MAKING IT WORK, TOGETHER!

MAKING IT WORK, TOGETHER!

An exploratory study on the sensemaking and emergence of collective affordances of Collaboration Technology

By

Lily Joanne Anzion S2541173

MSc. Business Administration - Change Management Faculty of Economics and Business

University of Groningen

Supervisor: dr. I. Maris-de Bresser Co-assessor: dr. Q. Dong

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Preface

This Master thesis “‘Making IT work, together!”, is part of the MSc Business Administration- Change Management at the University of Groningen. I have been engaged with the research at the from January to June 2019.

I would like to thank my supervisor dr. I. Maris-de Bresser for her insightful coaching and support during this process. I also express my gratitude to the RSVM Noordoost team that by participating, provided me with an abundant source of rich information. Lastly, I wish to thank the IT Adoption team for allowing me to grow personally in the field of IT-enabled behavioral change and supporting me throughout my research.

I hope this thesis will give you a look into the intriguing world of IT Change Management.

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Abstract

Collaboration Technology is becoming increasingly popular. But, how do we make this technology work, together? This research addresses how a workgroup consisting of multiple roles makes sense of Collaboration Technology at the feature level and which, as well as how, collective affordances for collaboration are perceived and actualized. The study integrates the sensemaking and affordance theory from a sociomaterial perspective and executes an empirical qualitative case-study in a workgroup of a Dutch bank. It finds that the process of perceiving affordances develops throughout the social interaction among formal and informal roles in the collective sensemaking process of perceiving cues, interpreting and enacting. Several shared and role-based sub-affordances are identified: sharing knowledge, integrating applications, having one overview, being engaged and saving time. This research contributes by revealing positive and negative attitudes, and IT habits, as underlying mechanisms for (not) actualizing perceived affordances. Informal roles, such as champion users, impact this collective sensemaking by giving positive sense to the technology. Altogether, it provides insights into how users collectively entangle with Collaboration Technology in practice, giving IT Change Managers a better understanding of how IT-adoption develops and where they might intervene.

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Table of content

1. Collaboration Technology in organizations 6

2. Sensemaking 7 2.1. Group-level sensemaking 8 2.2. Sensemaking of technology 9 3.1. IT affordances 9 3.2. Constructing IT affordances 11 Conceptual model 13 Method 14 1. Research design 14 2. Data collection 15 3. Data analysis 17 Results 17

1. Making sense of the Collaboration Technology Teams 18

2. The construction of IT affordances 21

3. The effect of attitudes towards the future 25

Discussion 26

Propositions 27

Revised conceptual model 32

Conclusion 34

References 35

Appendix A: Case description 42

Appendix B: Interview guide 44

Appendix C: Meeting observation log 50

Appendix D: Self-observation log 53

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Introduction

Imagine… you have worked in the same team for years, with shared work routines in systems such as e-mail, phone, or physical meetings.

Then, one day, Collaboration Technology is implemented… So, what now?

The situation sketched above is not unique since many companies implement new types of information and communication technologies (Rice et al., 2017). Particularly large multinational organizations rely on these types of technology to coordinate and support (virtual) interdependent but distributed groups (Espinosa, Slaughter, Kraut & Herbsleb, 2007). This trend is rooted in the increasing importance of effective collaboration for companies to survive (Mollahoseini Ardakani, Hashemi & Razzazi, 2018). Pentland and Feldman (2007) describe that technology opens up doors and offers new and different ways to work across space, time and participants, addressing the challenge of sharing knowledge and collaboration in a more distributed and networked work environment than ever.

An example of such a technology is Collaboration Technology (CT), which is designed for two or more people to collaborate at the same, or different times and places (Brown, Dennis & Venkatesh, 2010). It provides generic features in which individuals find their ways to use these systems, according to their own goals (Lehrig, Krancher & Dibbern, 2017). Despite the potential of such technology, evidence shows that many features are often not used (Jasperson, Carter & Zmud, 2005; Zhang, Venkatesh & Brown, 2011) and organizations fail to realize the promised benefits of the IT (Information Technology) investment (Li, Hsieh & Rai, 2013).

To better understand why and how people use IT, recent scholars have embraced the affordance theory (e.g., Markus & Silver, 2008; Strong et al., 2014). This theory provides a framework for how people interact with technology (Leonardi, 2013). The IT affordance theory postulates that, to understand how and why technology is used, not only the technology’s features but also user goals and capabilities influence how people become aware of how to use the IT system in their work practices (Bernhard, Recker, & Burton-Jones, 2013). Examples of studies using IT affordance theory are those of Leonardi (2013) and Strong et al. (2014), which examine how a group of IT users perceived and actualized affordances, focusing on how and why organizational outcomes occur. The present study takes the sociomaterial perspective, examines affordances at the relational level and follows Markus and Silver’s (2008) definition of functional IT affordances: “the possibilities for goal-oriented action afforded to specified user groups by technical objects.” (p. 622).

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2013). However, not only an individual perspective on how technology is used by one user, but a broader view on technology use needs to be considered when the IT, such as CT, is situated in a large organization where it is used by multiple users collectively (Vyas, Chisalita & Dix, 2017). Moreover, a condition for a positive result of collective use on a team’s outcome is the common understanding of what technology features facilitate users to do (Kang, Lim, Kim & Yang, 2012; Leonardi, 2013; DeSanctis & Poole, 1994). With limited studies addressing group-level affordances, this calls for future research (Leonardi, 2013; Strong et al., 2014; Volkoff & Strong, 2017).

Second, while the affordance literature helps to understand which action possibilities are perceived and actualized, it does not give clarity about how people construct this perception and come to collective actualization in an organizational context (e.g., Leonardi, 2011). How users move from perception to actualization is still needs further exploration (Lehrig et al., 2017). The present study therefore builds on the work of Stam (2017) and takes a sensemaking perspective to understand how collective interpretation of technology use is constructed. Sensemaking is “the process through which individuals work to understand novel, unexpected, or confusing events.” (Maitlis & Christianson, 2014, p. 58). This study does not take an individual but a collective sensemaking lens by assuming that these individual and inter-recipient processes influence each other (Balogun, 2006). Affordance theory and sensemaking theory are combined to understand how a workgroup consisting of different roles make sense of CT and perceive and actualize collective affordances.

Addressing these gaps contributes academically to a better understanding of collective feature use of CT, which is a significant but complex factor in technology adoption success (Griffith, 1999; Jasperson et al., 2005). This study provides IT adoption practitioners insight for possible interventions to realize the benefits of collaboration platforms and ideally enhance collaboration effectivity (Lehrig et al., 2017). With this, the need for more CT case studies is addressed (e.g., Kolfschoten et al., 2012; Lehrig et al., 2017).

