The perception and actualisation of IT affordances and their
influence on organisational change outcomes: A systematic
literature review
Roel Kockelmans
S4046366
Thesis supervisor: dr. I. Maris-de Bresser
Co-assessor: dr. J.D.R. Oehmichen
Master Thesis
MSc Business Administration - Change Management
University of Groningen
Faculty of Economics and Business
Nettelbosje 2, 9700 AV Groningen
January 18th, 2021
ABSTRACT
1. INTRODUCTION
Information technology (IT) has the power to reduce the costs of coordination, information processing and communications which can greatly help in achieving organisational improvements (Brynjolfsson & Hitt, 2000). Consequently, implementing IT systems can lead to organisational shifts in work practices. However, as Balogun & Johnson (2005) argue, organisational change is often context dependent, non-linear, unpredictable and intended change strategies often lead to unintended outcomes. One of the key challenges in achieving successful IT implementations and their intended outcomes is overcoming the resistance of the user, often stemming from a loss-aversion or a status quo bias (Lapointe & Rivard, 2005; Kim & Kankanhalli, 2009).
As an attempt to better understand the success or failure of IT implementations, scholars have been using the theories of user behaviour and acceptance such as the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) (Mathieson, 1991). This stream of literature resulted in the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) in 2003 by Venkatesh et al. (Venkatesh et al., 2016). Most of this literature takes a behavioural perspective where the reactions and attitudes of employees on IT systems are the core focus (Davis, 1986; Ajzen, 1985; Majchrzak & Markus, 2012). This leaves the other side of the IT adoption process, which is the IT and the features it offers, mostly unattended. As a result, various authors have started to pick up the affordance theory and apply its principle of sociomateriality towards the understanding and successful implementation of IT (Hutchby, 2001; Zammuto et al., 2007; Markus & Silver, 2008; Leonardi, 2011). A key argument of IT affordance theory and sociomateriality is that IT implementation success and the resulting organisational change result from the interplay between human behaviour and technological features (Strong et al., 2014). IT features offer actors possibilities for action, allowing them to work in new ways while actors need to take initiative on these possibilities for actual change to happen.
implementation as it can explain why some employees gain benefits from a new IT system while others may not. Many scholars have adopted this perspective on various IT systems where network technologies and social media received the most attention (Treem & Leonardi, 2013; Majchrzak et al., 2013; Leonardi, 2013).
Strong et al. (2014) were the first to develop a conceptual model with an affordance-actualisation (AA) lens to examine the role of IT affordances in organisational change. Following their work, actualisation of affordances is defined as ‘’the actions taken by actors as they take advantage of one or more affordances through their use of the technology to achieve immediate concrete outcomes in support of organisational goals’’ (Strong et al., 2014, p. 70). As an example, Bernardi et al. (2019) found that through different forms of identity work, actors can actualise affordances to change existing dysfunctional routines and practices. Volkoff & Strong (2013) argue that affordances are generative mechanisms which form a potential for behaviour. They explain how these mechanisms come about and how actors can actualise this potential for behaviour to realise various organisational effects. Together, these two key articles advocate for the importance of AA while linking it to reaching concrete organisational change outcomes.
Some authors picked up on the idea that in order to achieve desirable outcomes in organisational processes following an IT implementation, it is not only important for affordances to exist but also for actors to act on them (Greeno, 1994; Volkoff & Strong, 2013; Strong et al., 2014; Leonardi 2011, 2013; Bernhard et al., 2013; Pozzi et al., 2014). Still, much literature that uses IT affordances to analyse organisational change choose not to make a distinction between the perception and actualisation of IT affordances. Often, it is assumed that as soon as affordances are perceived by actors, they can simply be used to achieve their goals, or that the existence of an affordance automatically links it to practice (Pozzi et al., 2014; Fayard & Weeks, 2014; Strong et al., 2014). However, as Leonardi (2013) argues, achieving desirable outcomes from IT affordances depends on complex and iterative processes among actors. Moreover, the literature that does consider the difference between perception and actualisation of IT affordances usually does not link these insights to change outcomes but rather stay within the scope of information systems (IS). Consequently, the lessons learned from IS literature are typically not translated to practical actualisation-processes for management. Thus, it becomes apparent there is a gap in the change management literature, both in the understanding of concrete change outcomes following AA processes and which factors play a role in successful perception and actualisation mechanisms.
and consequently its influence on organisational change outcomes. To facilitate this, literature is systematically selected, analysed, synthesised and used to build on and extend the theory of the AA process of Strong et al. (2014). The findings are synthesised into a conceptual framework and research recommendations are provided. Guiding the search and selection of key literature for this review are the starting papers of Strong et al. (2014) and Volkoff & Strong (2013).
2. METHODS
The main goal of this thesis is to give an overview of the current literature on the perception and actualisation of IT affordances in an organisational change setting to guide academic advances in this field. For these insights to be reliable and to ensure fruitful research recommendations, it is crucial that the review is constructed as objectively and systematically as possible. Therefore, a narrative review is not fitting as this will likely result in different outcomes every time such a type of review is conducted. Moreover, to ensure that past literature is represented accurately, it is essential that the approach of searching, selecting and analysing literature is done in a systematic way. Consequently, the research method of choice is the systematic literature review. A systematic review, ‘’must be systematic in following a methodological approach, explicit in explaining the procedures by which it was conducted, comprehensive in its scope of including all relevant material, and hence reproducible by others who would follow the same approach in reviewing the topic’’ (Okoli & Schabram, 2010, p. 1).
The definition of a systematic literate reviews is a, ‘’systematic, explicit, and reproducible method for identifying, evaluating, and synthesizing the existing body of completed and recorded work produced by researchers, scholars, and practitioners’ topic’’ (Okoli & Schabram, 2010, p. 1). To ensure the highest possible transparency and reproductivity of this research, the structure of this thesis follows the strict protocol of a systematic literature review (Okoli & Schabram, 2010). More precisely, the PRISMA statement of Moher et al. (2009) will be utilised to provide a structured and clear checklist for including articles and a flow diagram that shows the steps that are taken.
