ORGANISATIONAL TECHNOLOGY APPROPRIATION

AS ACTIVELY ACCOMPLISHED “PLACE-MAKING”

Submission to the ‘General Track’

Kai Riemer
The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia, kai.riemer@sydney.edu.au

Robert B. Johnston
The University of Sydney and Monash University, Australia, R.Johnston@econ.usyd.edu.au

Abstract
We study the introduction of new technology into organizational practices. We argue
against the dualist and cognitivist under-pinning of typical IS and OMS technology
appropriation literature and develop a process theory of appropriation based on
Martin Heidegger’s analysis of equipment in Being and Time (1927; 1962). On this view,
engagement with technology changes from inspecting a new object in the practice
foreground to becoming equipment as a transparent means located in the practice
background. We show that this transformation occurs through a process of actively
performed “place-making” in which the technology is accommodated in the practice
among existing equipment, practical logics and social identities. With our theory, we
contribute a more nuanced sociomaterial account of the simultaneous and ongoing
becoming of technology and practices occurring in technology introduction and
appropriation.

Keywords: Technology Appropriation, Process Theory, Ontology, Heidegger

1
Introduction
While typical textbook accounts depict information technology introduction as discrete steps in a process
involving various decisions, a body of literature in Information System IS) and Organization and
Management Studies (OMS) has emerged characterizing the phenomenon as a time-extended
appropriation process, described as "the way that users evaluate and adopt, adapt and integrate a
technology into their everyday practices" (Mendoza et al. 2010, 5). A core aim of this stream of research
has been to explain the variation in (unintended) outcomes when users take new technology into practice.
However, the literature has struggled to grasp how exactly both the technology and the practice change in
this process. We argue that appropriation research has been limited by certain commitments at the
ontology level to a widely held dualist worldview, which leads to attributing change to either the
technology entity or the user entity. Moreover, as the focus has been on explaining the variation in
outcomes, with some notable exceptions (e.g. Carroll et al. 2002) there has been little research on what
exactly happens during appropriation, that is, on what users do. We make this appropriation
phenomenon the object of our study and propose a new theory of technology appropriation.
We draw on Martin Heidegger’s phenomenological ontology, outlined in Being and Time (1927; 1962), to
overcome the limitations of existing dualist approaches and to uncover the structure of the appropriation
phenomenon. His work will allow us to distinguish IT as an object when first encountered from IT as
equipment when it is in fluent everyday use. Hence, by drawing on Heidegger’s notion of equipment we
propose to interpret technology appropriation as the change of IT from an object inspected and evaluated
by users upon first encounter, to equipment when IT has become normal and is now transparently
implicated in a practice. We present a process theory that explains this transformation as place-making,
which involves changes in the structure of the practice, accommodation of new IT as equipment among
existing equipment, and changes to social identity production, as well as how meaning is produced within
the practice.
Our study offers important insights into the nature and structure of the appropriation phenomenon. We
contribute a process theory of technology appropriation which provides a rich explanation of what
happens when new technologies are taken into organizational practice. This theory differs from existing
theory by focusing on how the technology changes ontologically when being enrolled into a practice and
how the practice changes as the technology is being accommodated, rather than on the factors that
explain and predict appropriation outcomes. As such, it provides an example of a genuine non-dualist
analysis in line with recent calls to study the sociomateriality of IT (Orlikowski and Scott 2008). .
In the first part of the paper we develop our theory. We begin by briefly outlining the shortcomings of IS
and OMS appropriation studies. We will then present Heidegger’s analysis of equipment, which we
subsequently use to formulate our process theory. We conclude by outlining implications and
contributions.

Literature Analysis
In this section we first outline existing conceptions of technology appropriation in the IS and OMS
literature. We then demonstrate that this body of literature is founded upon a dualist understanding of
the relation between technology and users that is grounded in what is commonly known as the Cartesian
worldview. We spell out the limitations of dualist approaches to explaining the changes that take place
during technology appropriation and propose to rethink appropriation on a non-dualist foundation that
we find in Heidegger’s work.

Technology Appropriation in the Literature

Textbooks in IS typically follow a fit logic (Goodhue and Thompson 1995) to describe the organizational
introduction of technology and characterize it as a rational process with discrete steps (e.g. Stair et al.
2011; Turban and Volonino 2011). Typically these steps are: 1) an organization makes the decision to
acquire or develop a new technology based on a rational matching of task requirements with technology
features, 2) it then implements the new technology through roll-out to the user group (including testing,

2
installation, training etc.), and 3) users finally decide to accept or reject the technology based on their own
local assessments. The latter is the subject of typical user acceptance theories in IS (e.g. Davis and Bagozzi
1989; Venkatesh et al. 2003).
However, beginning with the much-cited work of DeSanctis and Poole (1994) there has been explicit
recognition that technology introduction is a much less discrete and determinate process than this. These
authors introduced the notion of technology appropriation to denote that users make technology their
own in a time-extended process of adaptation, whereby both the technology and individual and collective
practices are changed. They saw this process as both a threat to the rational objectives of management
captured in the notion of ‘unfaithful use’, as well as explaining the variance in outcomes. Consequently,
this tradition is typically concerned with theorizing appropriation outcomes while softening the
determinism of earlier individual-level adoption models (e.g. Dennis et al. 2001).
Concurrently, there has been a struggle in the IS and OMS literature to explain the mutual changes to
technologies and user practices that occur when new technology is appropriated. DeSanctis and Poole
conceived of technology as inscribing social structures in its features, which are subsequently changed
through use, non-use, or changed use. On the other hand adaptation of user practices was seen to occur
“when the technology structures become shared, enduring sets of cognitive scripts” (DeSanctis and Poole
1994, 128). Accommodation between these two changing entities is then achieved through a process of
structuration (Giddens 1984) in which a fit or alignment (Majchrzak et al. 2000) is achieved between
social structures inscribed in the features of the technology and social structures reproduced in
organizational action. However, this approach has been criticized, for example for inscribing uses into
technology features (e.g. see Jones et al. 2004). Others have responded to these criticisms by locating
technology structure somewhere between the technology and the user, for instance as relational
affordances (Markus and Silver 2008) or in use practices (Orlikowski 2000).

