Hospitality and mood : enriching Ciborra's metaphor to understand mobile technology implementation on the police front-line

Coleman, EC

Abstract

This thesis aims to explore the role of feelings, context of work, and the technology itself in
understanding individual level responses to an organisational level IT implementation process.
Ciborra's hospitality metaphor is used as a theoretical lens to explore the introduction of
mobile hand held devices into a police front-line context. This thesis argues that technology
users are not cognitive robots; a focus on feelings helps to obtain a richer understanding of
users' responses to IT implementation.
This research uses an interpretivist methodology, consisting of qualitative inquiry in the form
of interviews and focus groups within three police forces. The thesis considers users' prior
expectations and post-receipt experiences of the device. Concerns raised included increased
vulnerability through the need to disengage from the physical environment to view the device
screen, and increased levels of monitoring. Looking beyond the technology's affordances,
there was lack of confidence in the project aims and roll out process, and mistrust regarding
the project motivation. Ambivalent feelings led to four individual responses to device
implementation; resistance, compliance, indifference, and change over time. The identification
of varied individual responses allows critique of the hospitality metaphor on the grounds of
inherent assumptions; the assumption of initial compliance, the assumption of two equal status
actors, and the assumption that the technology 'matters'.
The thesis will be of value to IS implementation and resistance researchers and to practitioners
through highlighting the importance of understanding that users are not cognitive robots who
will accept and use a technology in a perfunctory fashion, of making promises which can be
delivered, understanding that development in a mobile context requires consideration of the
varying environments of use which would not be necessary in a static context, and asserting
that to obtain a holistic view of the implementation process, context of work, technology, and
feelings must be considered.

Citation

Coleman, E. Hospitality and mood : enriching Ciborra's metaphor to understand mobile technology implementation on the police front-line. (Thesis). University of Salford

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Jul 28, 2021
• Award Date: Apr 1, 2012