With the importance placed on identifying stakeholder viewpoints, Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) is capable of recognising the cultural values that may be central to an organisation. Therefore, it would seem, prima facie, that SSM would be an ideal tool to use for IS development in complex cultural situations. However, SSM also indicates that negotiation and debate are essential ingredients when discussing the feasibility of developing an information system and for the capture of information system requirements. The need for debate, and the expected conflict between different stakeholder views, relies on the fact that the participants are willing to enter into such an open discussion, putting forward their personal views of whether the system is needed, and if so, what the system should do. But this, in itself, rests on the Western cultural assumption that debate is constructive and the most effective means of eliciting the information required.

Following Hofstede (1984), it is generally accepted that Western cultures are more individualistic, tolerant of different behaviour and opinions and have a lower regard for status differences than Eastern cultures. Eastern cultures, on the other hand, tend to be more collectivist, have a higher uncertainty avoidance and have an acute regard for status levels. The issue to be addressed by this paper is the impact this cultural difference has on the early stages of a system development project. Hong Kong is perhaps a unique place to investigate this problem, since it has been Western governed for more than 150 years, but has remained an essentially Chinese culture. This paper will present the results of a case study based on an M.A. project (Lau, 1996) supervised by one of the authors. The project attempted to apply SSM in order to assess the feasibility of developing an Executive Information System (EIS) for a Business Marketing Unit in Hongkong Telecom.

SSM is a general problem structuring method devised by Checkland (1981) that requires the building of rich pictures, root definitions and conceptual models of the human activity under study. The root definitions and conceptual models are meant to be built by the stakeholders themselves in an iterative debate organised by a facilitator. In short, SSM is a general problem structuring method that takes a systems approach to explore problem situations where there is no fixed outcome. If a solution has already been determined, there is no need to apply the method.

The problems of applying any such method in Hong Kong quickly became apparent, however. In particular, three main problems were observed. Firstly, these interviews were typically conducted in Cantonese, but written in English. A feature of Hong Kong is that three languages are in common use: Cantonese, Putongua and English. As such, interviews could be conducted in different cultural modes depending on the language used. Secondly, no group debate took place between the stakeholders. The student, being Chinese, avoided the confrontation inherent in this approach and conducted interviews on a one-to-one basis. Thirdly, another feature of Hong Kong is the relatively high rate of staff movement among executives and professionals. Before the study had been completed all of the original stakeholders had been transferred. This clearly has a drastic effect on the ability of mature, experienced stakeholder views to be developed or captured.

The next section will outline the use of SSM in the development of information systems, and the Logico-Linguistic Modelling (LLM) enhancement used to determine the information sources required. Section 3 will then describe the case study, while Section 4 will identify the key issues that prevented a "normal" implementation of the debate and exploration process expected.

SSM is often used as an information system design method. Developing the SSM models requires an analyst to determine the principal components of the activity or system under study. These principal components are guided by CATWOE analysis. CATWOE involves the identification of a Transformation that underpins the system; the Customer, who is the victim or beneficiary of the system; the Actors who carry out the transformation; the world view (Weltanschauung) that makes the root definition meaningful, the Owner, who can stop the system; and the Environmental constraints that subsume the activity. For instance, analysing a University may identify the transformation as the process of transforming ungraded students to graded students. In which case, the customers might be the future employers, the actors might be the lecturers. The world view may be that grades are necessary to identify the best employable people, while the owner might be the fee-paying students or the funding Government, and the environment might be the job market.

Wilson (1990) extended the method by showing how it could be used to support the detailed restructuring of an organisation (Organisational Mapping), and the use of Information Categories and the Maltese Cross to support the conversion of a SSM model into a detailed information system design. The systems devised are meant to be culturally feasible and systematically feasible. Shortcomings of the method include the fact that Wilson’s method is restricted to the design of transaction processing systems and provides no facility for building other types of information system, such as decision support or knowledge based system. The method also assumes that the people in the organisation know what information is needed to support their activities. This is particularly striking since the method often calls for new activities to be included in the model. These shortcomings are also found in other methods linking SSM with information systems design.

Logico-Linguistic Modelling (LLM)(Gregory, 1993, 1995) attempts to add a strong logical foundation to the SSM method by making a distinction between information that is empirically true and information that is true by definition. When this is done the models can be developed into a knowledge based system that has learning capability.

The study described here centres on the application of LLM to derive the requirements for an Executive Information System (EIS). The analyst involved, Lau Siu Pong, was undertaking a part-time Masters degree in the Information Systems Department at the City University of Hong Kong. He was a market analyst within Hongkong Telecom, which had been the sole provider of telecommunications services in Hong Kong, until the franchise was opened up with the granting of two other licences in July, 1995.

