An intelligent agent-based architecture for strategic information system applications
Introduction
During the last 25 years, an area has developed within the information systems discipline which is generally referred to as a strategic information system or SIS. It concerns itself with systems whose importance to the organization extends beyond merely assisting it to perform its existing functions efficiently, or even just effectively. A strategic information system is instrumental in the organization’s achievement of its competitive or other strategic objectives [1].
The essential purpose of a SIS is to help organizations to do things better [2]. We define an information system to be strategic if it is aligned with business goals and strategies and if it has an impact on organizational performance.
Strategic information systems can support or shape organizational strategy [3]. Strategic information systems planning (SISP) has been the subject of much attention over the past decade. While it has evolved in method and style, the thesis that SISP is important because it emphasizes the need to bring IT to bear on and sometimes influence strategic direction of the corporation is widely accepted by researchers [4]. This is particularly true in contemporary environments where harnessing the power of technology resources could be critical for competitiveness [5].
The evolution of IT in organizations to date, can be captured in three ‘eras’: data processing (DP), management information systems (MIS), and strategic information systems (SIS) [6]. The objectives of the DP and MIS eras are, strictly speaking, a subset of the SIS objective to improve competitiveness [7]. While this three-era perspective is easy to criticize as being over-simplistic, it has not only proved popular with theorists and researchers but frame practice [8].
Agent technology has successfully been used in the past for managing business processes [9], [10], [11], [14], [15], [17], [18]. The model proposed here, called an ‘intelligent agent-based SIS’, solves problems related to strategic management by viewing the process as a community of negotiating, function-performing agents. Each agent represents a distinct role or department and is capable of providing one or more functions.
In the rest of this research paper, we survey the basic concepts of intelligent agent technology, strategic information systems, and strategic management. It’s supposed that the reader has at least a preliminary perception of strategy and strategic planning framework. Afterwards, an intelligent agent-based architecture for SIS will be presented in detail. The support agents are discussed separately in order to prevent the confusion with the main agents and we will discuss their corresponding roles in the proposed architecture.
Section snippets
Intelligent agent technology
The term agent is defined as follows: “An agent is a computer system that is situated in some environment, and that is capable of autonomous action in this environment in order to meet its design objectives” [12]. It is said that any computer system (software or hardware) should have the following properties to be termed as an agent [19]:
- (a)
Autonomy. It should have some control over its actions and should work without human intervention.
- (b)
Social ability. It should be able to communicate with other
Strategic information systems
The role of information systems (IS) has developed during the years. The original conception was of automation of existing manual and pre-computer mechanical processes. This was quickly succeeded by the rationalization and integration of systems. In both of these forms, IS was regarded primarily as an operational support tool, and secondarily as a service to management.
During the 1980s, an additional potential was discovered. It was found that, in some cases, information technology (IT) had
Primary context for SIS
The context within which SIS theory emerged was the competitive strategy framework put forward by Porter [38], [39], which was based on industrial organization economics. This section outlines the basis of that theory. Strategic information systems theory will then be shown to be concerned with the use of information technology to support or sharpen an enterprise’s competitive strategy. In Porter’s view, the performance of individual corporations is determined by the extent to which they cope
Cooperative supra-organizational systems
The original orientation of SIS was towards internal systems. Subsequently, attention switched to cooperation among enterprises. The application of IT tends to reduce the coordination costs by reducing the costs of accumulating, storing, and communicating information. It is necessary, however, to mitigate transaction risk as well, e.g. through modularity and replicability of knowledge, open standards, intuitive user interfaces, and interconnection among networks. However, codified information
Agent-based architecture for SIS
Now that we have grasped the general ideas behind the important concepts of competitive strategy, strategic management, and SIS, we are ready to turn the theory into a practical up-to-date model which is the subject matter of our research.
Discussion and conclusion
We terminate our paper by explaining an interesting approach to the uncertainties of business future which plays a critical role in the SIS specification challenge. Further research may be devoted to applying this approach to the intelligent agent-based SIS applications.
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