INVESTIGATING THE INTRODUCTION OF AN IT
APPLICATION: HOW DOES IT CAUSE THE
EMERGENCE OF ORGANIZATIONAL
AFFORDANCES?
A single case study using critical realism
ByHarm Jurjen Van der Wal Student number: S2195216
University of Groningen Faculty of Economics and Business
MSc BA Change Management
Abstract – Information systems (IS) are increasingly used by organizations for almost every aspect. In order to exploit the full potential of an IS, users should have a common understanding on what IS can do for them and the organization. This refers to the concept of organizational affordances. However, there is still a limited understanding on how and why these actually emerge. A single case study from a critical realist perspective revealed several interacting mechanisms and contextual factors that contributed to the emergence of organizational affordances. Next to this, the importance of matching interactions between a user and the relevant constituent structures of an IT artefact has been identified. These findings could help managers of organization to improve the effectiveness of their IS in supporting their business.
Key words: Organizational affordances; Mechanisms; Critical realism; IT artefact
Supervisor: Dr. B. Mueller Co-assessor: prof. dr. E.W. Berghout
INTRODUCTION ...3 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ...5 CRITICAL REALISM ...5 IT ARTEFACT ... 10 AFFORDANCES ... 12 SYNTHESIS ... 15 METHODOLOGY ... 15 RESEARCH DESIGN ... 16 CASE DESCRIPTION ... 17 DATA COLLECTION ... 19 DATA ANALYSIS ... 22 RESEARCH QUALITY... 24 FINDINGS ... 25
CASE FINDINGS, MECHANISMS AND THE CAUSALLY RELEVANT PROGRESSION OF EVENTS ... 25
CREATION OF OIB ... 26
DIFFUSION ... 28
Network diffusion mechanism... 28
Equilibrium mechanism. ... 29
Standards reinforcement mechanism. ... 30
ADOPTION ... 31
The innovation mechanism. ... 31
Compliance mechanism. ... 32
EMERGENCE OF ORGANIZATIONAL AFFORDANCES ... 34
ENACTED MECHANISMS FOR THE EMERGENCE ... 40
Familiarity mechanism... 40 Involvement mechanism. ... 41 Congruence mechanism. ... 42 CONCLUDING REMARKS ... 43 DISCUSSION ... 45 Managerial implications. ... 48
Limitations and areas for future research. ... 48
CONCLUSION ... 49
REFERENCES ... 50
INTRODUCTION
Everything is becoming more digital in the modern era. Information systems (IS) are increasingly used and relied upon for almost every aspect within the working life of contemporary organizations. More resources are invested by organizations to invest in complex information technologies (IT) and IS (Stacey, 2007; Jasperson, Carter and Zmud, 2005).
However, these expensive and complex IS are not used to their fullest extent (Shaikh and Karjaluoto, 2015). Users will often apply and use a limited set of IT features differently and seldomly will start using extensions of the available IT features (Shaikh and Karjaluoto, 2015). Especially when users have been accustomed to using the IT in a particular way, it can be challenging to change the way they use the IT. As a consequence, organizations can miss out on the potential opportunities that IS provide to improve aspects of their businesses in the longer term (Li, Hsieh and Rai, 2013).
In order to overcome this, users should have a common understanding on what IT can do for them and the organization. As more individuals collectively make sense of what a technology enables them and their organization to do, better organizational outcomes can be expected from using IT. (Leonardi, 2012; Poole and DeSanctis, 1992; Poole and DeSanctis, 2004). However, how this is can be achieved seems unclear.
This has led researchers to investigate how a certain IT is interpreted differently by users (Markus and Silver, 2008; Leonardi, 2012; Strong et al., 2014). They adopted the concept of affordances to explain this diversity (Pozzi, Pigni and Vitari, 2014). This suggests that the differences in usage of IT depend on the perception of the properties of the object and on the user’s assessment on what he can do with the object given his goals and capabilities (Markus and Silver, 2008).
towards organizational affordances is still unknown and needs further attention (Strong et al., 2014).
This study will use critical realism as a philosophy in the field of IS to theorize about the emergence of organizational affordances. Even though much has been written about how to apply the philosophy in research, there is still a significant demand for empirical work to be done (Wynn Jr. and Williams, 2012; Zachariadis, Scott and Barret, 2013; Bygstad, Munkvold and Volkoff, 2016). Therefore, the goal of this research then is to expand and enhance our understanding of the emergence of organizational affordances by using critical realism.
Consequently, this research tries to answer the following research question: “How can the introduction of an innovative IT application cause the emergence of organizational affordances?”. In order to fill the proposed gaps and answer the research question, a single case study from a critical realist perspective will be employed. The creation and diffusion of an IT innovation in the Utility services department of a European conglomerate between 2008 and 2012 has been selected and analysed for this research.
This research will provide contributions from a theoretical and managerial perspective by improving the understanding on the dynamic process of how individuals in an organization converge on what a specific IT application can do for them. This has two important implications. Firstly, the research enhances the understanding of organizational affordances by demonstrating how and why organizational affordances emerge between an IT artefact and the organization. Secondly, research contributes by stating that a match between the institutional structure of a user’s group or organization and the latent structure of an IT artefact seems desirable in order to enable organizational benefits more rapidly.
This research would also be of interest for IT managers who are looking for ways to improve the efficacy and effectiveness of IS in order to improve their business performance in the longer term (Li et al., 2013).
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Theoretical background is needed to clarify some definitions and constructs. First of all, this research will elaborate on the philosophy of critical realism. Secondly, an explanation will be provided on what constitutes an IT artefact. Thirdly, the concept of affordances and organizational affordances will be discussed. Lastly, a synthesis of these three main topics will be provided.
Critical realism
Critical realism (CR) is a philosophy that has been made famous by the writings of Bhaskar (1975). CR takes an idiosyncratic view of the world, reality and the role of humans in this world. The philosophy underlines a reality that exists independent of human cognition and perception (Wynn Jr. and Williams, 2012; Tsang, 2013). Furthermore, researchers using this philosophy try to find the adequate structures and mechanisms that have caused events in the world to happen.
Structure. A structure is defined as a “set of internally related objects or practices” (Sayer, 1992, p. 92). It refers to the inner composition that makes each object what it is and not something else (Danermark et al., 2002).
