‘Understanding national culture effects
on user behaviour and resistance in IT
implementations’
The manifestation and effects of national culture on IT
implementations. A case survey approach.
by
Niels Krijnse Locker
University of Groningen
Faculty of Economics and Business
MSc Business Administration: Change Management
Jan 2016
Supervisor: dr. J. F. J. Vos
2
ndAssessor: prof. dr. A. Boonstra
Word count: 14043 (incl. appendices)
2
‘Understanding national culture effects
on user behaviour and resistance in IT
implementations’
The manifestation and effects of national culture on IT
implementations. A case survey approach.
by
Niels Krijnse Locker
ABSTRACT
User resistance to technochange has been acknowledged to be one of the mature topics in information systems (IS) literature. Many models have been proposed to explain the behaviour of information technology (IT) users after and during its implementation process. A contextual factor acknowledged to be central to these models is organisational culture. However, national culture has not been discussed specifically to be a crucial contextual factor affecting user behaviour to IT implementation. This study focuses on national culture as a factor influencing user behaviour in integrative IT system (e.g. enterprise resource planning and electronic medical record) implementations. It addresses two research questions: How does national culture manifest itself as a factor that affects users’ behaviour towards technochange? What are the effects of national culture on user resistance towards technochange? In order to answer these questions a case survey strategy was followed, which is a method that enables the researcher to analyze a large sample of cases that contains rich qualitative data. The operationalizations of national culture dimensions developed by Hofstede (2001) were employed to identify national culture nuances in case studies on integrative IT implementations. A sample of 70 cases encompassing 20 countries, 18 industries and over 25 different integrative IT systems resulted in 481 observations dealing with national culture. To answer the first research question, three types of national culture manifestations were identified, namely trust & respect, management culture and conflict. Using these manifestations, the second research question was answered. Management style and implementation ownership were identified as effects of national culture on user resistance. Although the effects of national culture have to be researched in more detail, this study contributes to the IS literature by identifying that national culture manifestations play a prominent role in IT implementations and that the existing resistance models should be extended with the national culture perspective in order to grasp the full picture.
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1. INTRODUCTION
In recent years, technology driven organizational change (technochange) (Markus, 2004) has received interest from both academic and corporate worlds. It is acknowledged to be a high-rewarding yet high-risk change process and significantly different from separate IT projects and separate organizational change processes (Markus, 2004). The high-rewarding characteristics of technochange have been attractive for the corporate world, in which for instance large scale enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementations have become a major trend (Chae & Lanzara, 2006; Dwivedi, 2015; Markus, 2004). Similarly, the promised budget savings, fewer delays and fewer errors in reporting appropriated to electronic medical record (EMR) implementations have triggered a lot of attention in the public healthcare sector (Boonstra, Boddy & Bell, 2008).
Alternatively, the academic world seems to be more interested in the high-risk characteristics of technochange. These technochange processes have been found to be likely to fail (Boonstra et al., 2008; Chae & Lanzara, 2006; Ewusi-Mensah, 2003; Markus, 1983, 2004), either in not living up to the initial expectations of management or just completely abandoned because they are ill-received by their users (Markus, 1983). The vast investment of time and money by organisations in these failed technochange processes, both private and public (Boonstra et al., 2008; Chae & Lanzara, 2006), can be argued to be one of the reasons why resistance to technochange has become a hot topic in the recent years (Dwivedi, 2015; Rivard & Lapointe, 2005, 2012; Strong & Volkoff, 2010; Venkatesh, Morris, Davis & Davis, 2003).
As examples of technochange projects, both ERP systems as EMR systems are systems that integrate and connect multiple different business processes and functions from one organisation (Boonstra et al., 2008; Klaus, Rosemann & Gable, 2000). The nature of such a system, being integrative, inherently highlights the occurrence of multiple social and technological perspectives on one single implementation by multiple actors. This specific observation makes it understandable that some actors can accept such an implementation, while others resist because they have a different perception of the implementation.
4 something to overcome (Kreitner, 1992; Palmer, 2004). Others see it as a positive phenomenon, which can be used constructively to the IT implementation (Ford, Ford, & D’Amelio, 2008). Recently, authors have integrated acceptance and resistance into one single model, conceptionally intertwining these two perspectives (Offenbeek, Boonstra & Seo, 2013). In this study, user resistance to IT is not believed to be positive nor negative, or in other words, functional or dysfunctional (Rivard & Lapointe, 2012). Following Rivard & Lapointe (2012) this study sees resistance to IT implementation as something that has to be attended to in any case, in order to either increase the quality of the IT implementation process (functional) or prevent it from distorting the implementation process leading to major disruptions (dysfunctional). Many authors have acknowledged the importance of user acceptance and resistance to technochange resulting in multiple theoretical models trying to explain for instance user acceptance of technology (Venkatesh et al., 2003), user resistance to technochange (Rivard & Lapointe, 2005), implementer responses to user resistance (Rivard & Lapointe, 2012) and usability as an artefact to enterprise-system fit (Strong & Volkoff, 2010).
What is central in these theoretical models is that all authors suggest influences or contextual factors that affect user behaviour. Among other factors, the notion of organisational culture is apparent and explained thoroughly (Strong & Volkoff, 2010; Venkatesh et al., 2003). Moreover it is highlighted as a factor of importance to the acceptance or resistance behaviour of technochange. This is not just the case in the private sector, also in the public sector, the importance of organisational culture has been identified to be crucial in the user acceptance – resistance models (Boonstra, Boddy & Fischbacher, 2004). However, at the same time these theoretical models seem to neglect the influence of national culture and its effect on the resistance behaviour of users of technology (Sheu, Yen & Krumwiede, 2003).
