Organizational inertia often arises within the interplay between complex technologies and organizing. While prior research focuses on inertia during new technology implementation, less is known about how inertia emerges when actors use existing technologies in practice. Addressing this issue, we conducted a twelve-month ethnographic study of an organization operating a Supercomputer as its core technology-in-use. Despite frequent collective reflection in designated ‘reflective spaces,’ changes to the technology-in-use and organizational routines were rarely enacted. Our analysis reveals an iterative cycle of proposing and suppressing changes within those reflective spaces. We further find that the suppression of potential changes is enabled by the symbolic characteristics of the Supercomputer, described as either fragile or infallible. We theorize this as symbolic enactment, a process where actors collectively construct and reconstruct the meanings of complex technologies-in-use in practice. The findings contribute to research on technology and organizing by showing how, first, strong embeddedness of routines within technology-in-use can drive inertia, second, inertia is an effortful accomplishment shaped by symbolic enactment, and, third, technology-in-use enables the enactment of power to reinforce organizational routines. Additionally, we extend research on reflective spaces by identifying symbolic enactment as a condition under which they do not enable change. Our study further extends research on the symbolic nature of artifacts by highlighting how symbolic enactment of technology-in-use reproduces inertia.
