Technological Frames

The purpose of this article is to identify and explain the barriers that prevented the case study organization, an Australasian university, from implementing a groupware package. This is an insider action research case study, using qualitative semi-structured interviews, group and individual training to look at users’ technological frames around the implementation and use of a groupware product. Technological frames were used to enable a systematic examination of the assumptions, expectations, and knowledge of technology; in particular, the use of technological frames reveals aspects of user resistance. While addressing criticisms of the technological frames genre, this study uses technological frames as a lens to examine the underlying drivers and impediments to information systems (IS) implementation. In this case study, changes to a groupware product failed to be implemented, not because of user resistance to the product, but because of organizational politics. This study demonstrates how the culture of an organization may stifle the implementation of IS.

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