An investigation of information technology and the information systems group as drivers and enablers of organizational change

This research reports on a field study that investigates the roles that information technology (IT) and the information systems group (IS) can play as agents for change. in organizations. It describes and investigates two different change agent roles, driver and enabler, that are seldom articulated as fundamentally different concepts. It rdso differentiates between two technology-related agents of change that are often intermingled in research: IT applications and the IS group that delivers the new applications. Sixteen senior IS and business managers employed in five large Silicon Valley companies were interviewed to obtain insight into their experiences with IT/IS as an agent of change in their organizations. Qualitative analyses of these interviews suggest that IT and IS have, in fact, both played a significant role as an organizational change agent, each having served as an enabler and as a driver of change in different circumstances. Several of the “stories” the respondents recounted from personal experiences are provided in the paper to supplement the qualitative analyses and to give readers a flavor for the nature of the impacts that IT and IS have had on the various organizational change activities.