Doing Sociomateriality Research In Information Systems

This paper agrees with Mueller et al.'s (2016) view that researchers who want to adopt a sociomaterial approach often find themselves confused regarding research methods. However, it departs from Mueller's et al. suggestion to seek guidance from the structural-functionalist approach of Parsons' and Shils' (1951) General Theory of Action. The paper argues that finding a methodological framework for research following a sociomaterial approach has to be consistent with the philosophy, ontology and roots of this approach and that it is limiting to read the post-human approach of sociomateriality through a structural-functionalist lens. The paper briefly reviews the roots of the sociomaterial approach in sociology and information systems and offers a methodological guidance based on Actor Network Theory (ANT) and post ANT/Feminist lenses.</jats:p

Sociomateriality and disabled individuals’ identity work: a critical poststructuralist research agenda

This paper responds to calls to rebalance the role of materiality in identity work. Taking a critical poststructuralist approach to identity work and a relational ontology perspective on sociomateriality, we explore how a ‘disabled’ person’s identity work is shaped by and responds to the influences of embodied practices and material arrangements within the workplace. We achieve this by reviewing the notion of sociomateriality as a "constitutive entanglement" (Orlikowski, 2007: 1437) of the material and the human. More specifically, we discuss how disabled individuals are constituted through sociomaterial relations and practices involving the body, assistive technology and mundane artefacts. This paper, therefore, contributes to the emerging interest, in identity studies, on the role of the material within identity work, and, in Disability Studies, to the entanglement of the social and material in constructions of disability as difference

Don’t throw rocks from the side-lines: A sociomaterial exploration of organizational blogs as boundary objects

Purpose Social media such as blogs are being widely used in organizations in order to undertake internal communication and share knowledge, rendering them important boundary objects. A root metaphor of the boundary object domain is the notion of relatively static and inert objects spanning similarly static boundaries. A strong sociomaterial perspective allows the immisciblity of object and boundary to be challenged, since a key tenet of this perspective is the ongoing and mutually-constituted performance of the material and social. Design/methodology/approach The aim of our research is to draw upon sociomateriality to explore the operation of social media platforms as intra-organizational boundary objects. Given the novel perspective of this study and its social constructivist ontology, we adopt an exploratory, interpretivist research design. This is operationalized as a case study of the use of an organizational blog by a major UK government department over an extended period. A novel aspect of the study is our use of data released under a Freedom of Information request. Findings We present three exemplar instances of how the blog and organizational boundaries were performed in the situated practice of the case study organization. We draw on literature on boundary objects, blogs and sociomateriality in order to provide a theoretical explication of the mutually-constituted performance of the blog and organizational boundaries. We also invoke the notion of ‘extended chains of intra-action’ to theorise changes in the wider organization. Originality/value Adoption of a sociomaterial lens provides a highly novel perspective of boundary objects and organizational boundaries. The study highlights the indeterminate and dynamic nature of boundary objects and boundaries, with both being in an intra-active state of becoming, challenging conventional conceptions. The study demonstrates that specific material-discursive practices arising from the situated practice of the blog at the respective boundaries were performative, reconfiguring the blog and boundaries and being generative of further changes in the organization

Sense-making of consumer wellbeing in information technology-enabled services from a relational ontology position

Information technology (IT) built into products and services have become the key drivers for service innovation. How information technology-enabled services (ITESs) affect consumer wellbeing has increasingly become a concern to service scholars. In response to this, transformative service research (TSR) has emerged as a new stream in service research. This paper investigates consumer wellbeing derived from the consumption of ITESs in consumers’ daily lives. A mixed-method approach was employed in our study, including self-reflective reports, in-depth interviews and visual artistic methods. We demonstrated that a relational ontology, drawing on the ‘focal things’ concept (Borgmann, 1984) and sociomateriality (Orlikowski, 2009), could be used as a lens for us to understand consumer wellbeing in ITESs. We used four vignettes to demonstrate how relational ontology can enhance our understanding of consumer wellbeing in ITESs. Theoretically, this paper contributes to TSR by proposing and demonstrating the need to shift or at least extend the extant predominant technology ontology in marketing literature to make sense of consumer experiences and wellbeing in ITESs. In practice, this research encourages ITESs designers to emphasise the relational entanglement of technology with consumer routine practices in their service innovations for the purposes of consumer wellbeing