The Cartesian Framing of Existing Appropriation Literature

Evident in the above approaches is an inherent dualism between technology on the one hand and users on
the other hand, commonly referred to as the Cartesian worldview (Orlikowski and Scott 2008); for a
review see (Scada 2004). The Cartesian worldview comprises a set of beliefs that have entered everyday
and scientific ontological understanding and underpins, at least implicitly, mainstream technology
research (Riemer and Johnston 2013). The Cartesian worldview rests on a dualism that places human
subjects vis-à-vis an ‘external’ world that is populated by objects. On this view, humans take in this
external world via their bodily senses and hold in their mind an internal representation of the (objects in
the) world. Hence, the Cartesian worldview posits a mind “in here” reflecting on, and directing the body to
act upon, a world “out there”. It is the mind that turns the external world of initially meaningless
substances into the meaningful world that we experience. Consequently, the underlying ontological
foundation of this world-view is that the world consists of independently existent things with properties
(Bunge 1977); even humans are conceived in that way, as minds with mental attributes such as goals,
beliefs and attitudes (Weber 2012, 2).
Existing approaches in the technology appropriation literature are (at least implicitly) built upon this
dualist, cognitivist worldview. It is common in this literature to conceive of technology as bundles of
functional or symbolic features. Hence, despite rhetorical devices suggesting that technologies change
ontologically as a result of appropriation, e.g. from technology-as-designed to technology-in-practice
(Orlikowski 2000) or technology-in-use (Carroll et al. 2002), technology change is severely circumscribed
by conceiving it in terms of reconfiguration of the inherent (designed) features. On the other hand,
practices are typically described in terms of user beliefs and attitudes or management goals and thus in
essentially cognitive terms. Changes to practices then become changes to internal user representations of
feature-use, such as cognitive scripts (DeSanctis and Poole 1994) or behavioral templates (Orlikowski,
2000 quoting Barley 1988), which are juxtaposed between technologies as features and users as minds.
Under this appropriation logic, change is caused by the ‘appropriation moves’ of users, while technology
merely presents ‘structural potential’ or ‘affordances’ upon which users can draw (DeSanctis and Poole
1994). Similarly, others have characterized appropriation as resulting from user activities of exploring and
tailoring systems features (Stevens 2009, Draxler et al. 2011).

3
Challenging the dualism underpinning appropriation

We argue that the dualist understanding of technology appropriation is limiting in that any changes
occurring have to be attributed to changes in either the technology object (via changes to its properties or
features) or in the user subject (via changes to internal representations, such as cognitive scripts). It is
important to emphasize that while appropriation studies aim to explain changes to organizational
practices, an authentic articulation of the notion of “practice” requires a break from dualist thinking (e.g.
Schatzki 2002; Reimers et al. 2010a) to capture the ontological co-constitution of the material and social
aspects of practice. Moreover, we argue that such dualist accounts fail to capture: 1) changes to the
technology as experienced by users (what technology becomes in practice, its meaning in the user world);
2) technological agency, as appropriation is typically attributed to the users as the causal agents of
change; and 3) how appropriation of new technologies makes the world intelligible to users in new ways.
To address these problems we propose a theory of appropriation built over the non-dualist,
phenomenological ontology articulated by Heidegger in Being and Time (1927; 1962). Heidegger’s
analysis of equipment proves useful for this enterprise because: 1) it offers a holistic ontology that already
implicitly underpins contemporary non-dualist accounts of practices (Reckwitz 2002; Schatzki 2002) and
the emerging sociomateriality literature (Orlikowski and Scott 2008), 2) it offers a detailed account of
human everyday engagement with material entities, 3) it decenters humans as the sole locus of agency (so
called post-humanism (Pickering 1995)), 4) through its notion of ‘ways of being’ it allows for an
ontological change of material entities in use, and 5) it encompasses the role of equipment in giving
meaning to entities and events in the world.
Heidegger’s work has been used in IS and OMS previously. While some studies have specifically
introduced Heidegger’s equipment analysis for the study of IS phenomena (Winograd and Flores 1987;
Winograd 1995; Riemer and Johnston 2011), other studies have mentioned equipment loosely (Ehn 1990;
Budde and Züllighoven 1992; Introna 1997; Dourish 2001; Sutton 2001; Turner 2005) or appropriated
related concepts from Being and Time, such as Heidegger’s notion of being-in-the-world to outline
situated action (Dourish 2001), humanness (Porra 1999) and management in practice (Introna 1997), or
mood and Befindlichkeit to capture context and situatedness (Ciborra and Willcocks 2006). However, no
study has exploited Heidegger’s equipment analysis as an analytical framework for theorizing phenomena
of technology adoption and appropriation.

Heidegger’s phenomenological analysis of equipment

In outlining Heidegger’s analysis of equipment we draw on Heidegger’s original work (1927; 1962), as well
as selected further secondary sources (Dreyfus 1991; Blattner 2006; Taylor 2006; Dreyfus 2007; Dreyfus
and Wrathall 2008; Harman 2010). Note that the term equipment is given a precise technical meaning by
Heidegger and the reader should not confuse it with its everyday connotation as merely physical
implements or tools.

