Biography

Nicholas L. Ball is currently a doctoral candidate in the Information and Decision Sciences Department at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. Prior to attending the University of Minnesota, he earned an MBA in and a BBA in Finance from Idaho State University. Nick received a Juran Fellowship from the Juran Center for Leadership in Quality in the spring of 2003.

Background: “I began my career as an information systems manager at a regional lumber company in southeastern Idaho. My intention was to continue a career in business with the goal of becoming the top information systems executive in a large organization. I had developed a strong interest in business and information technology and felt that a career as an information systems manager was the logical marriage of those interests. I found myself fascinated by the challenges and opportunities that new technologies were presenting businesses, but frustrated that the day-to-day activities of my job left me little time to understand why firms had such difficulties effectively managing information technology. It was not long before my intellectual curiosity surrounding the effective management of IT made this initial job less satisfying to me and I decided to pursue a career in academia. Becoming an information systems professor made perfect sense because of my deep interest in the management of IT within an organization.”

Research Interests: “ My general research interests lie in the organizational design and governance of the information systems function within organizations. My work draws heavily on work in organizational theory and strategic management to study business and information systems alignment. Specifically, my current research is concerned with providing a deeper conceptual understanding of IS/IT architecture and a theoretical basis for understanding the appropriateness of an IS/IT architectural position in the context of organizational and environmental contingency factors. The research questions I am currently addressing are: 1 – What insights can be gained from taking an integrated perspective of IS/IT architecture?, 2 – What organizational contingencies impact IS/IT architecture and what effect do these contingencies have on the relationship between architectural choice and IS/IT performance?, 3 – What environmental contingencies impact IS/IT architecture and what effect do these contingencies have on the relationship between architectural choice and IS/IT performance? My research will contribute a conceptual and theoretical foundation for IS/IT architecture and serve as a springboard for future work on business and information systems alignment. While at the Carlson School of Management, my work has appeared in Communications of the AIS , Electronic Markets , and has been presented at the Americas Conference on Information Systems.”

Current Research Project: “ For the past four years I have worked as part of the Research Consortium on IS/IT Organizational Design and Governance with professors Carl Adams and Weidong Xia. The consortium is a partnership between researchers at the University of Minnesota and chief information officers from large mid-western companies. As part of this project we examine issues of interest to our CIO partners. Chief among these interests has been the topic of business and information systems alignment. We have adopted a positional perspective on alignment where we identify the major decisions managers make to position their organizations strategically and operationally and how the strategic and operational positions are related.”

General Impressions: “I have had a tremendous experience at the Carlson School of Management. I have been privileged to work with information systems executives from major US companies and top business school researchers as well as teach some of the best students in the United States. I have learned from a successful project how a partnership between academics and practitioners can lead to a quality research outcome that contributes to both theory and practice. I have also met with great success in the classroom. My research and teaching efforts have reinforced my initial desires to become an information systems professor. I have gained a deep appreciation for the value that professors provide through the research, teaching, and service that they participate in. I believe that my experience at the Carlson School of Management has provided me with the tools I will need to launch a successful academic career."