Culture - Software Stories - Three Cultural Perspectives On The Organi

Accting., Mgmt. & Info. Tech. 9 (1999) 223259 www.elsevier.
com/locate/amit
Software stories: three cultural perspectives on the organizational practices of software development
Line Dube
a b
a,*
, Daniel Robey
1,b
Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales, 3000, Chemin de la Cote-Ste-Catherine, Montreal, Quebec, H3T 2A7, Canada Department of Computer Information Systems, Georgia State University, P.O. Box 4015, Atlanta, GA 30302-4015, USA
Abstract Postindustrial organizations have come to depend upon the steady production and modication of software products to meet their competitive needs. This study reports insights into software development practices that were revealed through a cultural interpretation of organizational stories told by members of SWC, a company engaged in software development. Through interviews with 38 members of SWC, 83 stories were extracted and analyzed to identify their main themes. By grouping these content themes, we produced nine broader cultural themes that represented the organizations cultural context. Two management practices applied in SWCdevelopment team organization and outsourcingwere subjected to an analysis in which cultural themes were interpreted from each of three perspectives proposed by Martin, J. [(1992) Cultures in Organisations; Three Perspectives. New York: Oxford University Press]: integration, differentiation, and fragmentation. The interpretation provides a rich reading of SWCs cultural context. Despite management attempts to develop a unied culture based on collaboration and communication among development groups, the team approach to software development was problematic. Imposing teamwork upon groups that manifested distinct subcultural differences disturbed the work life of group members, and the change was only partially successful. SWCs management also sought survival and tighter strategic focus through an outsourcing arrangement. However, our interpretation identied signicant difculties created by the partnership between two organizations with very different cultures. The presence of the outsourcing partner also brought greater uncertainty and ambiguity because work priorities and practices were subject to constant
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-514-340-6765; fax: +1-514-340-6132. E-mail addresses: line.dube@hec.ca (L. Dube), drobey@gsu.edu (D. Robey). 1 Tel.: +1-404-651-2086; fax: +1-404-651-3842.
0959-8022/00/$ - see front matter 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 9 5 9 - 8 0 2 2 ( 9 9 ) 0 0 0 1 0 - 7
224
L. Dube, D. Robey / Accting., Mgmt. & Info. Tech. 9 (1999) 223259
renegotiation. Members from both organizations dealt with contradictions between their previous norms, values and work practices and those required by the new relationship. Overall, our analysis demonstrates the importance of understanding the cultural foundation of management practices used in software development. These practices evoke interpretations from members of a culture, who collectively redene what might have been intended. A cultural analysis may prepare management to move more gradually or to introduce special approaches to managing change. 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Organizational culture; Stories; Software development; Outsourcing; Development team
The outsourcing contract between SWC and Outsourcing Co.2 had produced many changes in the lives of SWC employees, who now found themselves working closely with Outsourcing Co. As one of SWCs programmers spoke privately to one of the researchers, she told the following story about Outsourcing Co.s strict dress code. As a matter of fact, [Peter] and I went to a programming class that was given by Outsourcing Co., and normally they give it to their own employees, but they allowed us to attend this class. And most classes that you go to out of town, youre allowed to dress casually. Well, I came into class the second day wearing a nice pair of gold slacks and a silk blouse, and one of the Outsourcing Co. higher-ups went over to our instructor and said, Who is that person? Send her home. Tell her to come back in a dress. Because they dont allow women to wear slacks! So, if I had been an actual Outsourcing Co. person instead of a customer, they would have sent me all the way back home, no matter where that might have been, 3,000 miles or whatever, to show back up in the proper attire. So, I think that Outsourcing Co. puts the emphasis on the wrong thing. (Programmer, 25)3. While ostensibly an unimportant story about an inconsequential event, this brief tale is symbolic of more fundamental difculties that SWC experienced with its outsourcing partner. When interpreted along with other stories told by other employees, a rich picture of the organizations culture may emerge and we may gain greater insights into outsourcing and other organizational practices affecting software development. To the extent that outsourcing, for example, creates the resentment manifest in the story above, it may impede rather than enhance the production of useful software products and reduce the quality of working life of system professionals. Because software development has assumed growing importance as an economic activity, it is important to understand the cultural implications of different approaches to organizing and managing software development.
2 SWC and Outsourcing Co. are pseudonyms. All names of companies and people in this report are disguised. 3 Stories and excerpts are followed by the role of the teller and a serial number assigned to identify the story.
225
An organizational story is dened as a connected discourse about a unied sequence of events that appear to be drawn from an oral history of an organizations past (Martin, 1982). Stories contain specic details about people (usually organizational members), actions, times and places. Since the early 1980s, organizational stories have been treated as important and pervasive components of an organizations culture (Martin, 1982; Martin, Feldman, Hatch & Sitkin, 1983). They are important for cultural members because they help make sense of critical events that shape the culture of an organization and therefore the context in which organizational events occur and are interpreted (Dandridge, Mitroff & Joyce, 1980; Schwartzman, 1993). The morals embedded in organizational stories provide members with normative guides for their behavior and communicate the values that make an organization unique (Martin, 1982; Martin et al., 1983; Wilkins, 1984). Organizational stories serve as precedent for individual assumptions, decisions, and actions by communicating cultural beliefs and values, indicating acceptable behavior and attitudes, and by providing examples of general themes or ideas (Boje, 1991; Wilkins, 1984). As Schank (1990) observed, People remember what happens to them, and they tell other people what they remember. People learn from what happens to them, and they guide their future actions accordingly (p. 1). Stories can also offer an explanation of organizational successes and failures (Martin et al., 1983; Boje, 1995). Stories are useful in research on organizational culture because they contain members interpretations of organizational history and policies (Martin, 1982). At the core of the concept of organizational culture are the expressive, subjective, and nonrational qualities of organizational experience (Smircich, 1983). The power of a cultural analysis resides in the contextual interpretations of observable behaviors and artifacts so that patterns of deeply held assumptions and underlying values are revealed (Schein, 1985; Smircich, 1983). Cultural analysis acknowledges that variable social meanings may emerge from a given context. When members interpret the meanings of stories and other symbols of culture, . . . their perceptions, memories, beliefs, experiences, and values will vary, so interpretations will differ even of the same phenomenon. The patterns or congurations of these interpretations, and the ways they are enacted, constitute culture (Martin, 1992, p. 3). Cultural analysis pushes researchers beyond formal organizational charts and procedures to investigate the organizations fundamental norms, values, and assumptions. The study of symbols acknowledges the ubiquity of symbolic activities in organizations and draws attention to the observable artifacts produced by and used within a culture (Morgan, Frost & Pondy, 1983). The study of organizational culture and symbolism offers a holistic view of the organization, and is less concerned with quantication, prediction, and determinism than with qualitative, appreciative, and contextual understanding of organizations (Louis, 1983; Knights & Willmott, 1987). Researchers who treat organizational stories as symbols of culture are often well positioned to interpret a cultures implications for organizational practice. Software development, the focus of the present study, may be conceived as the organizational process whereby information systems are produced. As the transition to a worldwide, postindustrial economy continues, software production assumes a more signicant economic prole. Each year in the US, more than $250 billion are
226
spent on application development in approximately 175,000 projects (Johnson, 1995; The Standish Group, 1995). For leading edge companies engaged in electronic commerce within virtual markets, software applications have become a core economic activity. For many other rms, more rapid development of software applications has assumed a competitive importance not imagined just a few years ago. Thus, postindustrial organizations have come to depend upon the steady production and modication of software products to meet their competitive needs. Organizational arrangements for software development continue to evolve. Traditional data-processing shops, which originated in the 1960s to provide mainframebased computing services to client departments, have been transformed into smaller and more responsive units using exible project structures and other team-based designs. Signicantly, organizations have also reduced their commitment to developing software applications by contracting with external providers for these and related services. Growing at a rate of 14.4 percent annually (Bruno, 1995), the US market for systems-related outsourcing is projected to reach somewhere between $26 and $46 billion in a few years (Bruno, 1995; Mulqueen, 1996). Worldwide, recent estimates indicate the outsourcing market to be $164 billion (Bobrow, 1995), and between 20 and 50 percent of the largest US rms use some form of technology outsourcing (McFarlan & Nolan, 1995; Verity, 1996). Outsourcing has attracted considerable research attention (e.g., Huff, 1991; Loh & Venkatraman, 1992a, b; Lacity & Hirschheim 1993, 1996; Teng, Cheon & Grover, 1995; Hiu, Saunders & Gebelt, 1997). Outsourced software development places distinct new pressures on organizations because it creates partnerships between two or more organizations with different histories, cultures and ways of conducting business (Lacity & Hirschheim, 1996). This study focuses upon organizational stories as verbal symbols that reveal the organizational culture of a single software development company that underwent major changes in its software development practices. The research question is: What insights into the management of software development practices are revealed through a cultural interpretation of organizational stories? To answer this question, we investigated 83 stories told by 38 organizational members of SWC and analyzed their contents to produce nine major cultural themes. We interpreted these themes using three perspectives on organizational culture articulated by Martin (1992): integration, differentiation, and fragmentation. Our interpretations yielded a cultural understanding of two contemporary practices used at SWC: team organization and outsourcing. The results reveal the problematic nature of these practices while showing how organizational members coped with their disruptive effects. Fig. 1 provides an overview of our approach. We continue by describing the theoretical framework used to guide our investigation: Martins multiple perspectives for the interpretation of organizational culture.
1. Three perspectives on organizational culture In our approach to cultural analysis, the researcher must rst gain access to manifest symbols and activities and then interpret the meaning of those symbols within
227
Fig. 1. Research design.
the organizations context. Whether acknowledged by the researcher or not, interpretation is subject to biases inherent in the researchers own preconceptions about culture. Ott (1989), for example, found 38 different denitions of organizational culture in the literature, each of which would lead a researcher to focus on different aspects of culture and to draw different conclusions from eld observations. Martin, with Meyerson (Martin, 1992; Meyerson & Martin, 1987; Martin & Meyerson, 1988), addressed this problem by articulating three distinct perspectives for interpreting cultures: integration, differentiation, and fragmentation. These perspectives differ primarily in their treatment of ambiguity in an organization. Martin (1992) uses these perspectives as alternative interpretive frameworks that may be applied in collecting and analyzing cultural data. The objective is not to assimilate the three perspectives
228
or to determine which one best describes a culture, but rather to use each of them in turn to understand a culture more completely. The integration perspective views culture as a set of values and assumptions that are shared by all members of an organization. Integration portrays people united around cultural themes, such as valuing innovations or rewarding hard work, from which members draw the strength and guidance to compete with other organizations. Under the integration perspective, culture functions to remove ambiguity by focusing members attention on unifying values and assumptions. This is a functionalist perspective on culture. During the 1980s, popular books reected the integration perspective, and the management of corporate cultures through the manipulation of symbols and signs became a signicant pursuit (Deal & Kennedy, 1982; Peters & Waterman, 1982; Schein, 1985). The differentiation perspective is skeptical of the integration perspectives assumption of organization-wide consensus. From the differentiation perspective, interpretations of themes, practices, and assumptions are often inconsistent, and consensus exists primarily within subcultural boundaries. Differentiation directs researchers to look beyond apparent unity and harmony toward the inconsistencies and contradictions among diverse subcultures. The differentiation perspective acknowledges ambiguity directly by treating events and social relationships as actions that are vested with multiple and divergent meanings (Young, 1989). It enriches the interpretation of organizational culture by introducing the prospect of conicting relationships among interest groups within the organization. The fragmentation perspective seeks to escape the simplicity, order, and predictability imposed by the rst two perspectives and considers ambiguity, complexity, multiplicity, and ux to be the essence of organizational culture. Contrary to the differentiation perspective, the fragmentation perspective does not assume that group identities form stable subcultures. Rather, consensus, dissent, and confusion coexist, making it too difcult to draw cultural and subcultural boundaries. Members views are dynamic and may change from moment to moment as the importance and salience of issues shift, as tasks and people change, and as new information becomes available. Different systems of meaning coexist, leading to irreconcilable interpretations being simultaneously entertained and accepted. Under fragmentation, ambiguity prevents agreement on shared values, and neither organization-wide consensus nor differentiation of subcultures is possible, as advocated by the integration and differentiation perspectives, respectively. The present study seeks insights available from all three cultural perspectives by incorporating multiple interpretations as part of our research method. By doing so, we provide a more comprehensive analysis of software development activities than currently exists in the information systems literature. Although several authors have advocated the use of organizational culture as a theoretical foundation for research in information systems (e.g., Scholz, 1990; Hirschheim & Newman, 1991; Walsham 1991, 1993; Robey & Azevedo, 1994; Avison & Myers, 1995; Morieux & Sutherland, 1988; Jones, 1991), relatively few empirical studies have adopted a cultural perspective on software development. None of these has employed Martins multiple perspectives (rst published in 1987 (see Meyerson & Martin, 1987)) to interpret
