Balancing Standardization with Organizational Indeterminacy: The Use of IT in Universities

Universities are highly computerized places with a strong technological infrastructure ranging from ERP implementations used for the re-organization of administrative processes to web-based learning applications and development tools deployed to restructure existing leaning models. However, the outcome of these technological interventions is not quite clear mainly because the interaction between information technology and the fluid organizational structure of universities is only narrowly considered in the IS literature. In this paper we examine whether current technological solutions designed to support primarily well structured organizational operations can enable coordination among loosely coupled elements. To this end, we present the case of an inter-university collaboration which deployed advanced information technologies as the backbone for collaboration among its members. We posit that the introduction of information technology in fluid environments has many implications which lead to the gradual rejection of the technological solutions. We conclude by critically examining the growing pressures for a more flexible university with the extensive use of advanced information technologies.