Sophisticated Information Processing Technology: Its Relationship with an Organization's Environment, Structure, and Culture

This study examined the sophistication of information processing technology in an organization in relation to the organization's environment, its structure, and its culture. The relationships were examined by using both archival and questionnaire data from 298 public human resource departments. Human resource departments are important users of information technology because they require large amounts of data and because sophisticated software is available to them. The results indicate that both the presence of computer hardware and the sophistication of the information processing technology were associated with the organization's environmental and structural characteristics. Organization culture, however, was related only to the sophistication of information technology.