Technology`s role in organisational change: a systematic review of technology in actor-network theory

(1)

Technology`s role in organisational change: a systematic review of technology

in actor-network theory

Jeroen Hofsteenge (s2536137)

jeroenhofsteenge@gmail.com

University of Groningen

Faculty of Economics and Business

MSc BA – Change Management

June 2015

Supervisor: Ass. Prof. Benjamin Müller

Co assessor: Prof. Egon Berghout

(2)

2

Abstract

The role of technology is becoming increasingly important for modern organisations, especially in technological change projects. However, the effects of technology on both the organisation and the change process have been inconsistent across studies. In this study actor-network theory is used to examine the implications of technology on individual actors, the organisation and the change process. A systematic review identified 46 ANT-based studies that were related to actor-network theory and technological change. The analyses of these articles resulted in five themes that contain explanations of technology`s interaction with organisation actors during technological mediated changes. The five themes highlight technology`s role as a political actor that through its different dynamic roles effects the change process in multiple ways. The findings show technology`s role and influence in its interaction with the social actors and elements throughout an organisational change.

Key terms

technology, organisational change, actor-network theory (ANT), systematic review

Introduction

Many businesses and organisation these days rely on ICT to plan, execute and manage their organisation and generate value. This is also becoming true for more traditional sectors and business (e.g. agriculture, banking and insurance). Examples range from drone usage in the agricultural sector to increase crop health and yields, to banks who implemented most of their business processes in IT systems. In this way, technology is becoming more important. Consequently, so are the changes which introduce these technological improvements into the organisation (Zammuto, Griffith, Majchrzak, Dougherty & Faraj, 2007). These changes involve a complex interaction between the technical and social systems in the organisation where the technological component gets more and more interwoven within the organisational structure (Lytinnen & Newman, 2008). The organisation cannot survive without its technological component and in such a way resembles something like a cyborg (i.e. a cybernetic organism). Such a close relationship increases, not surprisingly, the risk for organisations when introducing and implementation new technologies (Yu, Chen, Klein & Jiang, 2013). The impact of these changes is often substantial and the effects are perceived organisation wide (Strong &

Volkoff, 2010; Zammuto et al., 2007; Allen, Brown, Karanasiois & Norman, 2013).

(4)

4 mediated change becomes increasingly more important for practitioners and researchers alike. Not only because technologies are crucial in contemporary organisations but also because they will arguably continue to be so as organisations attempt to grow, as they deploy new enterprise resource systems, and as they invest more money in new communication media to provide workplaces around the world. “Such technological entailments are far from simple, straightforward, certain, or

predictable, and they are associated with a range of organizational outcomes, many of which are emergent and unanticipated” (Orlikowski & Scott, 2008, p. 436).

Additionally, the increasing use of information systems comes with greater interaction between technologies, organisations and the technological changes they both create. This interaction has been well researched and discussed in the IS field (Volkoff & Strong, 2013; Volkoff, Strong, & Elmes, 2007; Lyytinen & Newman, 2008). For example, Lyytinen and Newman (2008) created a model by using the concept of punctuated IS change. The model shows how IS change is a subtle interplay between technologies and actors in the organisation. However the findings in these studies together with the conceptualisation of technology`s roles are inconsistent. The different explanations of technological mediated changes based on theories such as structuration theory (Orlikowski, 1992), institutional theory (Avgerou, 2000), actor-network theory (Latour, 1986; Walsham, 1997) and more recently critical realism (Mingers, Mutch, & Willcocks, 2013) have not delivered consensus in the debate about the role of technology in organisational change. Moreover, the recent interest in socio-materiality has led to more theorizing and questions about the status, role and agency of technology in organisations (Kautz & Jensen, 2012; Leonardi, Nardi, & Kallinikos, 2012; Mutch, 2013). All of the theories above provide different conceptualizations of what technology is and how it affects the socio-technical systems during an organisational change.

Consequently, the relationship between the technical aspects and the social aspects in

organisations is not yet fully understood (Leonardi & Barley, 2008; Orlikowski & Scott, 2008). Many studies black-box technology were focus is only given to the technical or social side of a change (Lyytinen & Newman, 2008; Volkoff, Strong & Elms, 2005). Hence, in both theory and practice a gap can be seen in what is known about the role of technology in both the organisational science and IS field. It remains unclear how technology influences different organisational elements and actors in the interaction that happens during a (technological) change project. Therefore, this paper wants to address the following research question: What is the role of technology, and how does technology mediates its relationship with the organisation during an organisational change process?

(5)

5 pre-established perspectives, theories or assumptions. This absence of theoretical perspectives and assumptions in studying technology`s interactions with social phenomenon could provide new results in how technology as an actant mediates its relationship with other organisational elements during the change process. The term actant is used explicitly to illustrate that both human and nonhuman actors are equal in ANT (Latour, 1992; Law, 1992) Moreover, actor-network theory studies have a solid base of research in the IS field with over twenty years of published research articles. Besides, actor-network theory is used in other disciplines outside of the IS literature. The interaction with these different scientific fields could provide interesting opportunities in creating a better understanding of technology and organisational change and expand the scope of this study beyond the IS field.

Hence, a systemic review will contribute to the IS and organizational change field by giving a comprehensive view of the role that technology takes in organisational change. In addition, a

systematic review of the mostly qualitative research of ANT studies can help in contributing to the increasing importance of successful IT implementation for organisations and practitioners of IT-enabled change. The systematic review is followed up with a hermeneutic analysis of the data in which five general themes were identified. The following section of this paper will introduce the theoretical framework used and provides an explanation of actor-network theory. In the third section the

methodology of this study is discussed. The next section presents the findings of this study followed up by a discussion of the results. In the final section an overall conclusion of the study is given together with its limitations and possibilities for future research.

Theoretical framework

A wide array of organizational change models and theories exist that offer tools to study change (Lewin, 1951; Dawson, 2003; Poole & Van de Ven, 2004). In the change literature there is a long debate about what change is (Burnes, 2014). The debate shows one thing: “a clear and unique definition of the concept of change is probably impossible” (Lancione & Clegg, 2013, p. 119). Change as a concept refers to itself as a process. It resembles the move from the past to the future, something which most simplistic n-step change models do not acknowledge (Pettigrew, Woodman & Cameron, 2001). Several reviews in the IS field have advocated the research of IT`s organisational consequences as an emergent process instead of deterministic outcomes of IT-enabled change (DeSanctis & Poole, 1994; Markus & Robey, 1988; Robey & Boudreau, 1999). Contrasting to deterministic causal arguments, an emergent process perspective suggests no necessary causal relationship between technology (e.g. information systems) and organisational change. Rather, technology and

(6)

6 Process theory regards social changes not as an outcome variable caused by prior variables (e.g. variance theory) but as the outcome of temporal events researched in a certain sequence (Markus & Robey, 1988; Holmström & Robey, 2002). Accordingly, the occurrence of a specific event (e.g. the implementation of a new information system) does not determine the outcome of such an event. Rather, process theory builds an explanation around the sequence of events that led to the observed outcome. As such, process theory puts a greater amount of attention onto the dynamics that is

technological mediated change and considers the impact of technological change to the organisation to be undetermined. Moreover, process theory views change as a process that unfolds through the

interplay of multiple variables within an organisation, especially context and political behaviour (Dawson, 2003). Adopting such an understanding points out the relational aspect that any change brings into an organisation be it cultural, structural, institutional or technological (Burnes, 2014). This makes process theory a suitable approach for researching technology and its effects on the interaction with social elements that constitute an organisation.

