Acculturative enactments of IT use in organizations an interpretive analysis

Acculturative Enactments of IT Use in Organizations: An Interpretive Analysis by Paul Raj Devadoss A THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF PhD in INFORMATION SYSTEMS DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE 2006 Acknowledgment !"#$%#& '()*( !"+,-$ (Thirukural is an important work of Tamil Literature by Thiruvalluvar written in a poetic form called Kural or couplets expounding various aspects of life. 100-300 AD) ./0 (Education) .). .12-+ .)34# .)-56 7). 89),: ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! - 391 Learn what is to be learnt, and live by it. ;?@ AB)C.D AEF9&+,+ .)-4=: >?@ 8*G.!!! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! - 396 Wisdom flows from the depth of learning, just like water that flows as deep as the canal is de-silted. I’d like to thank everyone in my family for their support and encouragement through this long journey; My parents encouraged me in my academic aspirations, and my wife supported me in many ways as I worked my way through this research. Several others too have played their part in shaping what I am today, and I value their contributions. A special note of thanks is due to Dr. Pan Shan Ling and Prof. Lim Kian Guan for their guidance and support in shaping my academic career. ii Summary Information technologies over the years have become complex and customizable IT artifacts that are used in a variety of settings with varied outcomes. Their use is influenced by contextual factors in an organization, resulting in situated and emergent use. In a similar vein, culture too has taken centre stage, with a focus on its emergent nature in organizations. Organizations are generally recognized to have unique cultures and subcultures and there is a need to understand the interaction of organizational members with information technologies at the subculture level, or even at an individual level. Hence, we investigate the use of IT in organizations through culture perspective. In order to achieve this objective, we consider IT use to be a cultural interaction of users with the IT artifacts. In the emergent view, users enact their interpretations of IT in practice. Thus IT use is in effect a multicultural interaction, which makes knowledge of adaptations within different cultural contexts an imperative. Yet, such issues are often not discussed because of their unquantifiable nature. This research is explored through an interpretive case study at the National Library Board (NLB) in Singapore, which transformed itself from a traditional library organization into a dynamic service organization, through innovative and effective use of IT. IT use is explained through acculturation, a socio-psychological theory. Acculturation refers to the process of two cultures interacting and adapting cultural elements of each other during multicultural interaction. Users at NLB acculturated differently, conceptualized as acculturative adaptations to examine a spectrum of IT use. The four adaptations of assimilation, integration, separation and marginalization serve as a useful practice lens to examine the nature of user adaptations with technology. At the organizational level, the process of acculturation is explored where the organization comes in contact with IT and acculturates to its use. Finally, issues identified from the case analysis are organized into an integrated model of IT use. The acculturative model of IT use identifies key influences that shape user adaptation with IT in organizations. iii Table of Contents Acknowledgement ii Summary iii Table of Contents . iv Chapter Introduction . Chapter Literature Review 12 2.1 Information Technology Use . 12 2.2 Organizational Culture . 15 2.3 Acculturation . 20 Chapter Research Methodology 25 3.1 Qualitative Research and Interpretive Methodologies 25 3.2 Case Study . 29 3.3 Data Collection and Analysis . 31 3.3.1 Data Collection at NLB, Singapore . 33 3.4 Level of Analysis . 38 3.5 Subcultures at NLB . 39 Chapter Case Description: National Library Board, Singapore 43 4.1 Organizational Background . 44 4.1.1 School Library to Public Library . 44 4.1.2 Library 2000 . 45 4.1.3 Shortcomings of the Public Library System . 46 4.2 Organizational Structure 48 4.2.1 Library as Logistics Provider . 48 4.2.2 A New Management Team 50 4.2.3 Project Management at NLB . 51 4.3 Identifying Suitable Information Technologies for NLB 54 4.3.1 Reengineering Library Processes . 54 4.3.2 Exploring New Technologies 56 4.3.3 Identifying RFID . 58 4.4 Deploying RFID Based IT Services . 61 4.4.1 Experimenting with RFID . 