The Dynamics of International Information Systems

The serious difficulties facing the developer of international information systems (i.e. After a career in information technology line management I have been involved with multinational enterprises and their information systems for over a decade as a consultant, working in Africa, the UK, continental Europe, North America and Australasia. With this new monograph, Hans Lehmann demonstrates the efficacy of using the Grounded Theory method to study the factors that lead to success – or failure – in the creation and ongoing management of the international information systems (IIS) within global enterprises. He presents three cases of large transnational companies he worked with in this study and describes in detail the steps in the analysis of findings and the incremental conceptualization that finally result in a substantive theory of IIS. There is also a companion website that contains a full set of analysis notes to add a further level of detail. Grounded Theory was developed in the social sciences as a means of recording, analyzing, understanding and then fully explaining what was happening within a given social situation - so that theories could be developed that were firmly grounded in those circumstantial facts. The method is very well-suited to solving information systems problems in any enterprise setting, let alone in those situations peculiar to multi-national enterprises.