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this is the first research on the emergence of collective affordances for collaboration through a sensemaking lens when Collaboration Technology is implemented.

This paper starts with a theoretical background of CT in organizations, sensemaking and IT affordances, which altogether leads to a conceptual framework. Next, the methodology is described, after which the findings are presented. Lastly, a discussion of the results is provided, indicating the limitations of the study, future research and, practical suggestions and ends with a conclusion.

Literature Review

1. Collaboration Technology in organizations

Several definitions refer to the umbrella term Collaboration Technology (CT), such as group support systems, electronic meeting systems, groupware and, computer-supported cooperative work (Brown et al., 2010). This research uses the Collaboration Technology definition of Ellis, Gibbs and Rein (1991, p. 40): "a computer-based system that supports groups of people engaged in a common task (or goal) and that provides an interface to a shared environment.". Examples are group electronic calendars, electronic meeting tools such as Skype, document libraries, and group project management tools (Kang et al., 2012). The popularity of these platforms is increasing, as white-collar workers in OECD countries work on projects that require a form of virtual collaboration for at least 50-70%, of which 20 to 35% involves worldwide collaboration (Kurtzberg, 2014). This study investigates the CT use of the front-end version of Sharepoint: Teams.

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Kang et al. (2012) call for future research on CT in the new direction of team contexts which is addressed here by examining CT usage in the context of a workgroup1.

This research contributes to closing this gap by examining how a workgroup makes sense of CT and how they manage to create a shared understanding of how they can collectively use the CT to achieve their teamwork. The latter is conceptualized as the collective affordances of CT, but first, the concept of sensemaking is explained.

2. Sensemaking

The sensemaking theory helps to understand how people modify their knowledge framework when they observe and interpret an ambiguous event (e.g., a new CT system), and need to clarify what the event means (Sandberg & Tsoukas, 2015). According to Weick, Sutcliffe, and Obstfeld (2005) “sensemaking unfolds as a sequence in which people concerned with identity in the social context of other actors engage ongoing circumstances from which they extract cues and make plausible sense retrospectively while enacting more or less order into those ongoing circumstances.” (p.409). This definition suggests that sensemaking entails three phases of noticing or perceiving cues, creating interpretations and enacting, which are elaborated underneath (Maitlis & Christianson, 2014; Sandberg & Tsoukas, 2015). This study contributes to the literature by including all three phases instead of many other studies that focus on the interpretation phase alone (Sandberg & Tsoukas, 2015). Here, it is essential to know that ‘sensegiving’, which is the interpretive process where individuals influence each other’s sensemaking (Bartunek, Krim, Neccochea, & Humphries, 1999), is distinct from sensemaking. However, as the ongoing cycles of ‘sensemaking’ and ‘sensegiving’ influence each other, they are not separate processes (Gioia & Chittipeddi, 1991).

Noticing or perceiving cues. First, in the process of sensemaking comes “bracketing, noticing and extracting cues from our lived experience of the interrupted situation.” (Sandberg & Tsoukas, 2015, p. 14). Sensemaking starts when a person experiences a mismatch with their expectations and the real environment or when they are confronted with an uncertain event (Maitlis & Christianson, 2014). This is the point where people are creating an initial sense of the interrupted situation, which they then start interpreting (Weick, 1995). Cues within the environment function as triggers in the sensemaking process in the form of events, issues, situations, or features (Sandberg & Tsoukas, 2015).

1 _{‘Workgroup’ according to the definition of Kozlowksi and Bell (2003) are work teams and groups: (a) are}

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Interpreting triggers. When triggers are perceived, people start interpreting what they mean or how it affects them. The interpretation process is often seen as a narrative and conversational process (Maitlis & Christianson, 2014). This process is about formal and informal, spoken and written, and verbal and non-verbal communication (Balogun & Johnson, 2005). This refers to when a person starts using the first sense in the process to develop a more complete and organized sense of the triggers in the situation (Sandberg & Tsoukas, 2015; Kudesia, 2017).

Enactment of the interpretations. The next step is the action enabled by the interpretation of triggers from the environment (Maitlis, 2005). When action is taken, feedback is given on the initial interpretation and related action (Maitlis & Christianson, 2014). This either brings the environment in line with the interpretation or violates it and triggers the sensemaking process again (Kudesia, 2017). Therefore, sensemaking is not a continuous process per se, but it consists of a series of rapidly moving distinct episodes and is cyclical (Weick, 2012).

2.1. Group-level sensemaking

Researchers agree that individual and group-level sensemaking are interrelated and that collective interpretation builds on the individual’s (Weick, 1995; Weick et al., 2005). For example, individual and inter-recipient processes influence each other by factors of the sensemaking process such as people’s schemata, triggers in the environment and social interaction (Balogun, 2006). According to Maitlis (2005), organizational members interpret situations in and via interactions with others, both informal or formal, in the form of discussions, negotiations, gossip, stories, and rumors. Regarding sensemaking of a workgroup, Maitlis and Christianson (2014) state that inter-subjective meaning is constructed via a co-creation of people involved in the same situation.

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2.2. Sensemaking of technology

A limited number of studies consider IT features when investigating the sensemaking of technology and treat a system as a whole. For example, as referred to by Griffith (1999), Orlikowksi and Gash (1994) investigated how people interpret and enact technology as an entire system, while not considering specific features. To open this ‘black box’, this study follows Griffith (1999) and examines the role of the IT features as triggers in the sensemaking process.

Griffith (1999) is the first to link technology features to the sensemaking process. She states that a technical object consists of hardware (e.g., a computer or screen) but also has software interfaces (e.g., applications, functionality, and features). Examples of CT features are document sharing, chatting, lists, notifications, or search options. Griffith (1999) describes the following dimensions of features as triggers along two continuums: concrete/abstract and core/tangential features. ‘Concrete features’ can be described explicitly as it is easier to verify the feature, whereas it is more difficult to describe ‘abstract features’ directly. Whether a feature belongs to the ‘core’ end of the continuum is determined by the level of criticality of the feature to the technology’s goal and identity. When features are optional and are unused or unknown by the users, they are more ‘tangential’ (Jasperson et al., 2005). Core and concrete features are more likely to trigger sensemaking than tangential features (Griffith, 1999).

Understanding how IT features function as triggers is crucial to help organizations determine which features are perceived and interpreted. This allows for proactively managing this process and ideally improving technology design, implementation, use and redesign (Griffith 1999). By focusing on features instead of an entire system, it is possible to study which affordances the system offers its users by finding a beneficial match between the user’s work tasks and specific IT features (Jasperson et al., 2005; Lehrig et al., 2017).

