Work System Theory free essay sample

The Work Systems Theory is basically an output of observation, analysis, and generalization of case studies. It’s a summarization based on the business models what either are being used or had been used. In turn, this theory, by consummating itself, will be useful for understanding and analyzing the business processes currently distributed in the ongoing commercial environemnt. It is not capable to create or project a future business model or work system pattern that never has existed. †¢What are the criticisms (strengths and weaknesses of the theory)? Has the theory changed (perhaps in response to criticism? ) There is no published article discussing the strengths or weaknesses of the theory yet as the thwory is fairly new (the current model was finalized in 2006). The Work Systems Theory, in my perspective, appropriately describes â€Å"functionality unit† of small scale in business environment. A functional unit (like a project, or a specialized team using information system) is an integration of both tangibleness and intagibleness associated with the functionality. We will write a custom essay sample on Work System Theory or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The Work System Framework outlines the tangibleness and intagibleness as nine elements as well as illustrates the relationships between them (Figure 1 below). With the consideration of all encompassing elements of the core business process and activity, it explains the importance of each element and the balance between those elements convincingly. Especially, the theory has been well established for understanding the information system (IS) and business process that IS interacting with. The Work Systems Theory, in my point of view again, is not suitable for understanding or analyzing a â€Å"super macro level† system. Though the theory claims an orgnization can be viewed as a big work system, I don’t think the big work system, which contains many sub-work systems, can be effectively intepreted. Steve Alter published a serial of journal articles to revise and improve the theory. The theory has not changed fundamentally since it was initialized in year 1999 in spite of some amendments in the Work Systems Framework and Work System Life Cycle Model. †¢Are there empirical tests of the theory? What do the tests find? A few researchers applied the Work Systems Theory to understand and analyze an information system (IS) serving or being served by a business activity. Those researches spread on the overall IS performance, the interaction between IS components, and / or the IS success rate. So far, all articles have acknowledged that the Work Systems Theory explains the relationship between IS and Business Process pretty well, since almost all the researches applying the Work System s Theory are relating to information system. ?Apply the theory †¢Identify a relevant situation in your workplace. Case factors: ?two projects were going on simultanously. ?Project A was to re-write a new claim information system to replace the one that was out of date. ?Project A was behind the schedule for months. ?Project B was to migrate the source control software from SC to LN throughout the IT department. The project B team was reputable with many accomplishments in the department. ?The IT resources in project A will be effected by project B slightly. A transition period of one to two day(s) will take place to impact the progress of project A. Issues: ?The leader of Project A refused to change the source control software to LN until the project A finished. The main reason was proj ect A could not afford any further delay. ?Project B already took off with extensive analysis and did not expect the obstacle of implementation. ?Source codes interconnected with each other. It was not feasible to use SC and LN at the same time. ?IT manager was under the pressure from claim department due to the deplay of project A. Therefore no management decision was made to change source control software in project A. Result: ?Project B was forced to stop at the stage of implementation. The project was aborted. ?When project A finished couple of months later, project B team started over with analyzing and planning again as source codes structures changed significanly after the days going by. †¢Use the theory to interpret the situation. I will treat the project A and project B as 2 work systems. Apply the Work Systems Theory: ?Project A and project B are two work systems. Both have their nine necessary elements. ?The participants of project A, such as the programmers and project leader, are the customers of project B. ?Some environmental factors, like management support, company culture, priority preference, and etc, are shared by project A and B. ?We do not interpret other elements or impacting forces, which are not shown in figure 2, for understanding this case in depth. Project B team was reputable, however this is not enough to decide the project B will be a successful one. The success of a project, which is a work system, heavily depends on all nine elements and the balance or collaboration between the elements. ?When there is a conflict between two work systems (project A and B), the shared elements decide the movement direction of a work system. In this case, the decisive shared elements are: ? The IT resourc es of project A. They are both the customers of project B and the participants of project A. The environmental elements, such as management suport and project priority. Conlcusion: While many were supprised that project B team failed on a fairly simple project, the Work Systems Theory explains the phenomenon quite well. The success of a work system does not rely on one single factor. All nine encompassing elements are in eaqually importance. Project B failed due to the lack of support from its customer and the external environmental source. †¢What additional insight did the theory bring to your understanding? According to the theory, all nine elements are necessarily required to analyze and understand a work system regardless the depth of analysis and / or the size of system. The â€Å"Environment†, to me, is the most noteworthy element. It points out that success of a work system also depends on the soil in which it is planted. This explains why a successful team earned reputation in many projects might fail completely in a new project. In other words, the historical performance of a project team is not sufficient to determine the future success rate if the environmental factors of past projects are not considered. A work system is either a self-correctional system or a system that desires improvement. When a work system cannot accomplish the desired improvement by itself, a temporary work system, like a project, is created to perform the amelioration. The desirability of improvement not only is generated from the involvement of participants (human being), but also is the reason why participants are necessarily required for the system (to complete the improvement). The Work System Life Cycle Model illustrates the iterative evolvement of a work system (Figure 3 below), which shows the dynamic iteration of improvement. Those unanticipated driving forces are so true to the nature of any real business. Though all contemporary entrepreneurs are standardizing the business operation as well as codifying the contingency plans by predicting all possibilities, manpower is still the most reliable resources to cope with the unexpected situations. That is another reason why so far no business in the world is an unmanned system. Though we agree a work system can contain sub-work system(s), is there a recommended limit of recursive inclusions?