61 4.4.2 Improving Self-Service at Libraries . 62 4.4.3 Preparing for Changing Work Profiles . 66 4.4.4 Adapting the Technologies 67 4.4.5 Continuing to Innovate 69 4.5 Addressing User Apprehension 70 4.5.1 Sharing Employee Concerns 70 4.5.2 Fostering Trust in Management . 72 4.5.3 Managing Organizational Stress 73 4.5.4 Addressing Cultural Changes 75 iv 4.5.5 Changing the Face of Public Libraries . 76 4.6 Transforming the Organization 77 4.6.1 Gradual Acceptance of IT Use . 77 4.6.2 Organization-wide IT Deployment 78 4.6.3 Do-it-yourself Public Library 80 4.6.4 Cybrarian 82 4.6.5 IT Permeating Library Operations . 83 Chapter Analysis: Acculturating and Adapting IT Use . 87 5.1 Acculturation Process at NLB: Organization level analysis 87 5.1.1 Contact with Information Technologies . 89 5.1.2 Resisting the use of IT . 97 5.1.3 Adapting to IT Use 106 5.1.4 Acculturative Process of IT Use 113 5.2 Acculturative Adaptations . 120 5.2.1 Acculturative Adaptation: Top Management . 121 5.2.2 Acculturative Adaptation: Project Teams 132 5.2.3 Acculturative Adaptation: Users 142 5.3 Cross Analysis: Influence across sub-cultures 154 5.4 A conceptual framework of IT Use 161 5.4.1 Contact: Managing user perceptions of the role and purpose of IT . 161 5.4.2 Conflict: Managing user resistance in the organization 164 5.4.3 Adaptation: Influencing enactments of IT use 166 Chapter Contributions and Reflections 170 6.1 Theoretical Contributions 170 6.1.1 Acculturation Process & The Acculturative model of IT Use . 170 6.1.2 Acculturative Adaptations . 173 6.2 Implications for Practice 176 6.3 Limitations of the Study 179 6.4 Reflections 181 6.4.1 Methodological Reflections . 181 6.4.2 Empirical Reflections 183 6.5 Future Research . 184 6.6 Conclusion 187 References . 190 Appendix A: Summary of Key Literature…………………………………………………208 v List of Tables Table 1: Summary of Interviews Conducted………………………………………… .……34 Table 2: Summary of Acculturative Process…………………………………………….…114 Table 3: Summary of Analysis: Top Management…………………………………………128 Table 4: Summary of Analysis: Project Teams…………………………………………….139 Table 5: Summary of Analysis: Users…………………………………………………… .151 List of Figures Figure 1: Acculturation Strategies………………………………………………………… .23 Figure 2: Illustrations of a Borrowing Station…………………………………………….…59 Figure 3: Illustration of the Returns Process at a Library……………………………………64 Figure 4: Pictures from Libraries Showing Book Drop Counters………………………… .68 Figure 5: The Cybrarian Terminal at a Library…………………………………………… .81 Figure 6: Summary of Loan Statistics……………………………………………………….85 Figure 7: Summary of RFID Implementation and Use………………………………………88 Figure 8: Organizational Acculturative Process at the National Library Board…………… 91 Figure 9: Influence Among Subcultures through the Acculturative Process……………….157 Figure 10: The Acculturative Process Model of IT Use……………………………………162 vi Chapter Introduction Organizations have adopted several information technologies (IT) into the work environment. The resultant use of such technologies was previously studied as a natural progression of intent to use by users, which resulted in actual use. In addition, due to the importance of the cognitive influence of the user on IT use, several sociopsychological theories have been used in the IT use literature (Agarwal, 2000). Increasingly, the technologies used by organizations have grown in complexity and in their ability to be customized. Hence, the use of such artifacts too has become a complex phenomenon that needs to be examined within the contextual influences of the organizational settings. While considering contextual influences in organizations, several important issues stand out in the research literature. Notably, research findings over the last decade have created a general consensus on the importance of cultural behavior to the successful deployment of information systems in organizations (Leidner and Kayworth, 2006; Myers and Tan, 2002). Organizations are generally recognized to have unique cultures (Schein, 1996). At the same time, subcultures exist within an organization (Hofstede, 1998; Jones, 1983; Martin, 1992), adding to the complexity in implementation and adoption of information systems (Orlikowski, 1993). Such subculture differences are only to be expected in organizations (DiBella, 1996), given various influences that shape users’ values and beliefs creating ‘systemness’ across subgroups in an organization. Hence, there is a need to understand the interaction of organizational members with information technologies at the subculture level (Huang et al, 2003), or even at an individual level (Walsham, 2002). Further, recent research suggests software