Although Griffith’s (1999) IT feature study is an essential foundation for this research, she only focuses on individual sensemaking and does not consider sensemaking at the collective level. This research addresses this call for future research by focusing on group-level sensemaking. How affordances emerge from the feature-centric sensemaking process is elaborated underneath.

3.1. IT affordances

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interpretation or socio-cultural setting, or goals.” (Bardram & Houben, 2018, p. 4). However, when applying the affordance theory to IT, a more relational view comes to the fore. The sociomaterial perspective is at the heart of IT affordances and refers to the social (users) and technological (CT) as entangled elements, influencing each other (Orlikowski, 2007). Entanglement means that an action potential (an affordance) only becomes a synergistic interaction when human and material agencies join (Leonardi, 2012). For instance, IT provides a person with certain features and only based on goals and capabilities, the person perceives action opportunities that are actualized by using those features. Leonardi (2011) uses imbrication to describe the point where the social agency intertwines with the material agency, referring to individuals and groups that do their ‘real work’ as they use technology (Cook & Brown, 1999). Affordances or constraints of the material in use are constructed at this imbrication point (Leonardi, 2011).

In line with recent Information System studies (e.g., Leonardi, 2011; Lehrig et al., 2017), this study takes the relational affordance lens. Hutchby (2001) was the first to connect technology to affordances by explaining action possibilities through both functional aspects of technology and the relational aspects referring to the users or organizational context. This research therefore uses Markus and Silver’s (2008) definition of functional affordances as: “the possibilities for goal-oriented action afforded to specified user groups by technical objects.” (p. 622). This relational lens helps to have a less deterministic and more nuanced view on IT impact of work practices (Hutchby, 2001; Kling, 2000) and addresses the recent question of Leonardi (2017) “How do those goals mediate the interpretations people make about what a technological artefact’s materials can or cannot do?” (p.16).

Specific for this study, team members using CT in a workgroup may have team goals but simultaneously have different individual goals. It is likely that, for example, managers and general employees have different goals and therefore different perceptions and personal relevance to use the system (Amoako-Gyampah, 2004). This means that individuals can perceive and enact different affordances for the same technology. For example, Savoli and Barki’s (2016) empirical study found that the examined health management system provided multiple affordances that were enacted differently by the patients according to their goals. The above is captured in DeSanctis and Poole’s (1994) Adaptive Structuration Theory which argues that alternatives in usage become more evident when examining IT at the feature level, instead of studying the system. This influence of user’s goals on IT use relates to the sensemaking theory in which differences in functions, goals, and schemata of managers and general employees, impact how sense is made.

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3.2. Constructing IT affordances

Perceiving affordances at the collective level. The perception of an affordance concerns the moment when a user “becomes aware of the existence of an action possibility” by perceiving cues, such as information about the affordance (Bernhard et al. 2013, p.5). According to Pozzi et al. (2014), the affordance perception process is “influenced by (1) the objects’ features, (2) actor capabilities, (3) actor’s goal, and (4) external information.” (p.7). Users can also pick up misinformation when they believe that they can use a feature in a way that is not possible in the system, which might not be realized until a “trial and error” approach changes the perception of the feature (Gibson, 1979; Shaw, Turvey & Mace, 1982).

This research assumes that affordances are primarily perceived throughout the collective sensemaking process within a workgroup. This relates to the concept of collective IT affordances, that is explained underneath.

Collective IT Affordances. The need for group-level analysis of affordances is expressed by several scholars (e.g., Markus & Silver, 2008; Strong et al., 2014) which state that individual actions in organizations are done in collaboration or at least impacted by others’ actions, for both the achievement of individual and organizational goals. To examine affordances in the organizational context, a multi-level lens is needed (Strong et al., 2014).

A critical study that addresses group-level affordances is Leonardi’s (2013), which argues that only when a group of actors agrees on how to use the technology features, the affordance of the technical object can be actualized at the organizational level. He finds that a group of engineers initially divergently used technology’s features that impeded them from coordinating their work. Ultimately, the engineers enacted a shared affordance when they converged to the common use of IT features that collectively afforded the group to compare outputs and structure their group’s advice network.

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tasks in a project and work closely together to make sure that their outputs are well coordinated.” (Leonardi, 2013, p. 753).

The present study applies the concept of collective and shared affordances to the usage of CT because it is assumed that the workgroup’s usage is either pooled from individualized affordances (collective) or is used similarly (shared) to support work coordination. How perceived affordance can be actualized for a particular goal, is explained underneath.

Actualizing affordances for collaboration. Affordance actualization is defined as “the actions taken by actors as they take advantage of one or more affordances through their use of the technology to achieve immediate concrete outcomes in support of organizational goals.” (Strong et al. 2014, p 70). Depending on the effort and difficulty associated with it, a perceived affordance is being acted upon in the system (Bernhard et al., 2013). Strong et al. (2014) have done a longitudinal study of the implementation of an electronic health record (EHR) system and find that the actualization journeys of individuals are aggregated to contribute to organizational outcomes. How higher-level goals are expected to influence the actualization of CT affordances is explained next.

Collective Affordances actualized for collaboration. Building on the above, it is relevant to look at the outcomes that users want to achieve by using CT. As the term already implies, it is assumed that the technology is used for collaboration. This confirms Gaver (1991) which developed a helpful view on affordances for collaboration to understand how affordances can contribute to the overarching purpose of collaboration. Gaver (1991) argues that the complement ‘for collaboration’ emphasizes the social and cultural influence which is essential to examine the social relations, as well as the medium in which they are activated.

Another important recent study of Bardram and Houben (2018) examines affordances for collaboration for the use of paper-based and electronic medical records in a hospital setting. Bardram and Houben (2018) define Collaborative Affordances as: “a relation between a [physical and/or digital] artefact and a set of human actors, that affords the opportunity for these actors to perform a collaborative action within a specific social context.” (p.8). This type of affordances is particularly applicable to this study by not focusing on the individual but on the socio-cultural context that intertwines with the coordinative work practices, group dynamics and social rules. Bardram and Houben (2018) identified four collaborative affordances: portability, collocated access, shared overview, and mutual awareness. This study addresses their call for future research by extending the collaborative affordance theory to different artefacts and sectors.

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Conceptual model

This study researches how a workgroup containing multiple roles makes sense of Collaboration Technology and collectively perceives and actualizes affordances for collaboration. This is done by integrating two theories: the sensemaking theory (Weick, 2005) and the Affordance Theory (originally from Gibson, 1986), through a sociomaterial perspective (Orlikowksi, 2007). It is assumed that perceived IT affordances are constructed when users try to make sense of the technology by interpreting its features and how they could use them. Affordances are then actualized by an individual and collectively as the users use the collaborative technology’s features in their daily work.

