Standardisation in Information Technology

You will find some more information about the papers of that mini-track (and the other) here.

To the best of my knowledge this is the first-ever HICSS minitrack on standardisation. I consider this a highly relevant and, particularly, interesting topic; yet, the latter perception every now and then tends to raise an eyebrow or two.

This is still very much a developing - and even widely unknown - discipline, so this brief introduction shall touch on some of the topics typically discussed by standards researchers. Maybe some of you will become interested.

'Standard' and 'standardisation' are tricky terms. They are even trickier when it comes to information technology. Think about it for a minute - what exactly establishes a 'standard'? Is a specification rubber-stamped by of one of the 'official' standards setting bodies a standard? Or is the degree of usage of a system or a product the decisive factor - is, for instance, MS-Word a 'standard', or SAP/R3? Do industry consortia actually issue 'standards'? And what about the Internet - are the RFCs published in the STD-series standards? Ask any three people and the odds are that they will come up with at least four different opinions. And if you can argue so splendidly about the definition alone ..........

These days, a web of SDOs (Standards Developing Organisations) at the global, regional, and national level issue what is commonly referred to as 'de-jure' standards - although none of their standards have any regulatory power. Likewise, a plethora of industry fora and consortia (a recent survey found more than 250) produce so-called 'de-facto' standards almost by the week.

As a result, there exists an almost impenetrable maze of what is generally called 'standards', ranging from company specific rules, over regional and national regulations, up to globally accepted standards. Moreover, one may distinguish between different types of standards: there are voluntary, regulatory, de jure, de facto, pro-active, reactive, public, industry, and proprietary standards; this list is by no means exhaustive.

Just as Andrew Tanenbaum once put it: "The nice thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from"............

The desire to make sure that the 'right' standard emerges normally lies at the heart of firms' involvement in the standards setting process, be it in the 'official' process or in consortium-led activities (regrettably, though, trying to prevent standards from coming into being may also be a motivation for participation). Yet, what exactly characterises the 'right', or at least a 'good' standard is far from being clear. One author associates a good standard with the attributes 'speed' and 'meet technical requirements'. Whilst these characteristics are valuable for winning stakeholders' support, this is a surprisingly narrow focus. In particular, whether or not 'speed' is necessarily desirable is an issue open for debate, at least in my view. Moreover, meeting organisational and, particularly, societal requirements should clearly play a role in standards setting as well.

These days, standardisation is becoming all the more important with the increasing economic and corporate globalisation. That is, you also have to think about the economic consequences of standardisation. Pros and cons of joining the standardisation bandwagon vs trying to push a proprietary solution need to be considered by companies. Standards based products or services may imply price wars and lower revenues, but may also open new markets and widen the customer base. Offering a proprietary solution may yield (or keep, rather) a loyal customer base, but may also result in a technological lock-in and, eventually, marginalisation for the vendor or service provider. In fact, the economics of standards seems to be the best researched aspect.

There are other, maybe more theoretical questions surrounding standards. Do they really hamper progress and stand in the way of technical innovation? A very popular perception, but is it accurate? Should we really leave it to the market - and its hype - alone to decide about winning technologies? Technology studies tell us that this would be unwise, but are they correct?

Unfortunately, the papers of this minitrack will not give you definite answers to these questions. They will, however, provide you with food for thought and with additional insight into some of the most interesting issues surrounding standards and standardisation