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Using information system as a legitimate subversive agent


THE CASE OF THE MONITORING OF FRENCH

SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

Claude Rochet

Professor in Public Management

Johanna Habib

Assistant professor in Public Management

Institut de Management Public

Universit Paul Czanne

Aix en Provence

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UNIVERSITE DE DROIT, D'ECONOMIE ET

DES SCIENCES D'AIX MARSEILLE

UNIVERSITE PAUL CEZANNE

Institut de management public et de gouvernance

territoriale

http://www.managementpublic.u-3mrs.fr/

CENTRE DETUDES ET DE RECHERCHE

SUR LES ORGANISATIONS ET LA GESTION

QuickTime et und compresseur TIFF (non co

sont requis pour visionner c
http://www.managementpublic.u-3mrs.fr/http://www.managementpublic.u-3mrs.fr/

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Abstract : The new budgetary framework to be implemented since 2006 onwards in the

management by results French budgeting system implies a profound reengineering of the

relationships between central administration and autonomous agencies in charge of

implementing the policy. We study the case of the French research policy which is carried out

through a network of 160 universities and 40 specialized scientific agencies, all of them

enjoying a statutory autonomy. Information systems are the key to align processes from the

fields operators to the central objectives of the public policy. A new design is needed requiring

an approach we call urbanization, that is thinking the global architecture as a relevant city

map instead of the spaghetti networks inherited from the legacy system. Managing such a

project is, whereas speaking about technological issues, raising strategic questions about the

new relations between the centre and the periphery and implies partly solving the dilemma

between local strategic autonomy and the central impetus the state must give to enforce the

political objectives of the government. First regarding centre-periphery theory and IT strategic

planning approach, we explain why information systems are a critical issue in the centre-

periphery relationships. Secondly we analyze how the IS reengineering may be an enabler of

the strategic dialogue between the central administration and autonomous agencies. Thirdly, we

draw on the difficulties we met with to design the new capabilities to be improved and we

conclude on the paradigm shift required in the public management concepts.

Keywords: Information System, French research Policy, centre-periphery dilemma,

qualitative research methodology

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In his seminal research on how information technologies (IT) create value, Prof. Eryk

Brynjolfsson (2002), director of the MITeBusiness research centre, put emphasis on the fact

that what really accounts for is the hidden face of the iceberg. Pure technology accounts only

for 10%, technological complements (the art of architecting heterogeneous and complementary

technologies) for another 15%. The remaining 75% of value creation comes from the renewal of

the organization triggered by information system (IS) implementation. Brynjolfsson carried out

this research among private companies in the US and we have no similar inquiry among public

actors that would assess a similar rule of the game. Nevertheless, in the state of our knowledge,

nothing forbid us to assume this is also valid for public sector.

In the public sector, ITs policies have been coined with the New Public Management

(NPM) approach that means: Business Process Management (BPM), outsourcing, customer

oriented service, downsizing and saving money. The underlying assumption is to focus on the

front office to improve performance as a customer provider relationship and to outsource the

back office. This framework mainly bears a conception of technology as an exogenous change

agent and its expectations have not been met (Dunleavy and Margetts, 2003). On the contrary, a

growing literature considers IT in a Schumpeterian way, as an endogenous lever of change

operated by entrepreneurs (Freeman, 2003).

In this paper, we will consider how IT may act as a legitimate subversive agent.

Managers mainly consider the visible part of the IT iceberg and do not consider how designingand implementing an information system is to induce a sea change within the organization.

Moreover, they frequently consider that implementing ITs will avoid raising some fundamental

questions about an organization strategy, business and processes. An IT project may be an

opportunity to raise the uncomfortable questions (thats why they are subversive) but

incontrovertible (thats why they are legitimate).

We attempt to answer to the following questions:

Is designing and implementing an integrated Information System a relevant

enabler of the strategic dialogue between the centre and the periphery? In other words,

could an integrated IS help moving the centre periphery dialogue towards a new

configuration of cooperation and interdependence ?

Firstly, with the help of the centre-periphery theory and IT strategic planning approach,

we explain why information systems are a critical issue in the centre periphery relationships asan enabler of the strategic dialogue between the central administration and autonomous

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agencies. Secondly, we analyze how this dialogue raises subversive questions that need political

statements and reengineering decisions. Thirdly, we draw on the difficulties we met with to

design the new capabilities to be improved and, fourthly, we conclude on the paradigm shift

required in the public management concepts and on the new role of the CIO in public

management.

THE CENTRE - PERIPHERY DILEMMA

The centre-periphery model provides a relevant framework to analyze the relations between a

public policy and the agencies in charge of its implementation, or in other words, the different

games and strategies of actors in a political system (Eisenstadt, 1987, Crozier and Thoenig,

1975, Bendix, 1968).The centre-periphery model, located within the dependency theory (i.e Luxemburg,

1904), had been originally developed to describe the relationships and links of interdependence

between the third world countries and the so-called western countries. But, it is also a general

comprehensive and systemic theory of exchange processes of resources in social systems

(Wallerstein, 1974). The social organizations are grasped as hierarchical structures comprising a

centre and a periphery. The centre-periphery relationship reflects mechanisms of domination,

influence and dependency and allows understanding the autonomy strategies of local structures.

