Thesis 186
Thesis 187 Third, because head-mounted displays condition performances in predictable ways, their inflexibility needs to be considered in the existing infrastructure of technologies and organizational routines. This is true both when wanting to explain whether or not an immersive technology gets enrolled at all, and whether or not it remains part of the organizational routines.
To be more precise, whether or not an immersive technology is enrolled in the organizational routines in the first place depends to a large degree on the existing infrastructure of previous and current technology and organizational routines. In the longitudinal study, for example, the importance of previously laid down infrastructure was evident when trying to understand whether or not the head-mounted display was enrolled in existing organizational routines. In both organizational routines, the simple head-mounted display was discarded as it was not compatible with the existing infrastructure of technologies and organizational routines. However, both studies also show that once an immersive technology is enrolled, whether or not it remains a viable alternative for the actors in the organizational routine depends on the flexibility of the immersive technology itself as well as the surrounding infrastructure. To elaborate, as the aforementioned example shows: when an immersive technology, such as the simple head-mounted display, constrains the goals of the actors involved in any given organizational routine, whether or not it remains a viable alternative depends on its flexibility but also on the flexibility/inflexibility of the actual immersive technology of past imbrications and its material and human agencies. In other words, the already laid down infrastructure of past technology and organizational routines in any given organization also plays an important role when trying to understand if an immersive technology continues to matter in organizational routines.
Fourth, and lastly, the actors in the organizational routines should consider how more immersive technology creates ripples of variations not only within but also between organizational routines.
The longitudinal case showed that decisions made in one organizational routine can condition imbrications in others. Furthermore, once an immersive technology was enrolled in the organizational routine, the study shows that it influenced not only the organizational routine in which it was enrolled, but also the other organizational routine. And this influence across organizational routines had an influence on whether or not the more immersive technology was enrolled in the first place, but also if it was retained in the ostensive patterns of the organizational routines. To exemplify, when the more advanced head-mounted display and a new plug-in were enrolled in the organizational meeting routine (imbrication 7 and 8), it initially helped them to make the clients and users understand the depth and scale of 3D models in an intuitive way, in
Thesis 188 turn easing communication between the meeting participants. However, as it was used in the organizational meeting routine, they experienced that the feedback from the meeting participants became more comprehensive and less focused because the participants understood more, but also because the architects and engineers could not guide them or point out where the clients and users should focus. Thus, because of the affordances that the immersive technologies provided to their users, they could now discover issues in a more intuitive way. However, due to the materiality of the head-mounted display, they could not be guided by the architects and engineers. In turn, the feedback was often not relevant at that specific time of the project or was simply just irrelevant to the project as a whole. On the one hand, while the architects and engineers could simply disregard this feedback, it might, in time, also lead to a loss in trust between the two parties. On the other hand, making 3D models of every design suggestion that clients came up with required that they had to do much work in the organizational design routine. Consequently, they decided to use these more immersive technologies mindfully and only when it was relevant to the clients and users to understand the 3D models in a more intuitive way. That is, because the immersive technology variations were diffused from the external to the internal organizational routine, their role in both routines was reduced – despite the benefits that its immersive capabilities provide. Thus, whether or not a technology is retained in an ostensive pattern not only depends on the organizational routine in which it is enrolled, but also on the other organizational routines it is connected to and depends on.
Together, these four findings answer the research question of this thesis: How does the matter and form of immersive technologies, for example head-mounted displays and its related software and hardware, imbricate with organizational routines?
Future research
In the following section, I elaborate on future areas of research within immersive technologies, organizational routines, and the imbrication lens.
With the literature review on IS research on immersive technologies, I underlined that the typical paper has focused on software immersion. In addition, the level of analysis is heavily skewed towards the individual. This choice goes hand in hand with an overwhelming focus on adoption, use, and continued use, due to the frequent application of Davis’s Technology Acceptance Model (1989) which is empirically measured quantitatively through survey data (see Cahalane et al.
(2012) and Hofma et al. (2018) for more in-depth analysis).
Thesis 189 While I try to allow for this by focusing on the materiality of immersive technologies within the AEC industry and by shifting the unit of analysis to the organizational level, this is only a start that other IS scholars can build on. In particular, by utilizing organizational routines theory and the imbrication lens, future research can potentially shed light on how head-mounted displays matter but at other times do not within other industries such as retail or healthcare. Alternatively, scholars could conduct multiple longitudinal case studies within the AEC industry, in other geographical contexts, to extend on the findings of this thesis. IS researchers could investigate if for example the materiality of head-mounted displays, their inclusiveness, condition users across contexts in the same way, and how it might impact their willingness to enroll head-mounted displays out in their organizational routines. A third suggestion would be for IS scholars to investigate the societal implications that immersion might have on the collaboration between employees and on inter-organizational collaborations, which in turn could extend our understanding of immersion as a relational and emergent concept and of its unintended outcomes.
My suggestions above for potential research may be fruitfully utilized by others for their organizational routines and the imbrication lens to shed more light on a rapidly developing technology with which current IS research, and the methodologies employed in IS, seems to be out of touch (Gartner, 2017; Steffen et al., 2019).
By applying organizational routines theory and the imbrication lens to an empirical context where immersive technologies are used, scholars can also incorporate and directly conceptualize temporality and spatiality of organizational routines – an area which is currently understudied in organizational routines research (Howard-Grenville and Rerup, 2016). For example, how does the performance of organizational routines in virtual space shape the evolution and interaction of artifacts and actions both online and offline? Or: “…how clock time influences the performance of routines and how people's experiences of time shape routine performances”. These and similar questions regarding the spatial and especially temporal aspects of organizational routines can be addressed by supplementing the imbrication lens with organizational routines theory, as the evolution of organizational routines and technology is directly addressed by showing these as mutually developing through imbrications over time. Furthermore, as technologies are becoming increasingly more immersive, organizational routines actors will increasingly perform their actions in ever more immersive virtual spaces. Consequently, researchers need to ask important questions such as how: “…the nature and interplay of these actions and [their] [ostensive]
Thesis 190 patterns differ” (Howard-Grenville and Rerup, 2016, p. 13) from organizational routines performed in less immersive virtual spaces.
Lastly, I encourage scholars to further develop the integration of the two literature streams of organizational routines and the imbrication lens to better understand how the materiality of technology might change organizational routines and their internal dynamics.
Thesis 191