A TALE OF TWO TECHNOLOGIES: HUMAN AGENCY AND IT USAGE

1
A TALE OF TWO TECHNOLOGIES HUMAN AGENCY AND IT
USAGE
Daniel Robey Georgia State University
2
AGENDA

• Review of Agency-Structure Issues
• A Temporal Theory of Human Agency
• Study 1 Mobile Users of Wireless Applications
• Study 2 Stationary Users of ERP
• Conclusions and Remaining Issues

3
GIVING CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE

• Study 1 Karlene Cousins, Florida International
  University, PhD, 2004.
• Study 2 Marie-Claude Boudreau, University of
  Georgia, PhD, 2000.

4
PUBLISHED VERSIONS

• Cousins Robey, Human agency in a wireless
  world patterns of technology use in nomadic
  computing environments, Information and
  Organization, in press.
• Boudreau Robey, Enacting integrated
  information technology a human agency
  perspective, Organization Science, Jan-Feb 2005.

5
INTERPRETIVE RESEARCH PARADIGM

• Assumes people create their own subjective
  inter-subjective meanings as they interact with
  the world around them.

Epistemology
Ontology
6
MOTIVATION

• Explaining the variety of organizational outcomes
  associated with IT
• Advance the progression from technology-centered
  theory to theories of
• Human agency
• Social interpretation
• Enactment

7
AGENCY-STRUCTURE ISSUES

• Agency
• Humans enact both technologies and structures.
• Humans appropriate technologies for local
  purposes.
• Human reinvent and improvise uses of technologies.

• Structure
• Social structures constrain human action.
• Social agendas are inscribed into technologies.
• Technologies embody structural constraints on
  action.

8
MIDDLE GROUND POSITIONS

• Structuration Theory
• Structure and agency operate as a duality.
• Technologies both constrain and enable human
  action.
• Technologies are constituted by human agency
  while they constraint/enable human action.
• Actor Network Theory
• Strong symmetry between human and technical
  agents (actants).
• Material agency.

9
AGENCY, STRUCTURE AND TECHNOLOGY
Social Structure
Inscribe
Embody
Constitutes Reproduces
Technology
Enables Constrains
Enact Appropriate
Design Build
Human Agency
10
TEMPORAL THEORY OF HUMAN AGENCY (Emirbayer
Mische, 1998)

• Actors are simultaneously oriented in the past,
  future and present.
• Past iterational element
• Future prospective element
• Present practical-evaluative element

11
FOCUS ON DILEMMAS

• In the present, the elements of past and future
  come together along with practical contingencies.
• Action in the present represents multiple
  influences
• What I want to do or become
• What is comfortable and familiar
• What I actually have to do now

12
TEMPORAL TRIAD
13
EMPHASIS ON AGENCY OVER STRUCTURE

• Iterational agency supplants social structure as
  an influence on action.
• However, choice is affected by social influence,
  as exercised through networks and structures.

14
STUDY 1 AGENCY IN A NOMADIC COMPUTING ENVIRONMENT

• Nomadic Computing Environment
• The system support needed to provide computing
  and communication capabilities and services to
  nomads as they move from place to place in a
  manner that is transparent, integrated,
  convenient and adaptive (Kleinrock 2001).
• Enabled by mobile, wireless technologies.

15
SOCIAL ISSUES BOUNDARY MANAGEMENT

• Rhetoric of freedom from temporal and spatial
  constraints.
• Mobile IT as liberator or leash?
• Personal versus business boundaries become
  blurred.
• Interruptions.
• Access anywhere-anytime becomes access
  everywhere-all the time.

16
EFFECTIVENESS PARADOX

• USERS EXPERIENCE INCREASED PRODUCTIVITY.

• USE DESCRIBED AS PROBLEMATIC AND CONTRADICTORY.