A structure has certain properties and apparent tendencies that cannot be assigned to one of the components. It is the relationship among the various internal components of a structure that create these properties and tendencies (Wynn Jr. and Williams, 2012). To enlighten this concept, Wynn Jr. and Williams (2012) explain it by using water as an example, which is composed of hydrogen and oxygen molecules. Yet, the properties of water cannot be directly attributed to one of those elements. A property is seen as “a characteristic of an entity or system that exists independently of other systems dependent only on the structure of the system” (Mingers and Standing, 2017, p. 178). Tendencies refer to characteristic actions of a given entity or object (Bhaskar, 1975). Whether these actions happen is not deterministic (Danermark et al., 2002).
that are part of this socio-technical environment (Mingers and Standing, 2017). Institutional structures such as systems of shared norms, contracts, values, practices and ideas that shape our social behaviour are also examples of structures. (Elder-Vass, 2005; Wynn Jr. and Williams, 2012). Moreover, technological artefacts such as software tools, IT and applications and even a language or a certain culture can be accounted as a structure (Fleetwood, 2005).
Mechanisms. An important aspect of CR research revolves around the concept of the mechanism, which is the cornerstone of causation (Bhaskar, 1975; Mingers and Standing, 2017). CR-based research focuses on the how and why of a question by explaining the process and conditions under which event “A” causes event “B” to occur via the use of mechanisms (Mayntz, 2004; Zachariadis et al., 2013). This concept can be seen as the thing that causes something in the world to happen (Danermark et al., 2002). Lawson (1997) can be defined as follows:
“the way of acting or working of a structured thing. [..] Structured things (physical objects or social processes) possess causal (or emergent) powers which, when triggered or released, act as generative mechanisms to determine the actual phenomena of the world” (p. 21)
Mechanisms can be conceptualized as causal powers or tendencies (Sayer, 1992). The causal powers of structures or entities depend on the synergy and the interaction effect of all the different components. These powers can reside in an elemental structure, but also in higher order structures such as social groupings. Mechanisms can for example emerge from a combination of structures and the relationships between those structures (Elder-Vass, 2005; Mingers and Standing, 2017).
Mechanisms exist independently of us and should be seen as possible courses of action that depend on other interacting structures in order to be enacted. Structures cause powers to be exercised when some input is given, such that a match will light when you strike it to the side of a matchbox (Collier, 1994). Hence, it should be underlined that mechanisms are not powers that will always be enacted or will occur (Volkoff and Strong, 2013).
This is referred to as a ‘causal chain’, which should be explicit, specific and multiple in nature (Wynn Jr. and Williams, 2012). Moreover, initial conditions are important for the explanation of the causal chain. Hedström and Swedberg (1998) therefore argue that a social event cannot be explained by just one mechanism.
They (Hedström and Swedberg, 1998) explain this by using the sociological model of Coleman (1986). They state that in order to explain how event A caused event B to occur on a macro level, one has to show (1) how the macro state influences the state of an individual on a micro level. Then, it has to explain (2) how the individual deals and acts with these macro-level impacts and consequently (3) how multiple individuals generate macro-level outcomes by interacting together. This can be translated into three types of mechanisms: (1) situational mechanism (macro-micro level), (2) action-formation mechanism micro level) and (3) transaction-formational mechanisms (micro-macro level). Taken together, this would allow a comprehensive explanation on how and why things happen. A depiction of the sociological can be found in the figure below.
Figure 1: the sociological model (Adapted from Hedström and Swedberg (1998))
Events. An event can be regarded as changes, a specific happening or action resulting from the enactment of one or several enduring mechanisms (Mingers and Standing, 2017; Wynn. Jr and Williams, 2012).
The outcomes of mechanisms are probabilistic and contingent on other structures and mechanisms (Bygstad et al., 2016). For example, different conditions can trigger different mechanisms, which might lead to substantially different outcomes. Mayntz (2004) describes this as follows: “A virus cannot start an epidemic in a fully immunized population; nor is a spark enough to trigger an explosion—the powder must also be dry” (Mayntz, 2004, p. 245).
Mechanisms can also be triggered, but this can also result in no change because they are countervailed by some other mechanism (Mingers and Standing, 2017; Tsang, 2013). Tsang (2013) perfectly describes this element as follows: “The fact that the book on my desk does not fall to the ground does not imply that the gravitational force no longer exists, but instead that the force is counteracted by the presence of the desk” (Tsang, 2013, p. 176). This means that an event can also be valid when nothing is happening, while it actually should.
Figure 2: Overview and connection of CR concepts (Adapted from Sayer (1992))
Potential value. It seems that the application of CR is a suitable philosophy and perspective to study IT-mediated organizational change, because it has the potential to address the limitations of both interpretivism and positivism (Mingers, 2004; Volkoff, Strong and Elmes, 2007). Positivism undermines the reasons why things are observed in the empirical world of IT-mediated organizational change (Bhaskar, 1978; Tsang, 2013). On the other hand, interpretivism makes any form of generalizability about IT-mediated organizational change difficult to achieve (Mingers and Standing, 2017; Walsham, 1995).
CR takes a reconciling view of IT by looking both at what meaning people attach to the socio-technical world and what is happening in the empirical domain (Henfridsson and Bygstad, 2013). Moreover, the open system-view seems suitable for investigating complex phenomena such as IT-mediated organizational change. CR seems to provide a useful mindset on how to approach and untangle these complex phenomena in order to determine which structures, properties and mechanisms were important for the things that we have observed.
IT artefact
The first distinction that needs to be clarified, is the distinction between an information system and an information technology. For something to be an information system, three major and interacting parts needs to be fulfilled: people, processes and information technology (Shaikh and Karjaluoto, 2015). Hence, IS are the combined systems that keep organizations informed. IT is the material artefact that produces the information through its technology. In this research, IT, IT artefact, IT application, technological systems are terms that will be used interchangeably.
Conceptualization. There are many ways to look at technology. On one hand, technology can be seen as a stable object, a black box that does just works anywhere how it is intended (Kling, 1978; Orlikowski and Iacono, 2001; Latour, 1987). On the other hand, the conceptualization of IT can be apprehended through how it is used or adopted in certain groups
Orlikowski and Iacono (2001) argued that IT artefacts are not universal because they are interpreted differently by a wide variety of people from different groups while they are used (Grint and Woolgar, 1995). These are more than just the objects themselves. Moreover, IT artefacts are intertwined in time, place, group and in practices of groups (Orlikowski and Iacono, 2001). Lastly, they (Orlikowski and Iacono, 2001) state that IT artefacts are not only dynamic entities that change over time, there usually are several interconnected components that causes it to work.
