Abstract
The relationship between technological artefacts and the social settings of their design, production and use has received considerable attention in recent years, particularly through the emergence of the sociomateriality literature. This paper reviews extant conceptualizations and discusses the contribution of a Heideggerian perspective to the study of sociomaterial practices. Drawing on insights from Heidegger’s ‘existential spatiality’, an alternative view of spatiality is presented, namely, spatiality as care rather than physical extendedness. Then, the sensitizing concepts of ‘theoretical significance’ and ‘practical significance’ of technological artefacts are introduced grounded in these insights. Finally, implications of spatiality as care for the emergence and change of sociomaterial practices are discussed.
Introduction
The relationship between technological artefacts and the social settings of their design, production and use has received considerable attention in recent years (Bijker, 1995; Bijker, Hughes, & Pinch, 1987; Bijker & Law, 1992; Latour, 1987, 2005; Law, 2002; Law & Callon, 1992; Law & Singleton, 2003, 2005). The paradigm of technological determinism was challenged through such studies and alternative conceptualizations of the relationship between the technological/material and the human/social were introduced. The emergence of the sociomateriality literature fuelled discussions further due to the innovativeness of proposed approaches and their considerable diversity (Leonardi, 2011, 2012; Orlikowski, 2007, 2010; Orlikowski & Scott, 2008; Scott & Orlikowski, 2012, 2013, 2014).
Scholars within the sociomateriality stream have recently brought to the fore a concern regarding the role of emotions in sociomaterial accounts. More specifically, it has been argued that sociomaterial accounts may be viewed as incomplete (Stein, Newell, Wagner, & Galliers, 2014) or limited (Jones, 2014) due to their lack of engagement with emotions. Such a concern echoes previous observations in studies grounded in a ‘practice’ approach (Ciborra, 2004, 2006a; McGrath, 2006). It appears that emotions remain in the periphery of theorizing sociomaterial practices, even though they comprise a vital part of lived experience (Ciborra, 2006a). Developing accounts of sociomaterial practices that are bare of emotions excludes the palpitations of organizational practice that provide the undercurrent of organizations. Furthermore, limited attention to affective elements of organizational practice shades an equally important predicament. It limits opportunities for researchers to problematize conceptualizations of emotions and expand our understanding of sociomaterial practices. In extant accounts, emotions are mostly viewed as peripheral or ephemeral in organizations. What if we explored theoretical grounds that allowed us to reconceptualize emotions – or more generally affective states – as central in organizational practice? What would be the implications for understanding the emergence and change of sociomaterial practices? What could researchers and practitioners alike see differently in such a case?
The objective of the paper is to address these questions by exploring the role of affective states to the emergence and change of sociomaterial practices and dissecting implications for theorizing on sociomaterial practices. Towards this objective a theoretical lens is developed, grounded in the centrality of affective states within sociomaterial practices. Such a lens approaches affective states as generative forces that mobilise reflection and action. Moving affective states from the periphery to the centre of theorizing on sociomaterial practices requires a reconceptualization of the space within which sociomaterial practices emerge and change. I draw on insights from Heidegger’s ‘existential spatiality’ (1962) to discuss a conceptualization of spatiality as care, contributing to the sociomateriality literature in three ways. First, the paper extends current discussions on the relationship between the technological/material and the human/social by reconceptualizing materiality beyond the physicality of artefacts to the materiality of care. In doing so the paper joins further studies of sociomateriality that have problematized tangibility as a property of materiality and instead shifted attention to the materiality of organizing. This paper identifies care as the condition of a materiality of organizing and elaborates on the outlook of human agents that allows such care to manifest; the outlook of ‘disclosive submission’. Second, the paper elaborates on the affective elements of sociomaterial practices by providing relevant theoretical backdrop. Drawing on the Heideggerian notion of mood, an ever-present, yet fleeting and changing ‘state of mind’ that conditions what human agents can see in emerging circumstances, the paper challenges notions of affective states as peripheral and ephemeral. Affect is assigned a central role in the emergence and change of sociomaterial practices, as it conditions human agents’ encounters with technological artefacts, and allows insight into the generative forces that mobilise action within sociomaterial practices. Third, the paper introduces the sensitizing concepts of ‘practical significance’ and ‘theoretical significance’, as to provide conceptual tools for approaching spatiality as care. As will be demonstrated, the two concepts stand in ‘conversation’ with one another, as organizational members encounter a newly introduced information system. For instance, while theoretical significance refers to projected meaning with which a Customer Relationship Management system has been infused in the stages of development and early implementation (with respect to roles, information requirements, workflows), practical significance refers to concrete instances of use that render the system relevant to organizational practice (specific information recorded in submitted customer requests, enacted roles and workflows). These concepts allow insight into the emergence and change of sociomaterial practices, as they capture the ways in which newly introduced information systems come to matter to organizational members and assume a place within sociomaterial practices.
