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Socio-Materiality and Information Systems Research: Three STS Phases Three IS Turns

Socio-Materiality and Information Systems Research: Three STS Phases Three IS Turns. Nathalie Mitev King’s College London, UK Muenster University, Germany. The bigger picture…. Organisation Theory Post- marxist /structuralist social theories:

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Socio-Materiality and Information Systems Research: Three STS Phases Three IS Turns

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  1. Socio-Materiality and Information Systems Research: Three STS PhasesThree IS Turns Nathalie Mitev King’s College London, UK Muenster University, Germany

  2. The bigger picture… Organisation Theory • Post-marxist/structuralist social theories: Structuration theory (Giddens), habitus (Bourdieu), governmentality (Foucault), constructionism (Berger & Luckman), constructivism IS Research • Socio-technicalapproaches (1970s-80s) Systems development, socio-technical design, ethics, action research • Interpretivism (1990s-2000s) Qualitative research, structurationtheory(Walsham), contextualist and institutional approaches, agency, emergence, practice (Orlikowski) • Sociomateriality (2000s-10s) Non-dualism, actor network theory, symmetry, entanglement • The return of the material…

  3. DUALISM

  4. HETEROGENEOUS ASSEMBLAGE

  5. EMERGENCE

  6. Tools and Turns in Studying Technology atWork(Orlikowski, 2015) • First turn: significance of the social • Second turn: primacy of practice • Third turn: materiality matters

  7. Science & Technology Studies Three phases: • Social Shaping of Technology (SST) • Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) • Actor-Network Theory (ANT) Sociomateriality

  8. SST, SCOT and ANT • Away from technological determinism and towards understanding socialprocesses • socialshaping • socialconstruction • structuration • Open ‘black box’ of technology to sociological analysis to examine process and content of technology, attending to actions, meanings, norms,contexts • interpretations • interactions • emergence

  9. Phase 1 – SocialShaping of Technology MacKenzie & Wajcman (1985, 1999) • A radical reaction to technological determinism • Technology shaped by social interests • Social relations built into technology during design • Dominant groups: science and existing technology, economics, the state, gender, etc. • Attention to macro political, economic, cultural interests and values • Classic examples • Gendered printing technology (Cockburn, 1985) • Edison’s design of a system shaped by economic forces (Hughes, 1985) • Moses Bridge: artefacts have politics (Winner, 1986)

  10. FIRST TURN: SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SOCIAL Orlikowski’s Structurational Model of Technology (1992)

  11. Phase 2 – Social Construction of Technology(Pinch, Bijker, Collins 1980s-90s) • Technological development non-linear, multi-dimensional, ‘no one best way’ • Interested in how the social is embedded in the technical through interpretive flexibility • Stabilisation/closure of this flexibility • Methodological symmetry: controversies give insights into closure processes (not hindsight) • Connect closure with wider social structures • Role of actors and institutions in settling controversies • Technological content related to the social via meanings given and negotiated by actors (relevant social groups)

  12. Orlikowski and Gash’ s Technological Frames (1994) - Lotus Notes Case Study - (Harnisch, Kaiser, & Buxmann, 2013)

  13. Second Turn: Primacy of Practice • Deepeningthecommitmenttopractice (Shatzki, 2002) • Structures are enacted -not embedded orappropriated • technologies-in-practice • Extending apractice lens to other domains - e.g., knowledge, coordination, network relations, strategy, consulting,autonomy

  14. Orlikowski’s Technologies-in-Practice (2000)

  15. The ThirdTurn: MaterialityMatters human & non-humanactorstreatedequally

  16. human and non-human actors

  17. Phase 3 – Actor Network Theory(Callon & Latour, 1980s-2000s) • Away from macro-sociological analysis through detailed inquiry into local, contingent processes • Ethnomethodology • Scientific activities not just socially conditioned but ‘constructed’ through micro-social phenomena Micro processes Pervasive social dimension

  18. Actor-Network Actor-Network ‘Seamless web’ formation to be described (rather than explained) and enables to consider science, technology, economics, politics… Heterogenous human and non-human entities (actants) make the network – not to include intention but to reflect: technology is not plastic and cannot be shaped infinitely by social forces Symmetrically, technology is not driven solely by its own internal logic • Construction of facts a collective process through network-forming • Translationby fact-builders of interpretation of their interests and that of the people they enrol • Obligatory passage point • Stabilisation of alliances and social interests is result of controversy ‘in the making’ leading to • Irreversibilitythrough consensus reaching

