Elizabeth E. Bennett
intereested in how the designed look and feek t web pages may provide an experience for learning
little is know about how culture shapes technology
Intranet - definition - Intranet defined here as a private organiaational enwetwork baase dprimarily on Web technology and is comprised of shared documents and software application that help members fulfill their organizational mission
Research questions–
1. How does the Intranet provide an opportunity for learning about organizational culture?
To support the purpose, the culture of the case organization was examined
First wanted to understand the culture
Organizational culture is the shared beliefs, values, and assumptions that determine how members interpret events and act in an organizational environment
knowledge management - tacit and explicit knowledge, she sees a connection between knwoeldge management and organizational learning
she was given open access to the organization–Beacon Communityu Hospital in the Southeast USA with 3000 employees. she was given as much of the same openness as any emplitee, especially as IT staff. HIPAA and other confidential information was of course offlimits, That would have been beyond the focus of her work anyway. She searched for organizations, and while searching, a colleague of hers gave her contact to the CIO at the hospital.
MY QUEESTION — How did you get access to this organization? I work in healthcare, and know how difficult that can be.
Used a book - Quick ethnographies - for studies with small time frames
Edgar Schines book on typical subcultures - operatives, engineering group, clinical people
Strategic use of the INternet.
Range of ages and positions for variation
As she was in a cubivcle embedded within the organization, she staretd to do participant observation. She moved from a non-participant to a participant role,.
The hospital won custimer service awards, and used to be known as a high tech hospital for clinincal work, but that had changed with them being more internally technical savvy. The current administration helped to make the transition to being more high-tech, and they then started to win customer service awards.
The Intranet was 6 years old, and the CIO inititiated this, and it was not forced on the organization. It started to get more widely used because departments started to get more interested for their own and their department uses. They named their Intranet a name — IAN — Information As Needed — they treat the INtranet as a colleague, with a personalized component
The culture at the Hospital -
- People-centered
- Highly congruent with values
- strategically decentralized
- date driven
- organic in nature
Tremendous emphsia on values and th culture– the information is listed on the back of their nameetage
Findings-
- Experiencing the wider organization, since people feel isoltaed, IAN helps them to feel more connected. Fostered a sense of being colleagues (even in with their internal classifieds and daprtment pages
- Recognizing aand reqrding performance. There is the belief that recognition builds relationsips . Even performance reviews and evaluations are managed and tracked via the Intranet. 20% of notes were notes of thanks
- Reinforcing organizational expectations — ingrains procedures and ensures response. OSHA counter is cultural symbol that holds meaning for employees. They also track who digitally signs articles that they have read things, so all that can be tracked. At first when she saw the OSHA counter on the homepage, but she found that evey interview mentioned the OSHA counter. She initially did not code this, but then through the interviews, that it was very important
- Modeling corporate communication style. Graphics convey imporatntace of information
Conlsuions - CUltural knowledge is conveyed and renewed through the intranet
Discussion - shows culture and communication style
reflects and integrative culture that is aligned along shard values (sheridan et al. 1993)
communication through the INternet not statis
shapes culture
culture could changes over time in positive and negative ways
change could occur “under the rader”
95% of the employees have access to the Intranet. Every new emlpoyee has acces to the INtranet They believed that access to the Intrant is a xopr right, so all people had access, even in the nursing stations, there were PCs i the breakroom and the and nursing stations. Every new employee is oriented to the INternet
I am now thinking about some other issues, such as to what exent should I add something I missed from yesterday’s Brookfield / Peterson discussion. ELizabeth mentioend how the room was so full to see Broeekfuield, not necessarily their subject of their research. This now seems familiar, so I am not sure if I ewrote this yesterday. This issue needs to be explored– how much more complete should the data be if I missed something from the previous day but then recall it? In more traditional resaerch, I would adjust the reaults of the unterview notes if member checking shows me I missed something.
A question about how people can update the Internet, such as chatrooms (which they tried and did not work), nor do people tend to use blogs. Somebody in the audience was pushing the issue about how dissent and critique are handled, in relation to the intranet. They have a culture where people, without their managers, meet with the senior leadership to air issues. There are avenues outside the intranet to address and handle problems. They have anonymous suggestion box in the intrant as well as offline as well.
MY QUESTION - what technology platform so they use for the internat. They do not use Sharepoint. They use Oracle databases, have an internal email, and people connect in a variety of ways.