This “ensemble” view also argues that technology can embody social structures which are designed into the IT, such as sets of rules and resources (Giddens, 1984; DeSanctis and Poole, 1994). These structures interact with the users who can possibly appropriate these structures in order to know how to act or behave. Moreover, an IT artefact carries a certain spirit with values that the object promotes.
objects, functional affordances and symbolic expressions. These first two concepts will be discussed.
Technical objects of an IT artefact. Markus and Silver (2008) state that an IT artefact consists of technical objects, which include interface components and outputs of information. Weber (1997) provides a clearer distinction of an IT artefact. He suggests that it consists of three types of structures. First of all, surface structures refer to “the facilities that are available in the information system to allow users to interact with the information system.” (Weber, 1997, p. 78). This usually refers to the system’s interface and how we access the information in the system. Secondly, deep structures are “the scripts that provides a representation of the real-world systems” (Strong and Volkoff, 2010, p. 750). The real-world systems are the structures, the properties, states and the apparent transformations that alter the states of these properties and structures (Weber, 1997; Strong and Volkoff, 2010; Wand and Weber 1995). It is a manifestation and interpretation of what these structures in the real domain imply. It deals with the logic of a system. For instance, how data is stored or structured in the IT artefact and how the IT artefact functions in a process-fashion. Thirdly, physical structures refer to how the deep and surface structures are formed and shaped into a physical technology (Strong and Volkoff, 2010). For example, data is stored and transmitted via a mass-storage device and a screen helps a user to interact with the information system.
Affordances
Essence. The affordance theory was introduced by Markus and Silver (2008), who had adopted and applied Gibson’s (1986) original affordance theory. An affordance can be defined as ‘the potential for behaviours associated with achieving an immediate concrete outcome and arising from the relation between an object (e.g. an IT artefact) and a goal-oriented actor or actors’ (Volkoff and Strong, 2013, p. 823).
An affordance arises from the dynamic relation that the technology and an actor have with each other (Majchrzak and Markus, 2012). It refers to the cognitive process of an actor’s perception on what the object can do for him at that moment in time and space. According to Markus and Silver (2008), the object has relevant properties and have non-deterministic causal potential (Bernhard, Recker and Burton-Jones, 2013; Leonardi, 2011). Hence, an affordance can enable and constrain an actor in its mission to engage in a certain activity (Leonardi, 2012).
As a consequence, an affordance can be regarded as an emergent power between an actor and an object. Therefore, it should be regarded as a potential for action that may or may not occur (Bygstad et al., 2016). They do not depend on interpretation or any other evaluation, because they simply exist in the domain of the real. Yet, they need to be triggered by other interacting structures to be enacted.
Actualization of an affordance. The actualization of an affordance refers to actually acting upon or executing an affordance in a specific moment. Actualization is a goal-oriented process that occurs in iteration and is dependent on several aspects (Bygstad et al., 2016; Hedström and Swedberg, 1998; Bernhard et al., 2013). The actualization of an affordance depends on the actual context within that specific moment (Leonardi, 2012). Moreover, the perception of an affordance in that moment is an important factor contributing to the affordance for example. The effort that one has to put into the actualization of an affordance, which can be indicated by the relative cognitive load the task carries (Bernhard et al., 2013).
Collective affordances deal with an affordance that is collectively created by pooled individualized affordances of the members of a group (Leonardi, 2012). Through the cooperation of specialized and interdependent tasks, each individual has its own set of IT features that he or she uses and thus has an idiosyncratic set of affordances with the IT artefact. This cooperation generates a final, collective output that would not be possible to do otherwise.
A different meta-level affordance is a shared affordance, which is an affordance that is shared by all members of a group (Leonardi, 2012). According to Leonardi (2012), shared affordances are more common in situations where group members are reciprocally interdependent of each other.
Strong et al. (2014) used the term organizational affordances to explain how the affordance theory was applied in an Electronic Health Record system implementation. Here, an organizational affordance is defined as the “extent that the potential actions enabled are associated with achieving organizational-level immediate concrete outcomes in support of organizational level goals.” (Strong et al., 2014, p. 74). Immediate concrete outcomes are the result of the collective actions of the individuals of the organization and refer to a specific and expected outcome from actualization (Strong et al., 2014). An example of this is standardization or coordination outcomes which are useful in the realization of greater organizational goals.
Whether the individual contributes to the organizational-level goals depends on the consistency, extent and alignment of individual actualization actions in combination with their immediate concrete outcomes (Strong et al., 2014). They (Strong et al., 2014) also suggest that one can more easily speak of an organizational affordance if the actualization outcomes are: (1) reinforcing and compatible; (2) supporting the goals that are trying to be achieved and (3) performed in such a way that the actualization process helped to achieve the desired organizational level immediate concrete outcomes. The affordance is linked to the nature and characteristics of the immediate outcomes (Strong et al., 2014). This means that actualizations of that affordance can exhibit variation between individuals, because the individual’s goal of the actor might differ slightly.
deep, surface and physical structures (Strong and Volkoff, 2010). Moreover, the deep and surface structures also emerge from the characteristic combination of the properties of the physical structures (Elder-Vass, 2005). A multi-person actor is also considered to be a higher-level structure that can emerge from several individual persons.
From these higher-level structures emerge more complex affordances (Volkoff and Strong, 2013). These affordances only emerge until the lower-level affordance are to some extent actualized (Volkoff and Strong, 2013). The standardization affordance relates to the deep structure and a similar group who performs similar tasks. Users need to actualize the basic affordances in order to contribute to the standardization affordance. This in turn helps the organization to achieve its standardization goal.
Reflection on meta-level affordances. Comparing the different concepts, it seems that organizational affordances as defined by Strong et al. (2014) includes Leonardi’s (2012) shared affordances and collective affordances as two different types of affordances that can exist to support organizational level goals. On one hand, they (Strong et al., 2014) argue that the specific actions of individuals may differ across individuals, but the effects and outputs of the phenomenon are the same across levels. This refers to Leonardi’s (2012) shared affordance. Individuals have their own interpretation on how they do it, but the affordance is the same for all individuals and the same IT artefact. On the other hand, the system is being used in a different way by different users with collective affordance, but its actualization allows distinct capabilities for others to complete the work on a group level (Leonardi, 2012). When these noninterdependent tasks are completed and pooled together, it should result in the achievement of a group-level goal. They seem to share similarities with the immediate concrete outcomes as defined by Strong et al. (2014) if these group-level goals are connected to the organization’s goals.
