Overlapping logics and institutional alignment spaces: Mapping the organisational trajectory of an IS innovation

Institutional IS research focuses on explaining IS adoption depending on its alignment with a set of coherent institutional pressures. In contrast, institutional logics research emphasises the insti-tutional complex and contested nature of most organisational contexts where multiple and often divergent institutional logics interact to shape organisational action. Adopting an institutional logic perspective and relying on an in-depth case study of the development and implementation of a student led visualisation tool to display course information in a large European university, this study examines the trajectory of the IS innovation across an institutional complex organisa-tional landscape. The success of the innovation is explained by its ability to change over time and spaces, both in content and process, as the innovation actors sense alignment spaces where multiple logics overlap, and negotiate between these different logics by inscribing the IS innova-tion with specific practices reflecting the demands imposed by these changing alignments, and materially reflected in features of the IS innovation. The concept of alignment spaces provides a powerful tool for IS researchers to aid the examination of IS implementation in institutionally plural context, and consider not only time but also the landscape as important in understanding the progression of IS innovation over time.