A Cross-Cultural

Social Aspects of
Computing

Rob Kling
Edifor
Comparison of IS
Designer ‘Values
The values of system designers have a significant influence on the extent to
which information systems meet the broad effectiveness needs of an
organization.

Kuldeep Kumar and Niels Bjplrn-Andersen

A number of studies in the information systems litera-
ture report upon the negative organizational outcomes
and/or the lack of the realization of potential benefits
of computer-based information systems [l, 28, 32, 51,
69, 721. To some extent these failures have been attrib-
uted to a lack of appropriate information systems devel-
opment methodologies (ISDMs) [32, 651. However, in
spite of the emergence of new ISDMs, information sys-
tems design (ISD) is still largely a complex and unstruc-
tured process, usually with ambiguous goals. Accord-
ingly, systems designers must make a number of
choices which significantly affect the systems develop-
ment process and its outcomes [55].
In the absence of explicit policies or guidelines, these
choices are determined, to a large extent, by the sys-
tems designers’ personal values.? During the design pro-
cess, the designer, either consciously or subconsciously,
makes a series of incremental choices in the design and
implementation of a system [16]. To some extent, there
are methods or standards guiding the ISD process. How-
ever, most of the time these standards do not readily
apply. The context is never exactly as assumed, and the
standard procedures have to be interpreted. Further-
more, these standards are far from complete and the
designer has to fill in the blanks, especially as regards
implementation and organizational design. Similarly,
the management obiectives specified for the project are
usually very high level and far from specific. The de-
signer has to define, interpret, and operationalize the
missing objectives in the absence of clear directions.
Accordingly, designers have to rely on their own judg-
ment for making the design decisions. Hedberg and
Mumford [32] state:
’ “A value is a conception, implicit or explicit, distinctive of an individual
or characteristic of a group. of desirable which influences selection from
available ends and means oi action.” 1421
This study was funded in part by NATO Collaborative Research Grant Num-
ber 730/84.
0 1990 ACM 0001.0782/90,‘0500-0528 $1.50
“It is reasonable to assume that values play an im-
portant part in guiding the designers’ choice be-
tween different design alternatives . . . The values,
needs and objective of top management and sys-
tems designers will influence the kind of technical,
organizational and task structure alternatives they
consider during the design process and the solu-
tions they eventually choose.”
The premise that the designers’ values influence de-
sign choices also finds support in the work of scholars
in the fields of management science, general, systems
theory, and information systems [4, 14, 15, 16, 36, 39,
40, 41, 54, 55, 641.
The designer’s values, however, may not always be
instrumental in achieving systems that are consistent
with organizational objectives. Indeed, a number of au-
thors suggest that overly technical, rational, and eco-
nomic value orientation of systems designers, accom-
panied by a lack of attention to political, organizational,
and psychological issues, is the cause of deficiencies in
existing IS development practices [12, 18, 26, 29, 31, 32,
44, 55, 71, 72, 731.
Once the influence of systems designers values on
design decisions is recognized, it becomes important
that the values which guide these design choices must
be made explicit. A better understanding of system de-
signers’ values could provide clues for explaining
design decisions in development projects. Furthermore,
such an understanding is useful in order to
a. Guide the design, development, and adoption of
information systems development methodologies
which are consistent with, and complement the
system designers’ values, so that a balanced set of
social and organizational, as well as technical and
economic objectives may be achieved;
b. Change the control and reward structures for sys-
tems designers to reflect the growing concerns in
organizations and societies for taking social, organi-
zational, and human values into account;

