List three organizational factors that can prevent a firm in fully realizing the benefits of a new information system and provide examples for each?

Answer 1

Features of organizations include the organization's culture, politics, and structure. A new information system might be resisted by end users or by managers for political reasons, because they are concerned about the political changes the system implies. For example, a new system might lessen the authority of a manager in overseeing the employees, and he or she may not want to relinquish this power. A new information system might challenge the organization's culture and be resisted for this reason. For example, an information system might allow students at a university to take self-managed courses, while the university's basic cultural assumptions include the concept that professors are the purveyors of knowledge. An information system, by allowing the distribution of knowledge, may be better used in a company with a flatter organization. A company with a highly stratified hierarchy may have difficulty adjusting its business processes and structures to an information system that does not follow the same business hierarchy of information.

Answer 2

1. Culture: All organizations have a foundation of unquestioned assumptions that define their goals and products. These assumptions include what products should be produced, how they should be produced, where and for whom they should be produced. Sharing the same cultural assumptions, agreement on other matters is more likely. Any changes that threaten or undermine these assumptions will most likely be met with resistance. For example, if a company stops paying overtime at time and a half, employees might feel undervalued and be less willing to work extra hours.

2. Politics: People in an organizations occupy different positions with different specialties, concerns, and perspectives. This means that they naturally have opposing views about how resources, rewards, and punishments should be distributed. This results in political struggles for resources, competition, and conflict within every organization.

3. Environments: Organizations reside in environments which they draw resources and to which they supply goods and services. Organization and environments have a reciprocal relationship, meaning that organizations are depended on the social and physical environment and organizations can influence their environment. For example, business firms form alliances with other businesses to influence the political process (they advertise to influence customer acceptance of their products.)