Responding to the (almost) unknown: Social representations and corporate policies of social media

End-user driven technologies, such as social media, have dramatically changed organizations’ innovation processes. In these new contexts, organizational decision makers have to contend with a de facto adoption of new technologies that they have yet to understand fully. In order to contribute to the understanding of these new contexts and their implications for organizations and their decision makers, this paper examines the following question: How do organizations come to comprehend and react to end-user driven technologies? Conceptually based on social representations theory, this paper underscores how organizational decision-makers develop common sense knowledge of end-user driven technologies and how they consequently endorse responses in the form of dedicated policies that reflect this knowledge. This theoretical framework helps us interpret the empirical analysis of 25 corporate social media policies. The paper shows that, in developing their understanding of social media, so far organizational decision-makers have mostly associated them with what was already familiar to them and have devised policies that have reflected this mostly conservative understanding of the new technologies. Implications of this research include a better understanding of the foundation of the duality between mindful and mindless innovations in the context

Mapping Perceptions of Burnout in the Information Technology Profession: A Study Using Social Representations Theory

Job-related burnout in information technology professionals is seen as a serious issue for organizations and individuals. While the substantial body of research on job stress and burnout can provide valuable insights into the prevention of burnout in IT as well as interventions, we argue that drawing upon this work should be done with caution. In particular, generalizability of the learnings beyond the occupations studied (predominantly people-oriented and/or caregiving roles) cannot be assumed. As a first step toward assessing the applicability of existing burnout research to IT, the purpose of the study described in this paper is to understand how IT professionals make sense of and assign meaning to burnout in the profession. The study uses an approach based on social representations theory, which was first formulated by French social psychologist Serge Moscovici. Social representations are defined as the shared images and concepts through which we organize our world. Transcripts from in-depth interviews of 20 IT professionals were content- analyzed and 22 key topics (concepts) identified. Quantitative methods (including analysis of similarity and analyses to determine the relational structure of the concepts) were used to create a social representations map of these professionals’ understandings of burnout. The map provides preliminary evidence of elements that are central/peripheral to those understandings, pointing to implications for the applicability of existing theory on burnout as well as priorities for future research

Building Legitimacy for IT Innovations: The Case of Computerized Physician Order Entry Systems

Research on IT innovations has largely relied on economic-rationalistic models and focused on individuals or organizations as the unit of analysis. The intent of this paper is to advance an alternative research agenda that explores the institutional underpinnings of IT innovation diffusion at the inter-organizational level. Through a multi-stage research study, we examine the legitimation function of organizing visions for IT innovations and develop a taxonomy of legitimation strategies employed by the proponents of an IT innovation. We first built a preliminary theoretical framework that synthesizes key arguments on legitimacy drawn from the organization theory and IS literatures. Next, we conducted an exploratory case study of institutional entrepreneurship surrounding computerized physician order entry (CPOE) systems. We examined the discursive actions of CPOE vendors by content analyzing 165 press releases issued between 1998 and 2006. We then combined the findings of the literature analysis and the case study to create a taxonomy of discursive strategies for building IT innovation legitimacy. A post-hoc analysis of the case study data reveals a number of interesting patterns in the CPOE vendors’ use of the legitimation strategies and helps us formulate a set of research questions to guide future investigations. The work reported in this paper lays a foundation for a deeper understanding of the role of legitimacy and legitimation in shaping diffusion of IT innovations. It also contributes to the conceptual and methodological elaboration of the organizing vision framework

Impacts of GSS on Moral Discourse: An Argumentation Analysis

Although ethical decision making is a key concern of organizations, the impacts of IT on ethical discourse is an underexplored topic. The laboratory experiment reported in this paper examines the impacts of the use of group support systems (GSSs) on moral discourse. Drawing upon Toulmin’s (1958) model of argumentation and Kohlberg’s (1976) framework of stages of moral reasoning, we used the technique of argumentation mapping (Fletcher and Huff 1990) to analyze group discussions of scenarios involving music piracy and hacktivism (computer hacking for a social cause) by GSS-supported and face-to-face groups. The results indicate that use of GSS can have a significant impact on the extent and diversity of the argumentation contributed during group discussion involving ethical dilemmas, including the number of grounds and rebuttals and the number of unique stages of moral reasoning underpinning the argumentation

The role of artificial intelligence and data network effect for creating user value

Some of the world’s most profitable firms own platforms that exhibit network effects. A platform exhibits network effects if the more people that use it, the more valuable that it becomes to each user. Theorizing about the value perceived by users of a platform that exhibits network effects has traditionally focused on direct and indirect network effects. In this paper, we theorize about a third type of network effects—data network effects—that has emerged from advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and the growing availability of data. A platform exhibits data network effects if the more that the platform learns from the data it collects on users, the more valuable the platform becomes to each user. We argue that there is a positive direct relationship between the AI capability of a platform and the value perceived in the platform by its users—a relationship that is moderated by platform legitimation, data stewardship and user-centric design

INSTITUTIONAL DYNAMICS IN IT MARKETS: EXTENDING THE CONCEPT OF ORGANIZING VISIONS FOR IT INNOVATIONS

(Information System and Decision Sciences) b

A Process for Managing Digital Transformation: An Organizational Inertia Perspective

Digital transformation is often described as organizational change that is simultaneously triggered and enabled by digital technologies. As with other types of organizational transformation, overcoming organizational inertia lies at the heart of digital transformation. However, our understanding of the specific processes employed by incumbent firms to overcome organizational inertia in digital transformation is currently limited. In this paper, we draw on the case study of AsiaBank, a large traditional bank in Asia, to explore the micro-foundations of how incumbent firms tackle different types of inertia as they embark on a digital transformation journey. We identify four key digital transformation processes—i.e., embracing consumerization of digital technologies, diffusing and appropriating digital business practices, enabling distributed organizing, and revamping IT architecture—that combine to reduce negative psychology, socio-cognitive, socio-technical, political, and economic inertia in digital transformation. Our findings expand the extant view on the role of agency in overcoming organizational inertia and contribute to the literature at the intersection of digital innovation and transformation

Data network effects : key conditions, shared data, and the data value duality

Clough and Wu (2020) provide an interesting and thought-provoking response to our article (Gregory, Henfridsson, Kaganer, & Kyriakou, 2020) on the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and data network effects for the creation of user value. We welcome the debate around data network effects as a new category of network effects. In this response note, we build upon the points raised by Clough and Wu (2020) to outline three clarifications to our theory of data network effects concerning: (1) conditions when data network effects accrue, (2) the importance of theorizing shared data, and (3) the model’s ability to explain the cumulative effect of data-driven learning on value creation and value capture