Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-18T21:21:44.387Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 6 - Information Technology and Power

from Part I - Philosophical, Epistemological and Theoretical Considerations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 June 2023

By
Boyka Simeonova  and
M. N. Ravishankar
Edited by
Boyka Simeonova  and
Robert D. Galliers
Boyka Simeonova
Affiliation:
University of Leicester
Robert D. Galliers
Affiliation:
Bentley University, Massachusetts and Warwick Business School
Get access

Summary

The exponential development of information technologies (IT) which has been described as the digital revolution has led to different IT outcomes at individual, organizational and societal levels. The chapter theorizes these different IT outcomes as digitally led emancipation and digitally led exploitation. The chapter postulates that the attainment of the outcomes depends on different power mechanisms and their associated fault lines. Power mechanisms and IT are theorized to create a framework explicating these dynamics. Power mechanisms are outlined as episodic power and digitally led emancipation (collective action, participation), episodic power and digitally led exploitation (manipulation, information asymmetries), systemic power and digitally led emancipation (empowerment, inclusion) and systemic power and digitally led exploitation (surveillance/monitoring, automation/algorithmification). The chapter concludes with a research agenda to understand these power mechanisms, which may enable digitally led emancipation and digitally led exploitation.

Keywords

power mechanismsepisodic powersystemic powerinformation technologydigitally led emancipationdigitally led exploitationframeworktheorization
Type
Chapter
Information
Cambridge Handbook of Qualitative Digital Research , pp. 77 - 88
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anduiza, E., Cristancho, C. G. and Sabucedo, J. M. (2013). Mobilization through online social networks: The political protest of the indignados in Spain. Information, Communication & Society, 17(6), 750–764.Google Scholar
Argyris, Y. A. and Ransbotham, S. (2016). Knowledge entrepreneurship: Institutionalising wiki-based knowledge-management processes in competitive and hierarchical organisations. Journal of Information Technology, 31(2), 226–239.Google Scholar
Aversa, P., Cabantous, L. and Haefliger, S. (2018). When decision support systems fail: Insights for strategic information systems from Formula 1. Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 27(3), 221–236.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barrett, M., Davidson, E., Prabhu, J. and Vargo, S. L. (2016). Service innovation in the digital age: Key contributions and future directions. MIS Quarterly, 39(1), 135–154.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bennett, W. L. and Segerberg, A. (2012). The logic of connective action. Information, Communication & Society, 15(5), 739–768.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernardi, R. (2017). Health information systems and accountability in Kenya: A structuration theory perspective. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 18(12), 931–958.Google Scholar
Bernardi, R., Constantinides, P. and Nandhakumar, J. (2017). Challenging dominant frames in policies for IS innovation in healthcare through rhetorical strategies. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 18(2), 81–112.Google Scholar
Bernardi, R., Sarker, S. and Sahay, S. (2019). The role of affordances in the deinstitutionalization of a dysfunctional health management information system in Kenya: An identity work perspective. MIS Quarterly, 43(5), 1178–1200.Google Scholar
Cardoso, A., Boudreau, M. C. and Carvalho, J. Á. (2019). Organizing collective action: Does information and communication technology matter? Information and Organization, 29(3), Article 100256.Google Scholar
Chen, J. V., Hiele, T. M., Kryszak, A. and Ross, W. H. (2020). Predicting intention to participate in socially responsible collective action in social networking website groups. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 21(2), 341–365.Google Scholar
Chipidza, W. and Leidner, D. E. (2019). A review of the ICT-enabled development literature: Towards a power parity theory of ICT4D. Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 28(2), 145–174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cui, M., Pan, S. L. and Cui, L. C. (2019). Developing community capability for e‐commerce development in rural China: A resource orchestration perspective. Information Systems Journal, 29(4), 953–988.Google Scholar
