Introduction: The Persistent Problem of Tech ROI
Organizations today spend vast sums on new technology and Management Information Systems (MIS), expecting them to unlock strategic advantages. Yet, a frustratingly high number of these projects fail to deliver real value. They run over budget, miss deadlines, or, worst of all, are successfully built but fail to make the organization more effective. We often blame the technology, the developers, or the project management. But what if the root cause is much deeper?
The source of a surprisingly powerful answer comes not from a modern tech guru, but from a 1978 academic paper by William R. King published in MIS Quarterly. This article distills several timeless, counter-intuitive lessons from that paper that explain precisely why these failures happen and how genuine strategic alignment is the only solution.
- Most Tech Fails Because of Strategy, Not Code
The paper’s core argument is that many information system failures stem from a fundamental misunderstanding of their purpose. They are designed with a focus on efficiency—saving costs or processing data faster—rather than effectiveness, which is the achievement of the organization’s core goals.
The author makes a crucial distinction:
• Efficiency is a ratio of output to input (e.g., processing more invoices per hour).
• Effectiveness relates output to the goals being sought (e.g., improving cash flow by paying the right invoices at the right time).
This problem arises from a “bottom-up” design view, carried over from an earlier era of simple data processing. While this approach is fine for automating routine tasks, it is completely inadequate for creating a system meant to support high-level decision-making. As King wrote in 1978:
…one of the possible explanations [6] for the failure of many MIS’s is-that they have been designed from the same “bottom up” point of view that characterized the development of the data processing systems of an earlier era. Such design approaches primarily reflect the pursuit of efficiency, such as through cost savings, rather than the pursuit of greater organizational effectiveness.
- A Powerful Strategy Is Defined by What You Won’t Do
For a technology system to support a business, that business must first have a clearly defined strategy. The paper argues that a clear organizational mission is as important for what it excludes as for what it includes. This focus prevents a “scatter-gun” approach, ensuring that all organizational resources are concentrated on a specific set of goals.
The article illustrates this with the “business statement” of a medium-sized firm: “We are in the business of supplying system components and services to a worldwide, non-residential air conditioning market.”
The power of this statement lies in its exclusions. The text explicitly points out that the firm “does not supply air conditioning systems… it does not address itself to the residential market for air conditioners; etc.” This strategic clarity provides a firm boundary for any information system. Without it, an MIS team is left to support a vague, ever-expanding set of priorities, which is a recipe for failure.
- To Serve the Business, First Map Its “Stakeholders”
So how do you identify an organization’s true strategy? Critically, the paper warns that simply reading the corporate website isn’t enough. In a remarkably modern insight, the author notes that written strategic statements are often “outdated, or may be of the variety that are commonly produced for public relations purposes rather than for strategic management purposes.”
To get to the real strategy, the paper proposes a method that was ahead of its time: delineating the organization’s “claimant structure.”
Claimants, or what we now commonly call “stakeholders,” are all the groups that have a claim on the organization. The text lists examples, including owners, managers, employees, suppliers, customers, creditors, local governments, local communities, competitors, and even the general public. An organization’s objectives and strategies are, at their core, a complex effort to satisfy the goals of these various groups.
This concept is incredibly relevant today amidst discussions of stakeholder value versus shareholder value. A system designed to support an organization cannot just focus on a single metric like profit (for owners). It must account for the web of interconnected interests—from product quality for customers to stability for employees—that truly defines the organization’s strategic landscape.
- Tech Planning Must Transform “Business Raw Materials,” Not Just Technical Specs
The paper’s central framework is a process that transforms an “Organizational Strategy Set” into a corresponding “MIS Strategy Set.” This creates a direct, traceable link between the company’s highest-level goals and the technology built to serve them.
The components of these sets are defined as:
• Organizational Strategy Set: The organization’s formal mission, objectives, and strategies, as well as crucial informal attributes like its culture, management sophistication, and readiness for change.
• MIS Strategy Set: The system’s Objectives, Constraints, and overarching Design Principles.
The value of this transformation is profound. This process acts as a Rosetta Stone, translating the abstract language of business goals into the concrete language of technical guardrails. It empowers non-technical leaders to make informed decisions by allowing them to evaluate system designs based on “business raw materials”—the mission and objectives they live and breathe—rather than on purely technical specifications they may not fully understand. This makes strategic alignment a tangible process, not just a vague aspiration.
- Your Company’s Culture Is a Hard Constraint on Technology
Perhaps the most insightful lesson is that an organization’s “soft” cultural attributes are, in fact, hard constraints on system design. The “Organizational Strategy Set” explicitly includes “other strategic organizational attributes” that must be accounted for.
The paper gives specific examples of these attributes:
- “the sophistication of management”
- “the readiness of the organization to accept change”
- “the familiarity of management with the values and limitations of computer systems”
Ignoring these human factors leads to building systems that are technically sound but organizationally unworkable—they are too complex, too foreign, or too disruptive to be adopted successfully.
The paper provides a powerful example of this link in action. An organizational attribute of “poor recent performance” (A2) translates directly into an MIS constraint acknowledging the potential for future funding cuts (C1). This constraint, in turn, dictates a critical design strategy: the system must be modular (D1) and capable of operating effectively at each stage of partial completion (D2). Culture isn’t just a talking point; it’s a core design parameter.
Conclusion: Looking Forward by Looking Back
The principles for successfully aligning technology with business are timeless. The challenges William R. King identified in 1978—the need to focus on effectiveness, to define strategy through exclusion, and to treat culture as a hard constraint—are the very same challenges that sink expensive tech initiatives today.
The paper’s ultimate lesson is that this rigorous strategic process ensures technology is developed as an integral part of the organization, not merely appended to it. Appended systems are fragile and easily broken off. Integral systems are woven into the strategic DNA of the business, making it stronger and more resilient.
So, the next time you start a major tech initiative, ask yourself: is the first conversation about the technology, or is it about the organization’s core strategy? According to a paper written decades ago, the answer to that question will determine your success.
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