5 observations only strengthen the case for deeper insights in national culture effects on IT implementations, but as described before, the limited insights available have not been satisfactory so far.
As one of the most common integrative IT systems in the private sector, understandably a lot of research has been focussed towards ERP systems. One would expect that at least for this particular type of integrative system, national culture has been researched extensively as an important contextual factor. However, although several authors have proposed to discuss the complexities of multi-site ERP implementations (Markus, Tanis & Fenema, 2000; Soh, Kien & Tay-Yap, 2000; Soh & Sia, 2005; Strong & Volkoff, 2010), regarding culture, they primarily focussed on organisational culture. Even though Strong & Volkoff (2010) recognize the potential effects of national culture, they did not find any evidence that it indeed affected resistance. However, they argue that this could be because they only studied US sites in their research. This is a common phenomenon for the current IS field according to Ford, Connely & Meister (2003), as they argue that whenever national culture is mentioned in IS research, it mostly concentrates around a small number of countries (i.e. the US compared to one or two other countries) (Ford et al., 2003). Markus et al. (2000) have raised several issues related to multi-site ERP implementation, but did not specifically discuss national culture affecting ERP implementation (Sheu et al., 2003). Only a few authors have referred to national culture as a potential critical factor in ERP implementation success (Krumbholz & Galliers, 2000; Sheu et al., 2003; Soh et al., 2000). In addition, several calls for research have been made for the integration of IS and national culture (Ford et al., 2003; Gallupe & Tan, 1999; Nelson & Clark Jr., 1994; Watson, Ho & Raman, 1994).
6 questions with a case survey strategy, this paper does not only answer the call for further research on the effects of national culture on IT implementations, it also answers the call for a stronger methodological basis in this research area, by incorporating many different nations in the same qualitative analysis (Ford et al., 2003).
2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
IS implementation and its failures or successes have been extensively researched using different approaches and theoretical lenses. While earlier studies looked at IS implementation from an organizational and social stance (Lyytinen & Hirschheim, 1988; Markus, 1983), more recently the focus has been put on the technology and its antecedents with the organisation-enterprise system fit model by Strong & Volkoff (2010). Most recently, IS scholars recognized and acknowledged the fact that whether IS systems fail or succeed depends on many different factors and therefore should be viewed in a multi-perspective manner (Dwivedi, 2015). Moreover, the acknowledgement of the importance of how an information system is implemented greatly enforces this multi-perspective analysis need (Dunn et al., 2005).
To overcome the bias of being primarily focussed on technology, and highlighting the importance of implementation and change processes, Markus (2004) developed and introduced the technochange concept. Technochange is fundamentally different from IT projects, since technochange embodies the full (organisational) change induced by an IT implementation, instead of just dealing with IT project management (Markus, 2004). Technochange deals with the “great potential impacts on the users (people, processes and organisational performance)” (Markus, 2004, p. 5). Moreover, it also differs from traditional organisational change because in technochange, “IT, information technologists, and technical methodologies are prominently involved” (Markus, 2004, p. 5).
7 stated, IT implementation potentially changes the way employees work and think (Dwivedi, 2015) and integrative systems have an even higher potential of doing so.
According to Hofstede (1980) national culture can be defined as the collective programming of the mind. When, with an IT implementation, this programming is challenged, it is consistent to argue that some of the actions or behaviour following this challenge can be grounded in this collective programming and thus the national culture of the user. In the following part these actions and behaviours are discussed, followed by the review of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions that can be used in the understanding of integrative IT implementations.
2.1 User behaviour
User resistance. User resistance has been acknowledged to be a key implementation issue
among IS scholars (Rivard & Lapointe, 2005). Resistance to IS implementations has been explained in numerous ways. For example, Markus (1983) explains user resistance using the interaction theory. She states that individual’ resistance to the implementation is dependent on the interaction between the technology and the context of use. If the specific technology decreases the power of the individuals in the organisation these individuals will resist, and vice versa. Joshi (1991) explains resistance to be an evaluation of equality by the individuals on multiple levels. If there is a perceived inequality, the users will resist and vice versa. From combining these studies, among others, Rivard & Lapointe (2005) developed a multilevel model of resistance that defines resistance using five different categories, namely: resistance behaviour, object of resistance, perceived threats, initial conditions and subject of resistance. In their study they find that these interrelated categories also adapt over time, again acknowledging that an IT implementation is a process, not an event. Moreover, they recognize the importance of analysing individual behaviour instead of analysing group or organisational behaviour, or in other words, seeing them as a unified group (Rivard & Lapointe, 2005).
8 on user behaviour and user resistance, this paper extends the existing body of perspectives used to identify and analyse resistance.
Perceived usefulness. The aim of moving beyond user resistance to technochange is a very
straightforward one, to let the users use the system. When a system is used, the technochange process is considered to be a success (Dwivedi, 2015). Usage is therefore incorporated in many IS implementation success models and has been researched extensively to find out what affects the usage of IT (Petter, DeLone & McLean, 2013). Perceived usefulness can be defined as the degree to which a user links using a system to increased performance, in other words if the user identifies a positive use-performance relationship (Davis, 1989; Joshi, 1991; Venkatesh et al., 2003). This notion is the basis of many popular models on user behaviour in the IS literature, described earlier (e.g. the equity model (Joshi, 1991) or the UTAUT model (Venkatesh et al., 2003).
As indicated before, technochange embodies the full picture: the IS, the implementation process and all key stakeholders (Markus, 2004). Furthermore, technological quality of IT is not a guarantee for usage, in fact it has been shown that ERP implementations mostly fail because of people issues, despite the IT quality (Dunn et al., 2005; Dwivedi, 2015; Markus, 1983). This highlights the impact of the other parts of the full picture: the social, political and institutional factors and their interdependency with the stakeholders involved (Markus, 1983). The effects of these factors translate back to the actual usage of the IT and, combined, they indicate the perceived usefulness of the IT (Hertzum, 2010).
