A set of principles for conducting and evaluating interpretive field studies in information systems
MIS Quarterly - Special issue on intensive research in information systems
E-Healthcare: Harness the Power of Internet E-Commerce and E-Care with Cdrom
E-Healthcare: Harness the Power of Internet E-Commerce and E-Care with Cdrom
Information Systems Research
Information Systems Research
Innovating mindfully with information technology
MIS Quarterly
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Novel contemporary healthcare information systems offer the prospect of exploring unique features of the IT artefact and probing the finer, integral relations between society, technology, and humans. Some of these IT artefacts are innately complex and current theoretical perspectives are too limited to enrich their understanding. Using material from a longitudinal case study of an Internet-based self-service technology implementation in the private healthcare insurance context, this paper explores various aspects of 'fluid continuity' enacted by a technological object. The authors observe the object's varying identities, its vague boundaries, its unexpected usage patterns, and its resourceful designers. They also analyze both the success and failure of the technological object, its complex and elusive relations, and the way in which it shaped new configurations of practice in the RSA and UK. This paper challenges conventional perspectives of a stable and enduring IT artefact and offers an alternative; it claims that a contemporary IT artefact is not necessarily delineated by firm boundaries or stable relations; instead they can be unpredictable and transitory. This paper furthers the understanding of how researchers can apply post actor network theory ANT concepts to study contemporary IT-based artefacts and offers several insights to practitioners on the virtues of a flexible implementation approach.