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Chapter 3 Information Systems, Organizations, and Strategy 115

FIGURE 3.4 ROUTINES, BUSINESS PROCESSES, AND FIRMS

All organizations are composed of individual routines and behaviors, a collection of which make up
a business process. A collection of business processes make up the business firm. New information
system applications require that individual routines and business processes change to achieve high
levels of organizational performance.

rarely publicly announced or discussed. Business processes—the actual way
business firms produce value—are usually ensconced in the organization’s
culture.
You can see organizational culture at work by looking around your univer-
sity or college. Some bedrock assumptions of university life are that profes-
sors know more than students, the reason students attend college is to learn,
and classes follow a regular schedule. Organizational culture is a powerful
unifying force that restrains political conflict and promotes common under-
standing, agreement on procedures, and common practices. If we all share the
same basic cultural assumptions, agreement on other matters is more likely.
At the same time, organizational culture is a powerful restraint on change,
especially technological change. Most organizations will do almost anything
to avoid making changes in basic assumptions. Any technological change that
threatens commonly held cultural assumptions usually meets a great deal of
resistance. However, there are times when the only sensible way for a firm to
move forward is to employ a new technology that directly opposes an existing
organizational culture. When this occurs, the technology is often stalled while
the culture slowly adjusts.

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