The market for communication technology and services is particularly lucrative in Hong Kong, with mobile phones and pagers being carried by most sectors of the community, from undergraduates to sales and company executives. In the face of increased competition, Lau was interested in developing an EIS to support the activities of the Business Market Business Unit (BMBU). The BMBU was charged with planning the marketing of new business products. It was not envisaged that the project would immediately result in a fully computerised EIS. Rather, it was intended to undertake an analysis to determine if an EIS would be suitable, and if so, to broadly define its configuration.

While not explicitly planned at the outset, the project proceeded in a manner very close to the conventional seven-stage model of SMM (Checkland & Scholes, 1990). Stages 1 and 2 (situation entry and problem expression), were circumvented by the fact that Lau himself was one of the stakeholders of the system. While this ensured access to the people concerned, SSM studies normally rely on an outside consultant bringing an independent, and possibly fresh, perspective to the problem situation. The role of facilitator was taken by the first author, Frank Gregory. The debate between the analyst (Lau) and the facilitator (Gregory) often required the analyst’s assumptions and his evaluation of the system to be constantly challenged and criticised.

Stage 3 involved the formulation of root definitions of relevant systems of purposeful activity. Stage 4 involved building conceptual models of the systems named in the root definitions. The situation was slightly unusual in that the analyst was himself one of the "Actors" defined in the CATWOE analysis. The root definitions and conceptual models produced by the analyst were discussed with Gregory, colleagues and managers within Hongkong Telecom. It was at this point that cultural features inherent in applying the method in Hong Kong became apparent.

Culture is often defined as a pattern of basic beliefs, assumptions and values held by the people concerned (Deal & Kennedy, 1982). In an organisational context, culture is also taken to include the control and exchange mechanisms inherent in the organisation (Jones, 1983; Wilkins & Ouchi, 1983), that is, the "way things are done around here" mentality. Although Chinese management has a more group-orientation (Lockett, 1988), where collective ideals are emphasised, Hong Kong comes relatively low in terms of uncertainty avoidance in Hofstede’s model (Hofstede, 1984; Leung & Bond, 1989), suggesting they are willing to take risks. This suggests that Hong Kong, while having a basically Chinese group-oriented culture, has also adopted an entrepreneurial spirit, where business is as dynamic and high risk as in any other Western country. The question, therefore, is whether the culture defined for Hong Kong by other studies also includes the willingness to carry out an open debate, as required by SSM to derive the derive rich pictures and root definitions of the problem area being investigated.

The analyst reported that the SSM models, written in English, would be discussed with his colleagues in Cantonese, although the discussion itself would be written down in English. It is not uncommon for two Cantonese speakers to intersperse English words into their conversation if the speaker is familiar with the fact that the English word requires less effort than the Cantonese alternative. The "effort" here is the number of syllables required to pronounce the word or phrase. This sprinkling of English is only made, however, when the speaker believes the listener is sufficiently familiar with English words that the basic meaning will still be communicated. Because of the recent history of Hong Kong, such linguistic acrobatics are quite common. In particular, while the local Chinese dialect is Cantonese, University teaching is conducted in English, although the recent transition in Sovereignty has meant Putongua (i.e., Mandarin) is now being taught in Cantonese secondary schools.

If philosophers of language and thought are correct, however, one can only wonder at the underlying semantics of the root definitions and conceptual models being discussed. For instance, Whorf (1956) suggests that what one can think of is constrained by the language that one has to express these thoughts. This point had been made earlier by the philosopher Wittgenstein (1953). The classic Whorfian example is that North American Eskimos have a richer picture of frozen or freezing water because they have over 70 words for concepts such as snow, ice, slush, etc. On this basis, Cantonese has a richer linguistic set than Putongua. Cantonese has nine tonal levels, while Putongua has four. A simple mistake in tone can change the phrase "Cigarette lighter" to the more sinister "Kill the waiter!" In common with Putongua-speakers in Taiwan, Cantonese uses the older Chinese script, while the Mainland uses a more modern, simplified character set. In terms of tonal levels and complexity of script, therefore, Cantonese is perhaps unrivalled in its Whorfian ability to express thoughts, with subtle differences in tone or pen stroke communicating radically different ideas.

As a part of the shared beliefs and assumptions that underlie culture, the language that expresses these beliefs and assumptions must be taken to be a major facilitator of that shared culture. As such, when the analyst discussed the SSM diagrams with Cantonese colleagues the Chinese culture can be expected to dominate. When the analyst discussed the same diagrams with the English facilitator, however, one would have to assume the shared culture is Western, since the facilitator does not speak Cantonese. However, the facilitator does have eleven years’ experience as a company director in Thailand from the 1970s and 80s. While it would be difficult to state the over-riding cultural values that existed in this setting, therefore, one can assume that the cultural aspects of the discussion continually changed depending on who was involved in discussing the SSM models.

