Double-edged Social Mechanisms at Work in the 21st Century IS: Opportunities and Challenges

A long hold explanation in IS-Research is that any change in the Information System (IS), through the introduction of new IT-artefacts, trigger a chain of events leading to institutionalized routines and synchronized social practices. This explanation no longer covers the dynamic outcomes in the work-place set in motion by different types of IT-artefacts. We adopt a critical realist philosophy that entails to illuminate how IT-artefacts trigger social mechanisms in the human enterprise. We review IS-literature on the IT-artefact phenomenon from 2001 and forward. We find that the mechanism of individualization is forcefully triggered by new generative IT-artefacts, while enterprise IT-artefacts trigger institutionalization and socialization. We critically asses the opportunities and challenges this present for managers and designers when managing an IS that holds both types of artefacts. We draw a conceptual model of the now dual-IS, with double-edged mechanisms, that correspondingly can empower ambidextrous organizational forms.