Technology Project Failure and Culture

Technology Project Failure and Culture

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Technology Project Failure and Culture

Introduction

A technology project is successful if it delivers a working system within the stipulated time and budget, produces the desired specifications and satisfies the perceptions of social actors.  Despite drastic advances in information technology over the last three decades, the failure rate of information systems has remained high at about 70% (Abrahall, Kautz, & Kecmanovic, 2014). Information System projects aim at improving the .work process and organizational structure. The successful implementation of IS projects depends on the coordination and interaction of the actors involved. The actors include non-humans, for this case technology, the system designers and the members of the user organization. This underscores the integral part that compatibility in culture plays in the success of technology projects. In the case an organization’s members have discordant cultural beliefs, they hold different values about a particular IS project. Two subgroups result depending on the cultural beliefs, those in support of the IS and those in opposition. Different values of sub-groups within an organization are of equal importance in the planning, formulation and implementation of information systems (Leidner & Keyworth, 2006).         This paper argues that technology projects that do not take into account divergent values of subgroups within the organization, technology drift, and interpretative flexibility result in miscalculations, costly delays and eventually fail.

Importance to Study IS Implementation Failure

Information System is a basic infrastructure for the accurate and timely exchange and collection of data, knowledge and information in organizations. Its application in almost all fields, cost effectiveness, efficiency, ability to expedite operations and accuracy makes its use unavoidable in the organizations. The productivity of IS increases with increased rate of implementation in all organizations and operations. The IS implementation failure implies inefficient operations and services, inaccuracy, slowed down and costly operations. Given the integral part IT plays in organizations, it is important to study the failure in implementation to increase productivity in organizations and to spur innovation.

Organizations invest heavily in technology projects in terms of money, manpower and time. IS guides the daily tasks of an organization and provides a competitive advantage. It is a success factor for the organization. The study on IS implementation failure unearths the complexity in IS implementation, provides solutions and saves organizations the fear of investing in technology.

Different Cultures in an Organization and Effect on Is Implementation

 Organizations have different cultural values that may conflict. The first categories of cultural values that may exist in an organization include low uncertainty avoidance and high uncertainty avoidance. The two groups differ according to the level to which they can accept risks. The second category is individualistic and collectivist cultures. The individualistic cultures emphasize on personal achievement while the collectivist culture emphasize on group achievements. An organization also experiences divergent values of different occupational subgroups such as engineers and operators.