Internal Diffusion Process

Whereas theorization is concerned with how new IT innovations are defined and legitimated within an industrial field, I propose that intra-organisational rhetorical legitimation is concerned with how IT theorizations are subsequently tailored, filtered and reformed as are aligned with institutionally plural front- line work activities and behaviours. So far I have outlined the key legitimation, institutional and rhetorical components of the rhetorical legitimation model, and highlighted how these components (Table 3.2) may be instrumentally leveraged by interest driven institutional actors, such as institutional entrepreneurs (Zilber, 2006; Røvik, 2011; Boxenbaum and Battilana, 2005). My intention in concluding this chapter is to outline how these components fit together into a holistic conceptual model. This model, outlined in Figure 3.1 is based on recent studies in the translation tradition’s linguistic turn, where rhetorical legitimation dynamics are evident (Reay et al., 2013; Nielsen, Mathiassen and Newell, 2014; Scarbrough, Robertson and Swan, 2015; Røvik, 2011; Wang and Swanson, 2007).

The rhetorical diffusion process is triggered when an organisation decides to adopt a “fashionable” or proven innovation from the stock of circulating field level innovation ideas in order to solve a problem or satisfy a business need (Greenwood, Suddaby and Hinings, 2002). Organisations immediate response will be to elaborate the innovation’s organizing vision in a way that aligns the technology to overall organisational needs (organisational alignment) (Nielsen, Mathiassen and Newell, 2014).

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Figure 3.1 Conceptual Model of Internal Diffusion Process

As illustrated in Figure 3.1, the innovation’s theorized label (e.g. “Green IT”, “Enterprise 2.0”) is firstly unpacked into an organisational level organising vision that serves as a set of standard practices and language for generating collective meaning making and legitimacy, and thus, standardizing the innovation according to organisational objectives (Swanson and Ramiller, 1997; Greenwood, Suddaby and Hinings, 2002). For example, although the ESN organising vision is relatively unstable because of its novelty, studies show that ESNs embrace an “ideology of openness” that promotes features and practices that enable engagement rather than disengagement, sharing rather than control and visibility

rather than invisibility (Gibbs, Rozaidi and Eisenberg, 2013; Treem and Leonardi, 2012; Vaast and Kaganer, 2013). Entrepreneurial actors elaborate this vision in their communications to align their ideas for appropriating ESN with the common interests of their immediate audience. Relatively good alignment with a particular audience constitutes a distinct infusion, or instance of limited diffusion. For example, ‘naming’ the newly- introduced innovation using transient material artifacts like vision statements, presentations and early prototypes creates ‘frames of comparability’ that define the boundaries of how the IT innovation will be developed, implemented and used, and thus facilitates its rhetorical legitimation throughout the organisation (Røvik, 2011; T. Morris and Lancaster, 2006; Porac, Ventresca and Mishina, 2002).

Here, institutional logics are especially important. The institutions embedded in newly- introduced innovations (Gosain, 2004; Scott, 2008), and the institutions in which organizational actors (entrepreneurs and audience) are embedded, shape their interests and objectives, and how they elaborate the innovation’s vision in their activities and communications (Thornton and Ocasio, 2008; Greenwood et al., 2010). If for example ESN was introduced into an institutionally plural context, the “open” logic embedded in ESN can either be in conflict or congruent with incumbent organisational logics that shape front-line practices across specific communities of actors. Accordingly, entrepreneurs targeting different audiences will often adopt competing ideas for appropriating ESN, and will mobilize competing communications to narrow the institutional misalignments between the technology and the target audience.

In cases where competing entrepreneurs elaborate different “names” or justifications for IT usage, ‘framing contestations’, marked by complex observable rhetorical justifications for legitimacy takes center stage. Contested justifications often depart from their original form as repeated rhetorical contestation eventually results in some ontological features (IT ontology) gaining legitimacy and rising to the forefront at the expense of others (Nielsen, Mathiassen and Newell, 2014; Sahlin and Wedlin,

2008). Over time, negotiated ontological features that survive this competition may become organisational imperatives and examples of good practices, and transform the original organisational level vision and logic (technological alignment).

The outcomes of rhetorical contests depend on how well entrepreneurs use different argument types and structures to promote the pragmatic and moral value (see Table 3.2) of more robust material practices and artifacts, such as training programmes, installed hardware and software, and work process changes(Nielsen, Mathiassen and Newell, 2014). It is typical for proponents of an idea to use rhetoric that firstly frames the idea as a call to action against a commonly accepted organisational failing in order to gain pragmatic legitimacy, and secondly aligns justifications for the proposed solution with the prevailing normative order, to gain moral legitimacy (Suchman, 1995). Over time, the collapse of discourse around the IT ontology is an indication that it is gaining cognitive legitimacy and becoming more institutionalized (Czarniawska, 2009; Suchman, 1995; Greenwood, Suddaby and Hinings, 2002). More often than not, the legitimated IT ontology is inevitably different from the initial idea (Orlikowski, 2000).

To conclude, the work in this chapter details the role of rhetoric and legitimation in diffusion through a model of institutionally embedded rhetorical legitimation (Green, 2004; Green, Li and Nohria, 2009; Harmon, Green and Goodnight, 2014; Berente and Yoo, 2012). This model views internal IT diffusion as a process whereby the symbolic and material dimensions of a newly- introduced digital innovation (IT ontology) and/or the constellation of institutional logics in which it is embedded, become appropriate or desirable to a community of organisational actors (Greenwood, 2002; Johnson et al, 2006; Harmon, Green and Goodnight, 2014). In this way intra-organisational rhetorical legitimation is conceptualized as an axiomatic micro-process of translation and is vital to understanding how and why an IT innovation is translated in a particular way, in different institutional contexts.