Ways of being

The aim of ontology is to theorize being. Traditionally, this has been taken to involve categorizing the
kinds of entities there are in the world (e.g. Bunge 1977; Wand and Weber 1995; Weber 1997). Heidegger’s
innovation in Being and Time is to ask an entirely new question: what are the kinds of ways that entities
can be in the world?
Heidegger argues that this question can only be answered by first examining the peculiar way of being of
that entity for which being is an issue. This entity Heidegger calls Dasein; the way of being of Dasein is
existence: “Only Dasein exists in the sense that the continued living of its life, as well as the form that its
life will take, is something with which it must concern itself” (Mulhall 2005, 15). Existence thus is the way
Dasein takes a stand on its own being by giving itself an identity through practical engagement with the
world. To be human is to be such-and-such by doing such-and-such. For instance, a doctor not only
practices medicine but is a doctor because s/he practices medicine. It is important to note that Dasein is
not an individual person who gives a mental account of his/her own experiences. Dasein denotes the
being of humans, whose mode of existence is distinct from that of other entities, namely to be engaged in

4
social practices that at the same time constitute what they do and who they are. As such, Dasein is
fundamentally social (“Dasein’s being is being-with” Heidegger 1962, 160); for example, one can only
become a doctor in an already existing medical profession.
Heidegger then defines two other ways that entities can be on the basis of how they show up for humans
in the course of such practical engagement. The first way of being he calls ready-to-hand, which means
that the entity is encountered in fluent use as a practical means. A carpenter who is engaging in
hammering encounters a hammer not as an object with properties, but as ready-to-hand equipment both
for doing what carpenters do (hammering nails) and for being what a carpenter is (a craftsman). On the
other hand, an entity may show up for humans as present-at-hand when it is encountered in a more
distanced reflective way (for instance, as objects of curiosity, in a first encounter, when giving an account
of them, and when attending to their construction). In this case the entity is an object of attention that
makes its presence known through its properties rather than through its use in practices. Heidegger
defines each of these ways of being through a series of careful analyses of every-day phenomena.

Equipment: Involvement in holistic practices

In our everyday dealings we do not normally encounter the things that surround us as objects with
properties but as a practical means, or what Heidegger calls an in-order-to (Heidegger 1962, 98). In use a
hammer is not encountered as a wooden shank with a metal blob but as a ‘to-put-nails-in’; a word
processor is not seen as a software artifact with a set of features but encountered practically as a ‘to-write-
letters’, ‘to-capture-ideas’, ‘to-edit-a-memo’, depending on its use in different activities. Hence, when we
engage with entities in a purely practical and non-deliberative way they do not show up as objects of
attention at all. The way of being of such entities is readiness-to-hand. And the peculiar nature of
readiness-to-hand is that when we are fully absorbed in using equipment we do not notice it at all, as we
are solely preoccupied with what we are doing. In fact, equipment when being most genuinely ready-to-
hand withdraws. Hence, almost paradoxically, equipment is truly encountered as what it is only when it
is not experienced at all.
Because equipment is what it is for, it follows that it cannot be defined except in relation to an activity.
Heidegger demonstrates that equipment is always implicated in human practices through a circular series
of references, which we will refer to as the involvement holism:
1. Equipment always bears for what it is on the material configuration of a particular practice, including
other equipment with which it is used. A hammer can be a hammer only in a world where there are
nails, wood and structures built from wood.
2. Equipment is always involved in an activity and draws its particular in-order-to from a chain of
assignments, an involvement in the for-which (tasks) of the activity and the towards-which (goals) of
the practice (Heidegger 1962, 115). For example, the particular being of a hammer arises from its
place in the chain of practical assignments (an in-order-to put nails in for joining wood, towards
building a house).
3. Equipment always has a bearing on enacting a particular social identity. The ultimate for-which of the
chain of assignments is termed the for-the-sake-of-which, the bearing that equipment has on
enacting a particular identity (e.g. for-the-sake-of being a carpenter). This for-the-sake-of-which is
not simply a goal or future state but an identity that is enacted and that is ultimately possible only
against established and inherently social practices.
These three points show that equipment cannot be viewed as a collection of self-sufficient entities because
any equipment draws its being (as an in-order-to) from a chain of practical involvements that leads
ultimately to a human identity, that is, to what it is to be human. It follows that equipment, activity, and
social identity are fundamentally co-constituted because they are defined by reference to each other.
Furthermore, the references in the involvement holism are inherently circular: Constitutive of Dasein is to
be actively engaged in practices. Activities depend on equipment for their performance. Therefore, Dasein
as the human way of being depends on equipment. But the being of equipment depends on these activities
and therefore on Dasein, closing the circle. The co-constitutive and circular relationships between parts
indicates that the entity in question is indeed a holism (Dreyfus 1991, 97-98; Esfeld 2001, 6). Thus

5
equipment, activity and social identity are merely three ways of looking at the same holism, each stressing
different aspects analytically. Moreover, the relationships between these parts are not causal (relations
between properties of things) but constitutive (dependencies between entities for their very being as
such). While we can bring into view certain parts of the holism, these parts do not individually pre-exist or
merely “add up to” the holistic entity. On the contrary, these parts are constituted and defined only by
their very place in an already existing holism. Heidegger calls this holism world.
Note that this notion of world is different to the Cartesian notion of world. The latter denotes the totality
of substances, that is, the universe (Dreyfus 1991). For Heidegger, a world, or our world, refers to a set of
social and material arrangements that make possible a particular for-the-sake-of-which of Dasein. This
notion is at work when we refer to the ‘world of sports’, the ‘business world’, or the ‘users’ local world’. As
such, Heidegger’s term is roughly equivalent to the more modern notion of a practice or a constellation of
practices (e.g. Wenger 1998; Nicolini 2012). In the following we will adopt the term practice to denote the
holistic entity. For analytical purposes, we will further refer to the different aspects that make up a holistic
practice as the material, praxeological, and social dimensions of the practice.

