Crispin Richard Coombs

• PhD Information Systems
• Professor (Full) at Loughborough University

IS/IT evaluations reveal that many organizations fail to realize planned benefits from their IS/IT projects. Benefits management researchers argue that organizational change is necessary for the delivery of IS/IT project benefits. However, existing IS/IT evaluation methods adopt a narrow quantitative focus on costs and benefits and fail to consider...

This report summarises the findings of a rapid evidence review that was conducted between October and December 2016 into the impact of various emerging technologies (artificial intelligence, robotics, and automation technologies) on knowledge and service work, relevant professions, and society. The review focuses on academic literature (peer-review...

As far back as the industrial revolution, significant development in technical innovation has succeeded in transforming numerous manual tasks and processes that had been in existence for decades where humans had reached the limits of physical capacity. Artificial Intelligence (AI) offers this same transformative potential for the augmentation and p...

Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems are providing a new opportunity to financial services firms to develop distinctive capabilities to differentiate themselves from their peers. Key to this differentiation is the ability to execute business in the most effective and efficient manner and to take the smartest possible business decisions. AI systems...

A significant recent technological development concerns the automation of knowledge and service work as a result of advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its sub-fields. We use the term Intelligent Automation to describe this phenomenon. This development presents organisations with a new strategic opportunity to increase business value. Howe...

One of the most significant recent technological developments concerns the development and implementation of ‘intelligent machines’ that draw on recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics. However, there are growing tensions between human freedoms and machine controls. This article reports the findings of a workshop that investiga...

As part of the urgent need to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, governments, healthcare providers, and businesses have looked to applications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to compensate for the unavailability of human workers. This interest has renewed the debate regarding the use of AI for the automation of work, which has been described as Inte...

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many organisations to undergo significant transformation, rethinking key elements of their business processes and use of technology to maintain operations whilst adhering to a changing landscape of guidelines and new procedures. This study offers a collective insight to many of the key issues and underlying complexi...

One of the most significant recent technological developments concerns the application of robotics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to skill-intensive, knowledge-based jobs. The financial adviser is a role that has been identified as being under threat from automated robo-advice services. However, there are conflicting views on the future of human...

The Information Technology (IT) industry has become an important economic factor in many Western countries, but it is well known for suffering from skills shortages and high turnover rates. Organizational career management (OCM) may help to attract new talent and reduce IT turnover by satisfying individuals’ career needs. However, to date, little i...

The Information Technology (IT) industry has become an important economic factor in many Western countries, but it is well known for suffering from skills shortages and high turnover rates. Organizational career management (OCM) may help to attract new talent and reduce IT turnover by satisfying individuals’ career needs. However, to date, little i...

There is relatively little advice in the Engineering domain for undertaking qualitative studies. Researchers have to rely on generic guidance that may result in imprecise application of qualitative methods. A related discipline to Engineering is Information Systems (IS) and the experiences of the IS domain may provide some useful insights for under...

Careers research has moved beyond the notion of traditional careers in a stable, predictable work environment to a more individual perspective. However, individual agency in career management is still likely to involve interactions between organizations and individuals. This is particularly evident in organizational career management (OCM). Career...

Purpose Organisational implementations of information technology (IT) normally fail due to cultural forces that inhibit the usage levels required to facilitate successful IT implementation. This paper explores IT implementation from an IT Culture perspective (Leidner and Kayworth, 2006). In particular, it identifies and follows the trajectory of I...

Some information system (IS) studies have adopted organisational culture (OC) theory to investigate IS implementations. The studies highlight that members will reach consensus or agreement in the use of an IS but also experience inevitable tensions and ambiguities in the utilization of the IS. However, literature related to IS implementation/OC has...

Some information system IS studies have adopted organisational culture OC theory to investigate IS implementations. The studies highlight that members will reach consensus or agreement in the use of an IS but also experience inevitable tensions and ambiguities in the utilization of the IS. However, literature related to IS implementation/OC has rar...

Information Technology (IT) culture comprises of the set of IT-related behaviors, values and assumptions that tacitly frame how individuals make effective use of IT resources. Since effective IT use is linked to the realization of benefits from IT investments, individuals’ IT cultures should therefore have significant effect on their benefits reali...

