IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/orisre/v7y1996i1p93-110.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Transforming Work Through Information Technology: A Comparative Case Study of Geographic Information Systems in County Government

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel Robey

    (Georgia State University, College of Business Administration, Atlanta, Georgia 30330)

  • Sundeep Sahay

    (Information Technology Institute, University of Salford, Salford, Manchester M5 4WT, England)

Abstract

A comparative case study was designed to assess the consequences of implementing a particular geographic information system (GIS) in two neighboring county government organizations. Respondents reported radically different experiences with, and consequences of, the GIS technology. In North County, participants considered GIS to be responsible for transforming the way that work was accomplished and for changing patterns of communication among departments. In South County, the same GIS technology was implemented with little social consequence. These divergent outcomes are associated with differences in four specific processes related to the implementation of the GIS in the two organizations: initiation, transition, deployment, and spread of knowledge. In North County, implementation was initiated by an influential group of users (geographers) who positioned the technology as a shared resource that built upon existing competencies. A distributed configuration was deployed in North County, and conceptual knowledge about GIS was disseminated widely. By contrast, in South County GIS was initiated by a centralized data processing department as one of many revenue-producing services. Transition to GIS in South County required a departure from existing competencies, and it was deployed as a centralized system with limited procedural knowledge spread among the potential user community. Taken together, these findings suggest that implementation processes that advance users’ learning about potentially transformational technologies are likely to result in perceived transformation. The theoretical perspective of organizational learning is, therefore, suggested as a guide for future research on the role of information technology in organizational transformation.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel Robey & Sundeep Sahay, 1996. "Transforming Work Through Information Technology: A Comparative Case Study of Geographic Information Systems in County Government," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 7(1), pages 93-110, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:orisre:v:7:y:1996:i:1:p:93-110
    DOI: 10.1287/isre.7.1.93
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/isre.7.1.93
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/isre.7.1.93?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Matt Beane & Wanda J. Orlikowski, 2015. "What Difference Does a Robot Make? The Material Enactment of Distributed Coordination," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 26(6), pages 1553-1573, December.
    2. Marie-Claude Boudreau & Daniel Robey, 2005. "Enacting Integrated Information Technology: A Human Agency Perspective," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 16(1), pages 3-18, February.
    3. Mabert, Vincent A. & Soni, Ashok & Venkataramanan, M. A., 2003. "Enterprise resource planning: Managing the implementation process," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 146(2), pages 302-314, April.
    4. Ari Goelman, 2005. "Technology in Context: Mediating Factors in the Utilization of Planning Technologies," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 37(5), pages 895-907, May.
    5. Jingwen Xia, 2022. "A Systematic Review: How Does Organisational Learning Enable ESG Performance (from 2001 to 2021)?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(24), pages 1-22, December.
    6. Ribeiro, Barbara & Meckin, Robert & Balmer, Andrew & Shapira, Philip, 2023. "The digitalisation paradox of everyday scientific labour: How mundane knowledge work is amplified and diversified in the biosciences," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(1).
    7. Denolf, Janne.M. & Wognum, Nel P.M. & Trienekens, Jacques H. & van der Vorst, Jack G.A.J. & Omta, S.W.F. (Onno), 2012. "Towards a Supply-Chain Instrument to Monitor an Information Technology Implementation," 2012 International European Forum, February 13-17, 2012, Innsbruck-Igls, Austria 144968, International European Forum on System Dynamics and Innovation in Food Networks.
    8. Alain Pinsonneault & Kenneth L. Kraemer, 2002. "Exploring the Role of Information Technology in Organizational Downsizing: A Tale of Two American Cities," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 13(2), pages 191-208, April.
    9. Hunter, Starling David, 2003. "Same Technology, Different Outcome? Lessons on Dummy Variables & Dependent Variable Transformations," Working papers 4308-03, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
    10. Wanda J. Orlikowski & C. Suzanne Iacono, 2001. "Research Commentary: Desperately Seeking the “IT” in IT Research—A Call to Theorizing the IT Artifact," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 12(2), pages 121-134, June.
    11. Maryam Alavi & Dorothy E. Leidner, 2001. "Research Commentary: Technology-Mediated Learning—A Call for Greater Depth and Breadth of Research," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 12(1), pages 1-10, March.
    12. Barry A. Cumbie & Chetan S. Sankar, 2012. "Choice of governance mechanisms to promote information sharing via boundary objects in the disaster recovery process," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 14(5), pages 1079-1094, December.
    13. Cuellar, Michael J. & Gallivan, Michael J., 2006. "A framework for ex ante project risk assessment based on absorptive capacity," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 173(3), pages 1123-1138, September.
    14. Paul M. Leonardi, 2007. "Activating the Informational Capabilities of Information Technology for Organizational Change," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 18(5), pages 813-831, October.
    15. Margunn Aanestad & Bob Jolliffe & Arunima Mukherjee & Sundeep Sahay, 2014. "Infrastructuring Work: Building a State-Wide Hospital Information Infrastructure in India," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 25(4), pages 834-845, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:orisre:v:7:y:1996:i:1:p:93-110. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.