Objects: Bundles of properties

While Heidegger exposes the holistic involvement of equipment, he does not deny our common-sense
everyday experience of encountering things as individuated objects. When entities show up for us as
individuated, present-at-hand objects of attention they are encountered as bundles of properties. At the
same time however, the objects we encounter in our everyday lives are very different from the
independently existent substances that are assumed in Cartesian ontology. This difference is best exposed
using a series of steps, beginning with the ready-to-hand way of being of equipment in use.
During fluent use, equipment is ready-to-hand, which means it is withdrawn from experience. But
equipment is ready-to-hand only until something goes wrong with our absorbed dealing, in which case
equipment becomes conspicuous (Heidegger 1962, 102). Then some level of attention is required to
resolve the problem. In such ‘breakdown’ situations (Winograd and Flores 1987; Dreyfus 1991; Sandberg
and Tsoukas 2011), equipment takes on a certain un-readiness-to-hand but it is not yet encountered as an
object. Dreyfus (1991) argues that when equipment becomes conspicuous, what shows up are certain
aspects of the situation that relate to both the task and equipment, such as “the hammer is too heavy”, but
not an object with properties. This can be seen because “too heavy” refers to its “feel” relative to the task
and user, and is therefore not a context-free property. In this sense the hammer is still being encountered
through practical involvement. It is only when the situation cannot be resolved in a routine way that our
practical involvement is interrupted and we need to bring into view a piece of equipment as an object of
our attention in a present-at-hand way. When we step back from performing our task to inspect the
hammer, we can bring it into view as an object and inspect its properties.
Importantly however, the being of the object in this kind of present-at-hand encounter still depends on
our understanding of its place in the chain of practical involvements. In other words, it is given meaning
by the background of our existing practices (Spinosa et al. 1997; Taylor 2006). The present-at-hand
hammer is not a meaningless wooden shank with a metal blob. And even the properties we bring into
view, when we reflect on the hammer as an object, capture what is relevant and meaningful to us (e.g. is
weight and balance) on the background of our normal practical engagement with the hammer as a
particular in-order-to. In other words, they are properties of a hammer, not of a meaningless substance.
Thus, even present-at-hand objects draw for their being on a background of practical engagement in the
world. In fact, Heidegger points out that it is only through our (tacit) experience of equipment ready-to-
hand in practical activity and the experience of unreadiness-to-hand during breakdown that the
properties of objects could be intelligible to us at all: if the being of objects were completely defined by
context-independent properties, these properties would not have meaning for us. This is what we
experience when we find archeological artifacts that are clearly ‘designed’, but for which we have lost the
practical context to discern what they are for, and hence what they are (e.g. Preston 1998). When such
practices in which the artifact had its place are lost and the ancient holism structure cannot be
reconstructed, all we are left with is an object that once was equipment, the meaning of which however is
lost. This is the closest most people come to encountering man-made objects as Cartesian substances. But
this is certainly not what happens in any everyday encounter, which is what we are interested in.

6
Dasein: being-in-the-world and temporality

Existence, the way of being of Dasein, is to take a stand on one’s being. It is the active, purposeful
involvement in the world for the sake of living one’s life what makes Dasein a particular being, distinct
from other entities (objects and equipment). In fact Heidegger makes it clear that as humans we are
always practically involved with the world (even during thinking) - we are always in a situation and
always involved with the entities that make up our (material and social) world. Heidegger coins the term
being-in-the-world to refer to this most basic condition of humans, which is to always already be in the
world. The term is hyphenated to indicate that the ‘in’ is not the ‘in’ of coffee in a cup, but the ‘in’ of the
involvement of a player in a game.
Heidegger further shows that, because human existence is always oriented towards enacting a particular
identity, every involvement with our world (each situation or instance of being-in-the-world) is always at
once forward oriented (for-the-sake-of being a particular Dasein) and it bringz a particular past (such as
skills for using equipment). Thus Dasein has a holistic, three-fold temporal structure:
1. We are always already-in the world or thrown into involvement: We are always coming from
somewhere and thus bring some motivating perspective (Schatzki 2010) to every involvement. The
consequence is that any dealing with the entities in our world (equipment or objects) is given meaning
by the background of our existing (historical) social practices (Taylor 2006).
2. We are always already-amidst the world, meaning that we are always implicated in our world and
cannot stand outside and view objects or activity from nowhere. We are always involved in the world,
in that humans actively use their world (as equipment) rather than approaching it as an object of
detached reflection.
3. We are always already-ahead, projecting into the possibilities of the world. It is because our use of
equipment is always directed forward to a for-the-sake-of-which that it has practical meaning to us.

Summary of Heidegger’s ontology

Heidegger’s ontology is very different to dualist ontology. His insight is that the world we inhabit is
fundamentally social and holistic and that human existence is inextricably bound up with the holistic
practices into which we grow up and of which we are an inseparable part. Our world – in essence the
constellation of holistic practices we inhabit – is then the background on the basis of which we can
understand ourselves, others, our activities and material entities. In other words, it is the practices we
inhabit that form the ontological ground upon which we know any entities in our world. On this account,
ontologically prior to the being of entities is how we already understand them practically through their
place in our practices and through using them. Table 1 summarizes our outline of Heidegger’s ontology. In
the next section we develop our theory of IT appropriation based on this ontological position.

Table 1. Overview of Heidegger’s ontology

Entity
Dasein: The entity that
inhabits a social world
Equipment: Entities
encountered in fluent use
Objects: Entities
encountered through
attention and reflection
Way of Being
The way of being of Dasein is existence,
which is to have a practical and concerned
stake in a world of practices.
The way of being of equipment is to be
ready-to-hand; withdrawn from
experience as a means (in-order-to)
The way of being of objects is to be
present-at-hand as the focus of reflective
inspection, analysis or contemplation.
Structure
Temporality (being-in-the-world):
Humans are always already-in the
world (past), already-amidst the
world (present), and already-ahead,
projecting toward possibilities of the
world (future).
Involvement holism: Equipment is
always implicated in a holistic
practice via relationships of practical
involvement, bearing on activities and
social identities.
Properties: objects are meaningful
bundles of properties encountered
against a practice background.

7
Theory development
Following these insights, we will now derive our theory of technology appropriation. We do this in two
steps. Firstly, we will use Heidegger’s ontology to characterize the ontological change that takes place by
way of appropriation. We propose that technology appropriation manifests as a change in the ontological
status (the way of being) of the technology in question from present-at-hand object to ready-to-hand
equipment. In other words, we will view appropriation as the phenomenon whereby a technology
encountered initially as an object alien to a practice becomes equipment familiar to and implicated in that
practice. Secondly, we will deduce what has to take place within the practice for such an ontological
change to occur. We will argue that, on this view, appropriation has to be understood as a collective and
active achievement performed by the people involved in the practice. Consequently, appropriation is best
understood as an actively performed form of social sense-making whereby the technology is actively
placed within, and as a result changes the holism structure of the local practice. We will term this process
place-making and employ the three dimensions for analyzing a practice delineated above - material,
praxeological and social - to outline in detail how place-making is achieved.

