Knowledge, Decisions, and Norms: A Framework for Studying the Structuration of Spreadsheets in Social Organizations

Abstract

This article applies Anthony Giddens’ theory of structuration to analyze how digital spreadsheet technologies both produce and are the products of structures that reinforce and transform the institutionalized routine practices of workers in social organizations from which the effects of power flow. Specifically, it identifies the built-in capabilities and features of spreadsheet applications that are reconfigured to embed organizational structures within them. A framework is proposed to explain the ways spreadsheets are assembled to embody three general forms of modalities central to Structuration Theory: (1) interpretive schemes, (2) facilities, and (3) norms. The proposed framework characterizes specific spreadsheet properties by their roles in enabling how these structural modalities construct realities with digital information that predetermine organizational thinking and doing. Illustrations of spreadsheets-in-practice are given as evidence of how digital spreadsheets reinforce and change organizational structures through their widespread diffusion and use.

Keywords

• Anthony Giddens
• spreadsheets
• information systems
• structuration theory
• modalities
• norms