Page 61 -

60 Part One Organizations, Management, and the Networked Enterprise

developing system solutions to real-world problems and managing informa-
tion technology resources. It is also concerned with behavioral issues sur-
rounding the development, use, and impact of information systems, which
are typically discussed in the fields of sociology, economics, and psychology.
Our experience as academics and practitioners leads us to believe that no
single approach effectively captures the reality of information systems. The
successes and failures of information are rarely all technical or all behavioral.
Our best advice to students is to understand the perspectives of many disci-
plines. Indeed, the challenge and excitement of the information systems field
is that it requires an appreciation and tolerance of many different approaches.
The view we adopt in this book is best characterized as the sociotech-
nical view of systems. In this view, optimal organizational performance is
achieved by jointly optimizing both the social and technical systems used in
production.
Adopting a sociotechnical systems perspective helps to avoid a purely tech-
nological approach to information systems. For instance, the fact that infor-
mation technology is rapidly declining in cost and growing in power does not
necessarily or easily translate into productivity enhancement or bottom-line
profits. The fact that a firm has recently installed an enterprise-wide finan-
cial reporting system does not necessarily mean that it will be used, or used
effectively. Likewise, the fact that a firm has recently introduced new business
procedures and processes does not necessarily mean employees will be more
productive in the absence of investments in new information systems to enable
those processes.
In this book, we stress the need to optimize the firm’s performance as a
whole. Both the technical and behavioral components need attention. This
means that technology must be changed and designed in such a way as to
fit organizational and individual needs. Sometimes, the technology may
have to be “de-optimized” to accomplish this fit. For instance, mobile phone
users adapt this technology to their personal needs, and as a result manufac-
turers quickly seek to adjust the technology to conform with user expecta-
tions. Organizations and individuals must also be changed through training,

FIGURE 1.10 A SOCIOTECHNICAL PERSPECTIVE ON INFORMATION
SYSTEMS

In a sociotechnical perspective, the performance of a system is optimized when both the technology
and the organization mutually adjust to one another until a satisfactory fit is obtained.

MIS_13_Ch_01_Global.indd 60 1/17/2013 2:24:26 PM