520 Communications of the .4CM May 1990 Volume 33 Number 5


c. (Re-) Design curricula for teaching, training, and so-
cializing systems designers to introduce them to de-
sign issues and choices other than those with which
they are currently familiar;
d. Provide a possible basis for a redrafting of the codes
of ethics and codes of good practice existing in
professional societies;
e. Caution against direct technology transfer
(methodologies, software, and hardware) from one
societal/organizational culture to another without
making suitable adjustments for the different values
which may exist in these organizations or societies.
The designers’ values are the product of the profes-
sional, social, and organizational context within which
they are held, and of the individual’s background and
education. Accordingly, their design choices are
strongly influenced by their socio-cultural environ-
ment. A study and comparison of designer values in
different cultures could therefore provide clues ex-
plaining the differences in design behaviors in the re-
spective cultures, and suggest a basis for technology
transfer and education interchange.
The present research has two major objectives:
1. to investigate the extent to which technical, eco-
nomic and/or socio-political values are guiding de-
velopment choices in contemporary organizations
2. to investigate whether there are any significant dif-
ferences between designer values in Canada (a
North American society) and Denmark (a Scandina-
vian society)
The two countries in this cross-cultural comparison
can be taken to represent two different sets of cultural
orientations within the capitalist-socialist spectrum of
the western democracies. Canada, with its geographical
and cultural proximity to the U.S., is closer to the capi-
talist ideal exemplified by the U.S. Denmark, on the
other hand, with its Scandinavian heritage and a social-
democratic tradition, symbolizes a strong mixture of
socialist and capitalist value ideals. The value biases
inherent in the two cultures are expected to be re-
flected in the value differences between the systems
designers in the two countries.
In the past, attempts have been made to analyze,
understand, and perform cross-cultural comparisons
of systems designers’ values [6, 7, 17, 31, 701. These
studies (particularly [17, 701) have indicated value dif-
ferences between Scandinavian and Anglo-American
systems designers, mainly with respect to user job-
satisfaction related value issues.
Several methodological problems have been raised
with these earlier studies [17, 441. First, these studies
are restricted in the sense they focus on user job satis-
faction aspects of systems designers’ values in isolation
from other values. The design process involves consid-
eration of, and trade-offs between technical, economic,
and socio-political factors (including organizational and
job satisfaction factors). It is the conflict between these
factors and the relative priorities attached to these de-
May 1990 Volume 33 Number 5
Articles
velopment objectives that determines the level of sub-
scription to the socio/political values. Therefore, meas-
uring the organizational and user job satisfaction values
in isolation, with no trade-offs, is not likely to mirror
systems development choices in reality.
Second, the additional qualitative data collected in
these studies [li’, 551 indicates there is an apparent
conflict between designers’ stated values (“espoused-
theories”) and their operational values (“theory-in-use”)
131.As the earlier studies [6, 7, 17, 31, 701 elicited only
“espoused-theories” there is no guarantee these values
will actually be translated into design decisions. (See
discussion on constraining variables).
Finally, these studies start with the assumption there
is a consensus about the preferred direction of organi-
zational change. However, it is possible that not all
stake-holders find a certain direction of change, such as
an increased level of technological sophistication, a re-
duction in operating budget, increased autonomy, or
increased task variety desirable.
In response to these criticisms, a value elicitation
methodology based upon the pioneering work of Eng-
land [21] was developed. This article reports upon the
use of this methodology in measuring the values of
Canadian and Danish systems designers.
The article is organized as follows: First, we will
describe a model outlining the role of systems de-
signers’ values in information systems design. Next, we
will present the theoretical underpinnings of value
measurement, and the methodology which was used as
a basis for the present study for measuring these values.
This will be followed by reports on the research
method, and an analysis of the results with respect to
the two objectives of this article.
ROLE OF VALUES IN
INFORMATION SYSTEMS DESIGN
A general conceptual model illustrating the central role
of values in ISD is shown in Figure 1. The model identi-
fies two main determinants influencing the values of an
individual or group: the background and/or character-
istics of the individual and the context. (See following
description.)
Individual background is used as an umbrella for the
general socialization and training process individual de-
signers are subjected to in growing up. Major influences
are attributed to the educational system, on-the-job
training, and the family and cultural influences the
person is subjected to in his or her formative years,
Context refers to the present environment of the indi-
vidual, i.e., the organizational, societal, and the occupa-
tional culture in which the individual functions. A
number of studies have documented significant value
differences between societies [33], between organiza-
