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Sensemaking in Technology-Use Mediation: Adapting Groupware Technology in Organizations

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Abstract

Understanding how people in organizations appropriate and adapt groupware technologies to local contexts of use is a key issue for CSCW research, since it is critical to the success of these technologies. In this paper, we argue that the appropriation and adaptation of groupware and other types of advanced CSCW technologies is basically a problem of sensemaking. We analyze how a group of “technology-use mediators” (Orlikowski et al. Org. Sci. (1995) 6(4), 423) in a large, multinational company adapted a groupware technology (a “virtual workspace”) to the local organizational context (and vice versa) by modifying features of the technology, providing ongoing support for users, and promoting appropriate conventions of use. Our findings corroborate earlier research on technology-use mediation, which suggests that such mediators can exert considerable influence on how a particular technology will be established and used in an organization. However, we also find that the process of technology-use mediation is much more complex and indeterminate than prior research suggests. The reason being, we argue, that new, advanced CSCW technologies, such as “virtual workspaces” and other groupware applications, challenge the mediators’ and users’ sensemaking, because the technologies are equivocal and, therefore, open to many possible and plausible interpretations.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the members of BioCorp who participated in this research, as well as the editor and anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions on an earlier version of this paper. Special thanks also to Hanne W. Nicolajsen, Dixi L. Henriksen and Jens K. Pors for their assistance in the fieldwork. This study was supported in part by a grant from the Danish Research Councils (grant no. 99-00-092).

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  1. Center for Information and Communication Technologies, Technical University of Denmark, Building 371, DK-2800, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark

    Jørgen P. Bansler & Erling Havn

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  1. Jørgen P. Bansler
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  2. Erling Havn
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Correspondence to Jørgen P. Bansler.

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Bansler, J., Havn, E. Sensemaking in Technology-Use Mediation: Adapting Groupware Technology in Organizations. Comput Supported Coop Work 15, 55–91 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10606-005-9012-x

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