Socio-technical Change: The Equilibrium Paradox

In the domain of change and information systems (IS), we have persisted in the assumption that a well-functioning IS exhibits a balance between the social and the technical structures such that this system rests in a state of stable equilibrium. When transformational change arises, the system falls into a state of disequilibrium, until it reaches a new state of equilibrium. This as-sumption no longer gives a full explanation of the complex dynamics in today’s enterprise. In this paper, we explain the concept of unstable equilibrium that results from the continuous change that individuated individuals make in socio-technical structures. Our findings arise from a critical realist perspective used to interpret data from an e-group interview with 11 profes-sionals working in platform-based organizations. We find that a generative mechanism of con-tradictory complementarity, denoted as individualization and socialization, now inhabits the IS and causes outcomes that are both individual-technical and socio-technical. Now change hap-pens in the surface-structures resting in unstable equilibrium, while the deep structures remain in stable equilibrium. This equilibrium paradox in socio-technical change explains how plat-form-based organizations achieve change by both achieving agility from their IS while simulta-neously achieving stability.