Designing an information-sharing system to improve collaboration culture: a soft systems methodology approach in the digital service creation process

Purpose This study aims to fill the gap in collaboration culture improvement by designing an information-sharing system as an enabler to support the forming dimensions of the collaboration process in previous studies. The authors propose the appropriate system to eliminate the collaboration culture gaps between the related functional units based on in-process interaction learning in a business process outsourcing company. Design/methodology/approach This study employed action research (AR) based on soft systems methodology (SSM) with a system thinking approach, in which the authors and process actors design the agreed information-sharing system by involving the process actors in identifying the initial problem situation as well as validating the conceptual model through discussions and designing the expected system. Findings This study discovers that SSM-based AR is a suited method for designing a system that supports the formation of collaboration culture among actors in the digital service creation process by learning user perceptions and expectations in order to obtain their commitment to empower the proposed system. Originality/value In addition to providing a system to minimize the lack of collaboration culture, this study contributes to the academic literature by offering a new way of planning and designing in a system development methodology using soft systems approaches to understand user perceptions, expressing user interaction in a conceptual model and validating it and defining agreed activities to obtain the best design according to user expectations.