An empirical roadmap for intranet evolution

This article appeared in a journal published by Elsevier. The attachedcopy is furnished to the author for internal non-commercial researchand education use, including for instruction at the authors institution

and sharing with colleagues.

Other uses, including reproduction and distribution, or selling orlicensing copies, or posting to personal, institutional or third party

websites are prohibited.

In most cases authors are permitted to post their version of thearticle (e.g. in Word or Tex form) to their personal website orinstitutional repository. Authors requiring further information

regarding Elsevier’s archiving and manuscript policies areencouraged to visit:

http://www.elsevier.com/copyright

http://www.elsevier.com/copyright

Author's personal copy

International Journal of Information Management 29 (2009) 295–308

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

International Journal of Information Management

journa l homepage: www.e lsev ier .com/ locate / i j in fomgt

An empirical roadmap for intranet evolution

Antonella Martinia,∗, Mariano Corsob, Luisa Pellegrinia

a Faculty of Engineering, University of Pisa, Via Diotisalvi, 2 – 56126 Pisa, Italyb School of Management, Polytechnic of Milano, P.zza Leonardo Da Vinci, 2 – 20133 Milano, Italy

a r t i c l e i n f o

Keywords:Intranet evolutionCase studiesGovernanceRoadmap

a b s t r a c t

One of the most frequent causes of partial or total failure of an Intranet project is certainly the under-valuation of the importance of the organizational aspects. In fact, most of the companies manage theimplementation project in a purely technical perspective without systematically facing the organizationaland the change management aspects.

Particularly critical is the definition of governance—the organizational choices that determine the divi-sion of the responsibilities and the key criteria to be followed in the planning and management of anIntranet initiative. Inadequate decisions regarding governance are often difficult to be modified and canjeopardize the development possibilities and the Intranet effectiveness.

Basing on the results of the Permanent Observatory on Intranets in the period 2003–2007, and a mul-tiple case studies methodology, this article aims at analyzing and interpreting the choices of governancecarried out in the several phases of the evolution path. 110 cases were developed and analysed using aretrospective logic, in order to verify the evolution of the observed variables; some are also longitudinalcases. For each phase it has been identified the typical approaches, the main criticalities and some guide-lines emerging from the analysis of the best practices and the cases of failure. The management guidelineshave been systematized in the “Intranet roadmap” that offers actionable knowledge to effectively governthe evolution of the Intranet towards an advanced Virtual Workspace.

© 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

There are many definitions of Intranet, ranging from a purelytechnological interpretation (in this case, the Intranet is con-ceived as an organizational network protected by firewallswhich exploits Internet working technologies) to a functionalview, in which an Intranet is seen as an infrastructure thatsupports business applications. In our analysis, Intranet willbe interpreted as all the web technologies-based ICT appli-cations/services that support business processes and which anorganization can present to employees. In other words, an Intranetis a way of thinking and organizing people, work and interac-tion.

An Intranet evolves in its scope, both in spatial and time dimen-sions. From the first point of view (space), it encompasses all thevalue chain processes and extend beyond the immediate organiza-tion’s internal work to include relationships with business partnersand external agencies. Since its infancy around 1995, Intranet hasevolved from an internal method of document organization and

∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +39 050 2217361; fax: +39 050 2217333.E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected] (A. Martini),

[email protected] (M. Corso), [email protected] (L. Pellegrini).

dissemination developed from groupware to a more sophisticatedand complex organizational tool.

From the second point of view – time – Intranet evolves frombeing conceived as a project, to being conceived as a process forinnovation and change management. In this sense, an Intranet ini-tiative should not be interpreted as a una tantum project, but alonger evolution process in which the Intranet assumes a moreand more relevant role in facilitating and sustaining the organi-zational change. A diverging interpretation brings firms to operatemyopically, without setting the organizational and technologicalpremises for an effective development of the Intranet in the longerterm. It is a change management process, whose effectivenessdepends on a fine combination of strategic, organizational and tech-nological choices which require to be carefully planned.

However, Intranet projects are usually in impasse, i.e. in a situ-ation of inertia that prevents their evolution towards more matureand strategic stages. The underlying reason of these situationscan be rarely attributed to technological problems, but, rather,to problems of governance: lack of vision, absence of commit-ment, conflicts of responsibilities, jealousy and incomprehensionbetween roles and units are the most cited barriers to the develop-ment of the Intranet.

Many studies have been carried out to define the “state of theart” of Intranet applications and specify roadmaps to support man-

0268-4012/$ – see front matter © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2008.10.001


296 A. Martini et al. / International Journal of Information Management 29 (2009) 295–308

agement in choosing and implementing applications (Greer, 1998;Harris & Berg, 2002; Murgolo-Poore, Pitt, & Ewing, 2001; Tyndale,2002). In Europe, Intranet applications has so far not been studied indepth, while peculiarities in the European market (e.g. prevalenceof small and medium enterprises, limited number of enterprisesoperating in high technological markets, limited role of financialmarkets, etc.) restrict the application of the results of empiricalanalyses carried out in international contexts (in particular, fromthe US where most research is conducted).

The challenge for management theory is clear: to provide empir-ically grounded and actionable knowledge for companies to designand implement new ICT-enabled (virtual) working environmentsable to extend the boundaries of their knowledge creation to theirmobile workers, customers and suppliers. At the same time, onlyanecdotal evidence about the good practices is available today.

In order to contribute to fill in the empirical gap, in 2003 apermanent Observatory has been established in Italy. Basing on a 5-year empirical research, this article provides the Intranet roadmap:a set of guidelines and steps to deal with the Intranet evolution,while hampering the connected barriers for the new virtual work-ing environment.

2. The problem of intranet evolution

For years, Intranet was seen merely as an information channelof use in managing unidirectional communication towards employ-ees or providing them with some services. However, from 2004 anew vision of Intranet emerges: a tool centered and focused onpeople and their needs, but with a strategic objective to createa complete workspace to support employees’ day-by-day opera-tions, knowledge management, collaboration and communicationprocesses (Corso, Giacobbe, & Martini, 2008).

It is no longer a question of using the Intranet to improve internalcommunication, spread company culture or eliminate paper docu-ments. The objectives concern operations and, in many cases, thecreation of a profiled and customised environment involving usersnot only in work, but also in company life, creating and initiating anew system of relations. This also occurs via the integration in theIntranet of new communication tools and different company Infor-mation Systems, so providing a working environment that offersemployees full operational support.

