Planning Culture

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Knowledge in particular is power and there are generally reservations about releasing it. Hence accessibility to knowledge is generally restricted. Empowering cultures premised on norms of information sharing dilute such restrictions and increase the availability of information and knowledge. Without information and knowledge, it is certain that knowledge workers will not extend themselves to take responsibility or vent their creative energies (Kouzes & Posner, 1987). Network-based and intelligent technologies, such as Intranets and knowledge management systems, provide the infrastructure for transporting information and knowledge wherever needed (Davenport & Prusak, 1998).

While culture is a general construct that tends to cover organization-wide activities and is generally defined as a communication process by which organizational members make sense of their organization and their roles and duties (Haskins, 1996), some have argued that sub-cultures could emerge in-tune with the overall corporate culture (Louis, 1985). One such sub-culture that leaders try to enact is a planning culture. Cleland & King (1974) called early on for developing a planning culture, asserting that the success of long-range planning in an organization is less sensitive to the parameters of the planning techniques than it is to the overall culture within which planning is accomplished. However, little has been reported about how organizational culture impacts knowledge workers, nor are there detailed process accounts about the relationship between planning and effectiveness. In resolving these matters, we will attempt to sort out how the planning culture creates a favorable environment for knowledge workers' involvement in IT planning activities.

Effects of Culture on Performance

The construct of culture has been put forth in the popular and scholarly literatures mainly because of its positive effects on organizational performance in ways that transcend the traditional analytical and quick fix approaches (Kilmann, 1989).

The consistent theme that emerges from existing studies is that of culture as an empowering phenomenon in an organization. The level of empowerment in organizations will vary based on the organizational culture strength (Appelbaum et al., 1999). Within cultures geared to empowerment, entire work operations become one large empowered team in which everyone is individually self-managing and can interact directly with everyone else in the system. Empowering cultures give workers at all levels the knowledge, confidence, and authority to use their own judgment to make important decisions, and good management is described as one that works at building corporate cultures, which grant increasing control over work processes to employees (Haskins, 1996). At the task level, the motivational impact of culture transpires through aroused behavior tendencies to move towards goals, take needed action, and reinforce one's intrinsic motivation (Burke, 1986). People become intrinsically motivated whenever they internalize the organizational culture values and traditions (Appelbaum et al., 1999). Knowledge workers hence thrive within empowering cultures, and their level of empowerment will vary and shall depend upon the extent to which the culture promotes and facilitates empowerment (Honold, 1997).

Hypothesis 2: Planning cultures empower knowledge workers.

As a result, planning effectiveness is increased through the indirect motivational effect of the planning culture:

Hypothesis 3: Planning cultures improve the effectiveness of IT planning through the empowerment of knowledge workers.

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