Interpreting technology appropriation as an object becoming equipment

Assume initially that people in a local practice (e.g. a trade or profession) encounter a technology that is
novel and as yet unknown to that practice. We recognize that this is an extreme case, as people oftentimes
have at least some prior knowledge of the (type of) technology they encounter, but this idealization is
useful for outlining clearly the changes in the way of being of novel technologies. Consistent with the
above analysis, this technology will show itself initially as a present-at-hand bundle of properties - not
however as an independently existent thing of the Cartesian worldview. Further, drawing on our
understanding of Dasein, the object will always be encountered by a person on the basis of already having
a practice-motivated perspective (already-in the world), in a practical and involved way in a situation
(already-amidst), and with an orientation to the potential use of the technology as equipment for the
purposes of their trade or profession (already-ahead). Hence, even as the technology is encountered as an
object with properties, this encounter is oriented against the background of their local practice, which
influences what properties show up for the potential user. We should note that, as a corollary, the
technology will likely not be encountered through the properties it has for its designers or promoters.
On the other hand, if the entity is fully accepted and implicated in the local practice, it will have become
ready-to-hand equipment. This means that it is no longer generally encountered as an object, even though
it can be should the need arise. Rather, it normally withdraws into the background and becomes a normal
and taken-for-granted part of the users’ world, familiarity with which is assumed as part of being a
member of the trade or profession. Thus, it is now part of the holism that renders intelligible other
encounters with entities and events. Consequently, appropriation of the technology can also (and
equivalently) be conceptualized as a move from the foreground, as something to be given meaning as an
object, to the background as a taken-for-granted part of that which gives meaning to other objects. Hence,
technology appropriation becomes a new source of intelligibility within the users’ practice, co-constituting
other entities and matters of concern. The changes to the ontological status of technology in appropriation
are summarized in Table 2.

Table 2. Appropriation as a change in the way of being of a technology.

Before appropriation After appropriation
Being of technology Object with properties Equipment
Way of being Present-at-hand Ready-to-hand
Involvement with Technology is encountered as an object in Technology is used transparently; it is now
technology the foreground to be made sense of part of the practice holism and takes part in
against the background of the practice. making intelligible other events and entities in
the foreground.
Place in awareness Foreground Background

8
Technology appropriation as actively performed Place-making

Having theorized appropriation as a change in the way of being of technology from a present-at-hand
object to ready-to-hand equipment, we are now able to deduce what must happen to bring about this
change. By employing our three dimensions for analyzing a practice (material, praxeological and social)
we spell out in detail how this change can be actively achieved by people collectively appropriating the
technology into their practice. The result of this analysis will be a theory of appropriation, which is
summarized in table 3.
On the material dimension, the new technology, encountered as an object with properties, will initially be
inspected against the background of existing equipment. People’s bodily comportment toward the object
will derive from existing skills in using equipment and people will envision potential uses based on (or in
contrast to) the affordances of existing equipment. In essence, the technology will be inspected as to
whether it ‘feels right’ and whether it is usable. If the object resists and no initial use is possible employing
existing skills, people are likely to reject it. In contrast, when appropriated fully the technology as
equipment will generally be used fluently as a transparent means without cognitive effort, as it withdraws
from attention. Thus we deduce that in order for this change to occur, people have to firstly acquire an
embodied skill for using the new tool and secondly to discover its affordances (its in-orders-to) in relation
to other equipment and activities in the local practice. In other words, the new tool has to be placed within
the local ‘tool kit’ and corresponding ‘skill set’. This will always entail a process of active, embodied
experimentation with the new technology during which discovery and learning will occur.
On the praxeological dimension, the new technology object will initially be evaluated against the logics of
the practice as expressed in the ‘sayings and doings’ (Schatzki 2002) of that practice. People will try to
imaginatively project themselves into new use possibilities with the technology. If people fail to imagine
how they might put the technology to use in serving the practice in an authentic way, the technology is
likely to be rejected. In contrast, when appropriated fully the technology as equipment will have found its
place within the local holism structure, among other equipment and activities within the practice. Using
the technology will have become part of routine activity performance. Thus, we deduce that in order for
this change to occur, the new tool will have to assume its place as an in-order-to in relation to (and
possibly reshaping) existing actions (the for-which) and the purpose of the local practice (its toward-
which). This entails making sense of the appropriate place of the tool within the local holism structure,
with respect to how the new tool will be employed in enacting activities of the practice in new ways. We
would like to note that this process should not be seen as simply matching a new tool to existing tasks;
rather the change that occurs is a holistic one through which that new tool may lead to a reinterpretation
of the ‘doings and sayings’ of the practice in fundamental ways which might lead to the emergence of
entirely new activities.
Finally, on the social dimension, the new technology object will initially be judged as to whether its use is
appropriate against norms within the local practice and whether it is consistent with people’s existing
occupational or professional identity. If people regard using the new technology as ‘not what one does’ it
is likely that the technology will be rejected. On the other hand, when appropriated fully the technology as
equipment will have become normal; it will now be ‘proper’ and will reinforce the professional identities
of people within the local practice. Thus, we deduce that in order for this change to occur, the new tool
must be placed as socially appropriate within the norms and identities of the practice (its for-the-sake-of-
which). This entails that people in the practice will take ownership of the new tool and legitimize its use as
appropriate and ‘what one does’. Given that such change is always holistic - affecting the co-constitutive
relationships between parts of the practice - this means that new norms might emerge and social
identities change and evolve.
We conclude that the change from object to equipment is the result of an actively performed kind of
sense-making (Vidolov and Kelly 2009). However, these activities are not simply evaluative, nor are they
primarily linguistic or discursive (cf. Weick et al. 2005). Rather, they involve embodied activity that
disrupts the existing practice holism, as well as the being of the new and existing tools already in use in
the practice. It is for this reason that we regard the image of place-making appropriate to characterize
technology appropriation, as the existing practice holism must actively ‘make room’ to accommodate the
new technology. This entails changes to the in-orders-to of existing equipment and corresponding skills,

9
changes to the sayings and doings of the practice, and changes to norms and social identities. Ultimately
this also results in changes to how the users’ world is made intelligible in a new way.

