|
Informing Science + IT Education Conference 2003 Proceedings
| Informing Science + IT Education Conference |
| Pori, Finland June 24-27, 2003 |
| Organizational Members’ Enactment of Organizational Environments and Media Use: A Study |
| of ICT Practices in Norway and the United States |
| Alf Steinar Sætre, Larry D. Browning, Keri Stephens, and Jan Oddvar Sørnes |
| The Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway |
| The University of Texas at Austin, USA |
| The University of Texas at Austin, USA |
| This paper uses the concept of scripts to couple Weick’s notion of enactment and Langer’s theory of |
| mindfulness/mindlessness with empirical data on the use of ICTs in organizations. Our research is based on 72 in- |
| depth interviews of advanced ICT users in the United States and in Norway. The find-ings: (1) show that the |
| notion of clear-cut boundaries between an organization and its “environment” is problematic, and illustrate how |
| organizational members indeed enact—or co-create—the environments of their organizations; (2) validate the |
| assertion that mindfulness is required for media richness theory to be predictive; and (3) illustrate how |
| organizational members construct the richness of one media through the use of other media. This study not only |
| enriches our understanding of Weick’s theories but also has important implications for organizational practice |
| since it expands media richness and social-information-processing theories. |
| Keywords: Enactment, Information and Communication Technologies, Scripts, Mindful-ness/Mindlessness, |
| Communication Media Richness |
ISSN
1535-07-03
Unless otherwise indicated, this paper has undergone blind external review by three or more reviewers.
Types of Papers: A Best Paper, Regular Paper, Short Paper, Informal Paper,
Unrefereed Panel Paper
|