9 2.2 National culture
As mentioned earlier, many organizations can consist of multiple cultural groups, which entails that an IT system will be used by users with different cultural backgrounds, both in the public as the private sector (Boonstra et al., 2008; Hertzum, 2010). A leading theory in the cross-cultural management theory is Hofstede’s (1980) classic five cultural dimensions theory. These five dimensions are power distance, uncertainty avoidance, collectivism - individualism, femininity - masculinity and long-term - short-term orientation. Many authors have interpreted and described the Hofstede (1980) dimensions using different phrasing, however they all describe the same core characteristics that Hofstede (1980; 1988) originally identified.
Power distance. Hofstede (1980) describes power distance to be dealing with the general
acceptance of unequal power distribution. When there is a large power distance there is a general belief that only a select few should be independent and all others should be dependent (Hofstede, 1980). Putting this in a business setting relating to IT implementations, low power distance can be characterized by flat organisational structures and low centralisation of power (Shanks, Parr & Hu, 2000). This decentralization is described as a catalyst for feedback throughout the levels of the organisation and more easily supported innovation efforts (Murcia & Whitley, 2007). High power distance indicates more hierarchy and centralisation of authority (Shanks et al., 2000). Moreover, a high power distance typically has a lack of feedback and discussion among the different stakeholders involved (Murcia & Whitley, 2007).
Uncertainty avoidance. Hofstede (1980) describes uncertainty avoidance as an indication for
10 Individualism - Collectivism. This dimension is described as how people see their social
framework, either focussed around themselves (individualism) or focussed on their ‘group’, towards which they feel complete loyalty (collectivism) (Hofstede, 1980). Individualist cultures are typically supporting a competitive relationship among colleagues, while collectivist cultures support mutual loyalty (Murcia & Whitley, 2007). Moreover, promotion in individualist cultures is based on skill level and poor performance is met with punishment and firing (Murcia & Whitley, 2007). While in a collectivist culture, poor performance is handled by a change in appointed work (Murcia & Whitley, 2007). Furthermore, regarding training, individualist cultures are more directed at personal training, whilst collectivist cultures have more faith in group training (Murcia & Whitley, 2007).
Masculinity – femininity. According to Hofstede (1980) masculine cultures are more likely
to be focussed on work goals like the acquirement of money or property and not caring for life quality or other people. Moreover, in masculine cultures, assertiveness is a dominant value (Gallivan & Srite, 2005). In feminine cultures, managers are far less aggressive and as focussed on money, instead they manage in a more intuitive manner (Shanks et al., 2000). Also, feminine cultures are more concerned with personal goals instead of work goals. (Gallivan & Srite, 2005). Feminine cultures prefer a good work environment and a friendly atmosphere (Hofstede, 2001).
Short-term and long-term orientation. This final dimension deals with the extent to which
individuals consider time or time span in making decisions or taking action (Hofstede & Bond, 1988). Short-term oriented cultures are typically found in Western countries and focus more on immediate impact of decisions like, for example, quarterly business targets (Gallivan & Srite, 2005). In comparison, long-term oriented cultures appoint more focus and value to tradition and have a more extensive consideration for long-term implications of actions and decisions (Gallivan & Srite, 2005). Also, long-term oriented cultures are more oriented towards the ‘fulfilment of social obligations’ (Srivastava & Gips, 2009, p. 108).
2.3 National culture manifestation and effects
11 national culture manifestation that was present in a Chinese manufacturer, but can most likely also be found in other cultures. This manifestation is comprised of multiple national culture dimensions developed by Hofstede (1980, 1988). This manifestation was labelled ‘Change Culture’ by Srivastava & Gips (2009) in their study on another implementation in China. Change Culture is described as the extent to which a culture ‘puts value on the past and therefore it is reluctant to change’ (Srivastava & Gips, 2009, p. 110). This reluctance can be an inhibitor of perceived usefulness and therefore can induce user resistance, for example. Another manifestation that was found in the literature was labelled ‘Trust & Respect’. Identified in a comparative case study between two countries, Avison & Malaurent (2007) found a culture manifestation in their case study that can be comprised of multiple national culture dimensions. It involved distrust of external vendors and/or consultants and the respect for harmony or equilibrium (Srivastava & Gips, 2009). This is also applicable to other cultures and can potentially shed new light on resistance believed to be originating from use of external consultants, for example.
One effect of national culture on IT implementations was discovered in the literature review by Sheu et al. (2003), which can also be applied in this study. Sheu et al. (2003) describe ‘Management style’ to be the attitude of management towards key decisions in IT implementations. This entails the prioritizing of the IT implementation needs, like support, financials, personnel, consultants, etc. Sheu et al. (2003) found that the difference in management style had direct effect on the success and duration of an IT implementation. This effect is therefore incorporated in this study as a core effect caused by national culture influence. The identified manifestations and effects described above will be incorporated in the coding scheme of this study which is described in the next section of this paper.
12 and explain observed resistance patterns that are not grasped by the existing models. This way, this paper will attempt to provide a more comprehensive understanding of resistance on IT implementations by users in today’s multicultural world and thereby answering the research calls made in the IS literature field.
3. METHODOLOGY
To provide a more comprehensive view on IT implementation resistance, this research seeks to identify national culture manifestations in user behaviour and then investigate the effects of these national culture manifestations on IT implementation resistance. Therefore, this paper will utilise a ‘theory development’ approach, since this fits best with generating knowledge for a more comprehensive understanding of a phenomenon.
