Sociomateriality Implications of Software As a Service Adoption on IT-workers’ Roles and Changes in Organizational Routines of IT Systems Support

This paper aims to deepen our understanding on how sociomateriality practices influence IT workers’ roles and skill set requirements and changes to the organizational routines of IT systems support, when an organization migrates an on-premise IT system to a software as a service (SaaS) model. This conceptual paper is part of an ongoing study investigating organizations that migrated on-premise IT email systems to SaaS business models, such as Google Apps for Education (GAE) and Microsoft Office 365 systems, in New Zealand tertiary institutions. We present initial findings from interpretive case studies. The findings are, firstly, technological artifacts are entangled in sociomaterial practices, which change the way humans respond to the performative aspects of the organizational routines. Human and material agencies are interwoven in ways that reinforce or change existing routines. Secondly, materiality, virtual realm and spirit of the technology provide elementary levels at which human and material agencies entangle. Lastly, the elementary levels at which human and material entangle depends on the capabilities or skills set of an individual

Managing people with technology : a sociomaterial perspective

The study highlights the disruptive influence of digital technologies on organizations, work structures, and the nature of work itself. While previous research has focused on the consequences of technology on HRM processes, there are limitations in understanding the complexity of technology and how it shapes HRM processes. The actual usage of technology by HRM actors is often overlooked, as well as the dynamic unfolding of e-HRM practices over time. This thesis adopts the sociomaterial perspective that recognizes the equal importance of human agency, material artifacts and social context in forming and reproducing e-HRM practices. Theories within the sociomaterial perspective view activities as dynamic and situated, which constitute and are constituted by people, actions, voices, gestures, tools, software, documents, infrastructure, hardware and other materiality. The key objective of the dissertation is to understand the role of technology in changing HRM practices and for HRM actors by shedding light on how the materiality of technology, social events, and human agency are intertwined in the HRM practice. The sociomaterial perspective is introduced in Paper 1, emphasizing the equal importance of human agency, material artifacts, and social context in shaping HRM practices. It recognizes the integral role of materiality, such as digital artifacts and physical spaces, in organizing social elements. Paper 2 applies the attention-based view to explore how technology influences the attentional engagement of line managers as HRM actors in remote performance evaluation. This offers a nuanced understanding of attention as both cognitive and context-dependent. In Paper 3, routine dynamics theory is employed to transform the conceptualization of HR roles, shifting from studying nominal roles to roles accomplished through routinized sequences of actions. These theoretical lenses align with the sociomaterial perspective and contribute to our understanding of the transformative impact of technology on HRM practices and the role of HR actors. The dissertation makes three main contributions to the research on HRM technology. It (1) theorizes HRM as sociomaterial practice and shows empirically the emergence nature of management practices around material artifacts, (2) addresses the lack of diversity of HRM actors in the literature, highlighting their agency in the enactment of technology, and (3) examines HR roles as dynamically produced and enacted through patterns of routines.Tämä väitöskirja korostaa digitaalisten teknologioiden disruptiivista vaikutusta organisaatioihin, työn rakenteisiin ja itse työn luonteeseen. Aikaisempi tutkimus on keskittynyt teknologian vaikutuksiin HRM-prosesseihin, mutta ymmärrys teknologian monimutkaisuudesta ja sen vaikutuksesta henkilöstöhallintoon on rajoittunutta. HRM-toimijoiden varsinainen teknologian käyttö jätetään usein huomioimatta, samoin kuin e-HRM-käytänteiden dynaaminen kehittyminen ajan myötä. Tässä väitöskirjassa käytetään sosiomateriaalista näkökulmaa, joka tunnistaa ihmisen toiminnan, materiaalisten artefaktien ja sosiaalisen kontekstin yhtäläisen merkityksen e-HRM-käytänteiden muodostumisessa ja toisintamises¬sa. Sosiomateriaaliseen näkökulmaan lukeutuvien teorioiden mukaan toiminnot nähdään dynaamisina ja tilannesidonnaisina, ja niihin kuuluu ja niitä muodostavat ihmiset, toimet, äänet, eleet, työkalut, ohjelmistot, asiakirjat, infrastruktuuri ja laitteisto. Väitöskirjan keskeinen tavoite on ymmärtää teknologian roolia HRM-käytänteissä ja HRM-toimijoille tuomalla selvyyttä siihen, miten teknologian materiaalisuus, sosiaaliset tapahtumat ja toimijuus kietoutuvat yhteen HRM-toiminnossa. Sosiomateriaalinen näkökulma esitellään ensimmäisessä artikkelissa, jossa korostuu toimijuuden, materiaalisten artefaktien ja sosiaalisen kontekstin yhtäläinen merkitys HRM-käytänteiden muovaamisessa. Siinä tunnistetaan materiaalisuu¬den kiinteä rooli, kuten digitaaliset artefaktit ja fyysiset tilat, sosiaalisten elementtien järjestämisessä. Toisessa artikkelissa sovelletaan huomiokeskeistä näkökulmaa (eng. attention-based view, ABV) tutkittaessa, miten teknologia vaikuttaa linjaesihenkilöiden huomion kiinnittämiseen HRM-toimijoina etäsuoriutumisenarvioinnissa. Tämä tarjoaa monisäikeisen ymmärryksen huomiosta sekä kognitiivisena että kontekstiriippuvaisena. Kolmannessa artikkelissa käytetään rutiinidynamiikan teoriaa muuttamaan käsitystä HR-rooleista e-HRM:ssä siirtymällä nimellisrooleista rooleihin, jotka saavutetaan rutiininomaisten toimien jaksojen kautta. Tämä väitöskirja tarjoaa kolme pääasiallista kontribuutiota HRM-teknologian tutkimukseen. Se (1) teoretisoi henkilöstöhallinnon olevan sosiomateriaalinen toiminto ja osoittaa empiirisesti johtamiskäytänteiden luonteen muodostuvan materiaalisista artefakteista, (2) käsittelee HRM-toimijoiden monimuotoisuuden puutetta kirjallisuudessa korostaen heidän toimijuuttaan teknologian toteuttamisessa, ja (3) tarkastelee HR-rooleja dynaamisesti tuotettuina ja toteutettuina rutiinien sarjoina.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Beyond the ‘e-’ in e-HRM : integrating a sociomaterial perspective

