Dynamic it values and relationships: A sociomaterial perspective

Abstract

Management scholars are criticized for ignorance and the wrong approach when studying the impact of technology in organizational life. Impact of technology in this paper is interpreted as IT values created or achieved from equivalent and contingent interaction between human (people) and non-human agents (technology, organization). Researchers and theorists propose to include a sociomaterial perspective and to develop general and broader, empirical based patterns across different contexts. Based on a literature review containing publications of theoretical considerations and empirical research this paper introduces a first general and sociomaterial based overview and taxonomy of IT values and their relations. IT values have a techno-economic or socio-techno orientation, are dynamically entangled and competitive, and complementary or overlapping. IT values are related to time, sponsor and, hierarchy. The identified IT values are ordered into a framework which has to be treated as a starting point to discuss further the definition, dynamics and relations of IT values from a sociomaterial perspective.