1.        Introduction

Information systems are natural parts of the business processes in all kind of organizations. Information systems are of vital importance to many organizations across a wide range of sectors of the economy (Waema et al. 1994) . In many cases information systems are the core players in doing the business. Typically these information systems are taking care of some specific part of the business. These information systems must however be able to communicate with each other, because strategic decisions usually require information from several functional areas within an organization. This fluent alignment of information systems to serve business is also one of the biggest concerns among managers. For example, in a ranking of top IS management issues, optimizing enterprise-wide IS services and optimizing organizational effectiveness were the top two issues in 2001 (CSC 2002) . Thus, any means that can help organizations to process and manage information presents an opportunity they cannot ignore (Walsham 1993) .

The business data is managed through the information systems and stored in the databases. Organizations need to be able to process this data and use the information efficiently in order to succeed (Walsham 1993) . However, according to a recent study more than 25 percent of critical data is incomplete and inaccurate (Gaudin 2004) ! This kind of poorly managed data presents real problems for the management of large organizations. These information-related issues have been ranked very highly in several studies. For example, in a Norwegian study IS managers were asked to rank today’s key IS management challenges in order of importance and developing and implementing information architecture came fourth (Christensen et al. 2000) . The same paper studied other similar research results and concluded that making effective use of the data resource was in second place. Another study came up with similar results when ranking critical IS management issues: developing and implementing an information architecture was ranked fourth and making effective use of the data resource was in seventh place (Brancheau et al. 1996) . Yet another study ranked organizing and utilizing data third out of top IS management issues (CSC 2002) . The same survey also studied the important technology trends and in the Europe the top two issues were 1) Real-time information access through innovations in data storage and management and 2) Open data exchange extending the reach of information across the extended enterprise.

All the above motivated to a multiple case study. The aim is this research was to evaluate the information systems and the databases in a group of different organizations. In this article the focus is on presenting the gaps of their information systems. The article is organized following. In section 2 the research and the used methodology is presented. In section 3 some descriptive data of the studied information systems and databases is presented and the specific gaps in each case are described. Finally in section 4 and 5 discussion and conclusions are presented.

2.        The research

2.1         Research methodology

Methodologically this is a multiple case study research. This research methodology was selected, because the goal of the research was not to achieve statistical generalization rather analytic generalization (Yin 1994) . A case research aims for in-depth understanding of the context of a phenomenon (Cavaye 1996) . A case study examines a phenomenon in its natural setting, employing multiple methods of data collection to gather information from one or a few entities (Benbasat et al. 1987) . Furthermore, a case study is particularly appropriate for practise-based problems (Benbasat et al. 1987) .

This research follows the interpretive tradition of the case research. Interpretivism means that there is no objective reality, which can be discovered by researchers and replicated by others (Walsham 1993; Broadbent et al. 1998) . Interpretivism aims to understand phenomena from the point of view of participants directly involved with the phenomenon under study (Cavaye 1996) . In this research it means that the information systems and databases are not directly examined rather through interviews.

2.2         Research design

The main idea of this research was to evaluate information systems and databases in a group of different organizations. The focus was especially on describing the gaps of their information systems and producing common categories of the identified gaps. The main research question was:

“What kinds of gaps organizations are dealing with in their information systems and databases?”

Six Finnish organizations were selected to this research. In every organization multiple information systems and database were analysed. Thus this is a multiple case study with multiple units of analysis (see Table 1). Multiple cases are desirable when the intent of the research is description, theory building or theory testing (Benbasat et al. 1987) . Multiple cases also enable analysis of data across cases (Cavaye 1996) . The organizations were selected some general rules in mind (size, business, private/public, not competitors, not IS producers). Every organization also serves a specific purpose within the overall research (Yin 1994) , since they all had some specific field to study within this research.

Table 1 : The case organizations

2.3         Data collection

Multiple data collection methods are typically employed in case research studies (Benbasat et al. 1987) and this research do not make any exception. The main method used in data collection was semi-structured interviews. Interview was selected since with it very targeted and insightful observations can be perceived (Yin 1994) . Data was also collected from existing documents, which provided stable, unobtrusive, exact and broad coverage of the cases. (Yin 1994) These additional documents (annual reports, memos, publications, presentations) were received during the interviews.

