Digital technologies can create confusion among donors in the humanitarian supply chain (HSC), leading to uncertainty about their use. While resilience in HSCs has been widely studied, antifragility has not. This study examines how donor confidence in digital technologies impacts antifragility in HSCs through their application in sourcing, material flow, and distribution, with trust in digital technologies and perceived effective digital technology governance as moderating factors. Using resource dependence theory, data from 296 NGOs were analyzed with partial least squares–based structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The findings show that digital technology application is crucial for building an antifragile HSC and that donor confidence and trust in digital technologies are essential. NGOs should focus on enhancing trust and governance perception to facilitate digital transformation in HSCs.
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The sociomaterial lens within IS research holds that agency should not be considered as a property solely of humans, or of technology, but instead arises from an emergent interaction between the two. This, emergent, account of agency deepens our understanding of unfolding IS practice, but its largely cognitive orientation remains naïve towards affectively-sensed motivations that also form part of this interaction. By implication, a sociomaterial perspective lacking an affective dimension offers an incomplete conceptualisation of information systems. In response, an affectively-informed negative ontology encourages IS researchers to extend their focus beyond the visible, to encompass how actors’ receptiveness towards material objects (discourses, technologies) is shaped by deep, affectively-derived motivations of which they are not focally aware, but which nonetheless acquire agency in contributing to a sociomaterial outcome. A central argument, and illustrative empirical vignette, demonstrate how the concepts of sociomateriality, affect, and negative ontology combine to offer researchers an enhanced understanding of relational agency. A discussion follows, exploring some initial ontological, epistemological and methodological implications of an affectively-informed negative ontology for IS research.
- Research
- Information Systems, Organizational Theory
