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Technological Embeddedness and Organizational Change

Olga Volkoff, Diane M. Strong, Michael B. Elmes,

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Vol. 18, No. 5, September–October 2007, pp. 832–848 doi 10.1287/orsc.1070.0288

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Technological Embeddedness and Organizational Change

Olga Volkoff
Faculty of Business Administration, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Drive, Burnaby,
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British Columbia, Canada V5A 1S6, ovolkoff@sfu.ca

Diane M. Strong, Michael B. Elmes

Department of Management, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, 100 Institute Road, Worcester, Massachusetts 01609
{dstrong@wpi.edu, mbelmes@wpi.edu}

W hile various theories have been proposed to explain how technology leads to organizational change, in general they
have focused either on the technology and ignored the influence of human agency, or on social interaction and ignored
the technology. In this paper, we propose a new theory of technology-mediated organizational change that bridges these two
extremes. Using grounded theory methodology, we conducted a three-year study of an enterprise system implementation.
From the data collected, we identified embeddedness as central to the process of change. When embedded in technology,
organizational elements such as routines and roles acquire a material aspect, in addition to the ostensive and performative
aspects identified by Feldman and Pentland (2003). Our new theory employs the lens of critical realism because in our view,
common constructivist perspectives such as structuration theory or actor network theory have limited our understanding of
technology as a mediator of organizational change. Using a critical realist perspective, our theory explains the process of
change as a three-stage cycle in which the ostensive, performative, and material aspects of organizational elements interact
differently in each stage.
Key words: enterprise systems; organizational change; embeddedness; structure; agency; critical realism; grounded theory

Introduction In particular, as various organizational elements, e.g.,

The introduction of information technology (IT) into an
organization is generally accompanied by changes to
organizational form and function. While early research
took a deterministic perspective to explain such changes,
contradictory results underscored the weakness of such
an approach and suggested that greater value would
be derived from studying the process of change rather
than the (often idiosyncratic) outcomes (Robey and
Boudreau 1999). Using a variety of constructivist
approaches, various models of the change process
have been proposed. These include studies based on
structuration theory (Orlikowski 1992, Orlikowski and
Robey 1991), institutional theory (Avgerou 2000, Gosain
2004), and actor network theory (ANT) (Latour 1996,
Walsham 1997). Not only do these different perspec-
tives present conflicting views about how technology-
mediated organizational change occurs, but each in its
own way is problematic. Those based on structura-
tion theory or actor network theory tend to focus on
the actions of agents, ignoring the technology, while
those using institutional theory tend to ignore agency.
Furthermore, technology itself is often treated as a uni-
tary object, ignoring each technology’s distinctive char-
acteristics, which should be acknowledged in a theory
of technology-mediated organizational change. In this
paper, in response to the research question “how does
technology mediate organizational change,” we propose
a new theory that addresses the specific role of tech-
nology, while also incorporating the effects of agency.
832
routines and roles, become embedded in the technology,
they acquire a material aspect that plays a key role in
organizational change.
To develop our theory, we conducted an intensive,
longitudinal case study using grounded theory meth-
ods to observe the unfolding process of organizational
change from a fresh empirical perspective not bound
to existing theories. As we collected and analyzed our
data, we identified theoretical categories that led us to
examine related concepts in the literature. In keeping
with a grounded theory methodology, we did not enter
the field with a set of predefined theoretical concepts
or hypotheses or with a particular body of literature in
mind, but instead sought a “practical middle ground”
(Suddaby 2006, p. 635) that drew iteratively from the
empirical data we collected and from our knowledge of
substantive theories that pertained to the theoretical con-
cepts emerging from our data. This avoided Suddaby’s
(2006) concern that grounded theory should not be an
excuse to ignore the literature. During our analysis, we
also identified critical realism as an appropriate lens for
examining the actions and interactions of stakeholders in
their appropriation and use of technology, while simul-
taneously accounting for the role of technology. Critical
realism also incorporates a temporal aspect that fits well
with a change process, which by definition occurs over
time. For clarity of presentation, we discuss this liter-
ature prior to presenting our results, but in reality, we
examined it as data collection and analysis indicated its
relevance.
 Volkoff, Strong, and Elmes: Technological Embeddedness and Organizational Change
Organization Science 18(5), pp. 832–848, © 2007 INFORMS
Background Literature
Organizational Change: The Case of Organizational
Routines
Analysis of our data suggested that we consider how
technology affects various organizational elements as
our level of analysis and that we start by understanding
the constituent parts of each of those elements. Within
the literature, the study of organizational routines pro-
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vided a model for how to proceed.
Organizational routines have been defined as “repet-
itive, recognizable patterns of interdependent actions,
carried out by multiple actors” (Feldman and Pentland
2003, p. 95). Since Nelson and Winter (1982) first rec-
ommended organizational routines as a unit of analysis
for examining organizational change and stability, a vast
literature on routines has accumulated (see Becker 2004
for a comprehensive review). While much of this work
has focused on the stability and even inertia of rou-
tines, Feldman and Pentland examined the change-
ability of routines and the endogenous processes that
are responsible (Feldman 2000, 2003; Feldman and
Pentland 2003; Pentland and Feldman 2005). They also
opened the black box of routines to identify the con-
stituent parts. Using Latour’s (1986) language, they dis-
tinguished between the ostensive or structural aspect of
routines, and the performative, or agentic aspect. The
ostensive aspect is the “abstract, generalized idea of
the routine, or the routine in principle” (Feldman and
Pentland 2003, p. 101), while the performative aspect
“consists of specific actions, by specific people, in spe-
cific places and times