The more advanced Intranets are extending their border to thesupport of core processes and are becoming increasingly integratedin management and legacy systems. They tend to open up (as docompanies as a whole) to the contribution of external players (cus-tomers, suppliers, partners, etc.). Secondly, the boundary with otherweb-based systems (e.g. CRM applications) is often just an excuseand tends to fade in the more developed Intranets. Finally, buteven more importantly, advanced Intranets tend to integrate toan ever-greater extent with managerial IS and legacy systems. Insome cases, it is the latter which take on a web interface and areprogressively integrated into the Intranet environment; in others,the Intranets are extended to include functionality typical of legacyand ERP systems. These are signs of the emergence of a new gen-eration of IS that is profoundly integrated with the communicationsystem, i.e. full-blown virtual work environments, and able to sus-tain a company’s internal and external processes dynamically andflexibly.

Previous results from the Observatory (Corso et al., 2008; Corso,Martini, & Pesoli, 2009) provide evidence that Intranet radicallychanged its role from a technological view in 1990s to a predom-inantly unidirectional, top-down channel for communication andinformation (the first era) and to a what we have defined as a “Vir-tual Workspace”, an integrated working space where employees

can find what they need to work, to learn, to know and to interactwith others (the second era).

2.1. Lessons learned from the cases

The analysis of the cases reveals a substantial differencebetween the best ones, in which changes towards strategically sig-nificant processes and functionality are underway, and the majorityof the initiatives that have developed little.

The difference regarding convergence with other InformationSystems is even stronger. While in most cases, the Intranet is keptclearly separate from the managerial IS and ERP systems, the exam-ples of good practices present a gradual process of convergencewhich brings the traditional dividing lines between these two dif-ferent worlds into question.

The real reason for this state of inertia is rarely technological.The principal factor that discriminates the successes from the par-tial failures seems to be the company’s attention in managing andaccompanying the initiative as a process of organizational change.

In the unsuccessful cases, the company merely introduces toolsand technologies without any substantial organizational or man-agerial measures. This can produce a gap between perceived needsand proposed solutions that leads to user dissatisfaction. In Insti-tutional and Knowledge Management Intranets, which impact onprocesses that are not central to the users’ task, this dissatisfactionsimply results in little use of the system. In Operations Intranets,which are often indispensable tools for users’ activities, the dissat-isfaction can become annoyance and organizational conflict.

In best cases, on the other hand, the introduction of technologywas accompanied by an agreed communication and change man-agement strategy aimed at modifying the behaviour of individualsand company units.

2.1.1. The problem of space evolutionOne of the most frequent causes for the partial or complete

failure of an Intranet project is, therefore, the significant under-estimation of the importance of organizational aspects. Mostcompanies manage implementation projects from a purely tech-nical point of view, without addressing organizational and changemanagement questions in a systematic way. Both in the develop-ment and in the management phases, for example, companies stillshow little awareness in defining governance solutions, which inmost cases appear to be emerging decisions, rather than the fruitof an agreed organizational plan. A lack of vision, an absence ofcommitment, conflicts of responsibility, jealousies and misunder-standings between roles and organizational units are among themost frequently cited barriers to the development of Intranets.

However, within this situation, there is an important point:although the Intranet rarely attracts the attention of top manage-ment, it is an intrinsically ‘inter-functional’ question.

Any attempt to constrain the Intranet governance within a func-tional ‘box’ (IT, Internal Communication, Human Resources, specificlines, etc.) always causes problems. Everything falls on environ-ments that are not integrated, with disparate logic, duplicatedresources and negligible or hidden development budgets.

These problems, which already existed with traditionalIntranets, become particularly critical when the Intranet seeks towiden its borders:

• first, in addition to the technological problems already men-tioned, the integration of legacy and ERP systems also comes upagainst problems of responsibility and authority, as well as theprejudices of those that feel that the Intranet can be a tool forcommunication and the management of services for people, but itnot sufficiently efficient or reliable to support company core pro-


A. Martini et al. / International Journal of Information Management 29 (2009) 295–308 297

cesses. It is not infrequent for this to slow down development andkeep the two separate apart, i.e. the ‘operations’ Information Sys-tems administered by line managers, and the Intranet dedicatedto communication and services for employees administered bystaff managers. In this case, the IT function is often stuck in themiddle, aware of the potential benefits of integration, but unableto manage the strategic and organizational implications to thefull;

• the expansion towards other organizations meets the problemsof co-ordination between staff from different companies;

• the inclusion of ‘other’ web applications often faces difficultiestied to prejudices and jealousies between different functions.Lines are often opposed to the excessive integration of systemsthat they have promoted and financed within what is seen asa staff environment. It is particularly significant, for example,that Field Force Automation, Sales Force Automation and CRMare not integrated into the Intranet (which would considerablystrengthen this environment), but are often kept deliberately sep-arate.

The solution to these problems requires the re-design of the gov-ernance system, i.e. ‘the set of roles, decision-making processes andorganizational mechanisms which guide and regulate the function-ing and development of the Intranet’.

2.1.2. The problem of temporal evolutionThe retrospective analysis and monitoring of the panel reveal

that Intranets evolve through various stages of maturity: in each ofthem they change their characteristics and their role in the organi-zation.

Four fundamental phases in the Intranet evolution have beenidentified (Fig. 1):

(1) Embryonic stage: at this level, the intranet provides very lit-tle support in all of the v-W dimensions: sponsorship is verylimited or completely absent; management and developmentdepend on the initiative and goodwill of the intranet managerwho is often only part-time and without a clear mandate; func-tionality and content are implemented as contingencies andoutside any clear and recognized plan.

(2) Focused stage: depending of which of the v-W dimensionsis emphasized, we have the four spaces—Enterprise Services,Communication & Socialisation, Knowledge & Collaboration andWorking Tools (Fig. 1, number 2). In the majority of the cases,the change from stage 1 to stage 2 occurs as a response to spe-cific pressure from a company function or staff position thatcollaborates with IS in the control of the Intranet.

(3) Composite stage: (Fig. 1, number 3) governance is extendedand the Intranet develops by combining different dimensions.The benefits of integration make it possible to overcome thetechnological, organizational and cultural barriers and difficul-ties resulting from the creation and management of a morecomplex environment. The organizational and business impactbecomes significant and justifies broader sponsorship whichalso includes top management.

(4) Advanced stage: (Fig. 1, number 4) the Intranet loses a specificfocus and reaches a very high level of support of all dimensions,becoming an integrated v-W. Sponsorship is elevated and thedevelopment objectives aligned with the company’s organiza-tional strategies.

The main barrier from a composite model to an integrated v-Wderives from the fact that the creation of such a workspace is morethan a simple juxtaposition of focused or composite environments.Different perspectives and points of view need to be combined to

Fig. 1. Intranet evolution.

construct an environment providing an overall view of people andtheir needs.

The benefits that derive from the creation of an integrated v-Ware not easily turned into monetary returns and their developmenttherefore requires considerable vision on the part of management.

The major barriers to this process of integration do not appear tobe technological, but rather political and organizational. Control ofdevelopment and of communications and operative environmentmanagement, in particular, is often entrusted to different units andmanagers that find it difficult to pursue integration that wouldreduce their independence and require the unification of manage-ment and development approaches that have traditionally beenseparate.