Place-making: A process theory of technology appropriation

The two theoretical moves above which draw on Heidegger’s analysis of equipment lead us to propose a
new theory of technology appropriation. We have come to understand technology appropriation as a
collective and active form of sense-making entailing three phases characterized by different kinds of
involvement with the technology: 1) encountering the new technology as an object, 2) active place-
making to accommodate a new tool within the practice, and finally, 3) the transparent functioning of the
technology as equipment for enacting the practice. As such, encountering marks the beginning of
appropriation, place-making brings about appropriation and enacting denotes the accomplishment of
appropriation. Table 3 summarizes our theory of technology appropriation by bringing together our
analysis in terms of the three dimensions with these three phases. The inclusion of praxeological and
social dimensions in the table indicates that the analysis differs markedly from familiar dualist and
cognitively oriented interpretations of this familiar phenomenon.

Table 3. Place-making: A theory of technology appropriation.

Three practice Three kinds of involvement with technology
dimensions
Encountering
Material Object properties are
inspected based on existing
skills and expected
affordances.
Praxeological Object is evaluated against
the sayings and doings of
the existing practice.
Place-making
Acquiring the skill to use the
tool. Discovering what the
tool affords and making
room for the tool among
other tools.
Placing the tool within the
activities, logics and purpose
of the practice.
Enacting
Equipment is a means and
withdraws from attention
during skillful use.
Equipment has its place
among other equipment and
(new) routine activities.

Social Object is judged against Making the tool proper in the Equipment is normal and
existing norms and social practice. Placing the tool in part of social identity.
identities. social identity production.

We would like to note that, while we can usefully conceive of appropriation as a process consisting of
three phases for analytical purposes, appropriation in practice has neither a clearly defined start-point (as
some pre-understanding of a new technology always exists) nor end-point (as the placing and displacing
of equipment is an ongoing activity). Equally, while we have separated types of involvement with
technology analytically, using the three dimensions derived from Heidegger’s analysis of equipment, these
involvements are always holistic activities that are not typically experienced by users as so clearly
separated.

Discussion
We have argued that technology appropriation (the becoming of equipment) happens by way of what we
have termed actively performed place-making. Appropriation as place-making is not a series of discrete
decisions but extends over time as it disrupts an existing practice by way of active experimentation,
conversation and negotiation. Further, place-making is not a sequence of discrete events conceived as
changes of state, as depicted in so-called “weak process” theories (Van de Ven and Poole 2005). First,
there is no clear-cut beginning to it. Practitioners will typically have some level of familiarity with this or
similar technology prior to physical encounter and this contributes already to placing. Hence, place-
making is always historical. Second, the becoming of equipment does not have any end point. It continues
to influence further changes through the altered meanings that it provides as part of a new background
understanding. Additionally, there is no traditional causal process chain expressed in our theory. Rather
what changes is a set of mutually dependent, practically enacted, constitutive relations that make up the

10
equipment holism. The circle of mutually co-constituting parts of the involvement holism is altered to
accommodate the new equipment. Consequently, place-making should properly be conceived of as a
“strong process” theory (Chia and Langley 2004; Tsoukas 2005). Heidegger’s ontology, through its
grounding in the essential temporality of Dasein’s being-in-the-world can be viewed as a process ontology
(Seibt 2013). The stages depicted in Table 3 are therefore not discrete causal changes of state as would be
conceived using Cartesian ontology, but merely analytical episodes in the low-level on-going processes of
the collective practice as it confronts the new technology.
Second, place making challenges the individual, human-centered locus of agency of technology adoption
accounts of the usual kind. Place-making is a collective activity, which means the individual human is not
the sole causal agent in this appropriation story. According to Heidegger’s ontology, appropriation always
has to be a social activity because the for-the-sake-of-which of equipment is necessarily a social identity.
Thus, it is always a practice that meets a technology through the individual agent. Consequently, our
theory can equally be applied to individuals accepting technologies against general life-practices as well as
professional communities appropriating a technology for specific professional practices.
Finally, we argue that, as well as being inherently social, appropriation also draws on material agency
(Pickering 1995) because place-making depends on the material technology as much as on the social
projects of the practice, which is to say that the equipment holism is inherently socio-material (as
expressed in the structure of the involvement holism). Table 4 characterizes place-making compared to
cognitivist/decision-oriented conceptions of change.

Table 4. Characteristics of technology appropriation as place-making

Characteristics Technology appropriation is not… Rather, it is…
Active … (simply) a cognitive interpretation of … actively making the technology a practical means for
the technology the practice
Practical … (simply) learning how to use the … practical experimentation and adjustments to find
technology uses
Social … an individual decision … (implicitly or explicitly) a collective accomplishment
Becoming … a one time or repeated decision to use … extended in time because it involves disruption to
practices
Ongoing … a process with a definite start or end … a continuous becoming as the practice evolves over
point time
Holistic … (simply) a reconfiguration of an … a reconfiguration of the involvement holism of the
individual technology practice in question
Identity … (simply) making rules for its use … finding its implication for a social identity or way of
producing life

Conclusion
We use Heidegger’s notion of equipment and ways of being to formulate a process theory of technology
appropriation. We argue that when technologies are appropriated into practice they change their way of
being from a present-at-hand object encountered as a bundle of features to a ready-to-hand means for the
enterprise of the practice, captured in the Heidegger’s holistic notion of equipment. Equivalently, the
technology moves from the foreground as an object inspected and talked about against an existing
practice background, to implicated in the background where it takes part in making intelligible other
entities and events and conversations in the foreground. We have characterized the way in which this
transformation happens as a process of actively performed place-making.
We contribute to the literature a new process theory of appropriation that differs from mainstream
theories in IS and OMS for several reasons. Firstly, our theory is built on an alternative ontological
grounding. As a result, we theorize about the becoming of holistic entities and not about interactions
between self-sufficient entities and their properties. The concepts employed are parts and wholes rather
than things and properties. Secondly, rather than aiming to explain what causes appropriation or to
predict whether appropriation will occur (or not), our theory aims to illuminate the conditions for