In the specific case of the French public policy research, by the time being the centre-periphery

dialogue is a relation both of influence and dependency.

Influence because the local agencies produce knowledge and deliverables that in

return legitimate the central action.

Dependency because the major decisions are taken by the centre which holds the

main resources.

The central administration has interest to fully control the local decisions and behaviours, but, conversely, the local agencies have interest to fully preserve their autonomy power as a

defence against the central bureaucracy (Thoenig, 1982). In other words, the centre-periphery

dilemma shows a process under pressure and the complexity of social organized system. In the

French research system, the centre-periphery model reveals both a localization of central policy

and a nationalization of local policy. Besides, a paradox appears with the role of locales

structures in this organization. They are a motor of initiatives and innovations (which is

essential to revitalize the central power) as well as a place of resistance to change when the

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directives come from a central view. This observation popped up the following question: Does

an ideal distribution of power exist to implement a public policy ?

The last French autonomy movements postulated, contrary to the weberian theory, that

the local authorities should be involved in the definition of the central public policy. It is

necessary, however, to distinguish the operational autonomy from the strategic autonomy. The

operational autonomy, characterized by a central intervention at micro and macro level, was

until recently the official French research systems management method. By the time being, and

because of budgetary constraints and attempts to measure performance, a new configuration

seems to emerge. Moreover, the newly elected Sarkozys government is committed to give

autonomy to universities. Local agencies such as universities exchange directly with diverse

actors of their environment to obtain resources, design their own strategic plans, and claim for

their strategic autonomy. The strategic autonomy to be efficient requires a strong and

enterprising central government at the macro level in order to link the scientific production with

large strategic orientations. Nowadays, the move from bureaucratic centralism to strategic

centralism is not achieved. This problematic of centre is a controversial issue (Rochet, 2007,

Chevalier and Rouban, 2003). The public policy performance relies on the centre strategic

capacities and on the mobilisation and coordination of local agencies. Implementing an

effective public policy requires a new configuration of the centre-periphery dialogue based on

adaptive learning of their interdependencies. This research assumes that the IS can be thefoundation of the centre-periphery strategic dialogue and thus, that IS could be a strategic

instrument to pilot the research policy.

I.S AS TOOL AND PLACE OF THE CENTRE-PERIPHERY STRATEGIC

DIALOGUE

If the strategic dimension of integrated I.S is broadly accepted in the literature, the

studies field experiment is more mixed (i.e Davenport, 1998, Botta-Genoulaz and Millet,

2006). Most of the failures can be explained by a lack of IT competencies, problems of

cooperation between units and actors, resistances to change, and more generally absence of

clear strategic objectives (Stefanou, 2000; Themistocleous and al, 2001).

Baumard and Benvenuti (1998) shows that the strategic rooting of IS depends on the IT

alignment with the specific strategy pursued. In others words, integrated IS must develop a

synergy between strategic objectives and IT architecture to be effective. This is why designing

an IS requires rethinking the business processes, the structure relations, the activities, etc. and

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finally imposes in depth changes. IS, as a lever of performance, cannot avoid theses reflections.

IS strategic management, by assigning objectives to purchase policy and general organization of

means, builds the framework to develop and implement future projects, business or activities.

Several authors had connected IS with the concept of collective learning (Amabile and Gadille,

2006) which constitutes a prerequisite to reinforce cooperation between actors and

organizational structures. IS implementation refers also to the reflections on the process of

strategic decisions making and information exchange (Reix, 1998).

For these reasons, we assume that the implementation of an integrated IS is a relevant

instrument to create new configurations of cooperation between central administration and local

agencies. The main issues of centre-periphery dilemma are focused on the questions of the

interoperability and of the sharing of strategic information. Organization, socialization andinfluence processes predetermine the relations of cooperation between centre-periphery and

may produce an unequal and inconsistent collaboration among the actors. IS design is thus a

relevant occasion to build a new framework to foster this centre-periphery cooperation. This

concept can be defined as the interdependence links and stability degree of relationship

(Amabile, 1999). This exceeds, by far, transactional interdependence and means rather a

pooling of resources, information and knowledge. The role of the central administration in this

IS design appears to be crucial to coordinate actions of local agencies and to create strategic

interdependencies. Successful implementation of IT architecture relies on strategic centralism

that enables the development of relational networks between local structures and central

administration, and promotes their mutual adjustments and interactions within their dynamic

and competitive environments.

