Susan J. Harrington

Sharing knowledge through intranets: a study of organizational culture and intranet implementation

Explores factors affecting the implementation of intranets, which are the technology upon which many knowledge management (KM) systems are built. Because intranets facilitate the sharing of employee knowledge, many believe that organizational culture influences intranet implementation. The results of this study found that intranet implementation is facilitated by a culture that emphasizes an atmosphere of trust and concern for other people (ethical culture), flexibility and innovation (developmental culture), and policies, procedures and information management (hierarchical culture). Management should ensure that the proper values are in place to optimize intranet implementation and to facilitate knowledge sharing.

The Relationship of Communication, Ethical Work Climate, and Trust to Commitment and Innovation

Recently, Hosmer (1994a) proposed a model linking “right,” “just,” and “fair” treatment of extended stakeholders with trust and innovation in organizations. The current study tests this model by using Victor and Cullens (1988) ethical work climate instrument to measure the perceptions of the “right,” “just,” and “fair” treatment of employee stakeholders.In addition, this study extends Hosmers model to include the effect of “right,” “just”, and “fair” treatment on employee communication, also believed to be an underlying dynamic of trust.More specifically, the current study used a survey of 111 managers to test (1) whether “right,” “just,” and “fair” treatment influences trust, both directly as well as indirectly via communication, and (2) whether trust influences perceptions of commitment and innovation. Strong support for the studys hypotheses and Hosmers (1994a) model was found. Such findings support those who argue that moral management may be good management.

Telecommuting: a test of trust, competing values, and relative advantage

The advent of technologies that enable virtual work arrangements brings with it a challenge to managers: do they trust their employees to work outside of their presence? A perceived loss of control and a sense of being taken advantage of, may be experienced by a manager as employees disappear from the managers daily gaze. To enable the transition of employees to virtual work arrangements, managers who work in bureaucratic organizations that value a high degree of control and stability may need to change their management style to accommodate new methods of employee communication and interaction. Alternately, corporate cultures well suited for the transition value results and are characterized as having the atmosphere of trust (a shared emotional understanding about who is to be trustee based on compatible values and open communications/attitudes). Telecommuting, as one form of virtual work arrangement, provides a prime opportunity to look into the management attitudes and corporate cultures that may hinder the transition of workers into remote settings. The study of telecommuting among information technology (IT) professionals suggests that management trust of employees, the ability to secure the technology involved, a rational culture, and a group culture, which emphasizes human resources and member participation, facilitate telecommuting implementation. Thus the study offers strong support for the important role of trust, security, and culture in the implementation of virtual work arrangements.

Telework: an innovation where nobody is getting on the bandwagon?

Despite predictions over the years that many employees would soon be teleworking from their homes, neither employees in general nor information systems (IS) professionals in particular, whose work is especially appropriate for telework, have begun teleworking to any large extent. The reasons for this lack of telework growth are empirically untested. Yet an understanding of why organizations and IS departments are not joining the telework bandwagon is critical if predictions of improved flexibility and productivity through telework are to be realized.This study used innovation theory to suggest key variables that may be related to telework use among IS programmer/analysts. A national survey of IS executives was used to obtain information on the variables relevant to IS telework assimilation. The survey resulted in responses from 252 IS departments describing their telework arrangements.Key variables related to both the adoption stage and the infusion stage of IS teleworking were middle management support for telework, administrative intensity, and professionalism. A variable significantly related only to the adoption decision was centralization. The key variable related only to the infusion stage was size. The variables that were not related to either adoption or infusion were specialization and formalization, suggesting that bureaucracy alone is not an obstacle to telework.Overall, the findings suggest a bottom-up initiation of telework; i.e., that programmer/analysts are initiating telework arrangements. Lack of middle management support for telework has a strong negative effect on the assimilation of telework. Thus, this study suggests that future research may wish to investigate further the reasons for lack of managerial support. Moreover, the lack of organizations getting on the telework bandwagon, together with the variables found significant in this study, suggest fruitful areas for future research may be an analysis of the type of publicity describing telework arrangements, managerial knowledge of telework arrangements, the nature of IS work appropriate for telework, and the managerial skills demanded by telework.

Hospital organization culture, capacity to innovate and success in technology adoption.

PURPOSE Absorptive capacity has been defined as an organizations ability to recognize the value of new information, assimilate it, and apply it to productive ends. This study aims to examine the type of organization culture that influences the capacity of hospital organizations to innovate by absorbing new technology and the importance of this absorptive capacity in information technology (IT) implementation success. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH Based on previous research, this study proposes a measure of absorptive capacity that includes managerial IT knowledge and communication channels and tests its relationship to the level of success implementing new systems. A sample of 192 hospital administrators shared their opinions about their organizations culture, ability to absorb new technology, and the extent to which their latest IT implementation operational for at least one year has been a success. FINDINGS The results show the importance of organization culture as an important factor in developing absorptive capacity, and the latters influence in the implementation of new technologies. ORIGINALITY/VALUE The study provides insights into the types of activities that management should undertake in order to enhance absorptive hospital capacity.

