Pradipta K. Sarkar
Jacob L. Cybulski
jlcybuls@deakin.edu.au
http://www.deakin.edu.au/~jlcybuls
ph: +61 3 9244 6847School of Information Systems
Deakin University
Burwood, Vic 3125, Australia
Web-enabled applications are used increasingly to facilitate business transactions between and within organisations. Designing a successful web-based information system requires considerable insight into collaborating organisations, their technological needs, having the substantial management and development experience, and a thorough knowledge and understanding of the cultural issues arising from the diverse base of stakeholders involved in the development, implementation, and the usage of the system. Cultural differences in particular, often ignored in information systems development, if not addressed appropriately, may lead to impaired communication, misunderstood requirements, flawed decisions, and ultimately conflict among various stakeholder groups. In this paper, we propose a method of identifying cultural issues early in the development process and we do so by focussing on stakeholder concerns, commonly perceived as a barrier to effective development process, but which we find a useful instrument in studying cultural divergence and in some cases also conflict.
Organisational Conflict, Stakeholder Concerns, Web Systems