IT architecture definition varies with authors in the literature. sterl and al (1993) try to

define IT architecture includes the following components : strategies and objectives, business

processes, organizational units or structures, external agents, geographic localizations, kinds

and attributes of entities, relations between entities, IT applications, information flows and

database. These components are connected through different combinations, i.e entity X is

involved in process Y and mobilizes application Z (Reix, 1998). A global IT architecture is

designing a coherent system based on components association. For instance: organizational

view, operational view, data view, information view, security view, IT view, etc. The concept of

IT architecture finally reflected the global system monitoring through the harmonization of

different policies. Therefore, IT architecture appears to be a vector of performance and

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efficiency as well as a complex and perilous project. The case study presented below in this

paper intends to illustrate this dualism.

IT ARCHITECTURE IMPLEMENTATION AND ORGANIZATIONAL

CHANGE : FOUR STAGES TO DEVELOP IT ARCHITECTURE

COMPETENCY

Building IT architecture to monitor the French research activities is a sea change. It

implies major transformations in organizational processes and configurations of cooperation

between central and local structures.

When speaking about public policy, change seems to be an emergent and dynamic

process and involves a discussion about systems present and future IT capabilities, a Double

Loop Learning (Argyris and Schn, 1978).

Usually IT Architecture implementations fail because of putting emphasis on the current

core business rather than on the opportunities to create new processes and businesses. As a

matter of fact, most of organizations build their IT architecture as a set of isolated applications

and decisions to respond to specific process needs (Broadbent and Weill, 1997). In order to

avoid the tricky questions, actors put aside the strategic context, the organizational view and

need of IT architecture, the business process articulation with IT solutions and, finally build

an IT architecture without thinking in new capabilities and required competencies.

According to Roos (2003), the creation of a strategic IT architecture competency, defined

as a learning process, evolve in four stages: 1) an application silo architecture, 2) a standardized

technology architecture, 3) a rationalized data architecture and 4) a modular architecture.

In the following figure, we can observe the four stages learning process of the IT

architecture competency development.

Figure 1: Changing Resource Allocations Across Architecture Stages

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Source : Roos (2003), Center for Information Systems Research, MIT Sloan School of

Management

The application silo architecture consists of architectures of individual applications

rather than an architecture for entire enterprise (Roos, 2003, p.5). In this first stage, IT

applications are developed to address specific business needs and are limited to a single

functional system or unit. Yet, the many independent applications based on various technologies

and data make information transactions difficult. It is a stage of local optimization.

The standardized technology architecture relies on the implementation of technology

policies and standards, and on the development of a shared infrastructure. The aim is to limit the

number of platforms to manage and to introduce data warehouses in order to make easier the

transactions between the different units of organizational system. The standardization and

interoperability efforts participate in IT efficiency (especially by reducing IT cost and

complexity). This stage increases also IT reliability and security. Yet, implementation of

standardized architecture can collide many operators resistance: to the standards principle, to

the top down approach needed to develop restrained IT applications, to the data sharing

The rationalized data architecture is made of the core processes and activities definition

(Core Processes Integration) and the common and centralized database implementation. In

this stage, IT architecture is aligned to strategic business by standardization processes that

ensure the IT infrastructures relevance and the data stores quality. As long as the data is

reliable, core process activities become predictable (Roos, 2003:9). Implementing a

rationalized architecture can allow optimizing the core processes and improving business

performance. But, this process needs a negotiation with local operators to obtain clear and

accepted definition for each core process, to make explicit the data these activities rely on, and

to determine the share proceedings. In other words, identifying and defining the core processes

require a strategic dialogue between the central approach and the various views of local units.

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Besides, this strategic dialogue needs the lead of a strong central organization. This kind of

architecture includes some limits. First, the processes standardization sets a rigid infrastructure.

So, a change in the business is clearly difficult and this doesnt encourage radical innovation.

Second, the optimization (or just management) of core processes depends nearly entirely on the

quality of collected and shared data. Finally, the rationalized architecture is the most top-down

approach of the four stages. And it is both necessary to define a relevant management change

and to communicate on the stakes of rationalized architecture in order to limit the resistances of

local operators.

The last stage,modular architecture , enables strategic flexibility through customized or

reusable modules. These modules extend the core processes, which have been wired into the

infrastructure during the rationalized data stage. (Roos, 2003:11). The modularity within IT

architecture allows system flexibility and local autonomy to be reinforced. This stage manifests

itself by the opportunity given to local units to select the modules that they need and to create

new process support system. Thus, local units IT strategies permit to experiment the use of

new modules and anticipate the needs and opportunities for organization-wide. This local

customization combine with standardized core processes can develop the capability to identify

strategic opportunities and to innovate. However, in order to support this local flexibility,

modular architecture requires distinguishing the processes with only one standard from the

processes with multiple standards. Though the modularity is difficult to implement, it seemsespecially relevant when core business strategy depend on changing environments. The

customized and reusable modules provide greater efficiency in combining the standardization

advantages of third stage with the innovativeness of application silo stage.

Figure 2 shows the key IT characteristic for the four stages governance.