tions [48, 601, and between different occupations [68].
These two determinants of values-individual back-
ground and context-should not be seen as indepen-
dent of each other. There is a high level of interaction,
and it is fairly difficult to trace the origin of certain
values [7, 551.
Communications of the ACM 529
Articles
was measured on a “Preferred Direction of Change”
dimension.
In summary, for each of the value dimensions there
are three scales: importance rating (very low, low, me-
dium, high, very high); reason mode [success, right,
pleasure): direction of change (increase, neutral, de-
crease).
The questionnaire was pretested on a representa-
tive group. In addition, a test-retest of the question-
naire (with four weeks in between the two administra-
tions) was performed with a sample of 13 accounting
and business students. The test-retest reliability co-
efficients for the importance rating, the reason mode
and the preferred direction of change were 0.89, 0.84,
and 0.93 respectively. These reliability co-efficients are
comparable to those reported for the original England
PVQ [25].
RESEARCH METHOD
The field survey was conducted in 13 Canadian and
eight Danish business and government organizations.
The organizations sampled included federal, provincial
and city government departments; electric and nuclear
power utilities; manufacturing, retail, and businesses,
insurance, and universities. To obtain the sample we
contacted the highest ranking information systems ex-
ecutive in the selected organizations. However, since
only those organizations which consented to participate
in the study were included, (i.e., it was a convenience
sample), the possibility of sampling bias remains. No
major differences were found between the types of or-
ganizations within the two samples, which might other-
wise explain the differences between the two samples
reported next.
In each organization the IS executives were re-
quested to select randomly a group of system designers.
The ISD-PVQ was administered to the respondent
group in a meeting. To encourage the respondents to
respond according to their personal preferences, they
were told there were no right or wrong answers and
that the individual responses were confidential.
Though attempts were made to ensure equivalent ques-
tionnaire administration in both countries, the possibil-
ity of translation and interviewer bias remains,
RESULTS
The final sample contains 132 Canadian and 72 Danish
systems designers from a total of 21 organizations. Of
the 132 Canadian respondents, 34 (26 percent) were
found to have no dominant reason mode (i.e., no over-
all preference for success, right, or pleasant as the
rationale for importance). Similarly, of the 72 Danish
designers, 21 (29 percent) were found to have a no
dominant reason mode. These respondents were ex-
cluded from further analysis because the classification
of values into the four categories (operational, adopted,
intended, and nonrelevant) requires a dominant reason
mode [23, 241. The percentage of respondents having no
dominant reason mode is similar for both countries,
532 Communications of the ACM
therefore the exclusion of these respondents does not
invalidate the following analysis.
For the remaining respondents, each person’s value
profile was determined and BRS value profiles were
calculated for Canadian and Danish samples according
to the procedure described in the Theoretical Founda-
tion for Measuring Values.
Overview of Value Profiles
in Canada and Denmark
Table I presents an overview of Canadian and Danish
designers’ value profiles. For both samples the technical
values seem to be the most behaviorally relevant, fol-
lowed closely by economic values. The socio-political
values have the lowest behavioral relevance score in
both samples and are the least likely to be translated
into behavior.
The field suvuey was conducted in 13
Canadian and eight Danish business and
government organizations. . . To obtain
the sample we contacted the highest
ranking information systems executive in
each organization.
If the two samples (i.e., the rows of the table) are
examined separately. The Canadian system designers
seem to focus strongly on technical and economic value
dimensions, while they find the socio-political values to
be the least behaviorally relevant. A similar pattern is
found in the Danish sample. However, the three value
groups have a relatively more equal potential for driv-
ing the behavior of the Danish systems designers.
If we examine the technical, economic, and socio-
political value groups (i.e., the columns of the table)
separately, we find that technical values are behavior-
ally more relevant for the Canadian system designers,
whereas socio-political values are behaviorally more
relevant for the Danish system designers. The potential
of economic values for influencing behavior is almost
equal for the two samples.
The upcoming section discusses the Development
Product-Related value dimensions (Table II). This is fol-
lowed by a discussion on the Development Process Re-
lated value dimensions (Table III). For both of these
tables, the behavioral relevance scores and the percent-
age of individuals preferring a certain direction of
change is enumerated for each value dimension. The
level of significance is calculated for both, using cross-
tabulation and the chi-square statistic. For BRS, the
significance is analyzed across all four behavioral rele-
vance categories (operative, adopted, intended, and
nonrelevant). Only those value dimensions where the
BRS and/or the Preferred Direction of Change is signifi-
cantly different (alpha less than or equal to 10 per-
cent) between the Canadian and Danish samples are
presented.
May 1990 Volume 33 Number 5

