Knowledge that Transforms

Norway's Telenor Research and Development developed and implemented ‘a communication system to support local politicians. The system's graphical interface makes it easy for politicians to make phone calls, set up telephone conferences, and send and receive e- mail and faxes. An integrated document handler supports the exchange of documents between politicians and local government officers. A two-year field trial demonstrated that the system provides useful and effective information technology support for local politicians. The field trial also provides insights into furthering the development of teledemocracy.

Experience with information technology (IT) implementation in the local administrations of less developed countries (LDCs) has been largely disappointing. Conventional wisdom suggests that such implementation efforts are usually inappropriate to the information-poor environments of many LDCs. This study describes the Governorates Project in Egypt, which seems to have been an encouraging exception to such “wisdom.” The project, which was initiated in 1987 by the Egyptian Cabinet's Information and Decision Support Center (IDSC), represented a significant administrative and technological innovation because it sought to implement an IDSC in each of the 27 governorates of Egypt. The purpose of each governorate IDSC was to provide computer- based information and decision support to the governor and other local administrators. Based on our findings, three stages of the project are identified—implementation, evaluation, and transformation of the innovation. Three theoretical perspectives derived from past research, i.e., functional, political/symbolic, and social information processing, were used to explain the project outcomes, such as the governors' perceptions and behaviors concerning their IDSCs. Results suggest that the symbolic/political and social information processing perspectives had considerable power in explaining the outcomes during implementation, whereas the functional perspective was particularly effective in explaining the outcomes during evaluation and transformation. The theoretical framework and findings suggest considerable potential for understanding IT implementations in both business and administrative settings.

What motivates use of an expert system? Recent studies have found that the anticipated performance benefits of using an expert system—such as increases in decision quality, consistency, and speed of decision making— can lead to increases in expected usage. But is motivation limited to performance benefits? Findings in job design theory suggest that other factors—such as increasing a user's sense of control over a task or making a task less routine—might also have an impact. If so, understanding these factors could be extremely valuable to managers seeking to build expert systems that will be readily accepted by users. This paper synthesizes findings from expert systems, information systems, and job design research to model how the task change experienced by an expert systems user during adoption can affect that user’s motivation to continue using the system. Using existing task constructs from the job design literature, a simplified version of the model is operationalized and tested on a data set of expert systems (all constructed in the early and mid-1980s) for which extensive quantitative and qualitative task-change data was available, as well as data on systems usage. The findings suggest significant relationships between the nature of the task changes associated with adoption and long-term usage of the systems, all consistent with the predictions of the job design literature. The study, therefore, concludes that a job design perspective of expert systems adoption can be a valuable tool in predicting user acceptance and, ultimately, systems usage.

Orchestrating programs of organizational transformation that result in sustained process improvement represents a difficult managerial challenge. Yet, ever-changing customer requirements, electronic partnerships, and increasingly complex intraorganizational arrangements are forcing many well-established firms to transform themselves from function-based forms of organization into processbased systems of managerial, task, and evaluative arrangements. Through a program of managed transformation, the Information Services (IS) function at Bose Corporation has realized dramatic improvements in the delivery of information products/services and is now “charting the course” for a sustained process management view that will define and measure business relationships well into the next century. In contrast to many well-publicized programs of change, the drive toward sustained process improvement and innovation by Bose IS resembles an evolutionary model of organizational learning and information sharing rather than a revolutionary model of immediate and drastic transformation. This study describes the defining stages, key events, and obstacles of the road traveled by Bose IS in transforming itself from a corporate utility into an enterprise-wide source of process innovation and improvement.

Terri L. Griffith, Gregory B. Northcraft, Cognitive Elements in the Implementation of New Technology: Can Less Information Provide More Benefits?, MIS Quarterly, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Mar., 1996), pp. 99-110

This article presents a new approach to the management of evolutionary prototyping projects. The prototyping approach to systems development emphasizes learning and facilitates meaningful communication between systems developers and users. These benefits are important for rapid creation of flexible, usable information resources that are well- tuned to present and future business needs. The main unsolved problem in prototyping is the difficulty in controlling such projects. This problem severely limits the range of practical projects in which prototyping can be used. The new approach suggested in this article uses an explicit risk mitigation model and management process that energizes and enhances the value of prototyping in technology delivery. An action research effort validates this risk analysis approach as one that focuses management attention on consequences and priorities inherent in a prototyping situation. This approach enables appropriate risk resolution strategies to be placed in effect before the prototyping process breaks down. It facilitates consensus building through collaborative decision making and is consistent with a high degree of user involvement.

In an effort to boost meeting productivity and success, managers may employ trained group facilitators. They may also implement group support systems (GSS) for the same reason. The two approaches can be taken separately or together. In this study, in-depth interviews with 37 practicing facilitators provided their perspectives on critical factors that influence meeting success and potential benefits and concerns with the use of GSS. Respondents focused on a core of communication and group process skills as critical for facilitator success. Overall, the respondents observed or anticipated more efficient and effective task performance as benefits of GSS technology. Their concerns focused on technology-related issues: participant anxiety, systems inflexibility, and systems reliability. Views of facilitators with high and low levels of GSS experience are largely consistent. High-experience GSS facilitators viewed technical issues as more central to meeting success, while low-experience GSS facilitators focused more heavily on attributes of the group. The paper concludes by offering suggestions for identifying and training GSS facilitators and comments on key issues of importance to GSS designers, based on the facilitator's perspective.

We wrote this essay to stimulate IS specialists’ efforts to become more effective — and more credible — agents of organizational change. The essay describes what we believe to be a view of the IS specialists’ change-agent role that is very commonly held by IS specialists. We believe that this role, while well-intentioned and supported by structural conditions in IS work, often has negative consequences for organizations and for the credibility of IS specialists. Further, it does not fit the emerging structural conditions of IS. We describe two alternative models of what it means to be a change agent, their potential consequences, and the structural conditions that support or inhibit behavior in that role. We conclude that increased behavioral flexibility of IS specialists — the ability to switch roles in different circumstances — would improve organizational effectiveness and IS specialist credibility. Finally, we discuss the implications of our analysis for research, teaching, and practice.

Because organizations seek more innovative ways to compete, the ability of their employees to generate new and valuable ideas becomes a fundamental survival skill. To the extent that computer software might enhance the creative performance of individual users, organizations might ultimately apply such tools to enhance the creative performance of their employees. A controlled laboratory experiment was performed to determine whether two popular creativity support applications significantly enhanced the creative performance of individual users. The results suggest that responses generated with software support are significantly more novel and valuable than responses generated by pen and paper. The results also question the previous creativity research practice of not directly controlling for idea fluency prior to experimental manipulation. It is hoped the findings from this investigation can be used to improve individual creative performance, further research concerning factors relevant to creativity, and guide future ICSS development efforts.