design and development is embedded with the cultural values and behaviors of the developers (Romm et al, 1991; Cooper, 1994). While the issue of cultural elements embedded in IT is still debated in the literature, the fundamental difference in this debate stems from the view of IT as artifacts that may or may not embed cultural values. Thus, in the emergent perspective of culture, this may be interpreted as enactments or values or interpretations of the developers (of the business processes) represented through the software (Orlikowski, 2000). Thus, when users interact with IT, the use of such systems is in effect a multicultural interaction. Such an influence on use presents a challenge to the implementation and use of IT in organizations. The use of IT in the organization is cast as an enactment, where the cultural elements are invoked in the act of IT use. Such a perspective eliminates the need to establish ‘embeddedness’ of values in IT artifacts. Hence, through their interaction with IT, users adapt their own cultural values or that of the system through enactments of IT use. There is a need to develop our knowledge of such user adaptations within different cultural contexts (Stair, 1992). Yet, social influences and related issues are often not discussed in IT use studies because of their unquantifiable nature (e.g. Davis et al, 1989). Hence, IT use has been typecast as discrete variables, often ignoring the contextual relevance of the variables. On the other hand, research literature viewing IT artifacts as socially constructed and socially enacted technology use in organizations have under theorized such use (Orlikowski and Iacono, 2001). This is potentially because of complexities of analyzing infinite possibilities of enactments of use in organizations. Hence, theorizing enactments of IT use is an important research theme in Information Systems (IS) studies. This thesis is an attempt to contribute towards this research agenda by developing an appropriate conceptualization to understand varied user enactments of IT use. Following the above discussion, in summary, cultural issues in organizations are relevant to IT use. Culture has recently been argued to be situated and emergent, rather than being a fixed pattern of behavior (Walsham, 2002). Further, we consider the use of IT to be a cultural interaction of the user with the IT artifact. In order to study such interaction without casting the IT system with cultural values embedded in the system, we consider IT use to be an enactment of IT use. Users thus situate their IT use, and through use, enact the cultural interaction with the IT artifact. As a result of the argument above, considering the importance of culture and information systems use in organizations, we frame the research question, “How users interact with information technologies in organizations in the context of cultural pervasiveness?” This question addresses the call for researchers to consider the importance of social aspects of users’ interaction with information systems (Avison and Myers, 1995). In addition, considering the pressure on organizations to return to productivity after the disruption of implementing an information system, this research contributes towards conceptually addressing the entire spectrum of enactments of IT use. Organizations can benefit from such knowledge of how users interact with IT, through better management of their implementations or by attempting to influence user adaptations. In addition to our interest in user interactions with IT, we also examine the related question, “How users adapt to the use of IT in organizations?” Through this research question, we attempt to model the influences on users in organizations from their initial contact with IT, up to their adaptations of IT use. We draw on the concepts of acculturation to explore this question. Acculturation refers to the process of adapting elements of another culture during multicultural interaction (Redfield and Linton, 1936) and has been researched for many decades in anthropology and social psychology (Rudmin, 2003). The context of acculturation in research has often been the interaction of cultures, and the resultant adaptation of cultural elements among immigrants. Acculturation theory has also been adapted to study the issues of cultural interactions in mergers and acquisitions of organizations (Nahavandi and Malekzadeh, 1988). To explore these issues in an organizational context, we discuss a case study of the National Library Board (NLB) in Singapore. NLB transformed itself from a traditional library organization with low IT adoption into a dynamic and vibrant service organization through innovative and effective use of IT. We present our findings and discussions through an interpretive case study of NLB, Singapore. This thesis is organized into chapters. In the following chapter, we begin with a discussion of relevant research literature from culture, IT use and acculturation. The 10 Calderia, M. M. and Ward, J. M. “Understanding the successful adoption and use of IS/IT in SMEs: An explanation from Portuguese manufacturing industries,” Information Systems Journal (12), 2002, pp. 121-152. Caldeira, M.M., and Ward, J.M. 