UK’s Human Cloud SMEs’ Imbrication; Unravelling Sociomaterial New Routines

Ali, Mohammed, Edghiem, Farag ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9755-7435 and Abualqumboz, Moheeb (2021) UK’s Human Cloud SMEs’ Imbrication; Unravelling Sociomaterial New Routines. In: British Academy of Management 2021 Conference, 31 August 2021- 3 September 2021, Online.

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Abstract

The human cloud is an emerging technological paradigm that provides a set of online digital marketplaces in which talent and those seeking to employ talent can find and engage one another in a work arrangement. Whereas cloud offerings, such as Google Apps and Microsoft Office 365 are rapidly gaining a large user base, enterprise software migration towards the human cloud is still in its infancy, despite a 42% rise in human cloud platform revenue in 2019. Organisations have the opportunity to exploit the human cloud by creating a series of interconnected virtual collaborative workspaces from employees’ homes. This scenario is akin to sociomateriality theory, which explores how humans, spaces and technologies intertwine in business practice. The sociomateriality perspective has not sufficiently examined organisational routines in the materiality of work practices in a human cloud context. The significance of this paper is applying the sociomateriality perspective and organisational routines theory to understand how sociomateriality practices could potentially influence organisational change, when an organisation moves from an on premise IT system to a human cloud business model. We present initial findings of interpretive case studies from Small-Medium Enterprises (SMEs) operating in the UK, of the potential migration of on premise IT systems to a human cloud business model, such as Oracle Human Capital Management (HCM) systems. We collected empirical data from 101 SMEs. Focus groups and observations were conducted comprising business managers regarding their current methods of using on premise IT systems, how they apply them to their business processes and how these methods could change their organisational routines in the event of transitioning to a human cloud business model.