Inside Ericsson: A framework for the practice of leading global it-enabled change

California Management Review

Volumn 53, Issue 1, 2011, Pages 136-153

  Iveroth, Einar ^a  

^a UPPSALA UNIVERSITY   (Sweden)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 78651336034     PISSN: 00081256     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1525/cmr.2010.53.1.136     Document Type: Article

References (88)

1. See, for example, M.L. Markus et al., "Learning from Adopters' Experiences with ERP: Problems Encountered and Success Achieved," Journal of Information Technology, 15/4 (December 2000): 245-265;
2. J. Dedrick, V. Gurbaxani, and K.L. Kraemer, "Information Technology and Economic Performance: A Critical Review of the Empirical Evidence, "ACM Computing Surveys, 35/1 (March 2003): 1-28;
3. M.L. Markus, "Technochange Management: Using IT to Drive Organizational Change," Journal of Information Technology, 19/1 (March 2004): 4-20;
4. The Standish Group, Chaos Summary for 2010 (Yarmouthport, MA: The Standish Group International, Inc., 2010).
5. The failure to understand IT as a transformative technology and the tendency to treat it as an isolated "tool" is a recurring finding in the literature. For example, Dedrick et al. [op. cit., p. 23] assessed over 50 studies in order to explore the connection between IT and economic performance. They concluded that the companies that get the most from their IT investments do so because they made additional adjustments to the organization: "The value of IT investments needs to be seen in relationship to investments in such organizational capital, as the two are complementary. IT is not simply a tool for automating existing processes, but is more importantly an enabler of organizational changes that can lead to productivity gains."
6. See Dedrick et al., op. cit. Similar well-cited research is the work of Markus and Benjamin who argue that managers commonly treat IT as a "magic bullet" because they believe that IT implements itself and that people magically adjust to it.
7. See M.L. Markus and R.I. Benjamin, "The Magic Bullet Theory in IT-Enabled Transformation," Sloan Management Review, 38/2 (Winter 1997): 55-68. Likewise, Orlikowski and Iacono criticize conceptualizations of IT because the concept is often treated as a stable and monolithic "tool."
8. See W.J. Orlikowski and C.S. Iacono, "Research Commentary: Desperately Seeking the 'IT' In IT Research: A Call to Theorizing the IT Artifact," Information Systems Research, 12/2 (June 2001): 121-134.
9. See also, for example, J. Peppard and J. Ward, "Unlocking Sustained Business Value from IT Investments," California Management Review, 48/1 (Fall 2005): 52-70;
10. R. Agarwal and H.C Lucas, Jr., "The Information Systems Identity Crisis: Focusing on High-Visibility and High-Impact Research," MIS Quarterly, 29/3 (September 2005): 381-398;
11. G. Piccoli and B. Ives, "IT-Dependent Strategic Initiatives and Sustained Competitive Advantage: A Review and Synthesis of the Literature," MIS Quarterly, 29/4 (December 2005): 747-776.
12. The analytical interconnectedness and interplay between IT and organization is explored by, for example, M. Barrett, D. Grant, and N. Wailes, "ICT and Organizational Change," Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 42/1 (March 2006): 6-22;
13. R.F. Zammuto, T.L. Griffith, A. Majchrzak, D.J. Dougherty, and S. Faraj, "Information Technology and the Changing Fabric of Organization," Organization Science, 18/5 (September/October 2007): 749-762;
14. P.M. Leonardi and S.R. Barley, "Materiality and Change: Challenges to Building Better Theory about Technology and Organizing," Information & Organization, 18/3 (July 2008): 159-176;
15. W. Orlikowski and S. Scott, "Chapter 10: Sociomateriality: Challenging the Separation of Technology, Work and Organization," The Academy of Management Annals, 2/1 (August 2008): 433-474.
16. IBM, The Enterprise of the Future: The IBM Global CEO Study, IBM Global Business Services, 2008;
17. IBM, Making Change Work. Continuing the Enterprise of the Future Conversation, IBM Global Business Services, 2008.
18. IT-enabled change and organizational change research is preoccupied with strategy and structure, and it often applies a planned and rational perspective. Researchers pay less attention to the actors and their micro-level adivities and how they use the strategy and structure inside the process of IT-enabled change and during ongoing practice.
