Exploring the Dialectics Underlying Institutionalization of IT Artifacts

We examine the relationship between information and communication technology for development (ICT4D) and local historically embedded institutions. We argue that, to understand the process of implementing IT artifacts, one needs to consider not only technical feasibility and economic viability but also institutional permissibility. We present a novel theoretical framework based on dialectics and institutional theory and apply it to a case study that contributes a dialectics-centered framework illustrated with empirical data from the informal sector in Latin America. The analysis demonstrates the institutionalization of IT artifacts as a conflicted and contested process and that historical institutions may enable some forms of institutionalization while resisting others contrary to social norms. We examine the emergence of contradictions, active praxis, and the resulting outcomes before concluding that, for IT artifacts to contribute to development, one must emphasize the embedded institutional arrangements and contestation that historically embedded institutions present. We conclude the paper by discussing the theoretical and practical implications

Exploring the Dialectics Underlying Institutionalization of IT Artifacts

We examine the relationship between information and communication technology for development (ICT4D) and local historically embedded institutions. We argue that, to understand the process of implementing IT artifacts, one needs to consider not only technical feasibility and economic viability but also institutional permissibility. We present a novel theoretical framework based on dialectics and institutional theory and apply it to a case study that contributes a dialectics-centered framework illustrated with empirical data from the informal sector in Latin America. The analysis demonstrates the institutionalization of IT artifacts as a conflicted and contested process and that historical institutions may enable some forms of institutionalization while resisting others contrary to social norms. We examine the emergence of contradictions, active praxis, and the resulting outcomes before concluding that, for IT artifacts to contribute to development, one must emphasize the embedded institutional arrangements and contestation that historically embedded institutions present. We conclude the paper by discussing the theoretical and practical implications

Information Technology, Materiality, and Organizational Change: A Professional Odyssey

We begin with a retrospective reflection on the first author’s research career, which in large part is devoted to research about the implications of information technology (IT) for organizational change. Although IT has long been associated with organizational change, our historical review of the treatment of technology in organization theory demonstrates how easily the material aspects of organizations can disappear into the backwaters of theory development. This is an unfortunate result since the material characteristics of IT initiatives distinguish them from other organizational change initiatives. Our aim is to restore materiality to studies of IT impact by tracing the reasons for its disappearance and by offering options in which IT’s materiality plays a more central theoretical role. We adopt a socio-technical perspective that differs from a strict sociomaterial perspective insofar as we wish to preserve the ontological distinction between material artifacts and their social context of use. Our analysis proceeds using the concept of “affordance” as a relational concept consistent with the socio-technical perspective. We then propose extensions of organizational routines theory that incorporate material artifacts in the generative system known as routines. These contributions exemplify two of the many challenges inherent in adopting materiality as a new research focus in the study of IT’s organizational impacts

Enterprise Information Systems as Objects and Carriers of Institutional Forces: The New Iron Cage?

This paper draws upon the institutional theory lens to examine enterprise information systems. We propose that these information systems engender a duality. On one hand, these systems are subject to institutional forces and institutional processes that set the rules of rationality. On the other hand, they are an important embodiment of institutional commitments and serve to preserve these rules by constraining the actions of human agents. The complexity inherent to enterprise technologies renders them an equivoque. This, when combined with the propensity toward lack of mindfulness in organizations, is likely to lead to acquiescence to institutional pressures. Enterprise information systems bind organizations to fundamental choices about how their activities should be organized; unquestioned choices that tend to appear natural. We suggest implications of this view and develop propositions examining: (1) enterprise information systems as objects of institutional forces in the chartering and project phases, (2) the resolution of institutional misalignments caused by the introduction of new systems, and (3) enterprise information systems as carriers of institutional logics in the shakeout and onward & upward phases

Dialectical Inquiry in Information Systems Research: A Synthesis of Principles

Although dialectical inquiry has been sporadically and selectively applied in the Information Systems (IS) discipline, and premier IS journals increasingly welcome dialectical inquiries, we lack methodological guidance on its application and evaluation, hindering its adoption as an important and valid IS research method. In response, we present a critical analysis of general dialectics literature and 63 extant IS dialectical inquiry publications in 18 journals spanning three decades, revealing that there is a growing and sizeable community of IS researchers using dialectical inquiry explicitly or implicitly to examine how sociotechnical phenomena change. Based on this analysis, we synthesize six principles for dialectical inquiry that are firmly rooted in dialectical philosophy, evidenced in IS publications, clearly distinct from each other, and together comprehensive. As such, our contribution can help IS researchers, reviewers, and editors to extend and solidify their methodological repertoire

Essays on the discursive formation of emerging organizational fields: The role of technology, institutional logics, and identity

The thesis aims at shedding light on the process of organizational field emergence as resulting from a collectively enacted discursive endeavor. The investigation hinges upon the perspective that the generation of institutional and organizational domains of activity is primarily driven by the encounter of multiple and potentially misaligned social constituencies who work out their mutual incongruences by engaging in communicative-dialectical activities. Overall, the thesis contributes to an ongoing conversation on meaning making as the fundamental process driving the formation of organizational fields. These processes are explored both theoretically (essay 1) and empirically in the context of the nascent civil drone field (essays 2 and 3). Essay 1 provides a framework of dialectical meaning-making in emerging technological fields. It aims to show how fields emerge when meaning making processes are activated for the definition of the new technological artifacts, the identities of the actors involved with it, and the institutional infrastructures that shall govern their interactions. Essay 2 explores the role of multiple institutional logics as driver of field emergence. The emerging civil drone field is permeated by discursive activity on a number of issues that are framed according to multiple institutional logics. By analyzing how actors debate these issues in field conferences, the paper tracks a number of discursive interaction patterns that are generative of new meanings by combining potentially conflicting logics. Essay 3 addresses the identity formation process in nascent fields populated by heterogeneous organizations. By performing content analysis of a sample of field’s organizational mission statements and of a publication dedicated to drones, the paper highlights that the emergence of a field-specific identity is driven by an isomorphic tendency to mimic professionalized vocabularies and is shaped by ideational field-level discourse. This ensures legitimacy to the emerging field, while creating a distinctive field identity forged by drone-specific issues

A silent cry for leadership : organizing for leading (in) clusters

Leadership research so far has neglected clusters as a particular context for leadership, while research on networks and clusters has hardly studied leadership issues. This paper fills this dual gap in the abundant research on leadership on the one hand and on networks/clusters on the other by investigating leadership in photonics clusters from a structuration perspective. Apart from giving an insight into the variety and patterns of leadership practices observed, the paper addresses the dilemma that regional innovation systems such as clusters usually have a critical need of some kind of leadership, but that neither individual nor organizational actors wish to be led. This dilemma can only be ‘managed’ by organizing for leading (in) clusters in a certain way

Competing Concerns on Emerging Welfare Technologies. A review of eight prevailing debates in current literature

Welfare technologies (WT) such as telecare, service robots, and other digital innovations for public sector service delivery are expected to improve and even radically transform health- and eldercare. However, despite political awareness and financial investments, many studies report promising inventions that fail to become implemented on a larger scale. Current research draws a fragmented and heterogeneous picture of this problem, with divergent implications for practice. This article reviews and discusses the extant literature to identify eight competing concerns central to how WT can become implemented on a large scale. By highlighting and contrasting practical and theoretical positions in this emerging and interdisciplinary research topic, the review contributes to understanding the complexities that managers and policy-makers must address to diffuse and sustain WT innovations from small to large scale