User knowledge transformation through design: A historical materialism perspective

• User–developer interactions in a system development project were observed.
• The qualitative analysis elucidated how users' knowledge of their work was transformed.
• Historical materialism elucidates the historical interplay of knowledge transformation and material design.
• Contradictions in the material condition engender crises for altering users' existing knowledge.
• New knowledge is created through design of material reality, which further contains contradictions.

Through observation of an accounting system development project, this study examines how user knowledge of work, organization, and information system is transformed. The study employs the framework of historical materialism to explicate the interplay of knowledge and material conditions. The findings suggest that contradictions within the material condition, both in the resulting designs and in relations between users and developers, engender crises and trigger alteration of existing knowledge, and that new knowledge is created and validated through negotiating and specifying material designs. Knowledge transformation is shown to be historical in that knowledge is based on material condition at a certain moment and therefore is subject to change due to contradictions in the material condition. Therefore, often knowledge is transformed only partially as users and developers settle on a design to replicate existing practices with new features designed for different practices, producing contradictions for further transformation. The historical interplay of knowledge and material conditions paints a holistic picture of knowledge transformation through information system design.