Figure 1. Conceptual model

The conceptual model (Figure 1) shows how the types of roles within the workgroup are distinguished: managers and general employees. It is assumed that their differences in goals, attitudes, and capabilities influence the sensemaking process and ultimately how affordances of a CT are perceived and actualized by the workgroup as a whole.

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This research assumes that this entanglement takes place through the collective sensemaking process. Organizations or workgroup members also interpret the environment in and via interactions with others (Maitlis, 2005) meaning that how these triggers are perceived and actualized by a group is influenced by social interaction, visualized by the black circle. Social interaction here means both informal or formal interactions, in the form of discussions, negotiations, gossip, stories and rumors. Through collective sensemaking, collective or shared affordances occur. After both workgroup members, managers and employees, have perceived their individual affordances or simultaneously have constructed collective or shared affordances, users enact their interpretations and actualize affordances as individuals and as a group. Altogether, the workgroup members use the technology according to their individual and team goals, such as for the goal of collaboration. When the action mismatches the goal, this possibly triggers the sensemaking process to again, which is visualized by the arrow that connects enacting with interpreting.

Next, these theoretical insights will be explored empirically by a qualitative case-study of which the methodology is discussed in the next chapter.

Method

1. Research design

Based on the literature review, the conceptual framework served as a lens to study how a workgroup makes sense of Collaboration Technology and how and which affordances are perceived and actualized for collaboration. The initial model is revised based on the findings and ultimately builds on existing concepts. As this topic is relatively unknown (Lehrig et al., 2017), a qualitative case-study approach is used (Eisenhardt, 1989) to explore a phenomenon that is explored by a “how” question (Yin, 2013). A triangulation method, the combination of interviews, observations, and document analysis (Denzin, 1978) is used to “provide stronger substantiation of constructs and hypotheses.” (Eisenhardt, 1998, p. 538).

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The workgroup selected, a region team responsible for high-end investment and capital planning, has always worked together dispersed over the region (Appendix A offers a detailed description) by using the existing systems such as e-mail and telephone. If and how Teams is used is, although recommended, not forced by higher management, which means that the users engage in new and voluntary use of IT. This workgroup is chosen because the members have worked together dispersed before, which allows comparing old (existing systems) and new (CT) to examine the construction of perceived and actualized affordances.

13 out of 30 team members were selected, based on representability of different functional roles and availability of the participants. The roles in the team that are selected and interviewed are one manager, one team-leader, nine different types of advisors and three assistants. A strict requirement for all interviewees was basic knowledge and use of the Teams application.

Unit of analysis. The unit of analysis is at the relational level and concerns the interaction (entanglement in practice) between the Collaboration Technology and the users in the setting of a workgroup. The collective usage of CT in a workgroup consisting of multiple roles is studied by diving into the sensemaking processes of one specific workgroup.

2. Data collection

Interviews. In total, 13 interviews were conducted in this study, resulting in 12 hours of spoken data. Interviews allowed for in-depth information about participants’ perspectives of a specific topic (Turner, 2010), such as the sensemaking of CT. The interviews were semi-structured to have a more flexible and personal approach in each interview (Gall, Gall, & Borg, 2003). An interview guide (seen in Appendix B) was used to address the study’s reliability and validity. A pilot interview with three volunteering available participants that were newly involved with Teams was conducted to test and enhance the quality of the questions. The official interviews took approximately 45-60 minutes, and all took place in a quiet and closed room at the local bank office where the workgroup is located once a week. Moreover, an informed consent form was signed and a participant code (P#) was given, to protect the participants’ privacy and anonymity during the audio-taped interviews.

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routines?’. During the affordance questions, Teams was open on their screen allowing for behavior observation, while making it easier for participants to recall memories.

The first four interviews were transcribed and coded, identifying emerging concepts such as ‘habits’, ‘champions’ and ‘future expectations’, to reflect on the questions and create preliminary memos. Moreover, during the first interviews not only affordances but also constraints came to the fore. Based on this, the initial questions stayed the same as they provided rich information, but more questions were added to focus on the newly found concepts. Due to participant’s confusion in terms, the word ‘old system’ was replaced by ‘existing systems’ (Appendix D) and the second half of the interviews focused less on the group’s culture because of misunderstanding the question.

Observation. The researcher has been part of the Generic Adoption Strategy and Structure project, that is responsible for the adoption of Office 365 (including Teams), for six months (since August 2018) before the actual data collection is done. This allowed for a more in-depth understanding of the subject matter and helped to learn about the perspective of the study population (Mack, Woodsong, MacQueen, Guest & Namey, 2005). It is important to note that because the researcher was part of the implementation team, bias could exist. To guarantee quality findings, this possible bias is addressed by critically observing the researcher’s behavior and thoughts. An observation log is kept (Appendix D), in which, for example, is explained that the researcher encountered her own uncomfortable feelings and hesitance to use the right words during the interviewees. This is expected because of the interviewees’ urge to answer ‘correctly’ because the researcher ‘came from the headquarter’. This was addressed by clearly and repeatedly stating that there were no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answers, to ensure that interviewees felt an open atmosphere for all possible answers.

Moreover, during the interviews, overt, non-participant observations of the participant’s behaviour in Teams on their laptop screen were done. This allowed for cross-checking the researcher’s perception with the participant’s explanation of their Teams usage. For example, when a participant talked about ‘chat’, observations of the Teams screen avoided confusion and allowed for asking an additional question to confirm whether ‘chat’ referred to ‘individual chat’ or ‘team-centric chat’. Additionally, the researcher has observed the weekly team meeting to examine how Teams is used in practice (Appendix C), aimed to increase the correct interpretation during the interviews (Merriam & Tisdell, 2015). The method could therefore examine “misperception or a lack of perception of affordances which is not possible when relying solely on perceptual data as reported by informants.” (Bernhard et al., 2013, p. 7).

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Strategy and Structure project (e.g., training content, strategic plans, communication plans and event plans) were examined to understand the trajectory that the employees are going through.

