Technology at Work: Some Perspectives from Research

Wanda OrlikowskiMassachusetts Institute of Technology

April 2004

• Purpose of overall project

• Overview of 3 subprojects

• Organizing practices subproject

• types of studies

• example of one study

Outline

• Purpose:

... to explore the social and economic implications of using information technologies within firms

Funded by NSF grant #ITR-00857205

Overview: SeeIT Project

• Focus: track changes in firm performance and design associated with IT investment over time

• Methodological approach: large-scale surveys

• Theoretical perspectives: economic theory of the firm, complementarities, intangible assets

• Researchers: Erik Brynjolfsson, Peter Weill

Firm Design & Performance

Business Models

• Focus: identify, analyze, and classify distribution, performance, and evolution of (e)business models over time

• Methodological approach: content analysis of secondary data, supplemented with case studies

• Theoretical perspectives: coordination theory, financial portfolio theory

• Researchers: Thomas Malone, Peter Weill

Organizing Practices

• Focus: explore work, communication, and temporal practices associated with everyday use of Internet technologies within organizations

• Methodological approach: in-depth field studies involving interviews and observations, as well as content analysis of electronic archives

• Theoretical perspectives: practice theories, genre theory, grounded theory

• Researchers: Wanda Orlikowski, JoAnne Yates

Examples of Studies

• Ad Agencies: Interactive advertising in 2 dotcom and 2 traditional media firms

• Tech: Implementation of virtual work arrangements in large manufacturing firm

• EuroTel: Electronic mediation of sales and customer support in telecommunications firm

• WebGA: Electronic mediation of broker–carrier relationship in health insurance

• Speedy Delivery: Package delivery in a national transportation company

• Little Company: Electronic mail archive of a small software development startup firm over time

• Epsilon: Electronic bulletin board archive of a large European utility undergoing extensive reorganization over time

Examples of Studies

Adweb

• Interactive firm founded as dotcom in 1995

• Develops websites for range of clients

• Employed 650 people in 2000, generating $200 million in revenue

• Study conducted in one large office

• observation of project activities

• interviews with participants and managers

• reviews of documents, tools, networks[research with Kate Kellogg and JoAnne Yates]

Adweb Organization

• Structured into multiple groups –“disciplines”– each with its own distinctive identity, orientation, and set of practices, artifacts, interests, and goals

• client services

• project management

• creatives

• technology

Adweb Disciplines

Identity

Interests

Artifacts

Practices

Client Services

Custodian

Maintaining good relations with clients

Word, Extranets, PowerPoint, Email, Intra/Extranets, Calendaring, Planning Tools

Assessing client needs over time

Ensuring good communication with clients

Developing client presentations and documentation

ProjectMgmnt.

Planner

Delivering product on time and on budget

Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Email, Intra/Extranets, Calendaring, Planning Tools

Creating project work plans

Developing measures and milestones, and monitoring them Adjusting plans over time

Creative

Designer

Designing innovative and aesthetic designs

Photoshop, Internet, PowerPoint, Email, Intra/Extranets, Calendaring, Planning Tools

Brainstorming

Generating images

Creating visual concepts Developing web process flows

Techno.

Builder

Building robust, reliable and scaleable web sites

Code, Source Safe, Email, PowerPoint, Intra/Extranets, Calendaring, Planning Tools

Writing, reusing, revising, testing and debugging code

Communicating with vendors, client IT groups

Reviewing technical specs & standards

Adweb Organization

• Work is conducted in temporary, cross-disciplinary project teams, exercising dynamic and distributed authority over project activities

• The mode of organizing resembles a heterarchy (Grabher, Stark) – relations of interdependence among quasi-autonomous units, characterized by minimal hierarchy and considerable heterogeneity

Work at Adweb

•Work is conducted under “intense conditions”:

• temporal

• competitive

• technical

• conceptual

Research Focus

• Given project work is conducted with: • competing identities, interests, and practices

• considerable temporal and competitive pressure

• dynamic and emergent tools, processes, products

• How do participants work with technology to produce fast, flexible, innovative products?

Technologies in Adweb

• Use of technologies for doing:

• representation

• co-production

• alignment

Technologies of Representation

• Use of PowerPoint enacted a boundary-spanning discourse across the groups

• genre entailed particular discursive norms

• technical features prescribed forms of expression

• templates provided specific formats and content

Use of PowerPoint

• Enabled common articulation of “key” local ideas and interests by:

• simplifying re-presentation of knowledge, interests, and practices to others

• suppressing interpretive differences

Technologies of Co-Production

• Use of email and intra/extranets enacted a common domain for collective work

• project email lists kept all participants “in the know” about group and project activities

• intra/extranets afforded sharing and reuse of information within and across projects, with clients, and over time

• Increased and reduced accountability

Technologies of Alignment

• Use of online calendars and planning tools afforded a shared infrastructure for orienting diverse activities and temporal commitments

• online calendars provided collective window onto project events and individual activities

• planning tools detailed project timelines, deadlines, responsibilities, and individual/group tasks by day and week

Existing Frameworks

• Perspectives on cross-boundary coordination

• transfer (e.g., Allen, Nonaka)

• translation (e.g., Star, Lave and Wenger)

• transformation (e.g., Bechky, Carlile)

• trade (e.g., Galison, Vaughan)

Trading

• Galison proposed the idea of a “trading zone” that mediates interaction among different groups

• Despite differences in identities, interests, and practices, heterogeneous groups can cooperate to accomplish exchange

• Group members enact a site where local coordination between beliefs and action takes place, often through creative (mis)understandings

Trading at Adweb

• Through recurrent use of technologies, Adweb members enacted an electronic trading zone that facilitated coordination across boundaries

• use of PowerPoint representations to accomplish cross-disciplinary discourse

• use of email and networks to accomplish distributed production

• use of online calendars and planning tools to align distributed attention and effort

• Use of an electronic trading zone in Adweb also generated tensions and contradictions

• expressive restrictions decontextualized and flattened nuances of local content and concerns

• real-time information led to interpretive difficulties, overload, and limited accountability

• extensive attention to process and pace reduced capacity for experimentation and innovation

Trading at Adweb

Additional Information

http://SeeIT.mit.edu