The recursive dualizm of technology:

Official URL: http://risc01.sabanciuniv.edu/record=b1147601 (Table of Contents)

The notion of technology is often consumed with its purely practical, equipmental interpretation in everyday life which assumes the neutrality of technical things, fully justifying the equivocation of the technical with the technological. However, technology, as a major constituent of contemporary society, is intimately connected with politics, economics, culture, and all forms of social and personal life. Previous research followed a variety of approaches and analyzed the technology phenomena in organizations from structural or agency-based perspectives. The structuration theory, attempting to resolve the deep-seated ontological division in social sciences, has offered a way out from the impasse between structure and agency based perspectives, but a number of criticisms have been posed against it in the literature (Clegg 1989; Archer 1982, 1989, 1995; Layder 1987; Callinicos 1985; Mouzelis 1995). Following the structuration theory, Orlikowski (1992) suggested the structurational model of technology and offered the duality of technology model. In this study, the recursive dualism of technology (RDT) model is developed as a new theoretical model to provide an understanding as to how technology is experienced and the way technology adaptation unfolds in organizations. The model explains how technology shapes and also is shaped by organizational affairs at macro, meso, and micro levels in organizations. The RDT model combines structuration and institutionalization perspectives, reconsidering criticisms against the structuration theory. A set of theoretical propositions has been developed also drawing from the power literature to describe the interplay of actors and structures using 'power-based institutionalization mechanisms2 (Lawrence, Winn and Jennings, 2001) during technology adaptation in organizations. Research propositions have been empirically studied in five cases of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software adaptation in four different organizations. ERP is a software technology frequently associated with organizational change and transformation in relation to its adaptation in organizations. Case studies are compared and contrasted to empirically evaluate the RDT model and discuss the process of technology adaptation in organizations in relation to structuration and institutionalization processes. The theoretical and practical implications of the study and potential further studies are also addressed.