Table I. Overview of Canadian
AVERAGE BEHAVIORAL
Technical
Canada 52.4
Denmark 47.1
Product-Related Value Differences
Product-related values are shown in three tables relat-
ing to the technical (IIA), economic (IIB), and socio-
political (IIC) values respectively. In the Product-
Related Technical Values (Table IIA), there are signifi-
cant differences among seven of the 18 values in the
group. For six of these seven value dimensions, the
Canadian system designers had a higher BRS than their
Danish counterparts. On only one value dimension,
“Security of update and retrieval access to informa-
tion,” did the Danish designers score higher than the
Canadian designers. This presumably reflects the legis-
lative concern about privacy in the Scandinavian coun-
tries. On those value dimensions where there is a sig-
nificant difference in the Preferred Direction of
Change, it is consistent with the differences in behav-
ioral relevance scores.
In case of Product-Related Economic Values
(Table IIB), there are significant differences in either
the BRS or in the preferred direction of change in three
out of four value dimensions in the group. The Cana-
dian designers found the operating costs of the system
more behaviorally relevant than did the Danish design-
ers, and significantly more of them preferred a decrease
in the operating costs of the system. However, the
Danish designers found the value dimension “control of
the organizational resources” more relevant than did
Canadian designers. An interpretation of these differ-
ences could be that the Canadian designers seem to be
more concerned with efficiency (i.e., cost) issues,
whereas the Danish designers seem to be more con-
cerned with their overall effectiveness issue (control of
organizational resources).
In the Product-Related Socio-Political Values (Table
IIC), there are significant differences between Canadian
and Danish designers in 14 out of 19 value dimensions.
In all but two of the cases, the Danish designers have a
higher behavioral relevance score, supported by an ap-
propriate significant difference in the preferred direc-
tibn of change. The two value dimensions which do not
follow this pattern are (a) the assignment, clarification,
and formalization of responsibilities in user areas, and
(b) the system’s responsiveness to the primary client. In
both cases the Canadian designers scored higher than
the Danish designers. The first exception, however,
confirms the general hypothesis from the earlier
“models of man” studies that the Canadian designers
are more Theory-X oriented, and look for greater struc-
ture and specificity in their designs. The second excep-
tion, which is significantly different only in the pre-
ferred direction of change, may reflect the greater
consumer orientation in North-America.
May 1990 Volume 33 Number 5
Articles
and Danish Value Profiles
RELEVANCE SCORES
Economic Socio-Political
48.7 30.5
46.2 40.3
Process (Development Project)
-Related Value Differences
Process-related values are those value concepts that in-
fluence the selection of the means of action, i.e., the
development project. Table III outlines the differences
in Canadian and Danish system designer values related
to the process of systems design. It is subdivided into
three parts: Table IIIA outlines the differences in tech-
nical values; Table IIIB, the differences in economic
values; and Table IIIC, the differences in socio-political
values.
The Process Related Technical Values (Table IIIA)
display high behavioral relevance scores for both Cana-
dian and Danish designers. Canadians score higher
than Danes on six of the eight value dimensions in this
group, though only two of them (degree of consistency
between work done by various analysts, and ease of
producing and maintaining documentation) are statisti-
cally significant. On the remaining two value dimen-
sions (flexible and modifiable development standards,
and promptness in responding to development re-
quests), a significantly greater percentage of Danish de-
signers prefer an increase in the direction of change. In
the case of the latter value dimension, Danes also have
a significantly higher behavioral relevance score, which
may be attributed to the user-oriented nature of the
value concept. This again confirms the general pattern
that Canadians are more tuned to the technical aspects
than are their Danish counterparts.
The responses to Process Related Economic Values
suggest in general, a high level of behavioral relevance
of these values to both Canadian and Danish system
designers. However, a detailed analysis reveals statisti-
cally significant differences in response patterns
(Table IIIB). Whereas the Canadian designers seem to
put the highest premium on efficiency-related values
(such as reduced development costs, project within
schedule and within budget, the planning and control
of the development project), the Danish designers seem
to be prepared to invest a greater level of user and
designer time and resources in the development project
(presumably to achieve a higher quality product). This
is consistent with the pattern of differences expressed
in the Product-Related Economic Values group where
the Canadian designers put greater emphasis on effi-
ciency, and the Danish designers’ on effectiveness.
Of the 13 Process Related Socio-Political Values, 10
had statistically significant differences in either the be-
havioral relevance scores or preferred direction of
change or both. Among these differences, values related
to participation and user understanding stand out as
the most behaviorally relevant set of values. User par-
Communications of the ACM 533
Articles

