Ravi A Rao
email: ravi.rao10@iimb.ernet.in

Rahul De

Organizational assimilation of technology in a sunrise industry -A story of successes and failures

Keywords: Structuration theory, Actor network theory, Technology diffusion, Technology assimilation

The study analyzes the contextual factors impacting technology assimilation in an environment that is characterized by macro-economic changes, rapid technological innovations, emerging industry practices and shifting organizational contexts. Stones' strong structuration theory (SST), a refinement of Giddens' structuration theory, is used as the theoretical lens for studying the technology assimilation process. SST is used to analyze the structuration process at the micro-level and its impact on the structures at the meso/macro-level. In addition, actor network theory (ANT) is used to analyze the role of heterogeneous actors in altering the structures as the actor network adapts to the technological innovations and changing contexts.

Introduction

Studies of technology in organizations can be classified into two broad streams of research. The first stream adopts the ontological stance of discrete entities; the primary mechanism of diffusion being the moderation effect or technology impact; the methodology being variance-based studies; and the key concepts studied being technological imperatives or contingency models [START_REF] Orlikowski | Sociomateriality: Challenging the separation of technology, work and organization[END_REF]. Most of the early diffusion studies fall into such a positivist stream of research and attempt to understand the relation between technology and organizational context, and its impact on the innovation diffusion process. The second stream of research adopts an ontological stance that assumes technology and organizations being part of a mutually dependent ensemble; the primary mechanism of diffusion being the interaction effect of technology with the organizational context and human actors; the methodology being process-based studies; and the key concepts being the duality of technology with technology viewed as both a physical and a social object [START_REF] Orlikowski | Sociomateriality: Challenging the separation of technology, work and organization[END_REF]. A majority of the studies that fall into this stream of research focus on the interplay of technology and organization / human actors and the resultant impact on technology and organizational structures.

While technology impact in organizations has attracted research approaches from both of these paradigms, technology adoption and diffusion studies has largely remained positivist in nature. Fichman [START_REF] Fichman | The diffusion and assimilation of information technology innovations[END_REF] points out the limitations of the positivist stream of research in studying the later stages of technology assimilation involving formal adoption and full-scale deployment. In this paper, we attempt to contribute to the technology assimilation literature by conducting a processual study of such a phenomenon using a non-positivist paradigm. We conducted a single-case descriptive study [START_REF] Yin | Case Study Research: Design and Methods[END_REF] of an organization adopting technology while establishing itself in the emerging organized retail sector in India and as new technological innovations are introduced into this market.

Theoretical Background

We provide here a brief review of structuration theory and its application to the study of Information Systems (IS). We then outline the limitation of this theory for analyzing technology diffusion and propose a combination of Strong structuration theory (SST) with Actor Network theory (ANT) as the theoretical framework.

Structuration Theory and Diffusion studies

Giddens' theory of structuration [START_REF] Giddens | The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structure[END_REF] has been extensively used in IS research as a meta-theory for studying the interaction of technology with organizations. Structuration is defined as "the knowledgeable actions of human agents [that] discursively and recursively form the set of rules, practices and routines which, over time and space constitutes [..a] structure" [START_REF] Rose | Evaluating the contribution of structuration theory to the information systems discipline[END_REF]. Giddens proposes that structure and agency are mutually constitutive and that social phenomena are a product of both. He also introduces the notion of duality of structures described through three components: structure (signification, domination, and legitimation), modality (interpretive schemes, facility, and norms) and interaction (communication, power, and sanctions). IS research that adopts structuration theory can be seen to fall into two categories: Technology structuration [START_REF] Orlikowski | The Duality of Technology: Rethinking the Concept of Technology in Organizations[END_REF] and Adaptive Structuration [START_REF] Desanctis | Capturing the complexity in advanced technology use: adaptive structuration theory[END_REF].

While structuration theory is an appropriate lens for studying later stages of assimilation [START_REF] Fichman | The diffusion and assimilation of information technology innovations[END_REF], it is also constrained by some of its limitations. First, structuration theory being a meta-theory does not lend itself well to empirical studies [START_REF] Stones | Sociological Reasoning: Towards a Past-Modern Sociology[END_REF] and can at best be considered only as an analytical or sensitizing device [START_REF] Giddens | The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structure[END_REF]. Secondly, studies using structuration theory do not consider the evolution of technology itself over time -an added dimension that makes the structure-agency duality three dimensional and non-linear [START_REF] Greenhalgh | Theorising big IT programmes in healthcare: strong structuration theory meets actornetwork theory[END_REF]. Thirdly, the assumption of relatively homogeneous actors poses a challenge when the scope of the study includes groups of heterogeneous actors. While these limitations have not posed serious threats to micro-level adoption studies, they form a major hindrance for a meso/macro level study, such as ours. In the next section, we outline the use of Strong Structuration theory (SST) and integrate it with Actor Network theory (ANT) to address these challenges.

Strong Structuration Theory

Strong structuration theory (SST) is an adaptation of structuration theory developed by Stones [START_REF] Stones | Structuration theory[END_REF]. SST adapts structuration theory for empirical work by introducing ontology-in-situ as "observing structures and action by agents in everyday occurrences of a conjuncture (a critical combination of events or occurrences)" [START_REF] Greenhalgh | Theorising big IT programmes in healthcare: strong structuration theory meets actornetwork theory[END_REF]. SST develops a quadripartite model for studying structuration using four components (Fig. 1):

1) External-structures: comprising of acknowledged or unacknowledged (by the agent-in-focus) conditions of actions that lead to intended or unintended consequences through independent causal influences or irresistible external influences [START_REF] Jack | Introducing strong structuration theory for informing qualitative case studies in organization, management and accounting research[END_REF]. 2) Internal-structures: representing agent's general-disposition that she draws upon and her conjuncturally-specific knowledge through the role or the position occupied by her [START_REF] Stones | Structuration theory[END_REF]. SST also adopts Cohen's notion of position-practices, a set of structures and practices that a positional incumbent can do [START_REF] Cohen | Structuration Theory: Anthony Giddens and the Structuration of Social Life[END_REF], 3) Active-agency: constituting the actions taken by the agent-in-focus drawn either routinely or strategically from their internal structures [START_REF] Greenhalgh | Theorising big IT programmes in healthcare: strong structuration theory meets actornetwork theory[END_REF]. 4) Outcomes: that are the intended or unintended consequences as a result of active-agency and leading to the external and internal structures being either preserved or changed [START_REF] Jack | Introducing strong structuration theory for informing qualitative case studies in organization, management and accounting research[END_REF].

Fig 1:

Quadripartite model of SST -adapted from [START_REF] Greenhalgh | Theorising big IT programmes in healthcare: strong structuration theory meets actornetwork theory[END_REF] In brief, SST suggests that agents bring in generic capabilities through their internal disposition and specific knowledge. This capability determines how they are expected to act in a conjuncture and the possible outcome of their actions. However, how these agents will actually act in a particular situation depends on a host of other factors that cannot be determined in advance: such as the constraints imposed by external structures and the actions of other agents holding different position-practices. The analytic framework provided by SST is through the quadripartite model that allows the study of the structuration phenomena at a meso-macro level, across multiple conjunctures and involving multiple sets of agents-in-focus. The SST framework, however, does not address the technology dimension explicitly which limits its applicability for diffusion studies.