3. Data analysis

All 13 interviews were transcribed and coded by the qualitative data analysis tool Atlas.ti 8 and in a later stage systematically organized in MS Word. The following coding sequence based on Strauss and Corbin (1998) is used: open (inductive and deductive analysis), axial (relationships among the codes forming concepts) and selective coding (links among concepts). Because of newly emerging concepts (e.g., organizational change factors, champions and habits), the focus on this during the coding process was sharpened to be able to confirm or reject these concepts. An example regarding the coding process is explained next. The researcher started with open coding by exploring the data from the conceptual model’s lens. Both deductive, such as features of ‘working on the same document’ and ‘chat’, and inductive codes, such as ‘reorganization’ and ‘training’, were found. Next, axial codes related codes among concepts, where, for example, codes referring to Teams functionality were grouped as ‘IT features’ and ‘training’ and ‘reorganization’ became part of ‘organizational change factors’. These axial codes were selectively coded as the theme ‘sensemaking triggers’ as these codes all started the sensemaking process of the participants. A codebook is provided in Appendix E for transparency and controllability.

One of the research objectives was to understand how collective sense is made among different roles within a workgroup. This is addressed by a within-case analysis. By coding the different roles, new, unanticipated roles are identified, such as assistants and advisors, as well as informal champions and self-perceived laggards. The roles were coded from two perspectives to increase reliability. For example, the champion’s role is coded from the champion’s perspective itself, as well as from the team’s perspective to identify whether interpretations match. The same was done for the manager and team leader, advisors, assistants and self-perceived laggards. This allowed for analysis and comparison among the roles, identifying differences in their sensemaking and affordance construction.

Lastly, during the data collection, memos and fieldnotes were kept that illustrated the findings in a notebook, PowerPoint diagrams and comments in the transcripts, to develop preliminary links and concepts of the findings. This helped to focus on probing new concepts, while aiming to avoid confirmation bias.

Results

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workgroup, and (2) how and which collective affordances for collaboration are perceived and actualized.

1. Making sense of the Collaboration Technology Teams

1.1 Triggers. An important trigger for sensemaking of CT is IT features. During the interviews, the mentioned IT features were cross-checked by the researcher’s direct observation of participants’ Teams environment on their screens. In trying to make sense what Teams affords them, half of the participants engaged in comparing more concrete and core features with features of the existing systems. For example, P6 compares the feature of ‘tagging in messages’ in Teams with a CC-mail in Outlook: “Yes, if somebody tags my name, this is really something I must do. If somebody tags my Team… yes, then it is for everyone, kind of a CC.” He then explains:“I want to send my assistant a message. Okay, then I can choose WhatsApp, I can choose mail. But I can also choose the chat functionality in Teams.”. By comparing the systems’ features, he starts to make sense of Teams. Moreover, P11 compares the features of ‘creating a team’ and ‘selecting members’: “But if you look at WhatsApp… then you create a group with three people, that is the same. Or via Facebook, if I create something… Do you have a closed group or not?”. Other participants were triggered by Teams’ core features that were highlighted in the training and related to their goals, like participant 1: “The best functionality that I imagined was working in one Excel simultaneously. I envisioned that (…) if you ask people: ‘Can you fill in that spreadsheet? Put a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ or a cross.’ I thought: ‘Oh good!’”.

While it was not anticipated in the conceptual model, organizational change factors, came to the fore as another trigger. For example, all participants mentioned the Teams training as the main trigger to start interpreting the system’s features, such as P4: “Just the whole introduction of Teams, (…) in that sense you get the basics. Through that session, I got in touch with Teams.”. Also, follow-up training was organized for assistants and champions that allowed subgrofollow-ups to learn and discuss more about Teams, as mentioned by the team-leader (P1): “We had one more training session from someone, for the team assistants. That was useful, it was also good because then you are sitting together.”. Moreover, along with the implementation of Teams, the team was restructured in terms of working location. It was perceived as a good opportunity to start using Teams as expressed by P10: “We started to go in front with everything. The [manager] picked it up. He said: the 1st of January we start with a new team either way, so start working like this right away.”. There are also organizational change pitfalls related to uncertainty identified, which are elaborated underneath.

1.2 Interpretation of the triggers.

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collectively. Both in- and outside the training, almost all participants engaged in ‘just do it’ behavior. Where an individual engaged in ‘trial and error’ behavior, the workgroup ‘just’ collectively started working together in Teams as expressed by P11: “It is just a matter of doing, the more you work with it, the easier it becomes. And yes... then the “new” disappears a bit.”. During the system exploration, all participants mention that they ask a colleague, mostly a champion, to gather information about Teams, like participant 1: “We are lucky with [champions] and some other colleagues that are busy with Teams. And we are like… how do you do that again? It is collegial asking for how it works.”. A champion is a tech-savvy, enthusiastic user that sees the value of CT and receives extra support and training from the IT Adoption team.

Teams was also discussed both formally and informally. Although not often, Teams was formally mentioned in meetings which was confirmed by the observed meeting in which Teams was discussed under the topic of data privacy (detailed description in Appendix C). The manager (P8) expresses that: “[P10] has explained it in a team meeting or a weekstart… what the possibilities are and what we can do with it.”. Moreover, among champions and assistants, Teams is virtually discussed in a planned way. Local champions had a national team with other champions in which they discuss how to use Teams. This provided a major platform in which collective sense is made and distributed among other local teams, as explained by a Champion (P10): “… yes that stimulated. You heard little things if you didn’t get it and then you asked through the video: ‘How did you do that?’ At the beginning that was very useful and later it was more us helping them.”. Lastly, although not often mentioned, some interviewees recalled some casual ‘hallway’ conversations about the usage of Teams. All in all, social interaction had a significant influence on the collective sensemaking process. Next, it is described how informal and formal roles are identified in this sensemaking and -giving process.

Influential roles steering the sensemaking process. More than half of the participants mention that they experienced a discrepancy between users in their team such as P7: “You have ambassadors and the followers.”. In this case, champions played the most influential role in giving the workgroup sense to the coming of Teams. Champions, contradictory to other participants, engaged in individual sensemaking when looking for information on the internet such as P10:”Then you think: how is that possible and you start Googling and then you find that it is put in Streams, which I didn’t know.”.

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department it happens in a fun way… I know that the team-leader (P1) sometimes says: ‘Ah, I will mail this!’ And that other people respond: ‘No, put it in Teams.’ Sometimes, you just keep nagging, in a fun way. That is possible here, which is nice.”.

Formal roles based on hierarchical functions were found to be the less influential but important facilitators for this sensegiving. For example, the manager had a medium-active role by delegating carrying away the change through providing champions time to learn and engage in sensegiving such as giving training to other colleagues about Teams and spending time on answering questions. When asked what his role is, he (P8) says: “Stimulating and… giving a go, like just do it. And of course, also giving the right example by working with it when it is set.”. Another important formal role is that of assistants that, among their administrative tasks, feel it is their responsibility to share knowledge and teach their advisors about the new tool, such as P12: “That is something… that belongs to me. (…) I make the minutes for the meeting, so I also believe it is my task to figure out how to get it in there.”. Also, assistants engage in collective sensemaking in a follow-up training then spread this knowledge among their colleagues, like P10: “I believe we [the assistants] are the foundation. We can then carry it out towards the advisors, the planners and the MT…”.

