Alignment and Articulation Work in Computer Mediated Organization

Abstract The concept of ‘alignment’ has been commonly used to refer to the re-organizations of the world deemed necessary in order to accommodate the workings of complex technological systems. However, such re-organizations also, and inevitably, dis-organize the settings where such technologies are deployed. This, in turn, incites further orderings – and thus further dis-orderings. Complex (if often invisible) patterns of ‘articulation work’ typically emerge in order to handle such tensions. The article sets out to highlight the patterns of articulation work associated with the corporate ‘digital transformations’ and alignments enacted around Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) technologies in a multinational glass manufacturing company. Our investigation shows how technologically mediated order and disorder, organization and disorganization, are both opposed and parasitic upon one another.