Indeterminacy and the Discourse of Inevitability in International Technology Management

• In Event: New Communication Technologies and Organizational Structuring

Abstract

In multinational corporations, the implementation of a new technology is often accompanied with technologically deterministic discourse about how people should use the new technology, and how the technology will standardize work across local units. Rather than treat this discourse as empirically inaccurate or ill-informed, this paper considers what effect technologically deterministic rhetoric might have on the process of technology implementation. I argue that deterministic discourse creates an ideological orientation toward technological change called a Discourse of inevitability, which makes the fundamentally indeterminate relationship between technology and culture appear as though it must be determinate. The implications of the article concern the need for researchers to take into account how institutionalized images of technology can be used discursively to create outcomes in multi-national corporations and how such discourse can promote the interests of powerful actors while marginalizing others.

Author

• Paul Leonardi, Stanford University