229
their data (see Kaarst-Brown & Robey, 1999; Kendall, Bufngton & Kendall, 1987; Kling & Iacono, 1989; Romm, Pliskin, Weber & Lee, 1991; Pliskin, Romm, Lee & Weber, 1993).4
2. Method 2.1. Basic assumptions We designed this research as an interpretive case study that generated qualitative data for analysis and interpretation. We consider interpretive research to capture an ontological assumption that organizational culture is socially constructed, that is, open to various interpretations both by actors and by researchers (Orlikowski & Baroudi, 1991; Walsham, 1996). This assumption is wholly consistent with contemporary thinking about organizational cultures; indeed, the interest in interpretive research in organizations is partly attributable to the emergence of organizational culture as a theory (Smircich, 1983). Although organizations have material properties and consist of real actions, socially constructed reality consists of social meanings that cannot be dened objectively or precisely. Accordingly, our interpretive methodology was designed to draw subjective understandings from the stories told by organizational members. This epistemological approach is appropriate to the nature of the problem and the research question we sought to address (Walsham, 1996). Moreover, we acknowledge that, as researchers, we provide our own interpretations of organizational realities and that we are not value-free (Orlikowski & Baroudi, 1991). We initiated the generation of knowledge and cooperated with organizational members in producing it (Deetz, 1996). Thus, it is appropriate to confess our biases, to the extent that we are aware of them. Our value perspective is colored by our employment in North American business schools, teaching courses on information systems. Our interest is to generate knowledge that contributes to improvement in the software development process. From our perspective, improvement is not conned to provable renements in development methods but rather encompasses a wide range of social phenomena: motivation and satisfaction of systems professionals, conicts among groups and individuals involved in the development process, organization and governance of software development, and so on. We are concerned about improvements for all participants in the process: professionals, business partners, customers, and managers. We are idealistic to the degree that we believe that satisfaction of multiple stakeholders interests is not impossible, and we hope that the knowledge generated from this research helps to make software development less problematic.
4 In addition to the studies mentioned here, IS researchers have produced a growing number of interpretive studies of information systems development and implementation (e.g., Orlikowski, 1991; Walsham, 1993). Typically, these studies examine the subjective meanings surrounding software development practices. However, because these and other studies do not explicitly adopt a cultural perspective on software development, they are excluded from our review of the literature.
230
Because qualitative research is relatively new in the information systems eld, it is subject to frequent misconceptions. We address potential misconceptions about the present study by clarifying what it is not. First, it is not exploratory research designed to develop theory that can be tested later with positivist methodology. Walsham (1996) regards the rhetoric of exploration to be a weak justication for interpretive research, and we conduct our research within an established theoretical framework that does not require further grounding. From this argument, it should be clear that our research is also not an exercise in grounded theory (Strauss & Corbin, 1990). Second, although our focus is upon organizational culture, our study is not an ethnography. Although controversy about what constitutes real ethnography continues in organization science and anthropology (Avison & Myers, 1995; Creswell, 1997), we agree with Barley (1990, p. 232) that ethnography requires extended periods of eld work, more than the four months used to collect our data. Nonetheless, our methods do allow a writing of culture through the method of observer as participant, spending extended periods of time during work and breaks observing work and interactions and trying to enter the subjective worlds of organization members (Prasad, 1993, p. 1407). Finally, our stance is not critical or postmodern. While we seek to improve the practice of software development, we do not seek to emancipate any particular participant or champion any particular cause. Neither do we view the organizational practices surrounding software development as inherently chaotic, as postmodernism would imply (Deetz, 1996). 2.2. Research strategy Our research strategy is that of an interpretive case study. Yin (1994) describes the distinguishing characteristic of case study research as an attempt to examine a contemporary phenomenon in its real-life context, especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident (p. 59). This strategy is appropriate in studies of organizational culture because it is usually meaningless to treat culture as an inuence that is separate from other organizational phenomena being studied. We do not assume that culture determines or causes particular approaches to managing software development. Rather, managing software development is an inextricable part of an organizations culture. It reects cultural assumptions and values, and cannot stand apart from them. Case studies allow an understanding of complex phenomena in their natural settings and require that researchers immerse themselves in the culture so that they can get close to members own subjective understandings. 2.3. Research site With its 952 employees, SWC builds and maintains software products for its clients in the global industry of travel services. Fig. 2 traces some signicant events in the companys history. SWC was originally the information systems department of a large corporation (here called Parent) but became an independent subsidiary approximately ten years prior to the research. Since then, SWC was acquired by
231
Fig. 2.
SWCs history.
another parent company (here called New Owner), experienced the bankruptcy of New Owner, and sought protection for itself under bankruptcy law. To assure its long term survival, SWC outsourced a major part of its activities to a corporate partner (here called Outsourcing Co.), a contract that included the transfer of about 2,000 employees from SWC to Outsourcing Co. Following this transition, SWC undertook a massive business process reengineering effort. This brief yet eventful history allowed SWC and its employees to experience many of the difculties facing North American corporations during the 1980s and 1990s: changes in ownership, nancial instability, reorganizations, strategic partnerships, and massive organizational change. Access to SWC was negotiated with the Vice-President of its Technology Division, who was interested in the research for the insights it would provide into the management of software development at SWC. This division included about 160 people and was divided into three departmentsone focusing on PC products, one on mainframe products, and one on the administration of contracts with external parties. Fig. 3 shows the conguration of these departments. The Technology Division was charged with the technical aspects of the development of the software (design, programming, testing, and technical implementation). The researchers had no consulting contract with SWC or any of its employees, and it was agreed that all identifying information would be concealed in subsequent research reports.
Fig. 3. SWCs organizational chart. Note: For the sake of readability, the chart shows only the main groups directly involved in software development before June 1994. The Project Management Ofce was added during the course of the study. The number in each box (x/y) gives the number of people interviewed (x) and the total number of people in a group (y).
232
2.4. Data collection Studying cultural phenomena requires one to get immersed in the ood of alien cultures in order to grasp the direction of the stream and to feel the temperature of the water (Czarniawska-Joerges, 1992, p. 197). Accordingly, the rst author held discussions with several directors prior to scheduling interviews in order to appreciate the business and organizational context of SWC. During the four months (from March to June 1994) in which all subsequent interviews were conducted, this author used time between interviews at the research site to wander around, have lunch there, read memos and bulletins, and work in an assigned ofce. This allowed the researcher to appreciate the professional jargon, the many abbreviations and acronyms, and the local meanings of particular words. It was also an ideal way to observe organizational members in a variety of situations (staff meetings, planning sessions, informal encounters between co-workers, coffee breaks) and to experience rst hand some of the events mentioned during interviews. By maintaining a presence in the research site, the researcher also developed the trust needed to investigate more sensitive areas in subsequent interviews. Thirty-eight semi-structured interviews were conducted with members of SWCs Technology Division. Fig. 3 indicates the number of people in each group with whom scheduled interviews were conducted. Only one person was interviewed twice, at the very beginning and the very end of data collection. Interviews typically lasted between 30 and 45 minutes. Respondents were chosen using two nonprobability sampling techniques (Bernard, 1988). Quota sampling was used to assure that all subpopulations of interest were represented. For each working group, respondents were selected who represented different genders, ethnic groups, formal positions, and levels of experience with the organization. The second technique used was snowball sampling in which respondents were asked to nominate other individuals to be interviewed about a certain topic. Snowball sampling was helpful in identifying the subcultures, informal groups, and social networks emphasized by the differentiation perspective. The interviews were designed to gather stories about particular events in the work context of software development. Individuals were encouraged to talk about a broad range of topics (e.g., their current work, early experiences with the organization, and so on). Respondents were not asked specically to tell stories about their experiences, but, as noted by Schwartzman (1993), many chose the story as a form of discourse to illustrate their points. The method of gathering data in story form via interviews differs from the practices of gathering published stories (Martin et al., 1983) and observing stories performed in situ (Boje, 1991). However, none of these methods is inherently superior or closer to the truth of organizational culture than other methods. All narrative accounts contain interpretations provided by the storyteller, and organizational participants relate stories on numerous occasions: in situ performances, off stage to each other, and to outsiders such as friends, family, and researchers. All interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed for analysis. In addition, direct observations about organizational members habits, behaviors and physical environment were recorded in eld notes taken by the researcher. Docu-
233
ments such as the organizational chart, list of employees, statements of corporate mission and objectives, written analyses of competitive history, and promotional videos were also gathered. These notes and materials were used to conrm impressions gained from the interviews. For example, stories describing the survival instinct of the organization were conrmed by the aggressive image of SWC conveyed in marketing videos produced by the organization. Our use of conrming evidence was not an attempt to validate the accuracy of the stories, but rather to aid in their understanding and context. 2.5. Data analysis Despite their references to real events, stories were treated as interpretations provided by the respondents. In each of the steps described below, stories were treated as symbols of a socially constructed culture rather than objective properties of that culture. Our approach was to search for similarities in the interpretations provided by a large number of participants, i.e., interpretations shared by participants rather than idiosyncratic meanings ascribed by individuals. In all steps of the analysis, we applied our own interpretations about the degree of similarity and differences among stories. Thus, although our method consists of orderly steps taken to reduce the raw data to a few themes, the approach is essentially interpretive rather than positivist. No special analytical tools or software programs were used to aid this analysis. The data analysis method adopted in this study was derived from Martin (1992, p. 38). The rst step was examining the transcripts of the 38 interviews to identify instances of stories. A story was dened as a segment of an interview that was a connected discourse about a sequence of past events that occurred in the organization or that affected it. This denition included events involving both organizational members and other people related to the organization in some way.5 Stories contained specic descriptions of events, actors and context. The second step was assigning a content theme to each of the 83 stories that met the specied criteria. The content theme identied the primary message in the story, the point that the storyteller was making. Thirty-ve content themes emerged from the data and were not specied a priori. The third step was reducing the 35 content themes to fewer categories reecting more fundamental cultural themes. The content themes were examined for logical similarities, and nine grand themes were dened. For example, content themes about how changes of ownership had happened and were still possible, how the future was uncertain, how the business environment was unstable, and problems with keeping the employees informed, among others, comprised the grand theme of uncertainty. The grand themes represent dimensions of SWCs organizational culture.