the routine in practice” (ibid).
Feldman and Pentland used a structuration perspective
(Giddens 1984) to discuss how these two aspects of
routines are related; the ostensive aspect guides, helps
account for, and enables the performative, and the per-
formative aspect helps to create, maintain, and/or modify
the ostensive.
Pentland and Feldman (2005) subsequently extended
this analysis by looking beyond these two aspects of a
routine to the various physical artifacts associated with
the routine. They highlighted the need to study the rela-
tionships among each aspect and various artifacts rang-
ing from written rules and machines or computers to
office layout. While they called for research on such
relationships, they did not present specific findings or
hypotheses.
Our grounded theory study started with a general
objective of examining how technology affects organi-
zations, not a specific focus on any particular organiza-
tional element such as routines. During data collection
and analysis, we recognized that what we were seeing
related to and, among other contributions, extended the
work of Feldman and Pentland (2003) in a number of
ways. First, in examining changes in organizational rou-
tines, we observed that in addition to ostensive and per-
formative aspects, routines also have a material aspect
833
that is embedded in the technology. Whereas Pentland
and Feldman (2005) included IT in the broad set of
physical artifacts associated with routines, we observed
that the IT artifact is different from those other artifacts
because it is an integral part of those routines, not just
part of the context within which routines are executed.
As will be shown, the material aspect of routines plays
a critical and direct role in the change process.
Second, routines are not the only organizational ele-
ments that IT changes. In our study, we found that IT
also affected roles and data. Furthermore, these other
organizational elements can be seen to have an osten-
sive, a performative, and a material aspect that interact
in specific ways.
Third, in addition to the interactions of the different
aspects of each organizational element, change arises
from the relationships among the material aspects of
different organizational elements. For example, the IT
changes the relationship between routines and roles by
embedding this relationship into the system.
Fourth, there are other organizational elements such
as mindset and organizational culture that, while they do
not become physically embedded in the technology and
so do not acquire a material aspect, are changed with
the introduction of IT. These changes are second-order
effects that arise because of the connection between
these unembedded organizational elements and those
that do become embedded.
Finally, while Feldman and Pentland’s (2003) use of a
structurationist lens has focused attention on the osten-
sive and performative aspects of organizational elements,
it neglected the material aspect. By using a critical real-
ist lens instead, we are better able to address the inherent
materiality of technology.
Organizational Change: A Mediating Technology
Because different technologies have different proper-
ties, the choice of which technology to study will color
what we learn about technology’s effects on organiza-
tions. For our research, we chose to look at enterprise
systems, defined as, comprehensive commercial software
packages designed to support and integrate organiza-
tional processes across functional boundaries (Davenport
1998). They are built on a common database and are
used to execute the complete range of organizational
transactions (Klaus et al. 2000, Markus and Tanis 2000).
As packages, they are designed to offer generic func-
tionality for use by many companies, not custom-built
solutions for a specific organization. To accommodate
organizational variation, these systems are configurable,
but not infinitely malleable. Unlike simpler systems that
may only affect an individual or a small work group, an
enteprise system (ES) has organization-wide effects, and
as such is an excellent choice for studying the relation-
ship between technology and organizational form and
function.
 Volkoff, Strong, and Elmes: Technological Embeddedness and Organizational Change
834
Organizational Change: Different Theoretical
Perspectives
Two papers illustrate the way different theoretical per-
spectives color the analysis of such systems. At one
end of the spectrum, Boudreau and Robey (2005) take
a human agency perspective and argue that an ES can
be resisted or reinvented. From this perspective, as users
redefine the technology through their actions, it loses
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salience and its role in affecting organizational change is
weakened. By contrast, Gosain (2004) employs institu-
tional theory to argue that enterprise systems are objects
of institutionalization during configuration and carry the
institutional logic during use. From this view, technol-
ogy actively constrains human agency.
Researchers have employed a variety of approaches
to bridge these two extremes, with varying success.
Structuration theory, the constructivist perspective most
commonly used to examine the technology-organization
relationship, views technology as “interpretively flex-
ible” (Orlikowski 1992, p. 405), enacted and defined
at the moment of use. In this perspective, the material
aspects of technology often play a minor role in the
change process, with attention focused on the actions
and interactions of individuals. Thus, in Barley’s (1986,
1990) work examining CT scanners, the effects of tech-
nology on the organizations were examined exclusively
through the interactions between people and the impli-
cations for their roles in the organization. The technol-
ogy provided an “occasion for structuring” (Barley 1986,
p. 78), but was otherwise a bit player in the unfold-
ing drama. Under structuration theory as delineated
by Orlikowski (2000), technology stops being an arti-
fact, and becomes a malleable “technology-in-practice”
(p. 409), whereby users constitute (or reconstitute) emer-
gent technology structures through their actions.
In structuration theory, the relative neglect of technol-
ogy’s role in the change process arises from Giddens’
(1984) insistence that structure only exists in the
moment of instantiation as traces in the mind. Without
an actor, there is no structure. While this perspective
may be appropriate for conceptualizing social structures
that have no concrete form, it ignores the inherent mate-
riality of technology (Jones 1999). Once we acknowl-
edge that technology, while interpretively flexible, is
not infinitely so, we must be specific about its material
aspects (Monteiro and Hanseth 1996).
Various researchers, most notably those who sub-
scribe to an ANT perspective, have challenged the short
shrift given to the technology artifact by structura-
tionalists when analyzing the technology-organization
relationship (e.g., Hanseth et al. 2004, Monteiro and
Hanseth 1996, Walsham 1997). ANT downplays the
distinction between structure and agency, putting tech-
nology on the same footing as individual actors (col-
lectively referred to as actants), and viewing them all
Organization Science 18(5), pp. 832–848, © 2007 INFORMS
as participants in a network of heterogeneous compo-
nents (Mutch 2002). Under this perspective, an analysis
of organizational change entails examining the process
of negotiation whereby different actants work to enroll
each other as allies, and through which their interests
are translated and become aligned (Law 1992, Walsham
1997). Despite the inclusion of technology as one of
the actants, the focus on negotiation, a human activity,
privileges human actors. The technology is viewed as a
receptacle where an actor’s perspective can be inscribed
and frozen. This is particularly useful for examining the
design and implementation phase of technology, but we
suggest that once technology has been implemented and
is in use, it still plays a role in organizational change.
Thus, ANT offers a high-level explanation based on
negotiation, but fails to capture the active role of tech-
nology in the negotiation.
While ANT acknowledges the material aspects of the
technology much more than structuration theory, its con-
flation of agents and structures reduces its capacity to
examine how technology mediates change in organiza-
tions (Mutch 2002). It is also primarily descriptive rather
than explanatory (Howcroft et al. 2004, Walsham 1997).
Moreover, by examining only social action at a micro-
level, the context in which that social action occurs—
the relatively enduring institutionalized relationships that
constitute structure and constrain agency—is ignored
(Reed 1997).
Recently there have been calls to apply critical real-
ism (CR) to the study of IT-mediated organizational
change (Dobson 2001; Mingers 2002, 2004; Mutch
2002), although to our knowledge, no empirical studies
have yet done so. Critical realism has the potential to
address the shortcomings identified above.
Organizational Change: A Critical Realist
Perspective
Critical realists carefully separate structure and agency,
claiming that other ontological perspectives in social
science either ignore structure (behavioral approaches),
ignore agency (institutional theory), or conflate the two
(structuration theory and ANT) (Archer 1995). Only by
keeping them conceptually distinct, can we logically dis-
cuss their effects on each other. While distinct, structure
and agency cannot exist without each other. Specifically,
social structure logically predates the practices it engen-
ders. Furthermore, through those practices different
structures may emerge, but these changes to structures
necessarily postdate those actions (Bhaskar 1979, Collier
1994). Thus, Archer’s (1995) critical realist theory of
social change involves cycles of three phases, which we
use in our theory of technology-mediated organizational
change, namely, (1) structural conditioning, the preexist-
ing structural properties that are the consequence of past
actions, followed by (2) social interaction, during which
agents engage with, and are constrained and enabled
 Volkoff, Strong, and Elmes: Technological Embeddedness and Organizational Change
Organization Science 18(5), pp. 832–848, © 2007 INFORMS
by, the preexisting structural conditions, followed by
(3) structural elaboration/reproduction, the modification
of previous structural properties and the introduction
of new ones or the reenforcing of existing structures.
While social interaction is continuous, at any moment
the emergent structure depends on past activities, not on
the actions of current agents. Agents in turn are shaped
and reshaped as they engage with the structures they
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confront, but did not create (Archer 1998).
Use of any theoretical perspective requires the use
of a methodology that matches the underlying ontology
and epistemology. Ontologically, in CR, there are three
nested domains, namely, the real (structures or mecha-
nisms that exist independently of us), which contains the
actual (events that those mechanisms could potentially
generate, whether or not they occur), which in turn con-
tains the empirical (the subset of those events that are
observed or experienced) (Bhaskar 1998, Mingers 2002).
Because the mechanisms operate in open systems, their
effects may or may not occur, and those that occur
may or may not be observed (Bhaskar 1978, Outhwaite
1998). The task of the researcher, then, is to use percep-
tions of empirical events to identify the mechanisms that
give rise to those events (Collier 1994). Our grounded
theory approach of constantly comparing data units to
abstract higher-level concepts (Glaser 1978, Glaser and
Strauss 1967, Suddaby 2006) was well aligned with
CR’s epistemology, namely, the use of observed events
to infer the mechanisms through which the underlying
real but unobservable structures generated those events
(Collier 1994).
Critical realist theories, like our new theory, are
explanatory process theories. They explain an event not
by predicting what will happen nor describing what
did happen but, rather, by identifying the mechanisms
that generate what we observe in the empirical domain.
Following Archer (1995), these are the mechanisms by
which preexisting structural conditions shape agency,
and in turn the mechanisms by which agency changes
or reinforces these structural conditions.
Critical realism, like Gidden’s (1984) structuration
theory, is a grand theory that does not mention technol-
ogy. The role of technology in organizational change,
however, is easily conceptualized as part of the structural
conditions agents encounter, making CR an ideal per-
spective for developing midrange theories of technology-
mediated organizational change. Thus, we view an ES
as a source of structural conditioning that is relatively
independent and enduring, existing materially in the real
domain, rather than primarily as a malleable structure,
existing only in the empirical domain at the moment
of instantiation. Using a critical realist perspective, we
can discuss the interplay between structures and human
agents, and examine the generative mechanisms or medi-
ators through which agents affect structure and, of
greater importance for this study, how structures shape
agency.
835
Methodology
The implementation of an ES is a lengthy process, tak-
ing from several months to several years. To uncover
and examine the changes occurring from such an imple-
mentation, we followed three phases of a multiyear,
multiphased implementation at ACRO, a multinational
producer of precision industrial products. Capturing the
complete picture of the change process necessitated fol-
lowing each phase studied from before its go-live, so
we could establish a baseline, through the implemen-
tation and initial period of use, to a period of stable
use. Thus, our research involved a longitudinal, inten-
sive case study, and employed grounded theory methods
(Glaser and Strauss 1967, Strauss and Corbin 1998).
With grounded theory methods, data collection, data
analysis, and theory building are overlapping and iter-
ative processes that enable theory to emerge organi-
cally, as researchers associate increasingly more abstract
conceptual categories with the data (Suddaby 2006).
Through these methods—especially as we analyzed our
data and let these data tell us what was changing in
the organization as a result of implementing the ES and
why—we identified CR as an appropriate lens through
which to identify the theoretical concepts that would
explain how organizational members interpreted the
organizational changes they observed (Suddaby 2006),
and to begin to build theory from these concepts.
Strauss and Corbin (1998, p. 268) stipulate four cri-
teria for evaluating a qualitative, grounded theory study.
One makes judgments about (1) the data, i.e., the
validity, reliability, and credibility of the inputs to the
research process, (2) the theory itself, i.e., the credi-
bility of the output of the theory-development process,
(3) the adequacy of the research process through which
the theory is generated, focusing on analysis methods,
and (4) the empirical grounding of the research, i.e., the
grounding for the resulting concepts and theory. These
mirror the assessment criteria of Miles and Huberman
(1994), who approached qualitative research from a crit-
ical realist perspective. The following sections on our
research site and data collection methods cover Crite-
rion 1. The sections on our analysis and theory build-
ing methods cover Criteria 3 and 4. The resulting the-
ory and coverage of Criterion 2 are presented later in
the paper.
Overview of the Research Case
ACRO is headquartered in the northeast United States,
with approximately 20,000 employees working in plants
around the world. In 1998 the company decided to
implement SAP’s R/3 software suite, and run it as a sin-
gle system across the entire company. To make imple-
mentation manageable, the company divided the project
into six phases. When we started our observations,
the first two phases were already finished. Both were
 Volkoff, Strong, and Elmes: Technological Embeddedness and Organizational Change
836 Organization Science 18(5), pp. 832–848, © 2007 INFORMS

