ENERGY MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS: AN

EXPLORATORY STUDY OF IMPLEMENTATIONS USING

ADAPTIVE STRUCTURATION THEORY

Orla Kirwan, Willie Golden

Department of Information Systems, National University of Ireland Galway, Ireland

Padraig Molloy

Department of Mechanical Engineering, National University of Ireland Galway, Ireland

Keywords: Adaptive Structuration Theory, Grounded Theory, IS Implementation, Energy Efficiency, Research in

Progress.

Abstract: This research is focusing on the implementation of an Information System (IS), more specifically a building

energy management system (BEMS) within several organisations. One of the EU’s 7

Framework

Programme’s (FP7) objectives is to “transform the current fossil fuel based energy system into a more

sustainable one combined with enhanced energy efficiency (EE)”. This research is concerned with the use

of information systems to achieve the latter of these objectives; enhanced energy efficiency. The research is

being undertaken using a multi methodological approach incorporating case study methodology and

grounded theory. Advanced structuration theory (AST) will provide the conceptual model that will help to

capture the longitudinal change process. A modified AST model is proposed which will provide a

theoretical framework that further investigates and explains the implementation process, using several

organisations at different stages of BEMS implementation. The researcher has confirmed access to these

organisations and data collection commenced on October 1

2006. The paper concludes with an overview

of how the research will progress.

1 INTRODUCTION

Technological advances, increased environmental

awareness, rising energy costs, legislation, and end-

user perceptiveness has given rise to this

investigation of building energy management

systems. This research is specifically looking at the

Information Systems that are available to improve

the energy saving potential of end-users, by

investigating the implementation of such systems

into several organisations.

The components of the technology that can

increase EE are the actual building management

system (BMS) and the commercially available

monitoring and targeting (M&T) software packages

that integrate with the BMS. Together they make up

the BEMS. The BMS is the basic control system that

is contained in a building, managing the heating,

cooling, lighting, ventilation and most other energy

needs that an organisation has on an everyday basis.

M&T is a structured approach to energy

management that provides a simple yet powerful

technique for identifying inefficient performance

and eliminating waste.

Savings of between 5% and 20% from the

annual energy bill have been realized as a direct

result of the purchase, correct appropriation and

implementation of this software (Lowry, 2002). The

significant factors associated with the success of

BMS installations are: end-user involvement in the

specification, the user’s perception of the

performance of the BMS vendor, and satisfactory

commissioning of the system. It is widely reported

that BMSs are not fully utilized (Lowry, 2002). The

failure to exploit the potential of these systems leads

to the sub-optimal performance of building plant,

both in terms of energy consumption and the

maintenance of ambient internal building conditions.

303

Kirwan O., Golden W. and Molloy P. (2007).

ENERGY MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF IMPLEMENTATIONS USING ADAPTIVE STRUCTURATION

THEORY.

In Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems - AIDSS, pages 303-309

DOI: 10.5220/0002367503030309

 SciTePress

End-user dissatisfaction and the inability to

understand and exploit the reports generated are

other reasons for system failures (Levermore, 2000).

2 RESEARCH MOTIVATION

Energy-related research shows that the most

fundamental indicators: energy consumption, fossil

fuel dependence, import dependency, CO2

emissions, and energy prices are moving in the

wrong direction (Forfás, 2006). This is occurring on

an Irish, a European Union (EU) and a global level.

Present energy consumption patterns are showing an

unmistakable increase in energy usage, and there is a

clear consensus that sustaining continued growth in

the world’s economy will require a growing supply

of oil (Forfás, 2006). The factors that are driving this

research can be classified in the following

categories: environmental, political and regulatory,

economic or corporate social responsibility and are

outlined below.

Environmental factors

The world remains largely dependent on fossil fuels,

which are projected to continue to be the dominant

source in energy supply, meeting 80% of the

projected increase in demand to 2030 (Green Paper

on Irish Energy Policy, 2006).

Under the present Kyoto Protocol agreements,

the EU must implement reductions of 330 million

tonnes of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions between

1990 and 2010. It is estimated that CO

emissions

will cost the Irish state €1.45bn in penalties by 2008

and up to €4.3bn by 2012, as emissions are currently

running 17% over the agreed carbon allowances.

This is the highest in Europe. As a proportion of

greenhouse gas emissions overall, energy related

emissions accounted for 51% in 1990 compared

to a projected 66% in 2010, with energy use in

buildings being at present 30% of this total.

