A long-standing debate in the IS literature concerns the relationship between technology and organization. Does technology cause effects in organizations, or is it humans that determine how technology is used? Many socio-theoretic accounts of a middle way between the extremes of technological and social determinism have been suggested: in recent years the more convincing explanations have been ...

This paper proposes a practical research framework based on activity theory as a lens to research the adoption of learning management systems in tertiary education institutions. Following the identification of the interpretivist paradigm as an appropriate research approach, approaches such structuration theory, actor network theory, or activity theory are briefly considered. The paper then argu...

This article is based on an intensive case study, the implementation of a computerized reservation system (CRS) in a transport organization, and adopts a non-essentialist stance to analyze its failure aspects. Providing a rich description of micro-level, organizational,and macro-level events and techno-economic networks enabled us to depart from managerialist and technologist accounts of the fa...

Recent IT project escalation research has seen a multi-method approach to understanding what causes escalation in IT projects. Specifically, Mähring, et al. (2004) examined the DIA Computerized Baggage Handling System failure using both the traditional four factor escalation theory model and Actor-Network Theory’s (ANT) translation stage. Mähring, et al.’s findings suggested that both theoretic...

Actor-network theory is a way of describing and understanding the complexity of social change. This article explores its relevance to understanding teacher change in mathematics education by considering a single teacher change narrative. This is centred on a veteran teacher of mathematics who participated in a teacher led, teacher-educator-supported professional development project. The project...

Over the course of analyzing data from a series of socio-technical ICT studies, we have developed a multi-dimensional concept of a social actor to guide qualitative data collection and analysis. Three information and communication technology (ICT) studies have been used to develop and refine the concept: a mid-1990's study of online information services use, a 4year study of intranet developmen...