This review paper argues that e-HRM literature has not realised the full potential of different theoretical perspectives on information technology. This paper proposes one of them, a sociomaterial perspective, which recognises the equal importance of human agency and material artefacts in the formation and reproduction of e-HRM practices. The review juxtaposes existing perspectives within e-HRM literature with that of the sociomaterial perspective to illustrate the kinds of complementary theoretical and conceptual tools that can be applied to address current limitations in our understanding of the impact of e-HRM. A research agenda is presented that suggests ways to explore the materiality of technology, wider groups of actors and their agency, and emergent practices around technology. The application of this perspective means paying closer attention to how actions and material artefacts are intertwined and constitute ‘doing HRM’, which therefore requires thick descriptions of the organisational context and how work is performed in order to understand how technology matters, for whom and in what ways.© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Exploring the Temporal Nature of Sociomateriality from a Work System Perspective

This paper uses work system theory (WST) to explore the temporal nature of sociomateriality. It summarizes concepts related to WST and sociomateriality, and notes sociomaterial aspects of WST. It uses static and dynamic views of a work system to examine six examples that can be classified in one of three time frames, minutes-to-hours, days-to-weeks, and months-to-years. The result is a straightforward interpretation of systems and related events across all of the time frames, which exhibit different types of phenomena related to adaptations, workarounds, emergence of informal work patterns, and sequences of formal projects. After approaching sociomateriality from a perspective not usually associated with that genre, this paper concludes that ambiguity about the intended time span of assertions related to entanglement and inseparability should be remedied. At minimum, it should be clear whether these phenomena occur instantaneously or in time spans of minutes-to-hours, days-to- weeks, or months-to-years

A Sociomaterial View of the Scaffolding of Work Practices with Information Technology

This paper builds on the concept of sociomateriality to investigate different modalities by which information technology may scaffold work practices. Taking into account the constitutive entanglement of both the social and the material, the authors identify a model to map emergent work practices through which IT use unfolds. An investigation of mobile IT usage in 10 companies indicates a model of four modalities of behaviors: (1) When people perceive that the mobile technology supports their local needs, they will use it in the prescribed way; (2) when they perceive that the mobile technology can produce additional advantages, they augment its use beyond that prescribed; (3) when possible, people use unprescribed technologies to complement their prescribed mobile technology; and (4) people use unprescribed mobile technology to scaffold their work and limit their use of the prescribed IT as much as possible

Learning through techno-human entwinement: Implications for the adoption of technologies drawn from agricultural and ICT interventions in the Philippines

