Using ANT to Guide Technological Adoption

Abstract

In this article, the authors present the adoption and use of school management software in Victoria, Australia as an example of the use of actor-network theory to explain technological adoption. It examines three examples of school management software and identifies the actors and interactions relating to each of these. The use of three cases in the same environment provides an interesting insight possible by the comparison across the cases. The main goal of the article is to identify and analyse the factors that influence decisions to adopt this software and, once adopted, to determine how it might be used. Like other socio-technical research, in this case one has to consider the interactions between various human and non-human actors, and these are examined in the article. The article also looks at how an ANT analysis might be useful in guiding and facilitating such adoption in the future.