The Moderating Effect of Culture on the Information Systems Projects - Essay Example

Most of the literature concerned with Information Systems treats them as a unified and universal subject. This approach can create serious misunderstandings and is one of the important factors that have caused the failure of many Information Systems projects. Existing theories of Information Systems used are criticized for lacking cultural sensitivity. They have not foreseen that all these various systems are going to be used in different organizations and countries where perceptions and ways of acting can severely vary.

As such, preferences are not unified into a standard model, even though norms and ways of doing things can vary strongly from culture to culture. While the technology itself is compelling, emerging Information Systems are used by people in social contexts, so it is critical to explore how people belonging to different cultures are affecting and being affected by Information Systems. What is currently known is that comparisons between cultures are very dissimilar. A large amount of research has taken as subject countries with an Anglo-Saxon background.

Within the EU a large number of countries with diverse cultures exist without an Anglo-Saxon background. The research will be based in two of these countries.Information System projects involve group-oriented activities, organized and executed in teams, therefore, they are subject to all the benefits and problems of group dynamics, interactions, coordination, and communication (Ewusi-Mensah, 1997). Some of the underlining problems are managerial, technical, inappropriate economic evaluation techniques, but also culture-related factors.

Developing Information Systems between cultures requires an understanding of different aspects of culture influencing how people respond to different methods of communication, hierarchy levels, social versus functional relationships, and basic assumptions that rule communication within that culture.