PhD student Georgios Koutsopoulos presents his ongoing work on “KYKLOS – a modeling method and tool for managing changing capabilities in organizations”.

The predoc seminar takes place at the Department for Computer and Systems Sciences (DSV), Stockholm University.

Respondent: Georgios Koutsopoulos, DSV
Opponent: Mārīte Kirikova, Riga Technical University, Latvia
Main supervisor: Janis Stirna, DSV
Supervisor: Martin Henkel, DSV
Professor closest to the subject: Paul Johannesson, DSV

Abstract

The environments within which modern organizations are operating, are characterized by a constantly increasing volatility and diversity, and act as a driving force that continuously presents opportunities and threats for the organizations. The result of this situation is that the environments have become so dynamic that the phenomenon of organizational change is slowly becoming the new constant instead of being an exception, as in earlier years. The challenge derived from the need to handle constant change and evolution naturally leads to changing organizational capabilities. Information Systems, as part of an organization, can provide efficient support for the design and analysis of capabilities, and Enterprise Modeling can facilitate the development of specialized methods for this task.

Hitherto, a plethora of capability modeling methods exist, and provide a wide spectrum of perspectives. However, the support provided for managing the phenomenon of changing organizational capabilities remains limited, since the existing methods have omitted to capture the necessary elements for depicting organizational capabilities in motion and the motivation triggering such transitions. Additionally, managing change requires more structure approaches, which should be methodologically supported and conceptualized.

The goal of this PhD thesis is to develop a capability modeling method, named KYKLOS, which will support organizational change by modeling changing capabilities of organizations, and all the relevant aspects of the phenomenon. Following the Design Science Research framework, it was initiated with explicating the problem via a literature review on the existing capability meta-model literature, followed by the elicitation of method requirements, using both the existing literature and a case study conducted in the domain of public healthcare in Sweden.

Using the requirements, an initial meta-model was developed, demonstrated using the same case study, and evaluated by experts using interviews. This activity resulted in extending the initial version of the meta-model, which was then instantiated in a case study conducted in the public arts and culture domain of Greece, while in parallel the compatibility of other modeling approaches was explored. Afterwards, the updated version of the meta-model was converted to language meta-model, suitable for the implementation of the method in a tool, using the ADOxx meta-modeling platform. Simultaneously with the tool development, the syntax, semantics and procedure of the modeling method were completed.

The complete method was demonstrated in a case study at a company providing ERP solutions and consulting in Sweden, the result of which was employed during the evaluation of the method by two groups consisting of the method’s stakeholder roles. The thesis contributes towards an improved management of change in organizations, by the development of a method and supporting tool with the capability perspective as the focal point to design and analyze organizational change.

Contact Georgios Koutsopoulos