Abstract
Although a number of studies have investigated relationships between information technology (IT) and organizations, few studies have conducted international comparisons on the theme, and even fewer have focused on national culture in their analytical framework. This research clarifies the role national culture plays in shaping the 'emergent' relationship between IT and the organizations. I develop a view that technological/organizational determinism approaches have drawbacks in the IT era, and that the emergent perspective is relevant in understanding the use of IT in organizations. I use the perspective to indicate some of the mechanisms through which national culture may influence IT use. I look for some empirical evidence about the possibility of cultural influences and their possible implications, and evidence about how such influences operate in reality. Considering the research topic, the survey approach was adopted. The data were sampled from British factories (BF) and Japanese factories (JF). Considering that national culture is a diffuse and contextual phenomenon, the aim was to collect a broad and large sample and to take a comparative approach. Two patterns of organizational IT use are conceptualised: control-oriented IT use (CIU) and individual-oriented IT use (IIU), both of which are shown to display national cultural influences. The most important finding from the study is that national culture is actually playing an important role in the emergent process shaping organizational IT use. Also, it is identified that the influence of national culture is more likely to be displayed in the dimension of CIU than in that of IIU. CIU in JF is found to be higher than that in BF due to the difference of national culture between the two countries. National culture has been less fully examined in studies on technology and organization, but my data suggests the necessity of a detailed examination of the concept in a cross-national comparison.
