Magalhães, Rodrigo

rmagellan@netcabo.pt

The Organisational Implementation of Information Systems: towards a new theory

(2000)

This dissertation provides fundamental conceptual building blocks for a new theory of IS implementation. The main argument presented is for a new perspective to supplement and complement the main existing perspectives on IS implementation: the technological determinist perspective, the managerial imperative perspective, and the socio-technical interactionist perspective. In this the research seeks to overcomes identified shortcomings of these existing approaches to understanding IS implementation.

The research methodology emphasises multidisciplinary theory-building, based on the resource-based approach to strategy, using autopoiesis as the key organisational epistemology. The research explores the concept of organisational climate dimensions as the shapers of organisational contexts, and relates these to information systems research on implementation. The new perspective developed emphasises managerial action and organisational contexts as a mid-level approach, bridging the gap between top-down, rationalist methods and bottom-up, emergent approaches.

Based on this conceptual framework, the context for IS corporate governance is operationalised and presented as a causal model with five independent variables - IS intent, discipline, trust, support and structural IS-related factors; and one independent variable - IS organisational learning. Data collection is carried out in large Portuguese companies by means of a postal questionnaire. The empirical data is supplemented by five short case studies.

The key conclusions of the thesis are:

1. The duality of managerial action-organisational contexts opens up whole new possibilities for research and the practice of IS implementation
   
   
2. The use of the notion of organisational contexts dimensions as a research tool allows the analysis to go deeper than the vague generalisations about organisations found in most current literature
   
   
3. The use of quantitative methods to investigate IS-related organisational contexts is not suitable, except for descriptive purposes; semi-structured interviews and in-depth case studies are recommended
   
   
4. Two specific dimensions of IS-related contexts are suggested as topics for further investigation: IS intent and IS structural factors

Read the full thesis: The Organizational Implementation of Information Systems: towards a new theory (PDF)

Supervisor: Professor Ian Angell, PhD

Rodrigo Magalhães is a consultant and advisor in strategy, organisation and information systems in Portugal and Mozambique, and visiting professor at the Portuguese Catholic University in Lisbon.

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