Since an in-depth perspective is required to identify these manifestations, the rich data of case studies come to mind. However, not just any classic single-case study is used. The research questions being dealt with in this study require this large sample of case studies with a rich narrative in order to be appropriately answered. Since it is too time and resource intensive for a single researcher to conduct many separate case studies individually, a case survey strategy was selected, which is a particular type of systemic literature review encompassing a large sample of case studies. The case survey method has received increased attention in the IS literature field and provides a systematic way of case analysis (Rivard & Lapointe, 2012). It is especially suitable when case studies are primarily used in the literature field (Larsson, 1993), like in the IS literature field concerning ERP implementation attempts (Dwivedi, 2015).
Case surveys transform multiple qualitative case studies into coded semi-quantitative data, using coding schemes (Newig & Fritsch, 2009). This study follows the procedure of a case survey which consists of four general stages: (1) selecting a group of existing case studies relevant to the research question, (2) design a coding scheme, (3) use multiple raters for coding and (4) analyse the coded data for patterns (Larsson, 1993).
13 3.1 Selection of case studies
According to Larsson (1993), as many different search strategies as possible should be employed in case surveys to limit the biases related to search strategies. Therefore, as suggested by Larsson (1993), this research employs multiple search methods, namely a computer search, a manual search, a reference list search and additions through expert consultations. In the following section the computer search strategy will be explained in detail. Afterwards, the inclusion and exclusion criteria which apply to all search methods (computer, reference list, manual and expert consultation) are discussed.
Computer search strategy. For a case survey to be comprehensive, as many relevant
14 best results on first glance, search strategy 6 was the search strategy used in this study for the computer search.
TABLE 1
Search strategy development
Search strategy Keywords used
1 “case study” + “resistance” + “implementation” + “erp” 2 “resistance” + “implementation” + “multinational”
3 “information system” + “user” + “resistance” + “case” or “study” 4 “resistance” + “enterprise research planning” + “implementation” 5 “User resistance” + “Information system” + “implementation” 6 “user” + “resistance” + “information” + “system” + “implementation”
Case collection and selection. All cases that were selected were first subject to inclusion and
exclusion criteria. The first inclusion criterion was that the case study had to clearly describe an IT implementation process. Secondly, evidence of user resistance must be presented, in which it did not matter whether this user resistance was dealt with or not. The third criterion is that the case should have a rich narrative description of events in order to identify the cultural nuances and evidence of resistance. Finally, the specific nationality/region of the organization in which the implementation takes place should be available. Only when the case study satisfied all inclusion criteria, it was added to the dataset. However, there were also exclusion criteria present of which the first one was that the case should describe an IT implementation in an organisational context, either public or private. Secondly, the source paper of the case study should be available, which is determined by subscriptions of the University of Groningen. A final exclusion criterion is that the source should be peer-reviewed for study quality reasons (Larsson, 1993; Rivard & Lapointe, 2012). This is because a case survey inherently uses secondary data, which has several downsides regarding the overall quality of the study. Therefore, the quality of this study was ensured by selecting cases from scholarly sources only (Larsson, 1993; Rivard & Lapointe, 2012).
15 the final number of 65 cases to be analysed. In Figure 1 below, the collection and selection process of the cases selected for analysis in this study is shown.
FIGURE 1
Flow diagram collection & selection
In Appendix A, case characteristics are presented of all selected cases, moreover Appendix B shows all sources of the selected cases.
3.2 Analysis
Regarding the nature of this study, which has a theory development goal, and following the proposed research questions, a pattern matching strategy was used (Sheu et al., 2003; Yin,
Collection & Selection
Academic Search Premier Results: 71
Business Source Premier
Results: 91 22 excluded not peer-reviewed 162 potential papers 140 potential papers 21 potential papers 119 excluded based on title and abstract 26 potential papers 30 potential papers 76 potential papers 5 included by expert consultation 4 included by manual search 46 included by reference list search Expert consultation Manual search
Reference list search Computer search
11 excluded based on quality
after reading
16 2013). Within each case, patterns between identified national culture (NC) dimensions and IT implementations were identified. These were then compared in a cross-case manner to create a taxonomy of national culture manifestations. The ability to use cross-case pattern analysis is beneficial for the goal of this paper, generating theory (Eisenhardt, 1989) but also for generalization purposes (Larsson, 1993; Yin, 2013). The manifestations were then used to explain the NC effects that were identified in the cases.
Consequently, when analysing a case, a deductive approach was employed; the codes of NC dimensions consist of the operationalizations identified by Hofstede and a case was analysed to see whether these operationalizations surface and can be identified. In this process, the potential discussions by the authors using Hofstede’s (2001) country scores will not be taken into account. So, the actual observations and data was the basis of this study’s conclusions, not the historical scores of countries on Hofstede’s list of countries. However, the above described cross-case comparison of all cases and their observations that form the basis of the identification of a pattern to finally build a theory is an inductive approach. Therefore, this study combines both an inductive as a deductive research approach
Coding. After having collected and selected a relevant group of existing case studies that
simultaneously fit all inclusion, exclusion and quality criteria, a coding scheme was developed (Larsson, 1993). As with the case collection and selection also the coding process was adaptive, keeping an open mind to introducing newly identified themes, which were possibly not identified in the literature review.
Following Rivard & Lapointe (2012), an iterative coding format was used, with some coding themes set by the theory discussed previously and some coding themes added when encountered and found appropriate. The codes of the themes were presented as a list and per case an individual coding report was created. An example of such a report can be seen in Appendix C. This enabled easy cross-checking between cases and provided a clear overview per case. All codes used in the initial coding scheme were already validated by other studies as will be explained in the following part.