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Figure 2 : Key IT Governance and Management Mechanisms

Source : Roos (2003), Center for Information Systems Research, MIT Sloan School of

Management

Each architecture provides different IT capabilities and relationships between central and

local units. Change across these four architectures stages is only possible when the learning process of previous stage is achieved.

The rationalized architecture implementation seems particularly relevant in the current

context of French Scientific Research performance measure. In such architecture, central

government publishes the large strategic orientations by identifying, together with the local

operators, the core processes. Meanwhile, local agencies adapt the central strategy and produce

the research outputs. Moreover, the future change towards the fourth stage (modular

architecture) can allow reinforcing the strategic autonomy of local agencies and to stop the

central intervention at the micro-level. Yet, this architecture designing requires the stages 1 and

2 having been carried out by operators. Besides, the change to third stage implies the

development of Technological Absorptive Capability (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990).

Absorptive capacity is an organizations ability to identify, assimilate and exploit knowledge

from the environment. In our case, absorptive capability focuses on the effectiveness of

technological knowledge assimilation.

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But some questions remain: How to organize the centre-periphery strategic dialogue to

develop IT architecture competency? How to monitor the implementation of IT architecture

competencies ? How to evaluate the IT stage of operators ? And finally, where are the efforts to

be focused on to implement a rationalized architecture in the French public research system?

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND DATA COLLECTION

The literature highlights that the design and implementation of an integrated Information

System is clearly identified as a vector of change due to the fact that IS allows developing a

new relation configuration between the centre and the periphery. But, being a sea change, it is

also a source of complexity

We try to assess these paradoxical interactions through a case study methodology(Eisenhardt, 1989, Yin, 1990) based on the study of French scientific research policy

monitoring. This case study allows us to examine the role of IS in the strategic dialogue

development between the centre and the periphery as well as the difficulties in designing new

architectures and capabilities regarding the research system. A qualitative investigation had

been chosen (Miles et Huberman, 1984) based on a single-case study. This methodological

choice is justified and relevant when the case presents a unique and original characteristic and

allows testing and completing an existing theory (Yin, 1990).

The monitoring system project of French public research is a relevant field because it

provides an exhaustive collection of data. Besides, this methodology proposes an original

intervention Research (in the view of Lewin, 1951), based on a researcher and practitioner

binomial. The practitioner was the Head of the monitoring system conception project and as

such he wore two hats: he was both expert and researcher. The second author assumed a role of

guide notably in the data collection and analysis. The practitioners personal experience allowed

him to develop a true sector-based expertise (Wacheux, 1996) and an extensive understanding

of the project situation and context. In addition, his strategic and steady participation allowed to

meet and exchange with a multitude of actors having different responsibilities and to develop

relations of trust favourable to information collection. The aim of an intervention approach is to

build an in-depth understanding of how the system works and produces knowledge (Hatchuel,

1994; David, 2000) through a hybrid exploratory logic (Allard-Poesi and al, 1999), where

abduction has an important role to play especially regarding the analytic phase.

However, an intervention research required a delicate data collection to control the data

authenticity. The case study had been designed using a combination of different collection

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methods. First, the collection of primary data includes both centred interviews (20 interviews

about one hour for each) with the practitioner in charge of project and notes of participant

observations collected by the practitioner. And second, we organized a collection of secondary

data (Weick, 1993) through a set of internal and strategic documents explaining the project

stakes, its implementation, the actors, etc. This collection provides a data triangulation and a

robust chain of evidence (Miles et Huberman, 1984). The data analysis had been a qualitative

one through a thematic content analysis (Bardin, 2001) and had been achieved with the

assistance of Nvivo (qualitative data analysis software), organizing the verbatim in categories of

themes and under-themes.

THE CONTEXT OF FRENCH SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH MONITORING

Since January 1st 2006, the French state administration is expected to work under a new

budgetary framework, the LOLF1, which is doomed to implement management by results.

Budget is voted by missions defining a public policy, split in ministerial programmes, each of

those being accompanied, when voted, by a set of results indicators, the annual performance

plan, (PAP) and a corresponding annual performance report (RAP) when rendering the accounts

before the voting of N+2 year budget.

The biggest mission (up to 20 billions euros) deals with scientific research and

universities. France has 105 universities and professional schools, and about 40 research

organisms such as CNRS, INSERM, INRA, Institut Pasteur among the most notorious ones.

Each of these operators enjoys a statutory autonomy, with full administrative machinery (board,

budget research and academic policy), in spite most of their budget comes from the ministry

for education and research. In terms of public expenses, this perimeter represents about 22

billions euros that are completed by private funding through research contracts. The global

amount is far below the critical GDP 3% target required to maintain Frances leadership in its

traditional fields of excellence (such as mathematics and physics) and to win a rank in the new

research fields (such as ITs) and high-level teaching.

The landscape where this reform takes place is quite fearful:

A new legal framework for public research is being implemented concurrently

with the LOLF agenda. A program agency has been set up to fund research

projects presented by operators, whether public or private, based on a global

public research agenda defined by a scientific committee close to the President.1 Loi Organique sur les Lois de Finances (LOLF) , a constitutional law that defines the way the state budget is to be voted and

how ministries must be accountable towards the parliament.

