Creating a Culture for Information Systems Success, Second Edition

Zakariya Belkhamza

• Publisher: Business Expert Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781948976329
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Information Management
• Index: Business

The objective of Creating a Culture for Information Systems Success is to assist CIOs and IT managers on how to use their managerial actions to create a suitable cultural environment in the organization that leads to a successful and sustainable implementation of information systems function.

In the era of disruptive technology, the dilemma of why a particular information system encountered unanticipated resistance and never met expectations is still considered an emerging issue. While this context has been intensively studied, we still lack evidence on how this organizational context is affecting the success of information systems from a managerial action perspective. This type of managerial involvement is often neglected to the extent that it becomes a major obstacle to organizational performance.

The book provides guidelines for managers on how to create this organizational context, measure it, and make sure it leads to a successful implementation and use of information systems. It carefully illustrates its main theme by providing examples and cases to explain how the behavioral context of an organization led by its managers and executives would lead to the success of the information systems function.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

One of the most important concerns for information systems executives is how to measure and improve the effectiveness of organizational information systems. Information technology’s (IT) efficiency in organizations has been consistently reported as a major concern for chief information officers (CIOs) and executives.¹ This is because it is difficult to differentiate the effect of information systems on organizational performance from the effect of other factors. Many studies suggest that poor information systems in the organization generate poor organizational performance. Thus, high information systems effectiveness is associated with high organizational performance.

Similarly, the correlation between information systems and the culture has always been critical, an issue that is often cited as the top priority for CIOs. According to a survey by the CIO magazine (2014)², cultivating the IT business has been reported as one of the top three activities of a CIO. In this era of digitalization and technological innovation, digital transformation in business is changing the nature of the CIO’s job, while addressing broad-based culture change still appears to be a key barrier of resistance by major CIOs, according to Gartner’s 2018 CIO Agenda Report.³ This is not surprising, as the claim that the information systems in the organization did not fit its culture is often part of the explanation of why a particular information system encountered unanticipated resistance and never met expectations. As the worlds of business and organizations are synergizing in an increasingly faster manner, we are faced with various challenges in organizational forms; therefore, IT executives need to take a closer look at the link between organizational culture and information systems if they want to succeed in their businesses.

This book will help IT executives and managers investigate this problem by touching on three main issues:

1. The first issue this book will investigate is the aspect of information systems success. What do we mean by information systems success? Different people have addressed different aspects of success, interpreting a successful system differently. To some, a successful system is simply a system that does not fail. To others, a successful system is the one that is proven to be effective and efficient. However, what we have observed is that it has proven to be practically impossible to define and measure the effectiveness of the information systems function. One important reason for this observation is that the effect of the information systems function on organizational performance and effectiveness can be subtle and difficult to differentiate from the effect of other factors. Some organizations define information systems effectiveness as the capacity of the system to unveil hidden values in its use. Others depend mostly on qualitative rather than quantitative measures. Within the organizational context, we argue that the effective deployment of information systems provides a great value to the organization, and this is what we are going to show in this book.
2. The second issue after defining information systems success is how to integrate the information systems aspect into the business organization’s context. This is important because there is a mismatch between information systems and the culture of the organization. We can clearly see this gap if we ask IT executives how many times they have evaluated their systems from the cultural perspectives of their own organizations. The assessment is usually undertaken from the perspective of the structure and design of the system, while ignoring the behavioral and cultural context of the organization. When we ask why, the answer is clear: Assessing the behavior and culture where the system is operated is subjective because it involves human emotions, thus making this evaluation process difficult to be undertaken and hard to interpret.
3. The third issue that will be discussed in this book is how do we evaluate the system based on this definition of organizational culture? Which measurement is suitable for the context of the organization in which the information system is integrated?

While we can see that there are many measurements around, we cannot deny that these measurements are suffering from conflicting definitions and inconsistencies in operationalization. Although there are many approaches that conceptualize the organizational culture, the dominant approach conceptualizes climate as employees’ shared perceptions of organizational events, practices, and procedures. However, the lack of a theoretical basis for many organizational climate instruments has led to many variations in organizational culture dimensions employed in different measures. We will go through these measurements and show why measuring the information systems success from a cultural viewpoint is what any IT executive needs in their systems assessment.

We hope that this book will shed light on some important features in the relationship between organizational culture and information systems success, which is not widely approached, compared to the technical approaches that are dominating the information systems measurements. Since the information systems implementation is in fact a process of organizational change, it could be considered as a process of change, where, if a key criterion of information systems and culture is integrated, we can definitely observe a successful outcome of the information systems in the organization.

As new information systems applications find their ways into organizations and as they are used by increasing number of staff for various organizational tasks, the structure of the technology is infused into the social structure of the organization. However, information systems implementation must not be taken to mean the effect of the systems just through the use of their applications. The information systems process goes beyond use, when it is concerned with IT-related planning, selecting, purchasing, and evaluating. All these activities involve the human factor, as they affect the routines, practices, beliefs, and values of IT managers and executives throughout the organization. This concept of information systems must not be neglected.

What we are going to see in the following chapters is the establishment of an emerging approach that seems to be more appropriate for the assessment of the information systems. This approach is based on the information systems manager’s perception as a user of the performance of all the aspects of the information function experienced within the organization. We believe that this is important because information systems functions include all information systems groups and departments within the organization. The information systems functions use resources to enhance information systems performance, which in turn influences business process effectiveness and organizational performance.