5 A general statement without specic actors or events would not be considered a story. For example, the statement before this, we used to react by assigning blame to the analyst when a bug was found is not a story because no specic actor is named and no specic occurrence of a bug is described. Stories relating events that happened when the respondent was working for another company (former employer) were also ignored.
234
Fourth, two managerial practices were drawn from the analysis of story content: SWCs attempted use of team organization in software development and SWCs relationship with Outsourcing Co. Although the broad objective of the research was to study software development practices, these specic practices were not selected before the study began. Rather, they emerged as the eldwork progressed. Team organization and outsourcing were the subjects of many stories and were clearly important and broad enough in scope to warrant the application of a cultural analysis. Because these two practices are frequently encountered in other software development organizations, the potential contribution of the study to the practice of information systems management is enhanced. The fth and nal step in the analysis was to apply the three perspectives of Martin (1992) on organizational culture as interpretive lenses for understanding the two software development practices.
3. Results Table 1 lists the nine grand cultural themes and shows their relation to the 35 content themes. The nine grand themes express characteristics, values, beliefs, priorities, norms, and emotional responses to commonly experienced events. The cultural themes are humanist image, pride, survival instinct, cultural differences with outsourcing partner, uncertainty, constant changes, challenging work, difculties in working together, and resistance to change. Fig. 4 portrays the relationships among the 83 stories used in the analysis and the nine grand themes. Although stories were not directly related to grand themes in the
Fig. 4.
Themes and stories.
235
analysis,6 the mapping of stories to the grand themes in Fig. 4 illustrates how some themes have many stories associated with them while other themes are connected with only a few stories. Grand themes that are supported by many stories represent cultural themes that were more widely expressed in the organization. Each of the grand themes is described below along with story excerpts and references to other stories.7 3.1. Humanist image This grand theme is related to the care for individuals demonstrated by employees and members of SWCs management, including Parents president. Many stories expressed gratitude for managements response to personal tragedies (e.g., high medical bills, weather catastrophes) by directly helping the affected employees and/or letting employees use company time to solve their personal problems. Stories also revealed how management assisted employees who were transferred to the outsourcing partner. Despite difcult times (layoffs, outsourcing, pay cuts, high uncertainty), SWC retained a humanist image in employees minds. This grand theme is illustrated by the following story: We had an unfortunate case here where one of our employees was being stalked by an old boyfriend and she was shot outside and another person was killed. Our President ew in to come to the one persons funeral and to visit the other person in the hospital. Now to me that means so much because it takes a lot for a President of the company, in my mind, to take the time to do that and to show that they care enough that you are important. And they do a lot of that. The President is approachable here and that is not common in most companies. He will come down and say hello to me and ask me how I am doing or tell me that I did a good job on something. (Analyst, 13). Despite many difculties, SWC managed to maintain a caring image among its employees. Despite many layoffs over the years (including the transfer of 2,000 employees to Outsourcing Co. and massive layoffs later), SWC was able to maintain a non-ring employer image among its employees (Story 54). SWC employees often spoke about other employees as friends and members of their families, and about the company as a nice place to go in the morning. 3.2. Pride The grand theme of pride encompasses stories about peoples feelings of accomplishment and afliation with SWC and Parent. Many employees expressed
Stories were used to generate content themes, and content themes were organized into grand themes. For the sake of readability, only excerpts of stories are reported hereafter. These have been cleaned up; hesitations and repetitions have been removed, and missing words have been added. For a complete reading of every story, the reader is directed to Dube (1995).
7 6
236
Table 1 Relationship between Grand Themes and Content Themes GRAND THEMES HUMANIST IMAGE (related to the care for individuals demonstrated by employees and members of management, including the parent companys president) Content themes
difcult split inside the divided organization (created by the major outsourcing and the transfer of employees to Outsourcing Co.)
PRIDE (related to the ability of SWC to compete against going far with little resources larger companies in their industry despite their fond memories modest beginnings and difcult conditions) SURVIVAL INSTINCT a (related to SWCs ability to survive despite the failure of its parent companies and competition from larger companies) CULTURE DIFFERENCES (relates to the differences in culture between SWC and the outsourcing partner. Because so many former SWC employees now worked for the partner, performing outsourced functions for their former employer, differences in culture were seen more clearly as individuals seemed to change their personalities to t the expectations of the partner. The partner was seen as very different from the surviving SWC)
culture clash Outsourcing Co. does not keep its promises Outsourcing Co. as a member of cold corporate America not understanding their business environment formalization increase negotiations process recognize in one occasion as caring human beings outsourcing impacts
UNCERTAINTY (related to SWCs historical context, this theme changes of ownership reects the frequent changes in ownership, uncertain future nancial conditions, and competitive environment) unstable business environment unexpected external demands unstable working environment dont worry attitude frustration problems with keeping the employees informed CONSTANT CHANGES (related to the experience of so many radical changes over a short period of time)
reengineering process (success and difculties) new working procedures resentment (continued on next page)
237
Table 1 (continued) GRAND THEMES CHALLENGING WORK (related to the need to provide competitive products that reect the frequent changes in the travel service industry. Challenging work includes references to stressful working conditions, the need for frequent training, and frustrations over inadequate resources) DIFFICULTIES IN WORKING TOGETHER (relates to the divisions between subunits in SWC and the traditional functional structure that separates different stages of product development. Difculties included lack of communication and the inadequacies of other mechanisms designed to promote teamwork) RESISTANCE TO CHANGEa (related to ambiguity of dealing with constant changes) It can be noted that the two grand themes, resistance to change and survival instinct, have no related content themes. The reason is that those two grand themes were initially two content themes. Because these content themes were repeated through several stories (see Fig. 4) and, at the same time, not easily related to any other content themes, they became grand themes.
a
Content themes
exciting and varied work stress actualization lack of resources training issues
lack of communication improved communication priorities are different dependence/independence lack of understanding management differences
great pride in working for SWC and in participating in its development over the years. One source of this pride was the modest origins of the organization and the difcult conditions faced in its early years, as illustrated in the following story: We started in a little trailer with ve people in the early 1980s, and we are a force to contend with. We are only 950 employees and we are up against people like [their main competitor]. To give you an example, when I had my old job, it was me; at [our main competitor], they had ten people doing what I did. Early 1980s, like 1981 or 1982. So, as a company, we have accomplished a lot with a lot smaller budget and a lot smaller work force than any of the other competitors. So, we have a lot to be proud of. I believe we also market more positively and honestly. I do believe that our system is better. (Analyst, 30). This feeling of pride seemed even stronger among the older employees who once worked for Parent, whose disappearance had not been easy for them to accept; a few of them expressed fond memories of their earlier days working for Parent: Parent was a wonderful company to work for. It always was. We always had the newest toys in town, so it was easy to stay there. Newest computers and newest something. There was always something interesting happening. Parent going
238
awaythere was a lot grief involved, the people whod worked there for a long time. You had everything you couldno one will ever have that good of working conditions again. (Manager, 76). At different levels, most employees seemed very proud to be SWC employees. While most were very candid about its weaknesses, most expressed an emotional link with the company. 3.3. Survival instinct Many of the content themes deal with obstacles to corporate success and difculties for employees of SWC. Beset by bankruptcies and other uncertainty, respondents managed to feel proud of SWCs accomplishments and its humanist surroundings. Indeed, the theme of surviving against the odds comprises a major theme in itself. The following two stories are among the many that told how the organization was able to survive and succeed despite adversity. What happens is that we did not know where we were going to be without Parent. Who was going to provide the capital that we needed to grow? So, we had no capital. Parent was going under. All we had was liabilities. So, the only thing we had was the organization. (Manager, 73).
However, we were successful. We were very successful in the service that we provided to [our clients], and we dont have the market share that [our competitor] has, but at least people thought that when Parent went under, that wed disappear, and it hasnt been like that. (Manager, 42). Survival instinct was also apparent in stories about the decision to transfer an important part of SWCs operations to an outsourcing partner: New Owner was going bankrupt, and they took from SWC, because SWC was making money during all this time, whereas New Owner was losing money like crazy. We even had wage cutbacks and everything else, even though this particular company was making money. So, at the time, for us to survive, I think we had to sell part of ourselves to Outsourcing Co. This was necessary at the time. (Programmer, 22). Despite (or because of) all that had happened, SWC maintained its survival instinct. While everything was crumbling around them, they managed to stay alive. Their aggressive strategy included an expansion of their previous computer systems, strategic alliances with outside partners, and a reengineering project to transform their internal operations. The survival instinct theme reects the belief that employees at SWC intended to remain a competitive force in their market.
239
3.4. Cultural differences This grand theme is related to the differences in culture between SWC and Outsourcing Co., and it encompasses content themes such as Outsourcing Co. is part of cold corporate America, it doesnt keep its promises, it doesnt understand our business, it increased formalization, and others. Outsourcing Co. was seen as very different from SWC. Because so many former SWC employees were transferred to Outsourcing Co., performing outsourced functions for their former employer, differences in culture were seen more clearly as individuals seemed to change their personalities to t the expectations of Outsourcing Co. Stories contained many details about relationships between SWC and Outsourcing Co. These were expressed as clashes between the cultures of the two companies, especially the extreme differences between Outsourcing Co.s perceived organizational philosophy and that of SWC. Some stories, such as Story 25 presented at the beginning of this paper, related the difculty that some SWC people had adapting to their new work environment. Others, such as the following story, focused on changed relationships among groups that formerly worked together within SWC: . . . before they were SWC, and we were all working together. When they went to Outsourcing Co. and we stayed at SWC, [because of] the philosophy of the company over there, you can feel some friction between the same people we used to work with all the time. It used to be very collaborative and not anymore. Even though we get things solved, you can feel the friction. I believe its Outsourcing Co.s management. Now theyre all quarreling themselves. They want everything in writing, they want this and this . . . If you say something, they wont take your word, they want it in writing. Thats the way it is now. I dont know why; it wasnt like that before. (Analyst, 26). Even though Outsourcing Co. ensured SWCs survival, it seemed to play the role of the bad guy. Outsourcing Co. was a big organization and was often portrayed as a representative of cold corporate America or a bottom line company (Analyst, 5). To tell you the truth, I wanted to go there. But Im glad I didnt. Because of the philosophy they have, the management style, the restrictions they impose on their people. I think its like an old philosophy; theyre very strict. I dont think they treat [their employees] like professionals. (Analyst, 28). Other stories refer to Outsourcing Co.s restrictions against personal photographs on desks and a strict dress code that specied on a mans shirt how far apart your stripes can be (Programmer, 24). Outsourcing Co. was also criticized for its lack of understanding of SWCs business environment. This situation, according to SWC employees, caused friction and more work for them.
240
