From: kling@ics.uci.edu (Rob Kling)
Newsgroups: comp.infosystems
Subject: Article -- Behind the Terminal, File #6 of 6
Date: 14 Aug 92 00:18:51 GMT



File 6 of  6

                          Behind the Terminal:
             The Critical Role of Computing Infrastructure
         In Effective Information Systems' Development and Use


                               Rob Kling
             Department of Information and Computer Science
                  Public Policy Research Organization
                        University of California
                            Irvine, Ca 92717
                              714-856-5955
                        email:kling@ics.uci.edu

                               Draft 4.02
                      July 17, 1991 (Aug 4, 1991)

To appear in: Challenges and Strategies for Research in Systems
Development. William Cotterman and James Senn (Ed.). John Wiley,
London.

6.0 LOCATING INFRASTRUCTURE IN A WEB OF SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS

In this chapter I've illustrated the role of computing
infrastructure in making systems more or less workable. I would
like to conclude with a neat method so that any analyst could
readily identify the infrastructural resources which are critical
for a computer system and workable for her organization. This
method would provide a satisfying conclusion to a long chapter.
Unfortunately, I do not have a such a method. Nor is the search
for a simple method a good way to learn from this chapter. The
case of the DCRP and the subsequent discussion illustrates many
key ideas about the way that computing infrastructures are
tailored for specific systems and social settings.

It is daunting to make prescriptions that would fit all
organizations, even when the prescription is a process.
Organizations differ in numerous ways that shape the appropriate
forms of computerization. Some are richer, other are poorer and
less able to afford the staff support costs to effectively run
complex systems, even when they can scrape to buy the core
technologies. Some organizations are highly entrepreneurial and
their managers and professionals are eager to find new ways to
organize work. Other organizations are drifting, and may try to
computerize an activity because their managers were told to or
they are copying "what everyone else is doing." Even though the
pace of corporate mergers has slowed in the US since the late
1980s, some organizations are still purchased, and forced to
adopt information systems that match those of their new owners'
firms. In multidivisional firms, some groups explore the leading
edge of high tech in some application; other groups may later be
adopting systems which have now become a corporate standard.

These are some of the different organizational conditions which
frame the social stages upon which people play out their the
dramas of computerization. There are also important variations in
the kinds of computerized systems which are the focus of these
dramas -- from text processing for a small office through a rich
mix of system in an engineering lab to large-scale
multi-organizational information systems. The appropriate
strategy for an analyst depends upon the scale of the system and
the conditions under which it is being adopted or expanded.

Unfortunately, many organizations underinvest in infrastructure
for computerization projects (Kling, 1987; Kling and Iacono,
1989; Clement, 1990). I believe that the dominance of discrete
entity analyses is one cause, although organizational budgeting
practices are another. Discrete-entity analysts easily draw
defining boundaries around computerized systems and their users.
They can focus on a computer-based systems and a single user, a
work group or some formally defined unit, like a public agency or
a business firm, and their goals or key tasks. In the case of the
DCRP's they would focus on the DCRP, and perhaps include it's
administrative home, PPRO. While they often ignore
infrastructure, they would most likely include support
technologies, like communications, and training in systems use.

In contrast, web analysts have a more difficult time in defining
crisp boundaries and identifying a precise computing
infrastructure without examining concrete organizational
arrangements. In the case of the DCRP, the boundaries include the
PI's academic department, ICS, as well as the availability of
students to join the project in various ways. The web analysis
includes the variety of locations where DCRP participants
actually work, not just their official on-campus offices. It
includes other organizational networks that the DCRP is embedded
within, (e.g., granting agencies who have specific rules about
computer purchases; computer vendors who sometimes give equipment
gifts to ICS). The temporal boundaries go back in time to the
periods when key arrangements were set up.

In the extreme, a systems analyst can take one of two postures
towards a client organization: (a) give them solutions to the
problems they identify; (b) help raise their competence in
identifying their preferences for computer systems and help them
better identify what they want form systems and what resources
they can devote to them. In practice, systems analysis is a mix.
But the rationalistic approaches lean toward methods for
delivering fixed solutions, while process approaches lean towards
helping build competence as well as suggesting solutions.

I prefer the process approaches, like socio-technical design and
soft systems methodology. This chapter suggests that a process
oriented analyst can better help her clients by encouraging them
to examine infrastructure issues early on in systems designs. But
there are several ways than an analyst or group can approach
infrastructure: (a) computing infrastructure will be developed
along with a new system, and they do not set significant limits
on the range of appropriate systems; (b) infrastructural
resources are relatively rigid and an appropriate system should
fit existing resources.

Our discussion of group calendars in Section 5.2 suggested that
without adequate clerical support, professionals might not find
the application workable. Computerization often involves changing
organizational practices, policies, resources, and control
patterns. "Conservative" computerization projects leave most
practices and control patterns intact, and they often reinforce
existing distributions of power. The development of workable
computing infrastructure also entails organizational change. But
even conservative computerization projects might require
significant redistributions of resources and control to make them
workable. The systems analyst is usually dealing with more than
the immediate task and technology, since she is usually facing
institutionalized practices, patterns of organizational control,
and the systems of meanings in work cultures.

It is ironic to invoke institutional analyses to understand
computerization in action. The images of computerization -- new
technologies, innovative practices, and a patina of "revolution"
-- are diametrically opposed to the stodgy images of
institutionalization. The rhetorics of innovation, transformation
and revolution emphasize possibilities. These rhetorics deny that
historical patterns will continue to shape the future. In fact,
computerization has not transformed many organizations as rapidly
as some advocates hoped (Kling, 1991). Computing innovation need
not fail only because of powerful organized resistance. A history
of complex social and technical commitments may structure the
social organization of computing and related work so as to make
innovation relatively expensive and complex (Kling and Iacono,
1989). The case of group scheduling software is indicative.

Systems analysts are activists who play an important part in the
design and redesign of organizations, even though many would
rather see themselves as dutiful functionaries. This chapter has
examined how developing computing infrastructure is an critical
element in organizational designs for workable information
systems.

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