Decision Support in Organizational Transformation: IFIP TC8 WG8.3 International Conference on Organizational Transformation and Decision Support, 15–16 September 1997, La Gomera, Canary Islands

286 Pages·1997·12.15 MB·English

by  P. Humphreys, W. Mayon-White (auth.), Patrick Humphreys, Sabino Ayestaran, Andrew McCosh, Bill Mayon-White (eds.)

Decision Support in
Organizational
Transformation
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IFIP - The International Federation for Information Processing
IFIP was founded in 1960 under the auspices of UNESCO, following the First World
Computer Congress held in Paris the previous year. An umbrella organization for societies
working in information processing, IFIP's aim is two-fold: to support information processing
within its member countries and to encourage technology transfer to developing nations. As
its mission statement clearly states,
IFIP's mission is to be the leading, truly international, apolitical organization which
encourages and assists in the development, exploitation and application of information
technology for the benefit of all people.
IFIP is a non-profitmaking organization, run almost solely by 2500 volunteers. It operates
through a number of technical committees, which organize events and publications. IFIP's
events range from an international congress to local seminars, but the most important are:
• the IFIP World Computer Congress, held every second year;
• open conferences;
• working conferences.
The flagship event is the IFIP World Computer Congress, at which both invited and
contributed papers are presented. Contributed papers are rigorously refereed and the rejection
rate is high.
As with the Congress, participation in the open conferences is open to all and papers may
be invited or submitted. Again, submitted papers are stringently refereed.
The working conferences are structured differently. They are usually run by a working
group and attendance is small and by invitation only. Their purpose is to create an atmosphere
conducive to innovation and development. Refereeing is less rigorous and papers are
subjected to extensive group discussion.
Publications arising from IFIP events vary. The papers presented at the IFIP World
Computer Congress and at open conferences are published as conference proceedings, while
the results of the working conferences are often published as collections of selected and
edited papers.
Any national society whose primary activity is in information may apply to become a full
member of IFIP, although full membership is restricted to one society per country. Full
members are entitled to vote at the annual General Assembly, National societies preferring a
less committed involvement may apply for associate or corresponding membership. Associate
members enjoy the same benefits as full members, but without voting rights. Corresponding
members are not represented in IFIP bodies. Affiliated membership is open to non-national
societies, and individual and honorary membership schemes are also offered.
Decision Support in
Organizational
Transformation
IFIP TC8 WG8.3 International Conference on
Organizational Transformation and Decision Support,
15-16 September 1997, La Gomera, Canary Islands
Edited by
Patrick Humphreys
London School of Economics
London
UK
Sabino Ayestaran
University del Pais Vasco
San Sebastian
Spain
Andrew McCosh
University of Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Scotland
and
Bill Mayon-White
London School of Economics
London
UK
lunl SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, BV.
First edition 1997
Q 1997 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
Originally published by Chapman & Hall in 1997
ISBN 978-1-4757-4922-9 ISBN 978-0-387-35348-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-0-387-35348-7
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CONTENTS
1 Introduction and overview
P. Humphreys and B. Mayon-White 1
2 Decision support systems: structural. conversational and
emotional adjustments: breaking and taking of organisational care
O. Garcia and R. Orellana 8
3 Measures of ethicality: the calibration of corporate moral
transformations
A. McCosh 22
4 Structure and communications in the process of organisational change:
East European experience and its general relevance
P. Humphreys and E. Nappelbaum 39
5 How right is wrong
M. Schlumberger 68
6 Support as intervention in decision processes
G. de Zeeuw 78
7 CSCW - A challenge to certain (G) DSS perspectives on the role
of decisions. information and technology in organisations?
L J. Bannon 92
8 Management developed DSS and organisational transformation
S. Carlsson 122
9 The Organizational Relational model: proposal and results
C. Ferioli and P. Migliarese 150
10 Inter organisational systems as a backbone for organisational DSS:
scope. impact. examples
C. Loebbecke. P. Powell, P. Finnegan and W. Golden 176
Vi contents
11 A strategic partnership in outsourcing: a public sector case study
C.A. Davies and T. Campbell 200
12 Corporate Upsizing: The Evolving Role of DSS in mergers and
acquisitions
A. McCosh 211
13 The competitiveness of the Hungarian managers
Z. Paprika 223
14 Organisational culture and modes of conflict behaviour
S. Ayestaran. C. Martinez-Taboada. J. Arrospide and L Garcia 242
15 Systems logic for problem formulation and choice
E. NappeJbaum 256
Index of contributors 278
Keyword index 279
1
Introduction and overview
P. Humphreys
Department of Social Psychology
London School of Economics and Political Science
Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE.
Tel [phone] Fax [phone]
e-mail
2 Decision Support in Organizational Transformation
The principal aim of the working group is:
"To improve ways of synthesising and applying relevant work from
reference disciplines to practical implementations of systems that enhance
decision support capability."
This book has its origins in ideas that have travel\ed within the decision support
community for a number of years, and led, in 1990, the formation of the Task
