SUMMARY OF: A REVIEW OF CULTURE IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS RESEARCH: TOWARD A THEORY OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY CULTURE CONFLICT

Dorothy E. Leidner and Timothy Kayworthy (2006). MIS Quarterly Vol 30 No.2 pp. 357-399

The goal of this paper is to:

• Examine the impact of national, organizational, and subunit culture to IT
• Examine how IT impacts culture within a group by examining implications and causes on three types of conflicts that happens when organization implements IT.
  

IMPACT OF CULTURE TO IT

The paper review how different culture taxonomies impacts IT. Some of those taxonomies are:

Taxonomy 1. Uncertainty Avoidance : The degree to which members of a society feel comfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity.

The author findings on this aspect of culture:

Cultures low in uncertainty avoidance had lower perception of project risk than cultures high in uncertainty avoidance.

Taxonomy 2. Power Distance: The extend to which members of a society accept that power in institutions and organizations is distributed equally.

The author findings on this aspect of culture:
Successful adoption of IT is more likely to occur in a low power-distance cultures.

Taxonomy 3. Individualism vs. Collectivist: The preference for a social framework where individuals take care of themselves (individualism) as opposed to be collectivism where individuals expect a group to take care of them in exchange for their loyalty.

The author findings on this aspect of culture:
Groups with high power distance and collectivist using Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) achieved a greater degree of reduction in harmful status influence effects than group with low power distance and individualist.

Taxonomy 4. Solidarity and Sociability: The degree to which an organization's members pursue shared objectives quickly and effectively regardless of personal ties (solidarity). The tendency toward sincere friendliness among members of a community (sociability).

The author findings on this aspect of culture: organization low in sociability and high solidarity has a higher IT adoption.

IMPACT OF IT TO CULTURE

The author of the paper examines the impacts that IT implementation brings to an organizations by examining three types of conflicts:

Conflict 1. System Conflict
System conflict emerges when the values implicit in a specific IT contradicts the values held by the group members using, or expected to use, the system.

The author observe the following causes and implications on system conflict:

1. The greater the cultural distance between the group responsible for championing the IT and the group adopting the IT, the greater the system conflict experienced by the group adopting the IT.
2. The greater the breadth of IT implementation across groups, the greater the system conflict by the organization.
3. The greater the system conflict experienced by a group, the less likely the group is to be a forerunner in the adoption of the system.
4. The greater the system conflict experienced by a group, the greater the modification of use to support the group’s values .

Conflict 2. Contribution Conflict

Contribution Conflict is defined as the contradiction between group member values and the group's IT values. Contribution conflicts does not involve the use of a specific IT, but more to the IT management and strategy rather than IT development, adoption, use and outcome.

The author observe the following cause and implications with contribution conflict:

1. The lower the contribution conflict by the most powerful actors within a group, the lower the contribution conflict experienced by the group.
2. The lower the contribution conflict in a group to which another group aspires, the lower the contribution conflict in the aspiring group.
3. The greater the contribution conflict experienced by a group, the less strategic a role that IT will play in that group.
4. The greater the contribution conflict experienced by a group, the less likely the innovation uses of IT by the group.
   

Conflict 3. Vision Conflict

Vision conflict is defined as contradiction between values embedded in a system and a group's IT values. It is important to understand the system values are values that are embedded in the IT system by the IT champion. The group's IT value refers to the values of the user who is using the IT system.

The authors observe the following cause and implications from vision conflict:

1. The greater the difference in the IT values between the champion group and the user group the greater the vision conflict experience by the user group.
2. The lesser the involvement of the most powerful within a user group in development, the greater the vision conflict experienced by the user group.
3. The higher the vision conflict a group has with respect to a system, the lower the adoption rate of the system by the group.
4. The greater the vision conflict by a group the greater the potential change to the group's IT values.

The author also observe that managers can reduce all forms of conflict by promoting shared IT values. The emergence and resolution of the three types of conflict will, over time, result in cultural change of the organization.