Initial coding scheme. Three main themes were identified from the literature review, namely
17 (Ford et al., 2003; Gallivan & Srite, 2005; Murcia & Whitley, 2007). These critics argue that there is an overreliance in the IS field on Hofstede’s (2001) dimensions, because of three concerns: (1) Hofstede (2001) assumes that cultures do not change over time, (2) Hofstede (2001) does not consider subcultures and (3) Hofstede (2001) scores are argued to be outdated (Ford et al., 2003; Gallivan & Srite, 2005; Murcia & Whitley, 2007).
For example, as argued by the critics, misuse of Hofstede’s (2001) dimensions is when an author over-simplifies the assumption that when someone is living in a certain country, the individual scores exactly the same as the IBM respondents (the company Hofstede (1980) used for his data) on the different dimensions and thus belongs to a particular national culture (Murcia & Whitley, 2007). However, as stated earlier, these are probably outdated scores and, more importantly, obtained from only one company. Based on these grounded concerns and to not follow studies which misused Hofstede’s (2001) dimensions, the scores of these dimensions will not be used in this study. Moreover, since this study follows a case survey approach, the bias of having data from within one company is also avoided.
18 TABLE 2
Coding scheme
Themes Subthemes Codes Source
NC Dimensions Power Distance Work supervision
De-centralization Job satisfaction Hierarchy Communication (Hofstede, 2001) Individualism Relationships Performance promotion Training Company loyalty (Hofstede, 2001)
Uncertainty avoidance Degree of laws/rules Punctuality
Technology & Innovation
(Hofstede, 2001)
Masculinity Goals
Assertiveness
(Hofstede, 2001)
Long-term orientation Targets Tradition
(Hofstede, 2001)
NC Manifestations Trust & Respect Trust & Respect (Srivastava & Gips, 2009)
Change Culture Change Culture (Woo, 2007)
Management Culture* Management Culture
NC Effects Management style Management style (Sheu et al., 2003)
Resistance* User Resistance
Perceived usefulness Perceived usefulness (Davis, 1989)
* These codes were added during the coding process, because it better fit the data observed.
Final coding scheme. As can be seen in Table 2 and explained before, the identified literature
19 Similarly, “resistance” was added to the NC effects theme, since some observations fitted best to just “resistance” as a subtheme. Including these two additions, Table 2 represents the coding scheme used throughout this study.
4. RESULTS
4.1 Case descriptives
20 TABLE 3
Distribution of observations for national culture dimensions
* The N (%) is calculated of a total of 364 observations made on the national culture dimensions. The other observations concerned the national culture manifestations and effects and are therefore not incorporated in Table 3.
Dimensions Subthemes N(%)* Example
Power distance Work supervision De-centralization Job satisfaction Hierarchy Communication 42 (12%) 16 (4%) 25 (7%) 40 (11%) 39 (11%)
“Some people think that this system was put into place as a way to track them and their performance” (RL8) “Each division was asked to identify a super user for training who could be a local resource” (CS8) “We're HR professionals… we're not computer jocks. We don't want to be computer jocks.”(CS11)
“The communication was: this is what is happening! Without really much opportunity for feedback.” (MS4) “I was not involved during the implementation”(CS1)
Individualism - Collectivism Relationships Performance promotion Training Company loyalty 28 (8%) 10 (3%) 24 (7%) 15 (4%)
“Many individuals with whom we spoke noted the turf wars characteristic of the organisation” (CS2) “Financial rewards and incentives were provided to encourage staff to partake in the change efforts.”(CS6)
“Only one user attended the Beaufort course and she was expected to teach the others how to operate the system.” (RL4) “These are smart, rational professionals who are all interested in the success of the company” (CS2)
Uncertainty Avoidance
Degree of laws/rules Punctuality
Technology & Innovation
65 (18%) 6 (2%) 23 (6%)
“Rules and procedures introduced around SITS impeded them in making more efficient use of associated technology” (CS1) “I submitted an order set and after 9 or 10 months, they called back and said they’d lost it and they wanted it again” (RL10) “Technology and innovation were associated witch costs and troubles” (RL12)
Masculinity - femininity Goals Assertiveness 7 (2%) 3 (1%)
“Her approach was to avoid confronting doctors and to focus her efforts where she had good existing relationships” (CS16) “Are you so stupid that you can’t handle a computer?” (CS16)
Long-term orientations Targets Tradition 16 (4%) 5 (1%)
“Training had a short term rather than long term focus” (CS6)
21 4.2 Manifestations of national culture
In response to the first research question in this study, a taxonomy of national culture manifestations that affects user behaviour in IT implementations will be presented. Due to the great amount of cases and the limited space in this case survey study, the cases will not be individually discussed. However, the main patterns will be discussed and examples from many cases will be presented in the descriptions of the patterns. Table 4 below shows the identified manifestations and different subcategories that are discussed in this section. Driven by national culture dimensions, the actual manifestation of national culture was categorized in three types: trust & respect, management culture and conflict.
There must be noted that the manifestation ‘Change culture’ is not one of the identified manifestations in this study. The in the theoretical background described manifestation by Srivastava & Gips (2009) deals with the fact that individuals put value on the past and are therefore not likely to accept change. Although this manifestation was found in multiple cases researched by Srivastava & Gips (2009), it was not supported by the observations made in this study. This can be explained by the fact that it was only identified in cases on IT implementations in China. Even though this study’s sample also contains several Chinese cases, no convincing evidence was found and was therefore not incorporated in the findings of this study.