In a context that involves Western and Chinese elements, a "debate" can involve a head-on clash of values. For a Westerner, a debate can be seen as constructive and beneficial. When people have adversarial positions, a debate may help the truth to emerge and so be considered as beneficial to all parties, even those that "lost" the debate. For a Chinese, however, the display of adversarial positions depends very much on the social standing of the two adversaries. Arguments between peers is acceptable, while a junior arguing with a senior is seen as unacceptable.

In SSM, the building of root definitions and conceptual models proceeds by means of an iterative debate involving the stakeholders and a facilitator. It is assumed that much of this work will take place in group meetings in which the stakeholders will express their individual viewpoints. In these circumstance, it can be expected that the viewpoints of two or more stakeholders will be antagonistic. The role of the facilitator, therefore, is to mediate and produce a model that accommodates as many viewpoints as possible. In this case, however, it was clear to both analyst and facilitator that the confrontational debate approach needed to be avoided if colleagues and managers were to be persuaded to participate in the project. The result was that the analyst avoided the group debate approach and conducted one-on-one interviews in order to build the SSM models. While this diverged from the principle of stakeholder debate required by SSM, a more discreet approach to eliciting opposing views was seen as being more culturally appropriate by both the analyst and the facilitator.

While the problems outlined above were in fact overcome by taking a tactful and culturally-sensitive approach, there was one problem that neither the analyst or the facilitator could do much about. By the time the feasibility study had been completed, Hongkong Telecom had transferred all of the stakeholders involved in the model building project. Indeed, Hong Kong’s high growth and relatively low unemployment are has helped to produce an environment in which staff movements between companies is relatively high. Recent Government figures indicate that staff movements among executives and professionals is nearly 5% per year (CSD, 1997), and it is generally accepted that junior staff will change jobs every 18-24 months. In this case, the Head of the BMBU was transferred a few weeks before the project was finished, and within three months the analyst and all other members of the unit had been transferred.

While the project was successful in determining the scope of the EIS required, it has to be admitted that the SSM project itself was a failure. The key issue here is that SSM is intended to work because the stakeholders produce and "own" the solution. With their viewpoints inherent in the models, the stakeholders are meant to recognise the solution as being of benefit to them, and thus, to support the implementation of the solution. If the original stakeholders are moved on then the new staff will not own the solution, and thus, nobody can be expected to implement the solution. The SSM project would have to be started again.

The time scales involved in staff movements suggests that, perhaps, no SSM project will be successful in Hong Kong. Although there are no published figures on the duration of SSM projects, six months elapsed time is an appropriate benchmark. SSM evolved through a learning cycle using Masters students at the University of Lancaster. Most of the Masters students completed an action learning project lasting approximately six months. Much of the development of SSM was based on what was learned during these projects. However, of the six SSM projects conducted at City University (all of six months duration), four were badly affected by the movement of major stakeholders within the organisations concerned. It would appear, therefore, that for SSM to be applied in Hong Kong, the project time would need to be significantly reduced to cope with staff movements, or significantly increased, to include a second iteration that includes the new stakeholders.

The paper has presented the results of a case study that applied LLM-SSM in the design of an Executive Information System (EIS) for the newly de-monopolised Hongkong Telecom. The EIS was to support the Business Market Unit which plans the marketing of new products. The project aimed at determining the feasibility of the development of an EIS, and if so, determine its configuration. The problems of using a debate approach to elicit views of the problem area. In particular, Eastern cultures are more strongly group-oriented rather than individualistic. The debate between users with perhaps conflicting views expected in the building of root definitions and conceptual models are not easily applied in such cultures. It was found that group discussions were avoided, with interviews being conducted in a more discreet one-on-one situation. Although the project itself was a success in terms of identifying the basic system requirements, further problems were identified; in particular, by the time the system requirements were determined, the unit that was to have used the system was effectively disbanded.

This case study has highlighted some of the features and problems inherent in using SSM to develop information systems in Hong Kong. The uncertainty avoidance and power distance dimensions of Chinese culture make stakeholder debates an unacceptable approach to building the required conceptual models, while the multi-language and high staff movement that is a feature of Hong Kong presents further difficulties. While SSM and its LLM extension showed promise in allowing system requirements to be identified, the method still has practical problems that need to analysed further. Clearly, there is a need for further research in this area.