Rule Formation and Change in Information Systems Development: How Institutional Logics Shape ISD Practices and Processes

Information systems development methodologies are appropriated differently by different organizations. Drawing on an institutional logics perspective, we offer one explanation for rule differences across contexts. Variations in the local appropriation of ISD methods, and the ways rules are formed and changed, reflect the "institutional logics" of the particular context. In this study of three roughly equivalent agile ISD projects in different contexts (start up, consulting, and infrastructure), we identify three different institutional logics, and show how these logics shape the rules that are formed and changed in ISD projects. These findings emphasize the need to attend to institutional contexts of ISD projects when looking to understand the local enactment of rule formation and change.