one Fashion or adoption? Harmonization of new technologies with strategy, structure, and culture

Introduction

Organizations are not performing in a vacuum. They are surrounded by several environments and faced with different actors internally and externally. These actors can be customers, competitors, regulatory agencies, and suppliers, as well as employees or management. The main objective of any business is supporting its bottom line and maintaining its life in the long run. In order to achieve these aims, organizations need to satisfy customer needs and compete with other organizations by managing their operations. In business history, it is seen that competition has evolved in time. While initially the main concern of businesses was productivity, later on it became competition based on quality. However, today quality is also not sufficient to compete in the market. Providing better-quality products and services faster than other businesses and also considering sustainable development have become important issues for survival, including monitoring environmental changes very carefully and taking necessary actions.

Technological developments are also among the important changes that should be taken into consideration. As a result of the information age, the technological environment is one where rapid changes take place. Here, new solutions are continuously introduced, developed, and adopted by businesses. While some businesses implement new technologies as they are introduced, some adopt them from early adopter businesses (Butler & Sellbom, 2002:23). Many of these new technology adoptions do not bring expected results or end up with failures. The main reason behind these failures is the fact that new technologies are not standard prescriptions for all organizations. They should serve the purposes of organizations and should not be acquired just because they are popular. Each business has its own organizational context, namely, its own culture, structure, and strategy. When adopting a new technology, organizations should consider the issue of integration and make necessary adjustments. In the following sections, this issue will be discussed in detail.