Moreover, as findings from Mueller and Raeth (2012) show, the theoretical lenses used for studying technology have an impact on how technological change is observed and theorised (Mueller & Raeth, 2012). Consequently, this paper argues that the chosen theoretical perspective has a profound impact on how technological change is observed and should thus be chosen carefully. Actor-network theory has the advantage of examining change in a less deterministic way (Cordella, 2011) making it a well-suited approach for researching technological mediated change (Bijker & Law, 1992; Law & Hassard, 1999). Moreover, ANT provides a process approach with which organisational change can be researched through its concept of translations (Latour, 1996). This study argues that ANT is a coherent theory to focus directly upon the emergent social processes containing technology and organisational change. Consequently, this study uses actor-network theory to examine technology mediated

organisational change.

Technology in organisations

(7)

7 structures that have no concrete or physical form but it ignores the materiality, effects and interaction of technology with other social elements during the change process. Technology is not infinitely and it`s material aspects should be recognized (Monteiro & Hanseth, 1996).

Institutional theory conceptualizes technological innovations and organisational change “as a dual process of institutionalization of IT and de-institutionalization of established organisational structures and practices” (Avgerous, 2000, p. 236). Technology is institutionalised during

implementation and it carries this institutional logic during usage. In this view of institutional theory technology constrains human agency by imposing the institutionalised logic of the technology onto the organisational structures and practices (Gosain, 2004). Although institutional theory is helpful in researching the larger forces and actors surrounding technological change both in and outside of an organisation institutional theory ignores agency of individual actors making it thus difficult to research the role of technology and how its affects the individual actors in the organisational change process. The theory is therefore less suited to study the interaction of technology with social actors during a change process.

In the IS field critical realism has enjoyed a growing interest of researchers (Mingers et al., 2013). Critical realism offers possibilities of shifting the attention towards real problems that both researchers and practitioners face by focusing on to the underlying causes. It tries to uncover the underlying mechanisms through retroduction. This is “a process of working backwards from empirical events we observe to the underlying mechanisms that could logically have produced those events” (Volkoff & Strong, 2013, p. 820). Critical realism is an interesting approach to research the socio-technical systems and underlying interactions of technology with the social. However, research using this approach is scarce and the theory itself is still in development in the IS field (Allen, Brown, Karanasios, & Norman, 2013; Mingers et al., 2013). What all theories so far discussed have in common is that they treat technology and humans differently.

What is missing is an identical focus on both technical and the social aspects. In order to move beyond the critiques on technology in the theories discussed above this paper argues that if we want to uncover the role and effects of technology nonhumons should be treated equally as humans. Only than is it possible to see how technology as a nonhuman actor (i.e. actant) is intertwined in its intricate relationship with the organisation and what the effects of technology are on the organisational change process. Actor-network theory offers such symmetry between human and nonhumans by providing a social theory in which technology and humans receive equal importance (Callon & Latour, 1981). Moreover, ANT has been recognized as having great potential for understanding the complex social interactions associated with IT in organisations (Hanseth, Aanestad & Berg, 2004; Walsham, 1997).

Actor-network theory

(8)

8 theory. The main body of ANT literature is frequently associated with Bruno Latour, Michel Callon and John Law, but the theory has since then been developed by many others (e.g. Mitev & Howcroft, 2011; Howcroft, Mitev & Wilson, 2004; Monteiro & Hanseth, 1996). In table 1 some of the key concepts in ANT are summarized. ANT aims to understand the processes that lead to the construction and transformation of heterogeneous networks (Callon & Law, 1989).

One of the distinguishing aspects of ANT is how it treats the notion of what a social actor is. A good example of this is the definition made by Callon and Latour (1981) of what an actor is: “Any element which bends space around itself, makes other elements dependent upon itself and translates their will into a language of its own” (Callon & Latour, 1981, p. 22). Common examples of actors are people, texts, ideas, methodologies, computers and software systems (Sarker, Sarker, & Sidorova, 2006). Moreover, the term actant is used to highlight the inclusion of both humans and nonhumans in the theory. The term helps in creating a clear distinction from the common conceptualization that humans are the only actors in social theory and analysis. One of the more controversial characteristics of ANT is that it gives equal symmetry to humans and nonhumans. The actor-network approach systematically avoids of what can be called methodological dualism meaning that ANT makes no a priori 1 distinctions between what is ‘technical’ and what is not (Bloomfield & Vurdubakis, 1997). John Law argues “to insist on symmetry is to assert that everything deserves explanation and, more particularly, that everything that you seek to explain or describe should be approached in the same way” (Law, 1994, p. 9). Therefore, the way technology operates is deserving of as much attention as any other actor such as human behaviour (Mutch, 2002) and ANT provides this through its principle of symmetry.

Although many critics oppose to this theoretical position that nonhumans (e.g. information systems) can have their own interests and power, others support the idea that such a position can provide researchers with a powerful tool for analysing complex sociotechnical networks in a non-deterministic manner (Monteiro & Hanseth, 1996; Howcroft, Mitev & Wilson, 2004; Cordella, 2012). From the ANT perspective innovations, which are for example the usage of new technologies, are attempts to build and stabilise an extended system of allies composed of both nonhuman and human entities in a network (Bloomfield & Vurdubakis, 1997). Moreover, technology has a central place in actor-network theory. Latour (1992) argues that the missing masses of mundane artefacts (e.g. the usage of computers in contemporary organisations) cannot be ignored. From the discussion above it is argued that ANT provides an excellent lens through which the effects and role of technology can be researched without the predefined theoretical assumptions that other theories have. Consequently, this study uses ANT as its main theoretical lens for conceptualizing technology in organisational change. It is argued that without any pre-defined assumptions the roles and effects of technology on the

interaction between the social and technical in a change process can be better observed and researched.

1

(9)

9 Table 1 Core concepts of actor-network theory

Another important concept in ANT is the process of translation (Callon, 1986; Latour, 1996). The translation process focuses on how humans and objects are brought together in (relative) stable, heterogeneous networks of aligned interests. A network is called heterogeneous since the social world embodies more than only humans and their actions in ANT. A network is intrinsically related with all material actors in a network (Law, 1992). Interactions between people in ANT are mediated through various objects and other networks. These networks both engage in and frame the social world.