TABLE II. SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT PRODUCT RELATED VALUES

Table of significant differences between Canadian
and Danish Information Systems Designers

TABLE IIA. Product (System) Related Technical Values

Preferred
Behavioral
Direction of Change
VALUE CONCEPT Relevance Score
I-lncr. D-Deer.
Canada Denmark Sig. Canada Denmark Sig.
Reliabilityof the System 74 59 5% 81 I 82 I non-sig
Maintainabilityof Procedures 60 39 1% 71 I 68 I non-sig
Compatibilitywith InterfacingSystems 59 47 non-sig 69 I 60 I 5%
Currencyand Recencyof Information 58 49 10% 62 I 69 I non-sig
ComputerSupportfor DecisionMakingand JudgmentalTasks 51 45 non-sig 75 I 62 I 10%
Levelof Sophisticationof Hardwareand Software 21 8 5% 45 I 24 I 1%
Securityof Updateand RetrievalAccessto Information 40 61 1% 53 I 65 I non-sig
Total Number of Value Concepts in Class 19

TABLE IIB. Product (Systemi) Related Economic Values

Preferred
Behavioral
Direction of Change
VALUE CONCEPT Relevance Score
I-lncr. D-Deer.
CaInada Denmark Sig. Canada Denmark Sig.
OperatingCostsof the System 55 31 5% 76 D 49 D 1%
UserManpowerrequiredfor Operatingthe System 37 28 non-sig 52 D 41 D non-sig
Controlof Organization’sResources 37 45 5% 46 I 67 I 1%
Monitoringand Controlof Clericaland OperatingActivities 20 22 non-sig 14 D 35 D 1%
Total Number of Value Concerts in Class 4

