Abstract
Organizational transformation refers to changes in the way in which an organization operates. Morphing organization is a term used to reflect organizational transformation, recognizing that as an organization changes the outer face the organization displays to the world, changes are also needed to the internal structures and processes within the organization to facilitate and support the external face. IT-led change is a major driver for organizational transformation. The contribution of this chapter is the presentation of an organizational architecture as a framework to structure analysis and evaluation of the aspects of an organization that may be affected by proposed changes to IT systems in an organization. The framework offers a coherent structure in which to consider organizational transformation in response to IT-led change. The framework may also be used retrospectively to analyse how changes in IT have led to organizational transformation. The application of the organization architecture is illustrated through case study examples from UK organizations.
TopBackground
Identity is the most fundamental concept of humanity and is the essence of an organization, which emerges through communication and interaction between members of the organization (Koskinen, 2015). The act of identifying an organization establishes a conceptual boundary around a group of people, resources and activities. Defining an organization separates the organization linguistically from other things (Koskinen, 2015), creating an entity with a unique identity. The relationships between the organization, its customers, suppliers, competitors and trading partners can then be explored.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Organization Transformation: Significant changes to more than one component of the organization architecture that directly impact more than one department or function in the organization.
Sociomateriality: The view that technology and human interaction with technology are interlinked such that the two concepts cannot be objectively studied separately due to constitutive entanglement.
Context: The setting within which organizations, people, processes, information and events are interpreted. Context is an emergent property derived from interrelated dynamic states at a point in time.
Business model: An external representation of how the organization makes money and creates value through interactions with customers, suppliers and partners in the external trading environment.
Constitutive Entanglement: Complex configurations of inter-related concepts.
Organization Architecture: An internal representation of the formal and informal components of the organization that provide the behavioural space for the organization’s activities.
Morphing Organization: An organization that changes the outer face the organization displays to the world by changing internal structures and processes within the organization to facilitate and support the external face, whilst seeking to maintain organizational identity.
Organization Identity: A set of enduring attributes, which emerge through interaction with the organization, representing the spirit of the organization.