Change Agentry - the Next IS Frontier.

Author List: Markus, M. Lynne; Benjamin, Robert I.;
MIS Quarterly, 1996, Volume 20, Issue 4, Page 385-407.
We wrote this essay to stimulate IS specialists' efforts to become more effective - and more credible - agents of organizational change. The essay describes what we believe to be a view of the IS specialists' change-agent role that is very commonly held by IS specialists. We believe that this role, while well-intentioned and supported by structural conditions in IS work, often has negative consequences for organizations and for the credibility of IS specialists. Further, it does not fit the emerging structural conditions of IS. We describe two alternative models of what it means to be a change agent, their potential consequences, and the structural conditions that support or inhibit behavior in that role. We conclude that increased behavioral flexibility of IS specialists - the ability to switch roles in different circumstances - would improve organizational effectiveness and IS specialist credibility. Finally, we discuss the implications of our analysis for research, teaching, and practice.
Keywords: change agent; Change management; future IS professionals; IS education; IS function; IS implementation; IS management; IS personnel
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#185 0.133 change organizational implementation case study changes management organizations technology organization analysis successful success equilibrium radical efforts initiatives managing resistance individuals
#0 0.129 information types different type sources analysis develop used behavior specific conditions consider improve using alternative understanding data available main target
#21 0.117 research information systems science field discipline researchers principles practice core methods area reference relevance conclude set focus propose perspective inquiry
#134 0.101 users end use professionals user organizations applications needs packages findings perform specialists technical computing direct future selection ability help software
#218 0.093 role roles gender differences women significant play age men plays sample differ played vary understand critical greater implications relatively offered
#55 0.087 attributes credibility wikis tools wiki potential consequences gis potentially expectancy shaping exploring related anonymous attribute employing life comment comments 2.0
#162 0.082 structural modeling scale equation implications economies large future framework perspective propose broad scope resulting identified leading analyzed second interviews analysis
#71 0.074 distributed agents agent intelligent environments environment smart computational environmental scheduling human rule using does embodied provide trends computer-aided heterogeneous inventory
#26 0.063 business large organizations using work changing rapidly make today's available designed need increasingly recent manage years activity important allow achieve