Viktor Arvidsson

Information systems use as strategy practice

Conceptualize three key challenges within strategic IS implementation.Develop a multi-dimensional view of IS strategy to analyze the IS strategy process.Identify three factors that contribute to strategy blindness during IS strategy implementation.Extend the cognitive framing literature by adopting a cognitive entrenchment lens.Highlight the role of change-recipients as construers of change in implementation. Information systems (IS) are strategic in so far as they are used to realize strategic intent. Yet, while much has been said about aligning IS functionality with the strategic intent and how to organizationally implement strategically aligned systems, less is known of how to successfully implement strategic change associated with system use - a truly critical challenge within strategic IS implementation. Drawing on a strategy-as-practice perspective we address this gap by developing a multi-dimensional view of IS strategy, conceptualizing three key challenges in the IS strategy process, to explain how and why a paper mill, despite successfully implementing a strategic production management system, failed to produce intended strategic change. We call this outcome strategy blindness: organizational incapability to realize the strategic intent of implemented, available system capabilities. Using a longitudinal case study we investigate how cognitive rigidity of key actors and fixed, interrelated practices shaped the implementation of the new production system. We also identify core components and dynamics that constitute a richer multi-dimensional view of the IS strategy implementation (alignment) process. In particular, we identify three salient factors that contribute to strategy blindness - mistranslation of intent, flexibility of the IT artifact and cognitive entrenchment - and discuss how they affect strategic implementation processes. We conclude by discussing implications of our findings for IS strategy theory and practice, especially the contribution of strategy-as-practice to this stream of research.

Strategy Blindness as Disciplined IT-Use Practice: Looking Past the 'Unintended and Unexpected' through the Practice Lens

Strategy blindness is commonly understood as an unexpected outcome of IS strategy implementation that results as users make sense of new IT resources in unintended ways. What could be learned by instead treating strategy blindness expected? To this end, this paper unpacks some common assumptions of strategic failure and presents an alternative assumption ground. To explain how masculinites form sources of strategy failure, I reanalyze IT use at a Swedish paper-mill as negotiated among rough and respectable men: blue-collar workers and white-collar managers are shown to maintain distinct hierarchies yet enact the same fixed IT use reality, in each case, intimate relations to the paper machine dictated their ways. Power plays of optimization and mastery illustrate each identity. I then critique current ideas in strategic management and received notions of how IT matters in strategy practice.

Digital Gender: A Manifesto - Report on the Research Workshop Digital Gender, Theory, Methodology, and Practice

While early day Internet research often hailed “Cyberspace” as an arena where individuals would be liberated from the social shackles of their biological gender, a growing body of research makes evident the exaggerations present within these romanticized claims. Though the online gender divide is rapidly eroding, the Internet remains rooted in society at large. While digital technologies can challenge normative views, they therefore often maintain status quo. Consequently, there is a need to revisit old claims and challenge traditional notions of ”Digital Gender”. In this vein, this manifesto reports and synthesizes findings and discussions from an international workshop titled ”Digital Gender: Theory, Methodology and Practice”, held at Umea University, Sweden, in early 2014. Against this backdrop, we chart out a new agenda for research on how the digital intermingle with the social in the production of gender. In particular, we argue that scholars must move past the idea of Internet as a separate – virtual – realm and direct attention to the increasingly complex ways that digital technologies permeate social practices, altering the very fabric of society itself. On the one hand, we stress the need for research that focuses on how particular Internet technologies help maintain as well as challenge normative views of gender. On the other hand, we stress the need to uncover how particular material properties of digital technology affect the (un)making of such views. Overall, we also stress the need for scholars of gender to move beyond binary oppositions and to be appreciative of intersectionality in their analyses of digital gender construction.

The Revolution That Wasn't: Investigating Barriers to Platform-Based E-Service Delivery Partnerships

In response to the increasing political and popular demand on e-government to deliver, governments have begun to seek out new, alternative forms of operation. One such development in the domain of e-government is the emergence of private-public partnerships (PPP). However, research on PPPs in the service layer of e-government is virtually silent. In this paper we argue that one possible approach to help close this gap is by investigating key partnership issues from a platform perspective. Building on a case study, and using this novel perspective, we identify three key barriers for developing platform-based partnerships for e-service delivery in local government: the bureaucratic barrier, the interface barrier and the business barrier. Based on experiences from this study, we also conclude that the platform approach have proven useful as a means to close the highlighted gap in research.