama in Huntsville,

Huntsville, AL 25899, USA

E-mail address: guptaj@uah.edu

Mohammed Quaddus

Curtin University of Technology,

Perth, WA, Australia

Robert D. Galliers

Bentley College,

Waltham, MA, USA

Available online 1 June 2004

* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ1-256-8246593; fax: þ1-256-8242929.

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