The impact of culture on strategic information systems planning : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Business Information Systems at Massey University, Manawatu, New Zealand
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Date
2014
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Massey University
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Abstract
How employees behave or react in an organisation depends on the norms and belief systems of that organisation, which is known as organisational culture. Organisational culture affects the decision making processes deciding the direction of the development of the organisation, and strategic information systems (IS) planning is one such process. The determinants that influence strategic IS planning have been examined and tested in previous studies. However, it is not known how the determinants of strategic IS planning success are affected by culture.
Therefore, the present study aims to investigate the impact of organisational culture on strategic IS planning. It proposes a conceptual model describing how culture affects two important determiners of strategic IS planning success, top management commitment and user participation.
Data were collected via a questionnaire survey of medium-sized and large organisations in the information and communications technology (ICT) industry in New Zealand and Malaysia. Structural equation modelling was used to analyse the survey data and to test the model. Follow-up interviews with five top managers and thirteen general employees resulted in in-depth qualitative data focusing on the relationships found to be interesting in the model.
Fitting the model by using partial least squares structural equation modelling suggested that both user participation and top management commitment affected the two dimensions of strategic IS planning success, communication and technology. User participation affected the strategic IS planning success dimensions relating to communication (β=.30) and technology (β=.24); top management commitment affected the strategic IS planning success dimensions relating to communication (β=.31) and technology (β=.42). As to the effect of culture dimensions on the determinants of strategic IS planning success, collectivism affected user participation (β=.15), and uncertainty avoidance affected top management commitment (β=.27) and user participation (β=.30). Qualitative data analysis resulted in rich descriptions of the managers’ and users’ perceptions of the reasons for the effects confirmed by fitting the survey data.
The present study contributes by demonstrating the impact of culture on the determinants of strategic IS planning success.
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Keywords
Management information systems, Strategic planning, Corporate culture