Therefore, the materiality of actors and actants in networks makes up the so-called social order (Law, 1992). “Hence, the view in ANT is that a particular order is an effect generated by

heterogeneous means. An actor is seen as produced from or as an effect of these heterogeneous relations between people and objects, and an actor is also, always, a network” (Cho, Mathiassen & Nilsson, 2008, p. 619). The translation process is comprised of four phases, namely problematisation,

Concept Definition

Actor (or actant) Any entity or material including human beings or nonhumans.

Actor-network “Heterogeneous network of aligned interests, including people, organizations and standards” (Walsham & Sahay, 1999, p. 42).

Translation “How actors generate ordering effects by negotiating or maneuvering others’ interest to one’s own with the aim to mobilize” (Cho et al., 2008, p. 617). Problematization “The first moment of translation, during which a focal actor defines identities

and interests of other actors that are consistent with its own interests, and establishes itself as an obligatory passage point (OPP), thus rendering itself indispensable.” (Callon, 1986; Sarker et al., 2006, p. 56)

Obligatory passage point (OPP)

“A situation that has to occur for all of the actors to be able to achieve their interests, as defined by the focal actor” (Callon, 1986; Sarker et al., 2006, p. 56).

Interessement “The second moment of translation, wherein other actors in the network accept (or get aligned to) interests defined for them by the focal actor “(Callon, 1986; Sarker et al., 2006, p. 56).

Inscription “Embodied translation into a medium or material” (Cho et al., 2008, p. 617). Enrolment “Mobilizing support by creating a body of allies through translations” (Cho et

al., 2008, p. 617).

Punctualization and black box

“A temporary abstraction of a network that acts as a single unit so that the network efface into one actor” (Cho et al., 2008, p. 617).

Irreversibility “Degree of to which it is subsequently impossible to go back to a point where alternative possibilities exists” (Walsham & Sahay, 1999, p. 42).

(10)

10 intressement, enrolment and mobilisation. During problematisation an actor (or actant) makes an attempt in making other actors subscribe to its own interests and ideas by demonstrating that the focal actor has the right solution for their problems. The focal actor tries to align the problem of the other actors with its own solution making itself indispensible so that it can move all the actors in the network through an obligatory passage point (OPP). The OPP point sets certain specific conventions, rules, assumptions and ways of operating that all the actors will have to follow if they wish to keep themselves allied with the focal actant. For example, an organisation`s top management can place a new IT system as the OPP for the other organisational members to create a control system that aligns with top management`s vision and goals of the organisation (Lyytinen & Newman, 2015; Wagner & Scott, 2003).

During the interessement phase, the identities and roles which are defined during

problematision, are established for the actants and a network starts to emerge (Callon, 1986). In the enrolment phase the network is temporarily stabilised because actors maintain their roles and identities in the network. Mobilisation is the last phase in which the proposed solution gains wider acceptance and becomes (more) taken-for-granted which can result in the punctualization of the network (often referred to as black-boxing an actor-network).When materials get embodied through translation (e.g. the solution of the focal actor) into an actor or actant then this process is referred to as inscription (Akrich, 1992). Such inscriptions can contain a program of action for other actors, although this prescription of action can vary in strength and flexibility (Hanseth & Monteiro, 1997).

Inscriptions may lead to the irreversibility of an actor-network, which refers to a point where no alternative possibilities exists for an actor-network. It also refers to the extent that inscriptions shape and determine future translations of the actor-network (e.g. changes) (Callon, 1990; Hanseth & Monteiro, 1997). An actor-network is not a stagnant structure but is always being changed and transformed by the actions of actors, actants and other actor-networks from which it is constituted from (Akrich & Latour, 1992). The process of translation offers a methodology for researchers to describe the continuous changes that affect an actor-network (Scott & Wagner, 2003). Therefore, translation is used in this study to investigate the emergent effects of technology often seen in ANT-based studies. In this way, when translation process is described in organisations it is seen as an organisational change process.

The overall analytical framework of ANT can be seen in table 1. The analytical framework provided by ANT is the basis for the study of technology in organisations. Actor-network theory is the perspective used to research how technology is shaped and reshaped in its interaction and relationship with other actors in an organisation during technological mediated organisational change. The theory helps to position the conceptualisation of technology in the middle of the debate between the extremes of technological-determinism and constructivist studies. ANT provides an intermediary position in this debate that systematically avoids the dualism between the social (i.e. society) and technology

(11)

11 created and socio-technical change is done. This study uses the concept of symmetry in ANT to research the implications of technology on organisational change to close, to some extent, the gap of inconsistent findings in the IS field. The technological change process is observed in ANT-based studies through the process of translation. No explicit framework is made since the principle of symmetry and the conceptualisation of actants in ANT make it desirable to not use any pre-defined assumptions and frameworks on the roles and effects of technology before starting a study in researching technology mediated change.

Methodology

Data collection

A systematic review of the literature (Tranfield et al., 2003; Keele, 2007; Okoli and Schabram, 2010; Webster & Watson, 2002) is used to understand and assess the current state of the work that has been published on technology in ANT-based studies. The descriptive nature of ANT studies together with the often employed case-study methodology can provide this study with interesting qualitative data. Insights are drawn from the findings of the ANT-based studies to present an answer for the research question. Moreover, a systematic review of the mostly case-study research of ANT studies can help in contributing to the increasing importance of successful IT implementation for

organisations. In addition, a systemic review will contribute to the IS and organizational change field by giving a comprehensive view of what technology means and what actor-network theory can do for the IS field in the future. Lastly, a systematic review can help in understanding what the twenty years of empirical ANT research has brought the IS field and which opportunities there might be for future research for ANT in the IS literature. Following the guidelines from Tranfield et al. (2003) and Okoli and Schabram (2010) this review requires (1) the development of criteria for the types of studies to be included in our analysis, (2) a literature search approach and (3) a method for analysing the data set.

(12)

12 Keywords were checked in different styles of spelling since it was unclear how search engines

generated their search results (e.g. Google scholar). This resulted in the initial pool of 144 papers. This pool was than analysed on abstracts to select the papers that included actor-network theory, an

organisational focus and mentioned technology of some kind (for example ERP, CRM, or other information systems).

Papers that were excluded did not state a specific or explicitly focus of studying organisations or a change process such as organisational change, technological change or a translation process from ANT. Out of this selection 26 articles remained relevant. From these articles 20 more paper were added from searches in the bibliography and by cross-references creating the final data sample of 46 papers. Three papers were excluded because these proved unattainable and could not be analysed.

