Organizations As Information Processes

Organizations as Information Processes

By

Bob Travica

Asper School of Business

University of Manitoba, Canada

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to introduce the concept of infoprocess and to discuss its implications for understanding organizations and the role of IT. Infoprocess is conceptulized as a part of organizational process referring to interrelated information activities that altogether deliver an outcome to a customer. A case is used to demonstrate characteristics of infoprocess and methods of analyzing infoprocess. The relationship between infoprocess and virtual organization and e-commerce is discussed. A detailed summary of the significance of the infoprocess perspective is provided.

The purpose of this article is to introduce the concept of information processes (infoprocess, from here onward) and to discuss its implications for understanding organizations and the role of IT. The concept of infoprocess has been introduced with the information view of organization (Travica, 2003). In brief, IVO represents an approach aimed at broadening horizons of IS research by reinforcing its connections with organizational and cognitive theory. IVO recognizes the importance of understanding organizations as processes (Hammer, 1996; Malone et al., 1999) and extends this perspective and ultimately the systems approach to organizations. In the following discussion, we will discuss the concept of infoprocess, how it relates to the concept of organizational process, and what can be gained by applying the infoprocess perspective.

1. Process and Infoprocess

Infoprocess refers to interrelated information activities that altogether deliver an outcome to a customer. Infoprocess is a special kind of organizational process that evolves around information. In order to understand infoprocess one needs to take a brief look at the concept of organizational process (business process, or just process) as it is used in the process view of organization. Process is usually defined in terms of a collection of activities that takes one or more kinds of input and creates an output that is of value to the customer (Davenport, 1993; Hammer & Champy, 1993). The process concept also includes several assumptions. One important assumption is that a process can cut across departmental and organizational boundaries. This concept of process is complaint with the concepts developed in more general disciplines that constitute foundations to IS theory. For example, general systems theory and cybernetics define process as a succession of stages, while cybernetics assumes that anything can be seen as a process (Principia Cybernetica, 1991).

Process is viewed as both part of a system (Bertalanffy, 1968: 139) and a system in itself. The difference comes from the perspective taken. This can be illustrated by the interchangeable use of "system" and "process" in the area of systems analysis and design. If a system is seen as an entity embedded in its environment, the content of the system is assumed to be "collapsed" into one process that transforms environmental inputs into outputs. On the other hand, decomposing a system into parts leads to identifying processes (operations, methods) along with other parts (data, interfaces, etc.). IVO posits that the concept of organizational processes needs to be put in an information perspective, which brings forward IS aspects of processes—specifically, data/information/knowledge and IT. Indeed, many organizational processes are information processes (cf., Malone & Crowston, 1994). The following mini case will demonstrate the concept of infoprocess and relationships between organizational process and infoprocess.

1.1. A Case of a Four-Star Hotel

A customer checks into a four-star hotel at night, and the first thing he wants to do is to activate the Internet connection in his room. The customer attends a professional conference dealing with IT. The Internet connection deal looks good: for the price of a fast-food lunch for two, the customer can get 24 hour access to the Internet via a cable connection and an unlimited number of telephone calls within the country. The customer checks a quick guide available in his room, and tries to hook up his brand new laptop into the Internet. But it does not work. He repeats the procedure several times, to no avail. He then calls the reception desk for help. The receptionist sends "a person who knows how to fix the problem" - the engineer. The engineer arrives after 15 minutes, looks at the computer, asks some quick questions, and then dials a number. The customer is puzzled, as he does not find the engineer's questions to be technically sound. So, the customer assumes that the engineer is now calling the hotel's IT help desk. The number the engineer dials is long, and customer assumes that there must be some security code used to shelter a precious few IT specialists from the unreadable requests of guests. This engineer is some sort of filter, too, concludes the customer.

The connection is established, and the engineer soon passes the handset to the customer. There is a polite male voice of "a technician" on the other side. The technician starts inquiring carefully about the problem. After the customer explains what he has done so far to connect to the Internet, the technician says that everything looks all right, and asks the customer to stay on the line while he checks something. Minutes go by. The technician is back with a new set of questions. He wants the customer to explain the configuration of the telephone, the data jacks, and the wiring setup in his room. The customer is puzzled by the fact that the hotel's personnel lack this knowledge. Still, he does not want to convey impatience, because the person on the other side appears to be dedicated to providing good service. As the customer is kneeling on the floor, tracking the wires and describing what he sees, the line gets disconnected. The engineer is gone, and the customer wonders how to get back to the technician. Minutes go by. Then, the telephone rings, and the technician is back, apologizing for the disruption. The technician instructs the user that he should call him back if the line breaks down again. The customer continues explaining the wiring setup. The line dies again. The customer immediately calls the reception desk and asks for the "Internet person." The receptionist is confused. The customer explains what he was doing and with whom, and the receptionist decides that calling the engineer is in order. The customer tries to explain that the engineer cannot help him and requests to be switched to "IT people." The receptionist apologizes, saying that she cannot do that.

