Why Do People Reject New Technologies and Stymie Organizational Changes of Which They Are in Favor? Exploring Misalignments Between Social Interactions and Materiality

作者：Leonardi Paul M^*

来源：Human Communication Research, 2009, 35(3): 407-441.

DOI：10.1111/j.1468-2958.2009.01357.x

This article explores the relationship between users' interpretations of a new technology and failure of organizational change. I suggest that people form interpretations of a new technology not only based on their conversations with others, but also through their use of technology's material features directly. Through qualitative and quantitative analysis of ethnographic data on the implementation and use of a computer simulation technology at a major automotive firm, I show that engineers' communication with managers, coworkers, and customers led them to develop an interpretation about what the technology was supposed to do while their interactions with the material features of complementary technologies led them to develop an interpretation that the new simulation technology was not an efficient tool for that specific purpose. I show how the interpretations developed from people's material interactions moderate the effects of the interpretations developed through social interactions on willingness to use the technology in the future. I then demonstrate that, in this particular setting, engineers inadvertently stymied an organizational change of which they were very much in favor by reducing their use of the new technology. I conclude by discussing how misalignments between the information generated in users' interactions with others and with technologies' material features can lead to the failure of planned organizational change.

• 出版日期2009-7
• 单位西北大学