Understanding the roles of technology in improvising

(cont.) significantly during an improvisation) and emergent artifacts (i.e., artifacts that are created and adapted during an improvisation). In addition, I find that there are three general uses of artifacts in improvising: tool (the use of an artifact to build an outcome), component (the use of an artifact as part of an outcome), and product (the use of an artifact as an outcome). Finally, these uses tend to involve two aspects of artifacts: practical (the use of an artifact for its functional capabilities) and symbolic (the use of an artifact for its representational capabilities). Artifacts, particularly emergent artifacts, were an integral part of enacting structures (the use of emergent artifacts as structural referents), assessing continuously (the use of emergent artifacts as products of the improvisation to solicit feedback and examine the progress, or lack thereof, of the collaborative endeavor), creating resourcefully (the re-use of emergent artifacts as components of the final product), and adapting extemporaneously (the use of artifacts as tools to adapt the emerging output). My research addresses calls for IS researchers to theorize more specifically about the nature and influence of IT artifacts and offers a framework to think about technology not simply as a stable tool that is used for practical purposes, but also as an artifact that can be stable or emergent, it can be used as a product, component, or tool, and it is used for both practical and symbolic aspects.

Department dc:contributor.department

Sloan School of Management.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2003

Author dc:creator

• Fonstad, Nils Olaya

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Wanda J. Orlikowski.

• Sloan School of Management.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

en_US

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/27371

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/27371