I was told that Outsourcing Co. told a client that they had to move a telephone line and they wanted to cut the line over during the middle of the afternoon, which shuts down my operations to that [client]. That is not what I want. [It] is not smart from a customer-service point of view. So, there are issues that they dont always think of the implications to us before they are doing something. There are degrees of inconvenience. This happens to be major. We are talking about big money. (Analyst, 17). These stories show that a close outsourcing partnership entails a long period of adaptation and negotiation. Even after three years, cultural differences emerged as a strong theme, supported by 18 individual stories. Criticism of the outsourcing partner for its cultural differences was one of SWCs most obvious cultural themes. 3.5. Uncertainty This grand theme reects content themes such as changes of ownership, uncertain future, unstable business environment, communication problems between management and employees. All reected the great uncertainty felt by SWC employees. The historical context of the organization largely explains the uncertainty that was present at SWC. Some important destabilizing events were the changes of ownership that SWC faced over the years as reported in the following story: Back in 91, we used to be a part of Parent. The way it happened is when New Owner bought Parent, they separated SWC and created a computer division. The computer operation was separated into its own entity. And then we decided to outsource. We gave our host computer mainframe operation to Outsourcing Co. Theyre responsible for operating the big CPUs, the big computers; theyre responsible for the telecommunications. (Manager, 40). The unstable business environment of SWC and the repeated bankruptcies of its parent companies, along with its own protection request in 1991, created a climate of uncertainty and precariousness surrounding the future of the organization. Employees felt that they did not know what was going on at the higher corporate levels, and rumors of new takeover attempts were frequent. Right now, who knows whats going to happen with SWC? And if SWC and Outsourcing Co. and [a third company] come up with that deal, I have no idea. I just know that something is going on. I dont know what . . . There is some deal . . . (Programmer, 79). Even positive news coming from management was interpreted skeptically, as though the goal was to place the organization in a more favorable light in order to command a better price on the market. Previous experiences had reduced employees trust in management, as the following story illustrates:
241
Parent had never been stable for the past 10, 20 years. But when I started in 87, pretty much all we would heartheres a reorganization, theres a layoff, theres all kind of troubles. So, in our mind, we know something is going to happen. Then Parent went to bankruptcy and there were strikes going on. All the [employees]; they went on strike. All kinds of stuff. So we know that we are in nancial trouble, at that time. And, actually, the company didnt let us know, is not telling usits in the newspaper. And in the meantime, we know that people are bidding for SWC. (Programmer, 37). Such stories showed how uncertainty was a normal condition at SWC. Facing an uncertain future and having difculties reacting to outside demands, SWC was unable to control its own destiny. This caused SWCs employees to feel powerless and dependent upon the actions of external parties. 3.6. Constant changes SWC experienced many radical changes over a short period of time and the grand theme, constant changes, emerged from a series of stories about the successes and difculties of the reengineering process, the working procedures that were frequently changed and the resentment and frustration that were caused by these changes. One of these changes involved radical redesign of the companys core business processes. Just out of bankruptcy and with 2,000 fewer employees, SWCs management needed to rethink its internal operations and become more efcient. For more than two years it had engaged in business process reengineering under the guidance of Outsourcing Co. reactions to reengineering varied. Many people seemed to be uninterested and uninformed about the efforts to reengineer SWC while others were told that they were saved from the reengineering effort. For those who participated, the reengineering process seemed to be quite difcult: Some things were done strangely. They identied all the workloads and so forth, and made a series of recommendations. The way they do the reengineering, usually, at least the way Outsourcing Co. did it, its very interesting, and you become ostracized if you point out any practical imperfections in these things. Youre encouraged to participate, but only positively. (Manager, 85). Despite many procedures to try to keep the employees informed, such as a hot line and electronic mail messages, changes surprised more than a few employees. Reengineering hasnt hit me personally yet, or directly. But one thing thatit had to be attributed to reengineeringis that I come in one day and I nd out about this change in one group. It was known as integration. I dont even know what its known as anymore, but I come in one day and someone says, Oh. This group is no longer under [that director] and is now under [another director], and I do not really know who this director is, someone on the third oor. And I said, Well,
242
when does it take effect? and they said, immediately. I couldnt believe it. (Analyst, 67). What is most surprising is that this analyst did not know that this change was unrelated to the recommendations of the reengineering committee. Top management initiated it. This is evidence that management was not sharing information and that the employees did not really know what was going on. 3.7. Challenging work This grand theme expresses the challenge felt by members responding to the need to provide competitive products to suit the frequently changing markets of the travel service industry. It was reected in content themes such as exciting and varied work, stressful situations, lack of resources, training issues, and so on. One particular story illustrates how exciting and varied the work was: Ive been lucky in being exposed to several previous systems and several environments since Ive been working here. The rst product that we were working on was based on the OS/2 platform. Then there was this group in [US State] that developed a lot of applications and a fairly large system based on OS/2 and C. SWC said, Well, were going to close that center. So, they asked me if I wanted to go to [US State] and study the system so that I can bring it over here. I said, Yes, I will go. It was a great experience, a lot of learning. (Programmer, 80). Challenging work also means stressful working conditions, the need for frequent training, and frustrations over inadequate resources. The following story reects some of these concerns: When we had the last big fare war last July, none of the computer companies anticipated the hits to the system that happened. We were working all sorts of hours because you would take the resources from one computer to take care of something else and that made something else not work. We put in what we called the war room. It was literally a war room. So, what you try to do is let me take something off-line that will give you some more resources. So, you sit here and have to decide what program to pull. Then you have to run around and ask from your area, I want to pull these three programs, is that going to cause you a problem? So, you negotiate that. So, it becomes bedlam. We thrive on that though. We must thrive on the stress otherwise we wouldnt still be here. (Analyst, 4). Because of SWCs need to remain on the cutting edge of technological developments, employees needed to stay up-to-date. This was particularly true of the PC products department where knowledge requirements changed quickly. Expectations of new employees were high. People were hired with a masters degree (if possible), received a minimal introduction to their jobs, and were expected to be smart and resourceful enough to learn on the spot. Any factor that eased the challenge, such
243
as training (one formal class per person per year) or resource acquisitions (new computers) became very important. External demands also placed pressure on internal activities and increased the challenge of some jobs. Finally, as the next theme illustrates, the difculties that groups experienced in working together also increased the challenge of working at SWC. 3.8. Difculties in working together SWC suffered from poor communication and collaboration among groups. Stories about the difculties in working together referred to the lack of communication and the inadequacies of mechanisms designed to promote teamwork. These issues were reected in content themes such as lack of communication, improved communication, dependence among groups, difference in priorities, management differences, and others. Many factors were cited to explain this phenomenon: the sequentially organized software development process, the diversity of hardware platforms and software tools, inadequate knowledge levels in other groups, workload, and the organization structure that kept groups from knowing what each other were doing. Two major changes at SWC were often mentioned in the stories contributing to this theme. First, management tried to change from a sequential software development process to one in which contributing parties worked together as teams. Historically, software products had been handed off from one subunit to the next along with a complete transfer of responsibility. This practice resulted in a very long product development cycle and, consequently, slow response to market changes. Management introduced a different way to develop software so that, instead of the old, sequential process, subunits would work simultaneously on software products. Second, management tried to integrate the work of groups working on different hardware platforms. Again, in the past groups working on different platforms did not have to work together. But with a higher integration of systems requested by clients, historically separate subunits were required to work more closely together. The following story is a good example of the difculties imposed by these new arrangements: Well, just recently a project was loaded on-line and [another development group] didnt know anything about it and it was corporate accounts . . . programs like that completely blew them out of the water. So, it can cause big problems. One time we add a little space . . . again it was [the same group]. When they went to test it they didnt know . . . the document was different than what we were actually getting. So, when they coded . . . they got something back with an extra space in it and they couldnt end any records. A little space sounds little but if someone is editing this entry, not to have a space and all of a sudden one is there, it can cause big problems. It is hard sometimes because we dont really know what they check for. We are learning as we run into problems. (Analyst, 8). Such difculties in intergroup communication within the same division were difcult to manage, but communication between divisions was also problematic. One frequently mentioned cause was the large number of contributors that needed to be
244
involved before a project could be completed. In one story, the frustrated respondent said, We are not in control of our destiny; we have to interact with four thousand other departments (Analyst, 56). Even product groups that were more technologically independent than others still had to interact with other divisions, such as documentation and customer services, to get a product out the door (Programmer, 36). The multitude of people involved made it difcult to get adequate feedback and input at the right time. Because of its specialized organizational structure, closer working relationships were hard to achieve. Management hoped that the new team approach to software development would address the problem of collaboration. In addition, limited resources increased the level of competition in the organization, which had a direct impact on the willingness of groups to communicate and collaborate with each other. As one respondent said, When you dont have money, stupid things become important like the size of your ofce, whether you have a window or not, whether you have a decent parking spot or not, what your title is and all of those things that shouldnt make a difference (Analyst, 49). Such perceived differences in the treatment of employees across groups were a source of friction among groups (Manager, 16).
3.9. Resistance to change
In many of the stories, resistance to change is expressed directly as a means of coping with the ambiguity of constant changes. Management was concerned about employee resistance to the reengineering project and other initiatives. Toward the end of the reengineering project, a consultant was hired to evaluate the organizations readiness for and attitude toward change (Manager, 43). Much of the concern about change also was related to New Owners inuence, as the following story indicates:
I think people would be willing to change as long as things dont get crazy with New Owner. A couple of years ago, New Owner came out of bankruptcy, and people had their salaries frozen. Not frozen, but they had to take a reduction, and theres no equity. Our president came last week, and things are looking very up and very positive, and were going to get all the reinstatements of money we lost and for the increases. I think, if that stays up, then its ne. Then people would be willing to change, but I think if that doesnt, if thats a really short-term thing and then all of a sudden the rug is pulled back under you, then I think its going to be difcult to keep the change and be really positive. (Manager, 43).
According to this manager, uncertainty about the future of the organization was an important factor in the capacity of people to accept changes inside the organization. While the future seemed brighter, past events were still remembered, and many people expressed caution with respect to impending change.
245
4. Cultural perspectives on software development practices In the following analysis, we seek to understand the implications of the cultural themes described above for two specic software development practices at SWC: team organization and outsourcing. These practices were prominent in SWC, and they are common practices for many other organizations (Niederman, Brancheau & Wetherbe, 1991; Brancheau, Janz & Wetherbe, 1996). Thus, our interpretation is potentially relevant beyond SWCs particular culture, which, although unique in many respects, may also be representative of contemporary software development in other respects. In making the connection between SWCs organizational culture and these two software development practices, we used the three cultural perspectives described by Martin (1992): integration, differentiation, and fragmentation. We apply these to each practice successively in order to enrich and expand the interpretation. Fig. 5 suggests that the analysis assumes mutual associations among the cultural themes, software practices, and interpretive perspectives. Practices are not caused by culture, or vice versa. Rather, organizational culture and practice are mutually implicated, and the interpretive perspectives are applied to gain insight into the cultural implications of practice and the practical implications of culture. A description of each practice is provided rst, followed by the successive application of each perspective, with references to specic cultural themes indicated by bold type. Table 2 summarizes the analysis, noting the contribution of each cultural perspective. 4.1. Software development team organization 4.1.1. Practice Like many organizations engaged in software development, SWC faced problems of cost overruns and delays. Lengthy system development projects decreased its
