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9) 
If for example the business strategy is to continue with the 
production of standard topographic mapseries in established 
production lines and not to benefit from the opportunities for 
customisation and decentralisation offered by the new 
technology, then the technology strategy will likely be to 
make these production lines more efficient, exercise process 
and costcontrol and pacing of work with technology. To 
expect that it would then be possible to have a successful 
organisation strategy that emphasises unleashing the creative 
potential of the staff, empowerment and direct contact with 
clients would be completely unrealistic. 
Yet many organisations in N-America and Japan aim to have 
such organisations which are variously called continuously 
learning or empowered organisations. The paradox of IT is 
that it can be applied to enslave or to liberate us. Walton 
calls this the dual organisational potential of IT as shown in 
Table 1. 
Dual Organizational Potentialities 
Compliance Effects Commitment Effects 
  
  
Monitor and control Disperse power and infor- 
mation and promote self- 
supervision 
Routinize and pace Provide discretion and 
promote innovation 
Depersonalize Enrich human communica- 
tion 
Dispossess individuals of Raise skill requirements 
their knowledge and promote learning 
Decrease dependence on Increase importance of 
individual individual skill and internal 
motivation 
Table 1 [Source: Walton 1989] 
  
Business Strategy 
  
From: an emphasize on administration, 
and cost reduction of standard 
productions 
To: an emphasize on marketing, 
costum products and service, 
and growth in the use of our 
information and revenue 
  
  
  
  
  
IT Strategy Organizational Strategy 
From: an emphasize on control, From: a centralized compliance 
administration, and cash orientation and technical 
accounting specification 
HE 
To: an emphasize on decentra- To: an emphasize on 
lization in which talent decentralization of 
integrated teams, commit- 
ment based on mission 
values and clear indivi- 
dual responsibility 
authority and account- 
ability ma. gers and staff 
and commitment can Lp] 
flourish, and on value- 
added business activity 
  
  
  
  
  
Fig. 2 Walton's Strategic Triangle 
749 
Even if we work with an organisation that has a well aligned 
and balanced set of strategies such as for example in Fig.2 in 
which Walton's Strategic Triangle has been filled in for a 
hypothetical organisation, what assurance do we have that 
the product diversity, direct client contact with production 
staff and decision making at the lowest possible levels can be 
successfully achieved? No doubt it would enhance motivation 
of staff, improve morale and responsiveness to clients if that 
could be done. 
Let us assume for the moment that we work in an 
organisation with well constructed strategies as in Fig.2. To 
realise these strategies we want to take advantage of the 
customising and the decentralising opportunities offered by 
the technology (Groot 1991). On the side of the customising 
aspect it is assumed that it will be a low cost effort to derive 
geo information products from a digital geo information 
database. On the side of decentralisation we should expect 
that the staff will have the capacity to work with systems 
technically and in an integrated way to satisfy customer 
need. Essentially there are no technical barriers today that 
would stand in the way of such an operation. There are 
however a number of pressing questions that need to be 
addressed before one could responsibly and therefore 
meaningfully achieve such a form of organisation. 
(1) What are the limits of application of a database in 
contexts that are different that the one for which it was 
created? Who makes such judgements and based on what 
parameters and criteria? 
(ii) If we empower our staff at the closest possible contact 
level with the clients to find solutions to information product 
requirements what do they need to know to responsibly carry 
out this task? 
(ii) On what basis and using what language do producers 
and users of information products communicate on issues of 
quality and reliability? 
The tendency has been to focus on technical capabilities and 
less on meaning. As long as our staff knows how to deal 
with the transformation technologies to make a product from 
a database we felt that our aims were being achieved. But 
gradually there is more and more recognition that there are 
compelling economic, legal and organisational reasons to 
have access to models that express the context and time 
dependency of information classification, as well as 
methodologies to systematically express matter of quality and 
reliability. 
Without such models or a consistent theory on these matters 
the technology and the organisation strategies expressed in 
Fig.2 may not succeed fully and that in turn would put the 
business strategy at risk. 
There is no doubt that staff of mapping agencies and other 
geo information producing organisations will require 
capabilities that are different from the traditional 
interpretation and eye-hand coordination skills. If we want to 
put people central at achieving a more diversified client 
driven production environment we must provide them not 
just with the technical but also with the intellectual tools to 
do that successfully.