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Many organizations are introducing computer‐based communication and information systems to improve the efficiency and productivity of their personnel. Unfortunately, there exist no suitable schemes which these organizations can use to specify who needs what products or services. Neither is there any standardized methodology for evaluating the appropriateness of the new systems and their impact on the individual users and organizations. The Centre for the Evaluation of Communication—Information Technologies (CECIT) at the University of Waterloo is engaged in research on office automation. Its objectives are to develop suitable methodologies for the specification and evaluation of office automation services. This paper reports on an initial study of the communication—information requirements of white collar workers. The study took place in the summer and fall of 1980. One hundred and fourteen managers and fifty secretarial and clerical workers from four different organizations were involved in the study. Perceived use of various office support services, preliminary and subsequent detailed descriptions of individuals' tasks, and actual communication behaviour were the main focus of our data gathering. Preliminary findings suggest that cognition‐oriented tasks like human relations, planning, decision making and evaluating predominate the work of managers. Significant opportunities exist at the management level for the application of integrated decision‐support and communication systems. However, given the complexity and the lack of routine in the tasks performed by most managers, the development and introduction of office automation services geared for such a target are going to be slow in coming.

The emergence of total quality management and the ISO 9000 suite of standards has allowed a re‐think of how (and why) the post‐implementation evaluation of computer systems is to be carried out. Traditional performance measurement, modeling and analysis techniques – while not discredited – have been tempered with a more holistic ideology. This article recommends a socio‐technical approach to determining the quality of a computer information system. In this context, two postulates have been proposed and tested by field survey of expert systems in the insurance industry in North America. Postulate one focuses on a multidimensional concept of IS quality comprising the characteristics of task, technology, people and organization. Postulate two deals with differences in assessments of these characteristics according to stakeholder groups: managers, developers, and users. Summarizes the key findings of these postulates in the context of the TQM and ISO 9000 philosophies.

How does environmental uncertainty affect the process of starting new hybrid organizations? Our comparative analysis of the formation of two “green” banks – with hybrid goals linked to banking and environmental logics – reveals that shifts in their strategic orientations resulted from attempts to align uncertain and changing resource environments with the composition and goals of the organizations’ top leadership. While the initial idea and goals of the founders were similar, the organizations they established ended up with divergent strategic orientations and senior leadership groups.

This study aims to understand how reporting practices act as drivers of change in situations of conflicting institutional logics in a public sector organisation.

The findings are based on a case study of a German federal authority, where management accounting reports were introduced as part of a “new” managerial logic of control.

In the case organisation, management accounting reports were intended to change the behaviour of executives but were still guided by an “old” logic of justification. Nevertheless, over time, the addressees of the reports used the reports and reconciled different logics. This documents a process from decoupling to compromising and, finally, reconciling different institutional logics.

By examining the practices of management accounting reporting, this study elaborates the tensions placed on individuals by conflicting institutional logics and provides insights into how organisational practices are used to handle and reconcile conflicting logics in a public sector organisation. Therefore, this paper contributes to the discussion on how organisational practices act as drivers of organisational change.

Provides a new paradigm capable of integrating and developing research, which, it proposes, gives a better understanding of industrial buyer behaviours. Concludes that the model provided can be used by practitioners as a basis on which to form their marketing message, but not its style of delivery or specific direction.

Through a survey of 200 employees working in five of the thirty establishments analysed in previous research about the microeconomic effects of reducing the working time (Cahier 25), the consequences on employees of such a reduction can be assessed; and relevant attitudes and aspirations better known.

For many years, universities have been confronted with the rise of a managerial logic, in line with the new public management movement. They have been encouraged to implement new accounting tools such as cost calculations. Literature shows mixed results regarding the institutionalization of such tools, and the logic they try to support. In most studies, the agency of actors is examined to explain the institutionalization of accounting tools and only few studies consider the specific characteristics of these accounting tools to understand this process. To enrich the literature on institutionalization, this article examines how the affordances of costing tools affect the institutionalization of these tools and the institutionalization of new logics in pluralistic organizations such as universities.

The data were collected at a French university which is considered as an example of successful institutionalization of the tool and is cited as a model to follow. The data include a four-month participant observation and 18 interviews. Access to internal and external documents was also available. The analysis of the data is based on a framework proposed by Jarzabkowski and Kaplan (2015), which draws on the concept of affordance of tools, to investigate how the possibilities and constraints of costing tools shape the selection, application and outcomes of cost calculations.

The results show that the affordances of cost calculations facilitate the institutionalization of a new logic and its coexistence with previous logics. Technical affordances are mobilized by actors aiming to bring in a new logic without directly confronting the old ones. Role affordances also play a major role in the institutionalization by facilitating the adhesion of the actors through multiple applications of the tool. Finally, value-based affordances reinforce the institutionalization of a managerial logic by emphasizing the values shared with the other logics and thus facilitating the coexistence of the three logics at stake in the university.

This research provides three main contributions. First, it contributes to the literature on the institutionalization of accounting tools. It shows the relevance of the concept of affordance (Leonardi and Vaast, 2017) to unpack the characteristics of accounting tools (including the constraints and the possibilities they offer) and to achieve a better understanding of the institutionalization of accounting tools. Second, this paper contributes to the literature dealing with the role of accounting tools in the institutionalization of logics. The results suggest that the institutionalization of tools and the institutionalization of logics are two different phenomena that move at different speeds. However, these phenomena interact: the institutionalization of accounting tools can facilitate the coexistence of different logics in pluralistic organizations. Third, this paper contributes to the literature on affordances. The data reveal several types of affordances for accounting tools: technical affordances that refer to the technical possibilities to shape and tweak the tool; role affordances that refer to the various roles and purposes that the tool can fulfill and value-based affordances that refer to the plasticity of the values and beliefs that the tool can convey. The study shows that each type of affordance is prevalent at a different time of the process of institutionalization and that the combination of these affordances contributes to the institutionalization of the tool and of new logics.

This issue is a selected bibliography covering the subject of leadership.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the possibility of using a metric to measure user acceptability of a system prior to its implementation.

Empirical research is carried within PISO^®, an existing process improvement method that harnesses the expertise of system users in redesigning systems. A metric called “warm glow” is trialled, designed to test the level of user acceptance to system change.

The paper finds that the “warm glow” metric was applied to a number of system redesigns applying the PISO method, to check user opinion of the existing system against the proposed system. It was found that use of the “warm glow” metric does give a measured approach to gauging acceptability. Two possible influences were considered during the study. The first was the Halo effect which suggests an optimal stage in the redesign at which to rate processes in terms of user opinion. Results in this case appeared consistent irrespective of time. The second was the Hawthorn effect which suggests that simply by being “singled out” to redesign the system, user opinions will be positively biased. Findings in this respect were inconclusive. The need is noted for further research into possible effects.

It is likely that such a technique could by used more widely than within the PISO method.

The paper provides a means of testing user acceptance to systems via rating of system processes.