Book Review

Citation

Ahmad, T. (2021), "Book Review", Society and Business Review, Vol. 16 No. 2, pp. 328-329. https://doi.org/10.1108/SBR-05-2021-153

Review:

Mr Alexis Boisson undertook a significant piece of research that can assist investors in information and communication technology (ICT). His work is timely as investments in ICTs are growing; however, the problem is that only around 32% of ICT projects meet success. This publication is an important effort in determining the best implementation process for boosting positive outcomes for investors in ICT projects. Mr Boisson’s work is an interesting read for anyone who cares about finding if the outcome of ICT projects can be improved by focusing on supplier relationships, project management, change management and business–ICT alignment.

The interesting subject matter and the author’s easy writing style made this piece an enjoyable read. Mr Boisson has done a great job in framing the objectives and motivations for the study and outlining the scope of the research and its contributions. The research hypothesis is clear, research methodology is sound and the research is both well designed and well conducted. The publication is also well structured and well organized. Mr Boisson did an excellent job in describing the manner in which the research was conducted. I find that the discussions were well conceived.

Chapter 1 highlights the issues author plans to solve and why these issues are important. This chapter suggests the structure of the research.

Chapter 2 talks about various issues impacting the outcome of ICT projects in detail. This chapter helps us understand common causes of failure and barriers to success in ICT projects.

Chapter 3 reports on the extrapolation of a research model and the development of eight hypotheses for testing. This chapter clearly explains, in detail, the rationale and the development of each hypothesis.

Chapter 4 promotes the data collecting tools/methodologies (semi-structured interviews, a review of project documents and a survey of ICT investors). This chapter clearly explains the selection of data collection tools and identifies limitation of each tool.

Chapter 5 justifies the choice of data analysis tools (NVivo, SPSS, GSCA) which are explained in detail.

Chapter 6 reports the qualitative findings. How the data was coded and any challenges faced are elaborated in detail, in this chapter.

Chapter 7 reports the quantitative findings. The findings are well explained using easy-to-understand tables.

Chapter 8 demonstrates findings pertaining to hypotheses. Table number 36 summarises the results, which are explained in detail, in this chapter.

Chapter 9 demonstrates a model for examining the outcome of ICT projects and proposes use of the suggested model. This concluding chapter also highlights limitations of the proposed model. This chapter explains in what circumstances, the findings from this publication can be useful.

Of course, no research is ever perfect and Mr Boisson has highlighted the challenges he encountered and the manner in which he has responded to them. This study provides several useful insights and lays the foundation for additional scholarly work to further advance knowledge in this important area of implementing ICT projects.

If you are interested in technology and want to improve business–ICT alignment, this publication is an interesting read to review.