Organizational assimilation of technology in a sunrise industry: a story of successes and failures

Abstract

The study analyzes the contextual factors impacting technology assimilation in an environment that is characterized by macro-economic changes, rapid technological innovations, emerging industry practices and shifting organizational contexts. Stones’ strong structuration theory (SST), a refinement of Giddens’ structuration theory, is used as the theoretical lens for studying the technology assimilation process. SST is used to analyze the structuration process at the micro-level and its impact on the structures at the meso/macro-level. In addition, actor network theory (ANT) is used to analyze the role of heterogeneous actors in altering the structures as the actor network adapts to the technological innovations and changing contexts.