Cloud and Lean Transformation from Capabilities Viewpoint
Authors: Raija Kuusela, Antti Sirkka, Tuija Kuusela-Korva
Category: research article
Keywords: Cloud, Lean, Organizational learning, Capabilities
Abstract: Today, the cloud phenomenon is challenging companies’ product and service development and also their business and revenue models. Many companies are in the middle of a fundamental change – transformation – in order to benefit from the opportunities that the cloud offers. At the same time, interest in lean thinking has grown in industries and research communities. Lean paradigm is assessed as a potential means to help companies pursue efficiency and better organizational performance. This paper discusses cloud and lean transformation in a large Information and Communication Technology (ICT) company, which has risen to the challenge of the cloud. This paper studies if organizational learning, which is one corner stone of lean thinking, has impact on the company’s capabilities. This paper proposes a revised transformation framework with the new aspect of capabilities.
Permanent link to this page: http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe201203131542
This is a very concise paper with clearly defined research questions and connection to theoretical background. The paper is well organized and easy to read. However, there's a lot going on in the paper and due to the overly concise nature of the text, the paper does not offer a clear picture to the reader of the reasonings of the choices made regarding the research design, methods used, and the analysis and conclusions made. Hence, the discussion remains at a very shallow level and the logic between the study conducted and the results gained is not clear.
From my perspective, the biggest issue lies with the data section which is quite poor. Typically case study is intensive, in-depth method (typically aiming to answer 'how' or 'why' types of questions) and since the research questions are of descriptive nature (as well as the answers presented in results), I would need to see some justification for the method chosen. Especially when (one of) the result(s) presented is a revised transformation framework, the analysis of the data and the discussion needs to be made visible to the reader in order to see the reasoning behind the revised framework. I would recommend re-considering the scope of the study and/or rewriting the findings section in order to explain how the results were gained.