----------------------------------------Agent-------------------------------- (

Strong structuration and Actor Networks

Diffusion theories are often criticized of assuming that technologies once established as best-practices will effectively spread through the population [START_REF] Briers | The role of actor-networks and boundary objects in management accounting change: a field study of an implementation of activity-based costing[END_REF]. Actor network theory (ANT) on the other hand views the success or failure of technology as a social accomplishment of human actors and non-human elements [START_REF] Latour | Science in action: How to follow scientists and engineers through society[END_REF] and advocates that such heterogeneous networks are inherently dynamic and unstable. Stability is achieved through the process of translation that occurs through the four stages of a) problematization (issue causing instability is identified), b) interessement (other actors agree to the issue being a problem), b) enrollment (main actors are assigned roles and form alliances), and d) mobilization (actor network is extended beyond the initial group) [START_REF] Callon | Some elements of a sociology of translation: Domestication of the scallops and the fisherman of St. Briene Bay[END_REF]. With stability, actor networks become "black-boxes" achieving a high degree of irreversibility and having material inscriptions, and with actors and actants assuming taken-for-granted status [START_REF] Walsham | GIS for District-Level Administration in India: Problems and Opportunities[END_REF]. [START_REF] Rose | Evaluating the contribution of structuration theory to the information systems discipline[END_REF] points out that Giddens' structuration theory does not address the technology dimensions and suggests the need for a careful combination of diverse theories in order to apply structuration to the IS discipline. A specific example of such a combination of theories is a study of GIS implementation in India [START_REF] Walsham | GIS for District-Level Administration in India: Problems and Opportunities[END_REF]) that combines structuration theory (as a sensitizing device) and ANT (as an empirical tool). Considering the gap in SST's analytical framework and the strength of ANT as a lens for studying technology driven changes, [START_REF] Greenhalgh | Theorising big IT programmes in healthcare: strong structuration theory meets actornetwork theory[END_REF] suggest integrating these two theories. They do so by including technical actants into their list of agents-in-focus and expanding the concept of active agency to include actions taken by both actors and actants in a socio-technical network. Secondly, they expand the definition of internal structures by incorporating ANT's notion of material inscriptions in technology. Thus the internal structures, which per SST include human agents general disposition and conjuncturally-specific knowledge, is enhanced to include technology's material properties, sociocultural inscriptions and the conjuncturally-specific functionality of these technologies [START_REF] Greenhalgh | Theorising big IT programmes in healthcare: strong structuration theory meets actornetwork theory[END_REF]. The resulting conceptual model developed by them is depicted in Fig 2. [START_REF] Greenhalgh | Theorising big IT programmes in healthcare: strong structuration theory meets actornetwork theory[END_REF] In summary, Greenhalgh and Stones adoption of SST for studying socio-technical phenomena include a network of position-practices that comprises of both human actors and technologies. Active agency involves the use of specific technology by human actors in any given conjuncture. These actions are influenced by external as well as internal forces. External forces are exerted through independent institutional, political, economic, and technological structures and forms the external conditions of actions. Internal structures is embodied both by human and technological agents. Actions by human agents are influenced by their general disposition and conjuncturally specific knowledge while technologies influence actions through their material inscriptions and conjuncturally specific functionality. Human agents, influenced by these internal and external conditions of actions, either use the technology faithfully or unfaithfully, or refuse to use the technology altogether. Such actions, in turn, reproduce or change the social structures. This recursive relationship between structures, agency and technology is played at the micro level in the short-run and is visible at the meso-macro level over a longer time scale.

----------------------------------------Agent-------------------------------- (

Theoretical Framework & Method

Following our arguments in the previous section on the challenges of conducting a technology assimilation study and the applicability of an integrated SST and ANT lens for conducting such a study, we adopt the guidelines provided by Greenhalgh and Stones as outlined in Fig 3. The analysis of the active agency is conducted across the heterogeneous set of actors participating in each conjuncture. The modified structures arising as a result of the outcome of each of these conjunctures is then used as an input to the subsequent conjunctures. Our attempt is to conduct a recursive analysis comprising of micro-meso level actions in each of the conjunctures and then integrate the analysis across conjunctures to understand the relationships being played out at meso-macro level over longer time duration.

We follow a case-study based approach for conducting our empirical analysis [START_REF] Yin | Case Study Research: Design and Methods[END_REF]. The study was conducted at the end of the technology diffusion process through an analysis of historical information that was collected through semi-structured interviews. Permission from the senior management of the organization was obtained to gain access to key informants. Interviews were conducted across a wide breadth of roles across the organization including business-unit heads, group-CIO, IT department heads, IT development / operations team, store-staff, and enterprise-staff. Since the historical data required was over a large period of time, personnel who were employed with the organization through this period were included into the mix of respondents. Interviews lasted between one 1. Identify the various phases or conjunctures over which the organization undertakes the assimilation of technology. For eac h of these conjunctures, conduct the structuration study using the quadripartite model for analysis.

2. Determine the prevailing political, economic, technological and institutional context that form the external conditions of actions impacting the conjunctures. to three hours. Follow-up interview were conducted in a few cases. While none of the interviews could be recorded, detailed notes were taken for each of the interviews.

To overcome the challenges of conducting an empirical study using structuration theory, [START_REF] Pozzebon | Challenges in conducting empirical work using structuration theory: Learning from IT research[END_REF] recommend narrative studies using temporal bracketing. For studies involving multiple phases, a narrative strategy is often used as the primary analysis tool: for preparing the chronology and sequence of phases, and to establish the links between them [START_REF] Langley | Strategies for theorizing from process data[END_REF]. In our study too, we adopt a narrative strategy approach considering the need to first determine the different phases of adoption and then to interpret the links between the different clusters of actors and the technologies across these phases.

Organization's tryst with technology

In this section, we present a brief report on the organization and its process of technology assimilation

Organization and its strategic terrain

The organization (pseudonym Alpha) is a leading multi-format retailer in India. Alpha started as a textile manufacturing company and entered into the retail business circa.1995 during the post-liberalization phase of the Indian economy when modern retail in India was still at its infancy [START_REF] Sengupta | Emergence of modern Indian retail: an historical perspective[END_REF]. With a buoyant economy, the Indian consumer was increasing her spending and modern retail promised immense potential [START_REF] Srivastava | Changing retail scene in India[END_REF].

Internationally, retail can be considered as a mature industry with established business practices and information technologies. Most Indian retail firms partnered with international retailers as technology partners with an objective of bringing these business practices and technologies to India. However, Indian retailers were not able to adopt these international practices owing to country-specific challenges, such as: lack of qualified retail personnel, inefficient supply-chains, a weak IT eco-system, lack of understanding of consumer buying behavior, idiosyncrasies of the Indian consumer, and the requirements of India-specific formats [START_REF] Dash | A study on the challenges and opportunities faced by organized retail players in Bangalore[END_REF]. In addition, functionality required to handle Maximum Retail Price (MRP) which legally prohibits retailers from charging customers above the MRP was not addressed by most international retail software systems. During this period, India also had an established and burgeoning IT services industry. Confident about the availability of qualified IT personnel, retailers unable to adopt international systems chose to develop their own IT systems.

