Abstract
Recent literature has identified two main types of IT-enabled innovation and labelled them as lightweight IT and heavyweight IT. In this study, we look into robotic process automation (RPA) as lightweight IT and traditional back-end system automation as heavyweight IT and study how a case company Telco makes the choice between these two alternative ways of implementing automation. Drawing on an empirical study conducted at Telco examining two automation projects, we find support for earlier studies addressing specifically the choice problem of RPA. Our main contribution lies in uncovering the role of the two-dimensional feature stability on the choice. While heavyweight IT is preferred when system architecture is stable, lightweight IT, operating on the presentation layer, holds a prerequisite of stable system interfaces.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | ECIS 2018 Proceedings |
| Publisher | European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS) |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 978-1-86137-667-1 |
| Publication status | Published - 2018 |
| MoE publication type | A4 Conference publication |
| Event | European Conference on Information Systems - Portsmouth, United Kingdom Duration: 23 Jun 2018 → 28 Jun 2018 Conference number: 26 |
Conference
| Conference | European Conference on Information Systems |
|---|---|
| Abbreviated title | ECIS |
| Country/Territory | United Kingdom |
| City | Portsmouth |
| Period | 23/06/2018 → 28/06/2018 |
Keywords
- Business process
- Heavyweight IT
- Lightweight IT
- Robotic process automation
- System architecture