Group on Organisational Transformation within Working Group 8.3.
Conversations at the IFIP WG8.3 conference on Decision Support System
Experiences and Expectations, held at INSEAD, France, in 1992 (Jelassi and
Mayon-White, 1992) led to the plan for this book. Invited and contributed papers
were sought, reviewed, and presented at an WG8.3 conference held in San
Sebastian (Basque Country) in 1994. The dialogue continued at the 1996 IFIP
WG8.3 conference on Implementing Systems for Supporting Management
Decisions held at LSE (Humphreys et. at., 1996), Selected papers from the San
Sebastian conference were revised and refined, and three additional, papers were
specially commissioned to ensure a consistent coverage across the topics considered
in the book, which has now emerged in its published form for the 1997 conference
in La Gomera.
In the early I 990s, two strong themes were observable in different parts of the
decision support community. The first of these themes was attention to the concept
of change. In business schools across Europe and the USA there was an observable
and growing pre-occupation with the theme of change. Prompted by the pace of
economic and political change, academics appeared to be searching in either the
organisational development (OD) literature, or to be referring work in strategic and
corporate planning. Little genuinely new thinking emerged, but the literature was
abundant, and the popular management texts at the airport book stalls seemed to be
replete with recipes for change.
The second theme was an emerging debate within the Decision Analysis and
Decision Support community which appeared to reflect a growing sense of unease
with the traditional offerings of this field. Part of this debate was reflected in
plenary panel discussions at the 1992 INSEAD conference. On this occasion, a
polarisation of views surfaced between US speakers and those from Europe. The
essence of this debate focused on the role of decision support in organisations. A
"North American" view of the decision maker emerged: a positivist view of the
decision maker as the rational actor, pre-disposed to use discrete decision analytic
tools, and working within a rational organisational setting. This was strongly
countered by the view generally held in both East and West Europe, and probably in
most of the world, which considers "decisions" as merely one expression of the
unfolding web of the organisation, which itself exists and operates within an
irrational, unpredictable, and dynamic socio-political setting.
In this discussion, the positivist view of decision making as represented in the
"rational" literature was argued to be unrealistic and narrow, perhaps representing a
Introduction and overview 3
organisations as some managers and decision analysts might wish it to be, but
patently wrong and misleading for the majority of settings. But what would the
alternatives look like? How does decision making take place in a highly politicised
environment? What role, if any, does the positivist view retain in such
circumstances?
Such contrasting views are necessarily polarised, but they serve us well as the
beginning of an exploration of the ambiguous challenge posed by the title to this
volume: "Decision Support in Organisational Transformation". Two challenges set
by this title are, firstly, the potential and role of decision support in the aiding and
helping those in the midst of organisational change, and, secondly, the prospect of
using examples of organisational change as a source of new models of decision
making.
The first challenge suggests a test for our decision support tools and techniques:
if they are indeed reliable sophisticated quality products, then they should be capable
of helping groups and individuals to shape, structure, and manage decisions
concerning the future shape of their organisations. This view then leads on to a
hypothesis that if such tools were indeed appropriate and relevant we should be able
to find evidence widespread use of the products of the decision support community,
and to ask if this is so.
We can also examine the second challenge: do the observable processes and facts
of organisational change or transformation prove to be a rich arena for research? if
so they should show the student of change how groups in organisations, under the
stress and pressure of change, really react to the problems of making and
implementing decisions. Understanding how such groups go about decision making
should, in principle, tell us a more about those characteristics which we should
endeavour to build into our decision tools.
This volume is part of the response to these challenges and issues. The authors
are drawn from a range of countries and cultures and reflect on their experiences of
change and decision making. They are well placed to offer commentary on these
trends and developments. The collection should thus be of considerable value to
students and researchers from both of the traditions described above, and it is hoped
that this volume will serve to mark a turning point in our views on decision
making in organisations.
The is one other theme underlying this collection. It concerns the role of
technology in today's organisations, both as an essential component which is itself
shaping and controlling organisational form, and as a vehicle which embodies much
of our thinking about decision making and about efficient decisions. For example,
the credit rules used by a bank are managed and mediated via networks of
computers. Customer service centres, or call centres, have emerged as the hub at the
core of telephone banking in the UK and the USA. With these has come a
delegation of decision making. A lending decision is now no longer made by a
"bank manager", instead it is derived form a decision support system used and
operated by a clerk cum telephonist dealing directly with customer queries. This
new form of service replaces tht; old, and brings with a new organisational form