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Simultaneously, a new evaluation agency is to be set up as an independent body

in charge of evaluating universities and other organisms, both in research and in

teaching activities. A leftist movement, Sauvons la recherche is accusing the

government to subject research orientations to the short-term interests of private

firms.

The worldwide French universities ranking is worsening year after year

according to the Shanghais ranking, as well as the French research ranking in

the SCI2 partly due to the rise of Chinese publications.

Such a reform hits the structure of the ministry for education and research (the

fourth bureaucracy in the world with 1,4 million agents), which has a

notoriously poor ability and legitimacy in monitoring research activities and indefining a clear strategic intent.

Students demonstrations in spring 2006 against a reform of the labour law haveundermined the government authority among academic authorities.

During the last five years, most universities and research organisms have heavily

invested in their information systems. According to the principle of autonomy and due to the

lack of a unified strategy at the state level and steered by the ministry, each agency and

university has built his information system on its own, without any regard to common standards

and interoperability as much as for data as for technologies.

When the LOLF process was launched in 2001, the case of autonomous bodies and their

relations with their parent ministry has not been considered (Rochet, 2004). On a strict legal

basis, they are not concerned by the LOLF since they are not accountable towards the

parliament for they receive public funds indirectly through their parent ministries. However,

practically they are, both as operator of a public policy and regarding a global trend in public

machinery that makes agencies becoming accountable toward the parliament thought hearings,inquiries, reports of the Court of accounts, and others direct relationships with members of the

parliament and citizens (Rochet, 2002).

Likewise, few people in the high level of the public machinery realized that the real

strategic perimeter of a public policy is not a programs budget of a ministry but a virtual

perimeter involving many actors, public and private. For instance, when the government wants

to know how much the nation spends on fighting cancer, it is not sufficient to consider the

INSERM (the agency in charge of medical research) expenses on the issue, but he needs to2 Science Citation Index, a worldwide index of scientific publications only in the hard sciences ranked by their citations.

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connect data coming from many heterogeneous actors fighting on different fields such as

information, prevention, hospital, research, and rehabilitation. These activities belong to many

public bodies, non-profit and private actors, using heterogeneous data and information systems

that make it difficult to consolidate.

It becomes obvious that if the government wants to take up seriously the challenge of

evaluating public policies and to be accountable to the parliament for the public expenses and

for how a public policy has been achieved according to the three LOLF criteria (process

efficiency, service delivery and socio-economic effectiveness), he must consider information

system design and architecture as a key issue.

I.S AS A LEGITIMATE SUBVERSIVE AGENT

To render accounts towards the parliament, there are two options: One is to build huge

statistics scaffolds (the first LOLF report has presented more than 1500 result indicators to the

Parliament in 2007!) that will allow two things: satisfying with the requirements to produce

quantified results and going on business as usual in the day to day administrative business. This

is easy to realize and does not threat the bureaucracies vested interests. The other option is to

build a fully integrated monitoring system that would collect data within operators information

systems to be consolidated in a central balanced scorecard.

Complying with the requirements of the second option raises two big issues:

1) HOW to do it? Implementing a fully integrated monitoring system doesnt fit with the

dominant rationale of the so-called weberian bureaucracy and requires designing a new kind

of relationships between the centre and the periphery, no longer based on a command and

control management (Rochet, 2004) but on strategic monitoring, shared objectives, operators

empowerment, clear accountability in a climate of trust. Not only is this a cultural sea change

but that also requires new capabilities in using information technologies that are not, by the time

being, mastered by the managers in charge.

2) But the main issue is WHY should this change set in motion? Roles need to be

redefined and many vested interests are under threat. If nobody objects the political legitimacy

of the centre to monitor the system, its practical legitimacy is to be established. Why should the

operators open their information systems to the parent ministry? All of them agree with the

need to share data and to integrate their systems but mainly on a cooperative and horizontal

basis that does not induce any control from one over others. The issue is different when it is to

share data with the ministry. By the time being, without any global IS, when the ministry wants

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to get information from autonomous operators, it proceeds by sending questionnaires that are

filled in on a declarative basis. In other words, each autonomous operators declares 1) what he

knows, depending on its own IS, data format, IT standards, accounting systems, and 2) what

he wants to tell the ministry according to its own strategy and the supposed hidden strategy he

attributes to the ministerial administration.

Nevertheless, there is a wide consensus among all actors to acknowledge that making IS

interoperable is an issue that implies:

Common tools and software

Common standards to make legacy systems fully interoperable

Assessing, with evident fears, the performance of universities and research

organisms in a context of tough international competition shed by the badranking of France in the Shanghais index and the new obligation to be

accountable to the parliament.

