Orlikoswki, Wanda J., Improvising Organizational Transformation over Time: A Situated Change Perspective, to appear in Information Systems Research, 1996

Her study provides an empirical basis for a practice-based perspective on organizational transformation.

Three models have influenced technology-based organizational transformation:

Planned change models assume managers deliberately initiate and implement changes. It is criticized as a discrete event separate from ongoing processes or organizing, and too much emphasis on manager's rationality.

Technological imperitive means that technology is the main driver, and managers have little imput. Adoption of technologies creates predicatable changes in organizations. This model undermines proactive change ideas. The model is also incompatible with the customization available by end-users.

Punctuated equilibrium assume change is rapid, episodic, and radical. The author most identifies with this perspective.

A Situated Change Perspective

This research questions the belief that organizational change must be planned, that technology is the primary cause of technology-based organizational transformation, and radical changes always occur rapidly and discontinuously. She focuses on changes in the on-going practices of individuals.

The punctuated equilibrium models are still based on the primacy of organizational stability. This is problematic in situations where the organizations are experimenting or have non-stable forms or technologies.

All the perspectives neglect "emergent change" (similar to Mintzberg's emergent strategies). It is the realization of a new pattern of organizing without prior intentions. Organizational transformation is an on-going improvisation enacted by organizational actors trying to make sense of and act coherantly in the world.

Organizational design is emergent and only visible after the fact. Situated change is not deliberate or inevitable or discontinuous, just recurrent and reciprocal variations in practice over time. Each change in practice creates the conditions for further breakdowns, unanticipated outcomes, and innovations. There is no beginning or end to this process.

Organizations are enacted. They are constitued by the ongoing agency of actors. Every action either reproduces existing organizational properties or it alters them.

Research Setting and Methodology

A midwestern software company installed Lotus notes into their customer support department to create a new client call tracking system. The research used interviewing, observation, and document review.

Results

The organizational transformation observed was not caused by the technology. Information technology shaped the production of situated practices, and was shaped by those practices in turn.

Before Implementation of Lotus Notes

Initially there was no division of labor, and the process of work was not reviewed or documented. Call data entry was haphazard and so the call database had limited usefulness. Managers only evaluated output.

Metamorphosis 1

The intended changes were:

Electronic entry of calls

The specialists found the data entry forms restrictive and still wrote situations on paper, entering into database later. They did this despite manager's encouragement and evident benefits of paperless entry. For some it was limited typing proficiency. The ITSS navigation was also incompatible with how information was provided by customers. It distracted them from solving the problems.

They also felt the system may fail, and used paper as an improvised backup. The backlog of data entry was resolved via overtime or brief initial descriptions elaborated later. Thus the technology was not "ready -to-hand" that needed conscious attention and represented a diversion initially.

Electronic Process Documentation

The new system allowed incident history reporting, but not editing of previous entries. They found the recording system helped make them "innocent until proven guilty". It made the specialists work more accountable. They became accountable for their output and their work-in-progress.

Electronic Monitoring

This system allowed managers to monitor work and measure performance. They now assessed problem-solving strategies and technical competence. Keeping process documentations up-to-date became just as important as problem-solving.

Norms for Process Documentation

The incident history field was unstructured, and norms developed regarding expression. The initial freedom was both enabling and constraining. Over time norms emerged for style and content. The specialists began to recognize that it was a shared resource.

Impression Management

The boundary between private work and public space was shifted. Their work went from being done privately to being done privated but shared publicly. They began to manufacture an "electronic persona" of themselves. People became more diplomatic on-line. They used self-censorship. The "big brother" aspect had both advantages and disadvantages. High performers thought the system made them more visible.

This is a technologically-mediated process orientation, where the interest is less in the execution of work than in the symbolic artifacts that describe the execution of work and which are immediately and continually available through the technology. Specialists developed norms for the construction and manipulation of the text, strategies for managing impressions and expressions within it, and an awareness of some of the political and personal consequences -- intended and other-- of its use.

Electronic Searching

Eventually database searching would solve 50% of reported problems. The reliability of the knowledge became a central concern. They began to use the indentifyer codes (who did the original work) as a guage of the information reliability. You would go get information from people whom you've gotten good information in the past.

One problem was that when the system broke down the specialists couldn't do their work (too dependent).

Metamorphosis II

The second stage showed emergent stages:

Sharing work via partners

There emerged a front (junior) and back (senior) lines, where the newer members would answer the calls and redirect the tough problems to the more senior speicialists. The role of partner was introduced. Initially many specialists refrained from assigning their calls out of uncomfortableness and as a sign of growing competence and as a learning opportunity. They didn't want to "dump" on someone else.

Sharing work via intermediaries

Managers changed the partnering effects by creating intermediaries that would monitor incidents and route some to more senior specialists. But the system allowed the junior member to vicariously watch the incident progress after assigning it to someone else. Managers now evaluated how senior members helped junior members with their calls, and the extent that intermediaries stepped in to reassign calls. All of this began to distinguish the roles of partners and intermediary, and the differing evaluation of front and back lines.

Metamorphosis III

Electronic Interaction

The specialists began to interact more electronically. The oral culture became more of a written one.

Proactive Collaboration

Specialists could access other's problems now too. They proactively searched through other's incidents looking for situations where they could help. But the intial code of courtesy in such situations was ambiguous. This increased the problem-solving effectiveness of the group. Managers began to evaluate and reward this proactive helping of others.

Metamorphosis IV

Electronic Linkages with Overseas Support Offices

Initially different customs and expectations generated ambiguity and created breakdowns in communication. The asynchronicity made overseas requests like "throwing things over the wall".

Electronic Linkages with Other Departments

Management created another Notes-based system to track bug fixes in software. But this provoked resistance from the software developers, who saw the BUGS system as peripheral and not central to their work like the CSD folks did.

Metamorphsis V

Electronic Access Control

As other parts of Zeta wanted access, the CSD feared that others would use it in inappropriate ways. Over time they created summaries to satisfy some and limited access to others.

Electronic Knowledge Dissemination

The specialists began summarizing key problems and putting them on the companies bulliten boards. They would voluntarily write up a summary and others would review it. They did it partially to reduce calls from field service reps, and partly to increase their company-wide visability. While mangers applauded it, it increased the specialist's work load.

Implications

Situated change is often realized through the on-going variations with emerge frequently, even imperceptibly, in the slippages and improvisations of everyday activity. Those variations that are repeated, shared, amplified, and sustained can, over time, produce perceptible and striking organizational changes.