Patterns in the organization of transnational information systems

Access to new markets for products, services, raw materials, and skills has always been a powerful incentive for organizations to expand international ly. Recently, the establishment of global alliances to leverage core compet encies has led organizations to seek new ways of conducting business; these have demanded a rethinking of organizational structures, processes, and cu lture. One of the fundamental tasks has been the establishment of appropria te information technology (IT) platforms to co-ordinate business processes and provide coalition mechanisms for global business. This paper proposes five important dimensions of transnational strategy: th e configuration of value chain activities, the coordination of such activit ies, centralization strategic alliances, and market integration, These dime nsions define the manner in which the value-added activities of the firm ar e dispersed and co-ordinated across nations, the hierarchical structures re sponsible for decision making, the strength of the external alliances of th e firm and the managerial philosophy of global business conduct. These dime nsions can be used to define a taxonomy of transnational strategy. A basic proposition is that a firm's transnational strategy will be reflect ed in the design of its information systems (IS). In order to address this proposition, a two-stage questionnaire study was conducted. Respondents inc luded 150 multinational corporations from 20 countries and 25 industries, The study has implications for practitioners when evaluating existing trans national business strategies and designing effective transnational informat ion systems. It should also help researchers in determining factors that im pact on the design of transnational IS, (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.