Sensemaking circumstances. Several circumstances are identified which condition participants’ perception and interpretation of triggers, which are explained underneath.

Curiosity. A minority of the participants mentioned that they were curious and interested to find out what Teams offered them, such as P5: “I was just curious how it works and what you can do with it.”. This curiosity initiated exploring and making sense of the system.

New & different. All participants started to make sense of possibilities that were new and different. This could be both interpreted somewhat negative, like P7: “Sometimes you’re like… “It was on Teams.” Then you have to look… not in your mailbox anymore. That is different.”, as well as positive, like participant 1: “It is different when you have to take into account that 10 people have to fill it in. (…) Or you send an Excel 10 times and you have to get it back 10 times and that you put it together. So, I thought, this (Teams) is beneficial.”.

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around a little.”. Expectedly due to ignorance, miscommunication about the usage of Teams and ambiguity sometimes emerged. On top of this, there are expectations such as a decrease in mail that are unrealized, causing uncertainty. Moreover, a few participants experienced a technical discrepancy, like P12: “Now, you should be able to work in a document simultaneously, however, in my experience that is not so pleasant… it stagnates somehow.”. These issues decreased their trust in the system, sometimes leading to workarounds. More uncertainty came from haziness from the organization. Half of the participants found the purpose of Teams unclear, like P8: “I am curious why this organization chooses for this.”. Also, a third of the participants found the attention value of messages in Teams uncertain, coming with the belief that some colleagues are inactive in the system.

‘Forced’ use. A large majority of participants felt that they had no choice but to use Teams, even though this was not formally obliged by management. This feeling came either from the organization’s message that Teams is the main system to use or participants’ personal believe that using Teams is ‘the future’. Moreover, half of the participants mentioned that their colleagues’ actions in Teams somehow forced them to use Teams because they started to miss crucial information, such as P1: “I have never looked at this. So now I see that someone is communicating about something that I was already wondering… when are you going to do that? And now I see that he has already done it.”.

1.3 Towards enactment. From the above, it is clear that a significant number of participants found themselves having a negative attitude, engaging in negative sensemaking through uncertainty and ‘forced’ use, while only a minority engaged in positive sensemaking and sensegiving through voluntary exploration and knowledge distribution, such as champions. The question here is: how does this influence their enactment of interpretations and thereby the construction and actualization of affordances? This is addressed in the next section.

2. The construction of IT affordances

While the initial conceptual model describes individual (based on roles) and collective, as well as shared affordances, the present study identified several shared affordances. Shared affordances refer to IT features that are used similarly by the group and support work coordination for both individual and group goals (Leonardi, 2013). The underlying process of how and which shared affordances are perceived and (not) actualized through the above explained collective sensemaking among roles is described next.

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invaluable, when participants perceived a similar affordance in Teams as they did in the existing systems, but the benefit for moving the actualization towards Teams is not recognized. Although, for example, Teams offers important features that support communication, such as personal chat and calls, these features are not seen as new or valuable enough to be used. As such, the bundle of affordances for communication that Teams offers is perceived but not actualized. Such as P3 explains: “If we didn’t have it, it would also run. (…) You don’t really need communication because you can also do that in WhatsApp, that also works fine. So, I think that that is why it is not being used. There is a medium that is more familiar and that works just as fine.”. It is important to stress that the perceived affordances that are not actualized, differ per the individual exploration paces.

Attachment to existing systems. Habits seem to be at the core of the above process. All participants have worked with tools such as e-mail, Skype, telephone and even the newer application WhatsApp for years and have developed their own routines within the system, as P8 mentions: “… yes, we are all habit-animals. So, my mailbox is my to-do box. (…) that is my way of working that I know: hey, I need to address this mail.”. Even though participants perceived affordances in Teams, almost all of them were somehow attached to the existing systems, refraining them from actualizing in Teams, such as P4: “I know that there is a chat function in here, but I am familiar with the chat function in Skype. Actually, that is just the easiest way.”.

Relating habits to negative attitudes. Building on the above, it was found that sensemaking circumstances with underlying negative attitudes pushed people towards their old habits. For instance, when participants felt uncertain about the purpose of Teams, they found it easier to fall back into routines, such P1 expresses when he is unsure about the value of using Teams: “I could have done that in Teams. But then I wonder, why would I do that in Teams? (…) It is just habit to do in mail. It is easy.”. Also, due to technical uncertainty P12 mentions: “Because of the technical issues and not knowing for sure if you have the right version, people become more hesitant. That is why they do it in the old way to save the documents.”.

Perceived constraints. Additionally, perceived constraints are identified. For example, as described, technical issues constrain work practices, as P10 explains: “We had problems with synchronising documents. So that didn’t work for certain colleagues.”. Also, privacy laws restrict using Teams when documents concern certain client information. Moreover, participants had difficulty to know what relevant information in Teams is, because it is different from the notifications a user gets in existing systems such as Outlook.

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goes beyond just the goal of collaboration. Namely, the actualized affordances that were either perceived as ‘new’ specific to Teams, or as ‘easier’ and more efficient. Moreover, when concrete goals can be achieved easier in Teams, such as an assignment of the headquarter, affordances are actualized. The main (bundles of) affordances that were perceived and actualized are:

Sharing knowledge: among a specific (cross-departmental) group. Sharing knowledge in the form of Q&A, announcements, documents or messages in the group’s conversations was found to be the major actualized affordance. P4 explains: “When I look at Teams now, I believe that it is easier to share knowledge within a specific group of investment specialists.” Another example given by P2 is: “Because we talked about presentations in the meetings and I found this article… I thought “ah that might be relevant to know. For everyone as well.”. This can be done apart from the former (before Teams) hierarchical or departmental boundaries that determine which access to which drive you have. Therefore, Teams now affords participants to ‘reach a specific group reciprocally’, as many participants actualized the affordance to share knowledge with a selected group which is now easier than before. P1 expresses: “Teams offers me a bigger world, with which I mean that you get easily added to a Team and if something happens in a chat (…) then you do more with it.”. P3 also explains that “(…) you just have selected a team and this team gets the message. Otherwise, you have to make selections: whom are you going to send that? (…) Before, I would have just e-mailed two random colleagues of whom I thought they would know.”.

