Information Systems in Organisations

張娟

Abstract：In todays information age, the application and construction of information systems became the central element of organizational development. Except the influence of information technology, the organisational culture plays a most important role in the implementation of information systems. This paper aimed at information producers, information users, information content and the information channels four parts of information elements to analysis the affects of organisational culture on information system in organisations. In particular, power distance, individualism and collectivism and uncertainty avoidance as three main theory models of Hofstedes culture theory were be applied in this paper.

Key Word: organisational culture; information systems; Hofstedes culture theory

Information as a collection of things phenomena and their properties has been recognised and employed by more and more people. Especially in this age of information, a lot of organizations regard the focus on the establishment and adjustment of their information systems, in order to achieve greater operational efficiency. An information system is a kind of system which includes information processing, information transmission, information storage, and information application (Elsevier 2010). Information systems not only involve computers and related modern technology, but also purely man-made. Therefore, modern information system is a man-machine coexistence system. People are the subjects of information system implementation, and a variety of human behaviours fundamentally affected by the organisational culture. However, the studies of information systems mostly focused on the solution of technical issues, but ignored the impact of cultural factors. If the organisation does not realize the importance of the organizational culture to information systems, then the implementation and development of information systems would be difficult to achieve the expectant purpose. This paper will present the definition of organisational culture to promote the understanding of this term. And then according to Hofstedes culture theory, the implications of organisational culture on information system in organisations will be discussed from information producers, information users, information content and the information channels four parts.

1?Definition

Each organization has its own set of rules to guide employee behaviour. The policies and management procedures of organisations ordain employees behaviour rigidly, and the customs, practices and traditions form the soft constraints to employees. These two aspects constitute the basic elements of organizational culture. Organizational culture is a kind of organizational “personality” brought by these rules which must be recognized by the organizational members, such as values, attitude, operation mode, work atmosphere and behaviours (organizational culture 2007). In other words, organizational culture on the employees is the thinking patterns and behaviour habit.

Gareth Morgan has described organizational culture as: “The set of beliefs, values and norms, together with symbols like dramatized events and personalities that represents the unique character of an organization, and provides the context for action in it and by it.”(Morgan, 1997: 140) Normally, beliefs and values are presented frequently in other definitions as well, and norms could be understood as traditions, structure of authority, or routines. On the other hand, Scheins definition of organizational culture is: “ The deeper level of basic assumptions and beliefs that are: learned responses to the groups problems of survival in its external environment and its problems of internal integration; are shared by members of an organization; that operate unconsciously; and that define in a basic “taken -for-granted” fashion in an organizations view of itself and its environment.” (Schein, 1993: 373). Although the two individuals are from different perspectives to define the organizational culture, the explanation of the meaning is similar.

It can be seen that there is no single definition for organizational culture. However, the so-called organisational culture is formed gradually in long period activities and represented the philosophy, image, norm, social responsibility and all spiritual values of an organisation. It is the advocated by leaders as well as accepted and identified by the all employees.

2?Effects

An information system is mainly composed by the information sender (information producers), the information receiver (information users), the information itself (information content) and the information channels four parts. This paper through the power distance, individualism and collectivism and uncertainty avoidance the three dimensions of culture to analyse the effects of organizational culture in the information producers, information content, information users and information channels of information systems. (Hofstede, 1994)

2.1?power distance

Power distance refers to the peoples acceptance of the hierarchy in the organization. High power distance means that the power and status of upper and lower levels in the organization has a very significant difference. In a high power distance cultural context, subordinates more likely to obey the superior leaders and few will be involved in the decision-making process. (Hofstede, 1994) In different organisations, the responsibility is determined by the hierarchy, while identifying information flows and holdings. For the information producers and information channels, in a high power distance cultural context, leaders give information directions and then the subordinates execute directly, so that the speed of information flow could be improved because of the one-way method. However, the little feedback could lead to the decision-making not meet the organizations development. If under the low power distance cultural context, the flow of information more likely to perform as two-way method, which is help the leaders adjust the information directions in time. For the information content, leaders in a high power distance cultural context would pay more attention to the concentration and ownership of information than them in a low power distance cultural context. (Hofstede, 1994) For information users, power distance determines the level of trust and use of information by users. For example, in a high power distance cultural context, the relationship between teacher and student is not equal, the education process conform to the teacher-oriented. Therefore it is impossible to encourage students to apply other information sources which are different from the teacher recommended. And the content of the examinations is the knowledge which taught in the classroom; in a low power distance cultural context, teachers are more likely to encourage students to solve problems by themselves, instead of given an “accurate answer”. By helping students to identify and use other sources of information, teachers teach students the way of learning and the using of information resources, so that students could filter out information relevant to their needs from a lot of information resources. This organisational culture promotes the emergence of new information with this Information System.