19. See, for example, R.I. Benjamin and E. Levinson, "A Framework for Managing IT-Enabled Change," Sloan Management Review, 34/4 (Summer 1993): 23-33;
20. H. Tsoukas and R. Chia, "On Organizational Becoming: Rethinking Organizational Change," Organization Science, 13/5 (September/October 2002): 567-582;
21. Markus, op. cit; R.T. By, "Organizational Change Management: A Critical Review," Journal of Change Management, 5/4 (2005): 369-380;
22. Barrett, Grant, and Wailes, op. cit.
23. The research has followed the recent "practice-turn" in social science. See for example, T.R. Schatzki, K. Knorr-Cetina, and E. Savigny, The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory (London: Routledge, 2001);
24. P. Jarzabkowski, J. Balogun, and D. Seidl, "Strategizing: The Challenges of a Practice Perspective," Human Relations, 60/1 (January 2007): 5-27.
25. Scholars have recently criticized organizational change research for being too preoccupied with failures and the negative side of organizational change.
26. See, for example, K.S. Cameron, "Paradox in Positive Organizational Change," Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 44/1 (March 2008): 7-24;
27. R.E. Quinn, K.S. Cameron, and J.E. Dutton, Positive Organizational Scholarship: Foundations of a New Discipline (San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler, 2003);
28. K. Cameron, "Five Keys to Flourishing in Trying Times," Leader to Leader, 2010/55 (Winter 2010): 45-51. These schoolars urge for a "positive organizational scholarship" that focuses on the positive effects of organizational change: "the investigation of positive dynamics, positive attributes, and positive outcomes in organizations."
29. See, Cameron, op. cit., p. 7.
30. See, for example, O. Lorenzo, P. Kawalek, and B. Ramdani, "The Long Conversation: Learning How to Master Enterprise Systems," California Management Review, 52/1 (Fall 2009): 140-166;
31. N. Pollock and R. Williams, Software and Organizations: The Biography of the Enterprise Wide System or How SAP Conquered the World (London: Routledge, 2009).
32. The number of change agents varied during the course of the transformation. In all, the paper is based on twenty-nine interviews with seventeen respondents (besides internal documents and observations). Twelve of these respondents were managers and the remaining were employees with lower-level position.
33. See the Appendix for more information.
34. This distinction between hard and soft factors of change is a common theme in change research. This article is aligned with similar debates, which contend that soft and hard factors are not mutually exclusive and that successful change is often an outcome of a combination of the two. See, for example, M. Beer and N. Nohria, "Cracking the Code of Change," Harvard Business Review, 78/3 (May/June 2000): 133-141;
35. H.L. Sirkin, P. Keenan, and A. Jackson, "The Hard Side of Change Management," Harvard Business Review, 83/10 (October 2005): 108-118;
36. J. Balogun, "Managing Change: Steering a Course between Intended Strategies and Unanticipated Outcomes," Long Range Planning, 39/1 (February 2006): 29-49. The hard and soft factors of change management are sometimes also referred to as Theory E (i.e., the hard factor of economic value) and Theory O (the soft factor of organizational capability).
37. See N. Leppitt, "Challenging the Code of Change: Part 1. Praxis Does Not Make Perfect," Journal of Change Management, 6/2 (June 2006): 121-142;
38. N. Leppitt, "Challenging the Code of Change: Part 2. Crossing the Rubicon: Extending the Integration of Change," Journal of Change Management, 6/3 (September 2006): 235-256;
39. M. Beer, "Transforming Organizations: Embracing the Paradox of E and O," in T.G. Cummings, ed., Handbook of Organization Development (London: SAGE, 2008), pp. 405-428;
40. For a discussion on using abduction within grounded theory, see, for example, R. Suddaby, "From the Editors: What Grounded Theory Is Not," Academy of Management Journal, 49/4 (August 2006): 633-642;
41. R. Richardson and E.H. Kramer, "Abduction as the Type of Inference that Characterizes the Development of a Grounded Theory," Qualitative Research, 6/4 (November 2006): 497-513.
42. Research is dominated by this transactional, planned, rational, and structural perspective, and there is limited research that explores the more actor-based, dynamic, and interactional perspective of change. In short, less is known about the process of change that is performed by multiple artors on an ongoing basis. For example, Tsoukas and Chia criticize change research for being preoccupied with aggregated and synoptical accounts of change. Such a perspective focuses on what is needed at the different sequential states of change (e.g., planning, goal-setting, visioning, and change messaging at the stan; feedback at the end), but little or no attention is paid to the activities involved when getting to the different states during the process of change.
43. See Tsoukas and Chia, op. cit. Similarly, Caldwell argues: "Essentially what is missing from this [rational] model is a relational, interactional or broader practice/discourse-based understanding of organizational change as processes in which multiple change agents enact their own goals, interests or values as potentially autonomous actors in an open dialogue." See R. Caldwell, Agency and Change: Rethinking Change Agency in Organizations (London: Routledge, 2006), p. 31.