Nevertheless, there are forces that may eventually overcome thisresistance, enabling convergence towards single, integrated envi-ronments:

• the need to re-engineer the organization and its processes in theface of mergers and internationalization;

• the need to develop and manage new skills and professional fam-ilies distributed across the country;

• the need to control and improve the processes within ever morecomplex and geographically dispersed competence networks.

Given these needs, the availability of integrated v-Ws is a pow-erful tool in re-engineering organizations, making them moreflexible, dynamic and re-configurable, so becoming a factor stimu-lating innovation and change.

However, this objective requires a significant increase in aware-ness among those controlling the Intranet. They must stop viewingthe Intranet with the eyes of those who design ‘desktops, draw-ers and blinkers’ and look beyond the narrow space of the screento provide ‘spaces for relations and opportunities’, in which peo-ple are free to move and find stimuli and opportunities, developprofessional expertise, and set up networks of relations. In thisway, the intranet will become a Virtual Workspace, through whichcompanies will be able to stimulate and direct effective behaviouramong workers with regards innovation, collaboration and shar-ing.

In overcoming the limitations of traditional systems, theadvanced v-W contributes to the development of a creative and



open environment, breaking down barriers and re-assessing stereo-types and prejudices:

• space barriers: the workplace is everywhere that individuals need(and want) to use their capacities;

• time barriers: the myth of fixed working hours is overcome; peo-ple can and must be asked to create value when it is needed,and must be given frequent opportunities to find a new balancebetween their working and private lives;

• organizational barriers: ‘my colleague can help to create value formy company (and for me as a professional)’, the concept of com-petitor, supplier and collaborator needs to be re-considered interms more closely centered on the individual and the relation.

One of the fundamental determinants at the basis of the suc-cess/failure of intranet is the capacity to manage the organizationalchange process which is embedded in intranet introduction, devel-opment and management. This stresses the importance of the‘intranet governance’: the set of roles, decisional processes andorganizational mechanisms that regulate and address intranetsfunctioning and evolution, with the aim of creating an alignmentwith the strategic and organizational priorities.

The Intranets have to evolve from being conceived as a projectto being conceived as a process for innovation and change manage-ment. In this sense, an Intranet initiative should not be interpretedas a one-off project, but a longer process of evolution in which itassumes a more and more relevant role in facilitating and sustainingthe organizational change. A diverging interpretation brings firmsto operate myopically, without setting the organizational and tech-nological premises for an effective development of the Intranet inthe longer term. It is a change management process, whose effec-tiveness depends on a fine combination of strategic, organizationaland technological choices which require to be carefully planned.

There is a lack of the necessary vision to conceive and plan theIntranet evolution as a lever of organizational and strategic change.To arrive at the ‘strategic development’ stage, it is necessary to moveto ‘planned development’, in which, once the spatial and temporallimitations of the vision have been overcome, management can re-think the Intranet evolution plan as a kind of roadmap of change.

To overcome the space borders means to think to the Intranetas a puzzle that, piece after piece, has to cover the entire organiza-tional value chain, supporting all the processes—from the supportto the primary processes, from the knowledge intensive to the oper-ating processes: potentially, there is not any process belonging tothe value chain that cannot be improved by means of a wise use ofthe Intranet technologies properly integrated with the “traditional”information systems.

To overcome the temporal borders means to think to the Intranetas a process that, step after step and according to an incrementalapproach, has to identify, define and put the single piece of thepuzzle, up to arriving to the completion of the puzzle itself.

Both of these developments require a strong and real manage-ment commitment who, fully realising the potential of the Intranet,provide the technical and organizational conditions to allow theIntranet to evolve with corporate strategy. The move to planneddevelopment thus requires the establishment of the conditions forchange through the definition of:

• a technology strategy that lays the infrastructure foundations forthe effective development of each applications and, above all, fortheir efficient integration;

• an organizational strategy that creates the conditions for theeffective management of change through the introduction ofthe Intranet and the respective re-design of processes, com-petences and organizational relations. This strategy includes a

governance for development and growth that defines respon-sibility, mechanisms and rules for the planning of the Intranet,a day-to-day governance that defines operational roles, contentand service management policy, user involvement measures andchange management, and a widespread network culture amongworkers with respect to the skills and habits regarding collabo-ration and the use of network tools.

3. Methodology

We adopted a multiple case studies methodology, as it allows usto understand the complexity of the organizational phenomenonand answer the questions ‘how and why’.

The number of companies in the Observatory panel has grownprogressively during the research period, from 29 in 2002–2003, to50 in 2004, 70 in 2005, arriving at 110 in 2006 and 70 in 2007.Each year, a number of new participating companies have beenadded, while the majority of the firms analyzed in a particular yearreiterated the intention to take part in the following year’s study. Asa result of this availability, many case studies have been examinedlongitudinally.

The approach adopted is both interpretative and normative: thegoal is (a) to understand the current situation as well as the pastdevelopments and future prospects of intranets, and (b) to com-pare the Intranet development and different characteristics so as todefine a model to explain the evolutionary dynamics and the pos-sible benefits obtained with these environments. The case studieshave been analyzed also retrospectively.

The choice of cases is based on the pre-requisites that the com-panies operate in Italy and have undertaken at least one major ICTproject in the previous 5 years. The people contacted were mainlythe heads of information systems, intranet managers or the imme-diate subordinates of top management.

Data were collected with a view to obtaining the greatestamount of information possible on the intranet and its externalcontext. Various sources were used and both qualitative and quan-titative data were included in order to obtain triangulation of theinformation collected. Specifically, data were obtained from thefollowing sources:

• documentation on the company analyzed;• a questionnaire of 71 closed questions and a ‘comments’ field

in which interviewees could complete their replies with extrainformation;

• semi-structured interviews with various company figures (e.g.head of information systems, head of intranet, managers fromthe Human Resources and Internal Communication departments,line staff);

• on-line analysis of the intranet, the available tools and the relativelevel of use, as well as of any interactions between individualsvisible via the web.

The comprehensibility and completeness of the questionnairewere tested in advance in pilot interviews.

The interviews of approximately one and a half hours were car-ried out (after return of the questionnaire) either by telephoneor face-to-face. The use of a semi-structured form leaves amplefreedom both to the interviewer and the interviewee, while ensur-ing that all the important arguments are addressed and all thenecessary information collected. A checklist was devised with thearguments to be addressed, while the order of the questions, thelevel of detail regarding specific questions, and the words used,etc. could be decided by the interviewer during the meeting. Thechecklist maintained the replicability of the request for informationin various situations.



Fig. 2. The Intranet roadmap.

All the interviews were recorded and transcribed. Subsequently,a report giving the important data in objective terms was prepared.

