Double-edged Social Mechanisms at Work in the 21st century Information System: Opportunities and Challenges

A long hold explanation in IS-Research is that any change in the Information System (IS), through the introduction of new IT-artefacts, trigger a chain of events leading to institutionalized routines and synchronized social practices. This explanation no longer covers the dynamic outcomes in the work-place set in motion by different types of IT-artefacts. We adopt a critical realist philosophy that entails to illuminate how IT-artefacts trigger social mechanisms in the human enterprise. We review IS-literature on the IT-artefact phenomenon from 2001 and forward. We find that the mechanism of individualization is forcefully triggered by new generative IT-artefacts, while enterprise IT-artefacts trigger institutionalization and socialization. We critically asses the opportunities and challenges this present for managers and designers when managing an IS that holds both types of artefacts. We draw a conceptual model of the now dual-IS, with double-edged mechanisms, that correspondingly can empower ambidextrous organizational forms

Datafication of Knowledge Work: A Framework and Research Agenda

Datafication is moving into the center of value creation in the knowledge intensive organization. Datafication describes the transformation of qualitative behavior and tacit knowledge into quantified actions and codified data. While traditional assumptions on knowledge work highlights individual autonomy in shaping job tasks and fitting abilities for productive work, the consequences of datafication for knowledge work are not yet well understood. We build on the contingency theory of performance as theoretical lens to derive a framework that addresses relevant future research questions in the evolving field of datafication in knowledge work. The proposed multi-level framework considers assumptions and elements from traditional productive knowledge work in combination with determinants of digital workplaces and organizational factors along the lines of data-based value creation and (semi-)automated decision making. For the future, we suggest viewing datafied knowledge work as a socio-technical phenomenon, thereby constituted of human-dominated knowledge work in convergence with technological-dominated algorithmic thinking

Effective Leadership Approaches in Sociotechnical Change

This paper investigates 15 leaders’ effective leadership approaches in five different companies in Denmark, during eight months of Covid-19 restrictions. Initially, a massive scaling of digital technology adoption took place, with leaders and members forced to work virtually from home (WFH). Categorized as a major and abrupt socio-technical change, we inquired into the experiences before, during and after lock-down, and discovered that member well-being and team productivity had prevailed. Drawing on critical realism, we took a grounded theory approach to explore the phenomenon of effective leadership in socio-technical change. After extensive coding, we abstracted an underlying pattern that explains how effective leaders apply situational leadership by continuously activating synergies between mechanisms of socialization, institutionalization, and individualization in their socio-technical work-systems. These findings can serve as an inspiration to researchers and managers that seek to find new ways of harmonizing social and technical structures during rapid digital transformation

OFFERING ACCOUNTS OF COMPLEX IS-PHENOMENA: TOWARDS A COMBINATION OF MECHANISTIC PREDICTIONS AND GENERATIVE EXPLANATIONS

Information Systems (IS) phenomena have become increasingly volatile, complex and fast changing. Capturing their essence is an increasingly daunting task. Data science have emerged in awe to predict future outcomes. Decision-making thus becomes faster while data become bigger. Yet, in the wake of this promising path, many of these predictions lack accuracy due to the unpredictability of complex phenomena. That is why researchers promote the importance of thick qualitative data analysis as a way of seeking explanations of the generativity underlying complex phenomena. This approach is (in comparison) slow, but can answer why events occurred. Thus, we argue that sound accounts of complex IS-phenomena must come from a combinatory approach of fast predictions with slower accounts. Predictions apply laws theorized as causal mechanisms. When these outcomes do not arise, we suggest applying explanatory accounts that apply a different form of causality - generative mechanisms. Generative mechanisms can explain unpredictable outcomes, but can only be inferred through longitudinal qualitative studies. This paper opens up a research agenda for combinatory approaches of fast mechanistic predictions from big data and slower generative explanations from thick data. This combination will help capturing the essence of complex socio-technical phenomena in our capricious digitalized world

Digital Tactics: Resolving Emerging Sociotechnical Tensions in the Digital Worksplace

Knowledge professionals are increasingly facing various tensions in their digital workplace brought by emerging lightweight IT and existent heavyweight IT and the processes and practices they support and enable. In this paper, we uncover five digital tactics, which knowledge professionals utilize daily to resolve these tensions when carrying out and ameliorating their productivity and well-being at work. While existent IS-research recognizes these socio-technical tensions as an IS-strategic phenomenon that managers resolve by deploying various strategic responses, we illuminate how digital tactics on individual, employee level is an equally important element in resolving these tensions and reaching strategic goals during digital transformation. Based on data from group interviews with 22 knowledge professionals, we abstracted five different digital tactics of improvisation, accountability, maneuvering, fostering a both/and culture and acceleration, that employees adopt to resolve tensions. Going forward, we suggest broadening our understanding of the socio-technical realm with the concept of digital tactics