Aligning organizations and their information technology infrastructure: how to make information technology support business

Abstract of Research Paper:

A modern organization, in order to develop or survive, has to encounter decision issues that are simultaneously complex and unpredictable. Such a decision-making or problem-solving environment directs attention to the problem-solving and information-processing properties of the organization. The concepts of organizational problem solving and information technology management are instantiated and the problem-domain of organizational information technology investments looked into. Referring to research mainly in the fields of economics, organization theory, information theory and information systems management, key concepts in this problem domain are explored and reasoned. The reason is that these very concepts are often misunderstood when actual decisions about information technology are made. The key concepts are: information technology infrastructure, information technology application, communication, message transmission, learning and knowledge, especially the variants of partial knowledge called risk and uncertainty. Also included is an experimental conceptual fitting of the theoretical reasoning in the concept of solving information technology issues with methods based on simulation.

Published in Production Planning & Control, 14: 2, 193 — 200