Habitus, Resistance, and Change: Some Thoughts on Technology Implementation Practice

Drawing on Bourdieu’s (1977) theory of practice and Pickering’s (1995) mangle of practice, we investigate how an implementation of an enterprise-wide technology was being practiced. Based on an ethnographic examination in a software manufacturing organization, we present four episodes of practice that are related to two primary challenges: the lack of skilled staff and the lack of a shared image of the to-be developed system. The episodes are analyzed and discussed through a practice-lens but in doing this we focus on two somewhat distinctive practice views: one view which considers habitual practice that lead to reproducing and the other which considers how practice involves accommodations in response to resistance. Combining these two views, our interest is to understand how and when practices reinforce or change routines in technology implementation. The findings indicate the complex relationships among reproducing and accommodation practices in relation to objects, occupational status, and goal ambiguity