Presenter:
Amitrajit Sarkar, Ara Institute of Canterbury; University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

Time and place:
07 Dec 2023, 11:00-12:30

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Title:
Using the Lens of Critical Realism for a Practice-based Theory of Information Systems Resilience

Abstract:
In recent years, both academics and practitioners have emphasized organizational resilience as a dimension of firm governance. IS resilience referring to the aspect of organizational resilience that focuses on the firm's information systems. There has been little scholarly attention paid to developing theories of IS resilience, and no research has been conducted to understand senior executives' decision-making processes in the context of IS resilience in large organizations. This paper presents an in-depth case study of a large New Zealand organization dealing with the fallout from the 2011 Christchurch Earthquake, as well as the lessons learned along the way. Myers and Newman's dramaturgical guidelines are vividly followed in the case study. Because of the organization's unique governance structure and the circumstances that led to the IS resilience planning, the case is an exemplar of both organizational resilience and IS resilience. As a key contribution, the paper proposes a theoretical model for IS resilience planning based on the Information Technology (IT) governance framework.

Short bio:
Amitrajit Sarkar is a senior member of faculty at Ara Institute of Canterbury and an affiliated research associate at University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. He has published widely in Software engineering and Management Information Systems. His main research interests include framework and artifact development in IT Governance and IS resilience, which is an aspect of organizational resilience. Amitrajit is also a visiting faculty and researcher at OTH Regensburg, International researcher at SUNY Albany E-Governance group and international guest lecturer at IIM Trichy and COE, Pune and recipient of GIAN fellowship. His research is currently focused on the space of Digital Resilience and Smart City – Smart governance and application development spectrum. He is using mixed methods and multi-disciplinary approach to better understand the decision support, policy formulation, implementation, measurement, and revision in context to decision making and prioritization in digital resilience and Smart governance. He has won multiple best paper awards for his research publications.