When malleable information technologies meld with organizational routines: an affordance perspective

The purpose of this study is to understand how and why malleable information technologies meld with organizational routines to provide a firm with the ability to consistently perform a specific set of actions in the context of social media. The theoretical framework of our work is based on the concept of affordance, here derived from in-depth interviews with hotel managers. The framework posits that interpretations of key events that lead to social media appropriation unfold in five stages: initiative, approval, adjustment, reflection and evaluation. Moreover, our results showed that successful hotels were not only aware of the specific characteristics of social media (exteroception) but they had also more and more widespread recognition of coperception than unsuccessful. This study also advances theory and research on improvisational literature.