22 TABLE 4
Taxonomy of national culture manifestations
Manifestations Subcategories Main NC dimension driver
Trust and respect Top management respect Power distance, Collectivism Inhibited feedback Collectivism, Femininity
Suspicious Uncertainty avoidance, Individualism
Not suspicious Collectivism, Femininity
Management culture Indifferent Power distance
Involved Power distance
Imposing Uncertainty avoidance, Power distance
Conflict Avoidance Uncertainty avoidance
Conflict-seeking Uncertainty avoidance, Individualism
The following categories were identified as national culture manifestations that affected the implementation of the IS.
Trust and respect. Many observations (42) were made that matched the by Srivastava & Gips
(2009) described phenomenon of trust and respect. Subcategories that were identified for this manifestation were top management respect, inhibited feedback and suspicion. Although one might expect that trust and respect are obvious necessities for an integrative system implementation to work, it was surprising to find that it had completely different manifestations in different national cultures. For example, in an ERP implementation in China compared to a similar implementation in Australia, a project champion had far less value in China than in Australia, because in China, it is always top management that is the champion and there is so much respect for top management, that it is championed automatically. This was also observed by the authors as they state based on their empirical analysis: “the presence of a champion was considered important in Oilco (Australia) but not mentioned at all at Elevatorco (China)” (RL11). This difference could have been driven by the difference in the power distance dimension between the two cultures. In other cultures however, trust & respect for top management was not as indisputable as in China, namely in a New Zealand hospital, doctors were suspicious: “Many doctors felt that the information would be used to justify
management decisions on financial grounds, ignoring clinical issues” (RL16). Or in a
Portuguese manufacturing company: “There was a notorious lost of trust on their managers
23 Another observation dealing with trust & respect was the acceptance of external consultants. This manifestation was sometimes driven by uncertainty avoidance. Data accuracy and knowledge is very important in some cultures as in the Chinese implementation the authors commented: “High quality data is very important in the integrated environment of an ERP
system.” (RL11). This importance of accurate data and knowledge resulted in acceptance and
trust in the external consultants: “The implementation of SAP resulted in the development of
trust - trust in experts of SAP” (RL11). However, in Switzerland an external consultant had
issues gaining trust. This was not due to the uncertainty avoidance, but seemed to be caused by the masculinity of some cultures as was observed: “The consultant trainer frequently
experienced older male participants especially those from Japan and Italy, who questioned her competence and qualifications” (CS18).
There was not only a loss of trust in external consultants or in top management, it was also the other way around. In some cases, top management lost trust in their employees, as was identified in multiple cases like in the USA: “Howard felt that the divisions were doing things
behind his back” (RL14) and in New Zealand: “Another manager was convinced that his department was misleading him” (RL13). In some cases, an effort was made to regain or keep
trust, like in the UK: “I need to convey the message "trust me" (CS19), while others used external forces to regain trust, like in an Italian telemedicine implementation: “Enrolling the
scientific institutions would in fact obtain the result of entrusting the emerging practice with a great power-symbolic superiority” (RL36).
However, in Hawaii mutual respect actually manifests itself in a situation that inhibits feedback, because in Hawaii, it is not common to say bad things as an EMR implementation team member states: “If you give constructive feedback – if somebody asks for it – they get a
bit of a shock if they actually get it.” (EX2). Similarly, trust issues were the downfall for a
financial information system implementation in the US as observations were made like “FIS
was definitely established for political reasons, Howard wanted to take over the world... therein started the wars between the chemical company and corporate” (RL14). However, in
Chile an implementation of an e-governance system was successful because of the lack of suspicion even though it was designed to gain more power for its implementers: “The SII
24 All of these examples show that trust and respect play different roles in different national cultures, in some it is a crucial factor that must be present for success, while in others the absence of it does not negatively influence user behaviour.
Management culture. The next manifestation, management culture, was added during the
coding process to describe observations dealing with the way management acted in integrative system implementations. Also for this manifestation a lot of observations (52) from many different cases were found. This manifestation had a direct effect on the ownership of the implementation process, an effect of national culture identified in this study, which will be described later. Three subcategories of management behaviour were identified, instances in which management was imposing, indifferent or involved (see Table 5).
The observations of management culture differ a lot among the different countries, for example, in Budapest a manager was able to withhold information from the board, “In the top
management team nobody really knew about the problems with the system as no problems were let to get to that high level” (RL3), which shows that top management was not involved
enough. While in the US, “The new CEO was not only a champion [of the IS
implementation], but also a master” and “The new practices had the strong support of the CEO” (CS9). And in Portugal, regarding an ERP implementation: “Since the SAP system was imposed, the project manager and top management did not carry out a strategic analysis of the implementation” (RL12), which shows that they imposed an ERP implementation, but
then were indifferent about the implementation at the same time. These examples show that different management cultures were present across the case sample but had different effects. In Budapest, the implementation failed because top management was not involved enough. In Portugal, the implementation was an eventual success after a lot of interventions and in the US it was also a success but only after many interventions.
Being indifferent towards an integrative system implementation could be explained by a culture which is not focussed on uncertainty avoidance for example. Like, in the US, a financial services company top management member stated that: “If I have to get involved I
have the wrong people working for me“ (CS2). Imposing could be an indicator for large
power distance within a culture, like in Lithuania: “Authority decisions were made to
25 related to masculinity or individuality, like in the USA: “It was not just the financial sunk
costs that were at stake, but also personal and institutional reputations” (RL6).
Of course, there are also minor differences per subcategory. A Swedish manager imposed an implementation after a consensus from a project group: “At the Swedish university, the dean
made an authority decision based upon a consensus in a project group, especially appointed to create and evaluate requirements for the new system” (RL30). While a US hospital chief
simply imposed an implementation because he thought it was best: “It had a lot to do with
our chief who just simply said, we’re going to do this, and it’s better for patient care, and shut up and do it” (EX3).