11
appropriation to unfold, the ways in which appropriation happens and how it is experienced. Thirdly,
rather than theorizing appropriation from a standpoint outside the practice, we theorize what it is like to
experience and take part in appropriating technology within a practice.
Against existing literature, our study contributes by exposing the time-extended and active nature of
appropriation, which demonstrates that putting technology to use cannot be modeled as simple decisions
of technology acceptance (cf. Davis and Bagozzi 1989; Venkatesh et al. 2003). We further clarify existing
ideas about how technology changes ontologically in appropriation (cf. Orlikowski 2000; Carroll et al.
2002). In doing so, the holistic notion of practice, grounded in Heidegger’s ontology, offers a way to
capture change resulting from appropriation without the need to locate changes in the properties of one
or other of the technology or the user entity (cf. DeSanctis and Poole 1994; Mendoza et al. 2010).
Moreover, we demonstrate that the changes to practice are neither simply cognitive or discursive (cf.
Weick et al. 2005), nor are they the sole result of human agency. Rather, place-making is always practical,
socio-material and performative (Barad 2007), and as such contributes to a post-humanist understanding
of agency (Pickering 1995; Latour 2005; Introna 2007). Given that Heidegger’s work and the emerging
stream of sociomateriality research (Leonardi and Barley 2010; Orlikowski 2010) share similar
ontological commitments, our work represents a detailed example of a non-dualist and sociomaterial
approach to the study of technology.

References
Barad, K. 2007. Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and
Meaning. Durham: Duke University Press.
Barley, S.R. 1988. "1988. Technology, Power, and the Social Organization of Work.," Res. Soc. Organ. (6),
pp. 33-80.
Blattner, W. 2006. Heidegger’s ’Being and Time:’ a Reader’s Guide. London: Continuum Books.
Budde, R., and Züllighoven, H. 1992. "Software Tools in a Programming Workshop," in Software
Development and Reality Construction, C. Floyd, H. Züllighoven, R. Budde and R. Keil-Slawik
(eds.). Berlin: Springer Verlag, pp. 252-268.
Bunge, M. 1977. Treatise on Basic Philosophy: Volume 3: Ontology I: The Furniture of the World.
Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel Publishing Company.
Carroll, J., Howard, S., Peck, J., and Murphy, J. 2002. "A Field Study of Perceptions and Use of Mobile
Telephones by 16 to 22 Year Olds," Journal of Information Technology Theory and Application
(JITTA) (4:2), pp. 49-62.
Chia, R., and Langley, A. 2004. "The First Organization Studies Summer Workshop on Theorizing Process
in Organizational Research. June 12–13 2005, Santorini, Greece: Call for Papers." from
http://www.egosnet.org/journal/os_summer_workshop.html
Ciborra, C., and Willcocks, L. 2006. "The Mind or the Heart? It Depends on the (Definition of) Situation,"
Journal of Information Technology (21:3), pp. 129-139.
Davis, F., and Bagozzi, R. 1989. "User Acceptance of Computer Technology: A Comparison of Two
Theoretical Models," Management science (35:8), pp. 982-1003.
Dennis, A.R., Wixom, B.H., and Vandenberg, R.J. 2001. "Understanding Fit and Appropriation Effects in
Group Support Systems Via Meta-Analysis," MIS Quarterly (25:2), pp. 167-193.
DeSanctis, G., and Poole, M.S. 1994. "Capturing the Complexity in Advanced Technology Use: Adaptive
Structuration Theory," Organization Science (5:2), pp. 121-147.
Descartes, R. 1644, 2010. The Principles of Philosophy. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing.
Dourish, P. 2001. Where the Action Is: The Foundations of Embodied Interaction / Paul Dourish.
Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Dreyfus, H., and Wrathall, M. 2008. A Companion to Heidegger (Blackwell Companions to Philosophy).
Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
Dreyfus, H.L. 1991. Being-in-the-World: A Commentary on Heidegger's Being and Time, Division I /
Hubert L. Dreyfus. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Dreyfus, H.L. 2007. "Philosophy 185 Heidegger (Podcast)." University of California, from
http://webcast.berkeley.edu/course_details.php?seriesid=1906978475
Ehn, P. 1990. Work-Oriented Design of Computer Artifacts. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