Fig. 5.
Relationships among themes, practices, and perspectives.
246
Table 2 IS activities by perspective DIFFERENTIATION New team organization challenges the actual culture among groups based, in this case, on power and competition rather than collaboration. For this reason, it is easy to predict implementation difculties. FRAGMENTATION Changes increase uncertainty. New people having to work together will have to constantly negotiate priorities, ways to do and go about things, values and norms.
INTEGRATION
Team Organization The change is an attempt at integrating under a common goal some divergent forces in the organization (making groups having different priorities and ways of doing things work and collaborate together).
Key themes: pride, survival instinct, humanist image, challenging work Outsourcing brings together two groups having different visions, priorities, values and norms. This explains some difculties in the relationship. This perspective also highlights the need to get to know an eventual partner before signing a long-term contract.
Members will need to deal with contradictions arising from differences between their project teams culture and their functional units one. Key themes: resistance to change, difculties Key themes: uncertainty, constant changes in working together The implications of vendors in daily activities contribute to increase the uncertainty by adding a new player in the dynamic forces constituting the culture of the organization.
Outsourcing
Outsourcing may help the organization to put together all its strengths and use them to focus and achieve a common goal. Having a clear group to oppose to may also help create a sense of unity inside the organization.
Key themes: humanist image, cultural differences, pride, survival instinct
Key theme: cultural differences
As it would happen for new people working together inside the organization, an outsourcing will bring an additional dimension to team working and priorities, ways to do and go about things, values and norms will have to be negotiated. These negotiated values, norms, procedures may end up being in contradiction with SWCs ones and organizational members will have to deal with those contradictions. Key theme: uncertainty
247
ability to respond rapidly to a changing market in a very competitive environment. Some of these problems could be traced to SWCs organizational structure, which was designed to support the traditional, sequential model for software development: the system development life cycle (SDLC). Under this structure, software projects were handed off from one department to another until completion, and little sense of ownership developed over the projects life. No work was performed in parallel because each departments contribution was dependent upon the completion of prior steps by other departments. The SDLC treated new products a bit like a hot potato that people catch and throw quickly to avoid being burned. As one programmer said: The habit seems to be: I covered my area. I did my job, and its your fault if something doesnt work. SWCs rst attempt to solve the problems associated with the SDLC was to create one large development team composed of all the people involved in every phase of a given project. This did not work because it tied up too many people in unproductive meetings that bored and frustrated almost everybody. Precious time was lost on details only of interest to one or two people. The Technology Division then decided to develop a new approach that created two separate teams: a core team and an extended team. The core team included the project leader and a representative from each department working on the product, typically ve or six people. The extended team included additional people from those departments whose expertise and work were required. In theory, this design would eliminate the large, unproductive meeting and would allow groups to work in parallel, thereby decreasing project completion time. Management dened three pilot projects to experiment with team organization. The rst pilot was the nal phase of a small project, which was successfully completed under team organization. Two other new, and more important projects (here called A and B) were then identied. In Project A, the development group in charge of the analysis and programming resisted the assignment of a project leader from outside the group. The present leader believed that the group already had an effective way of managing and organizing itself. In the SDLC approach, used previously, the line manager of the department currently responsible for the project was completely in charge of it. When management tried to assign a new leader to the development group, the project slowed down and members resisted the new leadership. Many excuses were given: tight schedule, group knowledge and experience, and others, but it was apparent from the interviews that resistance was a response to political threat. According to its members, this group did not want to become a pilot for the team approach. This groups manager would have had to relinquish his power to an outside leader, and the groups members felt that they would improve their chances of survival if they were able to demonstrate high achievement with their own leadership. Their particular expertise and management approach differed from other groups, and they were not about to share their expertise with other groups in the organization. Because of this opposition, Project A was never realized as a pilot project. Project B was initiated as a pilot project, assigned an independent project leader, and later experienced difculties over the course of the project.
248
4.1.2. Perspectives The team approach to development at SWC raised numerous questions that were conveyed through the stories told and compiled into grand themes. What was the role of the line manager? What was the role of the extended team? Who was responsible in case of failure? How should common ownership materialize within heterogeneous groups? The application of the integration perspective as an interpretive lens draws attention to unifying symbols that signify shared values, assumptions, and beliefs. At SWC, managements objective of unication led to experiments with the team approach, which it hoped would facilitate collaboration among groups. Team organization was an effort to integrate groups under one project leader and direct their work toward a common goal. As one manager explained: We needed to establish a project management group that was more independent from the organization, that worked with all the different parts of the organization to take the projects that are currently being designed and developed into the marketplace. At a high level, unifying values were manifest in the grand themes of pride, survival, and humanist image. For example, employees expressed collective concern when their colleagues suffered misfortune. As one story related, Last year, we went through quite a few employees dying of AIDS and it got rough for some of them nancially. Instead of exchanging gifts at Christmas, we would put $10.00 in and give them a gift certicate for food. This was always a family feeling of a company (Analyst, 12). Stories that told about SWCs nancial struggles also conveyed pride in overcoming adversity and outliving Parent. People thought that when Parent went under, that wed disappear, and it hasnt been like that (Manager, 42). Moreover, stories contributing to the theme of challenging work emphasized the excitement of developing innovative and competitive products for customers. As an analyst said: As much as I may complain sometimes about the fast pace and the constant change, it keeps your brain alive. I dont think I could work in a normal 9 to 5 ofce job. You cant get bored here. However, the failure of team organization to achieve integration at an operational level was the subject of several stories contributing to the themes of uncertainty and constant change. These themes suggest a lack of unication and annoyance at the disruption produced by experiments in organizing software teams. As the Project A manager said: I went in and said: I dont want it to be a pilot, because a pilot meant we had all these people looking at every little step that we took and thats going to take a lot of our time. So, you tell me what you want to do. Either I dedicate my time to slowly show them what were doing and keep them informed and talk to them about how it works, how empowerment works, or I dont have anybody looking into the team, and were just doing it, but then it will be faster (52). Thus, despite some areas of unication, employees at SWC exhibited resistance to change on the issue of team organization. To extend the analysis, we applied the differentiation perspective as a second interpretive lens. The differentiation perspective directs attention to values that are not shared and seeks to identify different subcultures. Applied to the practice of team organization, differentiation draws attention to differences among groups and to the difculty in creating organizational changes that overcome these differences. As a
249
manager said The ones that are up front with the machetes are going to have a very hard time, but they will be making progress and they will be making things better (36). Resistance to change and difculty working with others were fundamental to SWCs culture, making team organization a relatively ineffective experiment. The destinies of Projects A and B were very different because of their respective subcultures. While Project B was very open to experimentation, had a low-prole leader, and worked with conventional methods, Project A was developing leading-edge products with new development methodologies, and had a strong leader. When asked about cultural differences between SWC and Outsourcing Co., one member of Project A responded: I consider that I work in a group that is very, very different from all at SWC. We have been handpicked. I think we alienate a little bit the people around us (Programmer, 37). This elitist attitude was evident in the following statement of an analyst from Project A: I dont think our group will be affected by the reengineering project because of the performance and the projects that we have to develop; were top performers. I mean that we are doers and we can perform. With such sharp differentiation, the difculties in working together persisted despite the attempted unication through team organization. The differentiation perspective focuses on the historically deep divisions among departments and illuminates the tremendous difculty of implementing a new structure requiring interdepartmental teamwork. The fragmentation perspective complicates but enriches the analysis by drawing attention to the confusion, uncertainty and ambiguity in the practice of team organization. For example, in one story the respondent related that he did not know that he was part of a pilot team, even though his name was on the current project list. As the Project B manager said: We havent had anything like this, in this way, in the company before. The biggest obstacle is that there is a lot of fear and intimidation by it because it is so different, and I think a lack of understanding of what I should do to accomplish my task Im responsible for. I dont know where to start. I dont know how to get going or get into it. The whole pilot approach is new and different for everyone. Also, because team organization grouped together people who were unaccustomed to working together and visualizing products in the same way, the priorities, values, and norms that applied to the old departmental structure were challenged and renegotiated. More ambiguous roles and uncertainty thus exacerbated the difculties of working together. Fragmentation also draws attention to the paradoxes and ironies within a larger group of cultural themes. The coexistence of contradictory themes represents the sort of ambiguity that the fragmentation perspective assumes is endemic of all cultures. We have seen how the theme difculties in working together persisted despite attempts to reorganize software development into teams. Yet, we have also seen how members of SWC expressed great pride in their accomplishments and subscribed to a common survival instinct. Ironically, this survival instinct had become an impediment to continued survival because it threatened the collaboration needed to
250
make the experiments with team organization succeed. That is, while individual departments worked very hard to ensure their survival and achieved things they could be proud of, they did not work well together, which placed everyones survival in greater jeopardy. Faced with the choice between cooperating and exercising selfinterest, SWCs employees had apparently chosen the latter, leaving the concept of team organization paradoxically positioned to enforce collaboration in a culture characterized by a survival instinct, uncertainty, and constant change. 4.2. Outsourcing 4.2.1. Practice As mentioned previously, SWC outsourced a large part of its operations in an attempt to save the organization. Outsourcing all of the mainframe programming, telecommunications activities, computer support and operations, and client installation and technical support resolved managements uncertainty about investing in the technology necessary to remain competitive and grow. As part of the contract, approximately 2,000 SWC employees were transferred to Outsourcing Co. According to management, outsourcing allowed the survival of SWC by freeing the organization from data processing problems and cost, assuring a certain level of technological performance at a xed cost (for a period of ten years), providing a quick nancial transfusion to the organization, and allowing concentration on the main business of developing applications. 4.2.2. Perspectives From an integration perspective, outsourcing was a unifying event undertaken to ensure survival. We have already seen that the survival instinct was an important theme for SWC, and the outsourcing contract was clearly associated in the minds of employees with the need for survival. As the contract administrator said: Its benecial to both companies that we do not have to worry that we do not have money to buy the latest computers and so forth. Could we afford to operate our own system? Maybe yes, maybe no. So, the decision was made to outsource. By removing various activities that were unrelated to the core business, outsourcing reduced the amount of differentiation among subunits and laid the ground for a more unied culture focused on product design and marketing. The new relationship with Outsourcing Co. also provided SWC employees with a common enemy, which further strengthened internal unity. The theme of humanist image is also associated with the events surrounding outsourcing. Because treating the employees fairly was a value widely shared in the organization (in conformity with the integration perspective), some employees were crushed to see their friends transferred to Outsourcing Co. without any further discussion. As one analyst said: Here you have people who are used to working in our environment and then you move them to a very structured, strict environment and some of the people didnt make it. The themes of culture differences, humanist image, and pride support such an integrationist interpretation of outsourcing. To conclude that the outsourcing partnership was simply a unifying event in