Synthesis
Putting these concepts together and reflecting on what has been researched, it seems that there are still unexplored issues. Firstly, this study focuses investigating how people can achieve a common understanding on what IT can do for them and their group. Strong et al. (2014) have explained that people can have this common understanding, yet it remains unclear how it is achieved. Hence, there is a limited understanding on how and why organizational affordances emerge Furthermore, the concept can be enriched by investigating it in a different context and with a less substantial type of IT artefact (Strong et al., 2014). Secondly, it seems unclear what role an IT artefact and it constituent structures play in the emergence of organizational affordance between the artefact and the organization. Thirdly, the role of the user should not be overlooked. It is uncertain how users interact and interpret the IT artefact in such a way that it creates a shared understanding what the IT artefact can afford them and the organization.
Employing a CR-perspective to these issues seems a suitable way to assess the potential value of the philosophy in the field of IS (Zachariadis et al., 2013). Moreover, the philosophy helps to look at the technology and the subjective assessment of individuals. Other perspectives seem less able to accurately investigate the emergence of structures and powers from both the IT artefact and user’s aspect. CR seems more suitable to untangle complex phenomena such as IT artefact, organizations and organizational affordances. Secondly, not only can this broaden the empirical base of CR in general, it can also enhance the generalizability of existing mechanisms. (Wynn Jr. and Williams, 2012). This can enhance and strengthen the foundation of these mechanisms.
This research aims to enhance our understanding of the emergence of organizational affordances by using critical realism. This will provide an explanation on which causally relevant structures and mechanisms contribute to the emergence of organizational affordances.
METHODOLOGY
evidence needs to be gathered on why and how organizational affordances emerge (Strong et al., 2014).
A CR philosophy has been adopted for this research in order to contribute to our understanding of affordance-based theories of IT-associated organizational change (Volkoff and Strong, 2013). A case study design has been selected to gather empirical evidence on this phenomenon and to understand and investigate these interactions (Wynn Jr. and Williams, 2012).
The CR-research design will be explained below, followed by an introduction of the case and the data analysis and collection. Lastly, an overview on how the research quality of this study is warranted.
Research design
The goal of a CR study is primarily focused on providing an explanation of the mechanisms and structures that generate a certain event in a complex environment (Bhaskar, 1975). Since mechanisms are seldom directly observable, one should focus on trying to observe the effects or manifesting outcomes (e.g. events) that can indirectly say something about which mechanism was causally relevant (Ackroyd, 2010; Wynn Jr. and Williams, 2012).
A CR philosophy has been adopted for this case study research to explain this complex organizational phenomenon. The methodological principles of Wynn Jr. and Williams (2012) were used for conducting an appropriate CR case study research and can be found in table 1. These principles should not be followed in a hierarchical and chronical fashion, but should be viewed as working in interaction and iteration during data collection and data analysis (Wynn Jr. and Williams, 2012).
Principle Description Output
Explication of events
Identify the events and describe the phenomenon of interest to understand which events occurred in the
empirical domain
A chronology of key events (table 5 and figure 3)
Explication of structure and context
Identify components of the structures, contextual factors and their
relationships between them
Retroduction Identify mechanisms which could have generated the events to occur in the specific context
Eight identified mechanisms (figure 3 and table 6)
Empirical corroboration
Assess validity and explanatory power of proposed mechanisms by using all of the data available
Triangulation Use multiple approaches to support the analysis
Table 1: Principles of CR case study (Adopted from Wynn Jr. and Williams (2012))
Furthermore, Henfridsson and Bygstad’s (2013) method is followed by proposing the mechanisms as composites of Hedström and Swedberg’s (1998) three types of interrelated mechanisms. This means that a mechanism consists of a: (1) situational mechanism (macro-micro level), (2) action-formation mechanism (micro-micro level) and (3) transformational mechanisms (micro-macro level).
Existing mechanisms found in the literature are also accessed for assessment in addition to the empirical corroboration step. Moreover, the evaluation criteria of Runde (1988) was also used as a guideline to assess the explanatory power of the proposed mechanisms.
Case description
The research took place at the Dutch subsidiary of European conglomerate Engie. This particular research focuses on Engie Services, which is the largest technical service provider of the Netherlands in the areas of Utility, Industrial Applications and Infrastructure.
Engie Services employs 5615 people with a generated revenue of €1 billion in 20171. They provide B2B solutions and services in order to optimize business processes
and assets in a sustainable way. The case focuses on the Utility department. Their vision is to support and serve their clients by optimizing their assets and resources. This will allow their clients to improve the sustainability of their organization in general.2
The Utility department is spread over 20 locations in the Netherlands. These are categorized into three regions: the Northern, Western or Southern region. Each region has
1 https://www.engie-services.nl/
expanded in the last decade due to the organization’s recent history of mergers and acquisitions with smaller service companies. Each region substantially varied in size as well. The Western and Southern region were substantially bigger in scale, staff and sales figures compared to the Northern region. Furthermore, these regions seemed more dynamic, where acquiring new clients and contracts were more prominent tasks than in the Northern region.
Within the Utility department, there are two sub-departments that each provide different services for their clients. They perform asset maintenance management on two different levels. One level is called the strategic maintenance management and the other level is called maintenance management. These are separate types of service provision that requires different specializations.
Strategic asset maintenance management (SAM) refers to managing and maintaining a multitude of assets of one or several buildings for a long-term basis. This service is mostly provided to clients who have building complexes with thousands of technical facilities that need to be managed. Examples of such assets are air-conditioning, heating systems, boiler systems and ventilation systems. The goal is to sustain an optimal efficiency level of all contracted assets via a systematic and analytical approach of maintenance, checking for repairs, performing legal controls, pre-emptive controls and optimizing. It is a complex and analytically challenging task to perform this service and requires substantial knowledge from its staff.
A team mostly consists of a strategic maintenance mechanic (SMM) and a senior SMM. The SMM works closely with the client and is responsible for the operational side. He is regarded as the eyes and ears of Engie. The senior SMM is responsible for managing the contract and coordinating the team. Moreover, he is often involved in the acquisition of new contracts. This type of service used to be performed by an independent business unit of Engie called Klimaatkontract, which was well-working national organization.
day-to-day operations and the planning for a group of MMs. They were also responsible for most of the paperwork. The MM was mostly responsible for completing the tasks as quickly as possible.
