Systems and Culture: Connecting the Dots

“Poor fit with the culture” is a common explanation of disappointments or failures in system-related innovations. Almost anyone in the IS field would probably agree that a mismatch between a system and an organization’s culture spells trouble, but most methods currently used for analyzing and designing IT-based systems downplay issues related to culture and provide no help in treating these issues rigorously. As a step toward making organizational culture more visible in systems analysis and design, this paper tries to “connect the dots” between systems and culture by taking a deeper look at the relationships through which systems and culture interact. As a step toward a rich, nuanced view of systems and culture, this paper combines a holistic view of organizational culture with a holistic view of systems in organizations. The holistic view of organizational culture is Schneider’s characterization of four distinct organizational cultures (SF, ST, NF, NT) based on two dimensions of Myers Briggs personality types, sensing (S) versus intuiting (N) and thinking (T) versus feeling (F). The holistic view of systems in organizations is Alter’s work system framework and work system life cycle model, both of which view the “work system” as the basic unit of analysis for understanding systems in organizations. Different organizational cultures might project different values and norms on typical work system activities such as communication and decision-making. Different organizational cultures might also show different concerns and priorities in each of four phases of a work system life cycle. The paper argues that most of the impacts of culture on systems are directly related to the nature of specific work systems and only indirectly related to information systems that support the work systems. In other words, statements about the impact of culture on information systems alone may disregard the path through which the most direct impacts of culture actually occur. System designers and implementation teams might use this paper’s ideas when considering both the content of systems they are building or modifying and the process of designing and implementing those systems. Researchers might use its ideas when formulating research questions and research designs.