Entanglements of creative agency and digital technology : a sociomaterial study of computer game development

Digital technology, with its distinctive characteristics that result from the fundamental process of digitalization that underpins it, is seen as fundamentally altering processes of creativity. However, we currently have limited understanding of creativity in relation to the development of digital technology. Computer game development, with its combination of esthetic, affective and cultural use features and highly sophisticated digital technologies, is a valuable setting for investigating these issues. In this paper, we explore how computer games are shaped through the interplay between the creative intentions of developers and the digital technologies involved in their production and playing. Drawing on in-depth studies conducted at three leading computer game development studios and a leading producer of the software system used in game development, this paper shows how the game developers' creative ideas for imagined novel game-playing experiences relate to a) the development of relevant digital technologies, and b) the emergence of new game development practices. The article goes on to propose a view of creativity as an on-going flow that, following an initial ‘creative impulse’, ripples through the sociomaterial entanglements of a particular setting, reconfiguring them in the process and spreading out in time and space in often unexpected ways

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

Understanding Digital Platform Generativity from a Sociomaterial Perspective

Research on digital platform generativity has predominantly taken a substantivist view, considering digital platforms as relatively static, self-contained entities separated from their human actors. We argue this view, while intuitive and common sensical, also has a downside – biasing researchers and practitioners from understanding the dynamic and processual nature of digital platform constituted through generativity in the flow of time. We offer a sociomaterial view to consider digital platforms as an assemblage of enacted sociomaterial practices, enabling researchers to move from studying platforms to platform becoming, and from generativity to generating. We illustrate these ideas via a preliminary empirical study of how generativity is constituted by the performativity of a digital platform, as it is enacted by the human agencies entailed in its design and management. Ultimately, our study aims to take steps towards a sociomaterial theory of digital platform generativity that can contributes to the digital platform literature

Active Algorithms: Sociomaterial Spaces in the E-learning and Digital Cultures MOOC

This paper will explore two examples from the design, structure and implementation of the ‘E-learning and Digital Cultures’ Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) from the University of Edinburgh in partnership with Coursera. This five week long course (known as the EDCMOOC) was delivered twice in 2013, and is considered an atypical MOOC in its utilisation of both the Coursera platform and a range of social media and open access materials. The combination of distributed and aggregated structure will be highlighted, examining the arrangement of course material on the Coursera platform and student responses in social media. This paper will suggest that a dominant instrumentalist view of technology limits considerations of these systems to merely enabling or inhibiting educational aims. The subsequent discussion will suggest that sociomaterial theory offers a valuable framework for considering how educational spaces are produced through relational practices between humans and non-humans. An analysis of You Tube and a bespoke blog aggregator will show how the algorithmic properties of these systems perform functions that cannot be reduced to the intentionality of either the teachers using these systems, or the authors who create the software, thus constituting a complex sociomaterial educational enactment

Shared Workspaces of the Digital Workplace: From Design for Coordination to Coordination for Flexible Design

The emergence of new digital platforms and social software at work changes workplaces and how people coordinate their work. To date, coordination has only been minimally studied in the context of the social software enabled digital workplace. Through a qualitative analysis, we identify different coordination mechanisms (CM) in various practice areas as envisioned and used with the same collaboration platform by three healthcare workplace teams. The findings illustrate the flexibility of shared workspace designs of the digital workplace where CM cannot be anticipated a priori by researchers and software developers. We end with a discussion of the findings from a sociomaterial perspective to encourage studies that monitor the flexible and complex enactment of temporally emerging shared workspace designs

Between Movement and Platform : Exploring the Sociomateriality of Accountability in Platform Organization and its Performative Consequences

