Business Patterns and Strategic Change

• Author: Paul Jones,Gareth R.T. White,Paul Beynon‐Davies
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/jsc.2101
• Published date: 01 November 2016
• Date: 01 November 2016

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Strategic Change 25: 675–691 (2016)

Published online in Wiley Online Library

(wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/jsc.2101

Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Strategic Change: Briengs in Entrepreneurial Finance

Strategic Change

DOI: 10.1002/jsc.2101

Business Patterns and Strategic Change1

Paul Beynon‐Davies

Cardi University, UK

Paul Jones

Plymouth University, UK

Gareth R.T. White

University of South Wales, UK

Using pattern comics, an approach to visualization offers an innovative way of

making sense of the issue of strategic change, particularly as it concerns the

domains of electronic business and electronic commerce.

Electronic business, or eBusiness, is that area which involves the interaction of

information communication technology (ICT), information systems (IS), and

information with organizational activity (Beynon‐Davies, 2013). Not surprisingly,

in such terms, eBusiness is modern business, because ICT, IS, and information are

essential to the eective working of any modern organization (Whitely, 2000).

Over a number of decades, economic markets globally have been subject to two

interdependent trends: the increasing centrality of information to eective activity

and the increasing reliance on electronic networks for eective communication

(Nohria and Eccles, 1992). Not surprisingly, many contemporary markets are

electronic markets or eMarkets: markets in which economic exchanges are con-

ducted in whole or part through ICT (Beynon‐Davies, 2012). Consequently,

much of modern trade or commerce is heavily reliant upon electronic commerce

or eCommerce (Grandon and Pearson, 2004).

Both eBusiness and eCommerce are clearly socio‐technical phenomena (Tatnall

and Burgess, 2004). e term ‘socio‐technical’ was rst used in the context of

research on systems conducted by Trist, Bamforth, and Emery while working for

the Tavistock Institute in London, and particularly while engaging with British

coal mining as a problem situation after the Second World War (Trist and Bam-

forth, 1951). At that time, coal was a critical source of energy for the country, but

the industry itself was experiencing a number of problems (Church et al., 1986).

Despite investment in new production technology, productivity was actually in

decline. Moreover, the workplace was subject to high rates of absenteeism and

1 JEL classication codes: M10, M15, M19.

The article develops and explores

the concept of a business pattern.

The term ‘business pattern’ is

used to refer to a coherent and

repeating sequence of action

involving humans and technology

appropriate to some domain of

organization.

The article demonstrates a way of

visualizing such patterns in a

medium we refer to as ‘pattern

comics.’

676 Paul Beynon-Davies, Paul Jones, and Gareth R.T. White

Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Strategic Change

DOI: 10.1002/jsc

signicant levels of sta turnover were evident throughout

the industry. Trist, Bamforth, and Emery investigated

several ways of working at dierent mines and concluded

that the way of organizing work adopted by convention

at most mines did not take advantage of the opportunities

aorded by developments in technology (Trist and Bam-

forth, 1951). e key conclusion they drew from this was

that the integrated design of the social or work system

with the technical or technology system is critical to

achieving eective performance.

Socio‐technical thinking has heavily inuenced work

both within IS as well as within organization science.

Zammuto et al. (2007), for instance, argue that ‘the rela-

tionship between technology and organizational form and

function has been of interest to organization scientists for over

50 years … [but that,] … interest in this relationship has

declined signicantly over the past thirty years, a period

during which information technologies have become pervasive

in organizations and brought about signicant changes in

them.’ ey further suggest that ‘a conceptual shift – from

“organizational form” to “forms of organizing” – is needed …

viewing the social and technological systems of organizations

in concert, which was a critical part of sociotechnical systems

theory in the 1950s, is a perspective that the eld needs to

rediscover because IT has become inextricably intertwined

with social relations to weave the fabric of organization.’

However, several problems exist in attempts to turn

the orienting principle of a socio‐technical view into a

coherent way of understanding and engaging with orga-

nizational action and change. First, in attempting to

analyze and design socio‐technical systems, due and equal

justice must be given to both work (social) systems and

technology (technical) systems (Bijker, 1987). Second, the

ways in which work and technology entangle in practice

should be evident in any representations we make of such

systems (Lu et al., 2000). ird, traditionally the design

artefacts produced in the analysis and design of socio‐

technical systems are constructed with the needs of ana-

lysts in mind rather than organizational actors. Implicit

in the analysis and design of socio‐technical organization

in this manner is the framing of such activity as a tech-

nocratic endeavor (Scholl, 2004).

Within this article we develop and explore the concept

of a business pattern. is concept, we believe, oers a coherent

and practical way of making sense of what socio‐ technical

organization actually constitutes. We employ this term to

refer to a coherent and repeating sequence of action involv-

ing humans, technology, and artefacts appropriate to some

domain of organization. As such, we propose this idea to

more eectively ground socio‐technical ideas – particularly

as they concern areas such as eBusiness and eCommerce.

We begin the article with a description of what a business

pattern means, adapting material from the literature on orga-

nizational routines and organizational storytelling.

is leads us to discuss a way of visualizing business

patterns in a medium we refer to as pattern comics.

Pattern comics are structured but simple visualizations,

which are created with the express purpose of opening up

dialogue and establishing common ground between ana-

lysts and organizational actors about the nature of some

domain of socio‐technical action (Ewenstein and Whyte,

2007). ese design artefacts are proposed as a useful way

of helping make sense of patterns of socio‐technical orga-

nization as they are currently conceived, or how various

stakeholders would like them to be.

e study explores how the concept of a business

pattern and the associated design artefact of a pattern comic

oer an innovative way of making sense of and bringing

together a number of problematic issues within contempo-

rary business, such as managing complexity, innovating

with IT, developing strategy, modeling the business, moti-

vating and managing change, benchmarking and reusing

best practice. e contemporary domain of online retail in

general and online grocery in particular is used as a way of

illustrating the ecacy of the approach throughout.

eBusiness strategy

e Austro‐American economist Joseph Schumpeter

coined the phrase creative destruction, originally to describe