This Article Full Text (PDF) All Versions of this Article: 0162243908328771v1 34/3/393    most recent References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Leonardi, P. M. Articles by Jackson, M. H. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Technological Grounding

Enrolling Technology as a Discursive Resource to Justify Cultural Change in Organizations

Northwestern University, Leonardi@ northwestern.edu

Michele H. Jackson

University of Colorado

In technologically grounded organizations, culture is bound tightly to the material characteristics of the technology that the organization manufactures, distributes, or services. Technological grounding helps explain why high-technology organizations often experience cultural integration problems following a merger. Examining the recent merger of US West and Qwest, this article analyzes how powerful actors strategically used the process of technological grounding to enroll a core technology to situate postmerger integration in technological terms, creating a discourse of inevitability that then justified publicly Qwest's cultural domination of US West.

Key Words: mergers • social construction of technology • organizational communication • organizational culture • information technology • telecommunications industry

This version was published on May 1, 2009

Science, Technology & Human Values, Vol. 34, No. 3, 393-418 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0162243908328771


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?