4. The intranet roadmap

This article aims at analyzing and interpreting the choices of gov-ernance carried out by the panel enterprises in the several phasesof the evolution path, while identifying for each phase the typicalapproaches, the main criticalities and some guidelines emergingfrom the analysis of the best practices and the cases of failure.Basing on the results of the Permanent Observatory on Intranetsin the period 2003–2007, the developed management guidelineshave been systematized in the “Intranet roadmap” (Fig. 2) thatoffers a guideline in order to effectively govern the evolution ofthe Intranet towards an advanced Virtual Workspace. The phasesof this roadmap are fundamentally six:

• Strategic concept: this is the phase in which the vision of the ini-tiative is defined, in other words the way in which the initiativemust contribute to the company strategy and to people’s needs.It is also the phase in which main objectives and expected resultsare defined, and the main responsibilities and actors are assigned;

• Governance definition: consists of defining the coordination rolesand mechanisms necessary for the correct functioning of theIntranet, during both the growth and day-to-day governancephases.

• Design: in this phase, the requirements of the members and thegroup are translated into specifications for new services and func-tions, which are then executed by internal or external resources;

• Implementation & launch: consists of the putting into operationof the services and corresponding change management actions;

• Day-to-day community management: this is the series of actionsthat is intended to guarantee a high level of participation andinvolvement among members and maintain the right level ofcommitment by the organization;

• Assessment: consists of analyzing the achieved results and organi-zational impacts, and diagnosing the main areas for improvementin relation to company priorities and the needs of members.

The phases form a cyclical pattern, insofar as the output of eachstep serves as an input for the next step. The colours used in theroadmap define pairs and serve to highlight further relationshipsthat exist between the phases. Within each phase, it is vital to beable to anticipate constraints and needs relating to specific down-stream phases. Thus in the strategic concept phase, it is necessaryto anticipate the need to analyze and measure results that willemerge during the assessment phase; in the governance defini-tion phase, it is necessary to define roles and mechanisms thatwill permit effective day-to-day management, while in the design

phase it is necessary to anticipate the priorities and demands of theimplementation and launch phase.

The complexity of the process also stems from the fact that ineach phase, the roles and motivations of the community memberschange, and so too must the management and technological toolsused to facilitate the growth of the community and create value forthe organization.

The six phases are described in greater detail below.

4.1. Strategic concept

The first step of the roadmap is to define the strategic con-cept of the initiative. This is a fundamentally important phase, thecoherency of which will largely determine the success or failure ofthe initiative.

4.1.1. Lessons learnedAlthough a good part of the companies of the panel still devotes

a poor attention to these choices – considering them as obviousor simply skipping some of them – it is possible to recognize anincreasing attention to the concept phase. Coherently with theincrease of importance and attention from the top management,there is a greater acquaintance of the Intranets’ strategic benefitsand a greater systematic approach of the organizations in tacklingthe phase of strategic concept, and a strong increase of the planninghorizon, of the involvement of the user-functions, and the allocatedbudget. In particular, in the successful initiatives two main aspectsappear: the enterprises invested in the analysis of the customerneeds and in the definition of main requirements and the “strategicGuidance” is involving more and more not only the Top Managersand the heads of the Information Systems (IS), but also the mainline and staff functions, while linking itself to the strategy of inno-vation and evolution of the organizational IS. Still in these cases theinvolvement of the heads of the Information Systems in a long termstrategic planning, lays the foundations for the creation of a techno-logical infrastructure that is common and integrated with the otherapplications and that is able to exceed the limits of the applicationislands in terms of efficiency, effectiveness and flexibility.

But if the trend, and still more the example of the best practice,turn out encouraging, the common situation remains like leopard’sspots. The analysis of the cases (Fig. 3) highlights that long termbudget are defined only in 19% of the cases and that absent andannual budget correspond to absent and annual development plans(66% of the cases). Moreover, the presence of long-term budgets isnot always associated with a real evolution plan.

On the basis of the planning horizon and of the involvementdegree of managers of the different departments (“level of cross-functionality”), it is possible to identify four main approaches tothe definition of the strategic concept (Fig. 4):

• Participative approach: the strategic objectives and the strongcommitment of the top management result in a wide cross-functional involvement of the line, usually by means of a guidancecommittee or the creation of ad hoc roles, the formulation of plansand explicit investment budgets, mainly on a long term horizon;

• Top-down approach: the guidance is managed by the top manage-ment or a single unit with a strong commitment that attributesan explicit medium term horizon to the initiative. However, suchplanning is not used as a lever to involve the other user-functions,in that their contribution is not considered meaningful or, moreoften, because attitudes of resistance or opposition are feared inthis phase;

• Bottom-up approach: there is a lack of the frame of the initiativesin a long term plan; the evolution happens through incrementalinitiatives based on the requirements of the users that usually



Fig. 3. Planning.

have a control limited to the single initiative; the coordinationand involvement mechanisms are informal;

• None: there is not a strategic guidance of the Intranet; itsdevelopments are limited and with a low involvement of the user-functions. The lack of plans and the low level of cross-functionalinvolvement in the strategic concept phase usually bring to envi-ronments that appear as a multitude of “applicative islands”poorly integrated that reflect the “islands” and the lack of internalintegration in the organization.

The prevalence of “top-down” or “none” approaches highlightsthat in the Concept phase many companies are not able to arrangeeffective conditions for the change, in that they do not involve key-stakeholder or do not anticipate difficulties and barriers, althoughthey are expectable. In many cases, this approach is the result of

the prevailing technical approach or the intentionally top-downperspective that is typical of the IS, that think that the system firsthas to be planned and then forced from the top. This shows the lowlevel of acquaintance of the Intranet specificity that demands orga-nizational attention and vision, with priority to technical aspects.This traditional approach causes the Intranet to be interpreted notas a continuous process, but as a spot initiative that, once released,is hold consolidated and therefore receives less and less managers’commitment.

Finally, symptomatic of the dominant approach is the scarceattention toward the involvement not only of the line management,but also of the final users, whose motivations and requirements areoften neglected and who undergo the applications, without havingthe possibility to choose the functionalities and to define their char-acteristics. Indeed, in the development phase, the users are involved

Fig. 4. Approaches to the strategic concept.



sporadically and informally, or through guide-users, while seldomthere are structured mechanisms of feedback and analysis.

With regard to the implementation of the system for the evalua-tion and control of the results, there is a scarce systematic approachthat is partially due to the true difficulty that the enterprises findin justifying the investments and then to explicit and measure thevalue created through the Intranet. In fact, the Intranet’s benefitscan be very different and the most important are often very difficultto quantify in terms of cash flows. The analysis of the cases clearlyhighlights that in the objects’ definition and in the investments’justification, a significant part of the organizations scarcely iden-tifies and quantifies the Intranets’ benefits and still less convertsthem in financial terms. Also in the most ambitious initiatives, itoften happens that, although the expected motivations and benefitsare connected with the organizational flexibility and the strategicimpact, firms mostly employ performance indicators measuringefficiency up to effectiveness and customer satisfaction to justifythe investment.

