The Duality of Technology: ICT as an enabler and inhibiter in Business Process improvement

摘要

The improvement of business processes often depends on ICT, which can either facilitate or impede improvements. Yet it is not clear though to what extent ICT enables or inhibits business process improvement and what factors can explain this effect. Orlikowski's duality of technology underscores the socio-historical context of technology and the dual nature of technology, as objective reality and as socially constructed product. In this article the duality of technology is used as the theoretical lens to analyze the interaction between ICT and business improvement using two case studies. Factors show the duality of technology by having an enabling or inhibiting effect depending on the situation. Some factors were found that can have either an enabling or inhibiting effect and this effect was found to be dependent on the context. This stresses the need for situational-specific understanding and taking into account the context.