Harmony and stress in information systems development and implementation: a multilevel theory and some empirical work on the crossroads of work psychology, organisational theory and information systems research

Developing and implementing organisational information technology (IT) is not an easy task. Within industry, there is a growing awareness of and concern about the complexity of introducing new IT in organisations. Research shows that it is not so much technical issues that complicate matters, but rather organisational, social and psychological issues. Researchers in different fields of science have studied the problems and have suggested numerous methods and techniques for solving some of the problems. This dissertation wants to contribute to that discussion. The immediate cause of this research is BlueTech, a development project within the company Omicron in which I participated at the start of my PhD project. BlueTech's goal was to develop IT applications for blue-collar workers in production industry. The aim of the technology was to allow groups of workers to organise their own production, to support them in their production and to allow them to evaluate and adjust their own functioning. However, rather early on in the project, a number of psychological and organisational issues appeared, which made the original software designs practically unusable. Those issues suggested the following research question: “When a new computer-based organisational information system is developed and implemented, what are the interactions between organisational characteristics, stakeholders’ psychological characteristics and information technology characteristics?” Because the literature on management information systems did not provide a suitable answer, a new and integrated theoretical model is developed in this dissertation, based on theoretical and empirical contributions from the three research disciplines. The model is called CHARISM, which stands for “Crosslevel HARmony, Integrity and Stress Model”. The method that was used in developing the theoretical model was a mixture of grounded-theory building and the deductive combination of ideas from the literature. The CHARISM model centres around the concepts of harmony, integrity and stress and has two levels-of-analysis, the individual and the organisational. The model starts from the assumption that individuals as well as organisations have certain needs and abilities, and that they function in a socio-economical environment that can supply those needs, but imposes certain demands in return. An important axiom in the theory poses that a state of relative harmony arises when an individual or an organisation can create a balance between his (its) needs and the environment's supplies on the one hand, and his (its) abilities and the environment's demands on the other. When no balance can be created or when an existing balance is disturbed, strain can arise, and that strain may – under certain conditions – turn into stress. The needs and abilities of an individual or an organisation together with his (its) perception of the environment's supplies and demands partly determine the subjective self-image of that individual or organisation. Based on needs and capacities, an individual or organisation develops his (its) own niche in the world, a relatively stable system consisting of socially acceptable situations, which are simplifications of the overwhelmingly complex environment. Every individual and organisation develops a number of such situations, which are characterised by certain routines and semi-automatic procedures that allow him (it) to function adequately. Those situations also entail a certain way of thinking, feeling and acting, and therefore act as a kind of mental filter in the perception of the environment. The niche that people and organisations live in supplies a stable system of presuppositions, meanings, norms, rules and goals, but also templates with social procedures and conventions. This structured whole of meanings and situations, this system, is called 'integrity of human functioning' or for short 'integrity' or also 'self-image'. According to the CHARISM model, this subjective integrity is related with a number of human psychosocial processes. A harmonious integrity is associated with job satisfaction, motivation, commitment and mental health, whereas a disturbed integrity is related with strain, stress and illness (mental and physical). An important process in the development and maintenance of integrity is signification or 'sensemaking', a process that assigns meaning to all activities – one's own as well as others' – a meaning that is determined not only by the social group to which one belongs, but also by the existing system of meanings. The existing integrity acts as a filtering device, in the sense that both individuals and organisations will try to interpret new information in such a way that it fits with their existing system of meanings, even if that new information gets a meaning that was not originally intended. Only if the latter is not possible, will the existing framework of meanings need to be adapted, and that is a very difficult process. It is exactly this signification process that plays an important role when changes occur in the life of people and organisations, such as for example the introduction of new information technology. One reason why signification is so important is that each individual and organisation is different; and according to the CHARISM model, those differences are mainly based on variations in the composition of the needs portfolios – a new concept that is