Throughout my career I have been involved in technology transformation and change management covering manufacturing automation and, more recently’ technology to support supply chain and procurement processes. This has led to an interest in how technology interacts with socio and organisational learning. This blog applies a model of Sociomateriality to Procurement Technology change management. I am sure similar reasoning will apply to a range of IT-automated business processes.
Figure 1 – Technology Enabled Purchasing Processes
An emerging area of research is investigating the interaction between technology and socio related processes. An overview is given in the book by Leonadi et al (2013) that looks at the interrelationships between Materiality, Sociomateriality and Socio Technical Systems. Figure 1, above, is adapted from Chapter 2 in that book.
Using this model, it can be shown that there is an interdependence between Procurement Processes and Technology and how organisations often design and implement technology from the perspective of their (current) understanding of that technology. As implementation continues, organisational learning takes place and the processes and systems adapt to this learning to drive new processes. Thus, the process design “emerges” as the result of improved understanding and developing practices.
Figure 1 illustrates how Organisational Practice and Purchasing Practice interrelated to define the Technology Enabled Purchasing Processes. Organisational Practice is defined as the set of Roles, Status, Hierarchy, etc, that make up the “Social” element of an organisation and drive the expectations and design of the Purchasing Practice. Purchasing Practice is then the imbrication, or overlap, of user actions and technology supported processes.
The arrows in Figure 1 illustrate the flow of knowledge and design that make up the total process.
- The technology design is defined by the Organisational Practice (or Social Sub-System) with a view of how the technology works based on current Roles, Status, Power Relationships, etc. It is important to note that different stakeholders may have divergent views on how the technology will work and drive business value and that these views may not be shared across the organisation.
- The user (purchasing agent) expectations are defined by the Organisational Practice. As with technology, however, there may be different stakeholder views/expectations as to how the technology will interact with different groups of users.
- The actual Purchasing (or Sociomaterial) Practice and use of the technology is the imbrication/overlap of Users and Technology. This will emerge over time as users understand the technology better and create new processes that will in many cases differ from the way that the organisation envisaged. In some cases, also, the users will develop processes/work-arounds that reinforce existing (pre-technology) practice and thus reduce significantly any benefits that are delivered.
- Information and experience on actual use will feedback to the Organisational Practice to try and ensure that the emerging process become the norm
The above illustrates how Organisational sub-systems and Purchasing practice interrelate to develop Technology Enabled Processes, in this case, applied to Purchasing. If a value-added change is to be sustained following a technology implementation an understand of this interrelationship is essential.
Reference:
Materiality and Organizing, Editors Paul M Leonardi, Bonnie A. Nardi, and Jannis Kallinikos, Oxford University Press (2013).