India is known to be a nation of shopkeepers with a proliferation of unorganized retailers [START_REF] Kachru | India Land of a Billion Entrepreneurs[END_REF]. The supply-chain ecosystem in India is tuned to delivering goods to such a vastly distributed network [START_REF] Dholakia | India's Emerging Retail Systems Coexistence of Tradition and Modernity[END_REF] with manufacturers led by the FMCG sector having established last-mile logistics capabilities [START_REF] Sengupta | Emergence of modern Indian retail: an historical perspective[END_REF]. With last-mile distribution costs being built into their pricing, manufacturers were unwilling to part with extra margins. While multi-store retailers in India intended to set-up their own centralized warehouse and distribution channels to gain supply-chain efficiencies, they usually started operations leveraging the direct-store-delivery facilities provided by FMCG manufacturers.

Technology adoption at Alpha

In accordance with the prevailing practices, Alpha also chose to develop its own IT systems and implemented a product called Retailer Enterprise Management (REM) during the years 1999-2000. REM functioned both as an enterprise management system as well as the store front-end and point-of-sale (POS) system. Alpha used REM as the sole IS for more than half a decade before adopting SAP to run their enterprise systems. The roll-out of SAP happened during 2006-2009 with REM continuing as the store POS system. The REM system was finally retired and the POS function migrated to a Wincor TP-Linux system by 2010-2011.

The adoption of technology at Alpha can be classified into the following phases or conjunctures: a) Conjuncture-1: conceptualization and initial adoption of REM; b) Conjuncture-2: rapid growth in scale of Alpha's business and associated changes to REM; c) Conjuncture-3: implementation of SAP; and d) Conjuncture-4: retirement of REM and the implementation of Wincor. The primary actors and the technologies participating in these conjunctures are as outlined in Fig. 4. The initial version of the IT system emerged as an in-house developed system catering to a largely store-focused functionality. Front-end promotion management emerged as a key functionality. Being a discount merchandiser, enticing consumers with attractive offers was a preferred way of selling. The store managers would assess the consumers' shopping needs and respond with impromptu promotions by modifying the selling price through backend updates to the database. In addition, the checkout personnel were often allowed the use of "manager's password", an open-access provision that allowed them to alter selling price to overcome any incorrect system updates.

Indian consumer's demands are often thought to be complex, comprising of many unique parts based on cultural and linguistic identities [START_REF] References Bijapurkar | We are like that only: Understanding the logic of consumer India[END_REF]). Alpha's background as an apparel manufacturer meant a superior capability in apparel merchandising. However, with diversification into multi-brand retailing, Alpha faced an acute shortage of category management capabilities in non-apparel merchandises. During such a time, store managers showed leadership in understanding the consumer needs and recommended appropriate merchandises. This resulted in selective enterprise functionalities such as master-data-management (MDM) and merchandise-receipt functions being built as store functionality.

Further, the result of adopting direct-store-delivery practices led to inventory discrepancies such as duplicate SKUs (stock-keeping-units), SKUs without bar-code, multiple MRPs, or `SKU not found' (physical inventory not entered in system). The impact of such data discrepancies led to billing errors, long check-out lines, and products billed at higher than MRP (a legal offense). To overcome these issues, store staff often used to resort to practices such as those of manual billing, price-overrides, and manual data correction.

The technology in focus during this conjuncture is the REM software. The material property of this software can be summarized as being: highly malleable and customizable, and as a store-specific IT system with additional New to organized retail, key to learn enterprise functionality. The socio-cultural structures inscribed into this technology can be seen as comprising of a) promotion functionality: reinforces the belief of discount merchandising; b) manager's password: stood for the power and dominance of the store manager and the open access nature of the IT system; and c) manual billing: representing the suspect IT ecosystem.

The end of this conjuncture is marked by a rapid increase in store sales and the emergence of the store manager as the central agent in this growth. With the increasing demand of stores on IT maintenance activities, the store IT team size gradually increased and a dual reporting structure emerged.

Conjuncture 2: Rapid business growth and the need for an Enterprise Systems The unfolding of this conjuncture occurred during 2001-2005 and was marked by a few key changes in the external conditions. Firstly, ERP systems such as SAP and Retek were making inroads into India. Secondly, retailers were now trying to establish centralized warehouses to achieve supply chain efficiencies and better margins [START_REF] Srivastava | Changing retail scene in India[END_REF]. Thirdly, there was a growing expectation of a policy change allowing foreign direct investment in retail [START_REF] Mukherjee | FDI in Retail Sector: INDIA: A Report by ICRIER and Ministry of Consumer Affairs[END_REF]. This created urgency among Indian retailers to achieve scale before the entry of foreign retailers.

With the increase in number of stores, centralized enterprise roles such as master data management (MDM), buying and merchandising (B&M), receipts and distribution, and marketing functions were gaining importance. The distributed nature of the REM system warranted the creation of a new business-intelligence (BI) function for consolidating data across the stores. The entry of this new system highlighted master-data and inventory related issues residing in the existing system, such as the inability to consolidate data across stores due to duplicate SKU codes. Further, REM lacked an archival functionality leading to ever increasing database sizes and associated performance issues. Severe performance issues were often addressed by adding memory/ processing power and suspending back-end functions during peak business hours. Such ad hoc measures had a cascading effect with further delays in inventory receipts leading to further inventory issues. Data discrepancies, performance issues and inefficiencies arising out of these escalated the need for an enterprise-wide system.

The executive management team took proactive steps to strengthen the IT leadership by inducting new actors. The new IT management advocated the need for replacing the enterprise functionality of REM by ERP systems. The POS functionality of REM was however thought to be suitable for business operations. The removal of enterprise functionality from the store was not seen, by the organization in general and the store managers in specific, as downgrading the responsibilities of the store manager. Instead, it was seen as releasing the bandwidth of the store manager to be productively used in increasing store sales.

Conjuncture 3: REM as a POS system

Conjuncture-3 unfolded during 2005-2009 with the roll-out of SAP across the business units. During this time, organized retail was establishing itself as a mature industry with several retailers adopting international practices including centralized warehousing and distribution, space management, and category management. This duration also saw the advancement of POS technology with integrated cash-registers, bill printers, barcode scanners, weighing machines and software.

The SAP system brought along with it internationally accepted practices. The enterprise staff, so far constrained by the limited functionality offered by REM, adopted SAP without much resistance. However, several functionalities in the new SAP system were in contradiction to the way they were implemented in REM. For example, the industry practice for promotions management was to have centralized promotions with the responsibility of defining and setting of the promotions residing with the B&M team. However, at Alpha, the store managers were given the right to decide on promotions. This conflict was addressed by allowing the B&M team create header level promotions (broad guidelines on the type of sales promotion per category/brand), with the actual execution of these promotions (i.e. decision on specific SKUs to be included under the header) being executed on the REM POS system by individual stores. Since the final control remained with the store managers, the header level promotion guidelines were often not followed faithfully and the stores resorted to floating their own promotions. This led to three significant consequences: a) Alpha noticed a considerable leakage in the revenue margins due to unauthorized promotions; b) led to instances of pilferage due to the open-access control of REM, and c) non-standardization of promotions across stores leading to discontent among the customers.