Political and Regulatory factors

Legislation, such as the EU Energy Performance for

Buildings Directive (EPBD), is forcing the

marketplace to look at demand side management

(DSM) and energy efficiency (EE), in a focused

effort to offset the potential future problems outlined

above. The directive takes account of the energy

performance of buildings, and places demands on

building stakeholders (e.g. owners, designers,

operators, occupants, etc.) to quantify energy usage

throughout the building’s lifecycle. The European

building sector constitutes over 40% of the total

European energy consumption to date (European

Commission, 2001), therefore this is an area of

much significance if energy conservation and

sustainability is to be achieved.

According to the Green Paper on Future Irish

Energy Policy (2006), the potential savings dividend

will be considerable and the objective is to deliver

cumulative improvements in EE of 20% by 2020.

Increasing the levels of EE must become a key

priority for Ireland according to the government, and

it is one of the answers to the energy problem that

exists today.

Economic factors

Oil prices have risen from an average of just over

$23/barrel in the fourth quarter of 1999, to a high of

$72.40 per barrel in May 2006. Since early 1999, oil

prices have risen about 360%. The annual rate of

inflation rose to 3.8% in April 2006 as the effects of

higher oil prices spread across the country (Irish

Times, 11/05/2006). In the past 12 months, fuel and

electricity prices have risen by 13.2%.

The European Union Emission Trading Scheme

(EU ETS) commenced on Jan 1

2005, and it relates

to carbon allowance trading between the EU

member states. The Directive, 2003/1987/EC,

provides that key implementation decisions for the

trading period 2008 to 2012 are to be taken by

Member States in the course of 2006, namely

submission of national allocation plans and adoption

of final national allocation decisions (European

Commission, Oct 2006).

Corporate social responsibility

Until now, relatively few organizations have

implemented a climate change policy, and the

asymmetry between the importances of for example,

increasing energy efficiency, and the lack of

corporate commitment may be explained by the

widely shared perception that environmental action

entails costs that impact productivity (Boiral, 2006).

The questions under consideration are: should

organizations be responsible for “Environmental

Issues”? Should they worry about energy

conservation and carbon emission reductions if their

competitors are not? Many managers are at a loss

concerning the strategy that they should adopt to

deal with these issues (Boiral, 2006).

This research will look at the implementation and

subsequent use of information systems to manage

energy components, monitor energy usage and

implement potential energy efficiencies within

organizations. A BEMS is a complex system from

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the perspective of the firm, and as such the chosen

investigative framework will have to encompass

each perspective. The chosen framework is AST,

and it is developed in the next section.

3 PROPOSED CONCEPTUAL

FRAMEWORK AND

OBJECTIVES

IS implementation has been a research topic of

interest for the past three decades, and remains a

high priority due to the level of investment in, and

reliance upon these systems by the organisations. It

is also of importance due to the conflicting results

from existing research into IS implementation. As IS

become increasingly intertwined in the operations,

products, strategies, and infrastructure of

corporations, it is critical that the implementation be

successful (Alavi & Joachimsthaler, 1992). The

organisational complexity of large IS

implementations bring the problem of how to

conceptualise the relationship between, on the one

hand, IS development, and on the other hand,

ultimate system use and associated organisational

change (Alvarez, 2003).

A large body of implementation studies have

investigated the relationship between user-related

factors and implementation success (Alavi &

Joachimsthaler, 1992). Their research analysed user-

related factors (cognitive style, personality,

demographics and user-situational variables), and

contextual factors (decision-making tasks,

organisational factors and external factors).

Management support is considered to be a

critical factor in the successful implementation of IS

innovations (Sharma & Yetton, 2003). This success

remains a theoretical as well as a managerial issue.

Successful systems are defined by those which have

a significant uptake by the intended users. The

systems that are actually used by the users are most

likely to eventuate from a design process that

embraces a user-centred design (UCD) approach.

(Parker & Sinclair, 2001; Finlay & Forghani, 1998).

Implementation success refers to realising the

intended benefits of the IS (Zmud & Cox, 1979).

The difficulty associated with achieving this aim is

that it tends to be directly related to the complexity

of the IS, which is comprised of both technical and

organisational aspects.

