Organisational culture: The elusive piece in the technology management puzzle

Within the literature the people or human element in defining the concept “technology” is frequently encountered and central thereto is the importance of their role from a behavioural perspective in managing technology. In defining the concept “organizational” culture its role as a perceptual and behavioural determinant assumes relevance, implying that it has a role to play in technology management. Organizational culture is, however, rather an elusive concept when it comes to the management thereof. It is suggested that the difficulty encountered stems from the traditional rational-analytical or Descartes-Newtonian approach adopted in dealing therewith and an alterative complex adaptive systems perspective is suggested as being more appropriate. With this in mind an analysis of the concept “organisational culture” and its role in technology management is undertaken, both from a traditional and a more post modern contemporary complex adaptive systems perspective. A key finding in this regard is that an institution's culture is emergent in nature and that it cannot be intentionally managed or changed to engender a so called desired culture. At best management can intervene to influence the process and then monitor the culturally determined behavioural patterns that emerge so as to support positive and disrupt negative patterns that will impact on the technology management process.