12
Esfeld, M. 2001. Holism in Philosophy of Mind and Philosophy of Physics. Dordrecht, Holland: Springer
Science and Business Media.
Giddens, A. 1984. The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structure. Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press.
Goodhue, D.L., and Thompson, R.L. 1995. "Task-Technology Fit and Individual Performance," MIS
Quarterly (19:2), pp. 213-236.
Harman, G. 2010. "Technology, Objects and Things in Heidegger," Cambridge Journal of Economics
(34:1), pp. 17-25.
Heidegger, M. 1927. Sein Und Zeit. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.
Heidegger, M. 1962. Being and Time. Translated by John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson. London:
SCM Press.
Hume, D. 1740, 2009. A Treatise of Human Nature. Seaside, OR: Watchmaker Publishing.
Introna, L.D. 1997. Management, Information and Power. Houndmills: MacMillian Press.
Introna, L.D. 2007. "Towards a Post-Human Intra-Actional Account of Sociomaterial Agency (and
Morality)," in: Moral Agency and Technical Artefacts Workshop. The Hague: Institute for
Advanced Study.
Jones, M., Orlikowski, W.J., and Munir, K. 2004. "Structuration Theory and Information Systems: A
Critical Reappraisal," in Social Theory and Philosophy for Information Systems, J. Mingers and
L. Willcocks (eds.). Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, pp. 297-328.
Latour, B. 2005. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Leonardi, P., and Barley, S. 2010. "What's under Construction Here? Social Action, Materiality, and
Power in Constructivist Studies of Technology and Organizing," The Academy of Management
Annals (4:1), pp. 1-51.
Majchrzak, A., Rice, R.E., Malhotra, A., King, N., and Ba, S. 2000. "Technology Adaptation: The Case of a
Computer-Supported Inter-Organizational Virtual Team," MIS Quarterly (24:4), pp. 569-600.
Markus, M.L., and Silver, S.M. 2008. "A Foundation for the Study of It Effects: A New Look at Desanctis
and Poole’s Concepts of Structural Features and Spirit," Journal of the Association for
Information Systems (9:10/11), pp. 609-632.
McAfee, A. 2009. Enterprise 2.0: New Collaborative Tools for Your Organization's Toughest Challenges.
Boston: McGraw-Hill Professional.
Mendoza, A., Carroll, J., and Stern, L. 2010. "Software Apprpriation over Time: From Adoption to
Stabilization and Beyond," Australiasian Journal of Information Systems (16:2), pp. 5-23.
Mulhall, S. 2005. Heidegger and Being and Time, Second Edition 2nd Ed. London: Routledge.
Nicolini, D. 2012. Practice Theory, Work, and Organization: An Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Orlikowski, W.J. 2000. "Using Technology and Constituting Structures: A Practice Lens for Studying
Technology in Organizations," Organization Science (11:4), pp. 404-428.
Orlikowski, W.J. 2010. "The Sociomateriality of Organisational Life: Considering Technology in
Management Research," Cambridge Journal of Economics (34:1), pp. 125-141.
Orlikowski, W.J., and Scott, S.V. 2008. "Sociomateriality: Challenging the Separation of Technology,
Work and Organization," The Academy of Management Annals (2:1), pp. 433-474.
Pickering, A. 1995. The Mangle of Practice: Time, Agency, and Science Chicago: University Of Chicago
Press.
Porra, J. 1999. "Colonial Systems," Information Systems Research (10:1), pp. 38-69.
Preston, B. 1998. "Cognition and Tool Use," Mind and Language (13:4), pp. 513-547.
Reckwitz, A. 2002. "Toward a Theory of Social Practice -- a Development in Culturalist Theorizing,"
European Journal of Social Theory (5:2), pp. 243-263.
Reimers, K., Johnston, R.B., and Klein, S. 2010a. "The Difficulty of Studying Inter-Organisational Is
Phenomena on Large Scales: Critical Reflections on a Research Journey," Electronic Markets
(20), pp. 229-240.
Reimers, K., Johnston, R.B., and Klein, S. 2010b. "Toward a Theory of Iois Variance: A New Framework
for Studying Interorganisational Information Systems," International Journal of Information
System Technologies and Applications (1:3), pp. 36-56.
Riemer, K., and Johnston, R.B. 2011. "Artifact or Equipment? Rethinking the Core of Is Using Heidegger’s
Ways of Being," in: 32nd International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS). Shanghai, 7
Dec 2011.

13
Riemer, K., and Johnston, R.B. 2013. "Rethinking the Place of the Artefact in Is Using Heidegger's
Analysis of Equipment," European Journal of Information Systems), pp. advance online
publication, 26 March 2013; doi:2010.1057/ejis.2013.2015.
Sandberg, J., and Tsoukas, H. 2011. "Grasping the Logic of Practice: Theorizing through Practical
Rationality," Academy of Management Review (36:2), pp. 338-360.
Scada, J. 2004. Cartesian Metaphysics: The Scholastic Origins of Modern Philosophy. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Schatzki, T. 2002. The Site of the Social: A Philosophical Account of the Constitution of Social Life and
Change. Penn State University Press.
Schatzki, T.R. 2010. The Timespace of Activity. Lanthan Maryland: Lexicon Books.
Seibt, J. 2013. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Fall Edition. Stanford, CA: Stanford University.
Spinosa, C., Flores, F., and Dreyfus, H.l. 1997. Disclosing New Worlds: Entrepreneurship, Democratic
Action, and the Cultivation of Solidarity. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Stair, R., Moisiadis, F., Genrich, R., and Reynolds, G. 2011. Principles of Information Systems. South
Melbourne: Cengage Learning.
Sutton, D.C. 2001. "What Is Knowledge and Can It Be Managed," European Journal of Information
Systems (10), pp. 80-88.
Taylor, C. 2006. "Engaged Agency and Background in Heidegger," in The Cambridge Companion to
Heidegger (2nd Ed), C.B. Guignon (ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 202-221.
Tsoukas, H. 2005. Complex Knowledge: Studies in Organizational Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Turban, E., and Volonino, L. 2011. Information Technology for Management. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley
& Sons.
Turner, P. 2005. "Affordance as Context," Interacting with computers (17:6), pp. 787-800.
Van de Ven, A., and Poole, M.S. 2005. "Alternative Approaches for Studying Organisational Change,"
Organisation Studies (26:9), pp. 1377-1404.
Venkatesh, V., Morris, M.G., Davis, G.B., and Davis, F.D. 2003. "User Acceptance of Information
Technology: Toward a Unified View," MIS Quarterly (27:3), pp. 425-478.
Vidolov, S., and Kelly, S. 2009. "Distributed Communication as Collective Socio- Material Sensemaking in
Global Software Work," Thirtieth International Conference on Information Systems Phoenix,
Arizona.
Wand, Y., and Weber, R. 1995. "On the Deep Structure of Information Systems," Information Systems
Journal (5:3), pp. 203-223.
Weber, R. 1997. Ontological Foundations of Information Systems. Blackburn Australia: Buscombe
Vicprint.
Weber, R. 2012. "Evaluating and Developing Theories in the Information Systems Discipline," Journal of
the Association of Information Systems (13:2), pp. 1-30.
Weick, K.E., Sutcliffe, K.M., and Obstfeld, D. 2005. "Organizing and the Process of Sensemaking,"
Organization Science (16:4), pp. 409-421.
Wenger, E. 1998. Communities of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Winograd, T. 1995. "Heidegger and the Design of Computer Systems," in Technology and the Politics of
Knowledge, A. Feenberg and A. Hannay (eds.). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Winograd, T., and Flores, F. 1987. Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New Foundation for
Design. Reading: Addison-Wesley.

14