Table 2 number of papers in each search engine and journal

After the final data sample was selected the final data pool was read through. This was

followed up by an analysis of the quality and method of the article using a predefined scheme based on criteria in Keele (2007) an adapted for the use of ANT. Articles were analysed and scored on a five points scale (1 being below standard, 5 being above standard). If an article scored below twenty-five

source Initial pool Abstract

analyses

Final pool

Business Resource Premier 4

Emerald Insight 29 ScienceDirect 10 ProQuest 0 Web of Science 82 Google scholar 2 Total databases 127 16 16 MIS Quarterly 3

Academy of Management Review 1

Organizational Science 1

Information Systems Research 1

Journal of Management 1

European Journal of Information Systems 5

IJANTTI 5

Total journals 17 10 10

Bibliography and cross-references - - 20

(13)

13 points (of a total of forty) it was excluded for the data analysis. Through this quality check four

articles were excluded from the data analysis. The quality scheme can be found in appendix A.

Data analysis

For the data analysis the hermeneutics approaches is used (Klein & Myers, 1999; Sarker & Lee, 2006) together with the use of the hermeneutic circle as its main tool. The circle is a tool of the mind (Sarker & Lee, 2006) that provides the reader with comprehension of the texts and being able to see both parts of the text as well as the whole of the text. In this circle the researcher starts reading the data with an initial understanding of concept in mind. The researcher then proceeds with carefully reading the text “looking for any apparent absurdities” (Sarker and Lee, 2006, p. 133) or

contradictions. When finding them the reader questions him/herself what a logical explanation could be. When such an answer is found a new understanding of the concept is created and thereby also a new meaning of the text for the reader. Following the circle, iterations of this process happened when reading through the final pool of papers (Klein & Myers, 1999). Through the use of the hermeneutic circle the results were established. For the first read through a data extraction form (Tranfield et al., 2003) was made to make general notes and gather specific information on how a paper conceptualised technology.

This extraction form was used as a flexible coding scheme to classify general aspects of a paper such as: Its general theme, type of research, usage of ANT in combination with possible other theories and its conceptualisation of technology. This data was used together with the hermeneutic approach to identify five emerging themes in the data sample. The themes are shown in figure 1. In the second iteration of the hermeneutic cycle each paper was read again and categorized into one or possibly multiple themes through the use of coding scheme A (can be found in appendix B). Papers could be categorized into multiple themes with the prerequisite that logical consistency was

maintained with the paper`s findings (examples are Cho et al., 2008; Elbanna, 2006a; Ranerup, 2012). Unfortunately not all studies from the final data pool could be put into one of the five themes. This has to do with the following reasons. Firstly, because some theoretical papers are hard to

categorize in what they tell about technology and how technology impacts the interaction with the other actors. Secondly, because some papers address topics about technology that were not found in other papers and thus couldn`t be categorized under one of the six themes (Bridgman & Willmott, 2006; Greenhalgh & Stones, 2010) for example the paper of Faik & Walsham (2013) about

(14)

14

Results

In this section an analysis of the review sample is given together with the overall themes identified. From the systematic literature review five overarching themes have been identified in the data (see figure 1). The themes each show a different side of what technology is, the role of technology or how technology impacts its interaction between different actors in organisations. In the next part of this section each theme will be explained and examples from the data will be given.

Figure 1 the five themes identified from the data

Theme one: politics of technology

Papers identified in theme one show how technology is a political actant in the organisation and during the change process. Moreover, theme one highlights the use of power by technology. This theme suggests that by using power technology influences human actors, builds alliances and can become an important ally to either top management or resisting end-users or other actor-networks.

In the study of Scott and Wagner (2003) the design of an ERP system was analysed. In their paper the expectations of human actors conflicted with the complexity and usability of the new technology. The new ERP system was developed in operation with a third-party vendor. The co-operation created conflicts between the different cultures of the two organisations. Because the new technology did not meet the expectations it became a political actor in the conflict between the organisation and the vendor. “The compromised phase-one ERP system failed to enroll the wider university community” (Scott & Wagner, 2003, p. 305). The technology acted with power by creating trails of strength for the whole network concerning the ERP design and implementation. In the end, the misfit led to the ‘bolding on’ of parts from the legacy system into the new ERP system and the

(15)

15 cumbersome and inefficient and as a result, a new wave of shadow systems emerged” (Scott &

Wagner, 2003, p. 306). The findings of Scott and Wagner (2003) show how different technologies (e.g. the legacy systems and the new ERP system) as a political actants influence human actors in the IT-enabled changes process.

The study of Heeks and Stanforth (2007) used ANT to analyse global and local networks surrounding the implementation of an e-government project. They argued that actors both human and nonhuman (in their case a new financial software system) uses power differently than proposed by ANT scholars such as Latour (1986, 1999) and Law (1987, 2006). Heeks and Stanforth (2007) argue that an actor enacts power through the use of others instead of over others. They made this distinction because in their case study they saw that a powerful global actor (with power on paper) could not turn the implementation project into a success because the global actor was lacking power compared to other local actors. “For the Asian Development Bank (the powerful global actor), its ‘power to’ was limited. It also faced a resistant combination of actors – both social and technical – that could not be enrolled by simple ‘power over’ ” (Heeks & Stanford, 2007, p. 16).

Mähring, Holmström, Keil and Montealegre (2004) tell a story of how technology plays a political role in project escalation. The technology as an actant in their study created, through the promises of the focal actor, the necessary OPP for a new software system. Technology enacted power by influence the problematization of other actors, meaning that technology formed the solutions for the organisation. The study described technology`s role as demonstrating the “creation of a durable actor-network that embodied goals and intentions” (Mähring, et al., 2004, p. 234). But the goals and intentions of the technology “had little if any chance to succeed” (Mähring, et al., 2004, p. 233) with the consequence of escalating the project and the actor-network. The findings of this study explain how technology can politically influence actors in the problematization of a problem by providing actors and actants with goals and intentions that proved unattainable and in this way created an instable actor-network that led to project escalation (Mähring et al., 2004).

(16)

16 Table 3 Coding of the final data sample

Authors Publication year Theme 1 Theme 2 Theme 3 Theme 4 Theme 5

Aanestad & Hanseth 2000 ■ ■

Andersson 2015 ■

Bob-Jones, Newman & Lyytinen 2008 ■

Cecez-Kecmanovic, Kautz & Abrahall 2014 ■

Cho, Mathiassen & Nilsson 2008 ■

Christiansen & Thrane 2014 ■

Cordella 2011 ■ Elbanna 2006 ■ Elbanna 2007 ■ Elbanna 2013 ■ Fomin 2002 ■ Gasson 2006 ■

Hanseth & Braa 1998 ■ ■

Hanseth et al. 2006 ■

Harrisson & Laberge 2002 ■

Heeks & Stanforth 2007 ■

Holmström & Robey 2002 ■ ■

Hsbollah, Simon & Letch 2012 ■

(17)