Both departments were working with different legacy systems. The SAM worked with a management information system that contained information on the contract, assets, the planning and the financials and was used by senior SMMs. The MAM used a different legacy system that was primarily used for storing contract agreements and managing the planning of all mechanics. This was solely used by the senior MMs. Next to these systems, there was no central IT infrastructure or ERP-system in operation.
In 2006 the decision fell on pursuing an ERP-implementation with SAP. The goal was to integrate, harmonize, standardize and improve the control on the different locations. Corporate Engie wanted to achieve this by transforming every business function into SAP. They wanted to accomplish this in 2010.
In the year 2008 the Northern region introduced an IT application called OIB (Online Installatie Beheer) which was initially destined for the SAM department. This It application was not introduced formally via an investment nor was it introduced on a corporate level. This was an application that was locally developed by an employee of the SAM department in the Northern region. Despite this enthusiasm, Engie corporate was committing resources in an SAP implementation for all business processes. Four years later in 2012, OIB was used effectively by all the regions despite the completion of the SAP implementation and lack of formal support.
Interestingly enough, OIB is still unofficially offered as a service and has maintained a substantial user base throughout Engie.
Data collection
The study investigates the events and developments of this case that have occurred between 2008 and 2012. This allowed the researchers to investigate what occurred between the introduction of the application and two years after the completion of the SAP implementation. The four-year time-span allows for a thorough investigation on what caused the events to occur so that organizational affordances emerged between OIB and the Utility department.
and Bij, 2012; Volkoff et al., 2007). Data has been collected through interviews, secondary data analysis and system demonstrations/observations.
First, 12 semi-structured interviews with ten respondents were conducted. Interviews were done at all regions from different levels in the company (See Table 1). The goal was to gather multiple perspective how the events unfolded, which structures were relevant and what kind of behaviour was shown. Moreover, the role of the IT application needed to be assessed from persons that were directly using the application or had used the application for a whole and from persons who had a more supervisory role. This mostly meant that senior managers of the departments or contract managers were interviewed, because these people were not directly using the application. Yet, they had a sense on how their team was affected by it. In order to enhance the level of reliability and descriptive validity, interview guides with a structured protocol were written and used during the interviews and can be found in Appendices. Three interview guides were devised for the interviews on supervisors, users and mechanics. Important questions in the interview guide regarding affordances were constructed by consulting the papers of Bygstad et al. (2016) and Wynn Jr. and Williams (2012).
Location Function (level) Number of interviews
North 6 informants
• Application Engineer (user and supervisor)
• Regional director Utility (supervisor) • Senior SMM and Contract manager
(supervisor)
• Information manager (supervisor) • Maintenance mechanic (mechanic) • SMM and Data analytic (user)
• 2 times • 1 time • 2 times • 1 time • 1 time • 1 time West 2 informants
• Senior SMM and contract manager (supervisor)
• Implementation manager (user)
• 1 time • 1 time South 2 informants
• SAP implementation manager (supervisor)
• Maintenance mechanic (mechanic)
• 1 time • 1 time
All interviews were taped with consent of the respondents and consequently transcribed in order to enhance the data analysis. One interview was done via Skype for practical reasons. All other interviews were done face-to-face. The respondents were asked to give permission to use the company name and the respondent’s name. Anonymity was also offered at the beginning of the interview. Moreover, the respondents were offered to sign an informed consent form stating the ethical conditions for this interview. The interviewees and the corresponding corporations were allowed to change their position regarding anonymity during the study.
The interviews were performed and transcribed in Dutch. The interviews with the users and supervisor lasted 100 minutes on average. The time scheduled for interviews with the mechanics was shorter since there were fewer questions on the interview guide. They lasted approximately 40-50 minutes.
After the interview had been conducted, a summary of the interview was created and verified through an interview member check. The interviewees were allowed to adjust and check the information for correctness and confidentiality issues.
During the interview of the SAP implementation manager of the Southern region, the recording file was not saved properly. All notes and thoughts about the interview were noted as quickly as possible and sent to the respondent to check for correctness and validity. Moreover, the respondent was asked to provide some written answers about certain questions that had been asked during the interview as well. This information was structured and has accordingly been used for data analysis.
Second, during and after the interviews, secondary data was collected in the form of relevant documents, software handguides and financial data (Yin, 2013). This helped the researcher to get more relevant information about the cases. The final assignment of the creation of OIB was shared. Moreover, internal PowerPoint presentations, handguides and explanations on the application were shared and analysed as well. The financial and operative data helped to support or contrast the qualitative data that was gathered during the research. The data included sales figures of tenders that have been won by the strategic maintenance management department of the Northern region clients in the period of 2008 – 2012. Moreover, the data included whether or not Engie had offered OIB as a service and included the qualitative ratings of the clients of this potential usage. Unfortunately, no data from the other regions could have been supplemented for this research.
with the aforementioned handguides. System observations were collected in field notes taken as an instruction was given on the application.
An overview of the data is given in appendix 5.
Data Analysis
The methodological principles of Wynn Jr. and Williams (2012) were used for conducting an appropriate CR case study research during the data analysis. An iterative approach between data collection and data analysis was followed (Wynn Jr. and Williams, 2012). For example, during the interview preliminary thoughts and results would be posed or asked to the interviewee to see if they confirm these findings.
Analysis followed Strauss and Corbin’s (1998) recommendation for open, axial and selective coding of all interview data. The first step involved the open coding step in which descriptive labels were attached to every interviewee statement. These statements were meant to capture and reflect the core issues that the interviewee perceived to be talking about. If it was possible, the coder used the words in the interviews directly as labels. Next to these open codes, an overview per transcript was made of observed events, identified structures and contextual factors. Moreover, some initial suggestions on proposed mechanisms were written down in these overviews.
The second step involved axial coding. Axial coding involves coding for possible conditions, actions and consequences within a category (Strauss and Corbin, 1998). Moreover, it was also used to identify possible relationships between them the subcategories and detailed effects that certain structures and mechanisms had on the event. The technique was used as an analytical method to discover connections and relationships in the data instead of a strict and mechanical application of the technique (Volkoff et al., 2007). Moreover, it was also used to enhance the descriptive validity by assessing and trying to explain the overlap and inconsistencies between interviewees.
Interview text Open (italic) and axial
(underlined) codes
Themes emerging from selective coding
In the long run it evolved in such a way that a question came in from the South to Arnoud whether this could be implemented. At some point you lose track of this. Then you recognize it: “Hey, what kind of function is this?”. Then you take a look and try it out. You’ll do that, but sometimes
there are too many
functionalities that I don’t use because it has no added value for me.
