Improvising Organizational Transformation Over Time: a Situated Change Perspective

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Improvising Organizational Transformation Over
Time a Situated Change Perspective

• Wanda J. Orlikowski
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology Information
  Systems Research Vol.7, No.1 March 1996

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Introduction

• Past (1950s 1996) change was backstage and
  organizational thinking was dominated by
  stability. Three types of change perspectives
  during this era
• Planned change
• Technological imperative
• Punctuated equilibrium

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Introduction

• Planned change actors deliberately initiated
  change in response to perceived opportunities to
  improve organizational performance. According to
  the authors this perspective has been criticized
  for treating change as a discrete event to be
  managed separately from the ongoing processes and
  placing undue weight of the managers directing
  the change.

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Introduction

• Technological imperative technology is seen as
  the primary driver of organization change, so
  that the adoption of new technology creates
  predictable changes in organization structures,
  work routines, information flows and performance.
  The absence of any significant role of the
  organization in this perspective undermines the
  possibility for proactive organizational change.

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Introduction

• Punctuated equilibrium assumes change to be rapid
  and radical (revolutionary). This perspective is
  difficult for new organizations, because it
  assumes you start with a state of stability and
  that the preferred condition is some sort of
  steady state or equilibrium.

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Introduction

• All three perspectives
• Assume a State of Stability
• Do not account for emergent change. Emergent
  change is only realized in action and cannot be
  anticipated or planned.

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A Situated Change perspective

• In 1996, the author proposes that change has
  been altered by the economic, political and
  technical world change is no longer a background
  activity, it is a way of life.

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A Situated Change Perspective

• Author admits that change is often performed as a
  deliberate, orchestrated main event with key
  players.
• She wants to explore another perspective where
  the organizational change is more subtle, more
  slow, and more smooth, but no less significant.
  Such organizational transformation is grounded in
  ongoing practices of organizational actors, and
  emerges out of their (tacit or not so tacit)
  accommodations to and experiments with the
  everyday contingencies, breakdowns, exceptions,
  opportunities, and unintended consequences that
  they encounter a situated change perspective

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Research Setting Methodology

• Empirical study which examined the use of IT in
  the Zeta Corporation over a two year period
• Top 50 software company, headquartered in Midwest
  with sales and client services offices throughout
  US
• 100 million in revenue, 1000 employees
• Sells a range of decision support and executive
  information systems on a variety of computer
  platforms

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Research Setting Methodology

• Focus was on the Customer Support Department
  (CSD) with one director, two managers and 50
  employees with a cooperative culture with a
  shared interest in solving customer problems
• CSD Mission was to provide telephone technical
  support to all users of Zetas products including
  clients, Zeta field service reps, other Zeta
  employees. Dept average is 100 calls a day.
• Staff had grown from 10 in 1990 to current high
  of 50. All CSD specialists had college degrees,
  mostly in computer science, engineering and IT.
  View position as an entry point into high tech
  industry. Turnover is similar to other companies,
  many move laterally to product development or
  field services.

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Research Setting Methodology

• In mid 1992, Incident Tracking Support System
  (ITSS) was purchased to evaluate the feasibility
  to replace the existing home-grown system to
  track customer calls.
• Two phases of the evaluation were conducted
• An experimental pilot from July Sept 1992
• An expanded pilot from Sept Dec 1992
• End of 1992, decision to implement a full
  roll-out of ITSS to CSD

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Data Collection and Analysis

• Data Collection at Zeta was collected in two
  phases
• Phase I during both pilots (Aug Dec 1992)
• Phase II two years later (July Dec 1994)
• Both phases involved 51 interviews of 60-90
  minutes , observation with talk aloud and
  document review

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Data Collection and Analysis
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Environment before ITSS

• No division of labor within department
• Specialist with greater than one year were
  senior and recognized as knowledgeable and
  experienced
• Process was not documented and not reviewed
• All specialists took calls on paper and expected
  to document in the Inform database later
• Records documented had limited information and
  questionable accuracy
• Managers performed no monitoring of specialist
  work progress (couldnt track calls, analyze
  types of calls, or balance workloads)

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Results

• Five metamorphoses occurred over the
• two year period through ongoing,
• overlapping, gradual and reciprocal
• adjustments and accommodations and
• enacted by the CSD members.

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Results

• Metamorphosis I changes associated with the
  shift to electronic capture, documentation and
  searching of call records in the ITSS database
• Deliberate change
• Specialists entering calls and documenting
  process electronically (audit trail and increased
  accountability)
• Specialists searching electronically for reusable
  problem resolution
• Managers monitoring process and performance
  electronically (dynamic monitoring of call load,
  work process and individual performance)

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Results

• Metamorphosis I
• Emergent change
• Specialists bypass direct entry of calls (or
  brief tag) due to limited typing proficiency,
  system was incompatible with how information was
  provided by customers or network problems and
  failures
• Specialists developed norms for documentation and
  guidelines for knowledge evaluation
• Managers changed the criteria for evaluating
  specialist to technical competence and problem
  solving strategies

