BEHAVIOR: A CASE STUDY IN A UK BANK ICIS 2006: Social, Behavioral and Organizational Aspects of Information Systems

This paper deals with the question of how intranets impact on employee perception and behavior. The study uses a 5 year longitudinal study following the evolution of an intranet in a UK bank to analyze how it changed the relationships between employees and between managers and employees. The discussion integrates two different research domains, the intranets literature and the organizational trust literature. Qualitative data is presented to show the impact of intranets on communication, sharing of information, collaboration, organizational bonding, feeling of empowerment, power distance, and sense of closeness. The discussion uses three metaphors to convey the key findings: The Plumbing System, the Iconic Building and the Soap Opera. The main contribution of this paper is in using constructs from the organizational trust literature to better understand how intranets impact on employee perception and behavior.