2.1 Keywords & databases
The scientific database of choice for both search strategies was Web of Science as it offers one of the largest available collection of academic journals with over 11.000 journals. Additionally, it allows for convenient filtering based on inclusion and exclusion criteria, such as author, publication year, field of study, document type and language. Before filtering with inclusion and exclusion criteria, a total sample of 7.681 articles were found in the preliminary search, 167 from the forward snowballing strategy and 7.514 from the keyword search strategy.
2.2 Inclusion and exclusion criteria
Table 1 and Figure 1 contain a quick overview of the inclusion and exclusion criteria used in the literature search and the resulting number of articles in a flowchart. Both search strategies used these criteria when checking for eligibility. For the time range of both strategies, the forward snowballing method implied that all selected articles had to be from 2013 or newer as the study by Volkoff & Strong was published in 2013. For the keyword search, there was no set time range to ensure all articles that capture relevant insights are included. Of the 7.681 articles initially found by using both search strategies, 388 of them were written in business or management journals, 95 resulting from the first strategy and 293 from the second. The articles chosen had to be peer-reviewed as this ensures that the work is checked for its validity and is evaluated as suitable for publication resulting in a higher quality of studies. Of the 388 articles remaining, 24 were left out in total as they were not peer-reviewed. All 364 remaining studies found were written in English and 2 articles in total from the forward snowballing method had to be left out because of inaccessibility. A total of 362 articles remained. These 362 remaining articles were checked for eligibility based on their abstract and introduction when in doubt.
2.3 Data analysis
As for the data analysis of the selected articles, both a descriptive and an interpretative analysis is conducted. The aim of the descriptive analysis is to give a visual overview of the articles in the sample. The interpretative analysis is done to synthesise the findings and make connections across the studies to build new theory.
For the descriptive analysis of the sample, every time one of the 56 articles were selected, the PDF was downloaded and saved in Mendeley. The 56 articles were laid out in Microsoft Excel to create an overview of the data with all the references, relevant findings, type of research conducted, type of technology that was considered and the corresponding context (this data extraction table can be seen in Appendix 6.1). For the column relevant findings, the article’s introduction and implications section were read. During this process, interesting quotes and pieces of text were already marked in Mendeley to highlight the most important findings of each study. Based on the data extraction table in Excel, graphs and tables were made presenting the methodology of choice, publication years, the type of technology studied and the number of articles per category. The chosen categories are the three main concepts in this review; the perception of IT affordances, the actualisation of IT affordances and change outcomes. The descriptive overviews existing out of tables and charts are found in the beginning of the findings section.
relationship between perception, actualisation and change outcomes of IT affordances were identified. Moreover, subcategories based on literature started to form that were also iteratively adjusted as new insights were found during the coding process. Examples of identified subcategories are first-order effects of (mis)perception of IT affordances and organisational-level outcomes of the AA process. Lastly, in a process called selective coding, the connections between the three main categories were identified to tell a story and to integrate and refine the insights (Wolfswinkel et al., 2013). This is also where most of the theorizing and building on the theory by Strong et al. (2014) was done. In the case of this review, the subcategories were not specific enough and a range of factors were established to fill this gap. These specific factors are found in the third column of the code book in Appendix 6.2. An example of a specific factor within the subcategory of social factors influencing actualisation of IT affordances is Individual characteristics. Petrakaki et al. (2014) for instance argue that IT affordances are more likely to be realised when the perception of the technology fits with their sense of professional self. The result of this coding process can be found in the codebook in Appendix 6.2. To avoid confusion, it is important to note that the categories, subcategories and factors are the theoretical concepts that have been created through the processes of open, axial and selective coding. Because some articles fit into one or more themes, they were placed in multiple (sub)categories. An example of an article that fit into multiple categories is the study done by Stoeckli et al. (2019) which identified that a key factor for achieving productivity is the integrability of IS systems into enterprise landscape, thus giving relevant insights in both concrete change outcomes as well as actualising efforts. To support the aim of this thesis, special attention was given to factors influencing perception and actualisation (social, material and organisational) as well as differentiating the level of change outcomes (task-level and organisational-level). It is important to note that these different level of concrete change outcomes are always related to IT affordances.
3. FINDINGS
This first part of this section gives an overview of the findings resulting from the 56 selected articles including tables and charts showcasing the descriptive results. Afterwards, the theoretical concept of IT affordances is explained, and the ontological view on affordances in this thesis is presented. With aid of the selected literature, the main body of the findings is written with the help of three categories and corresponding subcategories and factors. Lastly, the findings are synthesised and presented in an explanatory model to build theory.
3.1 Descriptive overview
forward snowballing method based on the studies from Strong et al. (2014) and Volkoff & Strong (2013), the larger part of the studies focus on the actualisation of IT affordances rather than perception and change outcomes. This can be explained partly due to IT affordances being studied mostly in IS literature and only recently making its spotlight in the management and business literature, thus making studies that link IT affordances and change outcomes rare. Moreover, as the findings will illustrate, the notion that affordances exist independently from actors and are waiting to be perceived, stems mostly from an ecological standpoint (Gibson, 1986; Norman, 1988). This ecological standpoint on affordances is not widely adopted in IS literature which makes studies considering the perception of IT affordances rarer.
mediating factor (e.g., Bae et al., 2016; Karahanna et al., 2018). As for the archival data, two studies gathered data in the context of natural disasters to study how organisational communities deal with, and take action during a crisis. Vaast et al. (2017) made use of Twitter’s archives to study how social media use affords new forms of collective action in the context of the gulf of the Mexico oil spill in 2010. The second study examined the posts by students at a public university during the heaviest earthquake in China since 1949 which occurred in 2008 (Nan & Lu, 2014). Examples of types of research in the ‘Other’ bar are simulation, experimentation and Q-methodology (Pentland et al., 2020; Marshall et al., 2015; Mettler et al., 2017).
introduction of the concept of affordances from the ecological and psychological literature into IS literature. It was selected during the search as it brings up multiple arguments on the perception of IT affordances and the recognition of both constraining and enabling materiality of artefacts.