In developing countries, such as the Philippines, there is great concern among educational, government and non-government organizations regarding the implementation of agricultural technologies delivered through Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), at both regional and national levels. While these types of introduced technologies are discussed in the literature of organizational practice, they are largely absent in studies of management and informal education. This study seeks to address this paucity by investigating the entwinement (i.e. process of interweaving) of humans and this type of introduced technologies through the theoretical perspectives of sociomateriality (i.e. interweaving of human and technologies) and sensemaking (i.e. giving meaning to experience). More specifically, it examines how farmers learn through a process of interweaving with one specific intervention – use of ICT to learn agricultural technologies. Using the theoretical perspective of sociomateriality (Orlikowski, 2008; Leonardi, 2012) to examine farmers’ views on the affordances of interventions, this study illustrates how their learning is bound up in an ever-deepening entwinement with the technology through which it is delivered. In addition, this study investigates the processes, which lead to its adoption, through the perspective of sensemaking (Weick, 2005). Conducted as an ethnographic case study, this research draws on observations of farmers’ practices for over four months in two Farmers Information and Technology Services (FITS) centres in Region XI, in the Philippines. These centres aimed to deliver agricultural technologies through ICT. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews, observations, and document analysis. Participants included 32 farmers, two FITS managers, an instructional designer, five FITS/village staff members, a farmer scientist, and three community and farmer group leaders. As to the findings related to the possibility of an action to an object, it indicates that participant’s perspectives can be grouped in three distinct ways namely: as a bundle of technical features inherent in the properties of technological tools (e.g., sending email, viewing diseases), as design features of the services provided and as relations between these features. These perspectives appear to build on one another, resulting in ongoing improvement and the emergence of new technologies, routines, affordances, and the altered perception of new constraints. This expansion of perception results in a shift from individual to group affordances. Through the perspective of sensemaking (Weick, 2005), this study identifies two types of sensemakers among the farmers: minimal sensemakers and reflective sensemakers. It also reveals two new influences, previously unrecognized in the literature which resulted to limited sensemaking: a) external affordances (e.g., subsidies) and b) the emergence of a cultural trait, “gaya-gaya” (i.e. imitation). Moreover, these results further illustrate how the sensemaking process is made visible when viewed from a sociomaterial perspective. Using the assumptions of the sociomaterial perspective that learning is made visible in practice, this study found that participants progressed through three stages, namely: figuring, configuring and reconfiguring. Findings indicate that during ‘figuring’, the farmers engaged in various learning processes by observing others and engaging in verbal exchanges (e.g., linking new abstract ideas with material objects, organizing ideas, and verbal referencing). In ‘configuring’, farmers learned by experimentation, storytelling, group learning and the integration of sociomaterial objects in farming routines. During ‘reconfiguring’, farmers engaged in experimentation that focused on the creation of new knowledge and understanding, and the manipulation of new artefacts. The findings of this study are vital for understanding how an individual’s perspectives, sensemaking and ways of learning lead to adoption. It contributes to the literature new insights into the process of entwinement between individuals and interventions using the perspectives of sociomateriality and sensemaking in the context of informal education in a developing country

Sociomateriality in Action

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an enforced ‘big bang’ adoption of working from home, involving the rapid implementation and diffusion of digital collaboration technologies. This radical shift to enforced working from home led to substantial changes in the practice of work. Using a qualitative research approach and drawing on the interview accounts of 29 knowledge workers required to work from home during the pandemic, the study identified five sociomaterial practices that were significantly disrupted and required reconfiguration of their constitutive social and material elements to renew them. The paper further shows evidence of the ongoing evolution of those sociomaterial practices among the participants, as temporary breakdowns in their performance led to further adjustments and fine-tuning. The study extends the body of knowledge on working from home and provides a fine-grained analysis of specific complexities of sociomaterial practice and change as actors utilize conceptual and contextual sensemaking to perceive and exploit possibilities for action in their unfolding practice of work. Against the backdrop of the increasing adoption of hybrid working in the aftermath of the pandemic, the paper offers four pillars derived from the findings that support the establishment of a conducive working from home environment

A Case Study of Participant Responses to Organizational Change Involving Technology in the National Security Domain: How Informal Processes Iterate Structure and Outcomes