17 Continuation of table 3

Authors Publication year Theme 1 Theme 2 Theme 3 Theme 4 Theme 5

Lancione & Clegg 2013 ■

Langstrand & Elg 2012 ■ ■

Lehoux, Sicotte & Denis 1999 ■

Lilley 1998 ■

Linde & Linderoth 2006 ■

Linderoth & Pellegrino 2005 ■

Lowe 2001 ■

Madon, Sahay & Sahay 2004 ■ ■

Mähring et al. 2004 ■ ■

Papadopoulos 2011 ■

Pollack, Costello & Samkaran 2013 ■

Ranerup 2012 ■ ■ ■

Sarker, Sarker & Sidorova 2006 ■

Scott & Wagner 2003 ■ ■

Stanforth 2006 ■

Tsohou et al. 2015 ■

Tudor & Hart 2013 ■

(18)

Theme two: dynamic role of technology

That technology is the carrier of change for organisation is undeniable. New technology means almost always changes to the roles, task, and routines of organisations. However, this theme shows that even though technology might be a cause for change, it can also transform itself during change. This dynamic role is what theme two highlights from the included articles. Sarker et al. (2006) explain the failure of a business process change through the ANT framework. “ANT, on the other hand, highlights the unanticipated, unintended, and often active roles of IT that mutually change human and other nonhuman actors” (Sarker et al., 2006, p. 82). The results of this study highlight the changing characteristics of technology through the change process. “It is worth noting that the purpose of seeing IT as actors in their own right is not to "give them life or a mind of their own" (Askenäs, & Westelius, 2000, p. 209) but to make explicit the roles (e.g., manipulator, bureaucrat, administrative assistant, and traitor) enacted by IT that cannot be fully explained by stable material properties of the technology or by the intention of the human agent seeking to instrumentally use IT to further a pre-existing interest” (Sarker et al., 2006, p. 82). The conclusion of this study explains how technology can transform its role in the change process. Moreover, each role created different effects in the change process. Technology as a manipulator for example “changed the nature of relationships in the network and destabilized the alliances being formed” (Sarker et al., 2006, p. 66). Therefore, this study shows how technology can have a dynamic role in the organisational change process and the consequences of these transformations.

Likewise, the dynamic role of technology is illustrated in the paper of Hanseth and Braa (1998). They investigated the implementation of SAP in a global company. SAP had three different roles as an actant in the organisation. The technology played the role of a designer, it demolished older technologies and it played the role of integrating organisational units (Hanseth & Braa, 1998). The technology achieved these role changes by building multiple alliances with different actors in the organisation. “Like any actor, the technology builds alliances with others” (Hanseth & Braa, 1998, p. 7). The different roles of SAP had different impacts on the organisation and change process. The study concludes that the influence of SAP, through the different roles and alliance it created, made it a ‘traitor’ (i.e. resister) of the organisational change project (Hanseth & Braa, 1998).

(19)

19

Theme three: forming a barrier against change

Resistance is something that almost always naturally occurs in the change process. It might come as no surprise that technology can resist and restrain actors, actant and the overall change process. However, a word of caution is needed. Resistance in this review is not seen as necessarily a negative force but as something that is in co-existing with support and commitment for a change or new technology. The findings of Andersson (2015) demonstrate how technology can resist against the implementation of a lean management approach. In the paper of Andersson (2015) technology created resistance by forming alliances with other actors and actants in the network. Technology became part of a larger network against the implementation of the quality system. The resisting alliance came from “the presence of another actor-network, embedded and entangled in the materiality of the factory” (Andersson, 2015, p. 50). Furthermore, Andersson (2015) argued that the lean implementation network made the mistake of treating the organisation as a clean slate thus paying no attention to the actor-networks that were already in place. “It is argued that the resistance was not about individuals trying to “sabotage” the project, but about the presence of another actor-network” (Andersson, 2015, p. 50).

In addition, the study of Langstrand & Elg (2012) research resistance of nonhuman objects (technology being one of them) during a change initiative. “Like humans, non-humans can exert resistance by simply not contributing to the proposed change” (Langstrand & Elg, 2012, p. 862). The paper continues by explaining that resistance emerges out of the accordance by which the nonhuman actors act. “There are no emotions invested in the “behavior” of non-human actors, and no ill will or wicked plan is behind their resistance to change. They simply “act” in accordance with the action programs that they represent, and if those action programs happen to be in opposition to the proposed change, resistance will result.” (Langstrand & Elg, 2012, p. 863). The results from this study explain how technology can become a resisting actant during a change initiative. “Perhaps non-human actors are the very reason behind human resistance to change” (Langstrand & Elg, 2012, p. 864).

(20)

20

Theme four: pushing change forward

The assumption that technology can create and form barriers stands in contrast with the thought that it can also help mobilizing actor-networks towards the desired change. Theme four explains how technology can actively help in moving the organisation through the change process towards the goals and ideas of the focal actor and a successful change process.

Papadopoulos (2011) results about the implementation of continuous improvement approach in healthcare showcased the use of technology in such away. The technology enrolled actors into the network that was opposing the cultural and behavioural changes that the implementation of continuous improvement brought. “In ANT terms, these non-human (i.e. different software tools) entities would change their “identity” through their different use by their spokespersons, that is, staff”

(Papadopoulos, 2011, p. 216). This newly formed actor-network helped in countering the resisting actor-networks. “Continuous translation means that the Lean-favouring network is able to defeat “counteractors” and their “antiprogrammes”; that is old working practices” (Papadopoulos, 2011, p. 218). Technology created commitment for the change initiate by providing human actors with ‘tangible’ benefits (e.g. lower turnaround times, no overworking). In this way it created a change favouring network that helped to successfully complete the overall change project (Papadopoulos, 2011).

Moreover, the study of Ranerup (2012) discussed earlier (theme 2) likewise demonstrates the principle of enrolment. “In this study, technology enrolled organizational actors, such as the county councils, so that they became part of the development project. (…) Thus, technology is an enrolment device that is integral to formation of an e-governance relationship” (Ranerup, 2012, p. 420). Ranerup (2012) suggests that technology can help the organisational change process by getting the right actors involved to build the necessary alliances for the change actor-network.

The findings from the paper of Elbanna (2006a) explain how technology influences IT-enabled change process by negotiating its position in the organisation. “They both entered a

negotiation space where several trials of strength have been exercised. The results of the negotiation varied between siding the system, the organisation or achieving a compromise” (Elbanna, 2006a, p. 7). Technology helped the social (human) actors in accepting the change by negotiating the new imposed logical from the SAP system with the older existing logical of the organisation. “The outcomes of the negotiation were different in each issue raised, but in all cases neither the SAP nor the organisation side determined the resulting system. Their relationship was indeed constructed through negotiations” (Elbanna, 2006a, p. 10). Hence the findings of Elbanna (2006a) can be argued to explain that

(21)

21 The last paper illustrates how technology can mediate the uncertainty that organisational change brings (Tsohou, Karyda, Kokolakis, & Kiountouzis, 2015). Technology helped in

strengthening the actor-network surrounding the implementation of IT security software and practises. “In our case, the ENISA standard guidelines acted as a nonhuman actor used by the focal actor (i.e., the researchers) to strengthen the developed alliance and the actors’ interests” (Tsohou, et al., 2015, p. 46). This article demonstrates how technology can be observed as a mediating actant in the actor-network by providing knowledge and reducing the uncertain that change projects can bring to organisations.

