Abstract
Understanding the relationships between technologies and organizing has been one of the main concerns of the disciplines of information systems (IS) and organization studies.1 Recent research has found it useful to theorize on the concepts of human and material agencies to address the processes of social and material interweaving constituting technology-organization relations (Hutchby, 2001; Rose & Jones, 2005; Zamutto et al., 2007; Leonardi & Barley, 2008; Orlikowski & Scott, 2008; Leonardi, 2011). Such conceptualizations have the potential to provide valuable insights into the nature and processes constituting everyday working practices and their change (Orlikowski & Scott, 2008); allow an understanding of how and why organizational technologies and routines change over time to produce infrastructures that enable work to be done (Leonardi & Barley, 2008; Leonardi, 2011); and provide a better understanding of how humans and technologies interact and change, from unexpected ways that technologies are used in organizational practices (Schultze & Boland, 2000; Boudreau & Robey, 2005) to workaround changes in the material structure of technology realized by its users (Majchrzak et al., 2000; Orlikowski, 2000; Alavi & Leidner, 2001; Leonardi & Barley, 2008). However, despite these valuable insights, research on agency has several important gaps, such as a lack of consistency in the nature of human and material agencies, and neglecting the embeddedness of the agencies into broader extra-organizational contexts and infrastructures.
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© 2013 Aljona Zorina and David Avison
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Zorina, A., Avison, D. (2013). Redefining Agency: Indeterminacy and the Role of Extra-Organizational Dynamics in Organizational Routines and Technologies. In: de Vaujany, FX., Mitev, N. (eds) Materiality and Space. Technology, Work and Globalization. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137304094_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137304094_14
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