Despite huge global spend on IS/IT, empirical evidence shows many of these investments do not deliver expected benefits. Benefits are realized when organizations attend to contextual factors surrounding the implementation of IT and not just its technical implementation. Culture, as a contextual factor, has been shown to have a strong influence on t...

Information systems (IS) studies highlight that IS usage, a pre-requisite for IS diffusion, may be difficult to attain when usage is voluntary because users can resist using the system. User resistance may be overcome through the application of organizational controls. Control theory explains how users’ actions and practices are shaped in line with...

Organizations are increasingly employing business process modelling techniques in an attempt to visualise their processes and highlight the improvements that need to be made. However, despite the plethora of modelling techniques available, the main focus has typically been the graphical depiction of a process. As of yet little consideration has bee...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a new conceptualization of the boundaryless career – a widely acknowledged contemporary career concept – that reflects its original description more fully than previous literature has done, and to apply this conceptualization in an empirical investigation of career behavior and intentions of a large...

The protean career concept is a widely acknowledged contemporary career model, but conceptual and empirical analysis of the model is scarce. We provide an integrative literature review of empirical research and note that the research is hampered by inconsistent use of terminology and methodological limitations. First, we show that the two protean m...

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems continue to gain importance in today's tough global environment. Organizations are making large investments in ERP systems because of their promised benefits. Several observations have been made in the literature which suggest that organizations should avoid tailoring the ERP systems as much as possible wh...

A number of information system (IS) studies have adopted organizational culture (OC) theory to investigate IS implementations. The studies highlight that members will reach consensus or agreement in the use of an IS but also experience inevitable tensions and ambiguities in the use of the IS. However, literature related to IS implementation/OC has...

The term of social shaping is very attractive and has been widely used in the Information Systems (IS) literature. Social shaping of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) package can materialise through the means of power, politics, discourse and user resistance. Whenever a package is socially shaped, either it is modified or there are no changes i...

In recent years it has been argued that as information technology has become a largely undifferentiated commodity, the scope for organizations to use it strategically , to gain and sustain a competitive advantage , has significantly diminished. In this paper , we seek to assess the extent to which organizations will need to switch the focus of thei...

There is growing agreement that the potential benefits of implementing business technologies will not be realised through the relatively simple act of going live with a new software application. Indeed , there is clear evidence that organisations must explicitly plan for , and proactively manage , the realisation of benefits , if a new technology i...

In a contemporary business environment where change is often regarded as continuous, the ability of people or organizations to be able to successfully adapt and respond to change is key. Change often involves not only the learning of new behaviours, ideas or practices, but also giving up, or abandoning some established ones. Despite both these elem...

The ability of health-care managers or organisations to adapt and respond to change is vital if they are to succeed in the contemporary health-care environment. Change involves the learning of new behaviours and giving up, or abandoning, some established ones – more formally defined as unlearning. However, research on unlearning is lacking. This or...

As it is now a decade since Nicholas Carr [2003] made his highly controversial claim that 'IT no longer matters', the time would seem ripe for a critical reappraisal of this view. In short, he was arguing that as IT was rapidly becoming a largely undifferentiated commodity, the scope for organisations to use IT strategically, to gain and sustain a...

Many organizations still fail to make a return from the huge investments they make in implementing complex Information Technology (IT). This is usually due to cultural forces that inhibit the level of usage required to facilitate IT Diffusion. An emerging stream of research highlights the IT culture perspective, a perspective vital for understandin...

Organizations are making large investments in package based Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. While some organizations have achieved business improvement from their ERP systems, many still fail to realize the benefits identified at the project outset. One recommended approach to improve the likelihood of ERP system success and thereby del...

The success of deploying Information Systems (IS) by organizations is dependent on the full integration of the new innovation into their existing processes (Diffusion). The failure of an IS to be fully diffused in an organization is, in most cases, not due to any inadequacy of the technological innovation, but rather due to conflict and a lack of a...