Figure 4 shows the type of technology that is researched in the articles. Due to the success of Leonardi’s work on enterprise social media (ESM) affordances, many researchers were invoked to study IT affordances through the same lens (Leonardi, 2013). The most used type of technology for research are general IT applications without a specification for which one. Most of these papers were theoretical and did not base their conclusions on self-gathered data but rather on other literature or did not feel the need to specify which IT system was being studied. Third, IT in healthcare seems to develop more interest. Electronic medical records are particularly popular (e.g., Burton-Jones & Volkoff 2017; Petrakaki et al., 2014). The largest bar in the graph is made up of technologies that were used once or twice across the entire sample. This shows that even though there are a couple of popular choices for IT affordance research, there is still a wide variety of different technologies used in studies. Examples of technologies within the ‘other’ bar are virtual reality, marketing instruments, platforms and blockchain (Steffen et al., 2019; Österle et al., 2018; Califf et al., 2020; Du et al., 2019).
3.2 Defining affordances and ontological views
notice its characteristics but rather what the object affords us to do – its possibilities for action (Fayard & Weeks, 2014; Gibson, 1986). For example, when we look at a door, we do not perceive a door but rather the possibility to reach a neighbouring room (Nivedhitha & Sheik Manzoor, 2020).
Affordances can be broadly classified in two separate ontological views, namely relational and dispositional affordances (Fayard & Weeks, 2014). The first approach views affordances as a relational concept meaning they exist through the interaction between people and an artefacts’ materiality (Leonardi, 2011). This implies that affordances are potentials for action between the interaction of people and technology, and that affordances are neither properties of either technology nor people (Majchrzak & Markus, 2012; Strong et al., 2014). Following this view, affordances do not have to be actualised for them to exist, but there must be a user that could actualise them (Strong et al., 2014). This means that affordances cannot exist without potential users to actualise them and that affordances are relative to the user and its goals and needs (Fayard & Weeks, 2014; Hutchby, 2001). This relational view of affordances also implies that the artefact’s attributes are a necessary but not a sufficient condition for action possibilities (Markus & Silver, 2008). While this view is useful when seeking to understand the relationship between technology and social practices, it requires a certain level of abstraction and lacks guidelines on how affordances are recognised (Fayard & Weeks, 2014). Additionally, the criticism towards this view is emphasised by the second view on affordances which is the dispositional view.
The dispositional view on affordances is rooted in critical realism and argues that social structures, material artefacts and conceptual entities are real and exist independently of the perception of people (Volkoff & Strong, 2013; Robey et al., 2012). This approach follows the ecological fundamentals set up by Gibson (1986) and argues that affordances are real and ready to be perceived and used. This means affordances exist independently from actors - which is in direct contrast with the relational approach which argues that affordances exist between the interaction of objects and people. Put differently, in the critical realist view, affordances are thus seen as dispositions of an object that can be misinterpreted or unseen by actors (Norman, 1998). Therefore, a good design is necessary to make affordances clearly visible to the potential users (Fayard & Weeks, 2014). The main criticism towards the dispositional view on affordances is that it views technology and human actors as distinct and thus ignores the social and relative aspect of affordances that is the sociomaterial assemblage (Fayard & Weeks, 2014). Following this criticism, a critical realist view on affordances would mean that the relationship between technology, users, their goals and the organisational context and the multiple interpretations coming out of this imbrication cannot be studied (Faraj & Azad, 2012).
& Strong, 2013). Therefore, a divide exists across the literature between authors that adopt the dispositional view (e.g., Gibson, 1986; Norman, 1988; Volkoff & Strong, 2013) and those that adopt the relational view (e.g., Strong et al., 2014; Leonardi, 2011; Mettler et al., 2017). Because of this divide and debate between the two approaches, various definitions of affordances are presented which has caused confusion in the IS affordance literature. Bernardi et al. (2019) for example, posit they take a relational view yet present arguments and findings advocating the dispositional view by arguing that users engage in various forms of identity work to choose whether they want to realise a latent affordance. It thus seems that the differences between the two views are not always as evident and clear for all academics which also means there is no consensus on which view is the most appropriate lens to study IT implementation.
As a response to this debate and to establish clarity, Fayard & Weeks (2014) argue that affordances need not to be seen as either relational or dispositional but rather as a dualistic concept. Instead of adopting one of the two approaches, this thesis adopts the same position brought forward by Fayard & Weeks (2014). Taking this middle ground allows us to view affordances as real and external to the perceiver (dispositional) yet also relative to the perceiver (relational) meaning they depend on the user’s abilities and goals (Hutchby, 2001). This enables us to more effectively study and unravel the factors impacting the perception, actualisation and consequent change outcomes of IT affordances. Taking this integrative and holistic view also allows us to explain how artefacts shape practice in a non-deterministic way while acknowledging that the materiality of affordances can both enable and constrain users (Fayard & Weeks, 2014). A last benefit of this approach is that we get to review papers that have either taken a relational or dispositional view and combine their insights.
3.3 Perception of affordances
3.3.1 Social factors
Literature shows that there are characteristics of the individual such as self-efficacy, selective attention and user needs influencing the perception of affordances. There are also scholars that view the abilities and skills of individuals as crucial to the perception process.
People, consciously or not, tend to draw on their own characteristics to perceive certain affordances (Österle et al., 2018; Petrakaki et al., 2014). Leonardi (2011) for example argues that humans use past human agencies (the ability to form and achieve goals) to construct a perception on future IT affordances. Similarly, Österle et al. (2018) find that personal expectations regarding the effective usage of affordances and their interests influence whether perception happens or not. Past human agencies (self-efficacy) can thus depict the strength of personal expectations regarding affordance usage. Marshall et al. (2015) follow this view and posit that a productive perception of affordances requires both an awareness of the features and an expectation that the available action possibilities are promising and relevant.
In contrast to personal expectations, Bae et al. (2016) maintain that the perception of affordances is influenced by the entertainment and convenient information IT creates for its users. In line with Gibson’s (1986) ecological stance on affordances, Bae et al. (2016) argue that affordances of artefacts are the same across contexts and do not depend on the users but that the visual perception of these affordances do vary based on individual differences and needs.