44. See, for example, A.A. Armenakis and S.G. Harris, "Crafting a Change Message to Create Transformational Readiness," Journal of Organizational Change Management, 15/2 (2002): 169;
45. A.J. Bernerth, "Expanding our Understanding of the Change Message," Human Resource Development Review, 3/1 (March 2004): 36-52;
46. R.T. By, "Ready or Not. . .," Journal of Change Management, 7/1 (2007): 3-11.
47. See, for example, T. Cummings and C. Worley, Organization Development and Change (Mason, OH: South-Western, 2008);
48. R. Beckhard and R. Harris, Organizational Transitions: Managing Complex Change (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1987).
49. P. Carlile, "Transferring, Translating, and Transforming: An Integrative Framework for Managing Knowledge across Boundaries," Organization Science, 15/5 (September 2004): 555-568.
50. There are numerous studies that bring up the importance of the difference between information and knowledge, as well as the importance of translation when dealing with information technology. For example, Kallinikos alleges that IT'S capacity to transform lies partly in the organization and its actors' capacity to re-contextualize information. See J. Kallinikos, The Age of Flexibility: Managing Organizations and Technology (Lund: Academia Adacta, 2001). Likewise, D'Adderio argues that the success of implementing IT hinges on the capacity to deal with local incompatible meaning structures.
51. See L. D'Adderio, "Configuring Software, Reconfiguring Memories: The Influence of Integrated Systems on the Reproduction of Knowledge and Routines," Industrial & Corporate Change, 12/2 (April 2003): 321-350. Similarly, Carlile purports that when change grows in complexity, it is not enough to transcend syntactic barrier (having similar syntax and lexicon); the orOrtizganization must also transcend a semantic barrier (i.e., creating common meaning), which is accomplished by the process of translation.
52. See Carlile, op. cit. Also, Brown and Duguid argue that the critical question when dealing with technology is the organization's ability to deal with "disembeddedness" and "reembeddedness" of information at different locations within the organization. See J.S. Brown and P. Duguid, "Knowledge and Organization: A Social-Practice Perspective," Organization Science, 12/2 (March 2001): 198-213.
53. See also, R. McDermott, "Why Information Technology Inspired But Cannot Deliver Knowledge Management," California Management Review, 41/4 (SuSdencemmer 1999): 103-117;
54. A. Whittle, O. Suhomlinova, and F. Mueller, "Funnel of Interests: The Discursive Translation of Organizational Change," Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 46/1 (March 2010): 16-37;
55. For the political elements of IT-enabled change see, for instance, J. Jasperson, T.A. Carte, C.S. Saunders, B.S. Butler, H.J.P. Croes, and W. Zheng, "Review: Power and Information Technology Research: A Metatriangulation Review," MIS Quarterly, 26/4 (December 2002): 397-459;
56. P. Constantinides and M. Barrett, "Large-Scale ICT Innovation, Power, and Organizational Change: The Case of a Regional Health Information Network," Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 42/1 (March 2006): 76-90.
57. For the supportive and emotional elements of IT-enabled change, see, for example, C. Avgerou and K. McGrath, "Rationalities and Emotions in IS Innovation," in D. Howcroft and E.M. Trauth, eds., Handbook of Critical Information Systems Research: Theory and Application (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2005), pp. 299-324;
58. K. McGrath, "Affection not Afflidion: The Role of Emotions in Information Systems and Organizational Change," Information & Organization, 16/4 (January 2006): 277-303;
59. C Ciborra, "The Mind or the Heart? It Depends on the (Definition of) Situation," Journal of Information Technology, 21/3 (September 2006): 129139;
60. A. Ortiz de Guinea and M.L. Markus, "Why Break the Habit of a Lifetime? Rethinking the Roles of Intention, Habit, and Emotion in Continuing Information Technology Use," MIS Quarterly, 33/3 (March 2009): 433-444.
61. Research and enquires for bringing emotions and coaching into organizational change have been made by, for example, J. Kotter and D. Cohen, The Heart of Change: Real-Life Stories of How People Change Their Organizations (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 2002);
62. R. Boyatzis, M. Smith, and N. Blaize, "Developing Sustainable Leaders through Coaching and Compassion," Academy of Management Learning & Education, 5/1 (March 2006): 8-24;
63. J. Sanchez-Burks and Q.N. Huy, "Emotional Aperture and Strategic Change: The Accurate Recognition of Collective Emotions," Organization Science, 20/1 (January 2009): 22-34.
