Enterprise Social Media Influence on Organizational Practice: A Dispositif Analysis Perspective

This paper explores the introduction of Enterprise Social Media into organizational practices. The investigation draws on Foucault’s perspective of dispositif analysis as an approach to analyzing and understanding the influence of technology on organizations. The dispositif analysis is pursued through the illustration of an organization implementing an enterprise social media technology for the practice of knowledge management. In the analysis two dispositifs are considered, a dispositif of hierarchy and a dispositif of network. A discussion is carried on the dispositif analysis as a method including opportunities and limitations. It is argued that allowing for the analysis of historically formed dispositifs can add to our way of understanding the influences of technology on the social order of organizations.