A different individual characteristic found in literature is the selective attention that agents have for their surroundings (Yakhlef & Rietveld, 2019). Also described as ‘education of attention’, this concept explains that the more agents are open to unorthodox responses in their environment, the more likely they are open to novel courses of action and perceive affordances (Yakhlef & Rietveld, 2019). This view is supported by Demir (2015) as he claims that affordances are perceived as useful and valuable based on users’ attention which is in turn influenced by users’ needs.
Petrakaki et al. (2014) take a cultural perspective where the perception is depicted by the cultural-professional context an individual finds itself in. This cultural context is argued to have shared meanings and the co-presence of these meanings and other individuals influence how affordances in this context are perceived. A different cultural take is that the chance of actors reacting to existing affordances is increased when individuals come from different socio-material contexts (Yakhlef & Rietveld, 2019). When actors come from different socio-material contexts, they possess a larger variety of skills that can be utilised to engage with affordances.
found that the level of knowledge and skills of actors influence the perception of affordances in a branding context. The authors also give recommendations regarding increasing knowledge and skills. They for instance propose that actors need to have the opportunity to get to know the organisation, products, offerings and receive sufficient training in products and service (Österle et al., 2018). Yakhlef & Rietveld (2019) argue that there are more available affordances in a landscape than any actor can perceive because one individual can only have a limited number of skills. They posit that affordances exist largely independent of actors and since there are more affordances than individuals can perceive or use, it is the role of designers to make affordances easily perceptible. Furthermore, they assume that when actors from different fields collaborate, they can gain the skills and abilities needed to gain access to available affordances (Yakhlef & Rietveld, 2019).
3.3.2 Material factors
The second main category that is found in the literature to influence the perception of affordances relies on the inherent characteristics of the system (Hutchby, 2001). So, not the actor or its characteristics and skills are said to play a role but rather the features inherent to materiality.
3.3.3 Organisational factors
Within the last factor influencing the perception process, it is found that (hierarchical) structure and management as well as the available information on affordances provided by the organisation play a key role.
Kim (2018) proposes that when affordances are introduced in a hierarchical environment, employees in different status groups perceive the same technology in different ways resulting in different patterns of IT use. This IT use in turn is found to influence the reproduction of status hierarchies in organisations thus making social status management crucial to ensure affordances are perceived. More specifically, the study of Seidel et al. (2013) highlights how the relevance of accessibility to affordances is crucial to recognition. It is said it is the task of management to make affordances physically accessible for its intended users (e.g., through providing training). The standpoint that management plays a vital role in the perception of affordances is also found in the work of Von Krogh & Haefliger (2010). Middle management, as designers, are argued to be responsible for anticipating characteristics of external IT artefacts and evaluating its potential value for their organisational problems and goals. It is therefore the entrepreneur’s challenge to identify and build bridges between existing artefacts and a new group of users willing to use the artefact’s affordances (Von Krogh & Haefliger, 2010). Not only middle managers but also top management (TMT) is found to be influential in the perception process (López-Muñoz & Escribá-Esteve, 2019). TMT members are said to make sense of affordances by using interpretations of past practices and their current goals. The resulting sensemaking of TMT influences how affordances are framed and positioned in the organisational landscape. Effectively, this means that attention of TMT towards affordances is required for successful perception by employees (López-Muñoz & Escribá-Esteve, 2019).
3.3.4 First-order effects
In the context of the perception of affordances, first-order effects are consequences and outcomes of the perception process other than recognising the intended affordance. Across the literature, these are feedback loops and different affordances.
Feedback loops in this context are considered as mechanisms affecting contextual and social factors that in turn influence the perception process of individuals. For example, next to offering the concept that perception of affordances compels actors to change their routines, Leonardi (2011) also argues that a successful perception leads actors to make new imbrications between human and material agencies. An example of this process is given by Leonardi (2011) where he describes coordinators that have the goal of disseminating reports to community members with the help of a certain word processing technology. After a while, the coordinators change their goals (human agency) and rather want to send out visually appealing newsletters. Unfortunately, the current word processing technology (material agency) does not have the appropriate capabilities for achieving this. As a result, their perception of the current technology is that it constrains them in reaching their newly set goals. The coordinators will thus likely change the material agency to reach their goals and thus make new imbrications. This new imbrication creates a new technological infrastructure that in turn, actors draw on to perceive affordances and constraints, effectively creating a feedback loop. Marshall et al. (2015) offer a complementary view where perception is argued to impact how users interact with other IT processes. By impacting various IT processes, the perception of one indirectly affects the perception and actual use of another affordance. For example, Lee et al. (2019) found that newly hired employees perceive and use existing IT systems based on the perceptions of other colleagues. Moreover, literature shows that perceived affordances by TMT dictate future change needs and indirectly affects social interactions and sensemaking (López-Muñoz & Escribá-Esteve, 2019).
3.4 Actualisation of affordances
Actualisation in the context of IT affordances is defined as ‘’the actions taken by actors as they take advantage of one or more affordances through their use of the technology to achieve immediate concrete outcomes in support of organisational goals’’ (Strong et al., 2014, p. 70). This concept is also called the affordance-actualisation (AA) process (Strong et al., 2014). The purpose of this section is to showcase that the awareness of the existence of an action possibility by an actor (perception) is not enough - this possibility needs to be turned into action (actualisation) (Bernhard et al., 2013). This section is divided into social, material and organisational factors influencing the AA process as well as showcasing first-order effects that come forth from (un)successful actualisation of IT affordances.
3.4.1 Social factors
Across the literature, three separate social factors are found influencing the AA process. These are actualisation effort, collaboration and individual characteristics.
Actualisation effort describes the degree of effort the user of an object has to invest to act on it (Bernhard et al., 2013, p. 6). Some argue that the actualisation effort has to be in balance with the perceived expected outcomes to facilitate successful use of IT artefacts (Siegert & Löwstedt, 2019; Stoeckli et al., 2019). If there is a misalignment where the expected outcomes are smaller than the perceived actualisation effort, it is unlikely actors will invest into successful actualisation. By making sure that actors are motivated and group dynamics are considered, the actualisation effort can be successfully mitigated to stimulate IT adoption (Mettler & Winter, 2016; Seidel et al., 2013).
