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Up and Running: Integrating Information Technology and the Organization
Up and Running Integrating Information Technology and the Organization Author:Richard E. Walton, Harvard Business School Press Information technology (IT) is revolutionizing how businesses operate. Indeed, advanced IT is becoming the single most powerful force shaping the structure and functioning of work organizations-plants, offices, and executive suites. But as managers across the country can verify, the revolution has not been without casualties: systems don't run t... more »he way they're supposed to, millions of dollars are lost in downtime and missed opportunities, and computer systems intended to expand creativity and productivity instead produce unwanted organizational responses and remain underutilized, symbols of the gap between good intentions and actual results. What accounts for this situation, according to Richard Walton, is management's failure to fully appreciate the interdependence of technology and organization. Although planners may understand the profound side effects that technology can have on organizations, they make little or no effort to predict or manage them, and they wind up unprepared when they go wrong. Using the experiences of diverse organizations such as IBM, AT&T, GE, Rolls-Royce, Mrs. Fields Inc, the IRS, and twelve others, Up and Running concretely illustrates the many ways in which IT and organizational dynamics can impinge upon one another, both positively and negatively. Walton takes the reader through each step of the implementation process, from creating a context that will ensure that new IT systems are "aligned, owned, and mastered," through the design phase where technical and social components of the IT system are integrated, and finally on through the introduction and diffusion phases. Up and Running provides a practical framework that can help organizations get the most out of their information systems. It offers new and revealing insights on a number of critically important features that planners and researchers alike have widely overlooked, features that have kept organizations from reaping the full benefits of technological advances.« less