Complexity in Organizations:
Structuration Theory
Sundeep Sahay
Recap: Course Themes
• Systems development approaches
(waterfall, prototyping, user participation)
• Complexity in organizations and use
(structuration theory, ANT, TCE, large scale
and horizontal systems)
• Dealing with complexity (virtual teams,
GSO, third world contexts, participation)
Complexity
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Change - levels, speed
Globalization - time, space, cultures
Involvement of multiple stakeholders
Interdependencies
Unintended effects, new risks
New technologies
Complexity
• As we move away from - cognitivist,
rational models
• Assumptions of structure (Identifiable,
Quantifiable, Measurable, Predictable)
• Towards situated, context-specific
understandings - semi and unstructured
problems
What is Important?
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Meanings
Tacit understanding
Experiences
Situations - work practices
Process of change
Unintended effects
Within this context
• Systems development starts to draw upon:
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anthropology
social theory
sociology of knowledge
philosophy
Structuration Theory
• British Sociologist - Anthony Giddens
• Critique of too much focus on content
• Not enough focus on process, context, and
linkage between context and process
• Focus either on human interactions
• Or on social structure
• Theory tries to resolve this dualism
Structuration Theory
Signification
Interpretative
scheme
Communication
Domination
Legitimation
Facility
Norm
Power
Sanction
Modalities
• Communication - interpretative schemes,
stocks of knowledge, meanings (structures
of signification)
• Power - facility, resources (material and
human), (structures of domination)
• Sanction - norms, standards of morality,
legitimate action (structures of legitimation)
Structures
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Rules
Resources
Existing in memory traces
Come to the fore in action (manifest in
action)
Human Agent
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Reflexive
Monitoring of action
Intentional conduct
Revision and changes
Unintended consequences
Virtual Teams
Signification
Meanings around IT
Meanings around virtuality
Identification with teams
Communication
Domination
Facilitator roles
Knowledge differential
Project structure
Power
Legitimation
Use of technology
For groupwork (local
and global)
Project requirement
Sanction
Structure
• Production structure - task focus, task
ability
• Social structure - presence, responsiveness,
goals, identities
Communicative action
• Turn taking: defining/negotiating situations,
exchange documents, use of humor
• Dealing with trouble - problem avoidance,
problem repair
Synthesized Framework
• Content - Organization; IS
• Social context - social relations,
infrastructure, history
• Social process
– culture - subcultures, multiple meanings
– Politics - control/autonomy, morality
Framework applied to system
design and development
• Content - requirements specification,
development focus
• Social context - senior management
attitude, project team composition
• Social process - participation, training
(communication, learning, negotiation)
• (Walsham- chapter 9)