The Relationship between the Technological/Material and the Social/Human
Studying technological change in organizations is an exciting and thought provoking endeavour at this juncture. Scholars in the field of Information Systems (IS) research have challenged assumptions about the relationship between technology and the social settings of its design, production and use, as to produce accounts that are resonant of how technology is experienced in practice. Moving away from technological determinism provided the early motivation for this shift. Yet it became only the first step in a now long and fruitful tradition that revisits the relationship between technology and social settings, producing at times counterintuitive or ambiguous insights that fuel further problematization.
The path was paved through early streams of studies, such as the social construction of technology (Bijker, 1995; Bijker et al., 1987; Bijker & Law, 1992) and actor-network theory (ANT; Latour, 1987, 2005; Law, 2002; Law & Callon, 1992; Law & Singleton, 2003, 2005). These streams of studies share common ground in dissecting the local production of social practices. They acknowledge the malleability of technological artefacts and the multiplicity of artefacts’ materialization and use depending on the perspectives, goals, needs and activities of agents that engage with them. At the same time, they differ significantly, most notably in their conceptualization of agency. More specifically, ANT’s premise regarding the symmetry between human and non-human agents questioned the primacy of human agency and underscored the performative role of non-human agents. So, these studies problematized the relationship between technology and the social settings of its design, production and use by subverting the assumed determining role of technology and pointing to two possible directions: the shaping role of human agency or the symmetrical role of human and non-human agents.
Moving away from technological determinism disseminated quickly in the field of IS, mainly through the work of Orlikowski (1996, 2000) and Ciborra (1996, 1999, 2002, 2006b). The simultaneous development of practice theory on organizing and technology fuelled such developments (Pickering, 1995; Schatzki, 2002, 2005; Suchman, 1987, 1999, 2007). It quickly grew in relevance and value through numerous empirical studies (e.g., Boudreau & Robey, 2005; Constantinides & Barrett, 2006; Macredie & Sandom, 1999; Orlikowski & Hofman, 1997; Schultze & Orlikowski, 2004). In these studies the flexibility and malleability of technological artefacts was acknowledged. Yet it was the ingenuity and creativity of human agency that was highlighted. Human agency in local contexts was brought to the fore, while, admittedly, deeper engagement with the IS artefact was neglected. It was precisely the perceived marginalization of the IS artefact that propelled the development of the field further (Orlikowski & Iacono, 2001; Scott & Orlikowski, 2014).
Orlikowski (2007) introduced the notion of ‘sociomaterial practices’ to IS research and argued for the constitutive entanglement of the material and the social in the development of practices. The premises of such an approach were discussed further in her common work with Scott (Orlikowski, 2010; Orlikowski & Scott, 2008; Scott & Orlikowski, 2012, 2013, 2014). The proposed break from previous conceptualizations lies in that the material and the social are not considered separable at an ontological level. It is not a matter of assigning primacy to either human or non-human agency or problematizing the symmetry between the two. The social and the material are inextricably linked – what can be observed in practice are the materializations of their entanglement, not specific properties of either which may be malleable to the agency of the other.