  19. Entanglementand Performativity • Entanglement(Pickering, 2010) • Notassumeaprioridiscreteentitiesor givenprocesses • Posthumanistperformativity(Barad, 2007) • Explorehow specific sociomaterial enactments reconfigure reality differentlyin practicethrough inclusions andexclusions

  20. Practices areentangled Practices areperformative Practices make cuts (inclusions and exclusions)thatmakeparticulardistinctions, boundaries, and properties of pheno-menadeterminate-in-practice Specific socio-material enactments of phenomena perform reality inpractice • Thematerialandsocialareinseparable • Primary unit is not independent objects with inherent boundaries and properties, but phenomena socio-materially enacted inpractice

  21. PRACTICE THEORY+ANT+PERFORMATIVITY SOCIOMATERIALITY (Orlikowski, 2007) Performative entanglement (intentions cannot be attributed to just humans, they are effects of constitutive assemblages) SOCIO-MATERIALITY (Leonardi, 2011) Material performativity, human agency (onlyhumans have intentions)

  22. (Leonardi, 2013)

  23. Non-essentialist STS spectrum

  24. Implications for IS research? The ‘sociomaterial turn’ has brought back the material in organisational research • Debates about the relationships between the social and the material. Does it matter? • Other STS concepts? controversy, inscription, translation, action at a distance, ir/reversibility • Methodological issues: network boundaries, spokes-persons (agential cuts), pervasiveness of the social • Missing?symbolic and discursive aspects of artefacts, power and politics, socio-historical and cultural contexts, collective/societal action, environmental and community dimensions, gender, race, emancipation (post-Marxian, post-colonial technoscience)

  25. Anderson, W. (2002). Introduction: postcolonial technoscience, Social Studies of Science, 32(5-6), 643-658. de Vaujany, F.X. & N. Mitev, De la matérialité en théorie des organisations: tour, retour, detour? In F.-X. de Vaujany, A. Hussenot, & J. F. Chanlat (Eds.), Théorie des organisations: les nouvelles tendances, Paris: Économica. Doolin, B., & Lowe, A. (2002). To reveal is to critique: Actor-network theory and critical information systems research, Journal of Information Technology, 17(2), 69-78. Gond, J. P., Cabantous, L., Harding, N., & Learmonth, M. (2016). What do we mean by performativity in organizational and management theory? The uses and abuses of performativity, International Journal of Management Reviews, 18(4), 440-463. Harnisch, S., Kaiser, J., & Buxmann, P. (2013). Technological frames of reference in software acquisition decisions: Results of a multiple case study, ICIS 2013. Introna, L. (2013) Performativity and the becoming of sociomaterial assemblages In Materiality and Space in Management and OrganizationStudies, edited by F-X de Vaujany and N. Mitev, Palgrave. Leonardi, P. M. (2013). Theoretical foundations for the study of sociomateriality, Information and Organization, 23(2), 59-76. Mitev, N. & D.A. Howcroft (2011) Post-structuralism, social shaping of technology and actor network theory: what can they bring to IS research? In Oxford Handbook on Management Information Systems, edited by W. Currie & R.G. Galliers, Oxford University Press, 292-322. Orlikowski, W.J. (1992). The duality of technology: Rethinking the concept of technology in organizations, Organization Science, 3(3), 398-427. Orlikowski, W. J., & Gash, D. C. (1994). Technological frames: making sense of information technology in organizations. ACM Transactions on Information Systems, 12(2), 174-207. Orlikowski, W.J. (2000). Using technology and constituting structures: A practice lens for studying technology in organizations, Organization Science, 11(4), 404-428. Orlikowski, W.J. (2015) Research on technology at work: Exploring tools and making turns, ICIS Doctoral Consortium, Fort Worth, Texas, 10 Dec 2015. Pozzebon, M., Diniz, E., Mitev, N. de Vaujany, F.-X., Leca, B. &Pina e Cunha, M. (2017).Joining the sociomaterial debate, RAE-Revista de Administração de Empresas, Special Issue on Sociomateriality, 1-10. Willey, A. (2016). A world of materialisms: Postcolonial feminist science studies and the new natural, Science, Technology, & Human Values, 41(6), 991-1014.

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