Social constructionist views offer insights into the implementation and use of HRIS in a number of
ways. In this study we draw on the social construction of technology and technologies-in-practice
literature. The social construction of technology (SCOT) approach challenges the idea that
technologies and technological artefacts have a pre-given and fixed meaning and in its place
argues that the process, design and selection of technologies are open and can be subjected to
contestation (Pinch & Bijker, 1984). Thus a technology is seen to be characterised by
‘interpretative flexibility’ and various ‘relevant social groups’ who articulate and promote particular
interpretations of it. This meaning, over time tends to become accepted and the interpretation of
the technology stabilised (Dery et al., 2006).
In similar tradition to SCOT approaches, the technologies-in-practice approach endeavours to
recognise the inability to separate the technology from surrounding social relations. Orlikowski
(2000) conceives of technologies-in-practice as the structure that is enacted by users of a
technology as they use the technology in recurrent ways. The important implications of this idea for
the purposes of this research is the realisation that it is only when individuals use the HRIS that the
associated social practices will frame and determine the value that they attribute to it. Hence the
process of using a technology involves users interacting with ‘facilities’ (such as the properties of
the technology artefact), ‘norms’ (such as the protocols of using the technology), and ‘interpretative
schemes’ (such as the skills, knowledge and the assumptions about the technology as might be
positioned by the user) (Dery et al., 2006).