Ignoring and collective passivity in relation to information systems : How actors avoided engagement with data about wait times in Swedish healthcare
(2024) In Information and Organization 34(3).- Abstract
Although digital technology (DT) is often introduced with the aim of enhancing organizational knowledge transfer and learning, these aims often fail to materialize. The information systems (IS) literature attributes such unexpected outcomes to inappropriate technology design and implementation, as well as to overuse, misuse, and non-use of technology. However, we know little about how actors misuse or fail to use technology and data, thereby failing to acquire and act upon the knowledge necessary to achieve organizational learning. Leveraging the literature on strategic ignorance, we explore how actors expected to use technology for learning purposes justify their non-engagement with it. Studying an implementation of a DT with the... (More)
Although digital technology (DT) is often introduced with the aim of enhancing organizational knowledge transfer and learning, these aims often fail to materialize. The information systems (IS) literature attributes such unexpected outcomes to inappropriate technology design and implementation, as well as to overuse, misuse, and non-use of technology. However, we know little about how actors misuse or fail to use technology and data, thereby failing to acquire and act upon the knowledge necessary to achieve organizational learning. Leveraging the literature on strategic ignorance, we explore how actors expected to use technology for learning purposes justify their non-engagement with it. Studying an implementation of a DT with the purpose of facilitating organizational learning on basis of provided data in health care, we identify seven ignoring justifications through which the target users of the DT avoided key knowledge acquisition and knowledge-based action activities. These sensemaking behaviors accumulated to a state of collective passivity in relation to the DT. Our conceptualization contributes to and connects theories of organizational learning in the IS literature and strategic ignoring.
(Less)
- author
- Ebbevi, David ; Essén, Anna and Stevenson, Anna LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2024-09
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- Data, Health care, Ignoring, Knowledge transfer, Non-learning, Organizational learning, Performance measurement, Silence
- in
- Information and Organization
- volume
- 34
- issue
- 3
- article number
- 100523
- publisher
- Elsevier
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85195837787
- ISSN
- 1471-7727
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.infoandorg.2024.100523
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- dc78adac-342a-407c-b97c-f0dce648e77b
- date added to LUP
- 2024-07-02 13:14:18
- date last changed
- 2024-07-02 13:14:54
@article{dc78adac-342a-407c-b97c-f0dce648e77b,
abstract = {{<p>Although digital technology (DT) is often introduced with the aim of enhancing organizational knowledge transfer and learning, these aims often fail to materialize. The information systems (IS) literature attributes such unexpected outcomes to inappropriate technology design and implementation, as well as to overuse, misuse, and non-use of technology. However, we know little about how actors misuse or fail to use technology and data, thereby failing to acquire and act upon the knowledge necessary to achieve organizational learning. Leveraging the literature on strategic ignorance, we explore how actors expected to use technology for learning purposes justify their non-engagement with it. Studying an implementation of a DT with the purpose of facilitating organizational learning on basis of provided data in health care, we identify seven ignoring justifications through which the target users of the DT avoided key knowledge acquisition and knowledge-based action activities. These sensemaking behaviors accumulated to a state of collective passivity in relation to the DT. Our conceptualization contributes to and connects theories of organizational learning in the IS literature and strategic ignoring.</p>}},
author = {{Ebbevi, David and Essén, Anna and Stevenson, Anna}},
issn = {{1471-7727}},
keywords = {{Data; Health care; Ignoring; Knowledge transfer; Non-learning; Organizational learning; Performance measurement; Silence}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{3}},
publisher = {{Elsevier}},
series = {{Information and Organization}},
title = {{Ignoring and collective passivity in relation to information systems : How actors avoided engagement with data about wait times in Swedish healthcare}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.infoandorg.2024.100523}},
doi = {{10.1016/j.infoandorg.2024.100523}},
volume = {{34}},
year = {{2024}},
}