Abstract
AbstractIn globally distributed environments, gaps exist between an organisational‐level decision to migrate IT‐enabled tasks and the actual execution of strategy since a high‐level consensus does not always specify the precise sequencing and pacing of task migration in detail. This absence of operational‐level detailing can trigger status‐led enactments of power. Drawing on a qualitative case study of a distributed finance function in a global logistics firm, this paper explores how high‐status business units (BU) frame their task migration actions and contrasts it with how a low‐status support unit frames and accounts for the actions of high‐status BUs. The findings show how high‐status BUs frame their own actions as protecting, supporting and monitoring the migrated tasks while the low‐status support unit frames the same set of actions as resisting, interfering and hypercriticizing. Theoretically, the paper suggests that during the implementation of task migration strategies, frames deployed by a low‐status unit considers its weaker position of power and serves to neutralise conflict with the more powerful, higher‐status unit.
Highlights
IS research has taken significant interest in the migration of tasks across firm and national boundaries
The findings show how high-status business unit (BU) frame their own actions as a case of protecting, offering support and monitoring the migrated tasks while the low-status support unit frames the same set of actions as a sign of resistance, interference and hypercriticism
Our research was based in the distributed finance function of a global logistics firm, where tasks have been migrated from multiple high-status onshore BUs to a low-status nearshore shared service unit (SSU), which provide a range of support services back to the BUs
Summary
IS research has taken significant interest in the migration of tasks across firm and national boundaries. The framings of a low-status unit and the accompanying attributions (ie, diagnoses of the fundamental issues and the quest for a ‘cause’ or ‘blame’), though not logical in an objective sense, serves as a useful tool to achieve preferable outcomes such as avoiding conflict and making sense of uncomfortable situations (cf Försterling, 2001; Harvey et al, 2014) We advance these arguments through the case of a distributed finance function in a global logistics firm where high-status BUs and a low-status shared service unit (SSU) negotiated the implementation of an organisational task migration strategy
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