How can the increased productivity and social
concerns be reconciled?
17
DIMENSIONS OF MOBILITY
18
NOMADIC COMPUTING FRAMEWORK
Home
Road
Office
Business
Personal
TIME
19
INTERPLAY OF SPACE,TIME CONTEXT
Home
Road
Office
Business
Personal
T1
TIME
20
MULTIPLE CASE ANALYSIS

• Unit of analysis was the individual.
• Replication strategy.
• Longitudinal retrospective studies combined.
• Findings in retrospective cases can be confirmed
  in longitudinal cases.
• Theoretical account evolves as the cases add
  insights.

21
CASE SELECTION

• Purposive sampling representative cases--good
  representations of the nomadic computing user
  population
• Mobile 50 of the time
• 4 case studies

22
ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT

• Home Lender Large Southeastern US Mortgage
  Finance Institution formed in 1985.
• 1 online lender in 2002.
• All loan officers initially given the same
  nomadic computing environment.
• Use of composition book a prevalent practice
  since 1985
• 1995 Laptop loan origination began
• 1999 Corporate applications leveraged by
  Internet technologies
• Web based loan application integrated with
  Outlook.
• Controlled for institutional technical
  environment.

23
THREE LEVELS OF ADOPTION
TOTAL
STAGE 3 Enables a new business capability e.g.,
home healthcare, machine to machine (M2M), new
forms of collaboration.
VALUE
Integration With Business Process
STAGE 2 Supports an existing process e.g. sales,
field service, inspection, delivery, tracking.
STAGE 1 Horizontal applications e.g., e-mail,
messaging, imaging.
None
Technology Sophistication
Low
High
Source Gartner
24
4 CASES
25
DATA COLLECTION

• Collected over 6 month period (10/03 to 03/04).
• Observations.
• Meetings arranged at remote locations to
  facilitate observations.

26
RESULTS
If I have the time to think, its not about
technology. Its about how I can bring in more
business..
27
TOP GUN

• TASK OF ANSWERING CALLS, RETRIEVING VOICE MAIL
  AND USING SOME FEATURES OF OUTLOOK DELEGATED TO
  ASSISTANT. CONTRIBUTES TO ELIMINATION OF
  COMPOSITION BOOK.
•  ALERTS OF UPCOMING APPOINTMENTS GENERATED IN
  OUTLOOK SENT TO PAGER BY ASSISTANT. 
• PHONE PREFERRED FOR OUTGOING COMMUNICATION.
• VOICE MAIL USED AS RECORDING DEVICE.

•  DIARY REPLICATES DETAILS IN OUTLOOK.
• ASSISTANT ASSIGNED TASK OF MANAGING OUTLOOK
  SCHEDULE.
• LAPTOP LEFT BEHIND TO BE MONITORED WHILE ON
  VACATION.

•  UPCOMING ACQUISITION OF WIRELESS MODEM PREDICTED
  TO INCREASE EFFICIENCY. DEVICE IS A PLUG-IN TO
  THE LAPTOP REQUIRING NO SIGNIFICANT TIME
  INVESTMENT.
• NO INTENTION TO ACQUIRE BLACKBERRY DEVICE BECAUSE
  OF TIME REQUIRED TO LEARN HOW TO USE IT.

•  ACQUISITION OF WIRELESS MODEM INSTALLATION OF
  HOME WIRELESS NETWORK FACILITATES WORK IN OTHER
  PLACES APART FROM HOME OFFICE.
• ACQUISITION OF AIRCARD ENABLES CONSTANT ACCESS ON
  THE ROAD TO INTERNET, EMAIL APPLICATIONS AS
  LONG AS CELLULAR SERVICE IS AVAILABLE. USAGE
  WHILE ON VACATION.

28
INSIGHTS FROM TEMPORAL DIMENSION

• Iterational element reflective of past practices
  which are symbolic of security, certainty
  convenience.
• Projective element reflective of intentions to
  upgrade or acquire technology or to engage in new
  practices.
• Practical evaluative element reflective of novel,
  unanticipated uses intended to resolve individual
  dilemmas.

29
INSIGHTS FROM CONTEXTUAL DIMENSION

• Reflects stakeholders personal business roles
  which may be in conflict
• Each stakeholder has different agentic dilemmas
  resulting in different patterns of use.
• IT creates boundary management problems.
• IT enables micro-management of boundaries between
  personal and business lives.

