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

Abstract 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.