In addition to these functional issues, Alpha also faced certain technical challenges with the REM system. The POS terminals deployed at Alpha were essentially a combination of a desktop computer connected with peripherals (barcode scanner and printer) and running on Windows OS. The rapid scale-up in the number of stores meant that Alpha had not only to invest in the desktops and peripherals, but also had to buy licenses for Windows and Progress database (required for installing REM). This resulted in a growing need to adopt newer POS technologies such as those that ran on Linux, which offered the promise of not only providing an integrated system but also of being cost efficient.

Enterprise staff, so far constrained by the limitations of the REM system, found the SAP system that was inscribed with industry best practices as an enabler in meeting the demands of a fast maturing industry. However, as noted above, many of these inscriptions were in direct contradiction with those of the REM system. With the implementation of SAP, Alpha reinforced its IT leadership team with key personnel experienced in managing international retail-IT products. The new leadership convinced the directors and other business heads on the need to retire REM and adopt an international POS product. This conjuncture ends with a decision to replace REM by Wincor POS system.

Conjuncture 4: Wincor and Organizational change

The new IT heads, drawing from their past experience in implementing Wincor on a SAP system, provided the necessary expertise in driving this program. A phased implementation approach was adopted. In contrast to the SAP implementation, the roll-out of POS solution was expected to have a much greater impact on the life at the store.

The impact on the checkout staff was expected to be minimal with net positive benefits given the lesser steps to billing, speedier checkout, faster response time, graphic touch-screen and other "friendly" features. However, it was anticipated that the store managers would resist the new system as the removal of access to key functionalities would impact their entrepreneurial empowerment.

Recognizing these challenges, Alpha decided to launch an organizational-change initiative as part of the introduction of the new POS system. The concept of a "Store Kartha" or the "head of the family" was introduced to reposition the store manager. This can be seen as an attempt to reconfigure the store manager's positioning as an overall leader of the store. The introduction of the new POS system was also managed as a cultural activity: marking a new beginning with new philosophy, new machines, new software, and launched with a "pooja" (worship for prosperity).

The issue of managing promotions in the new system was critical to success. The first challenge was the resistance expected by the store manager due to loss of control. This was addressed by positioning the change in responsibility as merely transferring a routine job (of creating promotion codes) from the store to the back-office. The management realized that the issue with the store exercising promotions (once considered as a key strength) was due to the ad hoc nature in which it was being performed that was resulting in margin impacts. Shifting the activity to the back-office would lead to the dual advantage of making promotion management as a centralized activity and also incorporate feedback from stores. The need to plan promotions in advance was portrayed as a valid and reasonable constraint imposed by the system. A second issue faced was the limited promotion functionality offered by SAP as compared to the earlier REM system. This limitation was expected to make the task of setting promotions more difficult. A dedicated promotion-managed team was set-up to ensure that promotions were planned in advance, feedback sought from the stores and implemented in the SAP system.

Pilot implementation of Wincor faced a series of challenges including store resistance and data transfer issues between SAP and Wincor. Once these issues were resolved, the implementation was rolled out in one region, then to all regions under a format and subsequently to all the formats.

Analysis using strong structuration and actor networks

We now interpret the data from the case using concepts from SST and ANT to demonstrate the act of structuration as the organization adopts and assimilates technologies. Table 1 provides a summary of the analysis.

Conjuncture 1

The broad strategic terrain under which Alpha initiated its technology adoption involved the infancy of organized retail in India with the supply-chain predominantly catering to the unorganized markets [START_REF] Mukherjee | FDI in Retail Sector: INDIA: A Report by ICRIER and Ministry of Consumer Affairs[END_REF]. While India's economy was experiencing post-liberalization benefits and India was emerging as a global IT provider, the organized retail industry in India was still in its infancy with no mature practices and not yet ready to accept international retail software.

At a micro-level, we notice the actions of the founders and the senior management, driven by their general disposition (Indianness) and their understanding of the strategic terrain (inappropriate international products), leading to the adoption of in-house IT systems. We notice the impact of these actions on the position-practices resulting in the emergence of the store manager as the key agent-in-focus. We also notice how these micro-level actions resulted in REM evolving as a distributed system incorporating enterprise functionality. Workaround functions (such as manual overrides, back-end updates etc.) emerged for cases where the technology and agency were not aligned. Practices such as promotions, manual overrides, and back-end updates got inscribed into the IT systems. Over time, these inscriptions assumed a taken-for-granted status and became a way of functioning for the organization. At the end of the conjuncture, the actor network under study gained stability and led to a rapid increase in business.

Conjuncture 2

In this conjuncture we notice a significant change in the strategic terrain: including the acceptance of ERP products by the Indian retailers, the opening up of the Indian economy, and the impending policy change. At a micro-level, we notice technological limitations leading to the addition of a BI system to the actor network. In ANT terminology, the punctualized state that REM achieved in conjuncture-1 gets broken with the introduction of the BI system. The addition of the BI functionality exposed the deficiencies of the underlying components of REM including POS, MDM and Inventory systems leading to a breakdown of the network.

The IT department heads, influenced by the strategic terrain (need for scaling-up and entry of ERP) and drawing from their conjuncturally specific knowledge (altered actor network), advocate the use of ERP systems. This results in the translation of the actor network with the inclusion of a new technology (SAP) and associated actors (enhanced enterprise roles). We also notice that the REM POS system, with its sets of allies and inscriptions, continued to be reasonably frozen.

Conjuncture 3

Conjuncture-3 unfolded over a period of four years and saw some incremental changes in the strategic terrain with the entry of new generation POS systems. We also notice the polarization of the actor network into two parts: one centered on SAP incorporating enterprise actors; and the other centered on REM including the store actors. This leads to an altered position-practice: with the enterprise staff supported by a superior technology feeling empowered; and the slightly compromised position-practice of the store manager who had to relinquish control of several activities.

The conflict between the inscriptions of the two technological actants also surfaces in this conjuncture. The resulting agency actions lead to the final break-down of the REM system. The failure of the integration layer between REM and SAP, and the escalating licensing costs leads to further breakdown of the actor network. The REM POS system that had thus far achieved a status of being an immutable mobile is now exposed to reveal its functional and technical components.

With SAP system in place, the IT leadership team was strengthened by new global actors who brought with them significantly different disposition and knowledge. The agency initiated by these global players, drawn from their internal structures, their understanding of the modified strategic terrain, and the internal structures of other actors, led to active problematizing of the POS functionality. Enterprise staff and business leaders were then enrolled into this process, leading to the decision to replace the REM systems with a new generation POS system.

Conjuncture 4

There are no additional changes to the broad strategic terrain witnessed in this conjuncture. However, this conjuncture witnessed a series of micro-level actions leading to irreversible change to the IT landscape at Alpha. The Wincor system came with functionality that inscribed internationally established practices, several of which were complete opposites to those of REM. Thus, while the Wincor system was seen to be aligned with the SAP network and its allied actors, it potentially faced resistance from the store managers and was seen as denting the entrepreneurial spirit enjoyed by them.

