Organizations are occasionally faced with technology-based and accident-triggered crises that may cause costly disasters if not handled properly. Questions arise: How should organizations, with their complex processes and human involvement, be designed if they are to perform well in such crises? Would organizations benefit from structural changes during crises? From a neo-information processing perspective that views organizations as composed of cognitively restricted, socially situated, and task-oriented actors, we argue that the causes and consequences of crises may be better understood through the systematic examination of both environmental and organizational factors. We address our research questions using a rather unique approach: a matched analysis of 80 real organizational cases and 80 computer-simulated organizations. The findings show that a crisis can present critical challenges to organizational performance both externally and internally, and that there is no design guarantee that a high-performing organization will continue to perform well during a crisis situation. In addition, when organizations restructure to adapt to crisis situations, they often face the serious challenges of having to understand not only the external environment, but also organizational design traps. Key words: organizational performance; organizational design; computational modeling; real-crisis cases Whether theories of organization can be applied to nonconventional events or crisis situations has largely been assumed but certainly not fully explored (Carley

Although a considerable amount of documentation has been published on the alleged benefits of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, rigorous theoretically supported research into this topic has been limited. Furthermore, with the recent popularity of new technologies such as those supporting Business-to-Business (B2B) e-procurement, many have begun to loose focus of the underlying infrastructure upon which these new technologies depend, and which ERP systems provide. The aim of this paper is to provide a theoretical foundation for the consideration of the criticality of ERP system implementations with regards to the effective utilization of up-and-coming technologies. We approach this task in two steps. First we apply the theory of Swift, Even Flow to illustrate the potential impact that both the Product and Process of ERP implementation can have on overall operational effectiveness. We then utilize the theory of Resource Dependency to suggest the impact that such improved effectiveness might have on the ability of a firm to take advantage of B2B e-procurement technologies. An investigation of 61 B2B success cases reveals that the extent to which firms witness savings through such procurement is dependent not only on the presence of an implemented ERP system but also on the length of time such systems have been present and active.

This paper investigates empirically antecedents of the adoption of web-based processes (e-processes) by service providers. We examine whether rational efficiency (expressed by expected performance benefits and access to new markets), the bandwagon effect (expressed by external pressure), and barriers (both internal and customer related) influence Internet use for transactions (e-transactions) and/or to extend the relationships between service providers and their customers (e-CRM). The findings, based on a sample of 338 service firms, show that rational efficiency and the bandwagon effect drive both types of e-processes. Conversely, only internal barriers have a negative impact on adoption of e-processes, while barriers related to customers do not have a significant impact. These findings have important academic and managerial implications, given the limited evidence regarding the implementation of e-processes in services.

Many business decisions involve issues that are not amenable to quantitative measures and analysis. One such domain of decisions is large-scale investments in information technology. Traditional capital budgeting methods have not proven effective. In this paper, we present an alternative paradigm for qualitative decision analysis, embodied in the artificial intelligence program: VOTE. We describe the technology investment domain in general, and how VOTE models goals and agents in this domain. We apply the VOTE model to a specific decision taken from a study of a major information technology investment decision. Keywords: qualitative reasoning, decision-making, explanation, artificial intelligence, natural language generation, information technology. 1 Introduction Managers must frequently decide whether to invest in a new information technology initiative. This decision takes place in a complicated organizational setting; it includes a number of organizations and individuals and has...

The adoption and implementation of interorganizational information systems (IOS) heavily depend upon the trading partner(s) of the focal organization. Power structures have been shown to have a positive effect on the adoption decision. The paper provides a critical literature review on the role of power in the IOS literature and introduces the Adoption Position model to address the shortcomings. The main argument is that power can act as a barrier to adoption as well, which has not been adequately addressed before. The model builds on previous research on IOS adoption and proposes that the relative power of a firm and its intent of adoption toward a specific IOS together predetermine its position in the decision. The result is a typology of adoption positions of two trading partners that serves as an explanatory and predictive tool for further research and hypothesis generation.

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This is a draft document. Please do not copy or cite. We present here a decision-theoretic framework for the analysis of organizational change under risk. An algorithm is demonstrated which identifies optimal change paths given uncertainty involving execution time, intervention cost, and payoffs resulting from particular structural configurations. An elaboration of the basic framework to accommodate external structural perturbations is shown, and is applied to the problem of organizational homeostasis. Finally, an extension of the decision model is provided which admits multiple decision makers with divergent preferences and capacities for inducing organizational change.

Organizations are occasionally faced with technologically based and accident triggered crises that can be extremely costly. An example is Bhopal, a major chemical spill. In the aftermath of such a disaster, organizations, both the one that suffered and others in the same or similar industries, often reexamine how they are structured. The questions arise: how should organizations be designed if they are to perform well in such crises, and would organizations benefit from structural changes during crises? We address these questions using a combination of computational analysis and archival data on 69 real organizations faced with crises. For each crisis incident, we contrast the organization’s predicted and actual performance in a crisis situation. We find a high level of validation for the computational model. Using the validated computational model we then go on to address the hypothetical question: what is likely to have happened if the real organization had responded differently to the crisis. The findings show that there is no guarantee that a well performing organization in a general situation will continue to do so during a crisis situation. In addition, how to design or restructure an organization to mitigate the impact of crises will depend on the various design factors the organization employs. This work further demonstrates that often, the lessons learned by organizations when responding to crisis situations may be exactly the wrong lessons.

(OERI), U.S. Department of Education. The findings and opinions expressed in the report do not reflect the position or policies of OERI or the U.S. Department of Education. Publication Number NCPI-1-08. This paper argues that as we approach the twenty-first century, establishing a research agenda to study the changing nature of postsecondary institutions as organizations is best done by examining their organization-environment interface. The argument presented here is threefold. Part one consists of a brief historical perspective on how our

Stability and plasticity in self-organized networks