Currie, W. and Lagoarde-Segot, T. (2017). Financialization and information technology: Themes, issues and critical debates – part I, pp. 1–6.Google Scholar
Currie, W. and Lagoarde-Segot, T. (2016). Financialization and information technology. Journal of Information Technology, 32(3), 211–216.Google Scholar
Davis, C. and Fonseca, F. (2006). Considerations from the development of a local spatial data infrastructure. Information Technology for Development, 12(4), 273–290.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Demetis, D. and Lee, A. S. (2018). When humans using the IT artifact becomes IT using the human artifact. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 19(10), 5.Google Scholar
Díaz Andrade, A. and Doolin, B. (2019). Temporal enactment of resettled refugees’ ICT‐mediated information practices. Information Systems Journal, 29(1), 145–174.Google Scholar
Díaz Andrade, A. and Doolin, B. (2016). Information and communication technology and the social inclusion of refugees. MIS Quarterly, 40(2), 405–416.Google Scholar
Díaz Andrade, A. and Techatassanasoontorn, A. A. (2021). Digital enforcement: Rethinking the pursuit of a digitally‐enabled society. Information Systems Journal, 31(1), 185–197.Google Scholar
Díaz Andrade, A. and Urquhart, C. G. (2012). Unveiling the modernity bias: A critical examination of the politics of ICT4D. Information Technology for Development, 18(4), 281–292.Google Scholar
Ekbia, H., Mattioll, M., Kouper, I., Arave, G., Ghazinejad, A., Bowman, T. et al. (2015). Big data, bigger dilemmas: A critical review. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 66(8), 1523–1545.Google Scholar
Elmer, G., Langlois, G. and Redden, J. P. (2015). Compromised Data: From Social Media to Big Data. New York, NY: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Elmes, M., Strong, D. and Volkoff, O. (2005). Panoptic empowerment and reflective conformity in enterprise systems-enabled organizations. Information and Organization, 15(1), 1–35.Google Scholar
Eseryel, U. Y. (2014). IT-enabled knowledge creation for open innovation. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 15(11), 805–834.Google Scholar
Faraj, S., Pachidi, S. and Sayegh, K. (2018). Working and organizing in the age of the learning algorithm. Information and Organization, 28(1), 62–70.Google Scholar
Feller, J., Gleasure, R. C. and Treacy, S. (2017). Information sharing and user behavior in internet-enabled peer-to-peer lending systems: An empirical study. Journal of Information Technology, 32(2), 127–146.Google Scholar
George, J. J. and Leidner, D. E. (2019). From clicktivism to hacktivism: Understanding digital activism. Information and Organization, 29(3), 1–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ghobadi, S. and Clegg, S. (2015). ‘These days will never be forgotten …’: A critical mass approach to online activism. Information and Organization, 25(1), 52–71.Google Scholar
Giddens, A. (1981). The Constitution of Society. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Gozman, D., Butler, T. and Lyytinen, K. (2020). Regulation in the age of digitalization. Journal of Information Technology, 1–5.Google Scholar
Hong, Y., Huang, N., Burtch, G. and Li, C. (2016). Culture, conformity and emotional suppression in online reviews. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 16(11), 736–758.Google Scholar
Howcroft, D. and Wilson, M. (2003). Paradoxes of participatory practices: The Janus role of the systems developer. Information and Organization, 13(1), 1–24.Google Scholar
Hussain, Z. I. and Cornelius, N. (2009). The use of domination and legitimation in information systems implementation. Information Systems Journal, 19(2), 197–224.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iannacci, F. and Hatzaras, K. (2012). Unpacking ostensive and performative aspects of organisational routines in the context of monitoring systems: A critical realist approach. Information and Organization, 22(1), 1–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Joia, L. A. and dos Santos, R. P. (2019). ICT‐equipped bank boat and the financial inclusion of the riverine population of Marajó Island in the Brazilian Amazon. Information Systems Journal, 29(4), 856–886.Google Scholar