Ensuring the stability of the new actor network required the alignment of the store managers with the Wincor system. The internal structures of the store managers are seen to be driven by their disposition of entrepreneurship and their dominant position reinforced over several years. The acceptance of Wincor system by the store manager required a significant change to their internal structures. This was achieved by launching an organizational change initiative. The process of introducing the Wincor network was achieved by virtually re-launching the store, introducing the "Store Kartha" philosophy and performing "Pooja" (a religious ceremony). These incidents can be seen as an active agency to alter the general disposition of the store staff.

Thus, the outcome of conjucture-4 can be summarized as re-establishing a stable actor network and an altered position-practice of both the enterprise and the store staff. This conjuncture is marked by agency carried out by various actors: ranging from the role of the leadership team to alter the disposition of the store staff, re-launching of the stores, role of global actors in introducing new technology actants with aligned inscriptions, and the process of aligning the technology's function-in-use to those of the actors needs.

DISCUSSIONS & CONCLUSIONS

In this paper, we have attempted to study the technology adoption by an organization as it establishes itself in the emerging retail industry in India. Our choice of retail industry provides us a context of an industry that has internationally established practices and mature technologies, but is still evolving in the Indian context. We notice that the adoption of technology by the organization is not just the implementation of mature technologies, but instead is a process through which the organization "discovers" these technologies and adapts to it. Our study elaborates the interplay of heterogeneous actors, evolving organizational contexts and technologies during the adoption process.

The primary contribution of our study is to demonstrate the applicability of macro-level structuration process in the study of technology adoption. Past IS researchers using structuration analysis have focused on micro-level phenomena such as the study of Case tools [START_REF] Orlikowski | The Duality of Technology: Rethinking the Concept of Technology in Organizations[END_REF], Lotus Notes [START_REF] Karsten | It's like everyone working round the same desk:' organizational readings of Notes[END_REF], and Decision Support systems [START_REF] Desanctis | Capturing the complexity in advanced technology use: adaptive structuration theory[END_REF]; or to explain adaptations to the development process such as the study of global virtual teams [START_REF] Maznevski | Bridging space over time: Global Virtual Team Dynamics and Effectiveness[END_REF] and adaptation to agile methodologies [START_REF] Cao | A framework for adapting agile development methodologies[END_REF]. In our study, we demonstrate the impact of micro-level structuration process between technology and human actors unfolding in an organizational and industrial context, and translating into a macrolevel impact on the technology assimilation process.

Structuration theory is limited in its usefulness for conducting macro-level studies. Our study demonstrates the value of strong structuration theory and actor network theory, in combination, for conducting macro-level studies involving information technology. We have extended the original work by [START_REF] Stones | Structuration theory[END_REF] and [START_REF] Greenhalgh | Theorising big IT programmes in healthcare: strong structuration theory meets actornetwork theory[END_REF], by drawing on additional ANT concepts to explain the agency actions arising out of technology change and the subsequent impact of actor networks on organizational structures.

Our study also indicates that the technology assimilation process is more than just awareness, adoption, and deployment of technologies. It is an ongoing process occurring over an extended period of time and involves a series of successes and failures. The process we elaborated is similar to Gersick's punctuated equilibrium model [START_REF] Gersick | Revolutionary change theories: A multilevel exploration of the punctuated equilibrium paradigm[END_REF] which views change as long periods of stability (with incremental change) and brief periods of revolutionary change. Past IS researchers have used the concepts of punctuated equilibrium to understand problems of systemdevelopment [START_REF] Newman | A Social Process Model of User-Analyst Relationships[END_REF], virtual teams [START_REF] Jarvenpaa | Toward Contextualized Theories of Trust: The Role of Trust in Global Virtual Teams[END_REF], adoption of new technologies [START_REF] Loch | A Punctuated Equilibrium Model of Technology Diffusion[END_REF], technology-led organizational transformation [START_REF] Orlikowski | Improvising organizational transformation over time: A situated change perspective[END_REF], to name a few. Our study contributes to this literature to establish the usefulness of the punctuated equilibrium model to a macro-level technology adoption process within an organization.

As an implications for practice, our study points to the constant need for realigning technology with organization needs as is evident from the actor networks toggling between stability and instability. Our study suggests that a successful technology at a given moment of time may outlive its utility in the future. Such failures may be as a result of the misalignment of technology with other contextual factors. The process of realignment may need a multitude of activities such as incorporating new technologies (adding actants), reinforcing leadership (adding new actors), launching organizational change initiatives (altering disposition of key actors), and realigning roles & responsibilities (altering position-practices). We adopted a grounded theory approach to our study. We grew a theoretical basis as we developed an understanding of the phenomena, similar to past contextual studies such as those of [START_REF] Walsham | GIS for District-Level Administration in India: Problems and Opportunities[END_REF]. The choice of SST was decided upon only during the analysis phases, and the conjunctures were determined by logically grouping the events based on the technology-in-use. This study would benefit by adopting qualitative coding techniques [START_REF] Miles | Qualitative Data Analysis: An expanded sourcebook[END_REF][START_REF] Strauss | Basics of Qualitative Research: Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques[END_REF]) that could aid in triangulating the boundaries of the conjunctures. We hope to address this as an extension to this study.

The extent to which we can generalize the research findings is a possible limitation of our study. A proposed extension to our study is to include additional cases that involve organizations that have undertaken different paths of technology adoption under similar contexts. This could be done through a theoretical sampling of additional organizations in the retail industry in India, or include cases from other emerging industries with similar contexts.

Fig 2 :

 2 Fig 2: SST with technology dimension -adapted from[START_REF] Greenhalgh | Theorising big IT programmes in healthcare: strong structuration theory meets actornetwork theory[END_REF]

Fig 3 :

 3 Fig 3: Theoretical Framework

3.

  Identify the socio-technical network comprising of agents and technologies (a) For each of the agents in focus i. Analyze their position-practices ii. Evaluate the agents general disposition iii. Evaluate the agents conjuncturally-specific knowledge including the understanding of the external structures, other agent's world view, technology's material property, its inscribed structures, and the functionality relevant to the situation iv. Identify the key relationships that the agent has with other agents and technologies v. Determine active-agency -the set of practices drawn on her general dispositions, conjuncturally-specific knowledge, and technological properties (b) For each of the technology in focus i. Analyze its material properties and the inscribed socio-cultural structures ii. Determine the functions in use and how the inscribed structures enable, influence, or constrain active agency (c) Determine the extent of the stability of the socio-technical network 4. Analyze the outcomes of the actions (a) Determine the intended and unintended consequences (b) The feedback of these consequences on the position-practices (c) The significance of these consequences to other actors in the network (d) The role of technology in producing these outcomes (e) The implications of these consequences

Fig. 4 :

 4 Fig. 4: Actors with their position-practices and internal structures Conjuncture 1: The making of REM and its initial adoption.The initial version of the IT system emerged as an in-house developed system catering to a largely store-focused functionality. Front-end promotion management emerged as a key functionality. Being a discount merchandiser, enticing consumers with attractive offers was a preferred way of selling. The store managers would assess the consumers' shopping needs and respond with impromptu promotions by modifying the selling price through backend updates to the database. In addition, the checkout personnel were often allowed the use of "manager's password", an open-access provision that allowed them to alter selling price to overcome any incorrect system updates.

