Information technology usages and the dissolution of social control: The appropriation of a collaborative database

Abstract

This research follows a body of work aimed at exploring new forms of mutual borrowing between information technology and control. Studying what the uses of information technologies for control imply also informs organizational behaviors in the current digital era. We are particularly interested in the evolution of social control through the use of a collaborative database in a new product development setting. An analytic tool based on a literature review is developed to enable the identification of social control practices. The case here studied suggests that the existing way of organizing is renegotiated through reciprocal adjustments that take place following the storage and accessibility of work outputs in the database. These adjustments, driven in particular by the constitution of indirect supervision, reflect a dissolution of the foundations of social control exercised by the group over individuals. This result complements the growing body of empirical evidence on the emergence of a new socio-material form of control.