The anomaly of other-directedness: when normally ethical I.S. personnel are unethical

Despite the existence of laws and much publicity surrounding illegal software copying, it is widely believed that software copying is commonplace. Yet reasons why such illegal behavior continues to occur are lacking. This study used a model of ethical decision making as a guide for research and found the individual factor of other-directedness helped explain IS personnels intentions toward illegal software copying. No such individual factor was related to judgments concerning right and wrong. These findings suggest that highly other-directed IS personnel may behave against their better judgment, especially in cases where they perceive unethical behavior is commonplace. Implications for management and ethics education are discussed.

The contingency effect of organization size on programmer/analyst telecommuting

This study examined the relationship of organization size to the adoption and implementation of telecommutirtg among IS programrnerlanalysts. The intermediate variables of organizational resources and environmental threats tieettxi telecommuting adoption, whereas intermediate variables related to organizational structure affkcted telecommuting implementation in large organizations. No such relationships were found for small organizations despite the greater adoption and implementation of telecommuting in small organizations. Implications for innovation researchers are discussed. INTRODUCTION The advent of more sophisticated and less expensive communications technology and the need to tind and retain good programmers and analysts has led some organizations to encourage telecomrnuting* among irdiorrnation systems (IS) personnel (cf. Furger, 1989; Miller, 1986). Moreover, IS personnel, with their skills, equipment and temperament are ideally suited for telecommuting (Davis, 1991; DeSanctis, 1983), and programmers are believed to fmd telecommuting highly desirable (Raths, 1990). Yet, despite predictions over the years that telecommuting would soon become a common occurrence, telecommuting has not become so, particularly in larger organizations (Christensen, 1990; Filipowski, 1992). The fact that telecornmuting among IS persomel is not meeting expectations and is not finding its way into larger organizations in particular has implications for the fi.tture of the information highway and global competition. Recent predictions suggest that the use of telecommuting and groupware will enable workers to communicate horn roving positions anywhere in the world, thereby atTording greater productivity and worker flexibility (Jarvenpaa and Ives, 1994). Permission to make digitallhard copies of all or part of this material for personal or claaaroom use is granted without fee provided that the copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage, the copyright notice, the title. of the publication and its date appear, and notice is given that copyright is by permission of the ACM, Inc. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires specific permission and/or fee. SIGCPR/ SIGMIS ’96, Denver Colorado USA @ :996 ACM o-s9791-782-O/96/04. .

Corporate culture, absorptive capacity and IT success

3.50 In light of the unmet expectations about telecommuting in larger organizations, it is somewhat surprising to note that the innovation literature generally suggests that larger organizations are more innovative than smaller organizations (Llunanpour, 1992). Such a relationship has been found in business practices that include both innovations in general and specific groups of innovations ranging from Computer-Aided Software Engineering (CASE) usage to human resource practices (W and Howard 1994; Tannenbaum and Dupuree-Bnmo, 1994). However, in Information Technolotg (IT) innovation studies, the results concerning size are mixed and even suggest that smaller, not larger, size is conducive to innovativeness. For example, Grover and Goslar (1994) found no significant relationship between fm size and telecommunications technology adoption (i.e., the decision to begin using the technology) or implementation (i.e., the spread of the technology throughout the organization). Zmud ( 1982) found that smaller, rather than larger, size was conducive to the implementation of modem software practices. Alternately, Fuller and Swanson (1992) and Rai and Howard (1 994) found that size was positively related to the implementation of specitic IT innovations. Other researchers (e.g., Audretsch and Acs, 1991; Darnanpour, 1992) have also noted the contradictory results and suggest that one reason for these results may be that small organizations are excluded Ilom typical innovation studies. In their study, Audretsch and Acs (1991 ) found a U-shaped curve of innovation: i.e., organizations having fewer than 100 employees have more innovations per organization than organizations tlom 100 to 10,000 employees; organizations in the 500-999 employee range make up the bottom of the “U”. Such findings lead innovation researchers to suggest that contingency variables, such as the environmental characteristics in which the firm operates, play a role in shaping the relationship between organization size and innovation (Audretsch and Acs, 1991; DaIuanpoLK, 1992). In addition, Damanpour (1992) suggests that size may have different effects, depending on the stage (e.g., adoption vs. implementation) of the innovation. Stages may have diilxent