So, it seems that the management culture greatly affected integrative system implementations but that multiple styles were identified, namely imposing, indifference and involvement. Also for this manifestation category, national dimensions can be argued to be the drivers behind the management style employed. This management style effect will be discussed in the next section on effects of national culture.
Conflict. A manifestation that was not theorized before analyzing the cases is the
manifestation of conflict and how it is dealt with. This relates to both the avoidance of conflict and the seeking of conflict in different national cultures. Avoidance of conflict can be explained to be influenced by the uncertainty avoidance of the culture. The seeking of conflict can be related to individualism and masculinity as drivers for this manifestation.
Conflict was sometimes completely avoided like in Hawaii: “Hawaii’s culture is very
non-confrontational, you know, just be nice, and agree” (EX2). While in other situations like in an
integrative communication system implementation in Canada “The residents say that the TDS
HC 4000 system is user hostile and have mounted a feisty anti-OSCAR campaign” (RL10),
conflict was sought.
In some cases, conflict was not avoided, but also not actively sought like for example in the Netherlands: “Being disappointed with their experiences with Beaufort, they organized
private evaluations sessions - without the participation of the project team” (RL4) while in
other cases users took extreme measures to avoid conflict: “Due to the lack of conveyance
26
organization. They just assumed they would not get training” (RL42). Also, there were cases
in which fear was a driver for conflict avoidance, like in New Zealand: “The fear is that it
might be used by somebody against them somewhere down the track” (RL16) or in the USA: “This anxiety was often described as fear of the unknown but was also frequently ascribed to anticipated adverse consequences, specifically increased burden of work on the individual user” (EX3).
So, based on 70 cases that have described an integrative IT system implementation, three categories have been identified as manifestations of national culture. Trust & respect, management culture and conflict are the manifestations of the national culture dimensions identified in this study, as explained above. In the next section, the effects of these national culture manifestations will be discussed.
4.3 Effects of national culture
Now that the manifestations of national culture have been introduced, the effects of these manifestations can be identified. In this section this study aims to answer the second research question: What are the effects of national culture on user resistance towards technochange? The first research question dealt with user behaviour in general, but the study now explicitly focuses on user resistance. Since technochange implementations like ERP or EMR implementations can have a significant impact on how people work and think (Dwivedi, 2015; Markus, 1983), the national culture manifestations are a potential driver for how users perceive this impact or change. As discussed earlier, whether or not the implementation challenges one’s collective programming of the mind (Hofstede, 1980) can determine the perceived usefulness of the implementation. When the perceived usefulness is absent or low, one will most likely resist the implementation (Davis, 1989; Venkatesh et al., 2003). The manifestations were used to analyse the resistance behaviour and to see whether patterns could be identified. The three manifestations of national culture described above were driven by national culture dimensions observed within case descriptions. In the same case descriptions also resistance behaviour was observed and these were linked to the national culture manifestations.
Management style. One effect that was already identified in the theoretical background was
27 differences were found among the sample of IT implementations. In some cases, there was no trust in top management, while in others there was no trust from management in its employees. Some cases described a very imposing management culture, while other cases described indifferent behaviour from management. This is also the case for the management style, as some top management teams “did not see the implementation project as a priority” (RL27), while others “had the strong support of the CEO” (CS9).
In cases in which there was low trust & respect for management, the management style did not seem to be focussed on the actual IT implementation processes (e.g. training of users, clear communication, possibilities for feedback). For example, in a US case users noted that the implementation seemed to be a political game in search for more power. This fit the drivers behind trust & respect namely, power distance and individuality (see Table 4). Because the users recognized this play for power, they started resisting the implementation. The fact that they resisted can be an indicator for another manifestation, namely conflict. These users were more conflict-seeking oriented and therefore challenged management and resisted the implementation. As supported by this US implementation observation: “It was
intended to encroach upon the legitimate domain of the divisional accountants, that is, managerial accounting. Divisional accountants would resist the use of FIS for managerial accounting even if it were easy to use and in fact, their resistance continued beyond March 1978” (RL14).
Although this might seem a normal response from the US users, other cultures reported different responses on a similar management style. For example, in a Chinese implementation, there was a high degree of trust and respect for top management. Moreover, an imposing management culture was identified, however, management did not focus on the implementation process, like in the US implementation. They just wanted the IT system implemented. Instead of training the end users, management decided that “only senior
managers, departmental managers and key employees received training. Most of the end users did not receive any formal training” (RL27). Moreover, “the company's top management did not inform all their employees of their ERP plans and of the benefits that ERP will bring to the company” (RL27). However, the surprising fact was that no
28 Implementation ownership. Related to the management style, a lot of observations were
made regarding the notion of implementation ownership. As explained in the previous section, the management culture was different among cases and also the effect on the users was different. Some users resisted when an implementation was imposed: “The MIS forced
the centre’s physicians to modify their behaviour in ways they disliked” (RL7), while other
users were used to just doing what top management wanted: “Change is accepted if it is
demanded” (RL11). Some cultures resisted when management was indifferent: “The decision to implement ERP came from top management levels at both the company and the parent group. However, their involvement stopped as soon as they allocated the resources, formed the project team appointed the consultants and purchased the ERP system” (RL27), while
some liked the fact that they were empowered and autonomous: “To support the part of the
reengineering project focusing on streamlining business processes, project owners were appointed for all main business areas” (RL22). Moreover, the requirement of a champion for
the project was also different among the cases, some implementations failed because of the fact they did not have a champion, while other implementations failed because of the fact they had a champion, but the user did not trust management enough: “The double label of the
programme used in the organisation, seems to create some suspicion among nurses” (CS20).
Again, although the three manifestations were present, the user resistance effect was different among cultures.
