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Technology, Organization, and Structure—A Morphogenetic Approach
Abstract and Figures
This article relates Archer's morphogenetic approach, derived from the philosophical tradition of critical realism, to the use of information and communication technology in organizations. Three gains are seen to accrue from this approach: greater clarity about the material properties of technology, links to broader structural conditions arising from the conceptualization of the relationship between agency and structure, and the potential to explore the importance of reflexivity in contemporary organizations, especially in conditions of the widespread use of information and communication technology. The importance of disaggregating the artifacts of this technology into levels and features is stressed to enable analysis to explore the specific impacts of particular combinations. This is developed through a discussion of data warehousing in connection with the attention being given to the importance of analytics in organizational strategies. Key features are in wider aspects of the cultural and structural context, demonstrating the fruitfulness of a morphogenetic approach.
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... ICTs offer distinctive technological affordances, that is, capacities for action that emerge nondeterministically from the relationship between social actors and the materiality of technology (Faraj and Azad, 2012), where the technology itself is a materialization of prior cycles of sociomaterial interaction (Leonardi, 2013;Mutch, 2010;Postigo, 2016). For instance, Husted and Plesner (2017) detail a political party's use of the features of the online forum Discourse to (Pfister, 2011). ...
It seems natural to understand organizational democracy as granting members of the organization the right to choose the rules that govern their actions. But what meaning does a rule have if one can choose to change rather than follow it? By investigating the understudied dimension of democracy I call revisability, this article suggests that an organization’s rules can be meaningful – they can effectively coordinate action – while remaining continually open to democratic modification. To support this claim, I present an activist ethnography of the Open Food Network, an alternative organization that builds open-source software for the decentralized coordination of short food chains, working in a democratic, non-hierarchical manner. Using the communicative constitution of organizations literature to conceptualize the requirements of democratic revisability and coordinating rules, I argue that this case demonstrates the possibility of achieving both ends simultaneously through the affordances of new information and communication technologies (ICTs). This article thus contributes an account of the concept of democratic revisability, and a generalized model of one means by which democratically revisable and effective coordinating rules can be established and maintained with the support of ICT affordances.
... ICTs offer distinctive technological affordances, that is, capacities for action that emerge nondeterministically from the relationship between social actors and the materiality of technology (Faraj and Azad, 2012), where the technology itself is a materialization of prior cycles of sociomaterial interaction (Leonardi, 2013;Mutch, 2010;Postigo, 2016). For instance, Husted and Plesner (2017) detail a political party's use of the features of the online forum Discourse to (Pfister, 2011). ...
'No decision is permanent!': Achieving democratic revisability in alternative organizations through the affordances of new information and communication technologies
It seems natural to understand organizational democracy as granting members of the organization the right to choose the rules that govern their actions. But what meaning does a rule have if one can choose to change rather than follow it? By investigating the understudied dimension of democracy I call revisability, this paper suggests that an organization’s rules can be meaningful – they can effectively coordinate action – while remaining continually open to democratic modification. To support this claim, I present an activist ethnography of the Open Food Network, an alternative organization that builds open-source software for the decentralized coordination of short food chains, working in a democratic, non-hierarchical manner. Using the communicative constitution of organizations literature to conceptualize the requirements of democratic revisability and coordinating rules, I argue that this case demonstrates the possibility of achieving both ends simultaneously through the affordances of new information and communication technologies (ICTs). This paper thus contributes an account of the concept of democratic revisability, and a generalized model of one means by which democratically revisable and effective coordinating rules can be established and maintained with the support of ICT affordances.
... That is, entities, be it humans (social) or things (material) exist as separate and self-contained entities that interrelate and affect each other in practice (Cecez-Kecmanovic et al., 2014). Building on the works of Mutch (2002Mutch ( , 2010Mutch ( , 2013 and Faukner andRunde (2012, 2013), it is difficult to operationalise the empirical constructs in an agential realist approach due to the interlocking of the social and material (Leonardi, 2011(Leonardi, , 2012. Instead, the substantialist approach assumes an inherent distinction between material and social agencies, though at the same time recognises that practices and outcomes are dependent on how they are entwined in some context (Leonardi, 2011). ...