Problems of retention and turnover of allied health professionals are under-researched. A longitudinal (two-year) study of four allied health professions (AHPs) in the British health-care system sampled from three categories – stayers, leavers and returners. Qualitative data identified respondents' (n = 1925) own reasons for staying within the Nati...

While there has been a recent squeeze on staff costs, it continues to be important to offer graduating clinical staff National Health Service (NHS) employment in order to maintain the long-term strength of the service. In addition, the experiences of the Canadian nursing profession suggest that complacency about an improving recruitment situation c...

In the past decade banks invested heavily in internet technology so as to engage in e-business and ecommerce activities. However, this development exposed banks to threats, such as online fraud. Consequently, there was a need to adopt security measures and controls to mitigate such threats. Banks in developed countries have developed a level of ‘be...

Despite much research interest, effective retention of IT professionals has proved difficult for many public sector organizations. By concentrating on intention to leave, researchers may not have provided a clear way to formulate effective retention strategies. Consequently, we used intention to stay as an alternative lens to identify factors that...

Research into recruitment, retention and return of speech and language therapists in the National Health Service (NHS) is relatively limited, particularly in respect of understanding the factors that drive employment choice decisions. To identify what factors influence speech and language therapists working in the NHS to stay, and consider leaving,...

The core focus of this study is on the interplay of power and knowledge, which characterises the interaction of stakeholders in the banking industry when implementing a new regulation. The specific context for this research was the investigation of the implementation process of the Basel II regulation across the banking industry of an Asian develop...

This paper will investigate innovations in information management for use in clinical trials. The application typifies a complex, adaptive, distributed and information-rich environment for which continuous innovation is necessary. Organisational innovation is highlighted as well as the technical innovations in workflow processes and their represent...

The aim of our research project, described in this paper, was to develop a purpose-built clinical trials support system [CTSS], which would be sufficiently comprehensive, integrated and flexible, so as to support the vast majority of research studies that were to be managed and conducted by one UK-based health authority. Whilst at the start of this...

The United Kingdom National Health Service (NHS) is continuing to experience recruitment and retention problems of nursing and allied health profession staff. Consequently, the need to study and understand the key factors that encourage or dissuade people to work for the NHS remains a major research and policy issue. This study provides well-focuse...

The aim of our research project, described in this paper, was to develop a purpose-built clinical trials support system [CTSS], which would be sufficiently comprehensive, integrated and flexible, so as to support the vast majority of research studies that were to be managed and conducted by one UK-based health authority. Whilst at the start of this...

This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in European Journal of Information Systems. The definitive publisher-authenticated version is available online at: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/ejis/journal/v15/n6/abs/3000653a.html Interpretive flexibility – the capacity of a specific technology to sustain divergent opini...

We tested the capacity of an extended version of the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to account for intentions to work for the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) as a nurse, physiotherapist or radiographer amongst three groups: professionally unqualified (N = 507), in professional training (N = 244), and professionally qualified (N = 227). We foun...

To investigate the attractiveness to potential nursing staff of the NHS as an employer. Individual and group interviews were conducted with school pupils, mature students, nursing students, healthcare assistants, agency nurses and independent sector nurses. Eighty one people participated in the qualitative stage of the study. Analysis of the interv...

Background and PurposeThe National Health Service is currently experiencing a shortfall of staff in the allied health professions and in particular, physiotherapy. This research project aimed to identify the key factors that determine the attractiveness of physiotherapy as a career choice and the National Health Service as an employer to potential...

A qualitative study is reported concerning the images of the UK's National Health Service (NHS) held by 231 potential recruits in the nursing, physiotherapy and radiography professions. Existing research suggests that these images are likely to affect willingness to be employed by the NHS, and that this could crucially affect the achievement of UK...

Purpose: To identify the factors that determine the attractiveness of radiography as a career choice and of the National Health Service (NHS) as an employer to potential recruits and returners. Methods: Individual and group interviews were conducted in the East Midlands region to explore participants' perceptions of the attractiveness of the NHS as...

This article has been published in the journal, Physiotherapy [© Elsevier]. The definitive version is available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00319406. Background and Purpose: The NHS is currently experiencing a shortfall of staff in the allied health professions and in particular, physiotherapy. This research project aimed to id...

