Sociomateriality
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Sociomateriality
Sociomateriality is a theory built upon the intersection of technology, work and organization, that attempts to understand "the constitutive entanglement of the social and the material in everyday organizational life."Orlikowski, W. J. (2007). Sociomaterial Practices: Exploring Technology at Work. Organization Studies (28)9, pp. 1435-1448. It is the result of considering how human bodies, spatial arrangements, physical objects, and technologies are entangled with language, interaction, and practices in organizing. Specifically, it examines the social and material aspects of technology and organization,Leonardi, P. M., & Barley, S. R. (2010). What’s under construction here? Social action, materiality, and power in constructivist studies of technology and organizing. but also emphasizes the centrality of materials within the communicative constitution of organizations. It offers a novel way to study technology at the workplace, since it allows researchers to study the social and the ...
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Wanda Orlikowski
Wanda J. Orlikowski is a US-based organizational theorist and Information Systems researcher, and the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Information Technologies and Organization Studies at the MIT Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Education Orlikowski received her from the University of the Witwatersrand in 1977, an from the same university in 1982, and an and from the New York University Stern School of Business in 1989. Career and research She has served as a visiting Centennial Professor of Information Systems at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a visiting professor at the Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge. She is currently the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Information Technologies and Organization Studies at MIT's Sloan School of Management. Orlikowski has served as a senior editor for '' Organization Science'', and currently serves on the editorial boards of ''Information and Organization'' and '' ...
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Constitutive Role Of Communication In Organizations
The communicative constitution of organizations (CCO) perspective is broadly characterized by the claim that communication is not something that happens within organizations or between organizational members; instead, communication is the process whereby organizations are constituted. Specifically, this view contends: “organization is an effect of communication not its predecessor." This perspective is part of a broader constitutive view of communication arguing, "elements of communication, rather than being fixed in advance, are reflexively constituted within the act of communication itself". CCO is one of several views or metaphors of organizing, see Images of Organization and Organizing (management) for contrasting and complementary views. There are three popular branches, schools, or perspectives of the CCO: 1) McPhee & Zaug's Four Flows 2) The Montréal School, and 3) Luhman's Social Systems. Background of the perspective The model of communication as constitutive of organiz ...
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Contingency Theory
A contingency theory is an organizational theory that claims that there is no best way to organize a corporation, to lead a company, or to make decisions. Instead, the optimal course of action is contingent (dependent) upon the internal and external situation. Contingent leaders are flexible in choosing and adapting to succinct strategies to suit change in situation at a particular period in time in the running of the organization. History The contingency approach to leadership was influenced by two earlier research programs endeavoring to pinpoint effective leadership behavior. During the 1950s, researchers at Ohio State University administered extensive questionnaires measuring a range of possible leader behaviors in various organizational contexts. Although multiple sets of leadership behaviors were originally identified based on these questionnaires, two types of behaviors proved to be especially typical of effective leaders: ''(1) consideration'' leader behaviors that inclu ...
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Structuration Theory
The theory of structuration is a social theory of the creation and reproduction of social systems that is based on the analysis of both ''structure'' and '' agents'' (see structure and agency), without giving primacy to either. Furthermore, in structuration theory, neither micro- nor macro-focused analysis alone is sufficient. The theory was proposed by sociologist Anthony Giddens, most significantly in ''The Constitution of Society'', which examines phenomenology, hermeneutics, and social practices at the inseparable intersection of structures and agents. Its proponents have adopted and expanded this balanced position.Stones, R. (2005). ''Structuration theory.'' New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Though the theory has received much criticism, it remains a pillar of contemporary sociological theory.Bryant, C.G.A., & Jary, D. (1991). Coming to terms with Anthony Giddens. In C.G.A. Bryant & D. Jary (Eds.), ''Giddens' theory of structuration: A critical appreciation'' (pp. 1-32 ...
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Practice Theory
Practice theory (or praxeology, theory of social practices) is a body of social theory within anthropology and sociology that explains society and culture as the result of structure and individual agency. Practice theory emerged in the late 20th century and was first outlined in the work of the French sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu. Practice theory developed in reaction to the Structuralist school of thought, developed by social scientists such Claude Lévi-Strauss who saw human behavior and organization systems as products of innate universal structures that reflect the mental structures of humans. Structuralist theory asserted that these structures governed all human societies. Practice theory is also built on the concept of agency. For practice theorists, the individual agent is an active participant in the formation and reproduction of their social world. History In 1972, French theorist and sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu, published Outline of a Theory of Practice. Bourdieu's ...
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Bruno Latour
Bruno Latour (; 22 June 1947 – 9 October 2022) was a French philosopher, anthropologist and sociologist.Wheeler, Will. ''Bruno Latour: Documenting Human and Nonhuman Associations'' Critical Theory for Library and Information Science. Libraries Unlimited, 2010, p. 189. He was especially known for his work in the field of science and technology studies (STS). After teaching at the École des Mines de Paris (Centre de Sociologie de l'Innovation) from 1982 to 2006, he became professor at Sciences Po Paris (2006–2017), where he was the scientific director of the Sciences Po Medialab. He retired from several university activities in 2017. He was also a Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics. Latour is best known for his books ''We Have Never Been Modern'' (1991; English translation, 1993), ''Laboratory Life'' (with Steve Woolgar, 1979) and '' Science in Action'' (1987).Heather Vidmar-McEwe"Anthropologists biographies: Bruno Latour" "Anthropologists biographies: Bru ...
