Social: Theories and Models - Foundations for Designing User-Centered Systems - page 260

9.3.1 Organizational Effects

Users working in teams are often part of organizations. These organizations will
influence the team climate and provide both resources and obligations to teams.
There is a separate area of research that studies how organizations work, as
opposed to teams (e.g., Simon 1997 ).
The network structures used to describe teams can be applied again to an
organization, and indeed the figures of networks are typically scaled not for small
teams but for organizations.
The comments about small teams also apply to organizations in many ways.
Organizations are better if they are made up of better people and if these people
have the knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform their tasks. They work better if
their structure is adapted to the task, and so on.
As for teams, work is on going to provide computer support for organizations,
perhaps even more so than for teams. It is clear that this computer support—if it is
done mindlessly or without enough knowledge of the task, task distribution, and
people—does not always help (e.g., see examples in Landauer 1995 , or noted
earlier in the topic). However, there remain great possibilities for supporting teams
with technology.
The way organizations work is usually heavily based on procedures that describe
the way things should be done. This can be called a normative (or prescriptive)
view. These procedures are invariably different from reality, which can be called a
descriptive view. Many organizations have suffered disastrous effects from com-
puterization of processes because the official procedures were computerized with-
out recognizing that the reality was different. Often the users are not themselves
fully aware of the differences, and these can be quite extensive, and even when they
are aware they may be reluctant to tell a manager or a consultant who will be
reporting back to management about the shortcuts and common procedure viola-
tions. The breach of procedures may only be that procedures are written as though
they are performed by one person when they are, in fact, shared amongst a number
of team members—or they may be written down as though they occur at one time
without interruption when, in fact, they are always interleaved with numerous other
similar tasks and problem solving. It might also be the case, and you can see this for
yourself, that the forms and procedures ask for extensive information, and this is
routinely not requested, not used, or does not have to be provided.

9.3.2 Cultural Effects

System behavior is the result of people interacting with technology in a context.
That context includes the physical environment, as well as aspects such as the
organizational structure, the culture of that organization, and possibly even