Cart
WIRELESS DEVICES FOR HUMANITARIAN DATA COLLECTION
The socio-technical implications for multi-level organizational change
- DOI:
- 10.1080/13691180902857637
pages 584-604
Available online: 19 Jun 2009Abstract
We apply socio-technical theories to explain and predict technological choices and use by humanitarian relief and development organizations. This research examines the organizational context of using a personal digital assistant (PDA) in the field to collect data. We identify organizational factors at multiple levels that are likely to influence a field-based PDA data collection initiative in the context of a large, international non-governmental organization. This research differs from existing studies that have documented different effects of information and communication technology on various organization levels when information technology (IT) is deployed throughout the organization. The research suggests that despite being motivated by upper levels of the organization, the middle levels of the organization (the country offices) are most affected by the IT implementation. We assert that the motivations for changes made to the technological systems and/or devices used by a multi-level organization will produce significant social/organizational changes at each level of the organization. We also claim that the motivations for technological change in organizations that stem from the top layers of that organization are likely to produce beneficial changes for the top layers of that organization. Intermediate and bottom layers will experience a mix of changes, with some being negative and some unintended for the respective layers.
Keywords
- Recommend to:
- A friend
First page preview
Details
- Available online: 19 Jun 2009
Author affiliations
- a College of Information Sciences and Technology, Penn State University, 301 B IST Building, State College, PA, 16802, USA E-mail:
- b College of Information Sciences and Technology, Penn State University, 104 IST Building, State College, PA, 16802, USA E-mail:
Author biographies
Andrea H. Tapia is an Assistant Professor at the College of Information Sciences and Technology at Penn State University. She completed her PhD in Sociology at the University of New Mexico and a Post Doctoral Fellowship at the University of Arizona before coming to Penn State. Her guiding research question is ‘What is the role that technology plays in institutional patterns of power, hierarchy, governance, domination, and resistance?’ She is especially interested in the public sector: government, education, humanitarian relief, community organizations and non-profits, emergency responders and military, and groups engaged in collective action or social movements.
Carleen Maitland is an Assistant Professor of Information Sciences and Technology at the Pennsylvania State University. She received her doctorate degree from Delft University of Technology in 2001 where her research focused on the role of institutions in creating the potential for electronic commerce in developing countries. Her current research is concerned with inter-organizational relations and market structures in the provision of advanced Internet services, both fixed and mobile. It focuses on the ways in which context – whether in the international domain or among a group of organizations – influences the production of, access to, and use of information and communication technologies.
Journal news
- Increasing to 9 issues in 2012
- Now included in the Thomson Reuters Social Science Citation Index
Librarians
- Librarians' area
- Pricing
- Institutional account
- Access entitlements
- Co-branding
- IP ranges
- Link resolver preferences
- Usage reports