Collaboration between actors to achieve outcomes through the actualisation of affordances is often found as a constituent for social processes influencing the AA process (Leidner et al., 2018). Various authors argue from the same standpoint where the concepts of connective and collective affordances are seen as affordances actualised by actors that engage in collective action (Finnegan & Currie, 2010; Verstegen et al., 2019). Leonardi (2013) supports this view where his concept of shared affordances is explained as actualisation by actors who share the same needs and uses of technology. Having such a collaborative approach between people but also promoting the integration of culture, processes and technology is found to be paramount for successful adoption of IT systems (Finnegan & Currie, 2010).
When, for example, users evaluate their self-organising opportunities in their work as high, they are more likely to engage with new IT systems and achieve work benefits (Krancher et al., 2018). A different study by Lee et al. (2019) gives insight in how new employees interact with existing affordances in organisations. When employees join a organisation, they are argued to undergo four stages of socialisation before being fully integrated with the firm (Lee, 2019). Based on where they are in this process, they actualise ESM affordances to varying degrees. For example, after recently joining, ESM is often used as a way to clarify who is who in the workplace effectively meaning that the affordances for accessing profiles and information were mostly realised (Lee, 2019). Seidel et al. (2013) find different user characteristics, such as action goals, motivation and attitude to be influencing the realisation of functional affordances. Additionally, actors’ needs are found to motivate the use of enterprise ESM to fulfil and satisfy these needs to the extent to which if affordances do not have the capabilities to satisfy current needs, they will purposely not be actualised (Karahanna et al., 2018).
A relatively new concept, affordance potency, zooms in on the abilities of the individual in relation to technology and explains that along with successful perception of affordances, a strong affordance potency is a necessary condition for AA (Anderson & Robey, 2017). Affordance potency is defined as ‘’the strength of the relationship between the abilities of the individual and the features of the system at the time of actualisation, conditioned by the characteristics of the work environment’’ (p. 103). Although similar to actualisation effort which has been touched on before, affordance potency explicitly and specifically looks at the abilities and skills of individuals in a certain work environment at the time of actualisation. Actualisation effort is different in the sense that it is the perceived effort required to use an IT system by an individual before a potential actualisation. It is found that perceived affordance potency by actors and their goals dictate if and how users engage with affordances (Anderson & Robey, 2017). To increase affordance potency, one could encourage employees to learn the capabilities of the IT system and be proactive to new challenges to gain the appropriate and required skills and abilities (Chae et al., 2020).
3.4.2 Material factors
communication systems, one can boost flow and aesthetic experience and increase the likeliness for actualisation (Suh et al., 2017). A different perspective offered by Demir (2015) showcases that when familiar (to actors) features of material objects are placed in the everyday work field, affordances are more effectively bundled and makes actions to actualise affordances intuitive and readily identifiable.
3.4.3 Organisational factors
Across the studies on the actualisation of affordances, the largest group finds and supports the view that organisational factors such as the structure & enterprise environment, culture and processes affect the AA process.
A key factor for achieving organisational benefits through realizing affordances is the integrability of IS into the enterprise landscape (Stoeckli et al., 2019). The AA process is thus conditioned by characteristics of the work environment and should be seen as practice enacted through technology within an environment (Essén & Värlander, 2019; Anderson & Robey, 2017; Krancher et al., 2018; Fayard & Weeks, 2014). Details of actualisation processes are reliant on aspects of the techno-organisational context that gives rise to various mechanisms that enable or constrain affordances (Bygstad et al., 2016). In other words, the organisational context might enable yet also constrain end-users from seizing the opportunities and benefits associated with IS (Mettler et al., 2017). For example, Bygstad et al. (2016) found in the context of an airline firm that cross-disciplinary workshops with developers, IT architects and business partners enable actualisation through formal audits where management accepts business cases. On the other hand, an infrastructure with little security in payment systems proves as a constraining condition for successfully actualising affordances (Bygstad et al., 2016). Therefore, if one wishes to create value through affordances, a rearrangement of the business structure might be necessary (Tim et al., 2020; Leidner et al., 2018).
organisation (López-Muñoz & Escribá-Esteve, 2019). Similarly, managers are argued to be accountable for having a holistic grasp on how certain technologies afford potential actions that are aligned with the strategic goals and value propositions of the firm (Lehrer et al., 2018).
To stimulate that action potentials in a technology-associated context are realised, some authors argue for shifting cultural elements as affordances are not solely dependent on materiality nor perceptions of actors (Petrakaki et al., 2014). Chatterjee et al. (2020) for example maintain that organisational courage inherit to culture can act as an effective contingency that affect the actualisation of IT affordances. Their argument for the need of organisational courage stems from the idea that during transformations, the outcomes are unknown and fear can hinder any process in innovations, thus making courage a necessity to bypass this hurdle and commit to change (Chatterjee et al., 2020). Additionally, a culture that supports intrapreneurship and collaboration with start-ups is found to contribute to AA (Du et al., 2019). Collaborating with start-ups can help implementing enterprise systems and actualise the related affordances to these systems. Similarly to organisational courage, supporting intrapreneurship (entrepreneurship within an organisation) encourages deviations of standard work processes and enables new ways to actualise action potentials (Du et al., 2019). Promoting entrepreneurship within organisational boundaries can be achieved by encouraging appropriate project leadership-skills such as paying attention to users’ cooperation and knowledge-management processes (Argyris & Ransbotham, 2016).
affordances is triggered (Verstegen et al., 2019). Taking a different approach, Du et al. (2019) recommend adding a preceding experimentation phase before the AA process to ensure higher success rates. In such an experimentation phase, the affordances are demonstrated and possible use scenarios presented (Du et al., 2019). Thus, in a technology implementation cycle, exercised and deliberate agentic action can actualise static affordances in more effective ways (Goh et al., 2011). By ensuring a fit between the tasks performed and the technology implemented, actors will be more likely to use IS (Fu et al., 2019). This fit between novel technology and existing processes is not only dependent on the material aspects of the IS but also the characteristics of the performed tasks and processes in place (Fu et al., 2019).