TABLE IIC. Product (System) Related Socio-Political Values

VALUE CONCEPT
--
--Ca’nada
Behavioral
Relevance Score

Denmark Sig.
1 Canada
Preferred
Direction of Change
I-lncr. D-Deer.
Denmark Sig.
UserSenseof MakingImportantContributionto Organization 36 53 5% 69 I 74 I non-sig
User’sAutonomyin Planningand Performinghis/herTasks 16 49 1% 38 I 74 I 1%
Alignmentof SystemDesignto User’sCognitiveStyle 30 47 5% 52 I 64 I non-sig
Job InducedMentalStresson User 23 45 1% 60 D 70 D 1%
Provisionof Learningand Growthin UserJobs 19 43 5% 62 I 76 I 1%
Varietyof Tasksin User’sJob Description 16 39 1% 48 I 67 I 5%
Job Securityfor Users 12 33 1% 20 I 49 I 1%
InterpersonalRelationshipsand SocialContactamongUsers 18 33 1% 31 I 54 I 1%
PhysicalHealth,Safetyand Comfortof Users 26 31 ion-sig 43 I 62 I 10%
Alignmentof UserSalariesrelativeto Job Description 9 14 10% 30 I 44 I 10%
Centralizationof Authority,Power,and DecisionMakingin
Organization 14 33 1% 28 D 70 D 1%
CommunicationbetweenOrganizationUnits 42 53 10% 70 I 83 I 10%
Assignment,Clarificationand Formalizationof Responsibilities
in UserAreas 46 25 1% 61 I 26 I 1%
System’sResponsiveness to PrimaryClient -- 59 62 non-sig 86 I 76 I 10%
Total Number of Value Concepts in Classification-19

534 Communications of the ACM May 1990 Volume 33 Number 5


ticipation shows a rather remarkable distinction be-
tween the Canadian and Danish designers. While the
Canadian designers emphasize increased participation
by user managers, the Danish designers find participa-
tion by clerical/supporting staff users more operative.
This reflects the management orientation and the re-
ward structure in the Canadian environment versus the
more democratic, user-oriented approach in Denmark.
However, the Canadian designers seem to find in-
creased user understanding of the overall system design
significantly more relevant. A possible explanation of
this finding could be that for this question the Cana-
dian questionnaire did not specify the user-type
whereas in translation the Danish questionnaire specifi-
cally mentioned clerical users. A subsequent review of
the translation did not find any other translation differ-
ences. The remaining significant differences support
the general observation that the Danish designers find
the socio-political values more operative. However, it
should be noted that the behavioral relevance scores
for both groups are fairly low.
CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS
The objectives of this article were twofold: to investi-
gate the extent to which technical, economic, or socio-
political values are guiding systems design in contem-
porary organizations, and to investigate the differences
between the values of Canadian and Danish systems
designers.
For both countries, the results of the survey provide
evidence for the dominance of technical and economic
values. Given their cultural and geographical proximity
to the U.S., in the case of Canadian designers, this re-
sult is not surprising. However, in the case of Danish
system designers, the results suggest that contrary to
the conventional wisdom, social-democratic value posi-
tions do not always work to the detriment of technical
and economic concerns.
Second, the survey confirms the assumptions of
cross-cultural differences in system designer values be-
tween Canada and Denmark. These differences are
found, not only for organizational and job-satisfaction
values (socio-political values) as discovered in earlier
studies [i’, 17, 31, XI], but also for technical and eco-
nomic value concepts. Even though both the Canadian
and the Danish samples show a similar pattern of high-
est behavioral relevance of technical values and lowest
relevance of socio-political values, the difference be-
tween the three sets of values is substantially larger in
the Canadian sample. The three sets of values (techni-
cal, economic, and socio-political) have a more equal
potential for driving the behavior of Danish designers.
This finding could be a reflection of the mix of socialist
and capitalist values in the Scandinavian society. Fur-
thermore, in case of economic values, Canadian design-
ers are found to be concerned with efficiency issues
(such as cost and manpower usage), whereas the Danish
designers are more concerned with effectiveness issues
(such as management of organizational resources).
Before we discuss the implications of these findings
May 1990 Volume 33 Number 5
Articles
for information systems development, we need to clar-
ify our baseline value position. It is our belief that, from
an organizational effectiveness perspective, a balanced
value orientation is essential to the design and imple-
mentation of successful computer-based information
systems. If the value structures or viewpoints of the
system’s designers are limited (i.e., if they emphasize
only a limited subset from the range of technical, eco-
nomic, and socio-political values), then the designers
may create system designs which are inadequate or
unacceptable from the perspective of the omitted value
concerns. This, in turn, could lead to organizational,
technical, or behavioral problems [Z, 11, 13, 29, 55, 721.
We therefore believe that if the designers are empha-
sizing only certain types of values in their design deci-
sions (specifically technical and efficiency related eco-
nomic values) while ignoring other types of values
(such as effectiveness and socio-political values], this
represents a pathology which needs to be addressed.
Though this value position may not be commonly ac-
cepted, it has a rich tradition in socio-technical litera-
ture (for a review of STS literature in the information
systems context see [27]), and in parts of the informa-
tion systems community (see [5, 12, 14, 16, 18, 30, 32,
36, 38, 71, 721). Furthermore, this value position is be-
coming more acceptable in the current North-American
business milieu [60].
In light of this value position, we believe that these
findings have important short-term and long-term pol-
icy implications. In the short-term, the cross-cultural
value differences have implications in terms of prob-
lems related to an uncritical technology transfer of off-
the-shelf methodologies, tools, and techniques between
different cultures [JO]. ISD methodologies, with their
potential for economic, technical, and organizational
changes, have built-in value biases reflecting the value
priorities of the culture in which they are developed
[43, 451. If a methodology overtly espouses values
which are alien to the values of the people who are the
designated users of the methodology, the methodology
will not be accepted [32, 43, 44, 651. Furthermore, the
products of LSD methodologies-the systems developed
using these methodologies-may not be acceptable in
cultures with value orientations different from the one
in which the system was developed.
However, the values might not be that apparent to
the untrained eye, and sometimes methodologies and
their resulting systems may be implanted without re-
gard to the basic underlying assumptions. The result of
such an implant is likely to be substantial conflict and/
or loss of potential. The value elicitation methodology
described in this article provides an a priori means of
clarifying the values in a particular context.
The long-run implications of these overall value pro-
files and value differences can be analyzed in the con-
text of the evolutionary perspective on the use of infor-
mation technology in organizations [30, 461. Heberg [30]
suggests that organizations develop the use of informa-
tion technology through a number of distinct stages,
The first stage is the pioneering use of a new technol-
Communications of the ACM 535
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TABLE 1111.SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT PROCESS RELATED VALUES