This difficulty in justifying the investments often explains theslowness which characterizes the Intranet development in theorganizations: especially in situations of crisis and pressure on theresources, the risk is that, without a clear strategic commitment,the Intranet investments are retained not overriding with respect toother plans that produce benefits that can be more easily quantifiedin terms of cash flows. Moreover, the justification of the investmentthrough the only use of efficiency indicators ascribes to the Intraneta tactical and not a strategic connotation, and this underpins theabove-mentioned tendency to allocate poor and short period bud-gets.

4.1.2. GuidelinesThe fundamental elements of this phase are as follows:

• Balancing between organizational and individual motivations: anIntranet initiative can be successful only if it creates value forboth the organization and the people. If this equilibrium does notexist, the initiative is deemed to fail. Hence, the key-questions inthis phase are: which are the benefits for the organization? Whichare the benefits for the users? The quality of the identified con-cept right comes from the identification of a proper equilibriumbetween these two levels of motivation.

• Planning horizon: in this phase a second important element is thedefinition of a planning horizon of the initiative, coherent withthe defined objectives. The inability – even in front of ambitiousand long-term objectives – to plan an initiative with a long hori-zon is often the cause of the unsatisfactory results of the initiative.

• Stakeholder involvement: since the concept phase, it is necessaryto identify and involve the actors whose vision and objectives cansignificantly influence the initiative and its success.

• System of results’ evaluation and control: as in every strategic ini-tiative, it is necessary to define together with the objectives, themeasure criteria and the modalities for monitoring, controllingand assessing the results, also anticipating possible risks andcountermeasures.

4.2. Governance plan

By “governance system” we mean the set of roles, decisional pro-cesses and organizational mechanisms that regulate and addressthe functioning and evolution of an Intranet, with the aim of creat-ing an alignment with the strategic and organizational priorities.

The objective of an Intranet governance system is to promotethe running and the growth of the Intranet, while guaranteeingits alignment with the strategic and organizational priorities of thefirm and the coherence of the decisions of the many involved actors.

Fig. 5. Role formalization.

Governance involves two dimensions: (i) the long-growth and (ii)day-to-day operations. In order to guarantee consistency betweengrowth and day-to-day governance, it is necessary to define suffi-ciently clear-cut coordination roles and mechanisms.

As already emphasized, the Intranet development is not aproject that finishes with the applications’ release, but a process oforganizational transformation that must constantly be addressedin order to accompany the evolution of the networked organiza-tion coherently with the evolution and the priorities of the businessstrategy. Therefore its development has to be controlled with conti-nuity and stability, also in front of possible organizational changes,through the definition of clear responsibilities, shared mechanismsand rules.

4.2.1. Lessons learnedThe analysis of the cases shows that often there is a strong under-

valuation of the importance of the organizational aspects (Fig. 5):only in 42% of the cases the firms have introduced formalized orga-nizational roles for the Intranet’s development and management,while in the remaining part of the cases a systematic definitionof responsibility and roles is lacking, and the decisions regardingthe Intranet management and development are taken each time bydifferent actors according to a contingent approach.

The insufficient control and definition of the responsibilitiesnurtures organizational conflicts and difficulties in the control ofthe evolution and the management of both the supplied servicesand the technologies that can jeopardize the initiative’s success.

Even when the organizational roles are formalized, often thereis a lack of adequate coordination mechanisms. The connection andthe relation between the various roles of control are mostly man-aged through informal communication; only in a few cases thereare integrated plans and rules for both the development and themanagement (project and development plans, strategic plans, edi-torial plans.) The informal communication is also the prevailingapproach in the coordination of the Intranet’s developments withthe other information systems (both legacy and web); besides, suchdevelopments are often particularly difficult not only because of the



technological problems, but also because of the prejudices of thosewho think that the Intranet can be a tool that supports the com-munication and management of services for the people, but doesnot have the efficiency and reliability characteristics to become thetool for supporting the core organizational processes. It is not rarethat this hampers the evolution and leads to keep two separatesworlds: that of the ‘operative’ information systems, managed bythe line, and that of the Intranet, deputed to communication andservices to people and managed by the staff.

In this situation the IS often remains in the middle, aware ofpotential benefits of the integration, but unable to fully managethe strategic and organizational implications.

The lack of coordination inevitably causes the co-existence ofmultiple “Intranet environments”, joined by an even greater num-ber of other applications of the “traditional information systems”.These worlds, Intranet environments and traditional informationsystems, evolve following parallel roads, with often limited pointsof integration, and sometimes overlapped spaces with loss of effi-ciency, but above all of effectiveness and organizational flexibility.

Problems of coordination and organizational integration alsooccurred in the local Intranets within groups and multinationalcorporations. The integration and coordination that in these casesshould be easier and are often pushed by top managers, in the real-ity show remarkable barriers. Jealousies, requirements of autonomyand competences conflicts, in many cases hamper the integration,also limiting the possibility to take advantage of synergies and toharmonize contents.

However, trends are positive and verge towards a greater formal-ization of the management and development roles, and an increaseof the level of inner and external coordination (Fig. 6).

4.2.2. GuidelinesStarting from a review of best practices, it is possible to iden-

tify key roles and coordination mechanisms at both day-to-dayand growth level. This analysis has made it possible to build thehourglass model for Intranet governance (Fig. 7).

In order to guarantee an effective governance for developmentand growth, the key roles that should be properly planned andformalized are:

Fig. 6. Coordination level.

• The Strategic Guidance: this is responsible for the definition ofthe objectives and of the evolution of the Intranet and shouldinvolve the fundamental organizational units in order to assurecoherence with the business strategy.

• The Development Team: it manages the projects of technologicaland organizational development; is responsible for the objectivesof the project (time, cost and quality) and has to interpret therequirements of both the users and those who will manage thesystem;

• The Intranet Manager (IM), who has a central role in the Intranetgovernance, is the most important internal promoter of the

Fig. 7. The “hourglass” model for Intranet governance.



Intranet and this is the role which guarantees coherence betweenthe management governance and the development governance.The IM maintains and manages the relationships with both theStrategic Guidance and the Development Team.

In the governance for day-to-day management, beyond theIntranet manager, it is necessary to define two other fundamentalroles:

• the Contributors, involved in the management of services andspecific contents of the Intranet; these are “dual” roles thatengage people for a minor part of their time and can have differ-ent levels of method and formalization. Even when formalized,they usually are “emergent” roles, ex post recognized as a resultof an initiative of “voluntary” contribution;

• the Users of the Intranet, that benefit from its contents andservices and that determine its success, in that they assess itsusefulness and its usability.