relatively small, localized implementations used to solve Table 1 Distribution of Interviews Across Phases, Locations,
some immediate problems and to let the company gain and Roles
experience with the software. We began data collection Number of times each
in August 2000, before Phase 3, the first major phase, person was interviewed
went live. This phase focused on component production
Phase 3
and assembly operations, and entailed implementing a Location 1 6 key informants
broad set of SAP modules including Finance, Produc- 1 manager 1 person × 2 times
tion Planning, Sales Order Management, and Materials 3 power users 3 people × 2 times
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Management. Once this phase moved past go-live, the 2 users 2×2
company started Phase 4, which brought the ES to the 6 nonkey informants
1 manager 1×1
maintenance and repair operations. Phase 5, the last we 5 users 5×1
observed, extended the ES to the research and develop-
Phase 4
ment (R&D) group. Location 1 2 key informants
1 power user 1×2
Data Collection 1 user 1×2
To ensure the validity, reliability, and credibility of the 4 nonkey informants
4 users 4×1
data collected, we used multiple methods and infor-
mants. Specifically, we collected data through observa- Location 2 6 key informants
6 power users 5 × 3, 1 × 1
tions, interviews, and informal conversations. Over the
8 nonkey informants
course of 150 visits (approximately one trip per week 1 manager 1×2
over three years), we conducted 72 formal interviews 3 power users 3×2
with 60 different people (see Table 1). In addition to 4 users 2 × 2, 2 × 1
these formal interviews, we had casual conversations as Location 3 10 nonkey informants
we accompanied people to meetings, as we observed 3 managers 3×1
them during testing and training sessions and in the war 2 power users 2×1
5 users 5×1
rooms during go-live, and as we shadowed them as they
solved implementation problems. We also had the oppor- Phase 5
Location 4∗ 7 key informants
tunity to listen in on group conversations, both casual 5 power users 1 × 3, 2 × 2, 2 × 1
and formal, and collect documents such as training mate- 2 users 1 × 1, 1 × 2
rial and meeting handouts. Over our three-year engage- 11 nonkey informants
ment at the site, we got to know our key informants well, 9 power users 3 × 2, 6 × 1
and they appeared to be candid in voicing their thoughts 2 users 2×1
about the new system and its effect on the organization. Totals 21 key, 39 nonkey∗∗
Observations were captured in field notes taken on 6 managers 8∗∗∗
29 power users 53∗∗∗
site and written up after each visit. With few excep- 25 users 31∗∗∗
tions, formal interviews were taped and transcribed. Dur-
∗
ing initial interviews, lasting from 30 to 60 minutes, While most of the operations related to Phase 5 occur at Loca-
tion 4, several of these individuals also spend time at Location 1,
we asked people to describe their job—their responsi- and some of the interviews occurred at Location 5, where the ES
bilities, activities, and interactions with others—and to team was located.
speculate on what would change after the ES was imple- ∗∗
Key informants were those people we not only interviewed, but
mented. During follow-up interviews conducted shortly also shadowed during our weekly site visits as they attended meet-
ings, performed testing, delivered training, or solved problems.
after go-live, we asked the same people, and others they
Nonkey informants were those who we interviewed, but did not
suggested, to talk about what had changed and to indi- shadow.
cate what they particularly liked and disliked about the ∗∗∗
Because some of the individuals were interviewed together,
new software. Final interviews were conducted about a there were only 72 separate interviews conducted to obtain these
year after go-live. As interviews progressed, we supple- 92 person interviews.
mented our initial questions with additional ones based
on our emerging understanding of technology-related sampling, we also interviewed some managers and gen-
change. eral users. Interviewees worked in different functional
Our key informants were, for the most part, power areas at four different plants. Operations ranged from
users—individuals who were not members of the ES assembly, to repair and maintenance, to R&D. Our inter-
team, but who had been selected from operational units view subjects included customer service representatives,
to work with the team during testing, to conduct train- material buyer planners, inspectors, engineers, expedi-
ing, and then to return to their units as resident experts tors, shipping clerks, inventory clerks, plant managers,
and the first line of support. To ensure broad theoretical accounts payable managers, and plant controllers.
 Volkoff, Strong, and Elmes: Technological Embeddedness and Organizational Change
Organization Science 18(5), pp. 832–848, © 2007 INFORMS
Data Analysis and Coding
Consistent with a grounded theory approach, our data
collection and analysis occurred iteratively. As field
notes and interviews were transcribed, they were coded.
Analysis followed Strauss and Corbin’s (1998) rec-
ommendations for open, axial, and selective coding
of all interview data. Specifically, each passage (from
one to several sentences in length) in every inter-
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view was assigned one or more codes reflecting what
the coder perceived the speaker to be talking about.
The code labels were suggested by the words used
in the interviews. The NVivo software package was
used to track the coded interviews and field data. The-
ory development occurred iteratively with coding. Thus,
as coding progressed, we organized codes into trees,
compared similarly coded passages to generate more
abstract theoretical concepts, and wrote memos to pro-
pose abstract concepts and potential relationships. The
different research traditions of the three researchers
enabled us to challenge and critique each other’s ideas
and to ensure that our research process stayed grounded
in the data but also drew from relevant literature.
During the open coding stage, our codes were pri-
marily substantive using the vocabulary of the intervie-
wees, e.g., “misfits,” “responsibilities,” and “impacts of
SAP.” The first few interviews were coded by all three
researchers. We then met to discuss the codes to ensure
that we all used the initial labels to mean the same
thing. Subsequently, each interview was coded by the
researcher who conducted it because recalling the body
language used to generate the words on a page helps
to keep the interpretation of the words aligned with the
speakers’ intentions. As we each added to the initial list
of codes, we shared the labels and their intended mean-
ings with each other to ensure consistent coding. Our
final list included 53 codes covering the broad set of
concepts in our interviews.
As concepts of interest emerged from our open cod-
ing, we initiated axial coding. Strauss and Corbin’s
(1998) paradigm recommends axial coding once a phe-
nomenon (category) is identified and further explanation
is desired. Similar to Glaser’s (1978) recommendation of
coding around a core category, the researcher uses axial
coding once open coding has uncovered phenomena of
interest, in our case misfits and other organizational-level
effects of the ES.
We followed Strauss and Corbin’s (1998) axial coding
recommendations, but treated this technique as a method
through which to discover the relationships in the data,
rather than as a restrictive set of rules. We did this to
avoid Glaser’s concern that axial coding is overly restric-
tive, with questions emanating from the researcher rather
than the data (Locke 2001). Suddaby (2006) expressed
similar concerns, noting that grounded theory tech-
niques require active interpretation by the researcher, not
mechanical application of techniques. Thus, while we
837
used the axial coding recommendations of Strauss and
Corbin (1998), i.e., coding for conditions (causal, inter-
vening, and contextual), actions/interactions, and conse-
quences, we also used Glaser’s six C’s coding category,
i.e., coding for conditions, causes, covariances, contin-
gencies, context, and consequences, as well as Glaser’s
dimension family, i.e., coding for different types within
a category, in our case different types of organizational
effects, when we observed particular dimensions of ES
effects (Glaser 1978). Adjusting the coding categories to
fit the data rather than trying to force the data into pre-
determined categories is supported by both Glaser and
Strauss (Urquhart 1997). As an example of our coding,
a passage originally coded as an “impact of SAP” and
“misfit” during open coding was further coded during
axial coding as a “data misfit” (a type of misfit), and
more specifically as a “data quality problem” due to
“missing data.” This passage was also coded as a “con-
tingent intervening condition” because the employee was
having difficulty performing a task for which some
required data were missing.
After axial coding of all of our interview and field
data, our code list had expanded to 376 codes. This large
number of codes reflects two characteristics of our cod-
ing process. First, because we did not know what theory
might emerge from our data, we coded broadly to cover
several possible theoretical approaches to understand-
ing technology-mediated organizational change, e.g., we
coded for, but did not use, employees’ assessments of
how well the implementation was going. Second, we
coded for more depth than needed for the resulting the-
ory, e.g., 37 codes are labeled consequences with some
qualifier such as time, workload, visibility, or master
scheduling. These are in addition to other codes labeled
misfits or impacts of SAP, which are also consequences.
Although such detailed coding was useful in the con-
stant comparison process, not all of it contributed to the
resulting theory.
Theory Building
Selective coding is a process of integrating and refining
categories with the goal of building and refining the-
ory (Strauss and Corbin 1998). Thus, selective coding
moves the analysis from a potentially large number of
codes produced from axial coding to a few theoretical
categories that form the foundation of a new or revised
theory. Selective coding involves integration and abstrac-
tion through comparison of coded passages, as well as
comparison to the literature. To facilitate this process,
we used NVivo to produce various reports of all the
text coded with particular subsets of the axial codes.
We then read and reread these NVivo reports, compar-
ing coded passages to each other both within and across
categories for similarities and differences related to con-
ditions, actions, and consequences.
 Volkoff, Strong, and Elmes: Technological Embeddedness and Organizational Change
838 Organization Science 18(5), pp. 832–848, © 2007 INFORMS