Theme five: stabilizing actor-networks

Theme five explains the role of technology in affecting or mediating the stabilisation of organisational change. Stabilisation means here that technology is observed to move the actor-network of a change initiative through the process of translation and eventually into the mobilisation of the actor-network. This means that the actor-network (i.e. the technology, organisation and the change) is stable, or anchored enough, that it can be treated as a black-box with expected outcomes. Although organisations are far too complex to be treated as black-boxes this theme does show how technology can bring a certain amount of placidity to an organisational change. An example is given in the paper of Pollack, Costello and Sankaran (2013) in which the implementation of a project information management system (PMIS) is researched. Pollack et al. (2013) found that the PMIS mediated change process for the actor-network. “The PMIS provided a way of stabilising patterns of interaction. It did not dictate the outcome, but provided a vehicle for framing projects through project management concepts in order to clarify users', and their managers', thinking about what had to be achieved, what would be accepted as successful, and how it contributed to broader agency objectives” (Pollack et al., 2012, p. 1125). This result shows how technology can influence the stabilisation of a change in the organisation by, for example, providing better communication patterns for its human actors, thus helping the actor-network (e.g. the organisation or department) move through the change process.

Another example is given by Holmström and Robey (2002) who presented the new concept of negotiation loops. These loops explain how, in their case, technology stabilised the network. “We have examined the process of change by conceiving of change as a series of negotiation loops that engage both human and nonhuman actors and extend into the future as negotiations continue” (Holmström & Robey, 2002, p. 29). The paper of Holmström and Robey (2002) found that the technology stabilized the network by “accommodating the needs of successive users (…) and helping the initiators of the network to realize their ambitions to have technology serve their interests” (Holmström & Robey, 2002, p. 22). The results illustrate how technology mediates the social

(22)

22

Discussion

In important finding of theme one is that technology plays a part in the political game that so many organisations and change projects have. No longer is technology observed as having only the effect on the organisation that it was designed for (i.e. technological determinism). Based on the findings of theme one technology can be explained as using power to influence both actors and actants. Taking Callon (1986) in consideration, it is not completely unexpected to see technology becoming empowered. As Callon (1986) tells, the analyses of stories in ANT create a better understanding of the establishment and the evolution of power relationships. So a certain focus on power is inherited in using ANT as a theoretical perspective. Hence, the findings from Heeks and Stanforth (2007) are surprisingly interesting. Heeks and Stanforth (2007) results found that power in actor-networks is only observed through enactment of power by others, not by having any

predetermined form of power (e.g. authority). This finding contradicts the common conceptualisation of power in ANT were an actor has power over something (Latour, 1986).

In other words, the studies in theme one show that technology affects the change process by using power as a political actant. During a change process technology can be created or transformed to function as a tool for an actor to enact power in the actor-network. The focal actors, for example, can make technology a ‘vessel’ from which it can enact power over other actor-networks. This is in line with the concept of inscription from ANT in which certain aspects or characteristics get embodied into technology (Akrich, 1992). These aspects can make the technology an object of interests for other actors (e.g. Papadopoulos, 2011). In this way technology can form alliances with other actors to form actor-networks that influence the change process in multiple ways (Ranerup, 2012). In responds to the research question, this paper argues that technology takes the role of a political actant that influences individual actors, other actor-networks and the organisational change process.

The second theme delivers an investigation of how technology itself is (sometimes) transformed in the organizational change process. An interesting finding is that the dynamic role of technology can make it a difficult and risk-full ally for actors. The changing roles bring, logically, different effects with them making the impact and consequences that technology has on organisations more complex. For example, the transformation of technology`s role made it a strong resister of the change project thus betraying its former actors and alliances (Hanseth & Braa, 1998). An important finding in this theme is that the different roles that technology might have come with different organisational impacts, which can be seen clearly in the paper from Hanseth and Braa (1998).

(23)

23 should be cautious about the effects and roles they expect from technology since its dynamic role makes it a risk-full ally during a technological mediated change process.

As discussed in the results of theme three technologies can resists against actors their goals and intentions during a change process. Multiple articles are analysed that demonstrate with their results the restricting effects that technology can impose on actors and organisations. Interestingly no univocal reason for resistance is found. One reason is that technology gets black-boxed and is treated by human actors with a mechanistic mental framework (Cordella, 2011). This finding is observed and proposed by other researchers in the IS field (Bob-jones et al. 2008; Markus & Benjamin, 1997). Another cause for resistance is the intentionality that human actors imposed onto a technology (Langstrand & Elg, 2012; Andersson, 2015). Actor-network theory shows how the interaction of technology with human actors gives technology a resisting role through the intentionality that human actors impose on, or inscribed into, technology (Akrich, 1992). Therefore, the source of resistance and the reason for resistance could be argued to come from human actors imposing their will onto

technology.

This line of argument provides an interesting connection with the concept of socio-materiality (Leonardi et al., 2012; Orlikowski & Scott, 2008). From ANT the concept of inscription can be related to the principle of a socio-technical system and how these systems are created in practice (Leonardi et al., 2012). Moreover, the symmetrical treatment of human and nonhuman agency could provide socio-materiality with a powerful tool to describe and research the socio-materiality of technologies. ANT

provides a unique way of fabricating the materiality of a technology since it starts its research without a pre-justified perspective. This grants researchers the possibility of finding aspects of technology that otherwise might have remained invisible in practice because of pre-defined perspectives or

assumptions. However, the tenets of ANT and socio-materiality, both not uniformly defined, are a reason for caution in interchanging theoretical concepts between the two theories. Specific caution is needed for the principles of temporality and agency in the two theories (Mitev & Howcroft, 2011; Mutch 2002; Leonarodi et al., 2012). To summarize, theme three shows how technology by resisting is influencing its relationship with actors, actants and the organisation. The mechanisms underlying resistance are argued to be based on the intentionality and mental frameworks which both come from human actors.

(24)

24 this paper argues that the role of technology becomes one of being a device used by human actors to direct the change process in their desired direction. Although this conclusion seems to reject the findings in theme one, technology as device, can still become a political actant that use power to influence actor-networks. What changes is the source of power for technology since power is imposed by human actors. Accordingly, theme three and four show explanation of technology`s role but with differences in how technology mediates the organisation and the change process.

Lastly, based on the results of the data analysis theme five highlights how technology can have a stabilizing effect on an organisational change process. As explained before, stabilisation means that technology exerts an inertia effect on the actor-network that is in transformation. Technology achieves the stabilisation effect by providing interaction between the change initiator and end-users (Pollack et al., 2013) and by building alliances in the earlier stages of a change process (Gasson, 2006). By including the (end)-users technology creates alliances between the focal actor and the needs of the (end-)users. Technology stabilises by accommodating differences in goals, objectives and needs of the different (human) actors in an organisation. Moreover, technology can be seen as helping in getting the organisation become familiar with for example the impacts of a new information systems and help with standardising the new roles, tasks, norms and routines that a new technology brings. This link with standardization theory is also made in the paper of Hanseth et al. (2006). Overall theme five provides an answer to the research question by explain the effect of stabilisation during on organisation change and the corresponding role of technology in building alliances, increasing interaction between different stakeholders and by providing standardization.

