Pushing Organizational Change with Information Technology: A Resource/Capability Re-Balancing Act

What can an organization do when it has an opportunity to innovate with IT and faces pressure to improve operations – but lacks the capabilities necessary to conduct IT-related organizational change efforts? In this paper, this challenging situation is explored with the help of the resource-based view of the firm. A case study of digital radiology implementation in a healthcare organization was conducted. In the case, the change process did not follow the canonical view of how IT-related change should be conducted. Instead of a socio-technical, balanced change approach, where technology, processes, organizational structures and people change in concert, this case exhibited successive, focused change efforts targeting one organizational resource or capability at a time. The unorthodox change approach – a resource/capability re-balancing act rather than a case of balanced, socio-technical change – proved successful. The paper finds that pushing organizational change with technology may be a successful emergent strategy for IT-related change under difficult conditions. It also finds that by focusing one organizational resource or capability in each phase of a change effort, both short-term small wins and longerterm improvement of the organization’s dynamic capabilities may be possible.