Standardisation, innovation and implementation of information technology

This paper looks at the mutual interplay between information technology (IT) and its environment. Exploring specifically the issues surrounding innovations in the field of corporate IT systems we show that a distinction has to be made between different categories of information technology (IT) systems regarding their introduction, subsequent diffusion, and particularly their corporate usage. We will show that strategic deployment of e-mail will only happen if and when it is no longer considered an infrastructural technology. However, apparently this has rarely happened thus far. Strong relations and dependencies exist between standardiation, innovation and the subsequent implementation of IT systems. We argue that these activities must not be considered separately, especially as standards-based components are playing an increasingly important role in implementation processes. Consequently, the role of the users in, and their influence on, standards setting are addressed as well. The findings and conclusions presented are largely based on a number of interviews with large corporate users of e-mail systems. 1 SOME INTRODUCTORY CONSIDERATIONS Technological artefacts in general, and especially such powerful representatives as IT systems, will exert potentially strong impact on their environment. Complex interaction can be observed, where technology may assume both an active and a passive role; that is, technological artefacts and their environment are mutually interdependent. The environment within which technology is used and employed has, among others, social, cultural, societal, and organisational bahaviours, rules and norms. It is clear that technology cannot emerge completely independent from such external influences. However, the impact IT may have on organisations, or indeed society as a whole, has thus far attracted considerably more attention than the powers that shape this technology in the first place. Especially the impact of IT within organisational settings (e.g. on a company’s performance, or its role as an enabler of business process re-engineering) has been subject to a vast number of studies and analyses.