Information Management and Culture, Priit Parmakson, 2005.

ABSTRACT

The starting point of this article is the observation that for a practicing information technologist, the concept of organizational culture currently is of only limited value, because of little operationality of known definitions and theories of culture.

Yet, information technologist cannot stay outside culture. I argue for a more systematic engagement of information technologist with culture in his or her work practice. Specifically,  a number of reasons exist why information technologists should be interested in culture professionally: (1) image creation moves into prime function in many IT systems, displacing the traditional information processing; (2) culture is one of the major elements of the organizational environment, in which IT systems operate; (3) actual use and effect of IT systems significantly depends on cultural factors; (4) the use of IT systems itself causes changes in organization's culture; (5) development of information system (IS), and cultural change often have to proceed in parallel or even jointly; (6) culture as an extremely efficient information-processing mechanism can be a complement, or even a serious alternative to computer IS; (7) IS can be used as an instrument in organization's culture change programs; (8) modern IS often have important cultural component; (9) certain amount of specification and analysis of culture is needed in most system development projects; (10) information use in organizations is a cultural, not only technical phenomenon; (11) Efficient technological solution usually has an aesthetical (cultural) value as well; (12) in some companies, cultural values are used in hiring and performance evaluation of  IT professionals.

Information technologist should be prepared to conduct, or subcontract cultural analyses both in development and maintenance stages of IT system life cycle. It may well be possible that information systems analyst can leverage his or her experience in conceptual and object-oriented modelling to learn and apply certain cultural analysis techniques. In the third section I briefly review a handful of cultural analysis approaches and techniques. I also attempt to evaluate their suitability for information technologist's needs and dispositions. The techniques covered are: Personae, Structured Analysis of Cultural System (after Mohr), Laddering, Pattern Language, Cultural Traits, Ethnography, Psychographics, and Cultural DNA.