From an industrial perspective, the contribution of information systems-based assets to organizational performance that provides a benchmark based on which the many processes of the information systems function, including business information system, can be evaluated and refined. Without the benefit of these measures, information systems assets may be undervalued by users and top executives, resulting in shortened budget allocations and lower managerial profiles for top information systems executives. In other instances, the absence of reliable performance metrics may cause users and top managers to overvalue information systems assets. Users and strategic planners may therefore be unaware of innovations adopted by competing organizations that are enhancing and changing their patterns of work and competition. The lack of validated and complete performance criteria in either of the two instances can result in misguided decisions regarding the acquisition, design, and delivery of information systems.

In this book, we also investigate the culture from a managerial action perspective, which leads to an assessment of information systems success from the users’ perception within the business unit of the organization. The users’ perception is part of the behavioral context that forms the culture of the organization. Improved organizational performance depends primarily on culture, where managers are able to build and fulfill their managerial roles and processes. This managerial role can lead the organization to create and embed a work ethic in its context that induces rational, yet value-oriented, actions on the part of its members. These characteristics are considered as key dimensions for quality management that induce the creation of a favorable and supportive organizational culture for improved organizational performance, and thus information systems effectiveness.

Another important point we make regarding managerial action perspective is that the approach is sociotechnical in nature. This explains the fact that implementing information systems is not just putting together a number of technical devices and organizational procedures. This argument also stresses that some other variables within the organization should be considered, which might also influence the ultimate success or failure of the implementation effort. By adopting this perspective, we also highlight that the long-term success of IT depends on how IT-based work tasks are managed at the local level. In other words, the capabilities of IT can only be maximized if the local management style is also aware of such capabilities and is willing to take advantage of them as part of the implementation process. This can be achieved, as we will explain later, only by building an organizational context shaped by a managerial action assisting the information systems implementation process.

This view also comes from the understanding that IT managers and CIOs not only manage systems, but also manage people. They need to invest in people, because it is the key to achievement. As many CIOs recognize, people development is not ancillary in the organization; it has to be a core responsibility for them in order to drive success.

Summary

This chapter introduces the idea of the book, which is the correlation between information systems and the culture of the organization. The claim that the information systems in the organization did not fit its culture has often been a justification for the failure of many systems in organizations. The following chapters discuss information systems success, culture in relation to information systems, and the measurement of assessing information systems effectiveness from a managerial action perspective, which is the key for a sustainable culture in organization.

CHAPTER 2

Implementing Information Systems in Organizations

If you cannot describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you are doing.

—W. Edwards Deming

Introduction

We start this chapter by discussing the definition and implementation of information systems. We then explain how information systems implementation affects the process of organizational change. This effect can be either as a process of technical innovation in the organization or as a process of organizational maturity. We further discuss the approaches of the information systems implementation in the organization: the technological approach, the organizational approach, and the sociotechnical approach.

Definition of Information Systems

Across all schools of information systems discipline, the view of information systems is changing in two different aspects: The first aspect is to acknowledge an information system as both a technical and a social system, and the second aspect is to acknowledge the emerging technological innovation in data management. These two acknowledgments imply a richer view of the problems of information systems development, in relation to organizational changes.

However, defining the term information systems is considered a challenge. This is because the term information systems is used to refer to many kinds of objects that share common aspects. For example, we may consider an information system as an autonomous organization whose purpose is to provide information to its clients. We may also consider an information system to be a subsystem existing in any system that is capable of governing itself as an autonomous system. The first aspect assures the communication between the managerial and operational subsystems of an organization, which is its purpose, while the second acts as a memory to store the outcome of such communication.

In both aspects, it is clear that information systems deal with information, either directly related to the organization or to the work carried out in the organization.

Among the best definitions of information systems that are aligned with the scope of this book is what Professor Frank Land of the London School of Economics puts forward. He defines an information system as

a social system, which has embedded in it IT. The extent to which IT plays a part is increasing rapidly. But this does not prevent the overall system from being a social system, and it is not possible to design a robust, effective information system, incorporating significant amounts of the technology without treating it as a social system.¹

This definition, despite being 30 years old, contains the vital concepts that many are still considering, as it deeply underlines the practical composite between IT and the social element of its functional environment.

Another important definition put forward by Professor Steven Alter of the University of San Francisco explains information systems based on a more general concept of a work system. This work system is “a system in which human participants and/or machines perform activities using IT, and other resources to produce specific products or services for specific internal or external customers.”²

Following these two definitions, information systems are commonly recognized as work systems in which their activities and processes are committed to information processing, such as transmitting, storing, capturing, manipulating, retrieving, and displaying information. Furthermore, this definition highlights the important point that dealing with information systems requires dealing with two types of entities: one with a social nature and another with a technological nature.

On the other hand, the emerging advanced technologies that we have witnessed in recent years have had a great fundamental impact on the way we see information systems. The Big Data revolution has changed the way information is collected, stored, managed, and consumed, transforming the many traditional ways we are used to regarding our information systems.

Besides the Big Data revolution, digital transformation is another concept that finds its way in the strategic agendas of the business executives, and it is tightly related to the systems enterprises use for information management and decision making.

Although the concept of transformation is not new, the use of systems and technology in this transformation is what make this concept a state-of-the-art, shaping the organizational outcome. In its original form, transformation deals with the following managerial practices:

Reengineering: improving overall organizational efficiency while only partially addressing the better engagement of the workforce;

Restructuring: improving efficiency without necessarily improving...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Introduction
• Chapter 2 Implementing Information Systems in Organizations
• Chapter 3 Measuring Information Systems Success
• Chapter 4 Organizational Context
• Chapter 5 Conclusion
• Notes
• References
• Further Readings
• About the Author
• Index