29
5. Discussion
This study has sought manifestations and effects of national culture on integrative IT implementation processes using two research questions. First, using a case survey approach this study analysed 70 cases of integrative IT systems in order to identify national culture manifestations. Using Hofstede’s (2001) national culture dimensions, the qualitative data of these 70 cases have been analysed from a national culture perspective. With this lens, national culture nuances surfaced which were categorized as three different manifestations, namely trust & respect, management culture and conflict. The manifestation trust & respect was found to be dealing with the trust in and respect for top management. Some users seemed to be inherently suspicious, while other users from a different culture were so respectful that it actually inhibited feedback throughout the management layers. The manifestation management culture deals with the actions of management during the IT implementations. These actions were categorized as imposing actions, being involved or being indifferent. The findings show that in some cultures imposing an IT system’s usage results in user resistance, while in other cultures, this did not cause any implementation issues. The third manifestation, conflict, deals with the avoidance or seeking of conflict. The findings show that in some cultures users challenged uncertainty and demanded clarity from management. While in other cultures, users were driven by fear and therefore avoided conflict.
30 they felt autonomous, again something that can be explained by national dimensions (power distance & individualism). There must be noted however, that not enough support was found to make statements on what effect will be present when and to what extent they influenced the degree of resistance. This suggests that further research can be conducted in this area, which will be discussed later in this section.
5.1 Theoretical implications
The national culture manifestations and effects identified in this study are applicable to the research fields dealing with user resistance to IT implementations and to which this study makes several contributions. First of all, this study answers the call for research for the integration of IS and national culture (Ford et al., 2003; Gallupe & Tan, 1999). Moreover, this study also answers the call from the IS field to have a stronger methodological basis in regard to the sample cultures involved in a comparative case study analysis (Ford et al., 2003).
Secondly, this study contributes to the user resistance understanding since it presents findings supporting a national culture factor influencing user resistance. This perspective can therefore be added to the existing user resistance models to support a deeper understanding of the influencing factors of user resistance. As Lapointe & Rivard (2005) made a start in analysing user resistance in a multi-level manner, this study compliments their findings by adding the national culture lens to their perspectives. Therefore, not just organisational culture and e.g. perceived equality (Joshi, 1991) are factors that influence user resistance, also national culture should now be taken into account as an influential contextual factor.
Furthermore, as said before, this study used Hofstede’s (2001) cultural dimensions successfully to identify national culture observations. However, by not incorporating the criticized outdated scores, this study has shown the continued relevance of Hofstede’s (2001) work.
5.2 Limitations
31 another researcher bias, namely the original author’s researcher bias. However, due to an extensive description of the methodology this study is highly controllable (Eisenhardt, 1989; Yin, 2013), which enables further researchers to repeat the study, if need be. A third limitation is that this study solely used secondary data, since this is inherently the case when following a case survey methodology. However, the cases that were selected were subject to critical inclusion and exclusion criteria and were from scholarly sources only. A fourth limitation is that not every case has been discussed individually due to time and resource constraints. However, due to the rich description and availability of all sources in the Appendix of this study, this limitation is somewhat accounted for.
More specifically, a fifth limitation is the variety of countries involved in the sample. Although an effort has been made to select as many different countries as possible, the distribution is slightly skewed towards the US and the UK. This can perhaps be explained by the fact that there has been greater attention towards IT implementations in these countries or that IT implementations are more common in these countries, which is why scholars focussed on these countries. Another explanation that these countries are abundant in the sample is the fact that this study only incorporated articles written in English, which might have excluded cases from other countries.
5. 3 Practical implications
32 5. 4 Further research
Since this study has a theory development goal, future research could be directed at the revising and testing of the manifestations and effects found in this study. More specifically, although two effects of national culture have been identified, as discussed before, no statements could be made on when and to what extent the identified national culture effects would affect user resistance based on the observations made in this study. Therefore, further research could be directed to analyse, test and verify these relationships empirically and statistically. Moreover, although this study was fairly comprehensive in analysing 70 case studies within 18 different industries involving 25 different IT systems, other countries and industries can still be examined in the future and analysed to see whether the identified manifestations also surface in other samples. Furthermore, scholars can now start to build a true comprehensive model of user behaviour, at least incorporating the national culture lens to the existing perspectives, in order to further the insights in user behaviour and resistance to IT implementations.
5.5 Concluding remarks
33
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37
APPENDICES
Appendix A. Case study descriptives
Case descriptives
Case # Search method Code Country Industry IT
1 Computer search CS1 UK Education SITS
2 Computer search CS2 USA Financial services Threshold program
3 Computer search CS3 USA Construction Decision support system (4D)
4 Computer search CS4 USA Child welfare Case management system
5 Computer search CS6 UK Education Virtual learning environment
6 Computer search CS8 USA Healthcare Tissue ordering system
7 Computer search CS9 USA Chemical Technology Six Sigma
8 Computer search CS10 UK Healthcare Telehealth
9 Computer search CS11 USA Energy Sector HR system
10 Computer search CS12 Australia Education Shared services IT
11 Computer search CS13 Australia Healthcare IT infrastructure library 12 Computer search CS15 Canada Education Security tracking system
13 Computer search CS16 UK Healthcare IT cancer research
14 Computer search CS18 Switzerland Pharmaceutical ERP
15 Computer search CS19 UK Public sector ERP
16 Computer search CS20 Netherlands Healthcare Quality improvement system
17 Expert consultation EX1 France Healthcare EMR
18 Expert consultation EX2 Hawaii (USA) Healthcare EMR
19 Expert consultation EX3 USA Healthcare EMR
20 Expert consultation EX4 UK Healthcare EMR
21 Expert consultation EX5 USA Healthcare EMR