Table 1 :

 1 Quadripartite elements of SST as applicable to our study

	Quadripartitie	Conjuncture 1	Conjuncture 2	Conjuncture 3	Conjuncture 4
	Elements
	External	-Organized retail not an	-International ERP	-Maturing of organized	-No change
	Structure	established industry	products entering Indian	retail practices
		-Opening-up of Indian	markets	-Entry of new
		Economy	-Imminent entry of FDI	generation POS
		-India as a global IT	in Retail	hardware / software
		provider
	General	-Indianness and	-No change	-Entry of global actors	-No change
	Disposition	Entrepreneurship		to IT leadership team
	Conjuncturally	-Apparel retailer	-No change	-Organizational scaling	-Global IT leaders with
	specific	-Lack of multi-format		needs enterprise	past experience in
	knowledge	retail expertise		management skills	similar environment
		-Discount merchandiser			-Successful SAP
					implementation leading
					to trust in international
					products
	Material	-Malleable software	-Open access	-Retail best practices	-Opposing inscriptions
	property and		-Runtime promotions	incorporated in SAP	between REM and
	Social			-No changes in REM's	Wincor systems
	Inscriptions			inscriptions	-Wincor requiring
				-Conflict between these	design time changes, not
				two sets of inscriptions	as malleable
	Conjuncturally	-Manual billing	-Consolidation across	-Promotions in SAP	-Integrated POS
	specific	-Promotions	stores	executed unfaithfully at	functionality with touch-
	functionality	management	-Conflict between front-	the stores	screen features
		-Enterprise functions at	end and backend	-Manual billing leading	-Faster check-out
		store	functions	to inventory issues	processing time
			-Need for BI	-Incorrect promotions	-Limited promotions
			functionality	leading to loss of	functionality
			-Scalability and	margins
			performance issues


Daryoush Daniel Vaziri
email: daryoush.vaziri@h-brs.de

Argang Ghadiri
email: argang.ghadiri@h-brs.de

Improving Human Cognitive Processing by Applying Accessibility Standards for Information and Communication Technology

Keywords: Information systems, Accessibility, Neuroscience, Usability, Cognitive processing

This article concerns with human-computer-interaction (HCI) from a neuroscientific perspective. The motivation for this perspective is the demographic transition, which shifts population structures of industrial nations. The authors will explain consequences of the demographic transition in terms of HCI and establish a hypothesis for these research activities. To evaluate this hypothesis the authors develop an approach, which combines different disciplines. This approach examines the effects of IT-accessibility on human cognitive processing. Therefore, required methodologies and instruments will be explained, discussed and selected. Possible effects of IT-accessibility on human cognitive processing will be illustrated with an acknowledged cognition model. The result of this article will be a concept, which enables the measurement of IT-accessibility impacts on human cognitive processing.

Introduction

Practically no enterprise relinquishes the application of information systems today. The major goal is to support business processes to increase efficiency and productivity. However, due to the commoditization of information technology, the pure deployment of these systems is no longer a competitive advantage [START_REF] Carr | IT Doesn't Matter[END_REF]. Productivity and efficiency are significantly determined by the capabilities of users to interact with applied information systems to achieve specific goals. The design and development of information systems therefore need to focus on human behavior and capabilities. Figure 1 depicts an ideal-typical goal attainment process that is supported by an information system.

Fig. 1. Goal attainment process

Steps 1 to 4 in figure 1 will be normally reiterated. At the end of each iteration the processed data output (step 3) should inform the system user about the achieved progress. The user will interpret (step 4) this information to plan and execute the next activity. After a certain amount of iterations the system user should attain the goal in step 6. If the user is not able to attain the goal after a certain amount of iterations, the process will be aborted by the user. Depending on task complexity step 4 might be skipped. The time, needed to achieve the goal, decreases with the amount of interferences during this process. Interferences can be for example, loading times, system failures, operating problems, perception problems or comprehension problems.

Background

The demographic transition of industrialized nations leads to a declining and at the same time ageing population [START_REF] Lutz | Demographic challenges for sustainable Development[END_REF]. While the amount of young people aged 15-24 stagnates respectively declines, the amount of people aged 60 or over increases significantly (United Nations, 2010). In addition, increased life expectancies and the intergenerational contract demands employees to retire at a later date [START_REF] Sanderson | Remeasuring Aging[END_REF][START_REF] Leon | Trends in European life expectancy: A salutary view[END_REF]. Referring to these facts, the authors identified three consequences, which will affect the design and development of information systems. Consequence 1: A higher susceptibility to disorders or injuries related to computer work has to be anticipated. A study conducted in 2001 revealed injuries and disabilities induced by computer work. The mean age of the study participants was 38.5 years [START_REF] Pascarelli | Understanding Work-Related Upper Extremity Disorders: Clinical Findings in 485 Computer Users, Musicians, and Others[END_REF]. Consequence 2: Enterprises will need additional human capital sources to compensate the lack of young personnel. To date, enterprises do not sufficiently concern with the integration of people with impairments or disabilities. In 2003 approximately 45 Mio people of the declared working age population either had a disability or an enduring health problem (Eurostat, 2003). According to the demographic alterations, this figure is likely to increase within the next decades, as elderly people are more susceptible to impairments and disabilities (WHO, 2011). Consequence 3: Susceptibility to mental disorders induced by computer-related stress factors will increase. Kessler et al. examined that 26.2% of the US population have mental disorders, including anxiety, mood etc. [START_REF] Kessler | Prevalence, severity, and comorbidity of twelve-month DSM-IV disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication (NCS-R)[END_REF]. Also in Europe, Wittchen et al. investigated in an extensive study that almost 165 Mio Europeans suffer from brain disorders e.g. depression, anxiety, insomnia or dementia every year [START_REF] Wittchen | The size and burden of mental disorders and other disorders of the brain in Europe 2010[END_REF]. The World Health Organization anticipates an increase of mental and neuropsychiatric disorders of 15% per year (WHO, 2001). These alterations will affect the capabilities of system users and therefore change the requirements of employees and customers. As elderly and disabled people will constitute a bigger proportion of the overall population, enterprises need to adapt their ICT to different user capabilities to ensure productivity and profit. This adaptation requires developers to apply new methodologies and instruments to derive more detailed user requirements.

Hypotheses

The authors assume a correlation between the accessible design of ICT and human cognitive processing. For their research activities they establish following hypotheses in table 1:

Table 1. Hypotheses

Hypothesis Description H1

Accessible ICT does not affect the time a user requires to achieve a specific goal.

H2

Accessible ICT does not increase the satisfaction of a user.

H3

The user's cognitive strain does not increase with the time required to achieve a specific goal.

H4

The user's cognitive strain is not dependent on the user's satisfaction.

H5

There is no correlation between accessible ICT and human cognitive processing Within this article the authors will elaborate an appropriate approach to reject H1-H5.

In the context of this research in progress paper, the approach will mainly focus on required methodologies and instruments.