251
SWCs culture, however, would be a limited analysis. Again, applying the perspectives of differentiation and fragmentation successively adds insight to the cultural interpretation. The differentiation perspective focuses directly upon the cultural differences between SWC and Outsourcing Co. As one SWC analyst described: We are not blue suits and white shirts kind of people. Then you bring in a group like Outsourcing Co., that is extremely straight and narrow, that just sees down one path, and the blue suits and the white shirts, and you mix that group. It causes some interesting fall-out. While outsourcing had many positive features, such as unifying against a common enemy and enabling survival, it also presented many difculties because of the sharp differences between the cultures of the two organizations. The story told at the very beginning of this paper is a good example of the many stories illustrating this difference; because Outsourcing Co. placed so much emphasis on appearances and the bottom line, SWC employees regarded Outsourcing Co. as a supercial company. The theme of culture differences best reects these differences. Although SWC was now serviced by former employees who had moved to Outsourcing Co., respondents were clear about the inuence of Outsourcing Co.s cultural norms on these people. As told in story 26, although relationships used to be quite informal and simple with other SWC departments, relationships had become more complicated and less collaborative after these departments were moved to Outsourcing Co. While this seems quite natural from an outsiders viewpoint, it seemed to necessitate a long period of adaptation for SWCs employees. The study was conducted three years after the outsourcing contract was struck, but similar stories were told every time the topic of outsourcing was raised. As many stories relate, Outsourcing Co.s organizational culture was more formal, hierarchical, and ruleoriented; SWCs culture was much less formal, and employees were oriented to fullling customer needs rather than complying with arbitrary rules and procedures. Because outsourcing was a formal contract, Outsourcing Co. insisted on getting everything in writing with proper authorization and controls, but this was difcult for many SWC employees who saw such rules to be obstacles to the quick problem solving needed to deal with constant changes and unstable environment. As one analyst said: The bottom line was to get it xed. With Outsourcing Co., the paperwork has to come rst. SWC employees frequently questioned Outsourcing Co.s intentions and disagreed with their business priorities. As a senior analyst said: Outsourcing Co. is denitively a bottom line company. Does this make me money or doesnt it make me money? If it doesnt make money, then get rid of it. I dont see them as a people company where I see us as a people company. Another programmer (30) said: Outsourcing Co. is like big brother is watching you. If I step on you to get ahead, Im going to step on you, and I dont care. I might step twice on you, you know. Thats the kind of attitudes they have. The differentiation perspective focuses on these cultural differences in a business partnership and aids in understanding the difculties in managing an outsourcing relationship. The fragmentation perspective draws attention to the uncertainty created by outsourcing. Outsourcing Co. was seen as an unpredictable player, and that amplied the difculty of producing software products for customers. Employees felt out of
252
control and dependent upon an outside force that neither understood their business nor the way things were done at SWC. For example, Outsourcing Co. could assign a new account manager to SWC or replace other employees assigned to work on SWCs projects. As one manager expressed: Im not in control of an operation thats dealing directly with the customer. The cultural differences exacerbated the general uncertainty prevailing at SWC. Teams now containing people from Outsourcing Co. had to negotiate work norms with people coming from a different entity while they continued to have problems obtaining collaboration from internal groups. As one analyst noted: We have to remember that we are a customer and not another entity of Outsourcing Co. and that they are not an entity of us. We were all one company at one time and now its like split, but its a lot of the same people. So, we have to remember sometimes that we are different companies trying to support each other. As an illustration of the degree of uncertainty and mistrust, SWC created a special team just to monitor performance levels and to administer the contract with Outsourcing Co. Because this group constantly had to intervene in conicts between SWC groups and Outsourcing Co., it was sometimes seen as being tied to Outsourcing Co. and was not there to defend SWCs interests, which increased the uncertainty around the management of this relationship. The fragmentation perspective also helps to identify contradictions between themes. For example, because SWCs survival instinct and pride were so strong, one might conclude that cultural differences between SWC and Outsourcing Co. could be overcome, or that SWC would regard Outsourcing Co. as a savior. Despite the importance of these themes in the organization, the cultural differences remained an important theme and were extensively discussed. The fragmentation perspective takes these contrary expressions as signs of general ambiguity, uncertainty, and confusion. But these interpretations exist along side of those provided by the differentiation and integration perspectives. Each perspective reveals different interpretations about SWCs culture, and all three are necessary to produce a fuller interpretation. We have interpreted both software development practices from multiple cultural perspectives. We have also shown how excerpts from specic stories enrich the interpretation from each perspective, leaving no doubt that multiple interpretation is a more complicated process, but one that is richer and more rewarding. In the following section, we draw implications of our cultural analysis for both practice and research.
5. Implications 5.1. Implications for practice In contrast to strictly rational perspectives on systems development, the primary goal of this study was to generate insights into the management of software development activities through cultural analysis of organizational stories. In this way, we seek to advance the understanding of how software development is actually conduc-
253
ted, and how management practices are interpreted in a cultural context. This study contributes to a stream of research on the social context of information system development (Robey & Markus, 1984; Hirschheim & Newman, 1991; Robey & Newman, 1996). Like any social artifact, management practices such as outsourcing and team organization are subject to interpretation and assigned cultural meaning by participants. The salience and importance of these meanings are clear from their emergence in the stories told by organizational members. The primary implication of our analysis is that practices commonly undertaken to improve the production of software evoke interpretations from members of a culture, who collectively redene what might have been intended or anticipated. This conrms what many studies of organizational culture have historically revealed: that social arrangements for work are not easy to design or control. When interpreted by participants in the culture, such practices may even be rendered ineffective or problematic. Managers attempting to reorganize software production must acknowledge the social meanings of such practices. Not only should managers anticipate conicting views from subcultural groups, but they should also consider the consequences of cultural ambiguity. Where changes are frequent and contradictory, the wisdom that motivated the change may be masked by participants generalized ambiguity. By supplementing the integrationist view of culture with the differentiation and fragmentation views, we gained insight into these cultural implications of organizational practice. While academics may understand the complexity and ambiguity associated with changing organizations, managers actions do not always demonstrate sensitivity to the complexity of organizational cultures. Indeed, SWCs assumptions about teams and outsourcing seemed to be rather nave. Team organization represented a fundamental shift from prior practice, and little was done to manage the change process aside from running ill-fated pilot projects. Likewise, the outsourcing contract between two very different partners was rife with conict, apparently not anticipated by management. In all fairness, managers probably understand organizational cultures more intimately than academic researchers, but their roles require responses that demonstrate order, mastery and control. A deliberate and comprehensive cultural analysis, incorporating the multiple perspectives considered here, may reveal why managers attempts to impose order often become problematic and why more gradual change or special approaches to managing change may be more effective. The early years of organizational culture studies were characterized by unrealistic expectations that cultures could be managed through the manipulation of symbols to produce unication around key values signifying a proper course of action. Such is the legacy of the integration perspective. At best, the integration perspective warns that members may resist cultural change unless it is managed skillfully. The differentiation perspective more directly confronts the deep internal divides and diagnoses resistance as conict among subcultures that have their own values and methods of working. Moreover, the fragmentation perspective completely dismisses the idealistic notion of cultural harmony and draws attention to the signs of confusion in an organization. The fragmentation perspective reveals the ambiguity associated with planned change. These more contemporary analyses view changes in software development
254
practices as more problematic than simply overcoming cultural resistance. Stories expressing frustrations with constant change and difculties in working together illustrate that a team approach to software development must overcome a great deal in order to be implemented successfully. Stories at SWC referred to people losing their minds, feeling threatened, and other such strong emotions. Anticipating resistance, SWCs management tried to implement the team approach to software development incrementally, going from pilot to pilot and adjusting the new development process. Instead of imposing their vision on the Project A team that resisted their new approach, managers adopted roles as observers. They tried to see how they could integrate the more successful practices into the software development process and apply them to future projects. They learned that, to facilitate change, roles and responsibilities needed to be claried. They also learned that reward systems, now in the hands of each department head and based on individuals contributions to the department, would need to match the new desired values of collaboration and communication. The evaluation and reward systems would eventually need to be placed in the hands of the project managers and used to measure the contributions of individuals to project and team goals. The friction that existed between SWC and Outsourcing Co. is evidence of cultural differences of great magnitude. Stories brimmed with resentment toward the new business partner. How could Outsourcing Co. possibly understand SWCs business, where business volume might triple in a single month? As one manager quipped, it wasnt like selling Pepsi-Colas. The day the outsourcing company became an important business partner, the management of this day-to-day relationship became a constant source of uncertainty and friction for SWCs employees. The cultural differences between two organizations precipitated constant negotiation of how business was conducted. To implement a new partnership in software development, managers and participants must acknowledge that organizational change necessitates cultural change. Even minor changes can affect the fragile relationship between two organizations. When new partnerships are formed, a subtle process of negotiation is initiated that may redene the culture of both partners. After an initial period of peaceful work, a group may be transformed into a state of chaos where norms, values, and work practices become subject to continuous negotiation. To help alleviate this situation, Outsourcing Co. and SWC tried to identify people to serve as stable interfaces to assure continuity throughout projects between the two organizations. Because of the cultural implications of changes in software development practices, it is important for managers to understand the cultural foundations of practice. A valuable method for obtaining cultural insights is listening to stories. Stories focus on events that are meaningful to organizational members and that have helped to shape an organization. Stories are also an important source of information for anyone inside or outside an organization. Managers need to be attentive to the recurring messages in stories and the broader cultural themes that they support. This study has shown that stories told by people at all levels of an organization are sources of information that are useful for understanding the cultural context of software development practices.
255
5.2. Implications for research This research sought to obtain insights into organizational culture by examining organizational stories. While this study examines stories told to the researcher in private interviews, other strategies have been used to elicit stories and discover meanings: asking specically for stories during an interview (e.g., Wilkins, 1978), consultation of published sources (e.g., Martin et al., 1983) and observation of story performance (e.g., Boje, 1991). A study could be designed so that it uses all of these sources. Research is denitely enriched and broadened by employing multiple methodological approaches, and further innovation in story collection should be encouraged. While this study looks at the main themes expressed through stories as a symbol of organizational culture, other approaches to analysis could also be used. For example, stories could be analyzed through formal deconstruction or through a formal narrative analysis undertaken to understand a storys structure and form, its level of language, and its rhetorical strategy. Either of these approaches could contribute to a better understanding of how people make sense of the ow of their organizational experiences. In any research effort, the researchers own presence is bound to affect the data gathered. By asking SWC employees to talk about their experiences into a researchers microphone, the researcher creates demand characteristics affecting the data provided by respondents (Rosenthal & Rosnow, 1991). However, organizational stories are often told outside of organizational contexts: to friends and family as well as researchers. We assume that the stories told during interviews remain cultural symbols, even though the cultural setting for storytelling (the interview) does not exist naturally in the organization. Despite the articial setting, respondents were visibly involved in many of the stories they told. Rather than recounting factual details in a dull manner, storytellers interpreted the details to express an opinion or emotion directly related to their personal lives. Finally, by focusing on orally conveyed stories, this study largely neglects other symbolic activities or cultural manifestations in the organization. A more thorough investigation could corroborate the interpretations of multiple symbols, including published documents, architecture and work products. While such artifacts were used to aid the researchers understanding of organizational context, they were excluded from formal analysis and interpretation.