Digital platforms represent a growing disruptive phenomenon. Platforms are engaging since they trace peers, consumers, and citizens, organize social movements, manage distributed innovation, and aid in the governance of cities in terms of distributed agency and autonomy. As different tracing and evaluative infrastructures form and disclose new forms of interaction and trust, platforms give shape to new subjectivities, properties, and relative positions that have not hitherto been defined. This dissertation investigates the emergence of this phenomenon, the accounting practices and infrastructures that underpin this new form of organizing, and possible consequences in terms of accountability that arise in platform organizing. This doctoral dissertation aims to contribute to the understanding of how and where accountability is performed in platform organization. The dissertation draws on different sources from a spiral case study to provide a body of empirical evidence about platformization and accountability. In terms of the approach, the dissertation works under what Orlikowski & Scott (2014) describe as the “broad banner of sociomateriality,” a perspective where materiality is seen as constitutive of all organizational practices. Thus, the dissertation introduces a practice theoretical approach focusing on practice as sociomaterial configuring. The empirical context of the first two papers is sharing economy practices and platforms in Finland. The first paper examines how disruptive activities emerge, while the second considers platform-mediated peer trust in the light of “nordic exceptionalism” and high trust societies. The empirical context of the third paper is Open Innovation platforms. This paper develops a performative theory of openness. Drawing on interview and ethnographic data from an empirical case study of the Smart and Wise City Turku spearhead project, the fourth paper explores the tendency in smart cities initiatives to invest in ICT as a means to “wire up” and make technology “do political work” (Woolgar & Neyland, 2013, p. 17). The paper’s central theoretical concept of “thinking infrastructure” highlights how new accounting practices (e.g., on digital platforms) operate by disclosing new worlds where the platforms and the users discover the nature of their responsibilities to the other. When a platform performs accountability, it enables new modalities of distributed agency and distributed authority. When someone or something does not count on a platform, one needs to think critically about the boundaries, constraints, and exclusions that operate through the particular sociomaterial practice of platformization. Through the four empirical research papers and a kappa, this dissertation contributes to understanding how, where and when accountability is performed in platform organization. The findings highlight the sociomateriality of accountability in platform organization and its performative consequences.Digitala plattformar representerar ett växande disruptivt fenomen. Plattformar är intressanta eftersom de gör allt från att spåra användare, konsumenter och medborgare, organisera sociala rörelser, hantera distribuerad innovation och hjälper till att styra städer. När olika spårande och evaluerande digitala infrastrukturer formar och avslöjar nya former av interaktion och tillit, ger plattformar form åt nya subjektiviteter, egenskaper och relativa positioner som hittills inte har definierats. Denna avhandling undersöker uppkomsten av detta fenomen, redovisningspraxis och infrastrukturer som ligger till grund för denna nya form av organisering och möjliga konsekvenser i termer av ansvarsskyldighet som uppstår på plattformar. Det övergripande syftet med denna doktorsavhandling att bidra till förståelsen av hur och var ansvarsskyldighet utförs i plattformorganisation. Avhandlingen bygger på olika källor från en spiralfallsstudie och tillhandahåller en mängd empiriska bevis i relation till begreppen plattform och ansvarsskyldighet. Avhandlingen placerar sig under det som Orlikowski & Scott (2014) beskriver som "sociomaterialitetens breda baner", ett perspektiv där materialitet ses som konstituerande för alla organisatoriska praktiker. Således introducerar avhandlingen ett praktikteoretiskt förhållningssätt som fokuserar på praktiken som sociomateriell konfiguration. Den empiriska kontexten för de två första artiklarna är delningsekonomi och plattformar i Finland. Den första artikeln undersöker hur disruptiva aktiviteter uppstår, medan den andra betraktar plattformsförmedlad tillit i ljuset av "nordisk exceptionalism". Den empiriska kontexten för den tredje artikeln är plattformar för öppen innovation. Denna artikel utvecklar en performativ teori om öppenhet. Med utgångspunkt i intervjuer och etnografiska data från en empirisk fallstudie av spjutspetsprojektet Smart and Wise City Turku undersöker den fjärde artikeln smarta städer och trenden att investera i IKT som ett sätt att "koppla upp" och få teknologi att "göra politiskt arbete” (Woolgar & Neyland, 2013, s. 17). Artikelns centrala teoretiska koncept "tänkande infrastruktur" belyser hur nya redovisningsmetoder (t.ex. på digitala plattformar) fungerar genom att avslöja nya världar där plattformarna och användarna upptäcker arten av deras ansvar gentemot den andra. När en plattform fördelar ansvar möjliggör den nya modaliteter för distribuerad handlingskraft och distribuerad auktoritet. När någon eller något inte räknas på en plattform, måste man tänka kritiskt på de gränser, begränsningar och uteslutningar som verkar genom den speciella sociomateriella praktiken plattformisering. Genom de fyra empiriska forskningsartiklarna och en kappa bidrar denna avhandling till att förstå hur, var och när ansvarsskyldighet uppstår i plattformsorganisation. Resultaten belyser den sociomateriella ansvarsfördelningen i plattformsorganisation och dess performativa konsekvenser

Digital Work: A Research Agenda

We have been invited to discuss “digital work” and to propose a research agenda for the next decade or so. We value the opportunity to share some thoughts on this important area. In doing so, we will begin with a reconceptualization off the phenomenon that is at stake here, offer some specific examples, and then close by considering some possible future research directions that we hope will be both useful and generative

The digital undertow and institutional displacement: a sociomaterial approach

As “the digital” becomes pervasive within organizations and industries, it is increasingly evident that how we live, work, connect, coordinate, and govern are being significantly changed by digitalization. Many of these digital transformations are highly visible and dramatic, involving a purposeful repositioning and restructuring of organizations and industries. But in addition to these direct and visible changes, we argue that processes of digitalization are also producing less visible transformations in core institutional values, norms, and rules, which are indirectly, yet more fundamentally, reconfiguring how organizations and industries perform. Referencing findings from two different sectors, we posit that the corollary effects of waves of digitalization — what we conceptualize as the “digital undertow” — are generating a set of dynamics that are displacing institutional apparatuses from their positions of primacy and authority within industries. We further suggest that our conventional toolkits for studying organizational phenomena are not well equipped to examining such corollary effects of digitalization. In addressing this challenge, we consider how the relational and performative theorizing of strong sociomateriality provides a powerful analytic for investigating these effects and we highlight how it offers valuable insights into the institutional displacements arising in the digital undertow