Table of significant differences between Canadian
and Danish Information System Designers
TABLE MA. Process (Development-Project) Related Technical Values
Preferred
Behavioral Direction of Change
VALUE CONCEPT Relevance Score I-lncr. D-Deer.
Sig. Canada Denmark Sig.
Degreeof Consistencybetweenwork done by different
Analysts 10% 69 I 64 I non-sig
Easeof Producingand MaintainingDocumentation 5% 85 I 90 I non-sig
Flexibleand ModifiableDevelopmentStandardsand
Procedures non-sig 61 I 85 I 1%
Promptnessin Respondingto Dev.Requests 5% i 70 I 92 I 1%
Total Number of Value Concepls In Classification-8

TABLE IIIB. Process (Development-Project1 Related Economic Values

Preferred
Behavioral
Direction of Change
VALUE CONCEPT Relevance Score i I-lncr. D-Deer.
--
Canada Denmark Sig.
--
Planningand Controlof the DevelopmentProject 69 59 1%
DevelopmentProjecton Schedule 62 59 non-sig not applicable
DevelopmentProjectWithin Budget !59 32 1% not applicable
SystemDevelopmentCosts 48 32 10%
SystemDevelopmentManpowerrequiredfor
Analysisand Design :38 50 5%
Levelof Skills requiredfor Analysisand DesignTasks .56 65 non-sig
UserManpowerRequiredfor Project ,44 68 5%
ElapsedTime for DevelopmentProject -- .59 63 non-sig
Total Number of Value Concepts in Classification-8

