Replacing the Handshake with Automated Rules. An exploration of the effects of multi-role performativity during organizational change on the change agent

Abstract

This is an auto/ethnographic account of one organization and one person as we concurrently moved thru a process of IT driven planned organizational change. The purpose of the study is to explain how the change agent is affected by the experience of leading change. Using actor-network theory and a polyphonic approach, I present a multi-voiced, multi-actor account of the social network in situ and trace how the various actors engaged with one another during the organizational change process. I reflect upon my own multi-role performativity when acting in the role of the internal change agent next to my daily job roles and explore the effects on both me and the network; which identifies that a new actor network has been created. Finally, a multi-voiced exploration of myself is presented which traces my evolution from researcher to auto/ethnographer, further demonstrating the effects of multi-role performativity on the human actor. The study demonstrates that the effects of organizational change on both the social network and the actors within the network cannot be foreseen. Furthermore, in combining the use of Actor Network Theory and auto-ethnography, the study provides new insights into the effects of performance on the human actor within a socio-technical network, which is an unexplored dimension within the field of organizational change.