Workplace social exclusion is prevalent in organisations. It includes silent treatment, ostracism, thwarted belongingness, organisational shunning, language exclusion, gender and racial discrimination, and interpersonal social exclusion through the use of nonverbal cues .
These patterns result in the organisational unit or employees being 'silenced' during a strategic IT change. During this process, the status and identity of the target IT unit and its employees tend to become marginalised during the strategic change. Due to identity exclusion and the loss of status, IT leaders' rhetoric of integration and synergy can also be challenged by employees who experience segregation.Strategic work in IT is multifaceted and of a contradictory nature. A significant challenge for IT leaders is to decide to what extent they should include or exclude employees from participating in strategic change practices.
The consequences of exclusion can also involve a demotion in roles, loss of power, loss of resources, loss of technology mandates, reassignment to other units, employee retrenchments, new salaries, benefits and incentive structures. Change-induced exclusion also has implications for general well-being, including strain, shock, stress, nervousness, frustration and even depression. IT leaders should prioritise change-induced exclusion because of IT employees' psychological and physiological costs.Our conceptualisation of change-induced exclusion can provide IT leaders with new insights into managing strategic change. Leaders involved in IT strategy work should embrace dialogue and promote participation.
The ongoing reproduction of shared meanings requires a continuous process of negotiating the purpose of the change and stabilising the allocation of human and technical resources to IT units.