Designing Interactive Systems for Organizational Change. by Hans GlimellReview by: Dale E. ZandAdministrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 21, No. 1 (Mar., 1976), pp. 164-167Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. on behalf of the Johnson Graduate School of Management,Cornell UniversityStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2391890 .

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of a subject index. However, these are minor matters. The book provides an interesting excursion into concepts and methods rarely considered elsewhere. The next time I teach an introductory course on organizations, I intend to adopt this book as a supplement. Perhaps my opinions will change after the experiment, but the experiment seems to be worth mak- ing.

Paul C. Nystrom Associate Professor of Business Administration University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Designing Interactive Systems for Organizational Change. Hans Glimell. Goteborg, Sweden: BAS, 1975. 184pp. No price given.

This book describes a system design effort that failed and attempts to explain and generalize from the experience. A systems team from the University of Gothenburg tried to design and introduce a computer based information system which a selected group of managers-three diaper products managers-in a large, diversified Swedish company could use to improve their decisions. The team began working with the firm in 1970 and after almost four years had designed an interactive computer system more sophisticated than the managers could use and more costly than the firm would accept.

The author touches on many concepts and theories but does not indicate how they influenced the team or whose behavior they affected. If we set aside these unused or after-the-fact explanatory theories, it appears that the team's approach to organizational change focused entirely on the rational, techni- cal details of the computer system. The author's report of the consequences of that approach reads like a prototype of the pattern of events and forces Zand and Sorensen (1975) found led to the failure of a management science effort to change an organization.

The book is divided into three parts: introductory theory; description of the project; and analysis of the failure. The first part, taking almost 50 percent of the book-longer than is necessary, introduces the author's goal of using this one experience to contribute to the theory of systems design and implementation. In comparison with recent literature on this subject-Lucas (1975), Schultz and Slevin (1975), Zand and Sorensen (1975)-which is quite comprehensive and insight- ful, the author's ambitious goal is not well realized.

Part one goes on by dipping into fundamental concepts of information system design, organizational change, and human cognition in information processing. It concludes with a de- fense of the single case experience as a source for generat- ing theory. Part two briefly describes the firm in which the project occurred, presents in detail the technical considera- tions in designing the information system, and gives the barest sketch of major events in the three and one-half year life of the project.

The third part documents management's low frequency and low level usage of the system and ultimately its discontinua-

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Book Reviews

tion. This part cites, in retrospect, nine latent conflicts be- tween the firm and the team, inferring that these were symptoms or possibly causes of the failure. The author touches on more theories (dissonance, socio-technical, role conflict) in his attempt to analyze the case. Almost as an aside he comments that the rational orientation of system designers is not able to cope with a project that does not have real commitment from the user or with the political processes of the organization.

The overall effect of the three parts of the book is that of a thin layer of experience sandwiched between two hefty, poorly blended slices of theory.

There are some important gaps in the author's selection and use of theory. For example, in cognition theory he selects concepts that relate primarily to limitations on human proc- essing of information but overlooks the simple notion that managers can be very rational in what they expect from a computer based information system. Specifically, they expect that (1) the benefits of a project will be greater than its costs, (2) the system will be relevant to their problems and will be reliable, and (3) experimental design of the system can con- tinue so long as the costs are low and the potential payoffs are high.

Contrast these rational managerial expectations with the au- thor's description and analysis of the project. As to cost and benefits: the author practically makes no mention of any attempt to analyze the estimated costs of the project and the benefits to the firm of the supposedly superior decisions the proposed information system would enable. As to system relevance and reliability: the team's concept of the informa- tion system expanded beyond its initial vision and grew to such proportions that it spent the better part of a year rede- signing the system to reduce the size of computer core memory needed and searching for computer facilities with adequate core size. This may have been an exciting challenge to the system designers, but management was disappointed by the lack of results and the postponement of completion promises. The core size problem plus a demonstration which was a fiasco-projected a market share of more than two thousand percent-seriously undermined management's con- fidence in the relevance and reliability of the system. As to willingness to experiment: for most of the life of the project the project cost of designing the system and renting compu- ter time was financed primarily by government funds because the effort was considered a research experiment. When the team felt the system was operational and experimental fund- ing should end, the firm stopped on-line operation and for all practical purposes terminated the effort.

The organizational change theory cited in the book centers on the concepts that openness between the parties engenders mutual acceptance and joint participation in planning and re- view increases the probabilities that solutions will be im- plemented. In a highly technical project, however, the ques- tion is what kind of participation, when, and by whom makes sense? What participation will contribute to clarification and acceptance of goals, to improving the relevance and quality of

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solutions, and to implementation? These important require- ments are not addressed.

