The Osmosis of Ideas: An Analysis of the Integrated Approach to IT Management from a Translation Theory Perspective

Abstract

Compared to the critical success factors approach, Translation Theory, which is based on Callon/Latour's Actor-network Theory, presents an innovative and inspiring perspective of analyzing a particular management fashion: the so-called Integrated Approach to IT Management. We argue that the `translation' of this vision on IT management into the organizational discourse resembles more the process of `osmosis' than it does the process of `cloning'. Actors do not simply emulate new ideas. The vision must fight its way through a `semipermeable organizational membrane', consisting of existing power networks, organizational culture and subcultures. As a result, during ongoing processes of inter-mingling and (re)interpreting concepts and practices, the organization slowly changes towards the realization of only a few of the core ideas of the new approach. Translation often takes place unintentionally as part of a power-based process of implicit meaning and identity formation. We develop a simple conceptual framework of translation, while focusing on the translation processes of alignment, enrolment, congealment and hegemonic power. We illustrate our analysis by exploring PROMIS, a particular application of the Integrated Approach, which was implemented within a bank organization in the Netherlands.