Information Technology and Restructuring in Public Organizations: Does Adoption of Information Technology Affect Organizational Structures, Communications, and Decision Making?

It has been argued that the adoption and use of information technology (IT) in organizations affects its structure. Few studies extend this analysis to examine whether such restructuring, if it in fact occurs, improves the performance of the organization. It is even more rare for these assertions to be examined in the context of public organizations. We use data from a survey of program managers who work in county-level public agencies to explore whether restructuring occurs after information technology implementation; whether such restructuring affects the performance of these agencies; and what the nature is of the relationship between structure, performance, and managers‘ attitudes toward IT. We find that IT adoption has little impact on an agency’s structure, and restructuring has only very minimal effects on performance. IT adoption, however, has a direct effect on performance. Managers‘ support for IT has some direct influence on organizational performance after IT implementation, but both restructuring and changes that occur in performance as a result of IT implementation have an effect on managers’ support for IT.