Title: Metastructuration actions of management: critical for stakeholder intervention in IS/IT implementations

Authors: Benny M.E. De Waal; Ronald Batenburg; Ben Fruytier

Addresses: Research Centre for Innovation and Business, University of Applied Sciences Utrecht, Padualaan 101, 3584 CH Utrecht, The Netherlands. ' Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research (NIVEL), P.O. Box 1568, 3500 BN Utrecht, The Netherlands; Institute of Information and Computing Sciences, Utrecht University, P.O. Box 80089, 3508 TB Utrecht, The Netherlands. ' Research Centre for Social Innovation, University of Applied Sciences Utrecht, Heidelberglaan 7, 3584 CS Utrecht, The Netherlands

Abstract: Metastructuration actions (overarching activities from management that shape and align users' activities of IS/IT use) are often advocated to improve the success of IS/IT implementation. But how can management support enhance the success of IS/IT by metastructuration actions, when they are dealing with multiple stakeholders? This key question is addressed in this paper. Building on Orlikowski et al. (1995), we explore the contextual conditions of metastructuration actions of management concerning three other key stakeholders: users, the IT department, and external service providers or consultants. The empirical case context is a Dutch public healthcare organisation that deployed three (different) departmental information systems. Based on 26 interviews with all stakeholders that were involved in the deployment of the three departmental information systems, we find that three types of metastructuration actions were critical in a particular relationship with two types of stakeholders. We conclude that this demonstrates that stakeholder context is indeed conditional to metastructuration actions, and hence the success of an IS/IT implementation in terms of perceived system quality and acceptance.

Keywords: metastructuration actions; management support; information systems; information technology; IS/IT implementation; stakeholder theory; public healthcare organisations; The Netherlands; healthcare technology; perceived quality; system acceptance.

DOI: 10.1504/IJHTM.2012.050635

International Journal of Healthcare Technology and Management, 2012 Vol.13 No.4, pp.242 - 261

Received: 12 Aug 2011
Accepted: 10 Sep 2012
Published online: 15 Nov 2014 *

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