Table 2 Coding Statistics for Key Codes

Number of passages Number of sources with

Code group Code name with this code passages having this code

Functionality (61 codes) Process gaps 24 14

Process misfits 25 14
General impacts on processes 30 17
Transaction reversal 27 18
Interfaces 18 13
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Reports/reporting 22 19
Roles (16 codes) Role gaps 24 16
General impacts on roles 30 12
Workload 56 34
Data (32 codes) Data quality 32 19
Data availability 28 16
Data detail 9 7
Data (other) 43 21
Control (23 codes) Control 56 26
Visibility 39 20
Mindset (13 codes) Discipline 61 34
Organizational culture 8 7
Mindset 25 17

Throughout selective coding, our focus moved itera-
tively among consequences, causes and conditions, and
reading and integrating relevant literature. For ease of
presentation, we report the process for consequences fol-
lowed by that for causes and conditions as though they
were performed in sequence.
We initially focused on categories of consequences,
i.e., the effects of the ES in the organization. As a result,
we collapsed many codes from axial coding into five
overall categories of organizational changes, namely,
changes to functionality, roles, data, methods of control,
and mindset, each with subcategories. See Table 2 for
the number of detailed codes that apply to each of these
five categories, and the number of passages and data
sources that had codes representing each subcategory. As
we examined causes, we realized that the first three cate-
gories corresponded to organizational elements that were
embedded into the software, namely, routines, roles, and
data, and thus, these consequences arose directly from
this embedding, i.e., they were first-order effects. The
other two, control and mindset, were consequences or
second-order effects of the embedding of the three orga-
nizational elements and the embedding of the relation-
ships between them, e.g., embedding the relationship
between routines and roles. Furthermore, as we viewed
these consequences through the lens of CR, we real-
ized that our theory should focus on causes, i.e., mecha-
nisms of change, rather than the observed organizational
consequences. Understanding the abstract categories of
the observed consequences, however, was necessary for
developing the theoretical categories related to causes,
as the epistemology underlying CR indicates.
Thus, we examined the passages that were coded
as conditions and causes. We compared similarly and
differently coded passages, the same process we used
for understanding effects and consequences. We also
compared causes to develop a theoretical understanding
of the causes of the observed changes. As a result of
these comparisons, an overall cause emerged—the orga-
nizational element was embedded in the ES software,
e.g., an organizational routine was coded into the soft-
ware resulting in changes to how that routine could be
performed. Thus, from this analysis, the abstract con-
cept of embeddedness emerged. That is, the causes and
conditions for the organizational changes were due to
embedding particular organizational elements, e.g., work
routines and role definitions, and relationships among
these organizational elements into the software.
While the overall cause or mechanism of change was
the embedding of organizational elements in the soft-
ware, our data showed that the result of that embedding
differed for different organizational elements. Viewing
this observation through the lens of CR, we arrived at the
conceptual understanding that each embedded organiza-
tional element takes on a material aspect. These ideas
are more thoroughly presented in the next two sections.
The first presents our results, focusing on grounding the
concepts of embeddedness and material aspect in our
data, but including a brief overview of organizational
consequences so that readers can see how the observed
consequences resulted from embedding organizational
elements. The second presents our resulting theory, as
informed by CR.
Field Site Observations of Embedded
Organizational Elements
The presentation of our results in this section is orga-
nized around the three core organizational elements—or-
ganizational routines, roles, and data—that were changed.
 Volkoff, Strong, and Elmes: Technological Embeddedness and Organizational Change
Organization Science 18(5), pp. 832–848, © 2007 INFORMS
We argue that the organizational changes we observed
are attributable to the embedding of these organizational
elements into the ES and the resulting tension between
the elements as embedded and as previously experi-
enced. Embedding an organizational element in technol-
ogy introduces a material aspect of those elements that is
different from but related to the ostensive and performa-
tive aspects. While this paper is about the organizational
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change process, not outcomes, we present some of the
consequences of introducing an ES because it is from
these observed elements that an understanding of the
process is derived. Discussing consequences also allows
us to distinguish between direct, first-order effects on
those elements that were embedded and other effects,
such as how control was exercised and how organiza-
tional mindset changed, that were second-order conse-
quences of these first-order effects.
Embedded Routines
As we collected data about changes associated with
the ES implementation, we observed many instances
of changes to routines that had become embedded in
the technology. Organizational routines are embedded in
the ES in the form of system-executed transactions—
sets of explicitly defined steps that require specific data
inputs to automatically generate specific outcomes. For
example, with the appropriate inputs an ES will issue a
purchase order to suppliers for component parts. Trans-
actions make changes to data stored in the ES, e.g.,
by recording the new purchase order and the quantities
being purchased, and also recording when and by whom
it was executed.
As a consequence of the embedding of organizational
routines, the routines performed by our respondents dif-
fered substantially from the routines they performed
before the ES implementation. Some changes took the
form of substitution. For example, certain routines in
the shipping area, such as the preparation of paper-
work to accompany parts going out for repair, were no
longer performed by shipping employees. Instead, the
documents were automatically generated by transactions
performed by inspectors deciding to send a part for
repair. Thus, embedding the routine automated it. Other
changes did not replace, but instead altered the routine.
For example, material buyer planners still performed a
routine to order inventory, but the way they did this was
new. The embedded transactions dictated a certain set of
steps that were different from the steps in the old rou-
tine. Such changes in routines were generally expected
by employees as part of using a new IT, and while the
new routines had to be learned, they often significantly
improved work practices.
A less welcome change in work routines was a loss
of flexibility arising from the reduced variety in the
ways each routine could be performed. Each step of
an embedded routine must be specified in advance, and
839
the number of alternatives is limited. This is necessary
not only to avoid excess complexity, but also to sup-
port standardization, which is an expected outcome of
implementing an ES. For example, ACRO’s management
chose to implement its ES as a single system across
the company to increase its ability to manage the orga-
nization. Thus, the same embedded routines were used
throughout the organization, e.g., product assembly and
new product development used the same inventory han-
dling transactions. For product assembly, the revisions to
their routines were within the range of expected changes,
but in new product development, employees reported
that the routines available to them were overly restric-
tive and interfered with their tasks. As a development
engineer and a planner supporting development noted:
In development there is a lot of change. The system is
rigid, it’s not flexible enough to take a lot of the change
and in the time frame that’s required.
It doesn’t offer the flexibility for an engineering type
business that doesn’t do the same job each and every day.
In addition to embedding individual routines, the ES
embedded work sequencing, that is, the order in which
routines could and should be performed and the con-
nections between routines. In this way, the ES enabled
process integration, which is achieved when different
organizational units (and individual actors within those
units) can work together in a seamless fashion with min-
imal intervention or delay (Gattiker and Goodhue 2005,
Lawrence and Lorsch 1967, Volkoff et al. 2005). When
integrated, not only do the individual routines become
tightly coupled, but the chains of linked routines also
become longer. The necessary inputs are available in the
right formats, and the outputs are automatically sent to
where they are needed, i.e., the ES automatically syn-
chronizes the transactions producing outputs with those
using them.
Many of the embedded work sequences were not new,
i.e., they were already the espoused form of the work
sequence, but before the ES, employees had more flexi-
bility, which they often used to work on another activity
when the next activity in their work sequence was unex-
pectedly delayed or to vary the routine to accommodate
differences because of location or novel circumstances.
The new ES removed this flexibility in work prac-
tices because embedded transactions were performed the
same way every time they were executed. Many man-
agers and some other employees wanted and welcomed
a more disciplined adherence to process sequencing, but
others found that the ES-enforced sequencing of routines
resulted in a loss of flexibility and interfered with their
work. As one manager noted: “SAP has driven complete
discipline into our processes.”
Embedding of routines and routine sequences in the
technology happens prior to use and creates a “material”
 Volkoff, Strong, and Elmes: Technological Embeddedness and Organizational Change
840
aspect to them. Although ES vendors design and imple-
ment transactions to represent “best practices” and orga-
nizations tailor them by configuring the ES to represent
how routines “should be” performed in that organization
(Davenport 1998), this material aspect is qualitatively
different from the ostensive aspect. Whereas the osten-
sive aspect of a routine is idealized and abstract—
it reflects the general principle underlying the routine
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(even if that general principle is interpreted differently
by different people) – the material aspect is concrete and
specific. Because it consists of transactions hard-coded
into the system, it is the same for everyone, and indi-
vidual interpretations do not affect how transactions are
performed. At the same time, the material aspect is not
the same as the performative aspect because the transac-
tion is not performed but is executed by the technology.
Whereas the performative aspect depends on the choices
of the actor, the material aspect is predefined, and there
are no choices to be made. That said, the material aspect
attempts to capture the ostensive in its coding, and, like
the performative aspect, executes particular instances of
the routine. By tying both the ostensive and performa-
tive aspects to the material aspect, ES technology has
the effect of bringing the ostensive and the performative
closer to each other, which instills discipline into work
practices.
Embedded Roles
Other organizational elements are also embedded into
technology and exhibit ostensive, performative, and
material aspects. For example, during an ES implemen-
tation, roles are defined and embedded; i.e., in the ES,
every user ID has an assigned role. At ACRO, over
20,000 user IDs were mapped into one to two thou-
sand roles. Furthermore, each role had a fixed set of
ES transactions it was authorized to perform. These user
ID-tied transaction authorizations were the role’s mate-
rial aspect, in contrast to each role’s ostensive aspect—a
general understanding of the responsibilities assigned to
each role—and its performative aspect—the responsibil-
ities assumed by individuals through their actions.
The embedding of roles and the assignment of trans-
actions to them had several direct consequences. First,
individuals could not operate outside their roles—a sig-
nificant change from the prior practice of individuals
with experience helping out wherever needed. Even the
weekend shift plant supervisor could not create pur-
chase orders, but had to call in a materials buyer plan-
ner. ACRO has many employees with 20 plus years of
experience in a variety of related roles, but this expe-
rience became unavailable in everyday work practices,
which also slowed operations when an authorized indi-
vidual was not available. Second, task assignment was
no longer a dynamic management decision that enabled
flexible responses to dynamic workloads, but a static
assignment embedded in the ES. On the other hand,
Organization Science 18(5), pp. 832–848, © 2007 INFORMS
having static and well-defined authority was consistent
with management and accounting principles that empha-
sized clear and limited employee responsibilities. As one
development planner noted:
Sometimes we have to get parts from the production side
of the house and we don’t have that access anymore.