introduced in the model. People and organisations have certain types of needs that are relatively more or less important at different points in time, and according to my theoretical model it is exactly those needs portfolios that are the basis for the different signification processes of the stakeholders in a change process. For example, in the development and introduction of new technology it may happen that signification conflicts arise between the software developers, the managers who order the new technology and the end users. Each of those groups may have different needs and expectations, and project those on to the other stakeholders, which can cause confusion and disagreement. Therefore, the main argument in the CHARISM model is the following: a new technology-based information system that is to be used by individuals in organisations will only make sense when it fits into the individual users’ integrity on the one hand, and into an organisation’s integrity on the other. If these two fits obtain simultaneously, a state of harmony arises, and the CHARISM model argues that the chances of success of the new system will be much better. In other words, the probability of the system's acceptance, integration and organisational use will be much higher. If either of these fits does not obtain, harmony is not achieved, and there is a chance that either the individual or the organisation will become strained or stressed, and may show avoidance behaviour. Therefore, the task of a technology development team consists of trying to estimate – before the start and in the course of the project – the existence or development of conflicts, both within the individual stakeholders and within the organisation. Indeed, it will often happen that new technology carries a number of 'embedded' meanings and that those meanings cause conflicts when they are too divergent from the individuals' and organisations' integrity. The problem, however, is that there is no simple way of estimating whether conflicts exist or may develop. Therefore, this dissertation suggests a list of characteristics that can be used to determine the degree of fit between the technology and its users on the one hand, and between the technology and the organisation on the other. In this context, it is important that the characteristics of the individual and the technology are commensurable, i.e. that the technology characteristics are psychologically and organisationally relevant. For each technology characteristic, the development team will have to try to determine as early as possible what the potential impact on the users and the organisation will be, amongst others by checking the degree in which the new technology fits or conflicts with the needs and abilities of individuals and organisations, but also by checking whether there are potential signification conflicts. From this description, it may have become clear that the CHARISM model is an encompassing theoretical framework, which can hardly be completely developed theoretically and empirically within the framework of a PhD project. Nevertheless, based on the theory, about 65 theoretical hypotheses were formulated, which summarise the argumentation. For about 25 of those hypotheses, empirical support was sought in two case studies in Danish heavy metal production companies, that studied projects in which information technology was introduced that was to be used by production workers on shop floor. At Omicron the project was an experimental research and development project that wanted to show the usefulness of certain software techniques without implementing major organisational change, whereas the project at Alpha consisted of a major conversion project of a complete production division. At Alpha, a comprehensive change was implemented in which the management structure was thoroughly revised, the wages system was changed and the workers were given more control over their own functioning. To that end, they were given access to the technology that was formerly only used by their supervisors. The explorative method that was used to find empirical support for the hypotheses is a hybrid mixture of qualitative and quantitative techniques and methods that combined stakeholder interviews with a questionnaire survey. The questionnaire that was compiled from existing instrument and new items was called RIPOSTI, which stands for Research Instrument for the Psycho-Organisational Study of Technology Implementation. The number of participants in the study (only men) was rather limited – about 60 at Omicron and about 30 at Alpha – which means that the statistical value of the quantitative results is only indicative, but that's all that was intended. The goal of the empirical part was only to find support for a limited number of main ideas and concepts, at both the individual and the organisational level-of-analysis. At the individual level-of-analysis, mainly quantitative techniques were used to analyse the answers to the RIPOSTI questionnaire. A first important result from those analyses concerns the potential role of the new concept of needs portfolio: at Alpha and Omicron there are important psychosocial differences between groups of individuals with divergent needs portfolios. Another important trend is that person-environment fit (PE-fit) – and especially needs-supplies fit – appears to be an important psychosocial parameter, and that there are clear associations between PE-fit and other psychosocial variables, such as job satisfaction, motivation and commitment. On the other hand, the correlation between PE-fit and mental physical health is less clear, which indicates