64. For research on dialogue and conversation as a tool of change, see, for example, L. Gratton and S. Ghoshal, "Improving the Quality of Conversations," Organizational Dynamics, 31/3 (Winter 2002): 209-223;
65. J. Ford and L. Ford, "Conversational Profiles: A Tool for Altering the Conversational Patterns of Change Managers," Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 44/4 (December 2008): 445-467;
66. J.D. Ford and L.W. Ford, "Decoding Resistance to Change," Harvard Business Review, 87/4 (April 2009): 99-103;
67. D. Grant and R.J. Marshak, "A Discourse-Based Theory of Organizational Change," Academy of Management Proceedings, (Summer 2009): 1-6.
68. See, for example, D. Gioia and K. Chittipeddi, "Sensemaking and Sensegiving in Strategic Change Initiation," Strategic Management Journal, 12/6 (September 1991): 433-448;
69. H. Gardner, Changing Minds: The Art and Science of Changing Our Own and Other Peoples Minds (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 2004);
70. E. Davidson, "A Technological Frames Perspective on Information Technology and Organizational Change," Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 42/1 (March 2006): 23-39.
71. For literature and research on feedback and change, see, for example, D. Nadler, "Concepts for the Management of Organizational Change," in C. Mabey and B. Mayon-White, eds., Managing Change (London: Paul Chapman, 1993), pp. 85-98;
72. Sirkin, Keenan, and Jackson, op. cit.; H. Liang and Y. Xue, "Avoidance of Information Technology Threats: A Theoretical Perspective," MIS Quarterly, 33/1 (March 2009): 71-90.
73. Such an approach is often referred to as "technological rationality" and is evident in both research and in the practice of managers. See, for example, G. Walsham, Making a World of Difference: IT in a Global Context (Chichester: Wiley, 2001);
74. McGrath, op. cit.; C. Ciborra, op. cit.; C. Avgerou and K. McGrath, "Power, Rationality, and the Art of Living through Socio-Technical Change," MIS Quarterly, 31/2 (June 2007): 295-315.
75. Overall, these authors argue that IT is too often seen as a stable, robust, and reliable artifact that, once implemented, spreads easily throughout an organization and that employees simply and automatically adapt to the new circumstances. In the cases when research does acknowledge a less planned and less technical/rational perspective, it is often taken to the other extreme by overemphasizing social and political issues.
76. See Avgerou and McGrath (2007), op. cit
77. Single case study design is regularly criticized by researchers because of its low levels of generalizability. When they do so, however, they tend to apply the perspective of statistical generalizability. This is inappropriate because it imposes the principles of sampling-based generalizability that seeks knowledge about objective scientific facts. Not only do the arguments have a positivistic departure point, but it also ignores the fact that there are different types of generalizing.
78. See, for example, H. Tsoukas, "The Validity of Idiographic Research Explanations," Academy of Management Review, 14/4 (Odober 1989): 551-561;
79. A.S. Lee and R.L. Baskerville, "Generalizing Generalizability in Information Systems Research," Information Systems Research, 14/3 (September 2003): 221-243.
80. See note 5.
81. See, for example, J. Battilana, "Agency and Institutions: The Enabling Role of Individuals' Sodal Position," Organization, 13/5 (September 2006): 653-676.
82. K. Weick, "The Generative Properties of Richness," Academy of Management Journal, 50/1 (February 2007): 14-19.
83. See M. Pozzebon and A. Pinsonneault, "Challenges in Conducting Empirical Work Using Structuration Theory: Learning from IT Research," Organization Studies, 26/9 (September 2005): 1353-1376;
84. A. Van de Ven, Engaged Scholarships Guide for Organizational and Social Research (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007);
85. A. Langley, "Studying Processes in and around Organizations," in D. Buchanan and A. Bryman, eds., The SAGE Handbook of Organizational Research Methods (London: SAGE, 2009), pp. 409-429.
86. Grounded theory inspired research is not, as Suddaby [op. cit.] reminds us, about ignoring the literature, but instead a way of "trying to achieve a pradical middle ground between a theory-laden view of the world and an unfettered empiricism" (p. 635).
87. See also, Van de Ven, op. cit.
88. For more details on the methodology and the research project, see E. Iveroth, Leading IT-Enabled Change Inside Ericsson: A Transformation into a Global Network of Shared Service Centres (Uppsala, Sweden: Department of Business Studies, Uppsala University, 2010), also available at: http://uu.divaportal.Org/smash/get/diva2:300564/FULLTEXT01.