Intending to implement an IS raises at each step subversive questions. By subversive, we

mean the questions that the present consensus prudently avoids raising so as to preserve a

fragile institutional equilibrium. These questions are the result of the need to clarify and to

design business processes or of the mere necessity of making presently hidden information

explicit. We may classify these questions as follows:1) Worrisome questions:

I share my data, but how will the system use it? Being independent with heterogeneous

IS has an obvious advantage: not being accountable!

I share my data, I know what I lost, and I dont know what I win . Laboratories and

research centres are generally eager to share data so long only scientific issues are at stake. It is

another issue to give information that would be used by the centre to monitor (and to gain

control over labs activities.As an example, an attempt to build a monitoring system based on a fully compatible IS

and data warehouse at Science of IT Dept in the CNRS made appearing that:- A researcher has no more publications than a professor researcher in anuniversity3;- Raising the number of administrative staff does not increase researchers productivity, so as- Increasing the number of researchers and doctoral students in a labdoesnt increase its efficiency.

3 A researcher in a research organism has no teaching tasks, whereas a university professor is supposed to dedicate 50% of his

time to both research and teaching.

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- The bigger the research team, the lower its results.To put it bluntly, it seems there is a Brookss law4 in the structuring of research

organizations: raising resources and staff decreases efficiency, efforts must focus on

architecture and networks of process and there is an optimum efficient size a time must not

excess.

2) Paradoxical demands

In the absence of central monitoring IT architecture, whether at the state or the

universities level, the IT community came into organize on its own way akin to the free

software developers community. A reduced number of big applications does exist at the central

level (finances, HR, students) but the current management applications are chosen, and

frequently developed, on a local criteria basis. A group of 34 universities (among 105) have

developed a shared application that is ade facto ERP5: a common data warehouse and a set of

businesses applications, named cocktail. There is a clear claim from within the community

for common standards and tools that calls for a central architect that could only be the central

university mutualising agency. But what the IT people demand is only for the agency to act as a

free software service centre and not as an agency monitoring a global IT policy that would

threat their independence. However, when the centre is asked to support bottom-up approaches

and developments, it cant only act as a technical agent: its mandatory role is to validate

architectures and, at the time being, it is not a business he masters, whether technically or politically.

3) Highly politically sensitive questions:

Designing IT architecture requires first defining the basic objects that will be its building

blocks. Questions that seem at a first glance quite mundane appear in reality to be sensitive, for

examples:

How to account students? There is a difference in the number of registered students and

this of students really attending classes. The difference may be, in some region, illegalimmigrants.

How to define a research unit? Apart from the general trend of the raising part of

Chinese publications, the bad ranking of France universities in Shanghais ranking is a problem

of information system. There is no common description and identifier of a research unit and

4 The Brooks law has been formulated par Fred Brooks, the conceiver of the IBM 360, in his seminal book, The Mythical man

Month: Adding resource to a late project makes it later because these new resources disrupt its architecture.5 Enterprise Resources Planning: software built around a common data warehouse and standard state of the art business

processes. Their implementation requires an important organizational redesign to fit this process that is currently weighed as 90

% of the project costs.

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thus of its related publications. University Lyon I publishes under 41 different identities! This

haunting problem is well known, but reaching a shared definition and a common identifier

needs building a consensus among universities, which each built arrangements of their own.

Who and on which criteria will accredit research units and define and maintain a common

identifier, avoiding each research project staffs to define their own, making the global

organization fuzzy and unaccountable?

DESIGNING NEW ARCHITECTURES AND CAPABILITIES

Such a large project is a complex project such as defined by Miller and Lessard (2001):

unique, complex, irreversible and instable. This kind of project is not doomed to fail because of

its technical difficulties but of its turbulent institutional environment. It will experiencedifficulties not so much because engineers cannot cope with technical complications although

IT projects unfold in a rapidly evolving technological environment but much more because of

the managerial abilities of projects sponsor in coping with unforeseen turbulence. This

turbulence originates from two sources: exogenous events such as changes in the political

orientations of the research policy or the bankruptcy of a technological partner, and endogenous

events such as internal contradictions or needs for evolution the project reveals. According to

Miller and Lessard, turbulence is negatively connected with project performance.

The basic laws of complexity tell us that a big complex project may not be merely the

sum of decentralized actors projects. It is a meta-system emerging from actors interactions,

but which needs central governance that will model its global complexity, both endogenous and

exogenous. Setting up a project governance is an architect job which is twofold: designing an

institutional framework that enables arrangements between stakeholders and, once set up, the

practical job of foreseeing risk management, building a global vision and arbitrating between

different options.

