Understanding Business Process Change Failure: An Actor-Network Perspective

TLDR

The study applies actor‑network theory to analyze the sequence of events that led to business process change failure at a U.S. telecommunications firm. The authors use ANT concepts to interpret the event sequence that caused the BPC failure. ANT identifies errors in problematization, parallel translation, betrayal, and irreversible inscription of interests as key contributors to BPC failure, and the study presents nine abstraction statements and suggests that ANT can help practitioners anticipate and manage emergent complexities in sociotechnical BPC initiatives.

Abstract

Abstract In this paper, we use concepts from actor-network theory (ANT) to interpret the sequence of events that led to business process change (BPC) failure at a telecommunications company in the United States. Through our intensive examination of the BPC initiative, we find that a number of issues suggested by ANT, such as errors in problematization, parallel translation, betrayal, and irreversible inscription of interests, contributed significantly to the failure. We provide nine abstraction statements capturing the essence of our findings in a concrete form. The larger implication of our study is that, for sociotechnical phenomena such as BPC with significant political components, an ANT-informed understanding can enable practitioners to better anticipate and cope with emergent complexities. Keywords: actor-network theorybusiness process changecase studyinformation systems implementationinformation systems politicsinterpretive researchorganizational changepowerreengineeringsocial construction of technology