Explorative study on how Technology as an agent can be a dumb or absorbing entity; a case study on EPR of UK hospitals

For information systems implementation, the agency theory offers unique insight into IT implementation, outcome uncertainty, incentives, and risk. However, the main argument of the agency theory is related to identifying the principal-agent and the problem in determining the accountability that arises when delegating authority to the agents. This research has used the case study of implementing EPR technology in the NHS hospitals helps in understanding the characteristics of the healthcare systems, and the challenges facing the technology innovation and implementation. It aims to understand the IT implementation in the healthcare and must-be-principal vs the actual principal and how the scarcity of the material potentiality is acting as a dominant factor of change resistance. It is founded that this this phenomenon happens when the IT (the agent) does not belong to the practice (the principal discourse). As a result, it is possible to say that the mismatch of planning horizons between the principal (professional practice) and agent (Electronic-Patient-Record technology) occurs inversely when comparing the phenomenon in healthcare organization. From practice-based-perspective, the absorbing entity is the IT, which requires a maximum interaction between the human and nonhuman without adding value to the practice at least from one stakeholder’s perspective (neither being for users nor becoming from practice). In conclusion, the structuring of technology implementation in the healthcare sector from the agency theory perspective allowed the formulation of relations that complement the generalities of the theory, contributing to better understand its application and to propose a research agenda.