Diffusion, Exploring new features,
Overload of new functionalities,
Lose sight of all developments,
Ease of usage
Comparing this passage to other passages about ease of usage and lose sight of all developments, it seems that the development of the application was proceeding quite fast because new features were constantly introduced. Yet, its easy interface allowed users to experiment with the feature easily.
These people realized after 5 minutes of the start of the presentation (of OIB) that it was nice. After that it directly was (.) Two service-leaders asked me if I could move, because I was guiding them through OIB to show them this and that. Showing them the
casino, the
performance-reports and the performance-reports. “This is what we need!”.
Quick and positive appraisal via a demonstration, Information sharing,
Identify solution
Quick recognition
Comparing this passage to other passages of quick
recognition, the theme
familiarity emerged. This
describes how employees
quickly recognized the
elements of OIB and
recognized the value of it. There were different instances of this recognition. This example dealt recognition in the type of features that were able via the application. I don’t know who determined
that. We just liked to do it ourselves. That you had everything digital and nice on paper. It started from the installed base what was already known. So, the installations that you had in the contract had already been put into the system. All of them had empty detail pages. You had to fill these in yourselves. We did this during the maintenance so that it would claim the least amount of our time whilst eventually getting a filled system.
Voluntary work for own benefit,
Archive process in the new system,
Eye for efficiency,
Motivated users to improve OIB,
Ease of editing
Comparing these passages to other passages of motivated users to improve OIB and ease of editing, the involvement mechanisms emerged. This passage revealed that the employees would voluntarily improve the application by
providing it with more
information, because it was easy to do. Moreover, they kept the client in mind while doing this so it would not cost the client too much time.
Research Quality
The inter-subjectivity of the research results will be improved by measuring for controllability and validity (Van Aken et al., 2012). Firstly, controllability, which is a prerequisite for the other quality criteria, prescribes that the study description should be as precise as possible to allow others to replicate it (Van Aken et al., 2012). Secondly, validity refers to the justification of the generation of the research results (Van Aken et al., 2012) In order to assess the validity and the quality of the inferences, a classification set of criteria from Venkatesh, Brown and Bala (2013) and Zachariadis et al. (2013) has been applied. The according steps can be found in the following table and have been mentioned in the previous sections of this chapter.
Validity type Conventional description
Steps Design
validity
Descriptive validity ü Assured by interviewing several people from several positions and asking them consistently about the events, objects and behaviours that took place in the empirical domain. ü Assess the overlap and inconsistencies
and try to explain where these come from
Credibility ü Carefully selecting participants who were proximate to the events that have occurred and experienced it directly. Analytical
validity
Theoretical validity ü Generate theory based on case study data via the CR principles
Dependability ü Description of changes in research setting and its effects on the approach Consistency ü Verify the steps of the qualitative
research process Inferential
validity
Confirmability ü Results confirmed by others in interviews
FINDINGS
The case findings will be presented and followed by the mechanisms of case findings. Then, the resultant emergence of organizational affordances will be shown. This section will end with an explication of the mechanisms relevant for the emergence of organizational affordances.
Case findings, mechanisms and the causally relevant progression of events
Our data analysis that there were several mechanisms that explain the progression of events. This setting came to be due to the fact that OIB (1) was created and continuously improved; (2) was diffused fast and in different ways across the other regions; (3) resulted in satisfied user and client-base that grew rapidly.
Events Structures (relevant properties)
Creation of OIB Innovation team (knowledge in IT and SAM); clients (communicated needs); SAM
department of the North (work system). First implementation of OIB in the Northern
region
OIB (terminology, layout) Contract (conditions); SAM staff (work system);
Innovation team (constitutional leverage); Adoption of OIB in the Western region User base (knowledge of using OIB);
SAM department of the West (work system); Clients (communicated needs);
Innovation team (innovation capacities); OIB (demo-environment).
Addition of important troubleshooting functionality
User base (Experience with OIB); Innovation team (innovation capacities); SMV system (database);
Maintenance mechanics Adoption of OIB in the Southern region National SAP policy (vision);
Insurance company (standardization needs); OIB;
SAM department of Southern region (work system)
Contract (conditions)
Substantial increase in user base and usage Legacy systems of SAM and MAM department;
SAP (user friendliness; accessibility); MAM department (work system); OIB;
Innovation team (innovation capacities); Clients;
Table 5: Explication of events and structures
Creation of OIB
opportunity in the market and their organization to create a web-portal for asset management. The senior SMM explained:
“You noticed that automatization was making big steps forward. And when we were assessing our own work processes, we saw that we did a lot manually via paper or via
e-mail. That should be done smarter.” (SN2, May 14, 2018)3.
They experienced that there was a growing demand in the market for digitalization and instant access to information. Moreover, the innovation team recognized an internal opportunity to improve the operational side of SAM.
The result was the creation of OIB that served as a cloud solution specifically focused on asset management. OIB would be a temporary solution to serve the market demands until the according SAP functionality would be created and implemented. It was an intuitive, easy-to-use IT solution that included all type of services that were needed for Engie to perform strategic maintenance management.
The basis of OIB was found in the work process of the SAM department, which had its foundations and origins from Klimaatkontract as the senior SMM describes:
“With Klimaatkontract, we already had established a clear and well-structured process of maintenance management on paper as a solid basis. [..] So, we transformed the philosophy, the approach and method of how Klimaatkontract used to work into OIB”
(SN2, May 14, 2018)4.
Consequently, the work process was well organized and was still working well for them and the SAM department, which led them to directly copy all elements of the work process of SAM into the application. Furthermore, through the investigation of the study assignment of OIB, it became clear that the system incorporated the data and information
3 Obtained from Dutch transcript. Translated: “Je merkte dat er in die tijd automatisering grote stappen voorwaarts maakten. Als we keken naar onze eigen werkprocessen, dan deden we gewoon heel veel handmatig, op papier of per mail. Dat moest gewoon slimmer kunnen.”.
of their current IS into OIB. The databases of the two systems could synchronize with one another. Therefore, OIB could easily be adopted into the current work system.
Diffusion
OIB was increasingly adopted at Engie despite the lack of formal support. First, OIB was only used in the Northern region, since the innovation was created there. The Western region followed quickly after the introduction of OIB. The diffusion of the IT artefact is also linked to the enactment of three mechanisms: the network diffusion, the equilibrium and the standards reinforcement mechanism.