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John Law (sociologist)
John Law (born 16 May 1946), is a sociologist and science and technology studies scholar, currently on the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Open University and key proponent of Actor-network theory. Actor-network theory, sometimes abbreviated to ANT, is a social science approach for describing and explaining social, organisational, scientific and technological structures, processes and events. It assumes that all the components of such structures (whether these are human or otherwise) form a network of relations that can be mapped and described in the same terms or vocabulary. Developed by two leading French Science and technology studies, STS scholars, Michel Callon and Bruno Latour, Law himself, and others, ANT may alternatively be described as a 'material-semiotic' method. ANT strives to map relations that are simultaneously material (between things) and 'semiotic' (between concepts), for instance, the interactions in a bank involve both people and their ideas, and computers. ...
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Actor–network Theory
Actor–network theory (ANT) is a theoretical and methodological approach to social theory where everything in the social and natural worlds exists in constantly shifting networks of relationships. It posits that nothing exists outside those relationships. All the factors involved in a social situation are on the same level, and thus there are no external social forces beyond what and how the network participants interact at present. Thus, objects, ideas, processes, and any other relevant factors are seen as just as important in creating social situations as humans. ANT holds that social forces do not exist in themselves, and therefore cannot be used to explain social phenomena. Instead, strictly empirical analysis should be undertaken to "describe" rather than "explain" social activity. Only after this can one introduce the concept of social forces, and only as an abstract theoretical concept, not something which genuinely exists in the world.Latour, B., 2005. '' Reassembling th ...
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Karen Barad
Karen Michelle Barad (; born 29 April 1956) is an American feminist theorist, known particularly for their theory of agential realism. Biography They are currently Professor of Feminist Studies, Philosophy, and History of Consciousness at the University of California, Santa Cruz. They are the author of ''Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning''. Their research topics include feminist theory, physics, twentieth-century continental philosophy, epistemology, ontology, philosophy of physics, cultural studies of science, and feminist science studies. Barad earned their doctorate in theoretical physics at Stony Brook University. Their dissertation presented computational methods for quantifying properties of quarks, and other fermions, and in the framework of lattice gauge theory. Barad serves on the advisory board for the feminist academic journals '' Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience'' and '' Signs: Journal of Women in Cul ...
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Lucy Suchman
Lucy Suchman is a Professor of Anthropology of Science and Technology in the Department of Sociology at Lancaster University, in the United Kingdom. Her current research extends her longstanding critical engagement with the field of human-computer interaction to the domain of contemporary war fighting, including problems of ‘situational awareness’ in military training and simulation, and in the design and deployment of automated weapon systems. At the center of this research is the question of whose bodies are incorporated into military systems, how and with what consequences for social justice and the possibility for a less violent world. Suchman is a member of International Committee for Robot Arms Control and the author of the blog dedicated to the problems of ethical robotics and 'technocultures of humanlike machines' Before coming to Lancaster, she worked for 22 years at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in California, where she held the positions of principal ...
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Agential Realism
Agential realism is a theory proposed by Karen Barad, in which the universe comprises phenomena which are "the ontological inseparability of intra-acting agencies". Intra-action, a neologism introduced by Barad, signals an important challenge to Individualism, individualist metaphysics. For Barad, phenomena or objects do not precede their interaction, rather, 'objects' emerge through particular intra-actions. Thus, apparatuses, which produce phenomena, are not assemblages of humans and nonhumans (as in actor-network theory). Rather, they are the condition of possibility of 'humans' and 'non-humans', not merely as ideational concepts, but in their materiality. Apparatuses are 'material-discursive' in that they produce determinate meanings and material beings while simultaneously excluding the production of others. What it means to matter is therefore always material-discursive. Barad takes their inspiration from physicist Niels Bohr, one of the founders of quantum physics. Barad's ...
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Joan Woodward
Joan Woodward (27 September 1916 – 1971) was a British professor in industrial sociology and organizational studies. Background Woodward was educated at Oxford University, where she gained a first in Philosophy, Politics and Economics in 1936, followed by an MA in medieval philosophy from Durham University in 1938, and a Diploma in Social and Public Administration from Oxford in 1939. During World War II she worked as a manager, rising to be Senior Labour Manager at ROF Bridgwater. She undertook her early research at South East Essex College of Technology, before joining Imperial College in 1957 as a part-time lecturer in Industrial Sociology and was appointed to a Senior Lectureship in the Production Engineering Section in 1962.http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/business-school/research/joanwoodwardmemoriallectures The Joan Woodward Memorial Lectures, Imperial College Business School Pursuits Woodward was a leading academic and commentator in the field of Organization Theory, pa ...
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