Culture Change in Complex Systems Implementation

Abstract

The purpose of this activity is to look at Culture Change in Complex Systems Implementation.  It looks at an organization known to me and explores the key issues of culture change in relation to complex systems implementation.  It looks at the following questions:  Has the idea of culture and the concept of culture management had its day? Does a thing like organizational culture exist, or are organizations just aggregates of individuals?  It also looks at various practical issues surrounding the subject.

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Culture Change in Complex Systems Implementation

Key issues of culture change in relation to complex systems implementation

            Handy (1986) says organizations vary according to size, history, technology, ownership, goals, understanding of environment, and people. Change is inevitable.  Given what IT now allows an alert organization to do, an organization that merely works faster and harder will become uncompetitive in the global marketplace of the 1990s and beyond (Morton, 1991).

I work at a Logistics company and relate from my personal experience what key issues arose when they decided to implement a computerized payroll system  The company employed 450 permanent and 120 temporary staff.  The 450 permanent staff were used to receiving their salary by direct transfer, but the 120 temporary staff had been paid via pay packets:

Issues included:  Some staff had no bank accounts, and their wages were hand to mouth money – it was unnecessary for the money to be banked..

Today’s workforce is a cultural salad bowl – everyone is in the same bowl trying to keep their own identity. (Coneja, 2004)

Has the idea of culture and the concept of culture management had its day?

Culture:  The totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought. (Answers.com, 2005)

Although Paton and McAlmon (2000) suggest that we live in a larger global market place made smaller by enhanced technologies and competition, there will always be culture.  New cultures are formed daily – and therefore culture management is coming into its day.

Do organizational cultures exist, or are organizations  aggregates of individuals? 

An organization’s culture is an amalgamation of the values and beliefs of the people in it. It can be felt in the rules and expectations of behaviour in an organization where, even though the rules are not formally written down employees know what is expected of them. It is usually set by management whose decisions on policy set up the culture of the organization. The organizational culture has values and beliefs that support the organizational goals. (Bolton, 2005)

Practical issues surrounding the subject

Are the ideas of culture change relevant to systems implementation?

            The ideas of cultural changes are relevant to systems implementation – it is these ideas that can resist or accept the change.  In the example of the logistics company the idea of change was resisted because of the reasons stated above.

What do you do in Culture Change?

            Eliminate resistance by changing personnel, educating, coercing, persuading and / or increasing participation (Vaughan, 2005).  Nohria and Berkley (1994) introduced the idea that effective managers are “bricoleurs” – managers can use their ingenuity, creativity, crafting and experimentation in coming to good solutions.

Edwin Nevis expressed novel view of resistance to change (1987).  He stated that this may be indicative of flaws in the change plan, latent and unanticipated consequences and changes that affect the integrity of the system.  Moss Kanter et al (1992) suggest a difference in the type of actions that bring about change – long marches and bold strokes.

References

            Answers.com (2005) Retrieved 7 July 2005 from the website http://www.answers.com/topic/culture

            Bolton, L (2005) Information and Technology Management retrieved 7 July 2005 from the website http://opax.swin.edu.au/~388226/howto/it2/o_cultre.htm

            Coneja, C (2004) Motivating Hispanic Employees retrieved 7 July 2005 from the website http://www.theacagroup.com/multicultural.htm

            Handy, CB (1986) Understanding Organisations Harmandsworth Penguins Books

            Kanter, RM (1992) When Giants Learn to Dance: Mastering the Challenge of Strategy, Management and Careers in the 1990s London: Simon and Schuster.

Morton, MMS (1991) Introduction in Morton MMS (Ed) The Corporation of the 90s Information Technology and Organizational Transformation New York: Oxford University Press

            Nohria and Berkeley (2004) Whatever happened to the Take Charge Manager? Harvard Business School Press.

            Nevis, E C (1987) Organizational Consulting:  A Gestalt Approach Gestalt Institute of Free Press

            Paton RA and McCalmon J (2000) Change Management – A Guide to Effective Implementation London: Sage

            Vaughan, P (2005) System Implementation Success Factors: It’s not Just Technology retrieved 7 July 2005 from the website http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/powerpoint/CMR0122.pps#1