Neuro-Accessibility Design

Neuro-Accessibility Design (NAD) embodies the authors attempt to integrate methodologies and instruments of IT-accessibility design and brain research. It provides the opportunity to measure the influence of IT-accessibility criteria on human cognitive processing. The next sections will concern with information on cognitive processing and IT-accessibility.

Insights of Neuroscience on Cognitive Processing

Cognitive psychology deals with the mental processes which occur when knowledge and experience are gained from an individual's senses. This can be for example the processing of visual or auditory senses [START_REF] Esgate | Eurostat: Employment of Disabled People in Europe in 2002[END_REF] when working with an information system. Figure 2 depicts a simplified model of how the human brain handles cognitive processing [START_REF] Persad | Characterising user capabilities to support inclusive design evaluation[END_REF].

Fig. 2. Simplified model of cognitive processing

As the process of cognition is important for the NAD approach, the authors will briefly explain persad's cognition model in the following paragraph.

Step 1: The user gets in contact with external stimuli.

Step 2: The perception component analyses and processes the incoming sensory information.

Step 3: The working memory retrieves long-term memories and decides to act on the selected stimuli. The attention resources are directed to focus on the most informative parts of the stimuli and initiate actions and reasoning [START_REF] Mieczakowski | Investigating Designers' Cognitive Representations for Inclusive Interaction Between Products and Users[END_REF].

Step 4: For matching the selected stimuli with objects of similar physical properties and functional attributes and for grouping them into categories in memory, working memory frequently has to refer to long-term memory [START_REF] Miller | The magical number seven, plus or minus two: some limits on our capacity for processing information[END_REF].

Step 5: If the user has experienced the stimuli before, information about them will probably affect the speed and efficiency of cognitive processing.

Step 6: The user executes an action based upon the previous cognitive processing. Studies investigated that ageing and certain impairments or disabilities can have significant effects on the elements of cognition. Therefore it is important to understand human cognitive processing and identify methods and instruments which might improve cognitive processing [START_REF] Rabbitt | Does it all go together when it goes? The nineteenth Bartlett memorial lecture[END_REF][START_REF] Freudenthal | The Design of Home Appliances for Young and Old Consumers[END_REF].

Neuroscience, as it is the study of multidisciplinary sciences which analyze the nervous system and its functionalities [START_REF] Squire | Fundamentals of Neuroscience[END_REF], can help to comprehend cognitive processing [START_REF] Esgate | Eurostat: Employment of Disabled People in Europe in 2002[END_REF]. Studies in the interdisciplinary field of cognitive neuroscience examine the underlying neural mechanisms, which are involved with input, perception, attention, working and long-term memory as well as the transformation of information in correspondent action [START_REF] Mcbride | Quantifying Human Information Processing[END_REF].

Particularly the brain measurement technique of electroencephalography (EEG) is likely to be of great importance for comprehending the neural processes with regard to cognition [START_REF] Niedermeyer | Electroencephalography: Basic Principles, Clinical Applications, and Related Fields[END_REF]. An EEG records the electrical activities in the cerebral cortex. When neurons transfer information, small electrical signals are generated, which can be measured by electrodes [START_REF] Davidson | Human Electroencephalography[END_REF][START_REF] Dowling | Neurons and Networks[END_REF]. These electrical signals represent the neuron's activity and speed which allow the identification of mental states [START_REF] Sharma | Neuromarketing -A peep into customers' minds, PHI learning private limited[END_REF]. The activities are then further divided into several frequency bands which can be interpreted as shown in table 2 [START_REF] Sherlin | Diagnosing and treating brain function through the use of low resolution brain electromagnetic tomography (LORETA)[END_REF]:

Table 2. Interpretation of EEG frequencies

Frequency Interpretation Delta (0.5-4 Hz)

Delta waves primarily occur in states of deep sleep. In addition they may also show slowed cognitive processing, learning difficulties or attention deficits.

Theta (4-8 Hz)

Theta waves can be seen most commonly in states of creativity and spontaneity. This is shown in an increase of theta waves when an individual passes on to drowsiness. Alpha 1 (8-10 Hz)

Low alpha waves report an unaware state of relaxation with decreased cortical activation. They occur in states where an individual does not focus on surroundings of the environment. Alpha 2 (10-13 Hz)

High alpha waves appear in a state of vigilance and alertness. They represent awareness of the surroundings but without focusing anything specific.

Beta 1 (13-21 Hz)

Low beta waves are primarily associated with cognitive processing. The cognitive requirements to fulfill a task become obvious by the activation of the cortex.

Beta 2 (21-35 Hz)

High beta waves represent higher states of concentration and cognitive processing and might be a result of cognitive challenges.

These insights prov8ide the opportunity to examine the effects of IT-accessibility on human cognitive processing and therefore will be discussed in Chapter 5.

IT-accessibility for Information and Communication Technology

The term "IT-accessibility" stands for the development of systems for users with diverse capabilities. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) defines IT-accessibility as follows:

"The usability of a product, service, environment or facility by people with the widest range of capabilities." [START_REF] Iso | Ergonomics of human-system interaction -Part 171: Guidance on software accessibility[END_REF]. This definition implies that usability is an essential goal to achieve IT-accessibility not for specific user groups, but all possible user groups, including young, healthy, disabled and elderly people. For the successful implementation of this goal theory provides detailed guidelines on how to develop accessible IT-systems. The following paragraph will briefly introduce the reader to important accessibility-development principles.

Principle 1: Perception All content presented within an application must be perceivable for any user. This includes e. g. color contrasts, font sizes and screen reader compatibility. Principles 2: Operability The content and its functionalities must be operable by different devices. For example, a visually impaired user is able to navigate through the content by keyboard commands. Principle 3: Understandability The structure of the application as well as the content must be easy to understand for the user. For example, abbreviations and foreign words are explained if the user demands it. Principle 4: Technical openness An application must be compatible to diverse devices. For example, the content and operation of a website adapts to the accessing device. This device can be e.g. a computer, a smartphone or a tablet.

The aforementioned principles of accessibility are part of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0) published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C, 2008). The international organization for standardization approved this guideline as an international standard in the year 2012.

Influence on Cognitive Processing

In theory there is only little work about individual cognitive aspects of ITaccessibility. Most of the articles and books focus on IT-accessibility criteria that promote people with cognitive disabilities. But none of these examined the influence of IT-accessibility standards on the cognitive processing capability. To evaluate this, the authors imply that a long interval between steps one to six of Persad's model in figure 2 indicates the presence of at least one interfering factor. Interfering factors can be defined as any event that prevents or impedes the user from achieving a goal. For instance, this can be a system failure, distracting elements on the graphical user interface (GUI), low system performance or poor menu structure. These factors induce stress perception by the user and thereby affect human cognitive processing [START_REF] Shu | The Impact of Computer Self-Efficacy and Technology Dependence on Computer-Related Technostress: A Social Cognitive Theory Perspective[END_REF]. In 1984 Craig Brod denoted this kind of stress as "technostress" [START_REF] Brod | Technostress: The human cost of the computer revolution[END_REF]. Technostress can be defined as "any negative impact on attitudes, thoughts, behaviors, or body physiology that is caused either directly or indirectly by technology" [START_REF] Weil | Technostress: coping with technology @work @home @play[END_REF]. Figure 3 provides an illustration.

