Drivers and Inhibitors Impacting Technology Adoption: A Qualitative Investigation into the Australian Experience with XBRL

eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) is an XML-based innovation which has the potential to play an important role in the production and consumption of financial information. In this paper, in-depth interviews are used to explore a range of issues surrounding the adoption of XBRL in Australia. Drivers that promote successful adoption of XBRL are discussed, together with inhibitors that obstruct it. We find that the current members of the XBRL community are waiting for a critical mass of either users or solutions to appear. Combined with other inhibitors and unfulfilled drivers, this has adversely affected XBRL adoption in Australia. While government agencies may play a significant role in breaking this deadlock through making XBRL use mandatory, we identify some important implications associated with this strategy

Affordances and agentic orientations: An examination of ICT4D users

This study aims at understanding how resettled refugees interact with computer technology. In particular, the objectives of this research project are twofold. First, it analyses how information technology users interpret the affordances of computer technology in relation to their unique needs and goals. Second, it scrutinises how information technology users exercise their agency to act upon the materiality of computer technology. The combination of the concepts of affordance and temporal agentic orientation provides the theoretical foundations for this research. Data, obtained through in-depth, face-to face, semi-structured interviews with 53 participants across four locations in New Zealand, was thematically analysed. The findings show that user’s past experiences, current circumstances and evaluation of future outcomes significantly influence the perceived affordances of computer technology and, consequently, shape the way it is used

Sustainability in ICT-Enabled Collaborative Networks

Many organizations form collaborative ICT-enabled networks in order to improve their performance, and we generally understand their motives and benefits in doing so. However, there is little empirical research that focuses on how collaborative relationships are sustained over the longer term. This paper is a first step in addressing this deficiency. Based on a review of the literature on strategic collaboration, we develop a conceptual framework for understanding and exploring the resources and capabilities required to sustain collaborative networks. The framework will provide a theoretical basis for a subsequent empirical investigation

An Empirical Investigation into IS Development Practice in New Zealand

A Web-based survey of 106 large New Zealand organisations was undertaken to gain an understanding of their IS development practices. The survey focussed on the contribution of standard methods and user participation to IS development. Among the findings were that 91% of the respondents used a standard method in the development process in at least some of projects undertaken in the last three years. All organisations reported using some level of user participation. The majority of organisations agreed that organisational issues had been more important than technical issues in determining the outcome of the IS development in these projects

Opening the Black Box: Exploring the Socio-technical Dynamics and Key Principles of RPA Implementation Projects

Robotic process automation (RPA) is one of the most popular process automation approaches, and many organisations in various industries have jumped on the RPA bandwagon. Yet, despite the vast uptake, organisations face many challenges during RPA implementation, leading to a high project failure rate. A clear framework with critical success factors is missing that can guide organisations in their RPA implementation endeavours and avoid the common pitfalls. Building on process and socio-technical theory, we addressed this gap by conducting a case study of an RPA implementation in an Australasian university. We interviewed 13 employees from the university and the RPA vendor. Our findings show how the RPA project unfolded and the intertwining effects on the different components of the socio-technical system at project, work system and organisational levels. Further, we propose eight socio-technical design principles that can guide organisations during their RPA implementations and may lead to higher success rates

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

Materiality and emergence in environmental information systems

Information systems can be an integral part of environmental management practices enacted in the pursuit of environmental sustainability outcomes. We analyse the specific case of an environmental information system developed by a South Australian environmental regulator. The information system was intended to support efforts to sustain water quality by controlling the discharge of ‘greywater’ from vessels using South Australia’s inland waters. We conceptualize the information system as the outcome of a continuing, though non-deterministic, trajectory of interacting material and human agencies, in the form of technology and routines. In our analysis, we trace how these basic building blocks of the system came to be, and how they shaped the emergent environmental information system in particular ways