Title: Organisational relations in organisational design and engineering

Authors: Piero Migliarese, Vincenzo Corvello

Addresses: Department of Business Science, University of Calabria, Via P. Bucci 3C, IT-87036, Rende, Italy. ' Department of Business Science, University of Calabria, Via P. Bucci 3C, IT-87036, Rende, Italy

Abstract: Organisations can be seen as networks of organisational relations (ORs). Information systems (ISs) are able to modify ORs and, in turn, ORs have influence on ISs acceptance and use. Therefore, ORs are a key-variable in order to understand the interaction between organisational systems and ISs. While the structural and quantitative dimensions of ORs have been widely studied in the literature, few theoretical models exist which support the evaluation of ORs from a qualitative point of view. In this paper one of these models, the organisational relational model (ORM), has been used to study the mutual influence between ORs and ISs. In particular the effects of qualitative differences in ORs are studied. The paper provides a case study of a large Italian company in the oil and gas industry. Based on the obtained results an agile approach to the codesign of ORs and ISs is proposed.

Keywords: organisational design; organisational engineering; organisational relations; information systems; agile design; organisational relational model; modelling; Italy; oil and gas industry; codesign.

DOI: 10.1504/IJODE.2010.035186

International Journal of Organisational Design and Engineering, 2010 Vol.1 No.1/2, pp.55 - 68

Published online: 14 Sep 2010 *

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