IDT - Sociomaterial Practices: Exploring Technology at Work

Question 1

Two prominent ways of dealing with materiality that are currently evident in the literature on organization research

Answer 1

1. The largely disregarding, downplaying or taking for granted the materiality of organizations. The absence of considering of the material artifacts, bodies, arrangements and infrastructures through which practice is performed
2. Materiality has only been involved in organizational literature studying specific cases of tech. adoption, diffusion and use in and across orgs.

Question 2

Two problems with current ways of dealing with materiality

Answer 2

1. The explicit focus on tech. adoption, diffusion and use as separate / distint phenomena that occur within orgs.
2. Organizational studies that invesitgate adoption, diffusion and use tend to focus on technology effects (techno-centric perspective) or on interactions with technology (human pespective

Question 3

Techno-centric perspective (definition)

Answer 3

Is interested in understanding how tech. leverages human action, taking a functional or instrumental approach that tends to assume that technology is exogenous, homogeneous, predictable and stable. That is always performs as intended and is designed across time and space.

Question 4

Human-centered perspective (definition)

Answer 4

Focuses on how humans make sense of and interact with tech. in various circumstances. tech. is not blackboxed, but understood to be different depending on meanings assigned to it and depending on ways people engage with it

Question 5

Constitutive entanglement

Answer 5

Presumes there are no indep. existing entities with inherent characteristics (Barad, 2003). Humans are constituted through rel. of materiality (bodies, clothes, food, devices, tools), which in turn are produced through human practices. Humans and materiality entail/enact on each other

Question 6

Information Search (example case)

Answer 6

Information search is central to academic work. Searching for definitions, citations, studies, discussion, etc is an activity that most of engage in at one time. The Google search engine is engineered by people, and adapts itself to the millions of people who search it, and on the people who create and update webpages every day. The result is a constitutive entanglement of the social and the material.

Question 7

Mobile Communication (example case)

Answer 7

The blackberry service is sociomaterially configured to push email to handheld devices. Professionals can choose when to look and to respond, but this push feature results in the expectation that everyone responds rather quickly.

Sociomaterial practices (mobile communication) is significantly changing why, when, where and how members interact. Norms of comm. are reconfigured, altering expectations of availability and accountability, redefining the boundaries of the workday.

Question 8

Conclusion of this article

Answer 8

It is proposed that researchers recognize that all practices are always and everywhere sociomaterial. That sociomateriality is constitutive, shaping the contours and possibilities of everyday organizing.

Focusing on sociomateriality will sensitize us to a different/new set of issues, and will open up important avenues for understanding organizational life.