6. Conclusion Software development is an activity with increasing economic signicance, and any inquiry into its management and organization is potentially useful. As the business context for software development proceeds on its revolutionary course, managers and professionals will continue to be confronted by the challenges of managing change. Pressures for higher-performing products, and more frequent and faster releases, will increase the need for effective management response. As with all
256
organized social activity, cultural understandings will emerge and play a signicant role in making sense of the changing workplace. The symbols of organizational culturestories and other artifactswill provide valuable clues for managers and researchers as they seek to effect and understand changes in software development. This study illustrates the advantages of using multiple perspectives to understand organizational culture and practices. As recommended by Martin (1992), the integration, differentiation, and fragmentation perspectives each offer something additional, and no single perspective enables a full interpretation. While emphasizing the important shared values of pride and the survival instinct, the integration perspective overlooks the organizational divisions that threaten survival. The differentiation perspective highlights the organizations lack of cohesion and enables a deeper understanding of the problems of implementing team-based designs and working with an outsourcing partner. The fragmentation perspective acknowledges the role of uncertainty and enables the analysis of contradictory themes. Clearly, sustaining SWCs theme of humanist image amid the uncertainties and difculties present in other themes is an extraordinary bit of cultural sensemaking. The fragmentation perspective adds such insights to the cultural analysts other means of understanding organizations. Contradictory themes are more clearly understood, as relevant aspects of an organizations culture, rather than ignored or explained away. While the different organizational culture perspectives have been shown to be useful in analyzing activities such as reorganization and outsourcing, they may very well be extended to other information system activities. For example, the differentiation perspective can provide a framework for analyzing the reactions of different groups to the implementation of a particular system. The fragmentation perspective may help in understanding the creation of development teams composed of members from diverse departments. This perspective would help highlight and focus on the negotiations required for these people to reconcile their cultural differences. In future research, we urge researchers not to embrace blindly the managerialist view of organizational culture, but to question the appropriateness of the managerialist perspective and to consider the richness of alternatives. A broader view of organizational culture improves our understanding of complex social phenomena such as software development activities. This study provides a cultural analysis of software development in one organization that has withstood many of the difculties experienced by other companies in the 1990s: outsourcing, radical organizational change, business process reengineering, multiple bankruptcies, and changes in ownership. How can the consequences of these conditions on software development be understood? Our answer to this question is that there are multiple ways of interpreting the culture of software development. But rather than choosing among alternative perspectives, we advocate using more than one. The research challenge is not to select the best cultural perspective for understanding software development, but rather to understand in greater depth. Using multiple perspectives supports cultural interpretations not attainable from the application of a single perspective. The culture of software development is simultaneously integrated, differentiated, and fragmented if researchers choose to see it that way. As our analysis of SWC has demonstrated, cultural interpretations matterto
257
employees, clients, business partners, managers, and othersand those interpretations can be enriched by a multi-faceted strategy.
Acknowledgements We acknowledge the nancial support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), which partly funded the study. We also acknowledge the suggestions of Leigh Jin, Michelle Kaarst-Brown, and Allen Lee on previous drafts.
References
Avison, D. E., & Myers, M. (1995). Information systems and anthropology: an anthropological perspective on IT and organizational culture. Information Technology and People, 8, 4356. Barley, S. R. (1990). Images of imaging: notes on doing longitudinal eld work. Organization Science, 1 (3), 220247. Bernard, H. R. (1988). Research methods in cultural anthropology. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Bobrow, E. (1995). Service outsourcing trend continues. Midrange Systems, 8 (5), 10. Boje, D. M. (1991). The storytelling organization: a study of story performance in an ofce-supply rm. Administrative Science Quarterly, 36, 106126. Boje, D. M. (1995). Stories of the storytelling organization: a postmodern analysis of Disney as TamaraLand. Academy of Management Journal, 38 (4), 9971035. Brancheau, J. C., Janz, B. D., & Wetherbe, J. C. (1996). Key issues in information systems management: 1994-95 SIM Delphi results. MIS Quarterly, 20 (2), 225242. Bruno, C. (1995). Outsourcing mania. Network World, 12 (51), 1. Creswell, J. W. (1997). Qualitative inquiry and research design. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Czarniawska-Joerges, B. (1992). Exploring complex organizations: a cultural perspective. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Dandridge, T. C., Mitroff, I., & Joyce, W. F. (1980). Organizational symbolism: a topic to expand organizational analysis. Academy of Management Review, 5 (1), 7782. Deal, T. E., & Kennedy, A. A. (1982). Corporate cultures: the rites and rituals of corporate life. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Deetz, S. (1996). Describing differences in approaches to organization science: rethinking Burrell and Morgan and their legacy. Organization Science, 7 (2), 191207. Dube, L. (1995). The role of stories in understanding the cultural context surrounding information system practices. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, Florida International University. Feldman, S. P. (1990). Stories as cultural creativity: on the relation between symbolism and politics in organizational change. Human Relations, 43 (9), 809828. Hirschheim, R., & Newman, M. (1991). Symbolism and information system development: myth, metaphor and magic. Information Systems Research, 2 (1), 2962. Hiu, Q., Saunders, C. S., & Gebelt, M. (1997). Diffusion of information systems outsourcing: a reevaluation of inuence sources. Information Systems Research, 8, 288301. Huff, S. (1991). Outsourcing of information services. Business Quarterly, 55 (4), 6265. Johnson, J. (1995). Chaos: the dollar drain of IT project failures. Application Development Trends, 2 (1), 4147. Jones, M. R. (1991). The impact of organizations on computers. SIGCHI Bulletin, 23 (1), 6667. Kaarst-Brown, M. L., & Robey, D. (1999). More on myth, magic and metaphor: cultural insights into the management of information technology in organizations. Information Technology and People, 12, 192217.
258
Kendall, K. E., Bufngton, J. R., & Kendall, J. E. (1987). The relationship of organizational subcultures to DSS user satisfaction. Human Systems Management, 7, 3139. Kling, R., & Iacono, S. (1989). The institutional character of computerized information systems. Ofce: Technology and People, 5 (1), 728. Knights, D., & Willmott, H. C. (1987). Organizational culture as management strategy: a critique and illustration from the nancial services industry. International Studies of Management and Organizations, 17 (3), 4063. Lacity, M. C., & Hirschheim, R. (1993). Information systems outsourcing: myths, metaphors and realities. New York: John Wiley. Lacity, M. C., & Hirschheim, R. (1996). Beyond the information systems outsourcing bandwagon. New York: John Wiley. Loh, L., & Venkatraman, N. (1992a). Diffusion of information technology outsourcing: inuence sources and the Kodak effect. Information Systems Research, 3 (4), 334358. Loh, L., & Venkatraman, N. (1992b). Determinants of information technology outsourcing: a cross-sectional analysis. Journal of Management Information Systems, 8, 724. Louis, M. R. (1983). Organizations as culture-bearing milieux. In L. R. Pondy, P. J. Frost, G. Morgan, & T. C. Dandridge, Organizational symbolism (pp. 3954). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. Martin, J. (1982). Stories and scripts in organizational settings. In A. H. Hastorf, & A. M. Isen, Cognitive social psychology (pp. 255305). New York: Elsevier. Martin, J. (1992). Cultures in organizations; three perspectives. New York: Oxford University Press. Martin, J., Feldman, M. S., Hatch, M. J., & Sitkin, S. B. (1983). The uniqueness paradox in organizational stories. Administrative Science Quarterly, 28, 438453. Martin, J., & Meyerson, D. (1988). Organizational cultures and the denial, channeling and acknowledgment of ambiguity. In L. R. Pondy, R. J. Boland Jr, & H. Thomas, Managing ambiguity and change (pp. 93125). New York: John Wiley. McFarlan, F. W., & Nolan, R. L. (1995). How to manage an IT outsourcing alliance. Sloan Management Review, 36 (2), 923. Meyerson, D., & Martin, J. (1987). Cultural change: an integration of three different views. Journal of Management Studies, 24 (6), 623647. Morgan, G., Frost, P. J., & Pondy, L. R. (1983). Organizational symbolism. In L. R. Pondy, P. J. Frost, G. Morgan, & T. C. Dandridge, Organizational symbolism (pp. 335). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. Morieux, Y. V. H., & Sutherland, E. (1988). The interaction between the use of information technology and organizational culture. Behaviour and Information Technology, 7 (2), 205213. Mulqueen, J.T. (1996). Industry trend toward outsourcing continues to grow strong. Communications Week, April 29, 1996. Issue: 608, p. 75. Niederman, F., Brancheau, J. C., & Wetherbe, J. C. (1991). Information systems management issues for the 1990s. MIS Quarterly, 15 (4), 474495. Orlikowski, W. J. (1991). Integrated information environment or matrix of control? The contradictory implications of information technology. Accounting, Management and Information Technologies, 1, 942. Orlikowski, W. J., & Baroudi, J. (1991). Studying information technology in organizations: research approaches and assumptions. Information Systems Research, 2, 128. Ott, J. S. (1989). The organizational culture perspective. Pacic Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole. Peters, T. J., & Waterman, R. H. (1982). In search of excellence. New York: Harper and Row. Pliskin, N., Romm, T., Lee, A. S., & Weber, Y. (1993). Presumed versus actual organizational culture: managerial implications for implementation of information systems. The Computer Journal, 36 (2), 143152. Prasad, P. (1993). Symbolic processes in the implementation of technological change: a symbolic interactionist study of work computerization. Academy of Management Journal, 36, 14001429. Robey, D., & Azevedo, A. (1994). Cultural analysis of the organizational consequences of information technology. Accounting, Management, and Information Technology, 4, 2337. Robey, D., & Newman, M. (1996). Sequential patterns in information systems development: an application of a social process model. ACM Transactions on Information Systems, 14 (1), 3063. Robey, D., & Markus, M. L. (1984). Rituals in information system design. MIS Quarterly, 8, 515.
259
Romm, T., Pliskin, N., Weber, Y., & Lee, A. S. (1991). Identifying organizational culture clash in MIS implementation: when is it worth the effort? Information and Management, 21, 99109. Rosenthal, R., & Rosnow, R. L. (1991). Essentials of behavioral research: methods and data analysis. New York: McGraw-Hill. Schank, R. C. (1990). Tell me a story. New York: Charles Scribners Sons. Schein, E. H. (1985). Organizational culture and leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Scholz, C. (1990). The symbolic value of computerized information systems. In P. Gagliardi, Symbols and artifacts: views of the corporate landscape (pp. 233254). Berlin: de Gruyter. Schwartzman, H. B. (1993). Ethnography in organizations. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Smircich, L. (1983). Concepts of culture and organizational analysis. Administrative Science Quarterly, 28, 339358. Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1990). Basics of qualitative research: grounded theory procedures and techniques. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Teng, J. T. C., Cheon, M. J., & Grover, V. (1995). Decisions to outsource information systems functions: testing a strategy-theoretic discrepancy model. Decision Sciences, 26 (1), 75103. The Standish Group (1995). Chaos. http://www.standishgroup.com/chaos.html. September 23, 1996. Verity, J.W. (1996) Lets order out for technology. Business Week, May 13, 1996. Issue: 3475, p. 47. Walsham, G. (1991). Organizational metaphors and information systems research. European Journal of Information Systems, 1 (2), 8394. Walsham, G. (1993). Interpreting information systems in organizations. New York: John Wiley. Walsham, G. (1996). The emergence of interpretivism in IS research. Information Systems Research, 4, 376394. Wilkins, A.L. (1978). Organizational stories as an expression of management philosophy: implications for social control in organizations. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Stanford University. Wilkins, A. L. (1983). Organizational stories as symbols which control the organization. In L. R. Pondy, P. J. Frost, G. Morgan, & T. C. Dandridge, Organizational symbolism (pp. 8192). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. Wilkins, A. L. (1984). The creation of company cultures: the role of stories and human resource systems. Human Resource Management, 23 (1), 4160. Yin, R. K. (1994). Case Study Research. (2nd ed.). Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Young, E. (1989). On the naming of the rose: interests and multiple meanings as elements of organizational culture. Organization Studies, 10 (2), 187206.