3.4.4 First-order effects
The AA process, as proposed by Strong et al. (2014) directly produces immediate concrete outcomes. However, by the realisation of potentials through actions and actualised immediate concrete outcomes, unintended changes are indirectly made to organisational context, social factors and the materiality of IT itself (Strong et al., 2014; Du et al., 2019). These changes thus generate feedback loops that influence the rise of new affordances and the fabrication of different affordances (Du et al., 2019). In other words, first-order effects in this context are regarded as unintended consequences and outcomes of the AA process other than achieving the intended concrete (change) outcomes.
Feedback loops in this context are considered as mechanisms affecting individual, organisational and material elements giving rise to affordances and consequently the AA process (Strong et al., 2014). Thus, as actualised affordances may diffuse or diminish over time per individual, practices of how actors interact with IT systems and the surrounding context, changes (Nan & Lu, 2014). The concept of feedback loops following the AA process is considered in the literature but not often explicitly researched, with a few exceptions (Du et al., 2019; Stoeckli et al., 2019). For example, it is found that if the successful realisation of action potentials is perceived by others, it may lead other users to do the same and thus ensure adoption of a newly implemented IT system (Stoeckli et al., 2019). Moreover, in the setting of blockchain technology, results show that feedback is used to adjust the blockchain system itself to enable a better understanding of the technology by actors (Du et al., 2019).
of IT affordances in non-profit organisations, Bobsin et al. (2019) find that affordances have subcategories that connect the functionality of affordances to concrete outcomes. Without taking a determinist approach, they find that these sub-categories of affordances precede or create the condition for other affordances to emerge.
3.5 Change outcomes
To make use of action potentials that IT systems give to actors directly has consequences in changes of work routines of actors (Laumer et al., 2016; Leonardi, 2011). Moreover, changes in technological-structural context enables or constrains groups to create value and consequently achieve outcomes and goals (Strong et al., 2014). Following the ideas of the chosen starting papers, IT-associated change is found to be under researched in the sense that the impact of IT and the actualisation of the potentials it offers on organisational change is mostly unknown. As a result, scholars have been going further than simply studying the actualisation of affordances by also finding immediate concrete outcomes that support (change) goals. Strong et al. (2014) define immediate concrete outcomes as ‘’a specific expected outcome from actualisation, such as standardisation or coordination, that is viewed as useful for realising overarching organisational goals’’ (p. 70). These outcomes can be defined at the individual, group, organisational level (Strong et al., 2014). Rather than taking this categorisation based on entities, the choice has been made to instead make a distinction based on the level of outcomes themselves. Aligned with the found literature, this means change outcomes will be specified under task-level and organisational-level outcomes. Taking this perspective enables the identification of change effects on the tasks and procedures done by actors as well as outcomes that affect the organisation as a whole. As one of the main purposes of this review is to better the understanding of the relation between AA and change outcomes, each study in this section only considers change outcomes following the realisation of IT affordances.
3.5.1 Task-level
Based on the literature, a categorisation has been found and made between routines & practices, knowledge sharing, productivity and decision-making.
self-view actors have of their identity and skills in relation to an IT system which influences the purposeful engagement with technology and the realisation of affordances (Bernardi et al., 2019). Possibly the most known author on linking IT affordances with work routines is Leonardi (2011;2013). Simply put, his argument is that when one acts on perceived affordances, new intentions about the use of a certain IS are formed which in turn enable new work practices (Leonardi, 2011; 2013). In the context of sustainable transformations, Seidel et al. (2013) follow the same view where the primary role of IS is found to be creating new ways of sustainable practising.
Knowledge sharing is found to be an immediate concrete outcome following the AA process that groups engage in (Bobsin et al., 2019). The sharing of knowledge is underpinned by social change in organisations. Mohajerani et al (2015) argue that social change, the way humans interact and how relationships are created and transformed, is stimulated by ESM use and the affordances it offers to actors. From a different approach, Lee et al. (2019) find that social change is depicted by stages of socialisation new employees go through when newly hired. Based on these stages, they assimilate differently into the company culture and the knowledge of co-workers through the use of enterprise ESM affordances (Lee et al., 2019). In the context of gamified IS, similar results are found where these systems enable knowledge contribution among employees (Suh & Wagner, 2017).
In the context of ESM, scholars find not only that affordances can constrain actors through stress and social struggles but also affords productivity enhancement in their tasks and activities (Leidner et al., 2018; Bobsin et al., 2019). For example, results show that that employees can bypass restrictions and unnecessary administrative burden to do their activities faster (Leidner et al., 2018). Moreover, ESM affordances are found to reduce cyberslacking by enabling social bonding and involvement among employees and thus increasing the productivity overall (Nivedhitha & Sheik Manzoor, 2020).
The last task-level immediate change outcome found in the literature is a better-informed decision-making process. Decision-making based on the affordances of big data analytics has been proven to lead to enlightened decisions if actualised through the appropriate actualisation mechanisms (Dremel et al., 2020). Burton-Jones & Volkoff (2017) find similar results by showcasing that depending on different organisational goals, appropriate clinical decisions can be made based on relevant data and an improved understanding when actors realise the action potentials offered by health IT systems.
