Transforming Municipal Governance in Global Context: A Case Study of the Dialectics of Social Change

Daniel Robey and Jonny Holmström

Journal of Global Information Technology Management, 2001, vol. 4, issue 4, 19-31

Abstract: This paper presents a social analysis of the development and use of information technology to support the governance process in the municipal organization of Umeå, Sweden. The technology was intended to monitor and scrutinize organizational activities by paying closer attention to the resources required for public programs. Through its use, municipal managers hoped to increase the visibility of the economic consequences of decisions to fund particular social programs. In this paper, we analyze the implementation of the system at the organizational and institutional levels of social analyses. Employing a dialectic approach, which examines forces promoting and opposing social change, we explain how the tool was easily implemented in the organization but opposed by the community's citizens. Although the information system reinforced a new economic discourse and helped to make organizational members more accountable for their actions, the citizens protested the effects of the new economic discourse. By focusing simultaneously upon organizational and institutional influences, we can understand more completely how global pressures translate into organizational and societal change.

Date: 2001
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DOI: 10.1080/1097198X.2001.10856312

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