Integration: everything in one place. Some participants mention that because Teams integrates different applications, it affords them to have one place to go to when working, as expressed by P10: “The ease is in the fact that everything is in one place now. Because actually as with Skype, mail, chat… you can all do those lose things.”. Also, Teams offers the possibility to have collective storage for the team’s documents and as expressed by P5: “You can easily find it back. That also has to do with structuring it.”. Whereas before, they had a local drive in which they worked. It is experienced that all relevant documents are stored in the Teams document library. This integration results in more overview and ‘less noise’.

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the deadlines. (…) So, we could exactly monitor who was doing what at that moment and if it was finished on time.”.

Engagement: being more up-to-date by working across time and space. Participants felt that Teams afforded them to be more engaged and up-to-date inside the team but also beyond teams as expressed by P1: “I am now added to the Teams FTF Friesland and I see a discussion that takes place there that I would have normally not seen.”. Moreover, the meeting functionality afforded them to join meetings on camera everywhere they were, which was confirmed in the observation where people joined the videomeeting from different locations (Appendix C). A minority of the participants actualized the affordance of mobile access to Teams, such as P5: “When I am on the road or somewhere else and I cannot start my laptop, I can quickly look at what is going on.”. How this affordance differed according to different formal roles’ goals is addressed underneath.

Saving time. It was mentioned that, referring to the affordances above, using Teams saved half of the participants time, as P3 explains: “Yes, I really think time-saving… that you can work on one document efficiently beyond groups. Before we had the G-drive, C-Drive and the H-drive and I could not work in all of them.”. This is an example of a feature that is ‘new and different’ and is perceived more efficient than it was before.

2.3 From shared affordances to role-based sub-affordances. While all participants engaged in actualizing the above shared affordances, the different roles within the workgroup specifically actualized a certain bundle of these affordances, based on their roles (role-based sub-affordances). This is explained underneath.

Manager. Teams affords the manager to have an overview of teams, projects, and progress as management information. P8: “I believe different forms of consultation that I am participating in, integrate into Teams which make is possible to structure your documents, meetings, and agenda (…) progress in teams. In that way, I get an overview of all the meetings I am participating in and which I role I have in them.”. Depending on the role you take place in different projects and teams. It is, for example, observed that a manager has more Teams (average 20) than an advisor (average 3). Being part of several teams affords the manager and the team-leader to align stakeholders more easily. Also, when you are a manager (P8), it can be expected that you create teams and that: “you take that role sooner if you are the Chair. Look, if I just participate than I expect that the chair creates the Team and if not, I say: let’s do it through Teams.”. Moreover, the manager is on the road and therefore uses Teams to be more mobile.

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the progress. The manager (P8) says the following about his team: “I think that they find it easy to share many documents. So, in the operational area. Sharing documents and working in this real-time and always getting it back. So, it is more flexible, it is real time, which improves your collaboration, it makes collaborating easier.”.

Assistants. The assistants’ administrative work practices changed with Teams. Instead of mailing around a holiday planner or a progress overview for which they are responsible, the workgroup can now work together simultaneously in one document. Also, they are in charge of organizing meetings and agenda’s that are now in Teams. Remarkably, it is role depended if mobility is important, as expressed by P12: “Assistants are mostly here, at the office and sometimes remotely. While advisors are at the client or on the road (…) after which they will work some things out at home or at an office.”. However, the fact that they work for advisors that are on the road made their remote work easier in Teams.

3. The effect of attitudes towards the future

3.1. Negative attitudes towards the future. A third of the participants expressed worry for the future regarding Teams. For instance, half of the participants mentioned information overload, such as P3: “At a certain point I am wondering… How do we keep it clean and clear? My boss posts presentations everyday… Hop, and it’s on Teams again. (…) My question is, do we really need to put PowerPoint presentations and other kinds of documents there?”. The feeling of that Teams came on top of ‘all the rest’ and that multiple communication channels are used, cause this information overload. Furthermore, there was a fear for being part of too many Teams, which is related to ‘information overload’, as expressed by P7: “That is way too much… you become crazy. If you are in all those Teams… you get crazy of all that comes over you.”. P11 addressed this by a desired future affordance: “At the moment that you have 36 Teams over there… then I lose overview again. And I don’t know if there will ever be a structure here? Or maybe that is already possible? I don’t know.”. Lastly, even though the majority of interviewees see the overall value of Teams for collaboration, the importance of physical communication is seen as being limited by digital collaboration in the future, as expressed by P13: “I don’t think collaborating is captured in the system. At least not in an ICT system. It is sitting together. (…). Seeing each other physically is really different than through the systems.”.

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Participants also expressed that for the future, they desired training on functionality, a clear direction from the organization and inspiration and motivation for how to use Teams.

Discussion

The research aim was to gain a better insight into how a workgroup makes sense of the implemented Collaboration Technology and how it relates to how and which collective affordances for collaboration were perceived and actualized. It addressed the following research question: “How does a workgroup with multiple roles make sense of Collaboration Technology when this is implemented?” and the sub-question: “How and which collective affordances for collaboration are perceived and actualized?”

It was found that the sensemaking process was triggered by IT Features and organizational change stimulators and pitfalls. IT features (Griffith, 1999) mainly triggered sensemaking through users that compared concrete features of Teams with those of existing systems. Another way of triggering was when IT features were perceived to be novel and contributed to the users’ goals. Next to IT features, although not anticipated in the conceptual model, organizational change factors triggered sensemaking of the CT. This confirms other studies (Jasperson et al., 2005; Balogun &Johnson., 2005; Stam, 2017) which argue that interventions like formal or informal training opportunities, access to external documentation and experimentation with the application’s IT features, as well as design flaws, influence the sensemaking process. In the present study, the first Teams training especially provided participants with the information to perceive the affordance, confirming Gibson’s (1979) statement which says that “the question is not whether affordances exist, but whether information is available for perceiving them.” (p. 140).

Moreover, this research confirmed the recent literature on collective sensemaking and found that social interaction during collective sensemaking of the CT influences how affordances are perceived and actualized (Maitlis & Chistianson, 2014). In this case, social interaction influences the process right from the beginning of the sensemaking process by collective sensemaking (e.g., training in groups) contradicting the findings of Stam (2017) arguing that collective sensemaking does not start after individual sensemaking has been done first.

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This can be compared to Maitlis and Sonenshein (2010) when they describe that emotions and arousal trigger sensemaking and steer the sensemaking process. The present study does not focus on emotions but takes along Maitlis and Sonenshein’s (2012) findings, while examining the effects of attitudes, either positive or negative towards the new technology, as was anticipated in the conceptual model.

Emerging throughout this sensemaking process, the following actualized shared affordances came to the fore: sharing knowledge, integration, one collective overview, being more engaged and saving time. This is comparable with Bardram and Houben (2018) that found portability, collocated access, shared overview and mutual awareness to be collaborative affordances.