Kanungo, S. (2004). On the emancipatory role of rural information systems. Information Technology & People, 17(4), 405–422.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kelly, S. and Noonan, C. (2017). The doing of datafication (and what this doing does): Practices of edification and the enactment of new forms of sociality in the Indian public health service. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 18(12), 872–899.Google Scholar
Koch, H., Gonzalez, E. and Leidner, D. E. (2012). Bridging the work/social divide: The emotional response to organizational social networking sites. European Journal of Information Systems, 21(6), 689–717.Google Scholar
Lagoarde-Segot, T. and Currie, W. (2018). Financialization and information technology: A multi-paradigmatic view of IT and finance – part II. Journal of Information Technology, 33(1), 1–8.Google Scholar
Lawrence, T., Malhotra, N. and Morris, T. (2012). Episodic and systemic power in the transformation of professional service firms. Journal of Management Studies, 49(1), 102–143.Google Scholar
Lawrence, T., Winn, M. I. and Jennings, P. (2001). The temporal dynamics of institutionalization. Academy of Management Review, 26(4), 624–644.Google Scholar
Leidner, D. E., Gonzalez, E. and Koch, H. (2018). An affordance perspective of enterprise social media and organizational socialization. Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 27(2), 117–138.Google Scholar
Leidner, D. E. and Tona, O. (2020). The CARE theory of dignity amid personal data digitalization. MIS Quarterly, 45(1), 345–360.Google Scholar
Leonardi, P. (2015). Ambient awareness and knowledge acquisition: Using social media to learn ‘who knows what’ and ‘who knows whom’. MIS Quarterly, 39(4), 746–762.Google Scholar
Leonardi, P. (2014). Social media, knowledge sharing, and innovation: Toward a theory of communication visibility. Information Systems Research, 25(4), 786–816.Google Scholar
Leonardi, P., Leong, C., Pan, S., Bahri, S. and Fauzi, A. (2019). Social media empowerment in social movements: Power activation and power accrual in digital activism. European Journal of Information Systems, 28(2), 173–204.Google Scholar
Leong, C., Pan, S., Ractham, P. and Kaewkitipong, L. (2015). ICT-enabled community empowerment in crisis response: Social media in Thailand flooding 2011. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 16(3), 174–212.Google Scholar
Li, L., Du, K., Zhang, W. and Mao, J. Y. (2019). Poverty alleviation through government‐led e‐commerce development in rural China: An activity theory perspective. Information Systems Journal, 29(4), 914–952.Google Scholar
Lightfoot, G. and Wisniewski, P. (2014). Information asymmetry and power in a surveillance society. Information and Organization, 24(4), 214–235.Google Scholar
Lin, C. I., Kuo, Y. and Myers, M. D. (2015). Extending ICT4D studies: The value of critical research. MIS Quarterly, 39(3), 687–712.Google Scholar
Linders, D. (2012). From e-government to we-government: Defining a typology for citizen coproduction in the age of social media. Government Information Quarterly, 29(4), 446–454.Google Scholar
Lyytinen, K., Nickerson, J. and King, J. L. (2020). Metahuman systems = humans + machines that learn. Journal of Information Technology, 36(4), 426–445.Google Scholar
Majchrzak, A., Faraj, S., Kane, G. C. and Azad, B. (2013). The contradictory influence of social media affordances on online communal knowledge sharing. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 19(1), 38–55.Google Scholar
Martin, K. E. (2015). Ethical issues in the big data industry. MIS Quarterly Executive, 14(2), 67–85.Google Scholar
Mervyn, K., Simon, A. and Allen, D. (2014). Digital inclusion and social inclusion: A tale of two cities. Information, Communication & Society, 17(9), 1086–1100.Google Scholar
Miranda, M., Young, A. and Yetgin, E. (2016). Are social media emancipatory or hegemonic? Societal effects of mass media digitization in the case of the SOPA discourse. MIS Quarterly, 40(2), 303–329.Google Scholar
Naidoo, K. (2019). Surveillance giants. Amnesty International.Google Scholar
Pozzebon, M. and Pinsonneault, A. (2012). The dynamics of client-consultant power and knowledge. Journal of Information Technology, 27(1), 35–56.Google Scholar
Raisch, S. and Krakowski, S. (2020). Artificial intelligence and management: The automation-augmentation paradox. Academy of Management Review, 46(1), 192–210.Google Scholar
Raman, R. and Grover, V. (2020). Studying the multilevel impact of cohesion versus structural holes in knowledge networks on adaptation to IT‐enabled patient‐care practices. Information Systems Journal, 30(1), 6–48.Google Scholar