30
CONCLUSIONS

• Each loan officer faced a different dilemma
  related to their personal and professional
  situations.
• Each loan officer used IT differently to manage
  the boundary between personal and business
  contexts.
• Each loan officer was very effective.

31
STUDY 2 AGENCY IN A STATE INSTITUTION USING ERP

• Enterprise Resource Planning
• An integrated set of modules operating off the
  same data.
• New business processes are embedded in the
  software
• Modifications discouraged.

32
INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT

• U.S. state agency
• Employed 2,925 workers 324m budget
• Not competitive
• Largely tenured workforce

33
CONTEXT OF IMPLEMENTATION

• Y2K deadline
• Compass was first ERP at institution
• Vanilla ERP implementation
• Blue ribbon implementation team
• Optional training program with low attendance by
  users
• Expectations high implementation considered one
  of the best ever

34
METHOD

• Interpretive case study
• Grounded theory guided data analysis
• Inductive approach
• Consulted relevant theories as analysis
  progressed
• Analysis interwoven with data collection

35
DATA

• 15 months in the field
• Participant observation (12 weeks at start)
• 74 Interviews with 65 people
• Observed 30 meetings and training sessions, plus
  everyday activity
• Documents training manuals, meeting minutes,
  newsletters

36
MAJOR CONSTRUCTS

• Inertia
• Limited use of a technology users either avoid
  using the technology or engage in perfunctory
  usage.
• Improvised LearningLearning situated in
  practice, initiated by users, and implemented
  without any predetermined structure, schedule, or
  method.
• ReinventionUnintended uses of technology in
  which users compensate for their limited
  knowledge of the system by developing tweaks and
  workarounds.

37
INERTIA

• Helplessness.
• I dont know how to use half of the functions in
  this system. I dont know if they pertain to me
  or not.
• No experimentation with features.
• Most of us use the system like monkeys. We have
  directions in front of us, that say push this
  button, push that button. People are afraid of
  pushing the wrong buttons.
• Data entry transferred to Finance Admin.
• Printing everything.
• Persistence of shadow systems.
• Nobody can survive without them.

38
IMPROVISED LEARNING

• Informal documentation.
• The Handy Dandy Guide for Compass
• Compass User Group and listserv
• Finance Administration initiatives
• We have become trainers in a way. We want to
  help them get to a point where they can do it
  themselves... you know, like a teachers role.
  They have the capability to do it, but they just
  dont know how to do it.

39
REINVENTION

• Tweaks and Workarounds
• Use of statistical code field to indicate credit
  card payment
• Multiple vendor location tweak
• Using header comments to expand line items
• Increase in purchase order amount
• Bypassing the timeout feature.

40
TEMPORAL ELEMENTS

• INERTIA
• Projective users excited and intended to use
  Compass
• Iterational users desired to retain comfortable
  and familiar practices
• Practical-evaluative dilemma users wanted to use
  a system they did not understand.

41
TEMPORAL ELEMENTS

• REINVENTION
• Projective users still excited and intended to
  use Compass
• Iterational users initial experiences were
  frustrating
• Practical-evaluative dilemma using Compass
  despite its flaws and despite users lack of
  knowledge.

42
CONCLUSIONS

• Even large, integrated IT applications are
  subject to unintended use by human agents.
• Changes in agency are explained through
  improvised learning.
• Consequences of IT may not be completely
  understood or controlled.
• However, they can be explained theoretically.

43
REMAINING ISSUES

• What role for technology?
• Constraints on action?
• Technologies both constrain and enable
• How are material and human agency related?
• What role for social structure?
• Social influences over agents resolutions of
  dilemmas
• Social control?

44
AGENCY, STRUCTURE AND TECHNOLOGY
Social Structure
Inscribe
Embody
Constitutes Reproduces
Technology
Enables Constrains
Enact Appropriate
Design Build
Human Agency