Status differentials and framing in the implementation of IT-enabled task migration strategies

In 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.