Exploring Shared Services from an IS Perspective: A Literature Review and Research Agenda <s> VI. CONCLUSION AND OUTLOOK <s> The 'shared services' concept, which can be described as a business model for the management of internal service functions, is extremely popular in many large public and private sector organisations. This is having a tremendous impact on how these organisations operate. However, research relating to the concept is at an early developmental stage, leading to a lack of understanding of how this concept manifests itself in organisations. This paper aims to provide some formative research into the concept by investigating the issues of its adoption, implementation and use within a large Australian publicly owned organisation. To frame this research, shared services was conceptualised as an organisational innovation, thus providing for the use of existing theories of innovation diffusion and implementation. Empirical data were gathered from interviews with 15 managers. Using the grounded theory approach, analysis of the interview data allowed for the development of a conceptual/theoretical model of shared services adoption, implementation and use. This model provides insights into the concept that can be useful for practitioners as well as researchers. <s> BIB001 </s> Exploring Shared Services from an IS Perspective: A Literature Review and Research Agenda <s> VI. CONCLUSION AND OUTLOOK <s> Purpose – To reveal similarities between the business process reengineering (BPR) and shared service approaches, in order to improve outcomes of shared service implementation processes through lessons learnt from previous BPR projects.Design/methodology/approach – As the focus of this paper is primarily theoretical, the paper starts out with a literature review of developments in the BPR and shared service movements. Similarities between the two change alternatives are discussed and drawn up.Findings – The paper concludes by identifying which previously learnt lessons the emerging shared service movement should take into account from the BPR era when implementing shared services.Research limitations/implications – The paper is primarily based on previous findings from a literature review. To increase insights into the contemporary shared service phenomenon, complementary research in the form of in‐depth case studies are recommended.Practical implications – Based on the similarities between BPR and shared ... <s> BIB002 </s> Exploring Shared Services from an IS Perspective: A Literature Review and Research Agenda <s> VI. CONCLUSION AND OUTLOOK <s> Organisations are increasingly looking to realise the benefits of shared services yet there is little guidance available as to the best way to proceed. A framework is presented that considers the service provided, the design of the shared services centre and the organisational context it sits within. Case studies that examine the relevance of that framework and assess the performance of eleven shared services as a first step in determining what specific attributes of each dimension are important and how they should be aligned. It is concluded that there appears to be a single, broadly standard pattern of attributes for successful Shared Services Centres (SSCs). As fundamentals the SSC should aim to realise economies of scale by providing a broad range of transaction processing services using a standardised IT platform. Additional factors associated with successful SSCs include the SSC being held accountable for its results and there being an emphasis on managing the cultural change associated with the introduction of shared services. Beyond these core attributes a number of characteristics that potentially inhibit or facilitate the successful operation of SSCs have also been identified. <s> BIB003
This study examines the current understanding of shared services as reported in the IS literature. Though shared services have gained significance and have become a well-established and regarded organizational arrangement in business and government organizations, the current body of knowledge in the IS discipline remains limited. There is strong need for a better understanding of the what (valuable and compelling conceptions of shared services), why (objectives of shared services), who (stakeholders involved) and how (what is being shared and in what way). We are not the first to highlight this need. The lack of maturity of shared services research has been recognized by other Volume 22 Article 15 researchers over the years [e.g., BIB003 BIB001 BIB002 , Yee et al., 2009 ], but still shared services is not well understood. Therefore, this study contributes to laying a foundation for advancing the understanding of shared services from an IS perspective by synthesizing the current literature, by developing conceptual frameworks, and by proposing a research agenda. To provide a descriptive overview of the status of shared services from an IS perspective, this study systematically identified relevant papers on shared services in IS literature, resulting in a primary set of 29 papers that focused on shared services, and a secondary set of 164 papers that mentioned shared services. As a basis for the subsequent analysis, the review examined diverse descriptions, analyses and discussions of shared services in the IS context. Overall we can conclude that the conceptual foundation of IS research on shared services with respect to definitions, objectives, stakeholders, and the notion of sharing is not well-established yet. We found that definitions of shared services are scare, in particular in the secondary papers, which may assume the term is well-understood. This may be incorrect as while the different definitions have similarities (in particular related to the concentration theme), there are also significant differences (e.g., whether based on consolidation or not, whether specifying a shared services centre or not, and whether intra-or inter-organizational, etc.). Though we expect there is yet room for refinement, with the aim of a holistic and inclusive definition unconstrained by pre-specified objectives, we define shared services as "an organizational arrangement whereby multiple organizational units collaborate in the concentration of resources to provide services that support their business activities." The literature suggests a broad range of objectives for shared services for IS. Economic and strategic objectives are the most prevalent while political objectives have so far received little attention. From an IS perspective, objectives related to process, information and technology can be of particular interest. One of the challenges for the objectives of shared services is that it is unclear how realistic benefits expectations are or how they can be realized and how IS can play an enabling role for objectives of shared services in general. Having identified a dearth of research into the perspectives of different stakeholders in a shared services context, we sought to address this shortcoming by presenting a preliminary conceptual framework delineating stakeholders. This framework focuses on the shared services centre and differentiates between the internal and external stakeholders. The paper then presented an analysis of the overall notion of sharing, looking at what is being shared and how. The 'what' is being shared has as its main themes business and technology perspectives; 'how' things are shared has as its main themes the structural arrangements for sharing, the organizational boundary within which the sharing occurs, and geographical dispersion of the sharing. The second part of the paper focuses on the research perspective and presents an analytical overview of theories and methods used in IS research on shared services. A search for theories in the primary papers resulted in the identification of 6 papers applying theory and 6 theories being applied, mainly using reference discipline theories from economics and strategy. The limited attention to theory is not surprising given the low number of primary papers and the fact that most research still seems to be in the conceptual stages as shown from the discussion on definitions, objectives, stakeholders, and the notion of sharing. We do see potential for theoretical research on shared services from an IS perspective, in particular in relation to IS-specific theory on IT governance and organizational design of the IS function. For the research methods applied in IS research on shared services, most primary papers are empirical studies (25 out of the 29) and case study was the dominant research method. More empirical work on shared services from an IS perspective is a pre-requisite for this evolving research. Future work on shared services in the IS discipline should start from awareness of the open challenges and be guided by appropriate methodological procedures   . Thus, beyond reviewing what we know about shared services, we also address what we need to know, by identifying relevant research questions. Table 7 presents a high-level research agenda, providing a summary of these research questions. As part of this research agenda, we also provide some theoretical considerations and methodological guidelines (as summarized in the last two rows of Table 7 ) to support better research in this domain. Given the current status of shared services research in IS, the research agenda stresses the need to address some fundamental, conceptual issues first. Only then can IS research on shared services move forward and provide rigorous and relevant contributions to understanding shared services in relation to IS and making broader contributions to shared services in general and the wider IS domain. Thus, our hope is that this study and paper stimulate awareness and action. Like outsourcing and enterprise systems, shared services are highly consequential, multidisciplinary initiatives in which information systems play a central role. The IS discipline has successfully staked a strong claim to the former, but is yet vacillating regarding shared services. This paper establishes the status quo in IS, highlighting both the lack and the potential. The onus is on IS academe to insure we adequately and appropriately involved in both related research and teaching.