The inertial impact of culture on IT implementation

Many researchers suggest that information technology (IT) implementation can be used to facilitate organizational reengineering. However, there are several factors that foster organizational inertia and inhibit such change. When an IT conflicts with an organization's culture, the implementation of that IT is resisted in two ways. The first may result in implementation failure by undermining the analysis and design process, underutilizing the system once implemented, and/or sabotaging the implemented system. The second adapts the IT during implementation or use so that conflicts with the existing culture are reduced. Both of these reduce the potential of IT implementation to engender organizational change. The impact of culture on organizational change is well known and documented in the organizational literature. This paper demonstrates some theoretical linkages among various cultures and different ITs. A theoretical case is therefore made concerning the inertial impact of culture on IT implementation.

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