3.5.2 Organisational-level
Strategic changes are those that affect the mission and goals of the organisation or the way these goals are achieved and value is created. Lehrer et al. (2018) highlight that big data analytics affords the shaping of creating improved value propositions for customers when service provision is aligned with the organisation’s strategic goals. In the context of non-profit organisations, Bobsin et al. (2019) argue that there is often no strategic thinking driving the performance to achieve certain goals. The authors contend that the affordances of technology can aid as a strategic tool to develop human capital, reconfigure relationships with external partners (e.g., through knowledge sharing) and consequently help build an appropriate strategic vision (Bobsin et al., 2019). ‘’Organisational synergy is a process where additional mutual benefits such as value are materialised through a persistent pairing of resources’’ (Rehm & Goel, 2017, p. 441). The linkage of complementary activities and resources generates IT affordances that should be leveraged within new contexts (e.g., new objectives), to become a source of synergy so value creation can be reviewed and enhanced (Rehm & Goel, 2017). Actualising IT affordances not only affects collective-level goals but also has impact on three facets in strategy making (Verstegen et al., 2019; Plesner & Gulbrandsen, 2015). In the context of ESM, these are found to be strategic decision-making, the control technology has over company strategy and the boundaries separating organisations from its environments (Plesner & Gulbrandsen, 2015).
A second group of authors maintain that actualising IT affordances leads to increased levels of organisational innovation (e.g., Chatterjee et al., 2020; Mohajerani et al., 2015; Gode et al., 2019). Innovation is defined as the development or implementation of new or altered products or services that create new value for an organisation’s stakeholders (Chatterjee et al., 2020). Results show that IT affordances can enable an enhanced innovation if paired with organisational courage and appropriate organisational ethics (Chatterjee et al., 2020; Chatterjee et al., 2015). In addition to advocating the impact of big data on strategic goals, Lehrer et al. (2018) posit that big data technologies enable service innovation to generate a competitive advantage when aligned with strategic goals. Moreover, when employees collectively engage in ESM on ideation (communicating about ideas), it has been found innovation is stimulated (Gode et al., 2019).
Lastly, at the organisational level, IT affordances are found to impact structural properties of the organisation. Institutional changes following the actualisation of affordances reshape not only established structures and processes at the field level but also lead to institutional transformations. These transformations affect structural and behavioural patterns as well as the technological structure throughout the organisation (Essén & Värlander, 2019). Examples are transformations in IT development projects, staff regulations and experimental use of technology (Essén & Värlander, 2019). Pentland et al. (2020) posit their standpoint from a different view and argue that established digitised processes in organisations can drift and create incremental changes in nonlinear bursts. Together, these bursts can create significant changes in process structure. Designing IT systems to influence and mediate these shifts can successfully mitigate the intensity of these transformations in process structure (Pentland et al., 2020). Lastly, technologies seem to afford different changes in structures depending on how the materiality of the technology is interpreted and used in its actual context (e.g., professional practice) (Petrakaki et al., 2014). It was found for example that based on their professional roles, nurses used electronic health records in different ways as the system could either aid them in their work or it could create fear due to peer control (Petrakaki et al., 2014). Through these different uses, clinical responsibilities are shifted and professional boundaries and structures reshaped.
3.6 Synthesis of findings
extensions are a direct answer to the call of Strong et al. (2014) and Volkoff & Strong (2013) to explore factors that affect affordances in IT-associated organisational change.
Before actualisation of IT affordances can take place, actors need to be aware of these action potentials in their environment. Literature shows that social factors such as self-efficacy, personal expectations, selective attention, user needs, cultural perspectives and individual’s abilities influence how actors recognise the existence of action potentials (Österle et al., 2018; Leonardi, 2011; Yakhlef & Rietveld, 2019; Demir, 2015; Petrakaki et al., 2014; Mettler et al., 2017). Managers can capitalise on
designed signifiers that signal available behaviour to users (Laumer et al., 2016; Piccoli et al., 2017; Yakhlef & Rietveld, 2019). Furthermore, it is recommended to compare the old system with the new to show the differences and improvements associated with the change (Steffen et al., 2019; Bae et al., 2016). Lastly, organisational context and structures in place impact how actively aware actors are of IT affordances. Hierarchical statuses, management’s views, accessibility to and available information on the possible action potentials of IT systems are found to be critical factors in the perception process (Kim, 2018; Von Krogh & Haefliger, 2010; López Muñoz & Escribá-Esteve, 2019; Seidel et al., 2013; Stoeckli et al., 2019; Bae et al., 2016).
Now that we have an overview of which factors influence successful perception processes, affordances still need to be actualised to realise their potential benefits. Findings show that social factors such as actualisation efforts, collaboration between actors and individual characteristics leverage the successful realisation of IT affordances (Bernhard et al., 2013; Leidner et al., 2018; Seidel et al., 2013). In order to lower actualisation efforts, managers should focus on mitigating personal expectations to desirable levels and motivating them through the right means (Siegert & Löwstedt, 2019). To reach collective level goals, collaboration has to be stimulated by linking users with the same needs and goals (Leonardi, 2013). As for promoting a fit between individual characteristics and IT affordances, factors such as morale, reputation, professional growth opportunities, identity work, attitude and affordance potency should be considered to boost widespread actualisation (Leidner et al., 2018; Bernardi et al., 2019; Petrakaki et al., 2014; Seidel et al., 2013; Anderson & Robey, 2017). Similar to the results of the previous section, a smaller group of scholars argue for designing the system features and characteristics in a way to facilitate AA. Examples of how to boost actualisation through the inherent characteristics of materiality are embedding trust and gamification elements (Califf et al., 2020; Suh et al., 2017). Lastly, if firms wish to establish an organisational context that stimulates and supports the actualisation of IT affordances, a reorganisation of the structure, culture and processes might be necessary. This can be done through knowledge sharing, investing in fitting complementary technological resources, developing suitable management layers, stimulating desired cultural elements (e.g., courage and intrapreneurship) and designing appropriate processes and routines (e.g., experimentation) (Jacobson, 2015; Essén & Värlander, 2019; Rehm & Goel, 2017; Von Krogh & Haefliger, 2010; Lehrer et al., 2018; Petrakaki et al., 2014; Chatterjee et al., 2020; Du et al., 2019; Du et al., 2019).
tasks and processes allows practitioners to take goal-directed actions. If, for instance, one wishes to promote knowledge sharing amongst employees, social interactions in the context of socialisation stages should be considered (Mohajerani et al., 2015; Lee et al., 2019). Alternatively, if the aim is to increase productivity, the enabling facilities of ESM can be used to bypass red tape and boost outputs (Leidner et al., 2018). Next to finding results at the task-level, scholars find that AA also has effects on organisational-level outcomes. These are found to be strategy, innovation, overall efficiency and organisational structure (Lehrer et al., 2018; Rehm & Goel, 2017; Chatterjee et al., 2020; Stoeckli et al., 2019; Essén & Värlander, 2019). For creating new sources of synergy and value propositions, the use of IT affordances needs to be aligned with goal-directed action (Rehm & Goel, 2017). Moreover, by making use of the benefits provided by big data analytics, innovation can be stimulated (Lehrer et al., 2018). Organisational courage and relevant ethics are found to be mediators in facilitating the development of innovation (Chatterjee et al., 2015). Lastly, structural changes can be managed through the use of technology in the context of professional practice or by keeping the drifting of digitised processes in check (Petrakaki et al., 2014; Pentland et al., 2020).