TABLE IIIC. Process (Development --Pr’oiect) _ Related Socio-Political Values

VALUE CONCEPT
--
Canada
--
Behavioral
Relevance Score

Denmark Sig.
T Canada
Preferred
Direction of Change
I-lncr. D-Deer.
Denmark Sig.
Participationof UserClericaland OperatingStaff in Design
Decisions 43 67 1% 57 I 70 I 5%
Participationof UserAreaManagersin DesignDecision 65 35 1% 71 I 36 I 1%
Analysts’Autonomyin Planningand Performinghis/hertasks 28 51 1% 38 I 68 I 1%
On Project,SocialContactand InterpersonalRelationshipsfor
Analysts 19 25 10% 36 D 54 I 5%
Proportionof Challengingand SimpleTasksin the Analysts’
Job Duringthe Project 15 24 10% 42 I 45 I ion-sig
Amountof Routine,Repetitiveand MechanicalAnalysisand
DesignTasks 16 20 non-sig 69 D 53 D 1%
Varietyof Analysisand DesignTasksDuringProject 19 18 non-sig 34 I 47 I 10%
UserUnderstandingof DevelopmentPlan 57 55 non-sig 83 I 65 I 1%
UserUnderstandingof OverallSystemsDesign 67 49 10% 82 I 65 I 1%
UserUnderstandinaof TechnicalSvstemsDesian -- 4 14 L
5% 17 I 17 I ion-sig
Total Number of Value Concepts in Classification-13

536 Communications of the ACM May 1990 Volu~rre 33 Nurubcr 5


ogy with organizational consequences coming as a sur-
prise. In the second stage careful design is carried out
to minimize unforeseen and dysfunctional organi-
zational consequences. The third stage is characterized
by the realization that organizational goals can be
achieved through information systems change. Finally,
the fourth stage is where a participative, evolutionary
design strategy for increasing the effectiveness of the
organization and the quality of working life of the peo-
ple in the organization is found.
Hedberg [30] suggests that all organizations and cul-
tures go through the same stages primarily because of
the general trends in society. Our data could be inter-
preted to mean that due to contextual factors such as a
social democratic political tradition and a strong union
influence these developments are coming earlier in the
Scandinavian countries (see [20, 26, 53, 661). If this is
true, there is a good case for the researchers and meth-
odology designers studying systems design practices in
these countries in order to learn from their successes
and failures (e.g., [9, 50, 57, 58, 651).
However, the techno-economic value orientation of
system designers is a major obstacle to the adoption of
organizational and socio-political design practices [34,
631. Therefore, we may need to attempt to influence
the underlying value structure of the system designers.
Three options are suggested: First, through education
and training we could attempt to increase the aware-
ness of the designers, of the organizational and human
consequences of their designs [47, 581. Second, if the
designs reflect an undesirable reward structure existing
for designers, a more concerted effort may be needed to
educate those who plan, control, and manage the infor-
mation systems function in the organizations [IT, 30,
43, 441. Third, the codes of ethics and good practice of
professional societies could be redrafted to reflect a
higher concern for socio-political dimensions.
It is our belief that a suitable combination of the
strategies we have discussed will be instrumental in
making the respective designer groups more aware of a
balanced set of values, and would help the IS designer
community evolve toward a participatory, learning, and
evolutionary strategy.
Acknowledgments. We are indebted to Michael G.
Houghton-Larsen for his assistance in conducting the
Danish part of the survey, and to Liam M. Bannon,
William W. Cotterman, Rob Kling, Ephraim R. McLean,
Enid Mumford, Hans Oppeland, Daniel Robey, Richard
J. Welke, and three anonymous reviewers for their re-
view of the paper and valuable comments and sugges-
tions.
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538 Communications of the .4CM May 1990 Volume 33 Number 5