Proposed conceptual framework

Theme 2

Dynamic role of technology

Theme 3 Forming a barrier Theme 4 Pushing change forward Theme 5 Stabilisating actor-networks Theme 1 Politics of technology Technological mediated organisational change

(25)

25 Based on the findings a conceptual framework of the five themes is proposed (see figure 2).The framework, together with the results and discussion form the overall findings of this study. The framework displays what technology`s role is and how it can mediate an organisational change process. This paper argues that the different effects that technology can have on a change process all happen in the political games that constitute the organisation. There is no separation of technology and the social (e.g. people, organisations and societies) and as such technology is part of actor-network that could be seen as a socio-technical system (Lyytinen & Newman, 2008). Only by considering the complexity of technology as a socio-technical system is it possible to understand its effects on the organisation and the combined effects of both the technical and the social systems (Cordella, 2011).

As political actant technology mediates the organisational change process through its different dynamic roles. Each role affects both the organisation and the change process differently with each theme revealing a different role and effect of technology.

Conclusion

Through the use of a systematic literature review of the mostly case-study designed ANT-studies technology is revealed and explained as an influencer and mediator of the change process so many contemporary organisations face these days. The findings from the review exemplify technology as an important actant in the organisational change process. The chosen theoretical perspective of actor-network theory and the ANT-based studies resulted in five themes that each demonstrates different roles and effects of technology. Without any a priori established assumptions this study shows how both human actors and technology shape, through their continuous interaction, the effects of

technology on IT-enabled changes in organisations. The findings show that a simplistic, n-step model of change can no longer be used to explain the different aspects of technology during organisation change.

Hence, this study stresses the dynamic role of technology for both human and nonhuman actors who are intertwined in an organisational change. The conceptual framework shows through the lens of actor-network theory the three most recognized effects of technology in its interaction with other actor-networks in organisations. Consequently, this paper has tried to bring the studies of ANT from different literature fields together to analyse how actor-network theory can contribute to the on-going debate of how technological change should be treated. ANT has proven useful in giving a detailed account of the change process in organisations and how technology affected both individual and organisational elements.

Theoretical implications

(26)

26 how ANT has shown the effects of human actors on technology. From both themes three and four the mechanism of intentionality illustrates how human actors try to make technology a device for their interests and how they empower technology to obtain their goals. Moreover actor-network theory provided an interesting lens through which this study investigated technology.

With its central property of symmetry ANT provided the possibility of investigating how technology interacts with human actors in detailed way that is not offered by other theories. Hence, results provide valuable insights into the conceptualisation and use of technology in the IS and organisational change field and contribute to both fields new insights of technology and its different aspects and usage in organisations who undergo technological mediated changes.

Practical implications

This study provides organisations with findings that can help practitioners focus on the use of technology during change projects. Moreover, the results warn practitioners to be careful in using technology as an ally since without any emotion of hostility technology can transform its role in a change process with the consequence of betraying its former allies. Therefore, practitioners should be careful in using technology as tool since, through intentionality and inscription of their own interests, technology could betray them. In addition, this study and its results strongly suggest that technology in practice should not be scrutinise through the use of a mechanistic or deterministic perspective of technology`s role and effect.

Limitations

The use of actor-network theory as only theoretical perspective for this paper can be seen as limitation. Even though ANT has a very wide application area using one theoretical perspective can limit the generalizability of the findings of this study. ANT is regarded a strong descriptive research method but lacks as such explanatory power over other constructive theories (Howcroft, Mitev & Wilson, 2004). Although the results of this study have tried to explain the mechanisms underlying technological change the use of ANT still forms a (theoretical) limitation.

(27)

27 is the fact that only one researcher conducted the data gathering, analysis and abstraction, were

additional reviewers would have increased the reliability of this study (Tranfield et al., 2003). Moreover, the use of the hermeneutics circle can be considered a restriction of the research. The use of this tool makes this an interpretive study which reduces its controllability, even though a systematic data collection method was followed. Overall the findings from this study are subject to the interpretation of the researcher. As is inherited in interpretive research someone else might make different choices and find different results.

Future research

Based on the results and discussion the following future research directions might be taken to further investigate the effects of technologies in organisational changes. Future research could focus on the contradicting roles found in this study (e.g. theme three, four and five) to investigate why technology has different impacts in its interaction with humans, what the cause for the contradiction roles and effects could be and if these effects only happen during organisational change or also in other types of change projects. Another interesting direction would be to see how the context surrounding technological change has an effect on the role of technology. Additionally, a different direction could look at how actor-network theory might be combined with socio-materiality to find more aspects of technology during a change process (such a call is also made by Orlikowski & Scott, 2008).

Another option would be to couple actor-network theory with other theories to research the political nature of technology. Likewise, researchers could examine how technology, as a nonhuman actor, could be designed and used as tool for organisational change. Although the findings of this study are based on the qualitative findings of case studies researchers could empirically test the proposed conceptual framework of this study with different theoretical perspectives to see if the findings are valid in practice and generalizable across different contexts.

References

Aanestad, M., & Hanseth, O. (2000). Implementing open network technologies in complex work practices: a case from telemedicine. Organizational and social perspectives on information technology (pp. 355-369) Springer.

(28)

28 Akrich, M., & Latour, B. (1992). A summary of a convenient vocabulary for the semiotics of human and nonhuman assemblies. Shaping Technology/Building Society Studies in Sociotecnical Change, 259-264.

Allen, D. K., Brown, A., Karanasios, S., & Norman, A. (2013). How should technology-mediated organizational change be explained? A comparison of the contributions of critical realism and activity theory. Mis Quarterly, 37(3), 835-854.

Andersson, G. (2015). Resisting Organizational Change. International Journal of Advanced Corporate Learning, 8(1), 48-51. doi:10.3991/ijac.v8i1.4432

Askenäs, L., & Westelius, A. (2000). Five roles of an information system: a social constructionist approach to analyzing the use of ERP systems. Proceedings of the Twenty First International Conference on Information Systems, 426-434.

Avgerou, C. (2000). IT and organizational change: an institutionalist perspective. Information Technology & People, 13(4), 234-262.

Bijker, W. E., & Law, J. (1992). Shaping technology/building society: Studies in sociotechnical change. MIT press.

Bloomfield, B. P., & Vurdubakis, T. (1997). Paper traces: inscribing organizations and information technology. Information Technology and Organisations, 85-111.