2.2?individualism and collectivism

Individualism and collectivism refers to the emphasis of peoples individual interests or collective interests. (Hofstede, 1994)Individualistic culture emphasizes the individual goals and individual decision-making in management activities. In the information system which under the Individualistic culture, Information more easily be effectively concentrated and protected, so that create multiple information silos. The information producers more concerned about the privacy and preservation of information and data. To a certain extent, the information silos to prevent the circulation of information to the outside system or other sectors of one system, which increases the value of some special information resources. Whereas, it establishes the gap of information communication and reduces the exchangeable of information resources. Such as some business companies, the various departments of the company develop alone. And each department make the investment to build their own department information system, lead to a wide variety of information systems were build within the company. Therefore, they treat production and sales as units, only taken their respective departments into account for the development of their interests. On the contrary, collectivism put more emphasis on the sharing of resources. In this organisational culture context, whether the information producers or information users both treat the whole system development as the goal, or even would allow to joint external systems for common development (Hofstede, 1994). For instance, the report of the university of Sheffield mentioned that universitys virtual learning environments as an information culture build a content-rich learning platform which fuse internally-generated information and externally-generated, and shorten the distance of information transmission (The University of Sheffield, 2006-2009). It improved the sharing of information effectively, and increased the channels of the access of information. Under the collectivism culture context, the exchange and sharing of information between different departments are more common. Organisation members release information and receive information from other members, in order to insure the maximum utilization of information as a way to seek the common interests.

2.3?uncertainty avoidance

Uncertainty avoidance refers to the tolerance level of people on environmental uncertainty. Studies have shown that the organisation which keep the low tolerance to uncertainty environment, also called the organisation with the high uncertainty avoidance more inclined to rely on the formulation and implementation of rules and regulations to reduce environmental uncertainty, and through the development of a detailed plan to control the risk (Hofstede, 1994). However, in the organization with the low uncertainty avoidance, people maintain the tolerance on the uncertainty environment. They consider that environmental change is inevitable and put more focused on how to adapt to the environmental changes. In practice management, the adaption of the environment uncertainty relies on the managers experience and intuition. For example, the people in the low uncertainty avoidance are more inclined to change their behaviour to adapt to the environment. The emergence of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system stimulate?the reformation of information system. Some organisations with low uncertainty avoidance are likely to employ these new systems in order to reach the step of development of information system. The new information systems have the opportunity to quickly improve the effectiveness and integrity of information systems in this organisation. However, it may not be appropriate for the organization (Feng, 2003). If the organisation rushed to establish a new information system before have a full understanding and comprehensive consideration of the linkages between the systems, it is possible to result in incompatibility between the new systems and old systems in the future.

In the high uncertainty avoidance organisational culture context, the subordinate of this organisation more likely to follow rules and directly listen to orders from their superiors. They do not want to make the relevant changes for outside stimuli, but rather in accordance with conventional treatment (Hofstede, 1994). This situation easy to maintain the stability of information systems, and the organisation could also be easily eliminated in the fierce competition of information. Therefore, under the high uncertainty avoidance culture, the members of organisation are unlikely to observe these unexpected opportunity and will not to collect the necessary information for the evaluation of these opportunities. Compare with the high uncertainty avoidance culture, the low uncertainty avoidance culture is more possible to inspire system innovation. Because the innovation and the use of external information exist necessary link, in other words, innovative ideas depend on external stimulus.

In addition, the reliability of different types of information carriers is also different, on the one hand it refers to the confidentiality, and on the other hand it refers to its ability of save information. The uncertainty avoidance of culture has the certain impacts in this aspect. For example, the nature of oral communication of information means that the exchange of information cannot be recorded permanently. However, formal communication channels, such as books and magazines can store the information for a long time. In particular, some new electronic carriers, such as e-mail and WWW, its confidentiality and the ability to save information still unable to reach the level of printed materials. Thus, those organisations with a high uncertainty avoidance culture are unwilling to bear this risk, and the using these new carriers should significantly lag behind those who with low uncertainty avoidance culture.

In the context of the rapid development of information, people put more attention on the application and development of information systems. Organizational culture as a soft constraint, defines the behaviour and values of organization members. To some extent, it directly affected the implementation of information system. This paper explained the meaning of organizational culture and presented its various elements. After that, based on the theory of Professor Hofstedes culture dimensions, information producers, information users, information content and the information channels as four parts of culture were discussed. It can be seen that different organisation cultures affect the choice of different information systems. However, the low uncertainty avoidance culture would be encouraged in the development of information system in the future. Because it able to adapt to the environment change, and could provide more spaces for the information development of the organizations.

Reference:

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