Power in IT Renewal: How Power Dynamics Shape the Trajectory of Large-Scale System Replacements
Type: article
Abstract: IT renewal, replacing an organization’s core digital system while the legacy system remains operational, presents organizations with challenges distinctive from greenfield system development. This study draws on Clegg’s Circuits of Power framework to understand these challenges. Through a longitudinal case study at a government organization, we examine how power flows through episodic decisions, shared meanings, and infrastructural arrangements. We find that renewal directions change when these circuits converge around obligatory passage points; nodes through which subsequent actions must pass. External interventions such as regulatory deadlines and bureaucratic external assessments reshape the rules of meaning under which internal claims are heard, enabling such convergences to form. The paper extends IT renewal theory by showing how power operates through circuit convergence as a mechanism shaping which renewal paths persist.
Institution: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Language: English
Subfield: Management Information Systems
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7222988561