After about ten minutes, the engineer knocks at the door. After learning what has transpired, he dials the long number again. The customer is puzzled and asks if the "Internet person" can come to his room to witness the setup himself? No, he cannot, says the engineer. He cannot leave the desk?—persists the customer. Yeah, says the engineer. Where actually is the technician?—the customer. The engineer is busy redialing the number, and the customer deciphers from his mumbling that the technician is over a thousand miles away. So, you contracted out the cable access to the Internet[bt1]?— the customer asks, suddenly understanding the situation. The engineer admits. Now, the technician is back on line and extremely apologetic. The engineer departs after giving the long number of the cable company to the customer. The technician says he would like to visit "the back room" for advice, as he could not determine what precisely is wrong with Internet access in the customer's room. Minutes pass. The technician is back with a very specific question: has the customer installed network software of a CD? No, responds the customer, as there was no disk available in his room. He explains that software drivers will be downloaded from the hotel's Web page when he accesses it. The technician instructs that the drivers are actually needed for accessing that page. He, then, bids the customer good night, thanks him for his patience, and transfers the line to his boss "who is in charge of resolving this type of problem." Then, the boss is on the phone. He immediately starts with a sort of hard techno speak, and the customer assesses that the boss is not as nice as the technician. The customer asks, what is going on, and the boss starts throwing a slew of technical phrases, acronyms, and if-then statements. Overwhelmed, the customer interrupts: OK, OK, but what does that all mean in my situation? I need to connect to the Internet to prepare for my presentation first thing in the morning, and it is already midnight. Any help?

The boss explains that the needed software, which usually is on the CD that the customer is missing, can be downloaded via the cable to the customer's laptop. The customer agrees to try it. It takes the boss several attempts to get the download procedure started. He uses a computer-based switchboard that controls all Internet connections in rooms of the hotel, and he is not able to "get a hold" of the customer's room right away. The procedure finally starts, and the boss instructs the customer not to touch any key on the computer for next 15 minutes – "no matter what happens!" He bids the customer "good night" and "happy Web surfing." The customer feels better, now that he has the end in sight. Suddenly, his laptop starts buzzing, the familiar screen is erased, and strange messages start popping up. The customer remembers "that he should not to touch the screen whatever happens," and takes no action. But then he starts suspecting that something may be going wrong: the downloading has taken more than 30 minutes and is not finished, the keyboard is heating up, a strange noise is coming from the laptop... After calling the boss and hitting a busy line, he switches off the computer. Another call to the boss, successful this time. The boss listens to the customer's excited explanation, and instructs: boot the laptop. But the laptop would not start normally, and the boss recommends unplugging the network cable.

The epilogue: the customer is having a hard time trying to control his frustration, fatigue, and disappointment. He has missed his dinner, wasted huge time, could not get prepared for the next conference day, and, yet worse, he has become afraid that his computer is damaged. Back to his techno speak, the boss provides an explanation that sounds futile to the customer: "The computer is not likely to be damaged at the moment because it apparently can get started, but problems might arise in the future." And there is no provision for any compensation to the customer.

1.2. An Analysis of Infoprocesses

The case described above contains key elements of the infoprocess concept and indications of the relationship between organizational process and infoprocess. In addition, it helps to introduce analytical tools—the drill-down and roll-up view of infoprocesses. Let us analyze what happened in the case.

The guest’s attempt to use the Internet that starts the infoprocess we shall call Providing Guest with Internet Access (See Figure 1). This is an infoprocess, as its evolves around information (essentially, providing the guest with help the connection procedure). The process owner is the engineer. In order to help the guest, he must learn about the guest's problem. Learning is a cognitive process that starts with the engineer's perceiving of the situation (making sense of it). Then the engineer performs other cognitive processes: thinking toward a solution, retrieving his memory for needed information, deciding which course of action to take.

F igure 1. Drill-Down View of Infoprocesses with examples from Hotel Case

(Note: COFSTTRED stands for creating, organizing and other data processes)

Figure 1 provides this deeper drill-down view, which reveals that an infoprocess contains cognitive processes, which in turn contain basic processes of data manipulation we call fundamental infoprocesses. For example, the memory is retrieved to recall knowledge and symbolic data that refer to the concepts of connection option, connection problem, and Internet Service Provider (ISP). The thinking process aimed at resolving the connection problem uses these data—discarding/filtering, evaluating, organizing and transforming them. The goal is to create meaning and some sort of knowledge structure, that is, a representation of the problems space and matching solutions.

Data collecting/creating, organizing, filtering, storing, transforming, transferring, retrieving, evaluating, and discarding data (COFSTTRED) are primitive or fundamental infoprocesses. Figure 2 depicts the relationship between fundamental and cognitive infoprocesses. Fundamental infoprocesses represent the primary domain in which IT operates. For example, IT can increase efficiency (speed) of the fundamental infoprocesses. Consequently, IT contributes to increasing efficiency and potentially effectiveness of higher infoprocesses (e.g., the scope and other characteristics of the problem/solution space). This creates a need for performing additional cognitive processes of creating meaning through perception and thinking—an option that does not happen in our case. The engineer uses no IT and he relies exclusively on his cognition. Although there is no need for the additional cognitive processes triggered by interaction with technology, the engineer's performance is bound to speed limitations and heuristics that may result in unproductive simplifications and errors. This analysis demonstrates a drill-down view that sheds the light on cognitive and data aspects of infoprocesses.

