Using technology and constituting structures: A practice lens for studying technology in organizations

Using technology and constituting
structures: A practice lens for
studying technology in organizations.
James Chuang
Orlikowski, W. J. (2000). Using technology and constituting structures: A practice lens
for studying technology in organizations. Organization Science, 11(4), 404-428.

Outline
▸ Introduction
▸ Structurational perspective
▸ A Practice Lens for Studying Use of Technology
▸ Example of Enactment
▸ Conclusion
2

Introduction
▸ Technologies & organizations
▸ Structurational perspective
▸ Human action
3

Objective
Technologies
People
Social Action
4

Embodied and
Emergent Structures

Embodied and Emergent Structures
▸ The intellectual tradition of social
constructivism
▸ Structurational models have posited that
technology is developed through a social-political
process which results in structures being
embedded within the technology.
6

Adaptive Structuration Theory
▸ Group decision support systems
(DeSanctic & Pool, 1994)
▸ 7 Propositions
7

The adoption of social constructivist
conceptions
2 propositions:
1. Technologies become "stabilized'
2. Technologies "embody" social structure
8

Appropriation and
Enactment of Structures

Appropriation and Enactment of
Structures
▸ A view which allows us to frame what
users do with technologies not as
appropriation but as enactment.
▸ Emergent structures
10

A Practice Lens for Studying
Use of Technology

“Lave (1988) has argued for the value of
focusing on "cognition in practice"
rather than "cognition in the head."

Artifact and Use
▸The distinction between the use of a
technology and its artifactual character is
an analytic, not an ontological one.
(Grint & Woolgar, 1995)
13

Artifact and Use (Cont’d)
▸Technological artifact: an identifiable, relatively
durable entity, a physically, economically, politically, and
socially organized phenomenon in space-time. (Lave, 1988)
▸Technological use: being experienced differently by
different individuals and differently by the same
individuals depending on the time or circumstance
14

Artifact and Use (Cont’d)
▸ E.g. Tax preparation software
15

“When users choose to use a
technology, they are also choosing
how to interact with that technology.

Structuring of Technologies-in-Practice
▸Giddens (1979, 1984) proposed the notion of
structure (or structural properties of social systems)
as the set of enacted rules and resources that
mediate social action through three dimensions or
modalities: facilities, norms, and interpretive
schemes.
17

Structuring of Technologies-in-Practice (Cont’d)
18

Structuring of Technologies-in-Practice (Cont’d)
19

Changes in Technologies-in-Practice
▸ People may change their technologies-in-
practice by deliberately modifying the
properties of their technology and thus how
they interact with it.
▸ E.g. plug-ins
20

“Technologies are thus never fully
stabilized or "complete," even though we
may choose to treat them as fixed, black
boxes for a period of time.

Changes in Technologies-in-Practice (Cont’d)
22

Enacting
Technologies-in-Practice:
Empirical Examples

Background: The Notes Technology
▸ Notes software
released to the market in 1989 by Lotus Development Corporation
▸ CSCW (computer-supported cooperative work)
24

Example of Enactment
1. Iris
2. Alpha
3. Zeta

Example of Enactment (1)
▸ Collaborative
Technology- in-
Practice within Iris
▸ Iris Associates
(founded in 1984)
27

▸ 3 Technologies-in-
Practice within Alpha
28

Limited- Use Technology-in-Practice
29
1. Some consultants had doubts about the value of
Notes for their own and the firm's performance

Limited- Use Technology-in-Practice (Cont’d)
30
2. Enactment of Alpha's time-based billing
structure
• All hours should be "chargeable“
3. Competitive culture

31

32

▸ Two Technologies-in-Practice within Zeta
( Top 50 U.S. software company)
▸ Customer Support Department (CSD)
▸ 2 technologies-in-practice
1. Process-Support Technology-in-Practice
2. Improvisation Technology-in-Practice
33

Process-Support Technology-in-Practice
34

Improvisation Technology-in-Practice
35

Examples of Enactment: Summary
▸ They are not embodied within the technology; rather,
they emerge from the ongoing and situated interactions
that users have with the technology at hand.
36

Implications of the Practice
Lens for Studying Technology

Implications of the Practice Lens for
Studying Technology
▸Human social conduct are of two types:
those that "hold because actors themselves know
them-in some guise-and apply them in the
enactment of what they do" ; and those that refer
to the unintended consequences of agents'
patterns of action. (Giddens, 1984)
38

39
Inertia
Application
Change
Collaboration
Individual productivity
Collective problem-solving
Process-support

“The essentially transformational character of
all human action, even in its most utterly
routinized forms" (Giddens, 1984)

Using technology and constituting structures: A practice lens for studying technology in organizations

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