The materials people make the decision whether or
not. Now that’s always been in place, it’s just that we
were able to do it. We used to be able to go around the
system. SAP does not allow you to do that anymore. So
our hands are tied in that aspect.
As a consequence of the embedded assignment
of transactions to roles, employees experienced role
changes because the content of a role changed, which
contributed further to the loss of organizational exper-
tise. Some people were assigned to perform tasks they
had not done before, and preferred not to do, while
others lost tasks they had performed in the past. For
example, design engineers were expected to complete
engineering change documents, previously the responsi-
bility of process engineers, but they lost responsibility
for ordering parts for new products. As one process engi-
neer noted:
In the old paper world we could work their [change
order] independent of any outside influence.


Now with
the new system, that is gone. In order to work the [change
order], the electronic feed from the engineering system
has to be made for the change or else the process engi-
neer cannot work that change.
Not surprisingly, with such changes, workloads
changed—we were frequently told that the material
buyer planner role had become much more onerous, but
the shipping role involved less work.
The combined consequences of embedding both roles
and work sequences had a paradoxical effect. Embed-
ding work sequences promoted process integration,
which worked to reduce borders and create a seamless
pan-organizational environment, which in turn created
a need for role integration. That is, for integrated pro-
cesses to work effectively, employees needed to work
as though they were part of a seamless process. The
embedded roles, on the other hand, strictly and narrowly
defined role authority, heightening role differentiation
and boundaries and making it difficult for employees to
work as though they were in a seamless and borderless
environment. As one employee noted:
There should be some safeguards, but if you put so many,
then it doesn’t help. And what that does by making it
smaller and smaller, your scope of what you do makes
very few people that understand the whole system. The
only way an ERP system, in my opinion, that you can
make this work, is everybody has to be smarter.
For example, data from part inspection flowed seam-
lessly to the receiving area, producing an integrated
process that automatically matched repair request data
 Volkoff, Strong, and Elmes: Technological Embeddedness and Organizational Change
Organization Science 18(5), pp. 832–848, © 2007 INFORMS
generated by inspectors to paperwork accompanying
repaired parts arriving in receiving from repair vendors.
Such integration was expected to speed up receiving by
automating verification, and to improve control by insur-
ing verification. Unfortunately, if either the inspectors
or the vendors entered erroneous transaction data, the
match would fail and the part could not be received,
even if desperately needed. Yet because of role differen-
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tiation, even an obvious or trivial error could not be cor-
rected by receivers, but only by inspectors with authority
to run the transactions that could change that data. The
initial result was a rock pile of parts that could not be
received or used in the plant. In one plant, these issues
were resolved over several months as receiving took
responsibility for working with inspection to resolve
problems and to find methods for avoiding them. In
another plant, they worked around the problem by order-
ing more parts, resulting in significant inventory cost
increases. Thus, although the consequences of embed-
ding work sequences was more integration of data and
processes, the role differentiation arising from embed-
ded roles resulted in fewer or even negative productivity
gains from integration. As one employee noted,
If I don’t do this correctly, or if it wasn’t set up correctly,
how do I correct it so I can do the transaction?, and
then if I don’t do it correctly, who is it going to affect?