How the sensemaking process relates to affordance perception and actualization and which underlying mechanisms are identified, is discussed by posing four propositions and the adjusted model.

Propositions

The first main finding is that through collective sensemaking, the perception of shared affordances takes place. This refers to those affordances that are similarly perceived and actualized by the group as a whole (Leonardi, 2013). Through social interaction among the roles, a shared meaning of what Teams offers them is constructed, which was partly anticipated in the conceptual model. However, contrary to the conceptual model, no specific individual affordances but role-based sub-affordances are identified. Out of the shared sub-affordances, each formal role (managers, advisors or assistants) had its own bundled affordance that they actualized according to their role’s goals. For example, all participants use Teams as one overview to monitor progress (shared affordance) using the feature of working together in one document, however, what each role gets out of this slightly differs according to their function goals (role-based sub-affordances). For example, managers can immediately monitor the workgroup’s work, while advisors are afforded to their colleagues’ progress remotely and assistants have one document updated by the workgroup itself, instead of their former task of updating progress by mailing around attachments of different document versions. This leads to the first proposition.

Proposition 1a. Through collective sensemaking shared affordances arise and from these, differences in formal role goals lead to specific actualized role-based sub-affordances.

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the attention to the role of middle management. The present study went beyond formal hierarchical roles and highlights the importance of sensegiving activities from informal roles in social interaction. For example, most participants asked other colleagues for help when encountering difficulties and those colleagues were mainly champion users that engaged in individual sensemaking (learning and information seeking), which was in turn distributed among the team. This concept is lightly touched upon by Randall, Resick and DeChurch (2011) where they refer to informal leadership in sensegiving, but this concept still needs future research. This leads to the following proposition.

Proposition 1b. The collective sensemaking of Collaboration Technology is not only influenced by the social interaction among formal roles but mainly impacted by informal roles.

Building on the above, the effect of the sensegiving of informal roles throughout this process is explained. Within the workgroup, some participants had negative attitudes towards the CT (self-perceived laggards), while others had positive attitudes towards the CT (champions). How these underlying attitudes influenced the sensemaking and ultimately how affordances are perceived and actualized is explained next.

Namely, negative attitudes, such as feeling ignorant and uncertain, pushed people towards their habits. For example, when a person was uncertain about Teams’ functionality and did not understand the direction of the IT strategy, it was perceived easier to stick to routines in existing systems, than it was to engage in using Teams. This is in line with Maitlis and Sonenshein (2010) that state that negative perceptions hinder sensemaking as people have a hard time constructing meaning for the change, which causes more negative sensemaking and ultimately leads to a negative vicious cycle. Moreover, a feeling of ‘threat’ (e.g., feeling uncertain) will let people fall back into well-learned and habituated actions, which are not always suitable in organizational change (Maitlis & Sonenshein, 2010). The above leads to the following proposition.

Proposition 2a. The underlying negative attitude of the sensemaking process pushes people towards their habits in existing systems.

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being more “inclusive and flexible in the categorization of cues.” (p. 568). This confirms Stam (2017) who finds that “to move away from this negative spirit, curiosity and inspiration are found as two triggering conditions (…), not just to cope with interrupted situations, but also to expand on their provisional understandings already present or made.” (p.33).

Additionally, it was found that champions engaged in sensegiving activities such as notifying colleagues in a ‘fun way’, helping their colleagues with more negative attitudes to engage in new routines and let go of old ones. Expressing this positive attitude in change situations serve to “‘influence employees’ understandings of the value of the change and potentially trigger a contagion of positive emotion through the workforce.” (Maitlis & Sonenshein, 2010, p. 568), which expectedly steers sensemaking towards constructive change. This leads to the following proposition.

Proposition 2b. The underlying positive attitude of the sensemaking process drives people to be more open and curious towards the technology and by giving this positive sense to the group, it redresses others’ negative sensemaking.

Throughout the collective sensemaking process shared affordances are constructed, influenced by underlying negative or positive attitudes that either (1) drive people towards their existing habits or (2) encourage them to explore the new technology. Regarding actualizing affordances, the conceptual model anticipated that affordances were actualized if it was for the goal collaboration. This was found partly true, however, the reason why affordances are (not) actualized goes beyond the match with collaboration goals. How this relationship of attitudes, habits, and affordance actualization unfolds, is explained underneath.

First, a perceived affordance is actualized when a new affordance is recognized that relates to the immediate goal of the user. For instance, the ‘new’ affordance to have a collective overview to monitor progress by working in the same document was actualized, particularly when the headquarter asks for a short-term update from the region. This confirms Strong et al. (2014) when describing actualization as “the actions taken by actors as they take advantage of one or more affordances through their use of technology to achieve immediate concrete outcomes in support of organizational goals.” (p. 15).

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towards exploring and making sense of the CT’s features. The above leads to the following illustration and proposition.

Figure 2. Actualizing affordances in Teams when perceived new and easier

Proposition 3a. Specifically for CT, perceived affordances are actualized when they offer a (1) new or (2) easier way (less effort) to execute the action according to their goals. This process is reinforced by positive sensemaking.

Contrary, the underlying reason why an affordance is not actualized is still relatively unknown. Gibson (1979) stated that one reason not to actualize is the failure to perceive the affordance. Moreover, an affordance is not actualized when it is not connected to the user goal (Anderson & Robey, 2017). But what if the affordance is perceived and in principal connects to their goal but is not actualized? This research finds that perceived affordances are not actualized when participants found similar affordances in Teams as they did in the existing systems, if these existing affordances were embedded in habits and routines. So, even though the affordance is perceived, the actors act in default or automatic mode (Louis & Sutton, 1991) and continue to do what they always did.

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the new system, as it is merely the most efficient fit between the user’s goals and the technology. Whether existing habits are always negative, is addressed by Sun (2012) that states that “active revision of system use may not always be desirable: automatic/habitual system use is sometimes more appropriate since it requires little conscious attention or mental effort on the part of the user.” (p. 454).

However, what is important here is to examine carefully how and why people revise the usage in systems which can assist IT practitioners to stimulate or discourage certain behavior. Referring to proposition 2a, when having a negative attitude, it reinforces a vicious cycle of negative sensemaking which pushes towards habits. This makes it especially effortful to break a habit and engage in new routines and leads to the following illustration and proposition.

Figure 3. Actualizing affordances existing systems when grounded in routines/habits

Proposition 3b. Perceived affordances in the new system that are similar to those in the existing systems, are not actualized when it takes more effort to break habits than it is to actualize this affordance in the new system. This process is reinforced by negative sensemaking.