Visualizing Institutional Logics in Sociomaterial Practices

This paper aims to deepen our understanding of how sociomaterial practices influence and are influenced by competing institutional logics, by combining a sociomaterial lens with the institutional logics perspective. We present findings from an interpretive, longitudinal case study of the emergency surgical ward of a Nordic University Hospital. By focusing our analysis on how affordances and agency emerge through the implementation, use and development of digital and physical visualization boards, we show how these artifacts constitute an integral part of the operational staff’s sensemaking of a new institutional logic. We make two contributions. Firstly, we show how the way visualization artifacts shape individual focus of attention can facilitate integration of a new institutional logic in operational practices. Secondly, we show how the perceived affordances of a technology are created from the experience of using several different technologies and how the rejection of one technology simultaneously can constitute another

The decentered translation of management ideas:Attending to the conditioning flow of everyday work practices

Based on a study of Lean management practices at the Swedish Migration Board, we develop a novel theoretical understanding of the translation of management ideas. We show how translation, rather than being reduced to a network of human intentions and actions governing the transformation of organizational practices, can instead be understood as a historically contingent, situated flow of mundane everyday work practices through which social and material translators simultaneously become translated, conditioned to be and act in certain ways. We show how prior actor-centric accounts of translation of management ideas can be understood as performative consequences of a conceptual vocabulary inherited from Callon and Latour. Contrasting this, the non-actor-centric vocabulary of social anthropologist Tim Ingold allows us to background the intentional human actor and foreground the flow of mundane, situated practices. In adopting this vocabulary, we capture how the flow of practices conditions subjects and objects to become enacted as well as act, and develop an understanding of translation as occurring within, rather than distinct from, these practices. In essence, our novel view of translation emphasizes how management ideas are radically unstable, and subject to alteration through the flow of practices rather than as a result of deliberate implementation efforts

Orchestrating Digital Innovation: The Case of the Swedish Center for Digital Innovation

In recent years, researchers have paid increasing attention to how firms facilitate and enact digital innovation in networks with diverse actors (i.e., heterogeneous networks). However, while considerable evidence shows that firms can build key capabilities via engaging with external partners, we found few studies on how they orchestrate digital innovation in situations where an academic unit plays a facilitating role in the heterogeneous network. We address this question by focusing on experiences from a national academic initiative, the Swedish Center for Digital Innovation (SCDI). Formed in 2013, the SCDI has adopted an engaged scholarship approach and a combination of activities designed to increase digital innovation capabilities among partner organizations. We argue that acquiring new knowledge through external and internal sources stimulates firms and public sector organizations engaged in digital innovation to integrate such new knowledge with their existing knowledge base. Specifically, we demonstrate how SCDI’s core activities have created increased capabilities for the involved stakeholders, and we offer lessons learned and recommendations for academic units that wish to orchestrate digital innovation

Going Digital First while Safeguarding the Physical Core: How an Automotive Incumbent Searches for Relevance in Disruptive Times

Incumbent firms typically face significant risk of losing the relevance of their physical core when facing industry disruption driven by digital technologies. Existing literature emphasizes a digital first approach, whereby firm offerings are fundamentally redeveloped from a digital point of view, from the point of conception. While this prescription can help accelerate innovation, it does not tell us how incumbents might safeguard the relevance of their traditional physical core resources when going digital first. This is important, since major discontinuities in strategic repositioning, while often celebrated in digital innovation and transformation literature, create significant risks to firm survival. To this end, we conduct a grounded analysis of a European automotive firm’s innovation journey over an eight-year period. We contribute to the digital innovation and transformation literature by developing a process model explaining how a digital first approach can be employed in a way that also safeguards the physical core

Control Perception Differences in IS Offshoring Projects: Conceptualization and Empirical Test of Performance Impact

This paper takes a novel approach to IS project control by studying control perceptions of clients and vendors in IS offshoring projects and the implications of their perceptions for project performance. We present the results of a survey-based analysis of 46 client-vendor dyads involved in IS offshoring projects. A major contribution of this study lies in operationalizing and empirically testing attempted control (control perceived by the client) and realized control (control perceived by the vendor). Based on prior research, we employ a relational governance view to test whether control perception differences decrease IS project performance. Building on transaction cost economics, we then develop and test the rival perspective that control perception differences may improve performance. Our data support the view that perception differences can be beneficial for IS offshoring project performance

To Coerce or to Enable? Exercising Formal Control in a Large Information Systems Project

In virtually every information systems (IS) project, control is exercised on multiple hierarchical project levels. For example, senior managers exercise control over project team leaders, who in turn exercise control over distinct groups of project team members. Most prior studies have exclusively focused on one specific controller-controllee dyad. As a result, there is little understanding of how IS project control is exercised across different hierarchical levels. To close this research gap, we conducted a case study of a large IS project at a major engineering firm. Our study helps enrich the traditional mode-based typology of control with the dimension of control style, that is, the distinction between enabling and coercive control. Our research contributes novel insights to the IS control literature in three ways: (1) we find that the senior management level and the project management level differ in the use of control style but not in the use of control modes, (2) we identify several factors that influence the choice of a particular control style, and (3) we find that senior managers can influence project activities on lower levels by implementing controls that can be readily emulated by project leaders as well as transmitted through hierarchical levels with little distortion

Making IT Project De-Escalation Happen: An Exploration into Key Roles

Given the persistent and costly problem of escalating IT projects, it is important to understand how projects can be de-escalated successfully, resulting in project turnaround if possible, or termination if necessary. Recent work suggests that the instantiation of specific roles may be central in bringing about de-escalation. How¬ever, few such roles have been identified to date and there has been no systematic study of key roles. In this paper, we therefore explore roles in IT project de-escalation using a single-case approach. Results suggest that de-escalation not only depends on the existence of particular roles, but also on role interaction. We identify seven roles that are of substantial importance in shaping whether and how de-escalation is carried out: messenger, exit sponsor, exit champion, exit blocker, exit catalyst, legitimizer, and scapegoat. Furthermore, we offer a set of propositions that capture key role interactions during de-escalation. Implications for research and practice are discussed