Cognitive Process

(Higher Infoprocess) /

Data Process

(Fundamental Infoprocess)

Collect,
Create / Organize / Filter / Store / Transform / Transfer / Retrieve / Evaluate / Discard
Perception /  /  /  /  /  / 
Learning
(creating meaning & knowledge) /  /  /  /  / 
Memorizing/
Retrieving /  /  /  /  /  /  /  / 
Thinking /  /  /  /  /  / 

Figure 2. Fundamental and Higher Cognitive Infoprocesses

(Note: the checkmarks show the mapping of data infoprocesses and cognitive

infoprocesses into higher infoprocesses of providing the guest with Internet access.)

Organizations are collections of interrelated infoprocesses. The infoprocess of providing the guest with Internet access is related to other infoprocesses and organizational processes. This is shown in the roll-up view depicted in Figure 3. Diagram A depicts three infoprocesses in sequence. The guest's using of the Internet, triggers the Internet connection providing on the hotel side. If the connection fails, the guest's infoprocess triggers a help step in the access provision infoprocess. If a solution is not found, the troubleshooting starts on the ISP side that is a step in the support connectivity infoprocess. There is sequential interdependence between the respective infoprocesses. Diagram B in Figure 3 shows relationship between steps of these infoprocesses along with a higher-level organizational process of ISP's supporting the customer. The customer is both the hotel and the hotel's guest. In supporting the hotel, the ISP installs and maintains the network equipment (both steps include physical work). In supporting the guest, the ISP supports connectivity, which means establishing technically a connection, troubleshooting it, fixing it, and providing advise on courses of action (note the dashed arrow between the ISP process and the ISP-to-guest support infoprocess). These infoprocesses run between organizations.

Note that the infoprocesses depicted are sequentially dependent on each other. Sequential dependence, where the guest waits for help on the hotel side and the hotel infoprocess triggers the troubleshooting on the ISP side, occurs because the connectivity malfunctions. In a way, these two are emergency infoprocesses. In a normal scenario, connectivity is provided in parallel with the guest's use of the Internet, and the helping and troubleshooting steps and respective infoprocesses are never activated.

(A) Key Infoprocesses

(B) Key Processes and Infoprocesses

Figure 3. Roll-Up View of Infoprocesses with examples from Hotel Case

(Note: An "x" means that a step failed, and the numbers represent order of interactions between steps in infoprocesses.)

An important consequence of the infoprocess perspective is that it extends the concept of coordination. Coordination has been defined as the management of interdependence between tasks (Thompson, 1967) and between resources (Malone & Crowston, 1994). We can add that coordination also refers to managing interdependence between infoprocesses. Well-coordinated infoprocesses would minimize sequential interdependence and eliminate emergency infoprocesses.

2. Infoprocess, Virtual Organization, and E-Commerce

Subcontracting of the networking and ISP services by the hotel in the case above can be placed in the perspective of virtual organization (VO). Indeed, electronic interorganizational infoprocesses engender virtualizing of organizations. It will also be argued that electronic interorganizational infoprocesses generate e-commerce. Involvement of infoprocesses in these two important contemporary phenomena underscores the importance of taking the infoprocess perspective on organizations.

It has been established through both conceptual and empirical research that subcontracting, sourcing and outsourcing lead to the virtualization of organizations. In an early conceptualization of VO, Davidow & Malone (1992) describe the virtual corporation in terms of a temporary association of various constituencies (individuals, groups, firms, etc.) that come together in order to harness swiftly a sudden market opportunity. This organization delivers a "virtual product" that is produced instantaneously and customized in response to customer demands. It deploys "a sophisticated information network and computer-integrated production processes," and it exhibits "permeable and continuously changing boundaries" involving supplier and customer, an "amorphous structure" and a need for maintaining trust among parties lacking physical contact (pp. 4-6). The seminal study by Goldman and colleagues (1995) developed the initial concept for the virtual corporation and extended the VO framework to other forms. The group investigated the enterprise named AgileWeb, which is a “network” or “web” of small machine shops in northeastern Pennsylvania. This network was created in 1994 with funding from ARPA (Advanced Research Project Agency) to support defense projects and push the boundaries of "agile manufacturing." The network member organizations would come together in different combinations to form one or more VOs in order to carry out a new defense contract. Each organization had its own competencies, and the usual motivation for creating a VO was the need to combine the competencies in different ways. The organizations also shared infrastructure, R&D, risk, and costs. They maintained permeable organizational boundaries toward each other and customers. According to Goldman and colleagues, different interorganizational arrangements with a virtual nature have come out of this network, including contractor-subcontractor relationships and outsourcing. The ability to work intensively with other organizations and to be able to trust them was enhanced by pre-qualification agreements and contracts. Deliverables and end-effects of these virtual forms were new products, reductions in concept-to-cash time (an aspect of manufacturing agility), and increased access to markets (Goldman et al., 1995: 220-221).