As long as this governance is not installed, the project will be endangered by unforeseen

risks, subversive questions, institutional psychodrama, caprices and tough arbitrations one actor

has not interest to give when seen from its sole proper interest. The role of the centre is to build

this holistic system in which technology, policy and finance interact. Decentralized actors may

legitimately fear that this would lead to more centralization, something akin to aGosplan . It is

obvious this is a risk in the eye of the dominant so-called weberian ministerial administrative

framework. Avoiding theGosplan trap will require the project to fulfil three generic conditions

(Miller and Lessard, 2001):

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Stabilizing the long future to enable investments of each stakeholder: In our case,

this project horizon is not less than five years so as to be able to monitor effectively the public

research. Although it increases the environmental complexity, the major changes in the legal

public research framework are a guarantee that the project is not a politician caprice that will

change with the next government. On another hand, a long-term project cannot wait for five

years to produce its first results. Confidence and commitment among stakeholders will be built

both by formulating a long-term vision and by quick wins.

Flexibility to face turbulence : Once agreements negotiated and commitments made, the

centre will have to manage risks, whether foreseen or unforeseeable. A modular project

architecture, where the project is a program split in an arborescence of projects ran by

stakeholders, is likely to enforce the capacity to face turbulence.

Enhancing the legitimacy of the project: This project, as seen above, faces opposition

from vested interests. Although weak at the beginning, this opposition may rise when

subversive questions arise and threat those interests. Answering these questions needs new

institutional arrangements, trade-offs through confrontations and public debates. A successful

sponsor wont start a project until its legitimacy is no longer challenged, and will remain

prepared to permanently rebuild this legitimacy when facing risks and challenges that will

undermine it.

Fulfilling with these requirements implies eliminating theGosplan option to prefer agovernance architecture where the roles and responsibilities both of the centre and periphery are

clearly defined and that combines bottom-up and top-down approaches. In our case, we intend

to adopt the following arrangement:

Instead of a plethora of steering committees with excessive non-decisional members, a

central directorate is set up around the central ministerial function entitled to make and enforce

decisions, including representatives of universities and research organisms.

This governance directorate will have to deal only with strategic issues and will be preserved from being overwhelmed by technical issues that will be delegated to a project

management staff close to him. These strategic topics were listed as follows:

Funding and budgeting: who will pay for what? What is to be charged to universities

and other research bodies, what is to be funded by the ministerial budget?

What are the decisions to be made at this level? For instance, only decisions with an

impact over X millions euros will come to this committee.

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Validating the global architecture of the missions IS : data, interchange standards,

systems interoperability, business processes, quality standards are key norms since each actor

is autonomous. Whatever the technology he chooses, interoperability must be compulsory.

The large shared processes and their owners : a meta-system being more than the sum

of the sub-systems, it needs specific processes. Some may be central monitoring, other may be

shared process among universities or research actors, such as data warehouses and production

of indicators. A global architecture will be based on common building blocks: assigning the

conception and the ownership of these blocks to peripheral players will reinforce the ownership

and trust in the global system.

Outsourcing rules and relationships with IT providers : The NPM fashion has fostered

the idea that the best for public administration was to outsource IS to private providers. This as

resulted in a loss of control over the system, a loss in reliability and a raise in costs (Dunleavy

and Margetts, 2002). In a decentralized system where players will deal directly with providers,

there is a need for common procurement rules and practices, and, most of all, a need for

defining the strategic capabilities not to be outsourced and to be enforced by the centre. This

implies the definition of strategic capacities to be shared among all actors, particularly the

centers capacity to act as an architect.

Scenarizing and managing risk : Stakeholders must not rely on technology but on the

resilience of the architecture to exogenous as well endogenous risks.Alongside this strategic governance committee, a project management committee deals

with technical issues: evaluating and costing the projects, managing budgets and planning,

negotiating with providers and insuring quality and reliability.

ARCHITECTING THE ORGANIZATION AND THE IS

Designing the architecture of the new monitoring arrangement resulted in designing a

new layer between the centre and the peripheral agencies (fig 3)

Figure 3 : Layers of governance to measure the French scientific research

performance

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juillet 07 10

I: Strategic orientations, financial framework (National,EU, regions )

II: Programming = scientific agencies management,

contract with universities: defining the demand

III: Execution = agencies and universities productionfunction: defining an offer and producing deliverables

Layer I is that of the national research policy formulated whether by law or budgetary

orientations by the state, research programmes of the European Union i.e funded by the

member state - and of regions through incentives given to creation of clusters.

Layel II is a new programming function to be set up. It is represented by the scientificmanagement of agencies and the process of setting up contract based links between the state,

universities and research agencies.

Layel III is a classical production function that produces deliverables according to the

orientations set up at level I and II.

In terms of information systems, this arrangement may be represented as follows:

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Figure 4: Information system governance layers

juillet 07 14

Technical infrastructure

Software architecture

Business process architecture

Monitoring systemI

II

III

Urbanizationconstraints

Level I is the global monitoring system, i.e the balanced scorecard of the public research policy. Level II defines the business process architecture, i.e the meta process of academic and

scientific production, metrics for measuring performance, international benchmarks, criteria to

make these process auditable. Level II has also to make the link with the software architecture,

which is the key layer to make information system interoperable. Using the framework defined

in figure 2 helps identifying where to put emphasis in building this global architecture. Stage 1

and 2 (local and functional optimization, IT efficiency) are to be dealt with by agencies while

stage 3 (rationalizing data) needs a global architect that will defines the core processes to bewired and the key performance issues, what we call urbanization constraints to be integrated by

agencies when developing there is on their own. These constraints integrate both business

process and software architecture and only deal with technical infrastructure(level III) as far as

technical leadership is important to fulfil the requirements of interoperability. These constraints

pave the way to stage 4 (modularity) that will allow more autonomy both for agencies and

universities, and more monitoring of the research public policy.

