Preparing for Technology-Related Organizational Change An Activity-Theoretical Perspective

ICT-related change is usually studied from the point when a technological artifact has arrived in an organization. Applying an activity-theoretical lens, this paper explores the contradictions within a medium-sized organization’s central activity system, the manifestations of which motivated the decision to engage in a substantial change and shaped the object of the initiative. It illuminates the preparatory Business Process Re-engineering phase of an ERP implementation, examining the explicit and implicit mediating roles played by the organizing vision of the ICT before the actual artifact has been chosen and installed. Finally, the unfolding of object-oriented processes of socially mediated learning that took place during Business Process Re-engineering is analyzed, exposing how these processes resulted in the divergence of expectations and preparations for the arrival of technology amongst members of different organizational groups.