The hourglass model also highlights the links and the connec-tions between the different roles.

It makes clear that the IM represents a critical junction in that,although without the hierarchical status of supervisor, (s)he hasto manage the correct release of the new services, while balanc-ing the coming out of the users’ needs (“bottom-up development”)with the strategic requirements of the organization (“top-downdevelopment”).

The connection and relationship of the IM with the other rolescan be managed with different mechanisms and coordination lev-els: from the informal communication, to the development of plansand integrated rules (project and development plans, strategicplans, editorial plans) to the creation of boards that meet periodi-cally (guidance board, editorial board, etc.).

The lack of Intranet governance can nourish situations of “worstpractice”. Among the most diffused, we can mention “the trash-Intranet” and “the petrified-Intranet”. The former – “the trash-Intranet” – is information-redundant, lacks content-management

and publication modalities. The people who contribute are numer-ous, but without a formal responsibility. In the latter – the “petrifiedIntranet” – inclusion of the contents is difficult, control is stronglycentralised, with long chains of authorisation and publication,while the users are not involved. This determines obsolete contentsand a spreading out of time that makes the Intranet unusable.

4.3. Design

On the basis of both the high level requirements formulatedin the Concept phase and the responsibilities defined in the gov-ernance plan, the planning and development phase drives to thedefinition of the detailed specifics and the implementation of newservices.

In this phase the key choices regard the amount of allocatedresources (in terms of budget and people) and to the sourcingchoices (in terms of the mix of inner and external resources).

4.3.1. Lessons learnedOn the basis of these two dimensions, it is possible to identify

four approaches in the companies of the panel (Fig. 8).

• Core development: the development is made with large resourcesand, if necessary, the inner competences are integrated with theexternal support.

• External development: firms mainly rely on external companies,who take care of both the planning and the implementation,while internally maintaining only the control; the allocatedresources can also be very high.

• Concurrent development: resources – both internal and external –are modest.

• Do-it-yourself development: it is characterized by the limited useof internal resources.

In many cases, the predominance of limited resources is symp-tomatic (i) of the scarce importance attributed to the Intranetinitiatives, whose services are developed in the odd moments by

Fig. 8. Design approach.



usually internal staff overloaded with other priorities; or (ii) of thefact that the Intranet is interpreted as a project that, after the pre-liminary phase of development, undergoes a drastic reduction ofthe allocated resources. Vice versa, the high level of internal con-trol (71% of the cases), if not oriented to cost reduction, is due tothe necessity to control and guide a project which is judged strate-gic.

In the cases of external development, the project is typicallydelegated to other functions (usually communication and humanresources), with a strong involvement of external companies anda scarce internal control by of the IT function. Although a strongflexibility and speed in the release of the first functionalities, thesecases often showed problems in the medium period in terms of, forexample, difficulty of interface with the other information systemsand cost of the following developments: these problems broughtto remarkable reassessments of the original plans. Moreover, themissing involvement of the IT function in the first phases of theRoadmap can nurture “hostile” attitudes of the IT function, whosefollowing involvement in the initiative is jeopardized: paradoxi-cally in some cases the IT function does not consider the Intranet“an ICT project” but rather a “tool of the Staff or of specific linefunctions”. Besides, as already said, a low level of coordination withthose who manage the other ICT projects in the company inevitablydrives toward the creation of separated environments, sometimesalso partially overlapped in terms of functionalities and addressedtargets.

On the contrary, the abreast approach which involves the exter-nal suppliers is much diffused, also in the Core projects: thebenefits of this approach dwell in the opportunity to integratethe internal with the external competences, while maintain-ing the project control. In many cases the contribution ofthe supplier’s competences is determining in order to allowthe Intranet to shift from the embryonic or focused develop-ment phases to more advanced development phases. Finally, theself-made approach often drives to the creation of ad hoc envi-ronments, which represent areas of experimentation for the ISand that grow as jeopardy’ spots on the basis of contingentrequirements, so generating scarcely usable and manageable envi-ronments.

Notwithstanding this scenario, some improvement signals andtrends have been detected:

• The increase of both the internal control and the strategic rele-vance.

• The involvement of the IS function for the project control in thecases of external development in order to improve the projectcontrol.

• The involvement of the external suppliers in the cases of internaldevelopment in order to integrate the competences and to reducethe risks implied in an ad hoc approach.

• An increase of the number of people devoted to the developmentin 28% of the cases.

Notwithstanding these improvements, in 9% of the cases thereis a reduction of the allocated resources, in that the Intranet isinterpreted as a timely circumscribed and consolidated project.

4.4. Implementation and launch

This phase involves the putting into operation of services,together with corresponding promotional and supporting mea-sures. It is essential to define a change management strategyto create the organizational conditions necessary for facilitatinggrowth among the people of a networking culture.

The success or failure of this initiative is strongly linked to theability to manage the launch, by means of appropriate change man-agement plans and promotional plans; the objective is to change thebehaviour of individuals and overcome “barriers” and excuses fornon-use.

Indeed, the creation of an advanced Virtual Workspace demandsthe development of a culture of collaboration and share of knowl-edge and competences, and also the habit to use networked tools.The development of such skills and abilities, that represent thehumus for the success of an Intranet initiatives, demands bothtime and investments in communication and education, in orderto modify the behaviours and overcome the “barriers” and “alibi”to the non-use, like the fear “to lose time” and the prejudice thatthe Intranets pertain to the extra-working life.

4.4.1. Lessons learnedIn spite of the positive evolutionary trend, our research has

highlighted that only in few cases the firms have formalized plansfor the Intranet promotion and the change (Fig. 9). Often organi-zations simply implement sporadic actions or communicate thenew services release, supposing that the users will “automati-cally discover and use” the Intranet and its functionalities. Thishypothesis usually reveals to be untrue, especially for the ser-vices with high organizational impact that do not simply automateexisting functionalities otherwise unavailable through other chan-nels.

This is the reason why, between the least used services,there are those tools that support knowledge managementthat, while determining a radical change in the organizationalmodels (from hierarchical to open organizations that alter the“official” roles, from a culture of knowledge “possession” toa culture of “sharing and collaboration”), more than othersneed attention during the introduction and the implementa-tion.

On the contrary, in the most successful cases the release ofthese services has been accompanied by an aware strategy ofcommunication and change management that aimed at modify-ing the interpersonal behaviours and relations, with a substantialinvolvement of the top management and of the key roles insidethe organization, while integrating a plurality of communicationchannels, and supplying support and education to remove alibi andbarriers.

4.5. Day-to-day governance

Management has to ensure the correct daily working of theIntranet, through both effective routines of coordination betweenthe several people in charge of both contents and services (“Man-agerial team”), and continuous promotion and animation forstimulating the usage and the participation of the users, as wellas the commitment of the business departments. In our research,we analyzed and compared the management styles and the logicsfor the users’ involvement and incentives.

