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Explaining information systems change: a punctuated socio-technical change model

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European Journal of Information Systems

Abstract

We outline a Punctuated Socio-Technical Information System Change model. The model recognizes both incremental and punctuated socio-technical change in the context of information systems at multiple levels – the work system level, the building system level, and the organizational environment. It uses socio-technical event sequences and their properties to explain how a change outcome emerged. The critical events in these sequences correspond to gaps in socio-technical systems. By conceiving information system (IS) change as a multi-level and punctuated sequence of socio-technical events, IS researchers can conceive plausible and accurate process explanations of IS change outcomes, including IS failures. Such explanations are located in the middle range and thus avoid the highly abstract and stylized closed-boxed factor models of change, but go beyond the idiographic open box histories of singular change processes.

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Acknowledgements

We are indebted to Steve Alter, Dick Boland, Brian Pentland, and Rajiv Sabherwal and the participants of seminars at KISS’04 and the Weatherhead School for insightful comments. We are also thankful to Richard Baskerville and two anonymous reviewers for excellent comments. Normal caveats apply.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Information Systems, Case Western Reserve University, U.S.A.

    Kalle Lyytinen

  2. Manchester Accounting and Finance Group, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK,

    Mike Newman

  3. Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, Bergen, Norway

    Mike Newman

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  1. Kalle Lyytinen
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Correspondence to Kalle Lyytinen.

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Lyytinen, K., Newman, M. Explaining information systems change: a punctuated socio-technical change model. Eur J Inf Syst 17, 589–613 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1057/ejis.2008.50

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