Information Systems: The Achilles Heel of Job Redesign?

In the considerable literature on the use of information systems in organisations there are occasional discussions of issues broadly relevant to the area of job redesign. Hedberg, for example, has pointed to the potential of such systems for facilitating organisational change, advocating what he termed ‘participative management information systems’. Attention has also been paid to the influence that computers and information systems have on different forms of employee participation (see for example Mumford and Sackman). But very few writers have specifically considered the impact of information systems on attempts at redesigning people's jobs. Of the few acknowledging the centrality of these systems, Wilkinson has stated that ‘a careful analysis and some redesign of the information systems … seems to be one of the most important aspects of redesigning jobs’, and Birchall in his statement that ‘information systems must make available all the data required for execution of decision‐making duties’, has intimated why this may be necessary. More recently Sime and Fitter have discussed the information needs of those responsible for making decisions, commenting that these needs are likely to change if decision‐making is devolved by job redesign exercises.