The Role of the Organizational Structure in the IT Appropriation: Explorative Case Studies into the Interaction between IT and Workforce Management

The concept of appropriation is frequently used in IT implementation research. Rooted in the analysis of the diffusion of innovation, this concept is usually linked with characteristics of an organization’s structure, size, and sector. Since the 1980s, appropriation has been actively studied by IT researchers, who linked it with technological attributions and characteristics of users. In this paper, the authors observed the application of the appropriation concept developed from the extreme of giving full credit to technology, and the other extreme of fully crediting end-users. The authors argue that to capture a full range of benefits from technology and human interaction, researchers cannot ignore organizational structure. By presenting three case studies, this paper shows that it is necessary to reintroduce this “side” to have a complete analysis of appropriation. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61350-465-9.ch015