Critical Review of Organization-Technology Sensemaking: Towards Technology Materiality, Discovery and Action

More than two decades of sensemaking research has brought thorough knowledge of how people understand organisational phenomena and attach meaning to them. This stream of research explores varied social and cognitive aspects of the process in the context of organisations and information technology (IT). However, such a large body of literature exhibits some significant shortcomings: there is a lack of IT materiality; a neglect of the discovery aspect of perception; and a lack of action orientation. So, there is limited understanding of the role that the material artefact plays in shaping users’ sensemaking of new IT, as well as how users’ actions affect their sensemaking. Moreover, while the literature mostly focuses on sensemaking as the creation of new meanings to rationalise user experiences, it neglects the discovery aspect of sensemaking that refers to perception of the meaning already available. To address these issues, this article provides a thorough review of the literature on organisation-technology sensemaking and synthesises our current understanding of the phenomenon. It then analyses the major shortcomings in our knowledge and highlights the need to address those shortcomings. It subsequently discusses an ecological approach consistent with the tenets of critical realism that can address some of the existing shortcomings

How Online Social Networks Create Value for Organizations: A Resource-Based Perspective

Online Social Network (OSN) is an emerging communication technology which has increasingly been used. Todayorganizations are paying more attention to the importance of these networks and are trying to create value with theseemerging technologies. Current literature focuses on the information and network implications of these networks at theindividual and group levels, leaving the organizational level impact understudied. This study examines how these networkscreate value for organizations. We propose a model based on Sambamurthy et al. (2003) framework conceptualizing the OSNand explaining how OSN capabilities bring about customer agility through digital options of communication facilitation

Technology Affordances: The Case of Wikipedia

The affordance perspective to technology research aims to offer a definition of technology that bridges between previous positivist and constructivist perspectives. To study technology from an affordance angle, it needs to be defined and extracted. This study aims to develop a better understanding of technology by conceptualizing and dimensionalizing technology affordances. To demonstrate the practical value of our conceptualization, we empirically identify and define six affordances of Wikipedia as a case

Essays on an Ecological Approach to User-Technology Interaction

This thesis consists of three essays that propose an ecological approach to look into various aspects of user-technology interaction. The overarching theme of the thesis is the role of the technological artifact in how technology is understood and adapted by users in organizations. Organizing is the social process of achieving goals, and it is always tied to the way people understand and adapt to their environment, including the information technology in that environment. The way people make sense of new technology in organizations and adapt it into their work routines brings extensive consequences to organizations. Despite the extensive body of literature examining the social and cognitive aspects of user sensemaking and adaptation to technology, there is little known about the role of the technological artifact in shaping user sensemaking and adaptation to new technology. The first essay reviews and synthesizes the extant literature on how people understand technological phenomena in organizations. Then it highlights the three shortcomings of existing sensemaking research: the neglect of the role of the IT artifact, of the discovery part of perception, and of the role of the individual action. There is limited understanding on the role that the material artifact plays in shaping users’ sensemaking of new technology, as well as how users’ actions affect their sensemaking. Moreover, the literature mostly neglects the discovery aspect of sensemaking, that is, the perception of the meaning already available rather than creating new meaning to rationalize users’ experiences. To address these issues, this essay provides a thorough review of literature on organization-technology sensemaking and synthesizes our current understanding of the phenomenon. Then it analyzes the major shortcomings in our knowledge and highlights the need to address those shortcomings. It subsequently discusses an ecological approach consistent with the tenets of critical realism that can address some of the existing shortcomings. The paper also offers some key implications of the ecological approach for research and practice. The second essay addresses the role of the technological artifact in shaping users’ understanding of technology (i.e. technology sensemaking). It proposes an ecological approach to technology sensemaking that focuses on the relation between users’ perception of technology and the technological features to which they adapt. Moreover, it advances Information Systems (IS) research by providing new conceptual and analytical tools to examine the role of the IT artifact in IS research. To empirically illustrate the proposed approach and suggested methodology, we report the findings of an empirical study that applies and validates the framework. The third essay focuses on the patterns of user adaptation to the technological artifact to contribute to research on user-centred system development. For more than a decade, the persona technique has been used in interface design practices to put user needs and preferences at the centre of all development decisions. A persona is a fictional character that represents potential users and what they want to accomplish. Persona development teams draw on qualitative or quantitative user data to develop representative personas. Despite the benefits of both approaches, qualitative methods are limited mostly by the cognitive capabilities of the persona developers, whereas quantitative methods lack contextual richness. To gain the advantages of both approaches, this essay suggests a mixed-methods approach to create user personas based on the patterns of affordances they actualize, rather than merely on the actions they take. It enriches personas by referring to the purposes fulfilled through affordance actualizations and grounds personas in readily available objective log data. This essay illustrates the practical value of the proposed methodology by empirically creating personas based on real user data. It also creates quantitative-only personas, presents independently developed qualitative-only personas, and compares them to the affordance-based personas to demonstrate the advantages of the suggested method. The three essays together suggest and empirically illustrate an ecological approach to examine the role of the IT artifact in users’ sensemaking of and adaptation to new technology. They contribute to research and practice by a) proposing the theoretical and analytical tools needed to examine users’ sensemaking of technology in relation to their adaptation to the IT artifact, and b) suggesting the mixed-methods technique to create user personas based on the patterns of affordance actualization by users