Altogether 54 interviews were arranged (see Table 2). The average length of interviews was approximately 100 minutes and the total time of interviews was over 91 hours. The interviewees were selected with the organizations’ contact persons, typically the CIO of the organization. The interviewees represented various positions, but they were normally persons in administrative positions toward the information systems like CEO, CIO, IT Manager, IS Manager, Project manager and Main user.

The themes of the interview were delivered beforehand to interviewees and all the interviews were recorded and notes were taken during the interviews. One of the themes concentrated directly on gaps within the information systems and databases. Gaps came up as well when other themes were discussed. All interviews were transcripted to a database application specially designed for this research. Working in this way the large amount of the collected data was more easily managed and later analysed. This solution also answered to Benbasat et al. (1987) definition that the researcher should be meticulous in record-keeping and to Yin’s (1994) second principle of data collection: create a case study “database”. The transcript of the interview was produced from the database and emailed to the interviewee for corrections and possible additions.

Table 2 : The interviews.

 

2.4         Data analysis

The interview materials were analysed inductively with methods of qualitative content analysis. This means that the content categories were formulated as a result of interpretation of the interview material instead of using deductive approach and theory based categories. The analysis identified seven different categories of gaps (see Table 3).

Table 3 : The categories of gaps.

These categories are used when presenting the gaps in information systems and databases in each case organization. When the case results are introduced real names of the information systems are not used. Information systems are only numbered and the nature of the information system is told.

3.        Description of IS related gaps in the cases

3.1         Descriptive data of the information systems

The research analyzed altogether 44 different information systems that were classified in four categories (see Figure 1).

 

Figure 1: Distribution of types of the information systems

Over half (52 %) of the information systems and the databases studied during this research are critical to the business and they are used in business-critical processes. Figure 2 shows how business critical information systems are distributed in the different IS-categories. Most (65 %) of the business critical information systems are OLTP-systems.

Figure 2: The distribution of business critical information systems

The average implementation year of the information systems is 1997 and the average age of the information systems is almost 7 years. Within different cases the average age of information systems range from 4,6 to 10,7 years (Kontio 2003) . The average implementation years in different IS-type categories is presented in Table 4. The DBMS solution behind all studied information systems was relational database.

Table 4 : Average implementation years in different IS-type categories

Table 5 shows what type of gaps the interviewees identified in their information systems and databases. Keep in mind that these gaps do not exist in every information system and database of the organization, but these are the gap areas the organization has to deal with in some of the information systems and databases.

Table 5 : Identified gap categories in cases

3.2         SOK Corporation (SOK)

The S Group has organized itself into a co-operation network comprising the regional cooperative societies and SOK Corporation. SOK Corporation’s task within the S Group is to help the cooperative societies produce services and benefits competitively for their customer-owners by focusing on providing support and procurement services for all the S Group’s companies. (SOK-Yhtymä 2003)

The interviewees identified a total of 22 essential information systems and databases. The average age of these systems is little over seven years. Within these 22 analyzed information systems of SOK Corporation all the categories of gaps exist. However the different information systems and databases suffered naturally from different gaps if none. Table 6 presents how interviewees described the gaps of the information systems and the databases. The interviewees mentioned no remarkable gaps in seven information systems and databases.

Table 6 : Gaps in SOK Corporation’s information systems and databases.

3.3         Salon Seudun Puhelin Ltd (SSP)

The vision of Salon Seudun Puhelin Ltd:n is to be the closest, most reliable, best quality and most useful partner in telecommunication for Salo region now and in the future. The role of the company is to build and develop networks for telecommunication and services for people, companies and communities of Salo region. The focus areas of the company are:

§       Broadband telephone network and services

§       Mobile network and services

§       Regional network

§       Cabel televion network and digital services

§       Internet portal (Allu)

§       Real estate security and control systems. (SSP 2001)

The interviewees identified a total of 4 essential information systems and databases. The average age of these systems is six years. Within the 4 analyzed information systems of SSP four categories of gaps exist. These categories are Data Integrity, DBMS, Response Times and Hardware and Reporting. Table 7 presents how interviewees described the gaps in these information systems and databases.

Table 7 : Gaps in SSP’s information systems and databases.

3.4         Statistics Finland (STAT)

The mission of Statistics Finland is to combine collected data with its own expertise to produce statistics and information services for the needs of society, promote the use of statistics and develop national official statistics. Statistics Finland operates administratively under the Ministry of Finance, but is fully and independently responsible for its activities, services and statistics. Statistics Finland has personnel of around 1,100, of whom 200 are employed as statistical interviewers. (Tilastokeskus 2003)