Organizational Readiness and Change Management in the Cloud Age

Abstract

Studies for Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) economies in 2002 demonstrated that there is a strong correlation between changes in organization and workplace practices and investment in information technologies [1]. This finding is also further confirmed in Canadian government studies, which indicate that the frequency and intensity of organizational changes is positively correlated with the amount and extent of information technologies investment. It means that the incidence of organizational change is much higher in the firms that invest in information technologies (IT) than is the case in the firms that do not invest in IT, or those that invest less than the competitors in the respective industry [2]. In another study, Bresnahan, Brynjolfsson, and Hitt [3] found that there is positive correlation between information technology change (investment), organizational change (e.g., process re-engineering, organizational structure), cultural change (e.g., employee empowerment), and the value of the firm as a measure of the stock market share price. This is mostly due to the productivity and profitability gain through technology investment and organizational changes. The research and analysis firm Gartner has released the Hype Cycle report for 2009, which evaluates the maturity of 1650 technologies and trends in 79 technologies. The report, which covers new areas this year, defines cloud computing as the latest growing trend in the IT industry, stating it as “superhyped.” The other new areas include data center power, cooling technologies, and mobile device technologies [4].