The Influences of Intranet on Short-run Organizational Effectiveness as Perceived by the Employees of United Pulp and Paper Company, Inc. (UPPC) and Holcim Philippines

Abstract

The growth and development of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) has led to their wide diffusion and application, which affect people in the professional, private, and social life. These technological innovations—one of which is the Intranet—have affected organizations such that now, they have little resemblance to what they were at the turn of the new century. Previous studies that focused on the effects of these ICTs have evaluated the influences of Intranet on organizational productivity (Patemo 1999), on the practice of Filipino values (Principe 1999), as well as on its influence on public relations processes (Llamas 1999) and organizational culture (Tabisaura 2002). From the foregoing studies on Intranet, it is revealed that while there abound studies on it, there is no study that explored the possibility of Intranet’s influences on the short-run criteria of organizational effectiveness. The single thesis that touched this topic limited its focus to only one criterion of organizational effectiveness—productivity; no mention was made about the influences of Intranet on other organizational effectiveness criteria such as quality, efficiency, flexibility, and satisfaction. Given this gap in knowledge, this study attempted to answer this main problem: “Flow does Intranet influence the short-run criteria organizational effectiveness as perceived by the employees of UPPC and Holcim?” To further substantiate the answer to this main problem, the following sub-problems were answered: (1) What is the profile of the two companies?; (2) What is the history, purpose and pattern of these companies in using Intranet?; (3) What features of Intranet are employed in these companies and which among them are commonly used?; and (4) What are the perceived positive and negative influences of Intranet on the short-run criteria of organizational effectiveness, particularly on production, quality, efficiency, flexibility, and satisfaction of these companies? This research was approached using the frameworks of information and communication technology, and management, and employed a descriptive type of research. The heads of the IT department and all employees who have access in Intranet participated in this study. Three types of tools for data gathering were utilized—interview schedule, survey questionnaire, and document analysis guide sheet—which yielded data of the features (e.g., history, pattern, purpose of using Intranet), perceived influences, and profile of the companies, respectively. Descriptive statistics, particularly mode and weighted mean, were used in addition to thematic analysis. The findings revealed that in both companies, Intranet is used for communicating, processing of information, and delivering work and business processes, and the most commonly used features of Intranet are e-mailing, accessing documents, online discussion forums, inventory control, and marketing and advertising. On the perceived effects of Intranet, it was found and therefore concluded that it has positive influences on the short-run criteria of organizational effectiveness, particularly on quality, production, flexibility, efficiency, and satisfaction, but it also has negative influences on quality and satisfaction.