Temporal Issues in Information and Communication Technology-Enabled Organizational Change: Evidence From an Enterprise Systems Implementation

In this article we highlight temporal effects in information and communication technology-enabled organizational change. Examples of temporal effects are explored in the context of one organization's efforts to implement an enterprise-wide information system. Temporality is presented as having two aspects, with the first being the well-recognized, linear and measured clock time. The second aspect of time is that which is perceived--often as nonlinear--and socially defined. We find that temporal effects arise both in changes to the structure of work and in differences among groups in how time is perceived. Evidence suggests that both specific characteristics of the implementation and of the enterprise systems' technologies further exacerbate these temporal effects. We conclude with suggestions for how to incorporate a temporally reflective perspective into analysis of technology-enabled organizational change and how a temporal perspective provides insight into both the social and technical aspects of the sociotechnical nature of enterprise systems.