When cost-efficient technologies meet politics: a case study of radical wireless network implementation

Wenshin Chen, David Bennett

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    Abstract

    Cost efficiency has been a dominant perspective in the traditional IT literature. However, in complex technology and business environment, the widely recognized cost efficient assumption of information technology has been increasingly challenged. Drawing from a case study of wireless network implementation situated in a politically sensitive workplace, this paper provided practice insights for IT managers in today’s networked economy. More specifically, stories experienced in the case study illustrated that despite well-calculated cost efficiency of wireless network infrastructure, the radical implementation process in the case organization encountered enormous challenges and opposition due to the fact that administrators failed to consider various stakeholders’ positions and interests. Eventually, the implementation objectives and outcome were considerably undermined. Implications from this empirical case research reemphasized the significance of understanding political forces situated in any business environment where different stakeholders hold conflicting interests. Lessons learned from the case story further encouraged IT managers and policy makers to better strategize emerging information technology in general and wireless networks in particular as the whole global society and business environment are increasingly facing an emerging wireless world.
    Original languageEnglish
    Article number119470
    Number of pages12
    JournalIBIMA Communications
    Volume2010
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2010

    Bibliographical note

    Copyright © 2010 Wenshin Chen and David Bennett. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License unported 3.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that original work is properly cited. Contact author: Wenshin Chen e–mail: [email protected]

    Keywords

    • case study
    • wireless network
    • information technology
    • politics

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'When cost-efficient technologies meet politics: a case study of radical wireless network implementation'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this