Assessment and Management of Complex Risk Structures : Facing Challenges of Digitalization

The continuing dissemination of information technology (IT) and information systems (IS), which currently manifests and proceeds in terms of digitalization, keeps on revolutionizing both, business and society. Along with the undoubted advantages of this development, it also yields a lot of challenges. The resulting interconnectedness of humankind, infrastructure, and machinery, combined with the increasing dynamics due to a fast-pacing and competitive market environment, pushed companies to operate within complex risk structures. These structures likewise affect a company’s internal management and its external interaction. In terms of a company’s internal management, especially risk associated with IT projects still represents a major challenge that has not yet been solved. This particularly becomes relevant, as these projects are the source of a company’s progression, and hence crucial to survive in today’s market environment. As to the external interaction of a company, particularly the increasing interdependence to other companies, in the context of value creation networks, yields major challenges. An impact that formerly would have only affected a single company, nowadays can spread to assigned companies based on the underlying dependencies. This increases a company’s exposure to risk, when being embedded in value creation networks. With the above considerations in mind, the comprehensive objective of this doctoral thesis is to contribute to the extant body of knowledge in the light of IT-pervaded complex risk structures. It provides means to manage and assess especially relevant risks in the subject areas of IT projects and value creation networks. Particularly, it investigates IT project complexity, which has been considered a major risk for IT project success, and derives a two-dimensional framework for its assessment that provides conceptual clarity and enables to mitigate associated risks (Section II.1). It moreover examines IT project assessment and management. Considering the increasing complexity and interdependence of IT project environments, it proposes a quantitative, integrated approach for IT project assessment, to reduce the risk of wrong IT project appraisals (Section II.2). Moreover, it focuses on risks arising during a project’s lifecycle and provides means for a continuous IT project management, to ensure the projects’ objectives and corresponding business value (Section II.3). Focusing on the increasing interdependence in the subject area of IT projects, it examines the coherence between interdependencies and corresponding risks. By applying centrality measures to the subject area of IT projects, it enables to determine the most critical IT project of a corresponding IT portfolio, based on the projects’ underlying direct and indirect dependencies (Section III.1). Investigating risks arising from interdependencies in terms of a company’s external interaction, it draws on supply networks as one instantiation of value creation networks to examine the propagation and extent of impacts of exogenous shocks. Consequently, it provides means to assess and manage the resilience of the overall supply network and the exposure of each aligned company to dependency related risks (Section III.2). Finally, it summarizes the major contributions and indicates starting points for further research (Section IV).

Level thesis:degree_level

thesis.doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher

Universität Bayreuth

Year

2015

Author dc:creator

• Wolf, Thomas

Contributors dc:contributor

• Fridgen, Gilbert

Repository record source_url

https://epub.uni-bayreuth.de/id/eprint/2726/

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:epub.uni-bayreuth.de:2726