We’re definitely going to have to work with each other
and we can’t be independent like we are today.
Another way ACRO resolved this tension between
narrow, well-defined roles and the need for integrated
work across roles was through superusers who had the
authority to perform all ES roles. While superusers were
intended as temporary roles to handle problems until
users learned the system well, ACRO was still using
superusers well after go-live because of the difficulty of
coordinating across roles to solve problems that could
be easily resolved by one person with wider authority.
While a few well-trained superusers were unlikely to
create problems, providing all users with broad authority
(i.e., integrating roles) would lead to a loss of control
and create the potential for chaos.
Embedded Data
The third organizational element changed through being
embedded in the ES was data which were stored in a
computer and made available to computer users. When
embedded, data take on a material aspect related to the
level of detail and format and how they are manipulated
or transformed, presented to users, and changed. The
ostensive aspect of a piece of data is the meaning users
ascribe to it, and the expectations of why it has been
collected and what it will be used for. The performative
aspects of data include the specific uses made of the
data by different users. While the legacy systems had
embedded data, the ES made substantial changes to the
841
embedding of data. First, the ES generally embedded
more data, which were often tracked at a greater level
of detail. For example, the ES tracked who did what and
when, and this was available to anyone with access.
Second, the ES changed when and how frequently
data were collected or updated, with much more data
available in real-time. For example, in the legacy sys-
tems, raw data were transformed into accounting data
once a month when operational data were sent to
accounting for roll-up and reporting. In the ES, con-
trollers could and did run daily trial balance reports.
Furthermore, on-demand trial balances could be run at
the level of individual orders moving through the plant.
As one plant controller noted:
And if it’s over your threshold, you can go to the floor
very quickly and say, “You were [x] times over on your
hours. I need to know what happened.”
Third, the ES changed the location of embedded data
by storing them in a common database, rather than in
local legacy systems. The direct consequence of this
change to the material aspect of the data was to provide
broad visibility to operational data. The increase in vis-
ibility changed role content by empowering users. For
example, because customer service representatives had
access to financial and production data in the ES, they
knew whether a customer had been invoiced as well as
the progress of a customer’s order through the plant;
inventory planners had access to inventory data in other
plants. Before the ES, these data were locally embedded
in finance and manufacturing, and customer service rep-
resentatives had to rely on whatever information manu-
facturing might provide to them about the status of an
order, and inventory planners had to rely on inventory
information from another plant. As one customer service
representative noted about the ES:
In the impact on customer feedback, questions that are
coming in from the customers, today we have a lot more
capability to get information with a lot less effort than
we did before.


What you think would be fairly simple
things, but back when we used [old system], it might not
have been so simple.
At the same time that this material aspect of the data
empowered workers, it also changed control. Not only
managers, but peers had the information needed to exer-
cise control over other workers in an integrated pro-
cess. Thus, workers in receiving exercised control over
inspectors because receivers were able to find and report
inspectors’ mistakes. The changes in empowerment and
control that we observed were attributable to embedding
detailed, real-time data about work activities in a com-
mon database.
Another consequence of embedding data in a common
database was the need to standardize the material form
of the data, in terms of its definition, format, and level
of detail. For example, at ACRO finance and production
 Volkoff, Strong, and Elmes: Technological Embeddedness and Organizational Change
842
were asked to select a common definition for the loca-
tion of a part, resulting in defining it in terms of which
group had responsibility for it, rather than the definition
favored by production, the physical location of the part.
The consequence was that finance always knew who was
responsible for every part, but production spent more
time searching for parts.
In addition to embedding data, the ES also embedded
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the relationship between transactions and data, prohibit-
ing transactions from being executed if the required data
were not in the common database. For example, a repair
order could not be placed until the specific part needing
repair and the repair price were specified. While requir-
ing the part number was reasonable, the price was typ-
ically not known until the repair process had assessed
the extent of work needed. Parts could not be ordered
by the material buyer planners if a blueprint contain-
ing those parts was not finalized by engineering, even
though the need for those parts was obvious. As one
planner in development noted:
If the part number doesn’t exist in the database, you
can’t order it. If the blueprint is not available, you can
not receive the part into stores.


That was always the
rule, but we were able to get around that. We would sup-
ply preliminary blueprints, or hand carry a marked up
blueprint down to the inspector, so he could inspect the
part and receive it.


in SAP it’s very strict, everything
runs in series.
Further Consequences of Embeddedness
As we have discussed, not only does an ES embed
individual organizational elements, i.e., individual rou-
tines in the form of transactions, individual roles, and
individual data elements, it also embeds the relation-
ships between organizational elements, i.e., the relation-
ships among routines in the form of work sequences,
the relationships between transactions and roles, and
the relationships between data and transactions. Each of
these embeddings takes on a material aspect that affects
employees as they perform their work activities. With
so many organizational elements and their relationships
embedded in the ES, employees are no longer able to
pick and choose routines and roles to perform and data
to use. Much of their work is prescribed by the material
aspects of organizational elements, and thus, employees
face a different environment.
The consequences of embedding task sequences, the
relationship between transactions and data, narrowly
defined roles, and visibility to data were high costs or
sanctions for mistakes. Erroneous transaction data, e.g.,
from inspectors, immediately flowed though the process
and everyone knew the source of the poor data. Fur-
thermore, the narrowly defined roles meant that revers-
ing the problem required all workers in the process to
back out any of their processing that used that data.
Thus, the ES served to embed sanctions for poor work
Organization Science 18(5), pp. 832–848, © 2007 INFORMS
performance and for any performance of routines that
was inconsistent with ES-embedded work practices. As
a consequence of these implicitly embedded sanctions,
a culture of disciplined work emerged as workers came
to recognize that the ES only worked smoothly when
they performed their work routines with strict discipline.
As a development material planner noted:
Everybody now realizes what tasks have to be done
before you move on, so now we’ve learned. And we’ve
learned that if you try to do the end-around, it just adds
more time to your process, so do it right the first time.
Before the ES, individuals established a sense of
expertise and power by being able and willing to per-
form a variety of tasks and using these skills to over-
come unexpected obstacles through creative solutions.
With the ES, honor accrued to those individuals who
best understood proper use of the ES. The ability to work
around the system, a respected competency in the legacy
system environment, was considered disruptive. Heroic
measures to ship product on time were no longer valued;
a mindset gradually developed that if the work practices
were followed with discipline, product was more likely
to ship on time than under the old practices. As one
materials planner noted:
It’s just the mindset is different and you have to
make sure that you do what you’re supposed to do.



Everything is out in the open.
Summary
The effects we observed from the ES implementation
were caused by embedding organizational elements and
their relationships in the ES. These effects were not,
however, fully determined by that embedding. For exam-
ple, in one plant, the response to the rock pile of
parts in receiving was to work toward understanding the
cause of the problems and resolving them, whereas in
another plant, the solution was to order more parts. Some
employees found the visibility to more data empowering
and made use of that data to perform their jobs bet-
ter or to understand and enhance the performance of
integrated processes, while others stayed within the nar-
rowly defined roles prescribed by the ES. Overall, by
embedding routines and their sequencing into the ES,
as well as roles, relationships between roles and trans-
actions, data, relationships between data and transac-
tions, and relationships among all these embedded ele-
ments, employees found it necessary to perform their
work according to the organizational element’s mate-
rial aspect which was embedded in the ES. This moved
the performative aspect of each organizational element
closer to its ostensive aspect.
A Theory of Technology-Mediated
Organizational Change
As discussed in the introduction, our objective is to build
a midrange process theory of organizational change.
 Volkoff, Strong, and Elmes: Technological Embeddedness and Organizational Change
Organization Science 18(5), pp. 832–848, © 2007 INFORMS 843

Unlike variance models, process models do not identify sufficient for building a theory of technology-mediated
causal factors and predict outcomes, but instead explain organizational change. In our view, it is also necessary
how the process unfolds, identifying the mechanisms to move from typical constructivist perspectives such
that move it along. as structuration theory to an approach based on criti-
The concept of embeddedness is at the core of our cal realism so as to incorporate the temporal aspect of
explanation of how technology-mediated organizational the change process and to address the materiality of
change unfolds. While the term embeddedness has been the technology. Unlike structuration theory, which exam-
used in various ways,1 we use it to describe the way in ines structure and agency and their relationship at par-
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which technology introduces a material aspect to orga- ticular moments of instantiation, critical realism insists
nizational elements such as routines, roles, and data. that we consider a time line that distinguishes among
While the material aspect (e.g., an electronic transaction prior structural conditions, social interaction, and post-
or a user ID-linked authorization) is physically man- structural conditions. This allows us to propose a theory
ifested in the technology, it is more than simply an of technology-mediated organizational change, shown in
artifact or part of the technological context. It is an Figure 1. For purposes of clarity during the exposition of
integral part of the associated organizational element the theory, we use routines as an example of an organi-
and is the key to the change process. When organiza- zational element. The comments apply equally, however,
tional elements such as routines, roles, and data become to other organizational elements such as roles and data
embedded in technology, their material aspect interacts that become embedded in the technology.
with and affects their ostensive and performative aspects.
Understanding that organizational elements such as Structural Conditioning
routines, roles, and data have material as well as The routines enacted through social interaction during
ostensive and performative aspects is necessary but not ES use do not construct the system—the system exists

