ABSTRACT
The problem of technology is not technology, but rather its implementation. From the 1970s, a worldwide technology euphoria started proclaiming the indisputable benefits of computer automation. Computers were the magic spell to improve economic productivity and production efficiency. They promised radical changes in society, and ultimately a radical change to life itself. Even though this seems to have come true to a certain extent, establishing automation projects in the 1970s and 1980s was highly problematic (Tapscott and Caston, 1993; Forester, 1989). When, occasionally, such projects were concluded successfully and the systems and software were working satisfactorily technically, users often turned out to be unwilling or unable to handle them appropriately. Inadequate business process analyses, technocratic problem solving, cryptic human–computer interaction, and grossly lacking involvement of user groups (whether they were systems administrators, office staff or consumers), caused a surfeit of insurmountable problems as soon as the systems had been installed.