Galliers (1991) states that if one takes a

sociotechnical perspective of IS, it can be argued

that IS are as much concerned with human activity

and the organisation as they are with technology - if

not more so. If this argument is accepted, it follows

that IS strategy should contain not only IT strategy,

but also such organisational issues as change

management and a human resource strategy. The

proposed AST model incorporates all of these

aspects (see Figure 1).

AST provides a conceptual model that helps to

capture the longitudinal change process (Schwieger

et al, 2004), and also helps to describe the interplay

between advanced information technologies (AIT),

social structures and human interaction. AST

extends current Structuration models of technology-

triggered change to consider the mutual influence of

technology and social pressures (DeSanctis & Poole,

1994). This research proposes a modified AST

model which provides a theoretical framework that

further investigates and explains the IS

implementation process, using several organisations

at different stages of implementation all using the

same AIT.

The act of bringing the rules and resources from

an AIT or other structural source into action is

termed structuration (DeSanctis & Poole, 1994).

Giddens (1979) uses the term “structuration” to

describe how structure enters into social action.

Appropriation is the manner in which structures are

adapted by the systems users for their own use

through a process called structuration (Gopal et al,

1992). A measure of faithfulness is how the user is

utilising the system compared to the systems actual

aims and objectives.

System success is a multidimensional trait and

cannot be described as a single measure, so clearly

the success of any IS implementation is founded on

addressing a broad spectrum of both technical and

organisational issues (Dhillon, 2004). With this in

mind, and taking the complexity of the system and

the complexity of the organisation into

consideration, AST is a suitable framework in which

to investigate the implementation as it incorporates

both aspects. The dearth of research on AST may be

attributed partly to its complexity (Chin et al, 1997),

and this research aims to add to the current body of

AST knowledge by applying it in the context of

energy management information systems, as there is

no current research which focuses on this aspect. As

DeSanctis and Poole (1994) point out “A critical

challenge is to systematise the research so that

technologies and interaction processes can be

meaningfully assessed and comparative analysis is

possible” (Chin et al, 1997).

Figure 1 has been adapted from the framework

that was proposed by DeSanctis & Poole (1994).

ENERGY MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF IMPLEMENTATIONS

USING ADAPTIVE STRUCTURATION THEORY

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The researcher has extended the “other sources of

structure” aspect of the original framework. As

outlined below, the researcher will now also be able

to discover what effect the external imperatives for

adoption have had on the choice of the technology

and on the process of appropriation of the AIT. Will

one implementation be more successful than a

second one that is occurring with stricter

imperatives? The framework will also take the

nature of the task into consideration. The researcher

will look at what exactly the organisation is trying to

achieve, and its impact on the overall process, if any.

The questions that the researcher would like to ask

as a result of the implementations are as follows:

1. Pre-adoption Decision Process: Are

companies aware of the present energy

situation? What are these companies doing

in relation to it? If they are adopting energy

management information systems, how are

they being implemented into the

organisations? What impact do differing

reasons for adopting energy management

have on the implementation process?

Structure of AIT

• Structural Features

Restrictiveness

Level of sophistication

Comprehensiveness

• Spirit

Decision process

Leadership

Efficiency

Conflict management

Atmosphere

Social Interaction

Decision outcomes

• Efficiency

• Quality

• Consensus

• Commitment

Emergent sources of structure

• AIT outputs

• Task outputs

• Organisation environment outputs

Appropriation of Structures

• Appropriation moves

• Faithfulness of

appropriation

• Instrumental uses

• Persistent attitudes

toward appropriation

Decision processes

• Idea generation

• Participation

• Conflict management

• Influence behaviour

• Task management

Other sources of structure:

• Task

• Organisational Environment

External Imperatives for energy

management

• Public good

Environmental

Legal

• Firm level

Cost savings

Corporate social responsibility

“Seen to be green”

Individual champion

• Sustainability

Figure 1: Proposed conceptual AST model for evaluating successful IS implementations, adapted from DeSanctis & Poole

(1994).

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2. Implementation Process: Impacts of the

implementation at an organisational level.

Was it appropriated in the correct manner?

Does correct appropriation of the

technology take place during IS

implementation? Does a successful

appropriation of the system (faithfulness of

appropriation) lead to a successful

implementation?

3. Post-implementation Process: Efficiency

and effectiveness. Is the organisation more

efficient as a result? Are the employees

making more effective decisions as a

result? Has it impacted the annual energy

spend?