Purpose
The implementation of mobile health (mHealth) in developing countries seems to be stuck in a pattern of successive pilot studies that struggle for mainstream implementation. This study addresses the research question: what existing health-related structures, properties and practices are presented by rural areas of developing countries that might inhibit the implementation of mHealth initiatives?
Design/methodology/approach
This study was conducted using a socio-material approach, based on an exploratory case study in West Africa. Interviews and participant observation were used to gather data. A thematic analysis identified important social and material agencies, practices and imbrications which may limit the effectiveness of mHealth apps in the region.
Findings
Findings show that, while urban healthcare is highly structured, best practice-led, rural healthcare relies on peer-based knowledge sharing, and community support. This has implications for the enacted materiality of mobile technologies. While urban actors see mHealth as a tool for automation and the enforcement of responsible healthcare best practice, rural actors see mHealth as a tool for greater interconnectivity and independent, decentralised care.
Research limitations/implications
This study has two significant limitations. First, the study focussed on a region where technology-enabled guideline-driven treatment is the main mHealth concern. Second, consistent with the exploratory nature of this study, the qualitative methodology and the single-case design, the study makes no claim to statistical generalisability.
Originality/value
To the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to adopt a socio-material view that considers existing structures and practices that may influence the widespread adoption and assimilation of a new mHealth app. This helps identify contextual challenges that are limiting the potential of mHealth to improve outcomes in rural areas of developing countries.
... Critical Realism has been viewed as an approach that can play a role in advancing the development of IS knowledge through Design Research (Carlsson, 2007). Critical Realism proposes a focus on causal mechanisms and contextual assumptions, or what researchers call generative mechanisms (Hedstrom & Swedberg, 1996;Carter & New, 2005;Mutch, 2010). ...
Recent investigations into the paradoxical notion of designed serendipity position the concept within the research fields of design science, creativity and to a lesser extent digital innovation. In this study we contribute to the work on designed serendipity by analysing the role of the Living Labs methodology in facilitating and enabling serendipity. We specifically investigate that role within the context of two Higher Education cases within an African context. The two cases describe the development of emerging digital platforms co-created within their respective contexts. The UDUBSit mobile application (developed at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa) and Mfunzi mobile application (developed at Mzumbe University, Tanzania) are analysed to determine the extent to which the Living Labs approach enabled observable instances of designed serendipity. This study presents a brief analysis of the causal mechanisms and contextual factors that combine to create designed serendipity within the context of the cases evaluated and within platform design. The study links these causes back to Living Labs as a design methodology.
... Agents and position-practices. Mutch (2010) observed, " Stones (2005), drawing on the resources of critical realism, suggests that we see organizations as constituted by constellations of 'position practices,' that is, sets of structural factors such as roles and their associated practices" (p. 512). ...
Abstract
While organizations have reason to value member proactivity, their responses to it
are not entirely known. A form of proactivity, issue selling, “is the process by which
individuals affect others’ attention to and understanding of the events, developments, and
trends that have implications for organizational performance” (Dutton & Ashford, 1993,
p. 716). While research into issue selling is considerable, it has focused on what causes
issue sellers to sell, how they sell, and what happens to them after they sell. Less studied
are the organizational reactions to issue selling. The present study asked the research
question: How do organizations respond to issue selling?
Working from a conceptual framework informed by the theory and research on
issue selling (Dutton & Ashford, 1993), strong structuration (Stones, 2005), and
organizational response (Bansal, 2003), this case study of a multinational medical device
company examined responses to issue selling in three strategic situations relating to the
organization’s product development and management activities. By interviewing
associates at multiple levels and with varied roles in each issue, the study found that
rather than being defined as issue buyers, participants in an issue are better thought of as
responders who play varied roles in the issue, including as second-order sellers
themselves. Their responses follow patterns including complex, negotiable definitions of success; influence by responders at all levels; actions within existing positions and
mechanisms; and “single-option decisions”—up-or-down determinations of whether to
proceed with an issue as raised.
Participants disclosed cognitive practices and actions placing responders,
colleagues, the issue, and the organization in focus as the organization made progress
toward results on the issue. The findings blurred the boundaries between issue sellers and issue responders and challenged the validity of a merely transactional model of issue
selling. The results suggest that response in issue selling is a form of community building
that can be examined through theories and methods in fields as diverse as leadership,
organizational change, organizational culture, and social learning. Responders and issue
sellers alike will benefit from continuing research and practice application of how
responses to issue-selling events today shape what an organization will become tomorrow.
