Information and Communications Technology and Organizational Change

The effective introduction of modern information and communications technology (ICT) systems requires a highly co-ordinated and integrated approach to the management of both technological and organizational change. While much has been written about the need to attend to this challenge, it remains that a rather small proportion of change initiatives appears to address it in a manner that delivers successful business outcomes. Success is grounded in a well-honed ability to seamlessly co-ordinate and integrate multiple domains of organizational practice while simultaneously attending to organizational practitioners and their embedded practice orientations. In taking a close look at the need for effective co-ordination and integration, this entry illuminates the need to focus on the process of changing, with particular emphasis on the role of organizational practices and organizational practitioners in fostering integrated change.

Extant research over the past five decades unambiguously asserts that organizations intent on maximizing the business value of ICT can do so by attending to the challenge of change in a co-ordinated and integrated manner. While modern ICT systems offer unprecedented opportunities to transform both core and support business functions, such transformation is best progressed in an environment where both technological change and organizational change are advanced simultaneously. The absence of such an environment contributes to the dominance of technological change at the expense of organizational change. Once dominant, a narrow agenda for technological change will marginalize and ignore the human and organizational aspects of change which are central to enhancing organizational performance. While the field of organization development can make a unique contribution in terms of addressing the human and organizational aspects of change, it is sobering to see how the ICT domain is replete with narratives of failure due to the dominance of narrow technological change agendas.

To advance a highly co-ordinated and integrated approach to both technological and organizational change, one must become immersed in the process of changing, with particular emphasis on organizational practice and organizational practitioners. While it is technically correct to draw attention to the need for co-ordination and integration and equally correct to note the propensity for marginalizing the human and organizational aspects of change, such correctness offers little by way of rich insight into the need to both inform and transform organizational practice and organizational practitioners if the process of changing is to effectively address the integration challenge. If co-ordination and integration are not advanced as part of the process of changing, they are unlikely to be attended to at all.