This article was published in the journal, Synergy News [© Society of Radiographers]. The definitive version is available at: www.sor.org. The NHS Plan (Department of Health, 2000) announced that, by the year 2004, 6,500 more therapists and other health professionals would be employed in the NHS. However, there is currently a shortage of entrants t...

The factors that influence the ultimate level of success or failure of systems development projects have received considerable attention in the academic literature. However, despite the existence of a 'best practice' literature many projects still fail. The record of the National Health Service has been particularly poor in this respect. The resear...

This is a Report Prepared for the Department of Health based on research conducted as part of the Human Resources Research Initiative. Also attached is the Executive Summary. In the last 10 years, the number of people entering the National Health Service as healthcare professionals has fallen. This has coincided with high levels of attrition, and h...

The factors that influence the ultimate level of success or failure of systems development projects have received considerable attention in the academic literature. However, despite the existence of a ‘best practice’ literature many projects still fail. The record of the National Health Service has been particularly poor in this respect. The resear...

The factors that influence the ultimate level of success or failure of systems development projects have received considerable attention in the academic literature. However, despite the existence of a ‘best practice’ literature many projects still fail. The record of the National Health Service has been particularly poor in this respect. The resear...

The factors that influence the ultimate level of success or failure of systems development projects have received considerable attention in the academic literature. However, despite the existence of a ‘best practice’ literature many projects still fail. The record of the National Health Service has been particularly poor in this respect. The resear...

This article was published in the journal, Journal of End User Computing [© IDEA Group]. The factors that influence the ultimate level of success or failure of systems development projects have received considerable attention in the academic literature. However, despite the existence of a ‘best practice’ literature many projects still fail. The rec...

This article has been published in the journal, Synergy News. The definitive version is available at: www.sor.org. Loughborough University Business School have been commissioned by the Department of Health to study the attractiveness of the NHS as an employer to potential radiography, physiotherapy and nursing recruits. The two-year project commenc...

The continuing problem of the recruitment and retention of staff in the allied health professions (AHPs) and nursing within the National Health Service (NHS) has been consistently highlighted in the literature over the last ten years (for example: Firby, 1990; Seccombe and Smith, 1996; Abraham et al,. 1999; Buchan, 1999). However, despite this atte...

The factors that influence the ultimate level of success or failure of systems development projects have received considerable attention in the academic literature. However, despite the existence of a ‘best practice’ literature many projects still fail. The record of the National Health Service has been particularly poor in this respect. The resear...

This article was published in the journal, Journal of Management in Medicine [© Emerald]. The definitive version is available at: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/jmm.htm. The factors that influence the ultimate level of success or failure of systems development projects have received considerable attention in the academic literature. However, previou...

This article has been published in the journal, British Journal of Healthcare Computing & Information Management. The definitive version is available at: http://www.bjhc.co.uk/. The use of information systems in community healthcare has increased greatly over the last ten years. The primary motivation for this development was the need to produce na...

Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of Loughborough University. The factors that influence the ultimate level of success or failure of systems development projects have received considerable attention in the academic literature. Two particularly significant areas of interest have b...

This article has been published in the journal, Radiography [© Elsevier]. The definitive version is available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/10788174. Purpose: To identify the factors that determine the attractiveness of radiography as a career choice and the NHS as an employer to potential recruits and returners. Methods: Individ...

THIS PAPER IS CIRCULATED FOR DISCUSSION PURPOSES AND ITS CONTENTS SHOULD BE CONSIDERED PRELIMINARY AND CONFIDENTIAL. NO REFERENCE TO MATERIAL CONTAINED HEREIN MAY BE MADE WITHOUT THE CONSENT OF THE AUTHORS. There are two important areas of inquiry, within the information systems domain, that are often framed as dualities. The first relates to the n...

This record includes the executive summary and a copy of the final report. This research investigated perceptions of working for the NHS as an AHP. A total of 2051 qualified professionals from Occupational Therapy, Physiotherapy, Radiography, and Speech and Language Therapy provided data. Participants were in one of three groups: Stayers have been...