School District Adoption and Implementation of a Learning Management System: A Case Study Using Rival Theoretical Lenses

Abstract

This study explored school district adoption and implementation of a learning management system. A substantial body of literature exists on school district data systems. However, this literature is highly rational in its view of data system adoption, and contains limited studies on learning management systems. With these liabilities in mind, this study used rival theoretical lenses from organizational theory, the rational perspective and the institutional perspective, to investigate these central questions: 1) how does a school district adopt and implement a learning management system and 2) how, if at all, do rational theory and institutional theory explain contextual forces and organizational actions in this process? These questions were answered with a single, exploratory case study in a school district that had recently adopted and implemented a learning management system. The multivocal literature that guided this study contains four strands: evaluative, status report, prescriptive, and specialized. Study findings revealed that the district engaged in a three-stage process of adoption, planning, and implementation of a learning management system. Although the rational perspective explained findings that aligned with the multivocal literature in the adoption and planning stages, district actions in the implementation stage were more clearly understood from the institutional perspective. Organizational processes in formalization, coupling, alignment, adaptiveness, and accountability, and external, contextual forces in accountability, privatization, and diffusion of innovation, proved to be salient concepts. These findings suggest that rival, theoretical lenses have utility in an investigation of school district learning management system adoption and implementation.