4.5.1. Lessons learnedWe identified four management styles on the basis of the dif-

fusion level of the process of content and service managementinside the organization (i.e. the number of persons who are sys-tematically involved in the Intranet management) and their levelof coordination (Fig. 10):

• Participative: the content development and the service manage-ment are diffused, but there are strong coordination mechanismswith often formalizes rules and roles.



Fig. 9. Change management plan.

• Centralized: contents coming form all over the organizationalstructure are stimulated, collected, and elaborated; the level ofhigh coordination is the result of the centralization.

• Decentralised: the contributions are diffused, but there is a lowlevel of coordination between those who manage the specificcontents and services.

• Occasional: the contributions are developed by few volunteerswith limited participation and low interaction between them;the scarcely perceived need of coordination is often the echo ofIntranets that are poorly pervasive and important at organiza-tional level.

Fig. 10. Day-to-day governance.

A “diffused” management style with a low coordination levelprevails in the panel companies; it often brings to problems of lowcoherence and usability of the Intranet, information overload, anda negative impact on the users’ satisfaction and utilization.

To overcome these problems, sometimes a “centralized” man-agement model is chosen to tightly control the Intranet contentsand the total quality of the site. The greatest risk is that the Intranet,typically managed by staff departments, grows as a sort of “houseorgan”, in which the institutional dimension and of policy respect(“official channel”) excessively prevails on the possibility to publishcontents in a decentralized manner and is poorly linked to the corebusiness.

Moreover in the “centralized” models, the engagement in theIntranet management is undervalued in most cases: even edito-rial staffs created in large organizations are endowed with veryfew people who have “other”, often prevailing, responsibilities, andare equipped with poorly flexible managerial tools that determinea strong dependence from the IS department. In these cases, thegreatest risk is to evolve towards sporadic management systems.

The evolution trends detected during 2006 reveal a trend toincrease the level of management diffusion (50% of the cases), oftenconnected with an increase of the penetration of the Intranet in theorganization and with the creation of new areas of contents andservices, managed and controlled by specific owners (“responsiblefor competence areas”) at several organizational levels that, in themost evolved cases, coordinate diffused teams of contributors.

The migration from centralized models to mainly diffused mod-els generally has the following objectives:

• Cost reduction; indeed, centralized management systems can bevery expensive in that, to being effective, they have to includededicated centralized teams.

• Increase of the timeliness and quality of the information that isdirectly controlled by the contents owner with a resulting reduc-tion of the publication times and a greater adherence of thecontents to the business operative requirements.



In the most evolved cases, there is a simultaneous increasealso in the level of coordination with the creation of roles – bothmanagerial and of coordination and control of the total quality –formally recognized at the organizational level, the presence ofarticulated systems for managing the workflow for the authoriza-tions, rules and shared managerial plans and education projects forthe several section owners.

Besides, a more diffused approach is often associated withthe introduction of evolved platforms of content managementthat technically support also unskilled people in managing wholeIntranet’s sections.

The deficiency of managerial roles is reflected also in thelow attention to the involvement and encouragement to theIntranet’s use. The empirical analysis highlights three fundamentalapproaches to the use of the incentives:

• Implicit incentives: the incentives to the use are linked to theservices’ attractiveness; the objective is to draw users’ attentionthrough contents and services that appear to be useful or at leastattractive to them. Hence, in these cases the Intranet publishescontents and services that, although organizationally un-relevant(for example the menu, the announcements’ notice-boards foremployees, the photos regarding events, the timetable of themeans of transport, the shares’ portfolio, etc.) attracts users inan environment where they also can find the institutional com-munication. With regard to the contribution and not simply thefruition, implicit incentives are represented by the creation oftools and opportunities of visibility towards the colleagues andthe superiors.

• Explicit incentives: the services’ attractiveness and usefulness andthe visibility chance are accompanied – for those who mainly con-tribute – by monetary incentives or rewards, usually connectedwith games and rankings that contribute to diffuse a positiveatmosphere of engagement and sportsmanship.

• Rules: a system of rules and procedures “pushes” the user toaccess the Intranet and to use its contents or to enter informa-

tion. According to this logic, the trend is to insert in the Intranetessential information that are not accessible anymore throughalternative channels to which the customer was accustomed (forexample the email is not used anymore to send the organizationaldispositions but to send only a link to the Intranet’s section inwhich they are published).

The companies of the panel favour the “implicit” incentives, fol-lowed by “rules”; the use of explicit incentives is limited and oftenrefers to environments in which the diffused contribution plays akey role.

By crossing the logic of incentive with the utilization level, wecan notice that the introduction of rules and procedures often doesnot guarantee high levels of use, and that take for granted that theIntranet will be used in that it is useful and “well done”, bumps intoinertia and lack of culture of the net-working (Fig. 11).

Considering the firms that have implicit incentives, only 21%of them show high levels of use, mainly because the Intranetcontributes to improve people’s job and/or increases the level ofinternal visibility and the possibility to offer their contribution bymeans of community services. The direct usefulness perceived bypeople is a key element to consider in the phase of definition ofthe model of Virtual Workspace, but analogously to the phase ofstrategic concept, it is also one of the mainly neglected aspects andthe introduction of the services is often driven by technology ratherthan the “human factor”.

4.6. Assessment

The phase of Assessment groups the analysis of obtained resultsand of the organizational impacts, as well as the diagnosis of themain areas of improvement in connection with the business prior-ities.

A correct system measuring the value generated through theIntranet should take into account the key performances of the pro-cesses, measuring indicators coherent with the objectives defined

Fig. 11. Incentives.



in the phase of strategic concept, and to include the users’ feed-backs.

While generalizing the performance indicators employed by theanalyzed firms, beyond the indicators of efficiency and effective-ness linked to the objectives, we can identify indicators regardingthe use of the net, in terms of diffusion and level of internal use.

Our research shows that – even because of the above-mentioneddifficulty in estimating a priori the Intranet initiatives – the mea-sure of the Intranet performance and the management of suchinformation for continuous improvement are neglected problems.In the majority of the cases the organizations that moreover com-plain a substantial need of “verifiability” of the Intranet benefits,merely monitor the parameters of the net use or carry out sporadicanalyses of the users’ satisfaction (86% of the cases). Instead, veryrarely there are checks of the performance indicators employed inthe justification of the investment and appropriate channels to sys-tematically collect the users’ feedback like surveys, feedback forms,focus groups (Fig. 12).

The result is that the Intranet working is not adequately dis-cussed and analyzed in terms of benefits for both the organizationand people.

