Jon Iden

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About

Jon Iden is a leading scholar in the field of information systems, with a primary focus on the governance and organizational impact of emerging technologies, particularly Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and lightweight IT. His research addresses the critical tension between business-driven innovation and centralized IT control. Iden’s major contributions include pioneering work on how organizations can effectively structure RPA initiatives, introducing the concept of balancing “loose and tight coupling” to manage the inherent conflict between local business unit agility and the need for enterprise-wide governance. His 2019 paper on this topic has garnered 55 citations, while his earlier study on lightweight IT in a Norwegian bank—a landmark case analysis—has been cited 41 times. This latter work was among the first to empirically demonstrate how RPA and other lightweight technologies challenge the traditional role of the IT function. Iden’s research is highly influential for both academics and practitioners, providing a foundational framework for understanding the governance challenges of digital automation. His work is essential reading for anyone studying the evolving role of IT in the age of citizen developers and software robots.