Network diffusion mechanism. This self-reinforcing mechanism explains that people adopt the innovation, because people in their network start using them and sharing the efficacy of the innovation. As an effect, individuals start to adopt the innovation, which sparks them to diffuse the innovation as well.
People who were exposed to the OIB discussed the efficacy with colleagues, friends or subordinates in their formal and informal network. This influenced the diffusion of the potential value that OIB could bring to their department. Other people became increasingly aware of the potential of OIB. Because people received the information from a peer, it reduced some of the uncertainty surrounding OIB. This spurred other members in the department to adopt OIB and also share their enthusiasm. As a consequence, a bigger proportion in the regions were aware of the potential value of OIB.
Figure 3: the network diffusion mechanism
Equilibrium mechanism. OIB saw a substantial increase in users across the Western and Northern region. This especially occurred after the completion of the SAP implementation, when the legacy systems were eliminated. Especially the MM department started to see a surging growth in users of OIB.
This self-reinforcing mechanism has been labelled as the equilibrium mechanism, where changes in a group’s environment are experienced by the individuals as an imbalance. These individuals find ways to restore this balance and collective become adapted to these changes in the group’s environment.
Figure 4: Equilibrium mechanism
Standards reinforcement mechanism. Over time, OIB had become an important condition for clients in order to continue their cooperation with Engie. Especially clients who had multiple locations, desired a level of standardization and wanted to adopt OIB on every location.
Figure 5: Standards reinforcement mechanism
Adoption
OIB was increasingly adopted throughout the different regions with increasingly satisfied users and clients. The events pertaining the adoption are linked to several causally relevant mechanisms: the network diffusion, the standards reinforcement, the innovation and the compliance mechanism.
The network diffusion also helped the adoption, because the power of one’s network helped to increase awareness and reduce uncertainty with others about the IT artefact. Furthermore, the standards reinforcement mechanism underlines the increasing adoption for clients in a self-reinforcing way.
The innovation mechanism. Problems or demands were communicated to the innovation team. Due to the informal organization, people could easily provide feedback and evaluations on OIB. The innovation team had the knowledge and experience in the field of IT and SAM to assess these problems whether there is an opportunity to exploit. The innovation team then tried to find ways to exploit the appropriate resources to come up with new and appropriate solutions and improvements to OIB.
reside from internal inefficiencies in processes for example, but they could similarly reside from new demands from specific clients (e.g. the market).
This self-reinforcing mechanism has been labelled the innovation mechanism, where new solutions are generated by the innovation team via recombined resources based on sensed opportunities. These new solutions are based on experienced discrepancies in a socio-technical system, which are recognized and communicated as a problem to the innovation team.
Figure 6: the innovation mechanism
Compliance mechanism. This local mechanism has been labelled the compliance mechanism which explains the adoption of OIB at a client in the Southern region. During empirical corroboration it seemed at first that this event could be explained via the standards reinforcement mechanism. However, the powers that caused the adoption of OIB in this cause resided from other structures. The enforced adoption of OIB can be attributed to the institutional structure of the new contract, communicated desire of the client to standardize, the social structure of Engie’s national policy to only use SAP and the Engie’s corporate value to serve every client.
The credibility and value of OIB for the client had increased and spurred management’s desire to adopt OIB in the headquarters as well. This was communicated to the contract managers of the Southern region. These contract managers of the Southern region were looking for a way to satisfy their client’s desire. Yet, the national agreement to only use SAP and their affinity with this decision was a power constraining their desire to serve their client better. This surged them to evaluate possible alternatives with the
Socio-technical system
Problem recognition
client. Nevertheless, the use of OIB was enforced via the establishment of a new contract. This formal enforcement was possible due to the according desire, the size of the client nationwide and the underlying value of Engie to improve the service provision towards the client.
Figure 7: Compliance mechanism
Figure 8: Chronological depiction of(interacting) mechanism, events, structures and conditions
Emergence of organizational affordances
Throughout the data analysis, it became evident that there were several aspects that helped to create and sustain this emergent power.
Figure 9: Stratified organizational affordances of Engie
Common goal and sense of freedom. Employees in the Utility department seemed to be uniform in striving for a common goal. The regional director of the Northern region explains it as follows:
“Asset management really is all about centralizing the assets of the clients in that they are integral part of the client’s strategy. [..] How do you connect the maintenance of the
assets to the client’s strategic goals? If you can make this connection: great! Than you are treating your assets in the most efficient way. And OIB is a big step in the right
direction to bring this about.”. (SN1, May 18, 2018)5.
It seems that this generic goal of Utility department was facilitated through the latent structure of OIB. Most interviewees underlined that OIB provided all aspects that the department needed in order to successfully perform asset maintenance management. This helped them to serve the client in the best possible way by enhancing the efficiency of the assets of their clients. Furthermore, they felt that their vision was to be service-oriented in the best possible way. Tailoring their service provision to the specific needs and wishes of the client was a baseline norm for them. The MM of the Southern region confirmed this:
Interviewer: “You can more easily detect how often an installation has had malfunctions. I want the best for my client, so I will make a proposal to replace and install a new installation (.)” Interviewee: “Exactly! That is OIB, in 1 word.
[.] And that is the same for Engie”. (MS1, May 25, 2018)6.
This shows that the MM is trying to assure that the client is served in the best possible way and that OIB supports him in realizing this.
Furthermore, users experienced a substantial sense of freedom when using OIB, which allowed for easier adoption of the application. The latent structure of OIB was characterized as having few control procedures and restrictions on who could do what. For example, there was no strict sense of governance nor a strict procedure to follow in order to execute certain tasks. This seemed to enable that every user could pursue his preferred way of working with OIB without being restricted or controlled in a preferred way of working. Moreover, employees could easily try different functionalities.
Sense of familiarity. The employees of the Utility department quickly recognized and familiarized themselves with the features of OIB. During the system observation, it became clear that the interface was designed in such a way that it was experienced as intuitive and easy-to-use. It was an application that was easy to understand as one mechanic of the Northern regions mentions:
“The structure of OIB is very clear. It is the same as an Apple iPhone. You have also never read a manual for that, because it is so clear. And the structure is good, so then
you do not need it. [..] If you try it out, there is not a lot that can go wrong. You can easily work your way through it. You don’t need difficult courses or manuals. “. (UN1,
May 18, 2018)7
OIB seemed easy to understand, because of its interface. Other users commented on this level of intuition that any person can understand OIB in less than an hour. Furthermore, the asset of the client was the central point of the interface and all information you needed to know about the asset could be seen in one glance. In the archival records it became clear that this was one of the main arguments for using OIB.
