Authors: Hemant Jain, Hermann Ndofor, Masoud Yasai, Padmal Vitharana
Tags: 2018, application development, mass customization, microservices, organizational theory
The ability to cope with an increasingly dynamic environment warrants rapid changes to the capabilities of the firm. Routines form the building blocks of such capabilities. Systems are increasingly intertwined with all aspects of the organization and therefore, any changes to routines require changes to systems. In the past, organizational routines have been built into legacy systems that have historically had challenges in responding with rapid changes to routines. We demonstrate that meeting challenges in a dynamic environment require a focus on micro routines that can be quickly reconfigured and supported by new approaches such as microservices. A micro routine represents a single functionality that could be automated or carried out by a small team that is responsible for managing it. We use theory of organizing including task identification, task division, information and incentive provision to operationalize micro routines. We argue that an organizational change can be more easily facilitated by changing existing micro routines or creating new ones, and implementing them as micro services. In this paper, we highlight how micro routines and corresponding micro services could facilitate a firm’s strategic transformation from a standard bus to a mass customized bus.
Cite as:
Vitharana P., Jain H., Yasai M. and Ndofor H. (2018). “Microservices for Facilitating Organizational Change: An Illustrative Example,” in AIS SIGSAND, Syracuse, NY, United States, May 23 – 25, 2018.