The case description does indicate, however, that from the view of organizational change theory the relationship between the team and the firm left much to be desired. For example, from the beginning of the project the goals of management and the goals of the team were different but this was never confronted. Management wanted a system to solve short term marketing problems, but the team, one may infer, wanted to give faculty and students an opportunity for re- search, doctoral dissertations, and practical experience. Also, as late as 1973 a top manager concerned with approving plans for the firm's system design program publicly ex- pressed disapproval of the goals and results of the project. This was not explored and the possibility of altering or discon- tinuing the project was not considered. In summary, although some members of the team may have been aware of theory of organizational change, one may infer that their limited goals, highly technical orientation, and lack of behavioral skills hindered their use of it.

The analysis of an organizational change effort is incomplete without an examination of the inner dynamics of the change agents. In this case there is little consideration, except by inference, of the effects of personal goals, internal conflicts, and bias toward computer technology. Since the author was a doctoral candidate on the team, such analysis is understanda- bly difficult and could be performed properly only by a com- plete outsider. Nevertheless, its absence is an important omission in the attempt to generalize from this one case.

The most interesting point to be learned from the case is never stated explicitly. It seems that no one had a coherent understanding of the organizational, human, and technical components of the change effort and how they interact. As a result the technical component dominated and like so many technique oriented changes that do not succeed, the failure is explained by resorting to two commonplace notions: (1) man- agers think about problems differently than management sci- entists, which really means that the change agents could not convince the managers that the change would help them, and (2) the organization is a political system, which really means the organization did not accept the change agent's goals or solutions and successfully mobilized its defenses against the intervention.

The system designer/management scientist who has experi- enced successes and failures will find little new theory or information in this book; however, the graduate student and neophyte practitioner will find here a brief survey of funda- mental concepts and a valuable sketch of what arouses man- agement's resistance to implementing a systems design project. Despite the book's deficiencies and this reviewer's critical comments, Dr. Glimell and the University of Gothen- burg faculty merit our gratitude for their integrity and their dedication to advancing science by reporting this case. One hopes that they will continue their systematic studies of man-computer interaction and organizational change.

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Book Reviews

Dale E. Zand Professor of Management/Behavioral Science Chairman of the department Graduate School of Business Administration New York University

REFERENCES

Lucas Jr., Henry C. 1975 Why Information Systems Fail,

New York: Columbia Univer- sity Press.

Schultz, Randall T. and Dennis P. Slevin (eds.) 1975 Implementing Operations

Research/Management Sci- ence, New York: American Elsevier.

Zand, Dale E., and Richard E. Sorensen 1975 "Theory of change and the ef-

fective use of management science." Administrative Sci- ence Quarterly, 20: 532-544.

Hospital Bureaucracy. Wolf V. Heydebrand. Port Washington, N.Y.: Dunellen. 1974. 362 pp. $15.00.

Wolf Heydebrand's Hospital Bureaucracy is a useful addition to the field of comparative organizational research. It is speci- fically an addition to the comparative literature on the struc- tural analysis of organizations. Indeed, in the context of struc- tural analysis, Heydebrand's use of grounded theory repre- sents an ambitious attempt to deal with a manifestly empiri- cal topic.

Heydebrand (p.30) succinctly states the purpose of the study: "This study is concerned with the interrelation between structural characteristics of hospitals as formal organizations." Within the context of this concern, he enumerates the link- ages among his various structural dimensions. Listing the variables hierarchically, the author presents an intricate causal sequence which links complexity of organizational environ- ment to size, to modes of coordination, to bureaucratization and, in turn, links the structural characteristics to organiza- tional effectiveness. (It should be noted that these relation- ships as presented by Heydebrand have multiple dimensions. See diagram on p. 25.) In the third chapter, the author analyti- cally and operationally delineates the particular structural di- mensions with which he will be concerned: autonomy, task structure, task environment, size, technology division of labor, professionalization, authority structure, administrative staff and effectiveness. The analysis is based on data taken from the 1959 American Hospital Association's questionnaire sur- vey of its nearly 7,000 members.

More than any other chapter in the book, this third chapter reveals the major flaw in Heydebrand's attempt to use grounded theory in secondary analysis: namely, the operationalizations of the nominal constructs are highly un- even. Hence, his operatiorLalizations are highly uneven. Given the limitations of such data, some measures reflect consider- able ingenuity, while others are subject to challenge. For example, in operationalizing organizational size and complex- ity, the author has remained faithful to his data; his operationalizations of complexity of task structure and organi- zational autonomy, however, are intriguing but questionable. Even less intriguing and more questionable is the author's use of SMSA size to operationalize environmental differentia- tion. Perhaps the most flagrant example of the unevenness of

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