Kristine Dery

Management Reactions to Technological Change The Example of Enterprise Resource Planning

This article explores how different types of managers respond to large-scale organizational change and what factors underpin differences in management attitudes and reactions. Through qualitative analysis of the introduction of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems in two case study organizations, the authors argue that variations in managerial responses to organizational change relate to both the structural position of individual managers and their level of involvement in the implementation of change. Managers are also shown to exhibit agency in interpreting, influencing, and negotiating the impact of organizational change. The analysis emphasizes the need to incorporate more critical perspectives informed by labor process theory with existing insights from conventional organizational change literature.

Work, Organisation and Enterprise Resource Planning Systems: An Alternative Research Agenda

This paper reviews literature that examines the design, implementation and use of Enterprise Resource Planning systems (ERPs). It finds that most of this literature is managerialist in orientation, and concerned with the impact of ERPs in terms of efficiency, effectiveness and business performance. The paper seeks to provide an alternative research agenda, one that emphasises work- and organisation-based approaches to the study of the implementation and use of ERPs.

Working with connective flow: how smartphone use is evolving in practice

Smartphones, those handheld devices that connect us via telephone and the Internet to virtually everyone and everything in the world, are becoming an integral part of everyday life. While there are significant individual and collective benefits from being more connected, there are also concerns associated with ‘always on’ work practices. This paper reports on a two-phase case study of smartphone users in a global financial services firm comparing the use of smartphones and their impact on work over time. We found that mobile communication technology practices have evolved within a relatively short (5-year) period of time as users seek to manage connectivity across work and non-work spaces. Disconnecting from work is no longer possible, nor desirable, for many users, who exercise choice (agency), switching between work and non-work interactions to regulate the connective flow across multiple connective media.

Lost in translation? An actor-network approach to HRIS implementation

Available evidence suggests that the adoption of IT-enabled Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS) has not produced the widely predicted transformation of Human Resources (HR) to a strategic business partner. We examine the relationship between HRIS and the HR function by applying actor-network theory (ANT) to an HRIS implementation project. The focus on how actor networks are formed and reformed during implementation may be particularly well suited to explaining why the original aims of the HRIS can be displaced or lost in translation. We suggest that the approach afforded by ANT enables us to better understand the ongoing and contingent process of HRIS implementations.

Talent development gamification in talent selection assessment centres

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between the use of sophisticated talent selection processes such as gamification and training and development interventions designed to ensure that candidates can successfully navigate the talent assessment process. Gamification is the application of game elements to non-game activities through the adoption of gaming tools, and little is known about how candidates (“talent”) struggle to learn about the structural mechanics of gamification as they engage with the hidden rules of talent selection, such as goals, rules, “levelling up”, feedback and engagement in competitive – collaborative activities. The term “talent development gamification” is coined and used as an analytical tool to consider how young talent are supported by development interventions in their inter-subjectivity as they learn how to survive and win in talent selection games. Design/methodology/approach Studying hidden dynamics in development processes inherent in gamified talent selection is challenging, so a cult work of fiction, “Ender’s Game”, is examined to address the questions: “How do candidates in talent selection programmes learn to make sense of the structural mechanics of gamification”, “How does this make the hidden rules of talent selection explicit to them?” and “What does this mean for talent development?” Findings Talent development in selection gamification processes is illustrated through nuanced theoretical accounts of how a multiplicity of shifting and competing developmental learning opportunities are played out as a form of “double-consciousness” by potential organizational talent for them to “win the selection game”. Research limitations/implications Using novels as an aid to understanding management and the organization of work is ontologically and epistemologically problematic. But analysing novels which are “good reads” also has educational value and can produce new knowledge from its analysis. In exploring how “Characters are made to live dangerously, to face predicaments that, as readers, we experience as vicarious pleasure. We imagine, for example, how a particular character may react or, more importantly, what we would do in similar circumstances” (Knights and Willmott, 1999, p. 5). This future-oriented fictional narrative is both illustrative and provides an analogy to illuminate current organisational development challenges. Originality/value The term “talent development gamification in selection processes” is coined to allow analysis and provide lessons for talent development practice in a little studied area. Our case study analysis identifies a number of areas for consideration by talent management/talent development specialists involved in developing talent assessment centres incorporating gamification. These include the importance of understanding and taking account of rites of passage through the assessment centre, in particular the role of liminal space, what talent development interventions might be of benefit and the necessity of appreciating and managing talent in developing the skill of double consciousness in game simulations.

Seeing Is Belonging: Remote Working, Identity and Staying Connected

This chapter examines how workers in a distributed environment use technologies to overcome the isolation and invisibility of virtual work. We examine the working lives of remote workers and show how they struggle with maintaining those ‘informal’ connections with the organisation that are typically associated with building a sense of belonging. Our findings identify new practices that engage technologies to maintain visual and social connections across the organisation. In this way, remote workers are establishing a sense of belonging and participation across the wider spectrum of organisational activities and opportunities. Insights into how technologies are used to build an identity and a presence in a largely virtual working environment are then used to generate a series of recommendations for the management of remote workers.