Figure 1 A Critical Realist Theory of Technology-Mediated Organizational Change

Structural conditioning Social interaction Structural elaboration/reproduction

Ostensive aspects (O): Organizational structures Ostensive aspects (O): Performative aspects (P): Ostensive aspects (O): Organizational structures
as understood in Org structures as Org structures as as understood in
principle by designers understood by users performed by users principal by designers
and users

Routines as od od od od od Routines as
pd pd pd pd pd
understood (ON) Data as understood (ON′)
Data as
understood (OD) understood (OD′)
on on on on on on′ on′ on′ on′ on′
od od od od od (3)
on on on on on od′ od′ od′ od′ od′
pn pn pn pn pn

OX PX
Roles as OX Roles as OX′
understood (OR) understood (OR′)

or or or or or or or or or or pr pr pr pr pr or′or ′ or′ or′ or′

(2) (5)
(1) (4) (6)

Material aspects (M): Technology under Material aspects (M): Technology as built Material aspects (M): Technology under
design and construction revision
Embedded Embedded Embedded
transactions (MT) Embedded data transactions (MT) Embedded data transactions (MT′) Embedded data
structures (MS) structures (MS)
mt mt mt structures (MS′)
mt mt mt mt′ mt′ mt′
ms ms ms ms ms ms
ms′ ms′ ms′

Embedded Embedded Embedded

authorizations authorizations authorizations
(MA) (MA) MX (MA′) MX′
MX
ma ma ma ma ma ma ma′ ma′ ma′

