Inclusive Entrepreneurship in Handling Competing Institutional Logics for DHIS2 Adoption in Ethiopian Public Health Care Context

Abstract

Information System (IS) research advocates employing collaborative and loose coupling strategies to address contradictory issues to address diversified actors’ interests than the prescriptive and unilateral Information Technology (IT) governance mechanisms’, yet it is rarely depicting how managers employ these strategies in Health Information System (HIS) implementation, particularly in a resource-constrained setting where IS implementation activities have highly relied on multiple international organizations resources. This study explored how managers in resource-constrained settings employ collaborative IT governance mechanisms in the case of District Health Information System 2 (DHIS2) adoption with an interpretative case study approach and the institutional logic concept. The institutional logic concept was used to identify the major actors’ logics underpinning the DHIS2 adoption. The study depicted the importance of high-level officials' distance from the dominant systemic logic to consider new alternative, and to employ inclusive IT governance mechanisms which separated resource from the system that facilitated stakeholders’ collaboration in DHIS2 adoption based on their capacity and interest.