Hospitality and mood : enriching Ciborra's metaphor to understand mobile technology implementation on the police front-line

Coleman, EC 2012, Hospitality and mood : enriching Ciborra's metaphor to understand mobile technology implementation on the police front-line , PhD thesis, University of Salford.

PDF Restricted to Repository staff only until 31 July 2024. Download (5MB) | Request a copy

Abstract

This thesis aims to explore the role of feelings, context of work, and the technology itself in understanding individual level responses to an organisational level IT implementation process. Ciborra's hospitality metaphor is used as a theoretical lens to explore the introduction of mobile hand held devices into a police front-line context. This thesis argues that technology users are not cognitive robots; a focus on feelings helps to obtain a richer understanding of users' responses to IT implementation. This research uses an interpretivist methodology, consisting of qualitative inquiry in the form of interviews and focus groups within three police forces. The thesis considers users' prior expectations and post-receipt experiences of the device. Concerns raised included increased vulnerability through the need to disengage from the physical environment to view the device screen, and increased levels of monitoring. Looking beyond the technology's affordances, there was lack of confidence in the project aims and roll out process, and mistrust regarding the project motivation. Ambivalent feelings led to four individual responses to device implementation; resistance, compliance, indifference, and change over time. The identification of varied individual responses allows critique of the hospitality metaphor on the grounds of inherent assumptions; the assumption of initial compliance, the assumption of two equal status actors, and the assumption that the technology 'matters'. The thesis will be of value to IS implementation and resistance researchers and to practitioners through highlighting the importance of understanding that users are not cognitive robots who will accept and use a technology in a perfunctory fashion, of making promises which can be delivered, understanding that development in a mobile context requires consideration of the varying environments of use which would not be necessary in a static context, and asserting that to obtain a holistic view of the implementation process, context of work, technology, and feelings must be considered.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Contributors:	Bell, F (Supervisor)
Schools:	Schools > Salford Business School
Depositing User:	Institutional Repository
Date Deposited:	28 Jul 2021 08:56
Last Modified:	04 Aug 2022 11:23
URI:	https://usir.salford.ac.uk/id/eprint/61329

Actions (login required)

Edit record (repository staff only)