It is obvious that such an approach require new capabilities that are to be built since they

are new as well in the administrative areas as in the scientific research culture. There is still a

chasm to be crossed between IT people and business people, who speak different languages and

do not share a common vision that is necessary to build such architecture. Confronting directly

with such a sea change would make, in the absence of a clear political leadership in managing

change, the decision of postponing the project or relying exclusively on technology in intent to

circumvent political and organizational questions.

The subversive way we chose to adopt allows us to uncover the hidden part of the

iceberg step by step at a pace defined by the progress in solving unforeseen strategic

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organizational issues, through the process of completing the first building block projects and

winning the first successes.

LESSONS FOR PUBLIC MANAGEMENT

We drawn from the conclusions of Miller and Lessard in the management of large

engineering projects and the literature on complex system to build a framework for the

monitoring of large, complex and multi actor IS project. Key success factors appear to be five:

Upstream conceptualization : Strategic issues must be clearly drawn and a critical path

roughly defined for the coming years, with a first script of the main risks to be dealt with. When

many vested interests are at stake and intertwined, the issues must be disclosed step by step,

from the less to the more complex. Thats what we call a subversive approach: ITs are a powerful change agent and designing a new IS will raise many embarrassing questions which, if

disclosed in one go, would provoked a coalition of contradictory vested interests to maintain the

status quo.

Strategic governance : The project manager has first to gain political support from the

top management and from politicians. Due to the medium term of such a project and its political

and social risks, such thing is not easy. Projects with clear outputs such as on line income tax

one stop shop have won such a support and may unfold in spite of government changes. It is not

the case for scientific research policy monitoring since issues and outputs are per se complex to

define and politically highly controversial. The less legitimacy the project manager gains from

his strategic governance, the more subversive his approach must be, and vice versa.

Quick wins : To put stakeholders mind at rest, its necessary to gain quick wins that will

demonstrate valuable outputs, and foster a problem solving dynamics that will help dealing with

more and more complex issues. Subversive questions will raise steps by steps as a natural

progress on the project path.

Capacity building : IT capacities are poor in the public sector, due both to the lag in

integrating the role of ITs as a change agent and to low salaries that forbid attracting high

profiles. The CIO function doesnt exist in the French ministerial administration that would

allow thinking in terms of global architecture and change in business. It exists in agencies

which are more experienced in IT projects, and allows them to question all the time the centre

competency and its legitimacy to conceive a global monitoring system.

Joining bottom-up and top down approach : To avoid this obstacles (poor legitimacy

of the centre in conceiving IS and the obsession of the thorie du complot among the

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peripherys stakeholders) its necessary to rely on initiatives of periphery actors and to federate

them in a global project, while, in the same move, taking the strategic initiatives the centre is

the sole legitimate actor to impulse.

From this framework emerge the figures of what a CIO, or an IT project leader, must be

as a change agent in the public sector. In the private sector, the role of the CIO went through

three ages in the last decades: In the seventies and until the first eighties, he was a support

function in charge of automating recurrent tasks. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the CIO role

moved towards a re-engineering business processes agent, with a focus on cost control and

downsizing. He began to be concerned with process improvement, and automating processes

became closely related with productivity, cost killing in businesses and increased efficiency.

This trend culminated with the hype of ERP software and e-business in the late 1990s and the

dramaturgy of large IT projects that promised a lot, cost a lot and delivered disappointing

results. With the end of the dot.com bubble, the CIO role turned to be concerned with

information management as a source of creating competitive advantage (Marchand, 2004,

Rochet, 2006). From a support function, the CIO became a member of the top management with

a full strategic role (Cigref McKinsey, 2004).

In the public sector, the landscape is more varied: in some pilot sectors, e-administration

has become a means for re-engineering business processes. But in most part of theadministration, the CIO function is still a first age one. This has many negative consequences

on administrative productivity. In the absence of a central architect, IS accumulate layers and

become costly to maintain. In the ministry for education and research, there are more than 250

IS without any common plan, which maintenance consumes 75% of the IT budget, impeding

releasing credits for investments. There is a clear need for a policy of applicative euthanasia

that would simplify what has become a spaghetti network to turn it into a fully urbanized

information system.But this would need a strong political support. The new role of the CIO that is currently

emerging in the public sector would help the top management and politicians to become aware

of the issue and to understand to powerful role of ITs as a change agent so as to make public

policies monitorable and to stop wasting money in maintenance of underperforming systems.

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