Culture - Software Stories - Three Cultural Perspectives On The Organi

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Culture - Software Stories - Three Cultural Perspectives On The Organi

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Accting., Mgmt. & Info. Tech. 9 (1999) 223259 www.elsevier.

L. Dube, D. Robey / Accting., Mgmt. & Info. Tech. 9 (1999) 223259

L. Dube, D. Robey / Accting., Mgmt. & Info. Tech. 9 (1999) 223259

L. Dube, D. Robey / Accting., Mgmt. & Info. Tech. 9 (1999) 223259

L. Dube, D. Robey / Accting., Mgmt. & Info. Tech. 9 (1999) 223259

Fig. 1. Research design.

L. Dube, D. Robey / Accting., Mgmt. & Info. Tech. 9 (1999) 223259

L. Dube, D. Robey / Accting., Mgmt. & Info. Tech. 9 (1999) 223259

L. Dube, D. Robey / Accting., Mgmt. & Info. Tech. 9 (1999) 223259

L. Dube, D. Robey / Accting., Mgmt. & Info. Tech. 9 (1999) 223259

L. Dube, D. Robey / Accting., Mgmt. & Info. Tech. 9 (1999) 223259

L. Dube, D. Robey / Accting., Mgmt. & Info. Tech. 9 (1999) 223259

L. Dube, D. Robey / Accting., Mgmt. & Info. Tech. 9 (1999) 223259

Themes and stories.

L. Dube, D. Robey / Accting., Mgmt. & Info. Tech. 9 (1999) 223259

L. Dube, D. Robey / Accting., Mgmt. & Info. Tech. 9 (1999) 223259

L. Dube, D. Robey / Accting., Mgmt. & Info. Tech. 9 (1999) 223259

L. Dube, D. Robey / Accting., Mgmt. & Info. Tech. 9 (1999) 223259

L. Dube, D. Robey / Accting., Mgmt. & Info. Tech. 9 (1999) 223259

L. Dube, D. Robey / Accting., Mgmt. & Info. Tech. 9 (1999) 223259

L. Dube, D. Robey / Accting., Mgmt. & Info. Tech. 9 (1999) 223259

L. Dube, D. Robey / Accting., Mgmt. & Info. Tech. 9 (1999) 223259

L. Dube, D. Robey / Accting., Mgmt. & Info. Tech. 9 (1999) 223259

L. Dube, D. Robey / Accting., Mgmt. & Info. Tech. 9 (1999) 223259

3.9. Resistance to change

L. Dube, D. Robey / Accting., Mgmt. & Info. Tech. 9 (1999) 223259

Relationships among themes, practices, and perspectives.

L. Dube, D. Robey / Accting., Mgmt. & Info. Tech. 9 (1999) 223259

Key themes: humanist image, cultural differences, pride, survival instinct

Key theme: cultural differences

L. Dube, D. Robey / Accting., Mgmt. & Info. Tech. 9 (1999) 223259

L. Dube, D. Robey / Accting., Mgmt. & Info. Tech. 9 (1999) 223259

L. Dube, D. Robey / Accting., Mgmt. & Info. Tech. 9 (1999) 223259

L. Dube, D. Robey / Accting., Mgmt. & Info. Tech. 9 (1999) 223259

L. Dube, D. Robey / Accting., Mgmt. & Info. Tech. 9 (1999) 223259

L. Dube, D. Robey / Accting., Mgmt. & Info. Tech. 9 (1999) 223259

L. Dube, D. Robey / Accting., Mgmt. & Info. Tech. 9 (1999) 223259

L. Dube, D. Robey / Accting., Mgmt. & Info. Tech. 9 (1999) 223259

L. Dube, D. Robey / Accting., Mgmt. & Info. Tech. 9 (1999) 223259

L. Dube, D. Robey / Accting., Mgmt. & Info. Tech. 9 (1999) 223259

L. Dube, D. Robey / Accting., Mgmt. & Info. Tech. 9 (1999) 223259

L. Dube, D. Robey / Accting., Mgmt. & Info. Tech. 9 (1999) 223259

L. Dube, D. Robey / Accting., Mgmt. & Info. Tech. 9 (1999) 223259

You might also like