Rane, H. and Salem, S. (2012). Social media, social movements and the diffusion of ideas in the Arab uprisings. Journal of International Communication, 18(1), 97–111.Google Scholar
Richards, N. G. (2013). The dangers of surveillance. Harvard Law Review, 126(7), 1934–1965.Google Scholar
Sæbø, Ø., Federici, T. and Braccini, A. (2020). Combining social media affordances for organising collective action. Information Systems Journal, 30(4), 689–722.Google Scholar
Sahay, S., Sein, K. and Urquhart, C. (2017). Flipping the context: ICT4D, the next grand challenge for IS research and practice. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 18(12), 835–850.Google Scholar
Sandeep, M. and Ravishankar, M. N. (2018). Sociocultural transitions and developmental impacts in the digital economy of impact sourcing. Information Systems Journal, 28(3), 563–586.Google Scholar
Sandeep, M. and Ravishankar, M. N. (2016). Impact sourcing ventures and local communities: A frame alignment perspective. Information Systems Journal, 26(2), 127–155.Google Scholar
Schuetz, S. and Venkatesh, V. (2020). The Rise of Human Machines: How Cognitive Computing Systems Challenge Assumptions of User-System Interaction. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 21(2), 460–482.Google Scholar
Simeonova, B. (2018). Transactive memory systems and Web 2.0 in knowledge sharing: A conceptual model based on activity theory and critical realism. Information Systems Journal, 28(4), 592–611.Google Scholar
Simeonova, B., Galliers, R. D. and Karanasios, S. (2020). Strategic information systems and organisational power dynamics. In Galliers, R. D., Leidner, D. E. and Simeonova, B. (eds), Strategic Information Management: Theory and Practice, 5th edition. London and New York, NY: Routledge, pp. 221–238.Google Scholar
Simeonova, B., Karanasios, S., Galliers, R. D., Kelly, P. R. and Mishra, J. (2018a). Where is power in information systems research? Towards a framework. International Conference on Information Systems, San Francisco, CA.Google Scholar
Simeonova, B., Karanasios, S., Galliers, R. D., Kelly, P. R. and Mishra, J. (2018b). New ways of organising in collaborative knowledge sharing: Examining the effects of power. European Group for Organizational Studies, Tallinn, Estonia.Google Scholar
Tim, Y., Pan, S., Bahri, S. and Fauzi, A. (2018). Digitally enabled affordances for community‐driven environmental movement in rural Malaysia. Information Systems Journal, 28(1), 48–75.Google Scholar
Trauth, E. (2017). A research agenda for social inclusion in information systems. Data Base for Advances in Information Systems, 48(2), 9–20.Google Scholar
Trauth, E., Joshi, K. and Yarger, K. (2018). ISJ editorial. Information Systems Journal, 28(6), 989–995.Google Scholar
Treem, J. W. and Leonardi, P. (2013). Social media use in organizations: Exploring the affordances of visibility, editability, persistence, and association. The International Communication Association, 36(1), 143–189.Google Scholar
Vaast, E. and Levina, N. (2015). Speaking as one, but not speaking up: Dealing with new moral taint in an occupational online community. Information and Organization, 25(2), 73–98.Google Scholar
Vaast, E. and Pinsonneault, A. (2021). When digital technologies enable and threaten occupational identity: The delicate balancing act of data scientists. MIS Quarterly, 45(3), 1087–1112.Google Scholar
Vaast, E., Safadi, H., Lapointe, L. and Negoita, B. (2017). Social media affordances for connective action – an examination of microblogging use during the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. MIS Quarterly, 41(4), 1178–1206.Google Scholar
Wasko, M., Faraj, S. and Teigland, R. (2004). Collective action and knowledge contribution in electronic networks of practice. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 5(11–12), 493–513.Google Scholar
Workman, M. (2009). A field study of corporate employee monitoring: Attitudes, absenteeism, and the moderating influences of procedural justice perceptions. Information and Organization, 19(4), 218–232.Google Scholar
Young, G. (2018). Using ICT for social good: Cultural identity restoration through emancipatory pedagogy. Information Systems Journal, 28(2), 340–358.Google Scholar
Zheng, Y. and Yu, A. (2016). Affordances of social media in collective action: The case of free lunch in China. Information Systems Journal, 26(3), 289–313.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×