COMPUTER-AIDED ARCHITECTS - A CASE-STUDY OF IT AND STRATEGIC CHANGE

IN TRADITIONAL THEORIES OF HOW INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (IT) is APPLIED, A FIRM DEVELOPS A BUSINESS STRATEGY, THEN CHOOSES THE structure and m anagement processes, aligns IT, and ensures that employees are trained and their roles are well designed. The authors describe and analyze a case in which business transformation occurred along a different, alm ost reverse, path to fit, through the incremental adoption of IT. At F lower and Samios, a small architectural firm, business strategy emerge d gradually and was an outcome, rather than a driver, of change. The c ase shows how individual mastery, organizational learning, and the man agement of risk are critical components of a strategic change in which IT becomes an integral part of a firm's core business processes.