New socio-technical perspectives of IS innovation in organizations

Chrisanthi Avgerou

London School of Economics

IS innovation: a process leading to

new-technology-mediated

organizational practice

and

the results of such a process, i.e. a novel way of technology-mediated practice

Questions to examine:

How does IS innovation take place?

My argument:

IS innovation unfolds by a mix of technical/rational tasks,

institutionalized enactments, and

improvisations as people make sense of the potential of ICT in their work context and seek to appropriate it.

The changing setting of IS innovation

From life-cycle-based development of computer applications to implementation of generic packages and the construction of complex ‘infrastructures’ of information, technologies, and know-how

Main aspects of the innovation process through life-cycle systems development

• Emphasis on the analysis of information processing requirements of an organization

• Emphasis on technical components to fit existing structures/practices

Main research issues

• Methodological merits of alternative analysis/design platforms

• Relationship between technical professionals and ‘users’

• Relationship between the ‘before’ and ‘after’ implementation actions

Main aspects of the innovation process in packaged software implementation

• Split of the life-cycle into two distinct locations, two distinct cyclical sets of activities:– design/production/marketing/support of generic

software products in producer firms– Configuration of generic products in specific

‘customer’ organizations. This involves adjustment of processes and structures and the involvement of multiple consultancy services

From projects to infrastructures

Most organizations now have:• A large number of ISs – some

‘integrated’, some not• IS innovation intertwined with the

continuous search for structures and practice suitable for the emerging ‘new economy’, i.e. in a state of continuous organizational change

…

• Issues of information, knowledge and ICTs became prominent in management thinking

• The social/organizational context is a constitutive part of innovation itself, not merely the ‘container’ of technical artefacts and processes

Types of IS innovation today

Implementation of:

• ERP

• CSCW

• Intranets

• Internet-based systems (B2B, B2C)

New socio-technical concepts and theories

• Concerned with the relationship of IS and organizational change

• Drawing substantially from recent social theory on the technology/society relationship

• Struggling to avoid both technology-deterministic and society-deterministic theses

Three constitutive elements of the intertwined IS/org. change

• organizational structure and culture (i.e. the institutionalized ways of going about the tasks organizational actors perform);• organizational actors’ initiatives to appropriate the technical capabilities within the enactment of their jobs (i.e. the agency of the organizational participants); and • structural/material properties of the technologies used in the innovation process (i.e. the technical features that enable certain organizational conditions while constraining others)

New elements in thinking about IS innovation

• The significance of improvisation• The recognition of power and politics

Examples: IT strategy as a continuous and improvisational process of adjustment

Strategy as a mechanism contributing to the construction of what is meaningful, a mechanism through which managers secure the legitimacy of their authority inside and outside the organization

An example of an alternative view of the innovation process

• Actor-Network-theory’s sociology of translation: a process of– Problematization– Interessment– Enrolment– Mobilization

Aiming to the construction of a new heterogeneous (people, ICTs, etc.) network

On the nature of such theories

• Not instrumental – are not intended to tell professionals what to do and how (no methods, no models, no prescriptions for action)

• Intended to develop insights of what is going on, particularly when situations appear paradoxical

• Develop abilities for critical professional judgement