4 RESEARCH APPROACH

After carefully examining all possible research

approaches for the research topic, the researcher

decided that a multi methodological approach

incorporating both case study and grounded theory

would be the most appropriate due to the nature of

the research area and also because the research is

concerned with theory building not theory testing

(see Figure 2). Benbasat et al (1987) has shown that

the goals of the researcher and the nature of the

research topic influence the selection of a research

strategy. In making this decision, the researcher took

into account the qualitative nature of the research,

the extent of available resources, the type of

information required and the suitability of each

research approach.

The researcher is also conducting short

interviews with approximately 20 organisations,

covering both the public and private sectors, as the

imperatives to adopt may be quite different across

the sectors. This data will help to define the problem

space further.

The researcher would like to investigate the

effect that the reasons for adopting energy

management has had on the appropriation of the

system. For example, what is the degree to which the

imperatives influence the outcomes of the

implementation?

With a grounded theory approach, theory

emerges from the process of data collection and

analysis. This means that the researcher does not

commence such a study with a defined theoretical

framework. Instead the researcher identifies

relationships between the data and develops

questions and hypotheses or propositions to test

these (Saunders et al, 2003). However, this type of

approach needs to commence with a clear research

purpose. The grounded theory approach of Strauss

and Corbin (1998) is structured and systematic, with

set procedures to follow at each stage of analysis.

These set procedures include the identification of

codes, concepts and categories from the analysis of

the data. Data collection commenced in October

2006, and the analysis is ongoing.

The chosen case studies are as follows:

Case Study #1 (Pre-implementation)

: A private

hospital in the West of Ireland. The hospital is two

years old and has a BMS installed. There is currently

no M&T software installed and the hospital is

currently trying to justify further spend on energy

related matters.

Case Study #2 (implementation)

: A large third-

level educational institution in the West of Ireland.

There is a BMS installed, and M&T software is

currently being installed. This is a large scale

Layer Exploration Phase Explanation Phase

1. Research Philosophy Interpretivistic

2. Research Approach Inductive/Deductive

3. Research Strategy Case Studies (20 companies)

Case Studies (4 companies)

Grounded Theory

4. Time Horizon Cross sectional Longitudinal

5. Data Collection Method

Interviews

Questionnaires

Interviews

Questionnaires

Documentation

Secondary data

Observation

Figure 2: Research philosophy, approach and strategy for this study.

ENERGY MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF IMPLEMENTATIONS

USING ADAPTIVE STRUCTURATION THEORY

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installation as 28 buildings will be integrated as part

of the new BEMS.

Case Study #3 (implementation)

: A private

pharmaceutical company in Dublin. They have a

cross-divisional energy team in place, and are in the

process of implementing a BEMS.

Case Study #4: (post-implementation):

private pharmaceutical company in Kerry. They

have a BEMS in operation for the past two years,

and are currently achieving cost savings as a result.

5 CONCLUSION AND NEXT

STEPS

The PhD commenced in October 2005. The case

studies commenced in October 2006, and the

primary data collection will take place for 12 months

and conclude in October 2007. The case studies will

run concurrently. The primary data is being

collected from questionnaires, interviews and

observation by the researcher. The researcher is

onsite with each organisation once a month,

depending on the schedule of the organisation.

Interviews are taking place with the energy

managers to get a view of the overall energy

situation with each case study.

With the use of grounded theory, strict

guidelines on how to do rigorous research using this

approach will be strictly adhered to, in line with the

leading experts in the area. Some academics have

concerns and doubts regarding the apparent lack of a

systematic approach and rigour in grounded theory

(Allen, 2006). With this in mind, the researcher will

ensure to adopt and complete the data analysis

methods which must be systematically followed in

grounded theory research projects to reach reliable

findings which lead to meaningful conclusions.

The research will give rise to an insight into,

and analysis of, effective implementations of energy

management systems in organisations. This may

engender an organisation with the following

capabilities: an increase in EE, effective DSM, a

decrease in energy use, a lowering of emissions, a

lowering in potential carbon tax trading costs, help

in achieving the Kyoto targets set by the agreement,

and an overall decrease in the annual energy budget.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The researcher would like to thank the Irish

Research Council for Science, Engineering and

Technology (IRCSET) for the current PhD funding

in the form of an Embark Initiative Scholarship.

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