SOCIOMATERIAL ETHNOGRAPHY: TAKING THE MATTER SERIOUSLY

Ethnographic research is a form of qualitative inquiry that creates deep and rich understanding of a studied naturalistic phenomenon. Traditionally, ethnographic research has focused on uncovering the meanings and interpretations of those studied. In other words, ethnographies have focused on uncovering the social construction of the world that reflects underlying interpretive stance. However, recent theoretical developments within Information Systems (IS) and management research emphasize that it is not only social constructions but \u27matter\u27 that matters. Research that aims at taking matter seriously in their theorizing are referred to as sociomateriality. Despite that empirical sociomateriality research seems to prefer ethnography as research approach, explicit reflections on the applicability of ethnography for sociomaterialist studies lack. This paper aims at contributing by arguing for the applicability of ethnography for sociomaterialist studies, building especially on agential realist worldview. Applying sociomaterial stance for ethnographies emphasize (1) studying the entanglement of social and material in lieu of social constructions; (2) sensitivity to performativity over representations; and (3) viewing researcher as part of, in lieu of, within, the phenomenon studied. The study contributes to the discussions on sociomateriality by lowering the barrier to conduct sociomaterialist empirical work. Conclusions are draw

MCIS 2014 Proceedings

Ethnographic research is a form of qualitative inquiry that creates deep and rich understanding of a studied naturalistic phenomenon. Traditionally, ethnographic research has focused on uncovering the meanings and interpretations of those studied. In other words, ethnographies have focused on uncovering the social construction of the world that reflects underlying interpretive stance. However, recent theoretical developments within Information Systems (IS) and management research emphasize that it is not only social constructions but &#39;matter&#39; that matters. Research that aims at taking matter seriously in their theorizing are referred to as sociomateriality. Despite that empirical sociomateriality research seems to prefer ethnography as research approach, explicit reflections on the applicability of ethnography for sociomaterialist studies lack. This paper aims at contributing by arguing for the applicability of ethnography for sociomaterialist studies, building especially on agential realist worldview. Applying sociomaterial stance for ethnographies emphasize (1) studying the entanglement of social and material in lieu of social constructions; (2) sensitivity to performativity over representations; and (3) viewing researcher as part of, in lieu of, within, the phenomenon studied. The study contributes to the discussions on sociomateriality by lowering the barrier to conduct sociomaterialist empirical work. Conclusions are drawn.</p

Developing business advantages from the technological possibilities of enterprise information systems

Organizations are increasingly implementing Enterprise Information Systems (EIS), and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems in particular. Despite the notable studies on the advantages of an EIS, many organizations are not satisfied with the benefits or advantages gained. At the same time, it is assumed that such systems with increasing innovations and technological enhancements would generate abundant business advantages, if organizations exploited these opportunities. The investigation in this work drew on the sociomateriality perspective, using imbrication notion, and focused on a telecomm case study to examine how organizations can exploit the technological possibilities of an EIS to create business benefits. The study findings suggest that business benefits can be achieved when the EIS as a technical system is interwoven with the organizational work in which both dynamically change in practice (not from the technical features of the system), when the system provides interesting and beneficial technological possibilities that attract organizations, and when the firm has the organizational capabilities to translate these possibilities into real business benefits

A Threesome Dance of Agency: Mangling the Sociomateriality of Technological Regimes in Digital Innovation

In this paper, we develop a sociomaterial perspective for appreciating tensions between different technological regimes in digital innovation. Our case study research specifically looks at the tension between the deep-rooted component-based logic of two automakers’ innovation practices and their attempt to introduce a new software architecture based on service orientation. Our evidence suggests that digital architectures need to materialize and be shaped in a dialectical way in the mangle of both existing regimes. We argue that the threesome dance of physical material agency, digital material agency and human agency can explain this finding and yield implications for our understanding of digital innovation in the traditional industries. Digital innovation is a result of a dialectical process, resolving various elements of resistance, subjection, and accommodation across the three types of agency