Give me a two-by-two matrix and I will create the market: Rankings, graphic visualisations and sociomateriality

Scholars have described how rankings can be consequential for the shaping of the economy. The prevailing argument is that they wield influence through encouraging ‘mechanisms of reactivity’ amongst market actors. We ask the question as to whether there are additional agential aspects found within rankings that extend ‘social’ accounts. We suggest that ‘sociomateriality’ is also a significant aspect of a ranking’s influence. Through developing the notion of a ‘ranking device’, we examine how the ‘‘format and furniture’’ of a ranking can mediate and constitute a domain. Drawing on a detailed study of a prominent graphical performance measure from within the information technology (IT) arena, we provide evidence to show that IT markets can be as much a product of the affordances and constraints of ranking devices as any other (non-material) aspects of the ranking. The article integrates literature from Accounting research and Science and Technology Studies to contribute to our understanding of how material things and the economy mutually constitute one another. It also offers one of the first empirical accounts of the sociomaterial construction of a graphical ranking

Performing theories, transforming organizations

Marti and Gond (2018) have recently attempted to extend our understanding of how theories shape social reality by developing a process model of performativity and by articulating the boundary conditions that delimit that process. While we laud Marti and Gond's attempt to develop an analytical template to study the effectiveness and influence of theories, and fully share their overarching sentiment about the substantial potential for this kind of theorizing effort, we believe there are two fundamental flaws in their framework. First, Marti and Gond conceptualize a theory as an objectified, standalone entity. Second, they characterize the effects of a theory in terms of a linear, sequential process. In contrast to this view, we conceptualize a theory as inherently relational (i.e., they must be considered in conjunction with actors, artifacts, practices, and other theories) and characterize the effects of a theory in terms of dynamic, non-linear processes. We believe that conceptualizing theories relationally and characterizing the effects of theories dynamically enhances the generative potential of performativity for management research

Beyond routines as things : introduction to the special issue on routine dynamics

Research on routines has grown in recent years as scholars have increasingly recognized the centrality of this organizational phenomenon (Parmigiani and Howard-Grenville, 2011; Salvato and Rerup, 2011). This special issue is devoted to routine dynamics, one branch of research on routines that is based in the idea that routines are practices with internal dynamics that contribute to both stability and change in organizations (Feldman and Pentland, 2003). Ethnographic fieldwork has been an important source of observations from which routine dynamics has emerge

Business models : a routine dynamics reconceptualization

Despite its widespread use within strategy and innovation research the notion of "business model" as a theoretical construct remains ill-defined and conceptually underdeveloped. In this conceptual paper, we address these limitations, first, by identifying some of the reasons for the lack of consensus around business models conceptualisation, and, second, by reconceptualising business models from a novel perspective based on Routine Dynamics. More specifically, we show how the lack of theoretical integration between the transaction cost economics, Schumpeterian innovation, resource based theory, strategic networks and cognitive perspectives that underpin current business models research act as a major source of theoretical dissonance. We elaborate and illustrate these arguments by drawing on the business models of Amazon, a leading e-commerce firm. We then propose a routine dynamics perspective to integrate insights from the various perspectives within business model research. Our findings contribute towards further integrating BM research with Management and Organisational Theory

Conforming or transforming? How organizations respond to multiple rankings

The dominant theme within extant research on performance and ranking conceptualises the organisational response to a ranking as one where it responds by ‘conforming’ to the measure (Korberger and Carter 2010, Scott and Orlikowski 2012, Shore and Wright 2015). This process of ‘reactivity’ (Espeland and Sauder 2007), however, is not always possible, especially in the complex and rapidly - changing settings described in this paper. In cer tain contexts organisations are typically surrounded by multiple measures, raising the question as to which they should align. Drawing on an ethnographic study across a number of sites, we show how some organisations instead of conforming to a single measu re are ‘transforming’ to respond to the challenge of multiple rankings, by constructing and elaborating new forms of expertise, knowledge and connection with rankers. Unlike prior research that presents organisations as constrained by systems of measuring (which we name ‘reactive conformance’), we examine how they are becoming more proactive towards this challenge (described as ‘reflexive transformation’). Specifically, building on themes from accounting and the ‘sociology of worth', we present evidence tha t organisations exercise greater choice than expected about which rankings they respond to, shape their ranked positions, as well as wield influence over assessment criteria and the wider evaluative ecosystem