operational excellence week1 assi

School of Computer & Information Sciences

ITS-631- Operational Excellence

Chapter 2 – Information Technology and Organizational Learning

Introduction • The IT Dilemma • What are the perceptions and realities regarding the importance

of technology from organization leaders, business managers, and core operations personnel?

• The assimilation of technical people into an organization presents a special challenge in the development of true organizational learning practices.

• IT and non-IT personnel must be integrated to enhance organizational learning.

Recent Background and IT in the Organizational Context

• Recent Background – IT seen as a kind of variable that allows the business to reinvent

itself.

• IT in the Organizational Context – The impact it bears on the organizational structure – The role it can assume in business strategy – The ways in which it can be evaluated – The extent to which CEOs feel the need to manage operational

knowledge to manage IT effectively

IT and Org Structure • IT can lead to centralization of organizational control

• IT can lead to decentralization of organizational control

• IT can bear no impact on organizational control

• Organizations and IT can interact in an unpredictable manner

• IT can enable new organizational arrangements such as networked or virtual organizations

The Role of IT in Business Strategy

• Grid to assess the impact of IT operations and strategy based on specific questions:

Ways of Evaluating IT and Executive Knowledge of IT

• Ways of Evaluating IT – ROI – Cost allocations – Statistical probabilities of returns

• Executive Knowledge and Management of IT – Vision – Insights – Skills – Core competencies – Review: IT A View from the Top (table 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3)

Defining the IT Dilemma • Wide range of inconsistent practices

– Should executives use IT as part of their business strategy and operations?

– Cultural assimilations lag behind the actual involvement of IT in the strategic direction of the organization.

• Recent Developments in Operational Excellence – Decline in financial markets and mergers = opportunity for IT that

reinforces the need for integration via organizational learning.

References

• Langer, A. M. (2018). Information Technology and Organizational Learning. 3rd edition. Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. ISBN: 978-1-138- 23858-9