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Results

• Metamorphosis I
• Unanticipated outcomes
• Specialists delayed entry of calls
• Specialists records were public and they
  developed self-censorship (impression management)
• Improved client relations (have all facts at
  hand)
• Developed technological dependence, so when the
  system crashed they lost their ability to execute

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Results

• Metamorphosis II changes associated with the
  redistribution of work from individual to shared
  responsibility
• Emergent change
• Sharing work between partners. The informal
  junior and senior structure was formalized to
  front line takes the call and transfers to
  backline (senior specialists) who handled more
  difficult calls
• Due to junior specialist reluctance to transfer
  calls intermediaries were created who monitored
  the incidents

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Results

• Metamorphosis II
• Unanticipated outcomes
• Junior specialists discomfort of assigning work
  to senior specialists
• Junior specialists perceived loss of learning
• Additional learning did occur when senior
  specialists updated record junior specialist
  would get an email

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Results

• Metamorphosis III changes associated with the
  emergence of a proactive form of collaboration
  among specialists
• Emergent change
• Increased use of electronic interaction
• Developed an electronic form of proactive
  collaboration for solutions
• Developed protocols for electronic help giving

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Results

• Metamorphosis III
• Unanticipated outcomes
• Decreased face-to-face interaction
• Increased problem solving effectiveness through
  unsolicited help giving

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Results

• Metamorphosis IV changes associated with into a
  global support practice, and creating
  interdepartmental and cross-functional linkages
• Deliberate change
• Linked four CSDs (U.S., U.K., Australia, Europe)
  through shared data bases for Global Support
• Electronic linkage between ITSS and BUGS used by
  other departments ( product development, product
  management, QA)

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Results

• Metamorphosis IV
• Emergent change -Developed shared Norms for
  Global Support
• Unanticipated outcomes
• Different cultures and expectations (US felt
  overseas specialist were just throwing things
  over the wall) generated ambiguity
• Product development resistance for further linkage

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Results

• Metamorphosis III
• Unanticipated outcomes
• Decreased face-to-face interaction
• Increased problem solving effectiveness through
  unsolicited help giving

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Results

• Metamorphosis V changes associated with
  controlling access to and distributing extracts
  of the knowledge contained within the ITSS
  database
• Emergent change - Others in Zeta wanted access to
  ITSS database. Developed criteria for electronic
  access control.

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Results

• Metamorphosis V
• Unanticipated outcomes
• Demand for electronic knowledge. Specialists
  generated summaries about common or difficult
  problems among themselves and to other Zeta
  departments.
• Extremely time-consuming to disseminate knowledge
  to other departments

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Implications

• By focusing on change as situated, it provides a
  way of seeing that change may not always be as
  planned or discontinuous as we image. Rather it
  is often realized through the ongoing variations
  which emerge frequently in the slippages and
  improvisations of everyday activity.

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Implications

• A comparison of CSD practices and structures
  from June 1992 to December 2004 reveals
  significant changes in work, norms, structure,
  coordination mechanisms, evaluation criteria and
  technology use. These changes were not all
  implemented with the initial deployment of the
  technology, but emerged and evolved through
  situated practice over time.

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Unanswered questions from authors perspective

• While work practices were observed during data
  collection, the ongoing change enacted over time
  was not observed first hand.
• Zetas five metamorphoses provide only one
  instance of situated change. Further empirical
  research is necessary

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Unanswered questions from authors perspective

• Further research is needed to determine if
  situated change is useful in other context and
  how different organizational and technological
  conditions influence the changes attempted and
  implemented
• More research is needed to investigate how the
  nature of the technology used influences the
  change process and shapes the possibilities for
  ongoing organizational change

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Unanswered questions from my perspective

• Balance between standardization, control, mass
  production and stability flexibility,
  customization, learning, virtual corporations and
  change?
• If change in 1996 was altered because of
  economic, political and technological factors.
  Change in 2004 impacts our fundamental basic
  needs. Considering Maslows hierarchy of needs
• Physiological ,Safety, Social Needs, Esteem,
  Self-actualizied.
• Does the type of need targeted to change have any
  impact on the type of change required to
  implement (Deliberate, emergent, evolutionary,
  revolutionary?)
• Data Analysis - How were results gathered from
  interviews? What happened to the research in the
  two year gap?

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Journal Information

• ISR (Information Systems Research) is a leading
  international journal of theory, research, and
  intellectual development, focused on information
  systems in organizations, institutions, the
  economy, and society. It is dedicated to
  furthering knowledge in the productive
  application of information technologies to human
  organizations and their management and, more
  broadly, to improved economic and social welfare.
• ISR is ranked between 2nd and 4th in six articles
  in IS World

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Article structure

• Traditional academic article structure
• Introduction
• Methodology
• Data Collection and Analysis
• Results
• Implications

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Other Sources

• Two academic journals on Change Management
• International Journal of Information Systems and
  Change Management (IJISCM), ISSN (Online)
  1479-313x and ISSN (Paper) 1479-3121
• Journal of Organizational Change Management ISSN
  0953-4814