Concepts of IT and National Culture

This chapter examines how the two main concepts of the study, IT and national culture, have been discussed in an organisational context in previous studies. The review will be developed at three levels. Firstly, the relationship between IT and organisations in general, which involves three perspectives – ‘technology-determined’, ‘organisation-determined’ and the newly-developed ‘emergent’ perspective. Secondly, previous studies on national cultural influences on IT use will be reviewed, as this study attempts to focus on IT use in different national cultures. An examination of how previous studies have tackled the issue will be given by focusing on their analytical framework on the international comparison. Finally, specific British/Japanese cultural influences on IT use will be examined to illustrate how and to what extent previous studies have clarified that British/Japanese culture relates to IT use in organisations. These reviews will outline what previous studies have shed light on and what implications they have concerning the theme of this study.IT has been a central focus in organisation studies since the 1980s. Its discussion has been varied depending on what specific topic has been discussed and on whether it is discussed from the standpoint of labour or from the view of capital (Beirne and Ramsay, 1992).