Title
THE NEED FOR A STRATEGIC ONTOLOGY
Author
Kay M Nelson, and H. James Nelson
Date
1/01/2005
(Original Publish Date: 2003)
(Original Publish Date: 2003)
Abstract
Although it is often not obvious or intuitive, advances in technology have historically driven organizational strategy that incorporates technical components. This has not proven to be successful. We advocate that advances in technology should be driven by strategy, and that one way of accomplishing this is to have strategic ontologies that serve as foundations for strategic patterns, than arbitrary technological patterns. This paper describes ontologies and how they have been used, somewhat loosely, in the definition of technological patters for software development. It discusses the implementation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, and how they could have been more successful had they been introduced with strategic patterns based on a social ontology. In conclusion, this paper encourages the MIS community to lead strategic IT initiatives, rather than follow the opportunities created by technology.
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