4.6.1. GuidelinesEspecially in those cases in which the firms have a priori ana-

lyzed the impact of the functionalities to be introduced on theprocess KPI (key performance indicators), the analysis of the perfor-mances could supply fundamental indications in order to questionthe employed approach, estimating the effectiveness of the specificintroduced functionalities. From this point of view, it is important tokeep on systematically comparing with the best practices in otherorganizations, in order to stimulate new ideas in the work team andavoid that habit and autoreferentiality prevent the recognition ofnew improvement opportunities.

In all the cases, in the phase of assessment it is fundamental toinvolve the users and the heads of the main organizational depart-ments, in order to show the real levels of satisfaction and perceivedeffectiveness and, above all, to develop a new vision for the imple-mentation of a new evolutionary cycle.

Fig. 12. Assessment.

5. The lessons from good practices

The different evolutionary ability which characterizes theIntranets of the best cases with respect to the “average” of the panelis explained by the different level of maturity and coherence troughwhich the roles and responsibilities are assigned and choices aremade in each phase of the Roadmap. From this comparison it ispossible to draw some guidelines for an effective management ofthe change process.

The analysis of the roles involved in the different phases high-lights that the responsibilities’ allocation generally does not reflectan organizational strategy, but rather “the history” of the initia-tive and the several levels of sensibility and commitment of thedepartments towards the Intranet.

In the panel, the responsibilities are usually allocated accordingto a functional approach inside a specific organizational unit withlimited cross-departmental involvements, in order to diminish theimpact on the organization and the structure of power.

Top management keeps the responsibility in the definition andapproval of the budgets, but is almost absent in the other phases,while completely delegating the responsibilities connected withthe Intranet’s development and management.

The line functions and users are mostly involved in the manage-ment phase, but very little in the initial phases of strategic concept.The line managers assume a key role only in the Intranets that showa high level of development at the operative level, sponsoring theinitiative and, in many cases, managing the project. Instead the Staffand IT play a key role in the greater part of the path phases.

The Human Resources and Internal Communication Depart-ment assumes a key responsibility in the environments wherecommunication/socialization and services-to-the employees aregreatly developed, while it tends to have less central roles in theIntranets where the operative and/or the knowledge and collabo-ration dimensions prevail.

This seems to denote a somewhat reductive vision of theIntranet, considered as “additional” channel for the internalcommunication and services rather than a tool of change and devel-opment of the human resources.

On the one side, the IT department carries out a key role in thedevelopment but, on the other side, it is often “abandoned” in grad-ually acknowledging the strategic and organizational, before thantechnical, nature of an Intranet initiative.

Instead our research shows that in the best cases there is anenlarged involvement and a diffusion of the responsibilities tothe whole organization and the conditions for an effective orga-nizational change are arranged, while involving the fundamentalstakeholder and anticipating possible difficulties and barriers. Staffand IT continue to play a key role, but sharing and delegating somekey responsibilities with the top management and the line func-tions.

In the strategic concept phase the top management is responsi-ble, not only for the budget, but also for the definition of objectivesand evolution lines, and is systematically involved in the launchphases of the several initiatives.

The line is systematically involved in all the phases before thelaunch, and is responsible for the initiatives of both change andoperation management.

The different organizational involvement in the evolution pathis also reflected in a substantial difference in the approaches andchoices during the different phases of the roadmap (Table 1).

The undervaluation of the importance of the organizationalaspects that characterizes the average of the panel causes problemsin the several phases that risk jeopardising the Intranet success,hampering its evolution towards pervasive and advanced modelsof Virtual Workspace (not integrated environments, not homo-



Table 1The choices of the mean vs. the benchmark.

The choice of the ‘mean’ The choice of the benchmark

Strategic concept Low improvement at the cross-functional level of topmanagers and users, low term planning, genetic objectives andlack in the identification of the KPI

Participative strategic guidance with high involvement at thecross-functional level and top managers. Deep analysis of theusers needs. Long-term plans and identification of the KPI thatare coherent with value creation

Governance plan Absent or partial formalization of roles, mainly informalcoordination

Explicit and dedicated roles with formal plans andcoordination mechanism both internal and external (the wholeinformation system other intranet initiatives in group andmultinational organizations)

Protect and implementation Low level of allocated resources both internal and external High allocated resources nitration of external competencies,with the information system department keeping the internalcontrol

Lunch Sporadic actions of promotion and absent change management Formalized and continuous plans of change management andpromotion

Operative change management Central management terms with few resources or high level ofdiffusion with low coordination. Absence of both animationand incentives for users

Participative management terms with dedicated people andformal roles. Animation and incentives plans for the users

Assessment Lack of result measurement and low attention to the usersfeedback

Analysis of the organizational impacts and structured andsystematic mechanism for gathering users feedback

geneous logics, duplication of resources, insufficient or hiddendevelopment budgets, etc.).

References

Corso, M., Giacobbe, A., & Martini, A. (2008). Rethinking KM: The role of ICT and therise of the virtual workspace. International Journal of Learning and IntellectualCapital, 4.

Corso, M., Martini, A., & Pesoli, A. (2009). Evolving from 1.0 to enterprise 2.0: an inter-pretative review. Empirical stages and approaches to the new (virtual) workingenvironment. In M. Litras, & P. Ordonez-de-Pablo (Eds.), Web 2. 0: the BusinessModels. Springer-Verlag.

Greer, T. (1998). Understanding Intranets. Microsoft Press.Harris, K., & Berg, T. (2002). Business-to-employee: The roadmap to strategy. Gartner

Group.Murgolo-Poore, M. E., Pitt, L. F., & Ewing, M. T. (2001). Intranet effectiveness: A public

relations paper-and-pencil checklist. Public Relations Review, 28, 113–123.Tyndale, P. (2002). A taxonomy of knowledge management software tools: Origins

and applications. Evaluation and Program Planning, 25, 183–190.See also: McConnell (2007). Global Intranet Analysis Report. <http://netjmc.typepad.com>.

Antonella Martini, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Management Engineering at thefaculty of Engineering, University of Pisa where she teaches “Innovation Man-agement” and “Business Economics and Organisation”. Her main research interestsconcern Knowledge Management and Continuous Innovation and she is member ofthe international board of the Continuous Innovation Network (CINet). She is authorof more than 50 international publications.

Mariano Corso, PhD, is Full Professor of Management Engineering in the Faculty ofSystem Engineering, Polytechnic of Milano. He is Director of the Master in Manage-ment and Organizational Development and of the Observatories on New InformationSystems and ICT Strategic Sourcing. He is the author or co-author of more than 100international publications.

Luisa Pellegrini, PhD, is Associate Professor of Management Engineering at the fac-ulty of Engineering, University of Pisa where she teaches “Innovation Management”and “Business Economics and Organisation”. She is actively involved in national andinternational research projects on Knowledge Management and Continuous Inno-vation. She is member of CINet and author of 50 publications at the internationallevel.

An empirical roadmap for intranet evolution

Documents

Transcript of An empirical roadmap for intranet evolution