Abstract
Issues of power are inseparable from any organizational transformation associated with digital technologies. Still, the perception of power is typically one of overcoming resistance to change, involving restricted views such as unilateral domination and coercion. This precludes developing more nuanced accounts of entanglements between power and organizational transformation in the digital age. In this paper, we propose an alternative perspective on power, drawing on a novel, postmodern reading of Foucault that focuses not on traditional Foucauldian notions of disciplinary power, domination, or emancipation but on dialogue. We demonstrate the significance of this perspective through a “theory elaboration” study relying on a case of clinical transformation in a hospital setting driven by digital technology. Our findings illustrate how reactions to transformation initiatives can often be productive and even inventive exercises of power in their own right. Accordingly, through advancing a dialogical model of power, we argue that accounting for organizational transformation in the digital age demands a careful study of four aspects: (i) power effects that emanate from incumbent discourses, (ii) reversible relationships between power and resistance, (iii) interdiscursive dynamics (instead of discrete, isolated discourses), and (iv) the materiality and agency of information technology as a force in the power dynamics inherent to organizational transformation.
DOI
10.17705/1jais.00897
Recommended Citation
Mohajeri, Kaveh and Leclercq-Vandelannoitte, Aurélie, "“Dialogue of Forces”: The Dialogical Constitution of Organizational Transformation in the Digital Age" (2024). JAIS Preprints (Forthcoming). 146.
DOI: 10.17705/1jais.00897
Available at:
https://aisel.aisnet.org/jais_preprints/146