... Thus, it builds a bridge between the empiricist view of science and an idealist view of science, which is expressed through constructivism and interpretivism (Mingers et al. 2013). Furthermore, with its stratified worldview and its distinction of structure and agency (Archer 1995), critical realist based models of social change and transformation such as Archers Morphogenetic Approach (Archer 1995) or the related Transformational Model of Social Activity (Faulkner and Runde 2013) have made value contribution in delivering explanatory theoretical contributions in IS (Mingers et al. 2013;Mutch 2010). Yet, IS research on DT is dominated by a constructivist or postpositivist worldview (Kutzner et al. 2018). ...
While digital transformation as a research phenomenon per se gains acceptance in both practice and academia, its precise conceptualization and theoretical underpinnings are discussed. To address these gaps, we propose a critical realist view on Digital Transformation. Building on a literature review on generative mechanisms in digital transformation studies, we show how the concept of generative mechanisms is used and what types of generative mechanisms are adopted. Based on our findings, we propose a research agenda that encourages further studies on digital transformation, taking a critical realist stance. Thus, we put forward ways of applying critical realism to digital transformation studies and show how critical realism can advance research through its ability for multi-level analysis and its unique understanding of change and transformation.
... Public organizations must ensure that 29 DTAP should be adapted according to the needs of people with dementia and consider social aspects, such as the background of people with dementia before they are delivered to them. Furthermore, DTAP must also consider organizational aspects, meaning that they should be incorporated within organizations' practices and should not be viewed as an entirely new entity existing outside of organizational practices (Mohr, 1971;Mutch, 2010). ...
One of the major societal challenges occuring within our time is that of the increased elderly population and subsequently elderly people suffering from dementia. However, the existing workforce for taking care of this population is rapidly diminishing, thus alternatives or aids are needed. Digital technologies for ageing in place are offered by Swedish municipalities as part of their welfare services. Their aim, to maintain the independency and prolong the time staying at home or also known as “ageing in place”. However, it is important that people with dementia have a say in the delivery of such services by maintaining a consumer-directed role.
This thesis address the question: What are the consumer-directed challenges for service delivery of digital technologies for ageing in place to elderly with dementia?
The thesis adopts a consumer-directed perspective, meaning that it perceives people with dementia as able to control and direct the delivery of digital technologies for ageing in place. The thesis uses a qualitative case study methodology and a literature review approach. Three case studies are conducted. The first case studied the challenges occuring in the delivery of digital technologies for ageing in place in a Swedish municipality. The second case was conducted at a dementia care residence with the purpose of identifying various needs (from staff, relatives and people with dementia) for suggesting possible digital technologies. The third case investigated the level of Consumer Direction people with dementia have over the delivery process of a mobile security alarm as part of the welfare services. This thesis identifies a number of challenges in the delivery process to people with dementia, and gives an overview of the problematic areas within such process. Lastly the thesis provides insights on the factors that influence the acceptance of digital technologiesf or ageing in place, as a step towards the actual use of the technologies that takes place under the delivery process.
... Sistem informasi manajemen hadir dalam balutan kecanggihan teknologi untuk menawarkan jawaban dari permasalahan yang ada. SIM sendiri mengatur tentang pemanfaatan sumber daya manusia, teknologi, prosedur, dan data yang berfungsi untuk menghasilkan informasi bagi suatu lembaga atau organisasi (Oz, 2009;Mutch, 2010;Alcamí & Carañana, 2012). Adapun peran SIM dalam kegiatan pendidikan dapat menjadi suatu sistem yang dapat diandalkan dalam kegiatan manajemen untuk membuat keputusan-keputusan manajemen, baik yang berupa keputusan pada kegiatan yang bersifat teratur maupun keputusan strategik (Turban & Volonino, 2011;Wijaya, 2016). ...
Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mendeskripsikan tentang pemanfaatan sistem informasi manajemen pendidikan dalam pengelolaan kegiatan akademik, dan pemenuhan kebutuhan sistem (hardware dan software) dan kebutuhan pengguna (brainware) dalam mendukung pemanfaatan sistem informasi manajemen pendidikan di sekolah. Metode kualitatif dipilih untuk menggambarkan fakta yang ada dengan menggunakan teknik observasi, wawancara, dan dokumentasi. Penelitian dilaksanakan di enam sekolah negeri dengan sebaran tiga sekolah menengah atas (SMA) dan tiga sekolah menengah kejuruan (SMK). Adapun informan dalam penelitian ini meliputi enam tenaga kependidikan dan enam guru. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa enam sekolah yang diteliti telah menggunakan sistem informasi akademik sebagai pemanfaatan sistem informasi manajemen pendidikan untuk mengelola kegiatan akademik dan memudahkan pengambilan keputusan di tingkat manajemen sekolah, dan kebutuhan sistem (hardware dan software) sudah disesuaikan dengan mengikuti perkembangan hardware dan software serta kebutuhan pengguna (brainware) dikelola dengan baik dengan memberikan pelatihan secara berkala untuk meningkatkan kemampuan para guru.
Indonesia is one of the largest democratic countries in the world and has held 11 general elections nationally. Nonetheless, the electoral process with ballot paper is deemed convoluted, prone to manipulation, requires massive resources and lengthy process and spent extravagant state budget. Electronic voting (e-voting) has been implemented in more than 26 countries, and India has achieved terrific success in 2019 with more than 900 million voters. E-voting in India has answered convoluted and high cost of election problems, and the VVPAT (voter-verified paper audit trail) technology helped prevent fraud potential and manipulation. This study examines the policy transfer of e-voting technology from India into Indonesia's jurisdiction and political context by using literature study and secondary sources of data to support the arguments. The key findings are that e-voting serves a constitutional electoral system that defends effective and efficient democratic election, reduces the margin of error in voting, counting, recapitulation, and significantly reduces the probability of invalid votes, effectively hindering fraudulent practices like vote-buying during recapitulation and preventing dropping illegal ballots into the ballot box. Moreover, e-voting technology also corresponds with High Court No.147/PUU-VII/2009, and if implemented with adequate technology, software and human resources, this method could secure the tenets of direct, general, free, confidential, honesty and fairness.
Tourism as a social phenomenon is still in a status of ethicality that we hope can be improved. However, we still do not know how to effectively enhance morally guided tourism. It is argued that this knowledge gap is attributed to the absence of an appropriate philosophical underpinning informing the epistemological approaches adopted in ethical tourism studies. In this paper, the author posits that critical realism is a robust and fruitful underlabourer that will help researchers to uncover the ‘deep’ domain of ethical tourism. It is proposed that future research should investigate (1) what structural, cultural, and agential emergent properties of the systemic components of the ethical tourism system are operant, and (2) how a generative mechanism functions to influence, not determine, the moral conduct of tourism stakeholders. By addressing these two areas of knowledge, we will be able to understand how things work in ethical tourism so that we can make changes to enhance its uptake. Some examples are provided to illustrate how a realist inquiry can be carried out. It is hoped this paper will initiate further discussions on theorizing ethicality in tourism.
The papers appearing in this volume are the collection of articles and panels presented at the 1995 IFIP 8.2 Working Conference on Information Technology and Changes in Organizational Work. It is widely accepted that work and work-life in the industrialized societies of the late Twentieth Century are undergoing a profound transformation in terms of aspects such as the nature of work and job security at the personal level, changes in practice and instability of structures at the organizational level, and increasing interconnection and globalization at the national and international levels. Information technologies are deeply implicated in these transformations, and the papers in this volume explore some of the relationships between these information technologies and the ongoing and possible future changes in organizational work.
For the last 25 years, organizations have invested heavily in information technology to support their work processes. In today's organizations, intra-and interorganizational work systems are increasingly IT-enabled. Available evidence, however, suggests the functional potential of these installed IT applications is underutilized. Most IT users apply a narrow band of features, operate at low levels of feature use, and rarely initiate extensions of the available features. We argue that organizations need aggressive tactics to encourage users to expand their use of installed IT-enabled work systems. This article strives to accomplish three primary research-objectives. First, we offer a comprehensive research model aimed both at coalescing existing research on Post-adoptive IT use behaviors and at directing future research on those factors that influence users to (continuously) exploit and extend the functionality built into IT applications. Second, in developing this comprehensive research model, we provide a window (for researchers across a variety of scientific disciplines interested in technology management) into the rich body of research regarding IT adoption use, and diffusion. Finally, we discuss implications and recommend guidelines for research and practice.