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M. “The Importance of Situating Culture in CrossCultural IT Management”, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management (50:1), 2003, pp. 26-30. Yin, R. K. Case Study Research, Design and Methods, 3rd ed. Newbury Park, Sage Publications, 2002. Zakaria, N. and Stanton, J.M. “Designing and Implementing culturally sensitive IT applications”, Information Technology & People (16:1), 2003, pp. 49-75. 207 APPENDIX A Summary of Key Literature Topic Technology Acceptance & Post-Adoptive Behavior Citation Davis (1989); Davis et al (1989); Rogers (1995); Bandura (1997); Mathieson (1991); Taylor and Todd (1995); Compeau and Higgins (1995); Bayer and Melone (1989); Cooper and Zmud (1990); Saga and Zmud (1994); Bhattacherjee and Premkumar (2004) Summary Key studies have used various theories to understand technology adoption in organizations, such as Theory of Reasoned Action, Theory of Planned Behavior, Diffusion of Innovations and Social Cognitive Theory. Such models also identify the potential for varying levels of IT use and varied post-adoption behaviors among users. Social & Cultural Influence in IT Use Kraut et al (1989); Stair (1992); Veiga, Floyd and Dechant (2001); Robey and Bourdreau (1999); Robey and Sahay (1996); Avison & Myers (1995); Chan (2000); Orlikowski (2000); Orlikowski and Iacono (2001); Weisinger and Trauth (2003) With varying and sometimes contradictory outcomes from technology use, these studies identify the need to examine social and cultural influences in exploring IT use in organizations. Further, researchers have identified the need to examine use as situated and enacted in organizational settings, which also highlights the need to examine contextual influences on IT use. Organizational Culture Schein (1984); Schein (1996); Alvesson (2002); Harris and Ogbonna (2002); Myers and Tan (2002); Walsham (2002); Weisinger and Trauth (2003); Leidner and Kayworth (2006) Organizations possess unique cultures, identified through their shared meanings, values and beliefs. Though early literature identifies culture as fixed ‘patterns of behavior’, recent research has identified the importance of examining culture as situated and emergent behavior. 208 Subcultures Martin (1992); DiBella (1996); Hofstede (1998); Hauser (1998); Huang et al (2003); Robey and Azevedo (1994); Brannon and Salk (2000); Sahay and Krishna (2000) Apart from organizational cultures, there also exist subcultures in organizations that share similarities within and noticeable differences across groups. Subcultures may be conceptualized according to the purpose of the study to gain further insights. Further, researchers have identified the need to explore IT use at individual or subculture level to further our knowledge on IT use in organizations. IT & Cultural Values van Maanen and Barley (1985); Romm et al (1991); Grint and Woolgar (1995); Walsham (2002); Pliskin et al (1993); Cooper (1994); Von Meier (1999); Kohli and Kettinger (2004); Brannon and Salk (2000); Sahay and Krishna, (2000); Doherty and Doig (2003); Doherty and Perry (2001) Research opinion on embedded values in IT is divided. However, IT as a symbolic artifact underscores the importance of user interaction with the artifact in organizations. The values enacted by users with the artifact holds significance in understanding IT use in organizations. Some researchers have identified the consequences of conflicts among cultural values promoted by IT and those of its users. Acculturation Redfield and Linton (1936); Graves (1967); Rudmin (2003); Berry et al (1992); Berry and Sam (1996); Berry et al. (1987); Berry (1976; 1980; 1987; 1997); Ahmad (1996); Nahavandi and Malekzadeh (1988) Acculturation is a socio-psychological theory that examines cultural interaction among groups, or individuals. The theory examines the nature of adaptation of cultural values among immigrant populations. Such adapted values may belong to either the dominant or minority cultures. Acculturation has been adapted in various contexts to understand cultural interactions. 209 [...]