Moreover, as mentioned before, the whole work process of the SAM department was essentially digitalized. One senior SMM recognized this as well by stating:
“He essentially had digitalized our existing system with logical loops. [..] I liked that you recognized everything that was found in OIB. [..] You recognize the terms, you
know what it’s about.” (SW1, May 22, 2018).8
A senior SMM of the Western region experienced this as follows:
“No, because it spread unchecked through the Netherlands. Klimaatkontract did not exist anymore. This had become Engie Services, but at these firms you still have people that came from Klimaatkontract. And these people said: “He, this is OIB. That is
7 Obtained from Dutch transcript. Translated: “De structuur in OIB is heel duidelijk. Het is hetzelfde als een Apple iPhone. Daar heb jij ook nog nooit de handleiding van gelezen, omdat het zo duidelijk is. En de structuur goed is, dan heb je dat niet nodig. [..]Als je dat uitprobeert, kan er niet veel misgaan zeg maar. Je kan daar eenvoudig doorheen. Je hebt geen moeilijke cursussen of handleidingen voor nodig.”.
the old way of working of Klimaatkontract. [..] Bring this to us, because than we can at least adopt it. Then we have a tool for maintenance management.” (UW1, May 15, 2018)9
The SMMs immediately recognized their work process in the application and they directly decided to work with the system. It seemed that the latent and surface structures of OIB, the institutional structures of the employees generated this sense of familiarity. Most users immediately recognized the similarity between OIB and their way of working. The familiar terminology, the layout of modules and the accessibility of OIB were important properties of the latent and surface structures of OIB. When these interacted with their working routines, norms and values, it created a quick sense of familiarity. As a consequence, these SMMs and MMs instantly recognized that their way of working was incorporated into the system and could recognize what OIB could do for them. Due to the rapid recognition, it decreased a sense of uncertainty and therefore increased the potential value of adopting OIB.
Responsibility. The implementation of OIB also caused a greater sense of responsibility towards the operational mechanics (SMM and MM) in comparison to their legacy systems. These systems were primarily used by the senior staff of the departments in order to gain an overview and insight on the proceedings of the contract and the team. OIB, as an intuitive cloud-solution, was intended as an application that everyone could use to support the client. A contract manager of Western region described this phenomenon:
“And also what you can extract out of the system. [..] Some mechanics suddenly will export a data dump, look at it and make a kind of analysis. That really gets them
excited. I can do all of this with it. Everything is all right now, because I am up to date.” (UW1, May 15, 2018). 10
The mechanics that adopted OIB were satisfied with insights and overview they gained on every contract. As a consequence, this enabled them to work more independently and make more choices together with the client instead of relying on the decision and expertise of the senior staff. These insights and overviews enabled the mechanics to cooperate more closely with the client and to feel more responsible for serving the client as best as possible.
Coordination. OIB’s transparency and coordination activities of the Northern region assured that the actualization outcomes of the individual were in line and contributed to the organizational-level goals.
All affordances were enacted between the user and OIB. Nevertheless, the second- and third-order affordances could not be actualized at times, because people were not performing the task in a good way or not compatible with others. A senior SMM of the Western region experienced this in her region:
“That you know exactly what the work method is of OIB. And the personal way of working. People are used to work in a specific way. And because it is such a simple
system, you can approach it in a very simple way.” (UW1, May 15, 2018)11.
This incoherence was attributed to the aforementioned sense of freedom that users had. On the other hand, most users in the Western region were not aware of the newest functionalities of OIB that were basically workarounds for SAP. This resulted in more basic uses of OIB and less awareness on the new functionalities.
10 Obtained from Dutch transcript. Translated: “En wat je ook uit het systeem kan halen. [..] Sommige monteurs gaan in 1 keer een dump trekken en zien ze in 1 keer en maken ze een soort van analyse. Daar raken ze heel erg enthousiast van he. Dit kan ik er allemaal mee. Ik heb het helemaal op orde, want ik ben bij”.
When the use of OIB was compared between the regions, the data analysis showed the importance of coordination in order to coordinate the actualization outcomes. OIB’s transparency allowed users and clients to easily monitor the progression and the work that every user has done within a certain contract. SMM or MM that were working on the same contract were addressing dissimilarities or discrepancies between one another. However, in the Northern region, it became apparent that the coordinating role of the innovation team was stimulating the assurance of appropriate immediate concrete outcomes.
The innovation team was monitoring how OIB was used and had the knowledge on how to perfectly execute the tasks. They addressed dissimilarities directly with the users and taught these users how to execute the task in the future in order to help the client. Moreover, they were also communicating the new functionalities and improvements, which increased the awareness of the application itself.
Enacted mechanisms for the emergence
Several interacting mechanisms have been identified that can explain the emergence of these organizational affordances.
Familiarity mechanism. The adoption of OIB by the employees was experienced as something rather natural. This can be explained by the fact that the potential users directly recognized what they could do with OIB when they interacted with the IT application. Moreover, people felt that the department’s generic goal was facilitated well in OIB.
Figure 10: Familiarity mechanism
Involvement mechanism. The use of OIB caused the users to feel a sense of freedom and greater responsibility. This was especially the case for ‘junior’ staff of both departments. OIB as an intuitive cloud application caused employees to be more involved with the client.
Figure 11: Involvement mechanism
Congruence mechanism. The Northern region experienced that the innovation team coordinated the use of OIB in such a way that it assured that the immediate concrete outcomes of the individual were in line again and contributed to the organizational-level goals. This mechanism also interacted with the involvement mechanism in the Northern region.
The divergence in the immediate concrete outcomes of the individual of a group sparked the innovation team to monitor whether the actualization outcomes of the individual were still in line with each other. The deep, latent and surface structure of OIB allowed the innovation team to easily monitor the behaviour of a certain user. They addressed the divergent behaviour and provided feedback on how to perform the task, which is attributed to their knowledge on how to execute the tasks perfectly and desire to serve the client as good as possible. This creates a sense of vulnerability to the addressed user. He processes the feedback and tries to adjust the behaviour accordingly in order to dampen this vulnerability. In turn, the individual turns to the group and monitors and checks the group members to assure that converges on the preferred behaviour. This eventually results in a convergence in the immediate concrete outcomes and makes sure that it contributes to the organizational-level goals.
Figure 12: Congruence mechanism
Concluding remarks