Nuanced differences between organizations and the pace of change within the national security domain have routinely produced equivocal results involving information and communication technology (ICT) development. These results are characterized by unpredictable costs, unrealistic delivery schedules, and dubious ICT performance in-use. This research is a case study exploration of organizational change involving technology (also referred to as ICT) in the national security domain of the public sector. This research used machine learning and manual content analysis to compare the results of three experiments on interview transcripts. The first experiment investigated linkages between empirical and interpretive elements of organizational change. Empirical elements are defined as the a priori formal structure of organizational processes and outcomes. Interpretive elements are defined as informal process actions taken by organizational actors to coordinate organizational change involving ICT. The second experiment investigated linkages between formal a priori organizational context and outcomes, and informal process actions defined as individual (i.e., performative) and group (i.e., ostensive) practices. The third experiment parsed the interview transcripts into three episodes of organizational change. Manual content analysis was used to code formal a priori organizational structures and outcomes, and informal processes. Case study results are conceived in four categories of process actions that link a priori organizational processes and outcomes. The process action categories are conceived as, iterating, adjudicating, coordinating, and processes in-use. These categories offer explanations for how organizational change and stability involving ICT is impacted by informal coordinating process actions of organizational actors. The case study findings implicate a type of organizational change involving ICT as an evolving and dynamic endeavor. The findings contrast with formulaic phases and stages prescriptions for organizational change that dominate the extant literature. Organizational context in the national security domain is characterized by porous networked arrangements of multi-sector, dynamic and complex public jurisdictions. Enactment of public administration programs and policies is dependent upon ICT as tools of governance. Informal coordinating processes that link the fulfillment of organizational change involving technology to a priori structured processes and outcomes need to be better understood in theory and practice to ensure effective execution of aspirational policies and programs

The Rise of Quasi-Humans in AI Fueled Organizations, an Ultimate socio-materiality approach to the Lens of Michel Serres

Background: Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies are reinventing industries through offering organizations the opportunity to realize formerly impossible innovations. Views about the role of AI in social change remain nevertheless controversial; on the one hand, it poses major ethical challenges and on the other hand, it is believed to be a tool for social good. The journey from assisted, to augmented, then to autonomous intelligence is part of a growing trend thus transforming firms into AI-fueled organizations. Among scholars and practitioners, there is a mounting recognition of the need to understand the potential collaboration of humans and machines and its implications for organizations. Method: We draw on the Sociomateriality theory and on Serres’ ontological view of the quasi-object/quasi-subject to explain the interplay between the social and the material in organizational settings. We propose a four-dimensional model that profiles future organizations populated with humanized machines and augmented humans. Results: We propose a new ontological perspective for the understanding of ultimate Sociomateriality, extending the sociomateriality theory. We contribute to organizational development theory through discussing the implications of ultimate sociomateriality for organizational practices, and through proposing the 4E matrix with the four dimensions for AI-fueled organizations. Conclusion: We shed the light on the interaction of the social and the material in the AI era. We proposed a theoretical development of the ultimate Sociomateriality theory based on Serres’ philosophy, as well as a four-dimensional matrix (4E matrix) which profiles AI-fueled and quasi-human populated organizations. Practically, we inform technology providers to create AI machines that serve humanity and organizations instead of destroying it, and inform public policy makers and NGOs to act as regulators for human rights, highlighting the need to rethink business education to develop human skills while redefining human roles within organizations in order to avoid being ravaged by the AI revolution

Social Technologies and Informal Knowledge Sharing within and across Organizations

This doctoral dissertation is focused on both empirical and conceptual contributions relative to the roles social technologies play in informal knowledge sharing practices, both within and across organizations. Social technologies include (a) traditional social technologies (e.g., email, phone and instant messengers), (b) emerging social networking technologies commonly known as social media, such as blogs, wikis, major public social networking sites (e.g., Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn), and (c) enterprise social networking technologies controlled by a host organization ( e.g., SocialText). The rapid uptake of social technologies, combined with growing interest in their broader social implications, raises pertinent questions about uses for knowledge sharing in organizations. The work reported in this thesis is motivated by two broad phenomena: (1) the importance of informal knowledge-sharing in organizations and (2) the rapid rise in the variety and prevalence of social technologies. The empirical basis of this research is a field study focused on the uses of social technologies by knowledge workers, specifically those in consulting firms. Building from the theoretical lenses of sociomateriality, structuration, and technological frames, the findings from this work advances our understanding of: (1) the ways social technologies are used in combination as a suite of tools, (2) the ways in which organizational norms, policies, and arrangements shape the uses of social technologies for knowledge practices, and (3) the variations in uses of social technologies by different groups of knowledge workers. The theoretical contribution of this work is to conceptualize the suite of social technologies used to support and enable knowledge workers is a more useful approach than the single-technological-tool-in-isolation approach, which is the norm in studies of computing. A second contribution of this work is to situate social technologies-in-use through incorporating complementary theoretical concepts: technology-mediated knowledge practices, social structures of organizations, and workers\u27 distinct interpretations of social technologies (technological frames). Practical implications arising from this study both inform the ways social technologies can be collectively integrated in work practices and inform the design and implementation of social technologies for accommodating different needs and preferences of knowledge workers. This research also generates insight into how organizations can craft policies that realistically regulate the use of social technologies, while empowering individual workers to optimize their knowledge sharing capacity by supporting informal engagement via social technologies