Information Technology in Hypointegrated Organizations: communication support versus decision support

The tumultuous developments of Information Technology and the organizational revolution, beginning in Japan with the Lean Organization concept, where important keywords are autonomy, empowerment etc., changed radically the strategic and operational conditions of companies. The environment was becoming more and more chaotic and, in this context, hypointegrated organizations, characterized by weak structural links and by a dispersed memory where the communication process became the central aspect, emerged. After discussing the features of the emerging organization forms and taking into account the principal theories, our work analyses thoroughly the communication process because communication has become the co-ordinating and integrating instrument, bound to the ability of using the available media in an effective way. We suggest organizational criteria for integrating available information technology to implement effective, efficient and reliable information systems to support work, decisions and communication in hypointegrated organizations. According to our model, in a learning organization vision, users should define, with the help of technicians, communication, decision and work support requirements. In conclusion, we present an application of the proposed information technology integration model: the Urban Regional Co-ordination Planning project, still in progress in Calabria.