Socio-Materiality in Information Systems Research: Unveiling Sociotechnical Dimensions

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

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

9. 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

10. 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)

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

12. 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)

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

14. 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

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

16. The ThirdTurn: MaterialityMatters human & non-humanactorstreatedequally

17. human and non-human actors

18. 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

19. 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

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

21. 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

22. 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)

23. (Leonardi, 2013)

24. Non-essentialist STS spectrum

25. 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)

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