integrity is only partially influenced by the subjective valuation of PE-fit. Other psychological processes, such as satisfaction and commitment, appear to play an important role in determining an individual's mental and physical health. A third interesting finding on the individual level-of-analysis is a clear correlation between PE-fit and the individual's perception of his organisation, which indirectly provides evidence for the role of the signification process. Finally, the study only found a limited association between an individual's integrity and his perception of organisational technology, which is probably related to the marginal role of the new technology in the two case studies. Indeed, the new technology does not seem to have initiated major changes in the work or the integrity of the end users involved. At the organisational level-of-analysis – more than at the individual level – a combination of qualitative and quantitative techniques was used. Part of the RIPOSTI-instrument investigated organisational perception, whereas the interviews were mainly directed at organisation-environment fit (OE-fit) and the role of the new technology. Moreover, my participation in the BlueTech project at Omicron was an important source of information. A first analysis used data from interviews, documents, observation and participation to draw a portrait of each organisation and its environment. The study shows that the two organisations are currently in a difficult market position – just as European production industry in general – and that they each try to cope with that external pressure in a different way. A second group of analyses studied internal signification processes in the organisations in two ways, firstly by carefully comparing the perceptions of the different stakeholder groups, and secondly by asking managers and union representatives to estimate the production workers' perceptions of internal psychosocial climate. Both types of analysis appear to be useful ways of measuring internal strain, and they yield rather different results for both companies. At Omicron, a fairly high degree of internal disagreement seems to exist, even to such an extent that one may speak of two clans within management, whereas there seems to be more internal agreement at Alpha. A third main analysis studied OE-fit by entering stakeholder answers into an expert system – Organisational Consultant – that indicates whether important misfits exist between the organisation and its environment. That analysis covers organisational characteristics such as strategy, management style, organisational climate, production technology, product diversity and size on the one hand; and environmental characteristics such as complexity, predictability and market situation. The answers related to these characteristics were treated in two ways. Firstly, each respondent's answers were screened for conflicts in his perception of OE-fit, and secondly, the differences between the respondents were analysed. The results of those analyses suggest that in both companies a certain level of discussion exists about a number of OE-fit issues, and that especially at Omicron OE-fit is perceived as problematic. Moreover, the role of the new technology was quite different in both organisations, as can be concluded from a detailed analysis of the interviews, observations and participation. At Omicron, BlueTech was a small experimental project about which there were rather diverse perceptions in the company, and which initiated thorough discussions within management. For one group of managers, the project indicated the direction in which technology development was to evolve in the company, whereas the other group perceived such a project as a threat to the stability and production within the company. At Alpha on the contrary, there was hardly any disagreement about the role of the new technology within the new organisational structure. There was no discussion about production workers getting access to the new IT that was needed in their new role. The analysis of the role of the IT on the organisational level did reveal a fundamentally different approach to change processes in the two companies. At Alpha, all levels in the organisation were closely involved in the changes right from the start of the project, whereas the Omicron analysis revealed a significantly higher level of conflict between management and the rest of the staff. The complicated history of the BlueTech project within Omicron provided rather interesting study material from a CHARISM perspective, because at different points in time there were conflicts between technology characteristics and the characteristics of the end-users and the organisation. Especially the analysis of BlueTech indicates that a model such as CHARISM can be very useful in the different stages of a technology development project, because the matching of characteristics will pinpoint potential conflicts at an early stage. Of course, quite some more research is needed in order to achieve a precise definition of technology characteristics with organisational and psychological relevance. Moreover, extensive further research is needed in order to demonstrate the value of some of the core concepts of the CHARISM model, such as needs portfolios, PE-fit, integrity, harmony and stress. This dissertation is only a first attempt at a holistic theoretical model. Finally, further research is needed for finding suitable research instruments and methods that need to be deployable in a rapid and targeted way, so as to play a useful role in fast moving technology projects.nrpages: xxi, 428status: publishe