Bob-Jones, B., Newman, M., & Lyytinen, K. (2008). Picking Up the Pieces After a" Successful" Implementation: Networks, Coalitions and ERP Systems. AMCIS 2008 Proceedings, 373.

Bulkeley, W. M. (1996). Technology (A special report): Working together–when things go wrong: FoxMeyer Drug took a huge high-tech gamble; it didn’t work. The Wall Street Journal, R25.

(29)

29 Callon, M. (1986). The Sociology of an Actor-Network: The Case of the Electric Vehicle. Teoksessa Callon, M. Law, J. & Rip, A. Mapping the Dynamics of Science and Technology: Sociology of Science in the Real World. London: The Macmillan Press Ltd.

Callon, M., & Latour, B. (1981). Unscrewing the big Leviathan: how actors macro-structure reality and how sociologists help them to do so. Advances in Social Theory and Methodology: Toward an Integration of Microand Macro-Sociologies, 277-303.

Callon, M., & Law, J. (1989). On the construction of sociotechnical networks: Content and context revisited. Knowledge and Society, 8(1), 57-83.

Callon, M. (1990). Techno-economic networks and irreversibility. The Sociological Review, 38(S1), 132-161. doi:10.1111/j.1467-954X.1990.tb03351.x

Cecez-Kecmanovic, D., Kautz, K., & Abrahall, R. (2014). Reframing Success and Failure of Information Systems: a Performative Perspective. MIS Quarterly, 38(2), 561-588.

Cho, S., Mathiassen, L., & Nilsson, A. (2008). Contextual dynamics during health information systems implementation: an event-based actor-network approach. European Journal of Information Systems, 17(6), 614-630.

Christiansen, U., & Thrane, S. (2014). The prose of action: The micro dynamics of reporting on emerging risks in operational risk management. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 30(4), 427-443. doi:http://dx.doi.org.proxy-ub.rug.nl/10.1016/j.scaman.2014.08.006

Cordella, A. (2011). Emerging Standardization. International Journal of Actor-Network Theory and Technological Innovation (IJANTTI), 3(3), 49-64. doi:10.4018/jantti.2011070104

Dawson, P. (2003). Reshaping change: A processual perspective. Psychology Press.

(30)

30 Elbanna, A. (2013). Top management support in multiple-project environments: an in-practice view. European Journal of Information Systems, 22(3), 278-294.

Elbanna, A. R. (2006). The construction of the relationship between ERP and the organisation through negotiation. Ecis, 924-936.

Elbanna, A. R. (2006). The validity of the improvisation argument in the implementation of rigid technology: the case of ERP systems. Journal of Information Technology, 21(3), 165-175.

Elbanna, A. R. (2007). Implementing an integrated system in a socially dis-integrated enterprise: a critical view of ERP enabled integration. Information Technology & People, 20(2), 121-139.

Faik, I., & Walsham, G. (2013). Modernisation through ICTs: towards a network ontology of technological change. Information Systems Journal, 23(4), 351-370. doi:10.1111/isj.12001

Fomin, V. V. (2002). Understanding information technology and its relationship to organizational and societal change. ECIS 2002 Proceedings, 135.

Gasson, S. (2006). A genealogical study of boundary-spanning IS design. European Journal of Information Systems, 15(1), 26-41. doi:10.1057/palgrave.ejis.3000594

Giddens, A. (1984). The constitution of society: Outline of the theory of structuration. University of California Press.

Gosain, S. (2004). Enterprise information systems as objects and carriers of institutional forces: the new iron cage? Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 5(4), 6.

Hanseth, O., Aanestad, M., & Berg, M. (2004). Guest editors' introduction: Actor-network theory and information systems. What's so special? Information Technology & People, 17(2), 116-123.

(31)

31 Hanseth, O., & Monteiro, E. (1997). Inscribing behaviour in information infrastructure standards. Accounting, Management and Information Technologies, 7(4), 183-211.

Hanseth, O., Jacucci, E., Grisot, M., & Aanestad, M. (2006). Reflexive Standardization: Side Effects and Complexity in Standard Making. MIS Quarterly, 30, 563-581.

Harrisson, D., & Laberge, M. (2002). Innovation, identities and resistance: The social construction of an innovation network. Journal of Management Studies, 39(4), 497-521.

Heeks, R., & Stanforth, C. (2007). Understanding e-Government project trajectories from an actor-network perspective. European Journal of Information Systems, 16(2), 165-177.

Holmström, J., & Robey, D. (2002). Inscribing organizational change with information technology: An actor network theory approach. Information Systems Research.

Howcroft, D., Mitev, N., & Wilson, M. (2004). What we may learn from the social shaping of technology approach. Social Theory and Philosophy for Information Systems, 329-371.

Hsbollah, H. M., Simon, A., & Letch, N. (2012). A network analysis of IT governance practices: a case study of an IT centralisation project. ACIS 2012: Location, Location, Location: Proceedings of the 23rd Australasian Conference on Information Systems 2012, 1-11.

Hussenot, A. (2008). Between structuration and translation: an approach of ICT appropriation. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 21(3), 335-347. doi:10.1108/00534810810874813

Jones, M. (1999). Structuration theory. Oxford: OUP

Jones, M. R., & Karsten, H. (2008). Giddens's structuration theory and information systems research. Mis Quarterly, 32(1), 127-157.

(32)

32 Keele, S. (2007). Guidelines for performing systematic literature reviews in software engineering. Technical report, Ver. 2.3 EBSE Technical Report. EBSE.

Klein, H. K., & Myers, M. D. (1999). A set of principles for conducting and evaluating interpretive field studies in information systems. MIS Quarterly, 67-93.

Lancione, M., & Clegg, S. (2013). The Chronotopes of Change: Actor-Networks in a Changing Business School. Journal of Change Management, 13(2), 117-142.

doi:10.1080/14697017.2012.753930

Langstrand, J., & Elg, M. (2012). Non-human resistance in changes towards lean. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 25(6), 853-866. doi:10.1108/09534811211280609

Latour, B. (1986). The powers of association. Sociological Review Monograph, 264-280.

Latour, B. (1990). Technology is society made durable. The Sociological Review, 38(S1), 103-131.

Latour, B. (1996). Social theory and the study of computerized work sites. Information Technology and Changes in Organizational Work, 295-307.

Latour, B. (2004). On using ANT for studying information systems: a (somewhat) Socratic dialogue. The Social Study of Information and Communication Technology: Innovation, Actors and Contexts, Edited by Chrisanthi Avgerou, Claudio U.Ciborra, and Frank Land, 62-76.

Latour, B. (1999). On recalling ANT. The Sociological Review, 47(S1), 15-25. doi:10.1111/j.1467-954X.1999.tb03480.x

Law, J. (1992). Notes on the theory of the actor-network: Ordering, strategy, and heterogeneity. Systems Practice, 5(4), 379-393.

Law, J. (1994). Organizing modernity. Oxford: Blackwell.

Technology`s role in organisational change: a systematic review of technology in actor-network theory