... IT use in organizations In summary, tracing the IT use literature, we have established the varying adaptations of IT in use Further, the organizational setting influences such use and users eventually arrive at an adaptation of IT use Hence, research should be focused on examining a variety of influences on users, examine adaptations of IT use in organizations and, in general, expand the scope of IT. .. literature examines the consequences of IT use in organizations, which highlights the resultant use as adaptations in organizations Such 14 literature examines the unanticipated outcomes of IT use in organizations, and varying or contradictory results from the use of IT in similar organizational settings (Robey and Boudreau, 1999) For example, Kraut et al (1989) recount the unanticipated use of the IT system... Floyd and Dechant, 2001) Further, due to the demands by the managements in organizations to use IT, users often are mandated to use IT In such contexts, the concepts of use and usefulness have to be expanded to include adaptations by users (Brown et al, 2002) Hence, IT use is influenced by more than intentions or perceptions and results in varied adaptations by users Another stream of research literature... understanding of the research issues in the views of the participants, an interpretive case study method is chosen to be the most suited methodology Interpretive case study provides an understanding of the complexity of human sense making as the situation emerges (Kaplan and Maxwell, 1994) To aid in the development of appropriate methods to analytically examine and present interpretive research, Klein and... effectiveness of IT use (Agarwal and Prasad, 1998) In this context, however, a significant shortcoming still lies in exploring adaptation, reinvention and learning of IT use (Agarwal, 2000) Particularly, given the current generation of feature rich and functional software which can be customized and personalized to individual user, IT use theories need to examine the dynamics of IT and user interaction... definitions and perspectives of culture in the literature has led to a call for studies that consider the emergent nature of culture, recognizing that culture is in a state of flux rather than fixed (Myers and Tan, 2002) Further, the use of IT in organizations is an emergent enactment by users Hence, by combining the above two approaches, IT use in organization can be studied as a cultural enactment of. .. since users enact situated use, which may vary across different cultures (Weisinger and Trauth, 2003) Hence, IT use studies should examine a variety of influences on the individual, the extent and nature of use as well as help explain a variety of adaptations of such use In this direction, recent literature has called for an exploration of culture as an important perspective to examine the use of IT. .. research setting (Kaplan and Maxwell, 1994) Since quantifying social settings loose valuable social and cultural contexts, social studies often utilize qualitative research methods Qualitative research stresses how social experiences are created and given meaning (Denzin and Lincoln, 1994) 25 In the context of our research, we examine the organizational setting to examine enactments of IT use Such enactments. .. The management of IS in organizations is not just about technology, but also about the human and cultural factors that requires qualitative evaluation of the value of IT to an organization (Chan, 2000) Hence, while organizational culture may be examined in terms of the values and beliefs of a group of people, to understand the use of IT, we also need to understand the role of culture vis-à-vis IT artifacts... (2000) terms it) Such enactments are ideally studied through individual enactments of technologies (Orlikowski, 2000) However, such an analysis would be too complex to serve any purpose Hence, considering the analytical complexity, we suggest that subcultures within organizations are a suitable alternative for the level of analysis in this study 2.3 Acculturation The enactment of IT use in organizations, . such use (Orlikowski and Iacono, 2001). This is potentially because of complexities of analyzing infinite possibilities of enactments of use in organizations. Hence, theorizing enactments of IT. on users, examine adaptations of IT use in organizations and, in general, expand the scope of IT use beyond perception and intention to use IT. While reporting on contradictory outcomes of IT. analysis are organized into an integrated model of IT use. The acculturative model of IT use identifies key influences that shape user adaptation with IT in organizations. iv Table of Contents