Providing a frame of reference for empowering organizations’ management and control

Abstract

The tools for the definition, implementation and tracking of organizational measures, such as strategy, have become much more advanced in recent years and today’s information technologies, especially WEB2.0 technologies and their ability to integrating with conventional ERP systems, make the vision of the “integrated organization”, at least from an IT perspective, feasible. Management science and practice, after attaining a sound basis for integral organizational design, control and development in the 1970s through the thought leaders of cybernetics and constructivism, has taken a step back. This has led to a massive misuse of IT and to a resource obliteration that sustainably inhibits organizations from reaching market potentials and customer demands. This text provides scholars and managers with an introduction to a framework that allows them to answer the organization’s issue of “what do we do?” from an integrated business perspective and thereby enables them to realize their full potential of “how do we do it?”. Being able to derive this, managers can actually incorporate IT to support the organization’s progress rather than the other way around.