The Impact of National Culture on Information Systems Planning Autonomy

Introduction

Fifty-three of the 100 largest “economies” in the world today are not nations, but instead are multinational corporations. Of the more than 60,000 such corporations, one thousand account for 80% of the world's industrial production. These firms employ 90 million people, pay more than $1.5 trillion in wages, and contribute 25% of the gross world product (Gabel & Bruner, 2003).

However, each country in which a multinational firm operates has a distinct economic, political, legal, industrial, competitive market, and cultural context. Businesses must be responsive to this diversity, especially when integrating their different operations (Akmanligil & Palvia, 2004; Makino, Isobe, & Chan, 2004; Martinsons & Davison, 2007). Today’s growing globalization, with the corporate parent in one culture and the subsidiaries in another, is increasing the need to manage the impact of culture on organizational choices (Kankanhalli et al., 2004). Likewise, today’s growing dependence on information systems is increasing the need to make the choices that provide the systems that contribute the most to the organization (Grover & Segars, 2005). The consequences of choosing information systems that fail to meet needs are too great. Not surprisingly therefore, both culture and information systems planning have been a subject of interest to researchers (Mohdzain & Ward, 2007).

One of the most widely used models of culture was developed by Hofstede (1980, 1984). According to him, all people carry “patterns of thinking, feeling and potential acting which were learned throughout their lifetime” (Hofstede, 1991, p. 4). Hofstede analyzed data on the individual personal values of 116,000 IBM employees in 72 countries spanning more than 20 languages, and he identified four major dimensions of culture. He called the dimensions Power Distance, Individualism-Collectivism, Uncertainty Avoidance, and Masculinity-Femininity.¹

Several researchers have studied the impact of national culture in information systems. They have done so in terms of the impact on users, information systems developers, and information systems management. User research has included user attitudes (Igbaria & Zviran, 1991; Igbaria, 1992; Harris & Davison, 1999); group support systems usage (Watson et al., 1994); electronic communication media selection (Straub, 1994); adaptation and usage characteristics (Igbaria & Zviran, 1996); self-efficacy (Igbaria & Iivari, 1995); human behavior in information systems usage (Walczuch et al., 1995; Burn et al., 1993; Burn et al., 1997; Gefen & Straub, 1997; Robichaux & Cooper, 1998; Davison & Jordan, 1998; Hanke & Teo, 2003; Myers & Tan, 2002; Straub et al., 2002: Tan et al., 1998; Smith, 2001); e-commerce buying behavior (Chai & Pavlou, 2004; Pavlou & Chai, 2002; Pereira, 1998); online auction (Ho et al., 2007); performance (Lippert & Volkmar, 2007); information overload (Kock et al., 2008); and satisfaction (Reinig et al., 2009). Information systems developer research has included perceptions of system usability (Del Galdo & Nielson, 1996); icon and interface effectiveness (Ito & Nakakoji, 1996; Nakakoji, 1996; Sturrock & Kirwan, 1996; McDougall et al., 1998); technical, political, and social values of IS developers (Kankanhalli et al., 2004); cross-border ecommerce (Sinkovics et al., 2007); and knowledge communication (Siau et al., 2007). Information systems management research has included information privacy (Milberg et al., 2000); software project management (Tan et al., 2003); and outsourcing (Ramingwong & Sajeev, 2007). Thus, the IS literature has seen an abundance of cross-cultural research (Ford et al., 2003).