Fig. 3. Interfering factors influence cognitive processing

The next section will discuss several instruments to analyze correlations between the utilization of ICT and effects on cognitive processing. These instruments will provide opportunities to measure effects of accessible IT on human cognitive processing. The authors will justify their selection of instruments for future research activities.

Selection of methodologies and instruments

The study of cognitive neuroscience concerns with how cognition and emotion are implemented in the brain. By using EEG, mental events, including all forms of "thinking" or "reasoning", become visible (Penn, 2010). The electrodes of an EEG record the activities from the cortex and upper layers of the brain where most of the cognitive processes occur. The benefit of using an EEG, compared to e.g. brain imaging techniques, is the real-time recording of brain activities which enables the monitoring of interactions in specific evoked situations. Nevertheless, EEG data only represents one source of data about the cognitive processing. This source is highly dependent on the situation and behavior of the user. Specific factors, which influence the measurement, cannot be clearly identified, such as eye blinkings, head movements or muscle movements. This can lead to distorted measurements. Therefore the EEG data should be validated with other sources of information, which help to analyze and interpret the EEG measurement more accurately.

According to this, the attempt to measure the negative effects of technostress on cognitive processing solely with an EEG is insufficient. It is still unclear to which extent stress can be reliably evaluated from the EEG [START_REF] Seo | Stress and EEG[END_REF]. EEG data can only provide indications for technostress, which have to be validated with additional methods. As Riedl, Kindermann, Auinger and Javor found in their literature review most studies use questionnaires to investigate origins and impacts of technostress [START_REF] Riedl | Technostress from a neurobiological perspective-system breakdown increases the stress hormone cortisol, Computer users[END_REF]. Participants are asked for experienced difficulties when interacting with an information system. The authors doubt that this method can provide reliable data, which can be used to validate EEG measures. Nevertheless, the gathered information about the interaction difficulties could be useful to identify weak spots of the system that refer to specific elements of Persad's cognition model. Therefore, the investigation of biochemical responses should be taken into consideration to measure technostress. Stress situations induce the secretion of hormones by the human body that includes cortisol, corticosterone, and adrenal catecholamines [START_REF] Van Der Kar | Forebrain pathways mediating stress induced hormone secretion[END_REF]. This secretion of cortisol correlates with the repeated exposure to stressful situations. Severe stress leads to a greater increase of cortisol than mild stress [START_REF] Sherwood | Fundamentals of Human Physiology[END_REF]. Typically an increase of cortisol can be expected when (1) the achievement of significant goals is endangered, (2) a situation is out of control, (3) the performance for executing a task is negatively judged by a third party [START_REF] Dickerson | Acute stressors and cortisol responses: a theoretical integration and synthesis of laboratory research[END_REF]. Riedl et al. successfully conducted a study where they investigated the impact of information system breakdowns on the secretion of cortisol. They found that the cortisol level was significantly higher after a test subject experienced a random system breakdown in comparison to the control subjects [START_REF] Riedl | Technostress from a neurobiological perspective-system breakdown increases the stress hormone cortisol, Computer users[END_REF]. An elevated cortisol level can lead to e.g. chronically burnout, depression, obesity, suppressed immune function, chronically increased blood pressure and atherosclerosis [START_REF] Melamed | Chronic burnout, somatic arousal and elevated salivary cortisol levels[END_REF][START_REF] De Kloet | Stress and the brain: from adaption to disease[END_REF][START_REF] Mcewen | Protective and damaging effects of stress mediators: central role of the brain[END_REF][START_REF] Walker | Glucocorticoids and cardiovascular disease[END_REF]. Therefore the authors consider this study as evidence that cortisol is an appropriate measurement unit to measure stress. EEG data that indicates stress through a high beta power measurement could be validated, if the corresponding cortisol level is significantly high as well [START_REF] Seo | Stress and EEG[END_REF]. Numerous body fluids like blood serum, urine, and saliva are suitable to measure cortisol levels [START_REF] Seo | Stress and EEG[END_REF]. Blood samples for measuring the level of cortisol are associated with greater inter-individual differences than saliva samples [START_REF] Park | Relationship between Physiological Response and Salivary Cortisol Level to Life Stress[END_REF]. Therefore the authors will prefer saliva samples over blood samples. The comfortable measurement of salivary cortisol suggests that this method could be applied to further studies with justifiable expenditures. Furthermore, the heart rate variability (HRV) can also be taken into consideration to validate EEG data. HRV represents the variation over time of the period between heartbeats and depends on the heart rate. It describes the ability of the heart to detect and quickly respond to external stimuli and in turn to adapt to new and changing circumstances [START_REF] Malik | Heart Rate Variability[END_REF][START_REF] Acharya | Heart rate variability: a review[END_REF]. HRV is often combined with other measurement methods like blood pressure, skin temperature etc. to testify certain interpretations in the context of stress measurement [START_REF] Zhong | Increased sympathetic and decreased parasympathetic cardiovascular modulation in normal humans with acute sleep deprivation[END_REF][START_REF] Lupien | Beyond the stress concept: Allostatic load-a developmental biological and cognitive perspective[END_REF] and emotions [START_REF] Lupien | Stress and Memory[END_REF]. The consolidation of HRV and EEG data showed that high beta EEG power correlates with increased HRV significantly [START_REF] Seo | Stress and EEG[END_REF].

Figure 4 illustrates the authors' selection of instruments that fit the NAD requirements and enable the evaluation of IT-accessibility impacts on cognitive processing.

Fig. 4. Selection of instruments

To summarize, the selected instruments for the NAD approach are the principles of accessibility combined with results from EEG records, questionnaires, salivary cortisol measurements and heart rate variability. The latter three instruments are required to validate EEG records that indicate stress. The combination of the instruments, shown in figure 4, provides data on technostress induced by the utilization of information systems and allows the authors to evaluate H3 and H4. To measure the effect of IT-accessibility on cognitive processing, different users and applications have to be tested with these instruments. The comparison of accessible and inaccessible applications will enable the authors to evaluate H1 and H2. The integration and interpretation of all results finally will allow an evaluation of H5 as shown in table 3.

Conclusion

This article concerned with consequences for the design of information systems, induced by demographic alterations. The authors hypothesised that there exists a correlation between accessible ICT and human cognitive processing. They established five null hypotheses that need to be evaluated in future research projects. The NAD approach was defined, including instruments and methodologies required for the evaluation of the null hypotheses. In chapter 4.1 and 4.2 the reader was introduced to the basics of human cognitive processing and IT-accessibility. Afterwards this article discussed several instruments needed to evaluate H1-H5. Finally the authors illustrated a bundle of instruments that will be applied in future research projects. The next step will be the definition of detailed test procedures that will enable an appropriate evaluation of H1-H5. After that the authors will conduct studies and publish the results, to enrich current theory on information systems and neuroscience.

NAD

Table 3 .

 3 Evaluation of H1-H5

	Hypotheses Instruments
	H1 / H2	questionnaire, principles of accessibility
	H3 / H4	EEG records, salivary cortisol measurements and heart rate variability
	H5	questionnaire, principles of accessibility, EEG records, salivary corti-
		sol measurements and heart rate variability