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ChaPter 2 • underStanding and modeling organizational SyStemS 43

There is still little agreement on what precisely constitutes an organizational subculture. It is
agreed, however, that competing subcultures may be in conflict, attempting to gain adherents to
their vision of what the organization should be. Research is in progress to determine the effects
of virtual organizations and virtual teams on the creation of subcultures when members do not
share a physical workspace but share tasks.
Rather than think about culture as a whole, it is more useful to think about the researchable
determinants of subcultures, such as shared verbal and nonverbal symbolism. Verbal symbolism
includes shared language used to construct, convey, and preserve subcultural myths, metaphors,
visions, and humor. Nonverbal symbolism includes shared artifacts, rites, and ceremonies; cloth-
ing of decision makers and workers; the use, placement, and decoration of offices; and rituals for
celebrating members’ birthdays, promotions, and retirements.
Subcultures coexist within “official” organizational cultures. The officially sanctioned cul-
ture may prescribe a dress code, suitable ways to address superiors and coworkers, and proper
ways to deal with the outside public. Subcultures may be powerful determinants of information
requirements, availability, and use.
Organizational members may belong to one or more subcultures in the organization.
Subcultures may exert a powerful influence on member behavior, including sanctions for or
against the use of information systems.
Understanding and recognizing predominant organizational subcultures may help a sys-
tems analyst overcome the resistance to change that arises when a new information system is
installed. For example, the analyst might devise user training to address specific concerns of
organizational subcultures. Identifying subcultures may also help in designing decision support
systems that are tailored for interaction with specific user groups.

Summary

There are three broad organizational fundamentals to consider when analyzing and designing information
systems: the concept of organizations as systems, the various levels of management, and the overall organi-
zational culture.
Organizations are complex systems composed of interrelated and interdependent subsystems. In addi-
tion, systems and subsystems are characterized by their internal environments on a continuum from open
to closed. An open system allows free passage of resources (people, information, materials) through its
boundaries; closed systems do not permit free flow of input or output. Organizations and teams can also be
organized virtually, with remote members who are not in the same physical workspace connected electroni-
cally. Enterprise resource planning systems are integrated organizational (enterprise) information systems
developed with customized, proprietary software that help the flow of information between the functional
areas in the organization. They support a systems view of the organization.

Keywords and Phrases

actor middle management
associative entity openness
attributive entity operations management
closedness organizational boundaries
context-level data flow diagram organizational culture
crow’s foot notation scope of the system
enterprise resource planning (ERP) strategic management
enterprise systems systems
entity (fundamental entity) use case
entity-relationship (E-R) diagram use case diagram
environment use case scenario
feedback virtual enterprise
four levels of use cases virtual organization
interdependent virtual team
interrelatedness