4. DISCUSSION
The theory of affordances and the principles of sociomateriality have been used extensively to study the implementation of IT systems (Hutchby, 2001; Markus & Silver, 2008). The result of this stream of literature are various types of affordances (e.g., visibility) and diverse mechanisms (e.g., coordinating organisational actions) for actualising them (Treem & Leonardi, 2013; Dremel et al., 2020). To produce better outcomes following the actualisation of IT affordances, there has been a call to study IT affordances in organisational change settings (Strong et al., 2014; Volkoff & Strong, 2013). This review systematically selected and analysed the papers that answered this call for research and by doing so, found three main areas within this stream of literature that are underdeveloped.
First, the studies that have contributed to better the understanding of IT affordances in organisational change have not yet been synthesised in an overarching framework. Having such a foundation is critical for sound theory building and advancements in academic literature. Secondly, academics not often consider the perception process of affordances by users as a necessary condition for actualisation (Pozzi et al., 2014). Within the sample of studies selected in this review, only 21 out of 56 considered the recognition of action potentials. Yet, this step is important to consider as affordances in this thesis are positioned as not only relative but also as real. This means that the misperception of affordances is a possibility. Thirdly, few studies pay attention to unintended effects and outcomes resulting from perception or actualisation processes of IT affordances. In this review, only 16 out of 56 articles considered this idea, whereas the larger part of papers neglect this thought or assume that purposeful perception and actualisation of IT affordances always lead to intended outcomes. As Balogun & Johnson (2005) have argued, intended actions often lead to unintended outcomes and thus this notion should not be disregarded.
Therefore, this thesis aims to map the extant literature on the perception and actualisation processes of IT affordances in a framework and examine how they lead to intended and unintended concrete change outcomes and effects.
4.1 Theoretical implications
this review takes a different and dualist view on affordances (both relational and dispositional), it does highlight that affordances exist in the real domain by explicitly considering the perception of IT affordances.
The proposed model in this review answers the direct call of Strong et al. (2014) to study IT affordances in change settings by extending their AA model. Both models are similar as they showcase that IT affordances can be leveraged to realise concrete outcomes through actualisation processes. Moreover, both models showcase that the emergence of IT affordances and these actualisation processes are influenced by the organisational context and external factors. However, the presented model here extends their work in several ways. Where external factors and organisational context in the model of Strong et al. (2014) remain unspecified, this review concretely indicates various factors impacting successful actualisation processes (e.g., actualisation effort). These factors can aid in the successful implementation of new IT systems and help to realise desired IT-associated change outcomes. Different from the AA model by Strong et al. (2014), the presented conceptual model in this review also adds the perception of affordances as a mediating step in the model. This step, the recognition of action potentials, is not often considered in the literature. Yet, findings show this step is crucial as there are more affordances in a certain environment than an individual can perceive and use. Therefore, affordances need to be designed in a way that makes them easily perceptible (Norman, 1998; Piccolo et al., 2017; Yakhlef & Rietveld, 2019). Lastly, Strong et al. (2014) do not specify what concrete outcomes can be achieved resulting from AA processes. This review fills this gap by identifying and dividing change outcomes in two separate categories (task-level and organisational-level outcomes). The identification of these specific outcomes helps managers understand these various possible effects and how to act accordingly to achieve them.
perceiver (dispositional). This highlights the importance of successful recognition and the inclusion of perception in the presented model.
Thirdly, the findings in this review show that the perception and actualisation of IT affordances as well as achieving change outcomes can lead to unintended effects and outcomes through first-order effects and feedback loops. These unintended effects can stimulate successful perception and actualisation for others or adjust IT systems according to new goals and needs. In other words, these unexpected side-effects are found to not only impact the way employees work, but also give rise to the emergence of action potentials, or impact the perception and actualisation for others (Leonardi, 2011; Du et al., 2019; Hutchby, 2001). This makes the proposed conceptual model in this review an iterative one, where unintended consequences continuously influence the processes that initially gave rise to these consequences. Contrary to traditional belief, unintended outcomes are found to not always be negative but also to have the capability to deliver benefits through boosting faster adoption and improved IT systems. Therefore, it is important to be aware of these unforeseen side-effects and take them into consideration when planning and designing IT-associated change.
4.2 Research recommendations and limitations
The fifth and last recommendation for future research stems from the finding that material factors impacting perception and actualisation are understudied in literature. Most academics researching factors for explaining the successful perception and actualisation of affordances tend to examine human and social factors or the organisational context rather than the system features of the IT system in question. In the sample of this review, only 11 out of 56 papers considered material factors. As system features are what actors interact with to achieve desired outcomes, they are deemed just as important and thus require more academic attention.
The last recommendation for future research automatically shapes the first limitation of this review. As the materialistic side of IT affordances in organisational change settings has not yet received much attention (in comparison to the other factors), the material factors in the conceptual model are rather limited and not exhaustive. A second limitation in this review is that the proposed factors and found concrete outcomes are not of a causal logic and cannot be viewed as deterministic. Therefore, the conceptual model has to be interpreted with caution. Thirdly, as the aim of this thesis is to study IT affordances in the context of organisational change, articles that were in any other journals than business & management were not considered. This choice likely led to the omission of valuable studies in other fields (such as information systems literature).
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