Crucial Consequences of Un-Holistic Business Information - Enterprise Information Systems Design, Implementation and Management: Organizational Applications - page 359

Table 2. Circular interdependence of values, culture, ethics, and norms (VCEN)

Individual values (interdependent with knowledge) Culture = values shared by many, habits making them a round-off

social group

↔

↕ ↕

Norms = prescribed values on right and wrong in a social group ↔ Ethics = prevailing values on right and wrong in a social group

Values, culture, ethics, and
norms and their impact over
the Wholeness of information
support for business operation

way, back to individuals as a part of their (socially
obligatory!) values, i.e. their emotional percep-
tion of the objective needs or requirements and
possibilities they face.
Thus it enters (or re-enters) the individual's
starting points, which influence perception, defini-
tion of preferences, their realization in the form of
goals, later on of tasks, of procedures of realizing
the tasks, and achievements etc. It means that for
any human activity ethics is equally essential as
professional knowledge and skills, creativity and
co-operatively. We have even found all of them
mutually interdependent.
Thus, the prescribed norms result from values
of the influential people, such as opinion leaders
in the society at large, market, business organi-
zations (or another organization all way from
family to United Nations), and influence the less
influential people, if the latter accept them. This
acceptance or refusing or circumventing results
from the influenced people's emotions, such as
trust to the influential people, and/or knowledge
causes their capability to comprehend the norms.
VCEN influence the selection of the Dialectical
systems, including the content of the information
support to decision and actions.

We mentioned dilemma about a requisitely ho-
listic, dialectically systemic consideration of a
synergetic entity made of norms, values, culture
and ethics and their impact over the wholeness of
information support for business operation (see
Table 2) (See: Mulej, 1974; Mulej, Kajzer, 1998;
Potocan, 1997; Mulej et al., 2000; Potocan, 2003;
Mulej, 2007; Potocan, 2008; etc.).
How do we understand this synergetic entity?
From business practice, we are persuaded that eth-
ics is more a feeling than a part of the left-brain
rationality/knowledge/skill. It enables us to distin-
guish right from wrong (Ulrich, 1997; Jennings,
2005; Shaw, 2007; etc.). Empirical researchers
consider ethics a synergy of behaviors, which tend
to be preferred in a society or community, as a
social group, for long enough periods of time to
become codified. Moral rules result, as a formal
next step (Ulrich, 1997; Jennings, 2005; Shaw,
2007; etc.).
Rules co-create a culture, be it the one of social
sub-groups, of organizational units, of organiza-
tions as wholes, or the one of regions, nations,
social classes, professions (Mulej et al., 2003;
Potocan, 2003; Mulej et al., 2005; Potocan, Kuralt,
2007; etc.). Thus, something, which is originally
an individual attribute, comes to be objectified
as a component of the objective conditions (i.e.
outside the impact of tackled individuals). It be-
comes a part of broader requirements imposed
over the individuals, and tends to return, in this

the contents of information
support, its holism and Wholeness

Globalization of the world economy puts com-
petitive pressure over the businesses, requiring
their high quality business operation, which can
be significantly improved by management inno-
vation providing a more holistic managerial and
operational behavior. Management, be it innovated