A set of principles for conducting and evaluating interpretive field studies in information systems
MIS Quarterly - Special issue on intensive research in information systems
Place to Space: Migrating to Ebusiness Models
Place to Space: Migrating to Ebusiness Models
Market, Hierarchy, and Trust: The Knowledge Economy and the Future of Capitalism
Organization Science
Knowing in Practice: Enacting a Collective Capability in Distributed Organizing
Organization Science
NEBIC: A Dynamic Capabilities Theory for Assessing Net-Enablement
Information Systems Research
Foundations of Net-Enhanced Organizations
Foundations of Net-Enhanced Organizations
On the Dialectics of Strategic Alliances
Organization Science
Enacting Integrated Information Technology: A Human Agency Perspective
Organization Science
Living with numbers: Accounting for subjectivity in/with management accounting systems
Information and Organization
Information and Organization
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Contemporary organizations increasingly rely upon information technologies as platforms for their core work processes. The Internet age has witnessed the creation of new business models based almost entirely on electronically-mediated business processes involving multiple organizations. Information systems link suppliers, manufacturers, logistics companies, and other partners, allowing organizations to add value using smaller investments in physical assets. The creation of these linkages establishes both technical and social interfaces between organizations and their business partners. We apply Giddens' concept of time-space distanciation to analyze the interfaces in iTalk, an organization in Silicon Valley hosting Internet voicemail services. iTalk achieved initial success in bridging external social and technical interfaces with the major regional telephone companies in US, allowing their voicemail service to attract millions of subscribers. In effect, iTalk used information technologies to dis-embed social and technical elements from global systems (the telephone companies) and re-embed them as part of iTalk's local organizational presence. However, iTalk was unable to provide a sufficiently reliable service to customers as volume increased. Ironically, bridging external interfaces created internal interfaces within iTalk, which in turn produced technical problems and social conflicts that were not satisfactorily resolved by the time iTalk was acquired by a larger media company in 2001. The study provides theoretical understanding of the challenges associated with creating and sustaining social and technical interfaces in organizations that rely heavily upon electronically-mediated business processes that cross organizational boundaries.