Enacting Integrated Information Technology: A Human Agency Perspective
Abstract
Recent perspectives on organizational change have emphasized human agency, more than technology or structure, to explain empirical outcomes resulting from the use of information technologies in organizations. Yet, newer technologies such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems continue to be associated with the agenda of organizational transformation, largely because they are assumed to constrain human action. We report an interpretive case study of an ERP system after its implementation in a large government agency. Despite the transformation agenda accompanying the new system, users initially chose to avoid using it as much as possible (inertia) and later to work around system constraints in unintended ways (reinvention). We explain the change in enactments with the concept of improvised learning, which was motivated by social influence from project leaders, “power users,” and peers. Our results are consistent with arguments regarding the enactment of information technology in organizations and with temporal views of human agency. We conclude that an integrated technology like ERP, which potentially represents a “hard” constraint on human agency, can be resisted and reinvented in use.
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Some employees react favorably to system-induced changes, while others perceive those changes as a threat to their well-being.
“Some employees may react favorably to these changes, while the others may perceive these changes as a threat to their well-being (Orlikowski, 2000;Boudreau & Robey, 2005).”
From Technology Acceptance Model 3 and a Research Agenda on Interventions (2008) · cites this paper as Boudreau & Robey, 2005
Implementation of complex ITs and associated business process changes have a profound impact on employees' jobs, causing changes in job characteristics, workplace relationships, and other job aspects.
“As discussed earlier, implementation of complex ITs (e.g., enterprise systems, interorganizational systems) and associated changes in business processes have a profound impact on employees' job and cause changes in their job characteristics, relationships with others in the workplace, and other aspects of their job (Boudreau & Robey, 2005;Lapointe & Rivard, 2005).”
From Technology Acceptance Model 3 and a Research Agenda on Interventions (2008) · cites this paper as Boudreau & Robey, 2005
There is prior evidence that some employees resort to workarounds.
“There is evidence in prior research that some employees will resort to workarounds (see Boudreau and Robey 2005)”
From Enterprise System Implementation and Employee Job Performance: Understanding the Role of Advice Networks1 (2014) · cites this paper as Boudreau and Robey 2005
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“Typically, modifications to the work processes embedded in the vendor’s software are discouraged and “vanilla” implementations are recommended (Robey et al. 2002).”
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- Authors
- Boudreau, M.-C., & Robey, D.
- Affiliations
- University of Georgia (US)
- Georgia State University (US)
- Venue
- Organization Science
- Published
- 2005-02
- Volume
- 16
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 3-18
- ISSN
- 1047-7039 (ISSN-L)
- 1526-5455
- OpenAlex
- W2135157639
- Cited by
- 1,071
- References
- 9
- Citations by year
- 2026: 25 · 2025: 28 · 2024: 46 · 2023: 31 · 2022: 53 · 2021: 43 · 2020: 49 · 2019: 39 · 2018: 40 · 2017: 54 · 2016: 49 · 2015: 76 · 2014: 67 · 2013: 86 · 2012: 65
- FWCI
- 88.26
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Organization Science (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Management Information Systems › ERP Systems Implementation and Impact
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Information Systems Theories and Implementation
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management › Management and Organizational Studies
- Keywords
- human agency, enterprise resource planning, ERP implementation, organizational change, resistance to technology, workarounds, social influence, power users, government agencies, temporal agency
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