Evolution and organizational information systems: an assessment of Nolan's stage model

Richard Nolan's stage model is the best known and most widely cited model of computing evolution in organizations. The model's development over a decade demonstrates its own evolution from a simple theory, based on the factoring of change states indicated by changes in computing budgets, to an elaborate account of the characteristics of six stages of computing growth. An analysis of the model's logical and empirical structure reveals a number of problems in its formulation that help to account for the fact that its principal tenets have not been independently validated. The model is shown to be an “evolutionistic” theory within the theories of evolution in the social sciences, focusing on assumed directions of growth and an implied end state toward which growth proceeds, and suffering from problems inherent in such theories. Further research based on an “evolutionary” view of computing growth is suggested as a means of improving theories of computing in organizations.

[1]  Steven L. Alter,et al.  Decision support systems : current practice and continuing challenges , 1980 .

[2]  Simon Kuznets,et al.  Economic Growth and Structure: Selected Essays , 1965 .

[3]  Richard L. Nolan.  Management Accounting and Control of Data Processing , 1964 .

[4]  John F. Rockart,et al.  The management of end user computing , 1983, CACM.

[5]  A. Strauss,et al.  The Discovery of Grounded Theory , 1967 .

[6]  Carol Barner-Barry.  Evolutionary Explanation in the Social Sciences: An Emerging Paradigm Philippe Van Parijs Totowa, New Jersey: Rowman and Littlefield, 1981 , 1985 .

[7]  James G. March,et al.  Organizational Factors in the Theory of Oligopoly , 1956 .

[8]  Donald H. Drury,et al.  An Empirical Assessment of the Stages of DP Growth , 1983, MIS Q..

[9]  Robert C. Goldstein,et al.  The Stage Hypothesis and Data Administration: Some Contradictory Evidence , 1981, ICIS.

[10]  R. Nolan,et al.  Managing the Four Stages of EDP Growth , 1974 .

[11]  Walter Stewart Scacchi.  The process of innovation in computing: a study of the social dynamics of computing , 1981 .

[12]  Izak Benbasat,et al.  A critque of the stage hypothesis: theory and empirical evidence , 1984, CACM.

[13]  Brian Hollocks,et al.  Managing Management Information Systems , 1978 .

[14]  Raymond B. Jordan,et al.  How to use the learning curve , 1965 .

[15]  Henry C. Lucas,et al.  The stage hypothesis and the s-curve: some contradictory evidence , 1977, CACM.

[16]  Kenneth L. Kraemer,et al.  Computing policies and problems: A stage theory approach , 1981 .

[17]  Richard L. Nolan,et al.  Managing the computer resource , 1973, Commun. ACM.

[18]  Rob Kling,et al.  Social Analyses of Computing: Theoretical Perspectives in Recent Empirical Research , 1980, CSUR.