O P
Summary: O M Summary: Summary: O′ M′
M

Time
Key
Leads to O: Ostensive aspect N: Routines T: Transactions X: Other organizational elements
Interaction P: Performative aspect D: Data S: Data structures
Integration M: Material aspect R: Roles A: Authorizations
 Volkoff, Strong, and Elmes: Technological Embeddedness and Organizational Change
844
prior to its use, having been designed and built by
a vendor, and configured by an implementation team.
These design and configuration activities create the prior
structural conditions within which use eventually occurs.
The design and construction/configuration of technol-
ogy consists of articulating and explicating in detail how
each routine should operate (i.e., the ostensive aspects of
the routine, shown as ON in Figure 1) and then turning
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this understanding into embedded transactions realized
as lines of code (i.e., the material aspect of the routine,
shown as MT).
During that process, designers collect varying inter-
pretations of a given routine, decide on the best one
or ones, and encode this choice into the software. For
example, consider a routine for issuing a purchase order.
While several variations of this routine may be built into
the ES (i.e., different routines may be established for
purchasing a part versus purchasing a repair service),
the number of alternatives that can be included is finite.
While the ostensive aspect directly guides the devel-
opment of the material aspect, technical considerations
may limit or extend what is possible, i.e., the material
aspect may influence the ostensive aspect of the routine
and vice versa (shown in Figure 1 as Arrow 1 between
the ostensive aspects, O and the material aspects, M).
Furthermore, technology such as ESs has predefined ver-
sions of the routines (MT) built into it. Vendors and
consultants regularly urge purchasers of such systems
to conform to these built-in best practices and thus, the
material aspect may again influence the ostensive.
While the ostensive and material aspects of a routine
interact during design and construction/configuration, its
performative aspect is latent; the performance of the
technology-mediated routine cannot occur until the tech-
nology is implemented. The objective of design and
configuration activities is to bring the ostensive and
material aspects into alignment to the extent possible.
The outcome of the interaction between the ostensive
and material aspects of the technology in our theory
marks the prior structural conditions within which per-
formance of the routine can eventually take place. As
noted by Feldman and Pentland (2003), the ostensive
aspects are interpreted differently by different people.
During structural conditioning, the ostensive aspects of
organizational elements as interpreted by those respon-
sible for design and configuration are put into play.
Social Interaction
Once the technology is implemented, users start to per-
form the organizational routines. This social interaction
phase, during which changes to organizational elements
become evident, follows and is influenced by the struc-
tural conditioning phase (Arrow 2). In the social inter-
action phase, the performative aspect of routines (shown
as PN in Figure 1) becomes active as users perform
those routines. The performative and ostensive aspects
Organization Science 18(5), pp. 832–848, © 2007 INFORMS
interact and influence each other as discussed by Feld-
man and Pentland (2003), but in our theory that inter-
action (Arrow 3) is constrained/enabled and moderated
by the material aspects (Arrow 4). Note that during
social interaction it is the users’ interpretation rather
than the designers’ interpretation of the ostensive aspect
that is salient. In general, while ostensive aspect can
guide actors, and enable them to account for or refer
to their performances, and the performative aspect can
help to create, maintain, and modify the ostensive aspect,
the material aspect of the software circumscribe these
interactions. For example, as individuals perform the
purchase order routine, their understanding of the pur-
chase order process in principle will guide them, but
the system-embedded transactions that allow a purchase
order to be submitted will constrain them. During their
work, they may encounter situations that do not fit well
with the routines and work sequences as designed. For
example, the R&D group may want to place orders for
parts in products not yet fully designed. At ACRO in the
ES as designed, purchase orders could only be issued
for items that had fully specified bills of material. Thus,
the material aspect constrained the performative. The
workers did identify some creative workarounds such
as setting up bills of material for dummy items, but
even these workarounds had to conform to the system-
imposed constraints.
Because the material aspect both frames how peo-
ple interpret the ostensive aspect and influences how
they perform it, the performative and the ostensive
move closer together—that is, as people are required
to behave in a more disciplined manner, their perfor-
mance becomes more closely aligned with the routine in
principle. During this social-interaction stage, the osten-
sive and performative aspects do not affect the mate-
rial aspect—it is static, as systems such as these, once
adopted, cannot be easily altered.
Structural Elaboration/Reproduction
Social interaction (i.e., the execution of the routines) will
lead to either reproduction of those routines, or elabora-
tion of them (Arrow 5). To the extent that the constraints
imposed by the material aspects are in conflict with the
ostensive aspect, people may redefine their interpreta-
tion of the right way to do things to conform with the
embedded versions, i.e., change the ostensive aspect.
Alternatively, they may want to change the technology.
The nature of enterprise systems is such that changes
to the technology cannot be made through casual, ad
hoc adjustments by individuals as they work. Instead,
a formal project must be initiated to change the mate-
rial aspect. Thus, after the social interaction inherent in
the performance of routines, there is the possibility of
structural elaboration or reproduction, the next stage of
our theory, where the ostensive and material aspects are
either confirmed or redefined through further interaction
(Arrow 6).
 Volkoff, Strong, and Elmes: Technological Embeddedness and Organizational Change
Organization Science 18(5), pp. 832–848, © 2007 INFORMS
The Change Process
Overall, the change process is not one of continu-
ous, gradual evolution, as suggested by constructivist
approaches that focus on individual actions. Instead, it
is a set of alternating cycles where the ostensive and the
material aspects become mostly aligned during design
and construction, enabling significant changes to orga-
nizational elements over short periods of time, followed
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by periods where the performative and ostensive aspects
interact, but are constrained by the material aspect, lead-
ing to new interactions between the material and the
ostensive.
A parallel discussion could be presented with respect
to roles (the three aspects of roles are shown as OR, MA,
and PR in Figure 1), data (shown as OD, MS, and PD),
or the embedded relationships between them (shown as
the small arrows within and between the boxes that rep-
resent different organizational elements). Similarly, there
could be other organizational elements (e.g., commu-
nication channels) that become embedded in the tech-
nology and acquire a material aspect. In Figure 1, we
indicate these other elements as OX, MX, and PX.
Finally, while the relationships between the material
aspects of the different organizational elements are still
in flux during design and construction, after implemen-
tation these relationships are fixed in the technology as
built. Moreover, for a technology such as an ES, it is
these fixed embedded relationships that define integra-
tion (the straight lines in Figure 1). While the perfor-
mative aspects of such relationships are still under some
degree of negotiation, they are strongly influenced by the
fixed embedded relationships (the long curved arrows).
Comparison to Other Theoretical Approaches
This use of critical realism, the introduction of the
concept of embeddedness, and analysis at the level of
individual organizational elements gives our midlevel
process theory of how technology-mediated change
unfolds a number of advantages over traditional models
of organizational change. In particular, it provides a tem-
poral separation that distinguishes between two types of
processes, namely, a process of negotiation between the
ostensive and material aspects, where the performative
aspects are latent, and a separate process of negotia-
tion between the ostensive and the performative aspects,
moderated by the material aspects. Under structuration
theory, change only occurs through an interaction of per-
formance and structure. Because the material aspect is
not distinguished from the ostensive aspect in the con-
cept of structure, the technology loses salience and the
effects of different types of technology cannot be exam-
ined. ANT does allow the technology to become an
independent actant in the change process, but because
it is treated in the same way as every other actant,
the two different processes that occur cannot be distin-
guished. Institutional theory tends to ignore the perfor-
mative aspects altogether.
845
Examining organizational change at the level of orga-
nizational elements such as routines, roles, and data,
combined with the temporality of critical realism has
further advantages. First, only at the level of organiza-
tional elements can we discuss the distinctions among
the material, the performative, and the ostensive aspects.
Moreover, different elements are likely to have differ-
ent temporal cycles in our theory. For example, orga-
nizational routines are likely to change on the same
time cycle as system upgrades. Roles, which are embed-
ded through authorizations, might be changeable over
a shorter time cycle. By contrast, data structures, once
designed, are unlikely to change for a long period.
Focusing on organizational elements also allows the
examination of differential effects such as our discovery
that the introduction of an ES serves to integrate routines
and data, but differentiate roles.
Conclusion
This study developed a new theory of technology-medi-
ated organizational change. Our theory emerged as a
result of employing grounded theory techniques to ana-
lyze data collected during an intensive, longitudinal case
study of an organization implementing an ES. Our data
told us that technology-mediated organizational change
should be examined at the level of organizational ele-
ments, namely, as changes in, for example, organi-
zational routines, roles, and data, and as changes in
the relationships between these elements. The changes
observed were the starting point for understanding how
the technology served as the source or cause of these
changes. The core theoretical concept emerging from our
data was embeddedness. Embedding a routine, role, or
data in the ES changed that element and how it could
be enacted by employees.
As we coded our field data, constantly comparing
coded passages to derive these theoretical concepts,
we also investigated existing literature and found two
research areas relevant to our emerging theory: criti-
cal realism and organizational routines. Critical realism,
with its theoretical emphasis on objects existing in the
real domain, supported the view of technology emerging
from our data—specifically that technology has an inher-
ent materiality that influences work practices, rather than
technology as an object purely constructed through sub-
jective interpretation. Critical realism also contributed to
how we included temporality in our theory. Research
on organizational routines, especially Feldman and Pent-
land (2003), supported the view emerging from our data
that organizational change occurred through changes in
organizational elements, such as organizational routines
and roles. This research also provided the concepts of
ostensive and performative aspects of routines, which we
applied more broadly to other organizational elements in
our theory.
 Volkoff, Strong, and Elmes: Technological Embeddedness and Organizational Change
846
Our theory contributes to research at the intersec-
tion of organizations and technology in several ways.
First, our theory of technology-mediated organizational
change explicitly includes technology. Technology’s role
is to embed organizational elements, which then have
a material aspect that affects how employees are able
to enact and interact with those organizational elements.
This view of technology differs from the role of technol-
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ogy in ANT, in which it is just another actor in a negoti-
ation process. It also differs from the role of technology
in structuration theory, in which technology is “interpre-
tively flexible” (Orlikowski 1992, p. 405), enacted and
defined as part of structure in the instance of use by
agents.
Second, our theory of technology-mediated organiza-
tional change covers a number of organizational ele-
ments and their relationships, including routines, roles,
data, relationships between routines in the form of
sequences of routines, relationships between routines
and roles, and relationships between routines and data.
This extends the organizational research on organi-
zational routines as sources of organizational change
to other organizational elements. In addition, our the-
ory applies the concepts of ostensive and performative
aspects of organizational elements—first articulated by
Latour (1986) for power, and then applied by Feldman
and Pentland (2003) to organizational routines—to other
organizational elements, including roles and data. This
provides the basis for introducing the concept of embed-
dedness, and allows us to analyze how the material
aspect of organizational elements influences and is influ-
enced by the ostensive and performative aspects of these
elements, as well as moderating the interaction between
them as employees interact with the technology to per-
form their work.
Third, our theory of technology-mediated organiza-
tional change is an explanatory process theory, answer-
ing calls for such work (Robey and Boudreau 1999).
Our theory not only explains how embedding organiza-
tional elements into a technology leads to changes in
both the ostensive and performative aspects of those ele-
ments, and thus to changes in organizational form and
function, but it also has an explicit temporal dimen-
sion. The temporal dimension consists of the three crit-
ical realist stages identified by Archer (1995): structural
conditioning, social interaction, and structural elabora-
tion/reproduction. Within these stages, the process of
change, i.e., how the material, ostensive, and perfor-
mative aspects of organizational elements interact, was
identified from our data. These stages and the interac-
tions within each provide an understanding of how and
why implementing a technology leads to organizational
change. This approach differs from theories taking a
structuration theory perspective, which explain organiza-
tional change in terms of the interactions between struc-
ture and agency, but are less likely to explain how these
interactions play out over time.
Organization Science 18(5), pp. 832–848, © 2007 INFORMS
Finally, our theory provides an example of a theory
developed from a critical realist perspective, which to
our knowledge is the first such example in IT research.
This addresses the claims of several researchers that crit-
ical realism would provide a better lens for technology-
mediated organizational change theory development than
structuration theory or ANT (Dobson 2001; Mingers
2002, 2004; Mutch 2002).
Our theory of technology-mediated organizational
change also contributes to practice. With organizational
systems like ESs installed in most medium and large
organizations, understanding technology-mediated orga-
nizational change is becoming a required skill for suc-
cessful managers. Our theory suggests that they need to
consider more than just the planned changes to data and
functionality. Such systems are likely to affect a broader
range of organizational elements, such as roles, relations
between data and routines or routines and roles, forms of
control and mindset. In addition, our theory helps man-
agers understand how organizational elements differ in
their changeability and their time cycle for changing.
Because our theory of technology-mediated organiza-
tional change is expressed in general theoretical terms,
it can be applied to technologies other than the ES
we studied. To consider other technologies, one must
determine which organizational elements are embedded
in the technology and examine their material aspects.
Those material aspects will vary in their effects on the
ostensive and performative aspects of those organiza-
tional elements. For example, the material aspect may be
highly flexible and malleable or its use may be optional,
resulting in fewer constraints on users of the technology
than what we observed at our field site. Furthermore, the
effect of the material aspect on the interaction between
the ostensive and performative aspects during technol-
ogy use may lead to second-order effects other than the
ones we observed on control and mindset. However, we
do not yet have empirical evidence that our theory is
applicable to technologies other than the ES we studied
and, thus, cannot attest to the generalizability of our the-
ory. The ES we studied, however, is the market leader
and thus our theory is likely to apply to the other instal-
lations of SAP or similar ESs.
Similarly, our intensive, longitudinal case study
method required a focus on a single organization, limit-
ing the generalizability of our results beyond that orga-
nization. We compensated as much as possible for this
by using theoretical sampling to cover different locations
and functional areas of the organization, ranging from a
highly structured production environment to a much less
structured R&D environment.
In this paper we develop, rather than test, theory.
The next step is to test our theory’s ability to ex-
plain technology-mediated organizational change in other
organizations and with other technologies, both from
a research and practice perspective. As we and other
 Volkoff, Strong, and Elmes: Technological Embeddedness and Organizational Change
Organization Science 18(5), pp. 832–848, © 2007 INFORMS
researchers do this, our theory, like other theory, is likely
to evolve in various ways that we cannot predict. Another
avenue for further research is to investigate links between
our theory and other organizational theories. In particular,
our theory of IT-mediated organizational change might
be enriched by considering the extent to which embed-
ding organizational elements in technology requires a
shift in the balance between mindful and less mind-
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ful behavior (Elmes et al. 2005, Langer 1989, Levinthal
and Rerup 2006, Weick and Sutcliffe 2006). Finally, we
urge researchers who are interested in the technology-
organization nexus to consider using the lens of criti-
cal realism, which proved to be an invaluable perspec-
tive from which to develop new theory consistent with a
grounded theory methodology.
Acknowledgments
This research was supported in part by the National Science
Foundation under Grant 0114954. Any opinions, findings, and
conclusions or recommendations expressed in this paper are
those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views
of the National Science Foundation. The authors thank the
organization we studied for generously providing us with open
access to observe their implementation process, attend meet-
ings, and interview employees, at a time when they were
extremely busy. The authors also thank the many employees
who willingly talked about their experiences with the newly
implemented ES.
Endnote
1
The term “embeddedness” is often used to describe personal
relations and positioning within social networks and their
effects on economic behavior (Granovetter 1985, 1992). That
is not the sense used in this paper.
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