Flensburg P: Personlig databehandling - Per Flensburgs hemsida

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Per Flensburg: Personlig databehandling The data processing department was supposed to answer questions concerning the tools, at least the more technical ones. I thought, however, it was important to ask the users too, because in using the tools they might have gained this kind of knowledge, perhaps at a higher degree than people from the data processing department. It was also possible to compare the description of the use of a certain tool, first as the vendors described it, and second the description of its actual use. Concerning the organization, that uses the tools, I have almost only considered fairly large organizations, which already had a working data processing department. The idea of user development had often come via the concept of the "information centre" as IBM (1982) suggested it. Mostly only a few people in the data processing department were working with user development. In small organizations it seemed to be only the manager that used the tools, mostly for calculation purposes. But I have only studied four such organizations. The historical background was very important. It helped me better understand the phenomena I come across in the investigation. However, different people gave different interpretations of what happened and why it happened. I also came across some integrity problems, which of course were respected. Sometimes people did not know much about the story prior to their appointment, since they were employed to work with the computer system and thus they had not joined the organization until the system was in use. In this case I was forced to use second hand information. I have used the framework of Mumford (1983a,b) concerning job satisfaction and asked people about effects on their job skill, their social relations, their psychological needs, their ethical dilemmas and their task structure. An important organizational property was the possible support for decentralization in the organization. This could be one organizational effect. Another might be conflicts between data departments or user groups or information centre people. The set of questions has been worked out in two steps. First two of my students made investigations in two companies, without any question set. Their conversations with the people in the companies were written down almost verbatim. I thus obtained a good impression of what took place. A certain pattern emerged: Historical description, actual application, properties of the tool and organizational effects were the main points. However, people did not say anything about the effects on job satisfaction. Perhaps they were unaware of them, so I supplied a set of questions relating to this area. Then I made a test interview myself and found the total set of questions useful. I also prepared a guide with a more detailed discussion of every question and explained my intention with the questions and the type of answers that I expected. I also tried to foresee the difficulties and identify possible ways of overcoming them. The purposes of this guide was twofold: • To act as a guide for other researchers or students that were going to help me in the investigation. 190
Per Flensburg: Personlig databehandling • To document my own thoughts before the real data collection started. The interviews were conducted using a tape recorder to avoid having to take notes which might have inhibited the interview. Thus only references to the prepared set of questions was necessary. On conclusion the interviewee was provided with the set of questions to check if any important or interesting questions remained unanswered. Currently I have two levels of documentation, firstly the tape-recorded interviews and secondly the interviews as subsequently written up in a coherent form. This requires some interpretation of the collected material. A typical interview took about 1 to 1.5 hour and occupied about 8 to 9 full pages of text when written up. When I had conducted the interviews I tried to write them up immediately. Some interviews have been done by students or other researchers and they were unable to do it this way, for example have some interviews been done at companies far away, so people have had to stay at an hotel over night. The written up versions were sent back to the interviewed people for comments and corrections. Then I called back after about a week to check if my documentation was correct and to see if any of the set of questions were unanswered. When they had agreed the written interviews became an official version and could be distributed. The material has to be confidential as some interviews reveal information of sensitive nature that cannot be published or alluded to. I thus have to write in such a way that the actual applications are only very briefly described and the company and the products are not mentioned by name. In doing so I hope to guarantee the integrity of the organizations involved. 7.3.1 Some findings At present I have 19 interviews from 13 companies and some patterns are emerging. The first finding indicates the existence of the local experts, that is people who know how to use the tools and help other people in their work. These local experts work with the computer tools as a part of their job. They frequently have a relatively high position in the organization, working close to the head of the department or maybe the company. In one case the local expert was the head of the purchase department. They were all enthusiastic about the possibilities this new way of working provided. They often became more influential and felt more valued by the head of the department or the company. Another finding is that they use more than one tool. Typically there were tools for data bases (query languages), calculations, graphics and word processing. The tools are supplied by an information center at the data processing department. At this center two or three persons work as advisors and teachers concerning the use of these tools. APL is often used as a host or base language. This reflects the fact that IBM uses this in their information center idea. 191
Page 1 and 2:
Per Flensburg Personlig databehandl
Page 3 and 4:
Per Flensburg: Personlig databehand
Page 5 and 6:
Page 7 and 8:
Page 9 and 10:
Page 11 and 12:
Page 13 and 14:
Page 15 and 16:
Page 17 and 18:
Page 19 and 20:
Page 21 and 22:
Page 23 and 24:
Page 25 and 26:
Page 27 and 28:
Page 29 and 30:
Page 31 and 32:
Page 33 and 34:
Page 35 and 36:
Page 37 and 38:
Page 39 and 40:
Page 41 and 42:
Page 43 and 44:
Page 45 and 46:
Page 47 and 48:
Page 49 and 50:
Page 51 and 52:
Page 53 and 54:
Page 55 and 56:
Page 57 and 58:
Page 59 and 60:
Page 61 and 62:
Page 63 and 64:
Page 65 and 66:
Page 67 and 68:
Page 69 and 70:
Page 71 and 72:
Page 73 and 74:
Page 75 and 76:
Page 77 and 78:
Page 79 and 80:
Page 81 and 82:
Page 83 and 84:
Page 85 and 86:
Page 87 and 88:
Page 89 and 90:
Page 91 and 92:
Page 93 and 94:
Page 95 and 96:
Page 97 and 98:
Page 99 and 100:
Page 101 and 102:
Page 103 and 104:
Page 105 and 106:
Page 107 and 108:
Page 109 and 110:
Page 111 and 112:
Page 113 and 114:
Page 115 and 116:
Page 117 and 118:
Page 119 and 120:
Page 121 and 122:
Page 123 and 124:
Page 125 and 126:
Page 127 and 128:
Page 129 and 130:
Page 131 and 132:
Page 133 and 134:
Page 135 and 136:
Page 137 and 138:
Page 139 and 140: Per Flensburg: Personlig databehand
Page 189: Per Flensburg: Personlig databehand
Page 211: Per Flensburg: Personlig databehand
show all

Flensburg P: Personlig databehandling - Per Flensburgs hemsida

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?