Affordances and Information Systems Research: Taking Stock and Moving Forward

The term affordance appears with increasing frequency in the Information Systems (IS) literature. Nevertheless, those who study information technologies/information systems (IT/IS) via the affordance lens often have different views about its origin, meaning, and appropriate application in IS research. In turn, not spelling out the related assumptions and boundaries inherent in these diverse views may have hindered a wider and more cumulative adoption of the affordance lens in IS research. This paper offers a potential solution by (1) synthesizing the ecological psychology literature to suggest five key modules of the affordance concept relevant to IS research and (2) taking stock of IS research that has employed the affordance concept and classifying it according to its focus on three key affordance elements: IT artifact, user, and context. Finally, this paper presents a set of challenges, opportunities, and recommendations regarding how IS researchers can advance affordance-based research in the field

Conflating Relevance with Practical Significance and Other Issues: Commentary on Sen, Smith, and Van Note’s “Statistical Significance Versus Practical Importance in Information Systems Research”

Expanding on the current debate on the issues of statistical and practical significance in information systems research, where the article by Sen, Smith, and Van Note is a recent contribution, this commentary cautions against conflating relevance with practical significance. We emphasize that relevance is 1) about the real-world usefulness of research findings rather than their impressiveness for the researcher audience, 2) an essential quality of research spanning beyond its findings and not merely limited to statistical studies, and 3) determined by nonacademics rather than academics. We also comment on other aspects of the article by Sen et al., such as the term “practical importance,” the treatment of effect size measures, and the presentation of “marginal effects.

Wikipedia in the eyes of its beholders: A systematic review of scholarly research on wikipedia readers and readership

Hundreds of scholarly studies have investigated various aspects of the immensely popular Wikipedia. Although a number of literature reviews have provided overviews of this vast body of research, none of them has specifically focused on the readers of Wikipedia and issues concerning its readership. In this systematic literature review, we review 99 studies to synthesize current knowledge regarding the readership of Wikipedia and also provide an analysis of research methods employed. The scholarly research has found that Wikipedia is popular not only for lighter topics such as entertainment, but also for more serious topics such as health information and legal background. Scholars, librarians and students are common users of Wikipedia, and it provides a unique opportunity for educating students in digital literacy. We conclude with a summary of key findings, implications for researchers, and implications for the Wikipedia community

Wikipedia in the eyes of its beholders: A systematic review of scholarly research on Wikipedia readers and readership

Hundreds of scholarly studies have investigated various aspects of the immensely popular Wikipedia. Although a number of literature reviews have provided overviews of this vast body of research, none of them has specifically focused on the readers of Wikipedia and issues concerning its readership. In this systematic literature review, we review 99 studies to synthesize current knowledge regarding the readership of Wikipedia and also provide an analysis of research methods employed. The scholarly research has found that Wikipedia is popular not only for lighter topics such as entertainment, but also for more serious topics such as health information and legal background. Scholars, librarians and students are common users of Wikipedia, and it provides a unique opportunity for educating students in digital literacy. We conclude with a summary of key findings, implications for researchers, and implications for the Wikipedia community

“The sum of all human knowledge”: A systematic review of scholarly research on the content of Wikipedia

Wikipedia might possibly be the best-developed attempt thus far of the enduring quest to gather all human knowledge in one place. Its accomplishments in this regard have made it an irresistible point of inquiry for researchers from various fields of knowledge. A decade of research has thrown light on many aspects of the Wikipedia community, its processes, and content. However, due to the variety of the fields inquiring about Wikipedia and the limited synthesis of the extensive research, there is little consensus on many aspects of Wikipedia’s content as an encyclopedic collection of human knowledge. This study addresses the issue by systematically reviewing 110 peer-reviewed publications on Wikipedia content, summarizing the current findings, and highlighting the major research trends. Two major streams of research are identified: the quality of Wikipedia content (including comprehensiveness, currency, readability and reliability) and the size of Wikipedia. Moreover, we present the key research trends in terms of the domains of inquiry, research design, data source, and data gathering methods. This review synthesizes scholarly understanding of Wikipedia content and paves the way for future studies