Yet sociomateriality has been used as an ‘umbrella’ term to include studies that are concerned with a relational approach to human and material agency. Different theoretical lenses have been adopted or developed to approach the concept of sociomateriality, such as assemblages (Schatzki, 2002, 2005), affordances (Bloomfield, Latham, & Vurdubakis, 2010; Faraj & Azad, 2012), imbrication (Leonardi, 2011, 2012) and scaffolding (Orlikowski, 2006). Jones (2014) distinguished between ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ sociomaterial approaches depending on their assumptions, primarily regarding the inseparability of human and material agency. Even ANT studies have been considered to fall within the sociomaterial spectrum, as they were the first to problematize the relationship between human and material agency. Currently the relationship between human and material agency has been theorized in three ways in sociomaterial studies (Jones, 2014; Stein et al., 2014): as symmetrical, in the case of ANT; entangled, in the case of ‘strong’ sociomaterial approaches; or, asymmetrically mutually constituted, in the case of ‘soft’ sociomaterial approaches.
The field of sociomateriality with its divergent approaches, tendency to establish connections with earlier streams of studies such as ANT, interest in problematizing the relation between the material and the social and, thereby, the generative forces behind the emergence and change of sociomaterial practices holds significant promise, despite its nascent stage of development. It has developed a new vocabulary that may still lack coherence, but offers valuable stimuli for thought. The sociomateriality approach has received scrutiny recently from scholars who question its contribution compared to alternative perspectives (Mutch, 2013) and highlight the lack of common ground in the work of main advocates of the approach (Kautz & Jensen, 2013). Such criticisms are certainly useful in the early stages of development of an approach that carries significant merits, as they can fuel efforts for more theoretical clarity and depth.
The potential contribution of another stream of studies to sociomateriality has already been highlighted in the literature. Cecez-Kecmanovic, Galliers, Henfridsson, Newell, and Vidgen (2014) note that an alternative vocabulary relevant to sociomaterial research has been developed by scholars who draw on the philosophy of Martin Heidegger (Introna, 2011, 2013; Riemer & Johnston, 2014). Heidegger’s work has been previously used in the field of IT (Information Technology), especially in the work of Ciborra (1996, 1999, 2002, 2006b) and Introna (1997, 2013; Introna & Ilharco, 2004), among others. It further grounded the work of practice theorist Schatzki (2002, 2005), who also problematized the role of technological artefacts within social practices. What these scholars have in common is an appreciation of Heidegger’s contribution to understanding human agents and technological artefacts as intricately arranged within practices. Early studies grounded in Heideggerian thought generated valuable insights into the notion of situatedness at a time when attention had shifted to how technological artefacts are shaped in local contexts. As argued by Riemer and Johnston (2014), Heidegger’s work provides an insightful path towards subverting the Cartesian dualism and understanding the subject and the world (including the technological artefacts found therein) as an inextricable whole, an assumption that is very much in line with explorations of sociomateriality. In Being and Time (1962) Heidegger develops his theory of ‘equipment’, a relational approach to understanding the development of practices, the interaction between human agents and technological artefacts and different modes of encountering technological artefacts. Riemer and Johnston (2014) – as previously other scholars exploring the role of artefacts in organizational practices (Chia & Holt, 2006; Yanow & Tsoukas, 2009) – elaborate on the potential contribution of Heidegger’s insights into our understanding of the relation between technological artefacts and the social/organizational settings of their design, production and use. Building on the knowledge generated through these studies, I wish to move beyond a discussion of how technological artefacts are encountered in the social/organizational settings of their design, production and use to a discussion of the conditions that shape such encounters.
In this paper I will explore Heidegger’s insights from Being and Time (1962) further, more specifically his idea of ‘existential spatiality’, intending to contribute to the sociomateriality literature in three ways. First, Heidegger’s existential spatiality offers unique insights into the development of sociomaterial practices, not only in its detailed discussion of technological artefacts, which has been discussed in the literature, but also in its elaboration of the outlook of human agents within practices. Second, Heidegger’s existential spatiality provides missing theoretical backdrop as to incorporate the affective element to studies of sociomateriality – not merely as a peripheral element, but as a new centre. A centre that allows insight into the generative forces behind the emergence and development of sociomaterial practices, a centre that has the potential to deliver resonant accounts of technological change. As Reckwitz (2012) suggests, engaging with the relations between affect and space does not merely provide access to additional phenomena. It shifts attention from common ways of looking at phenomena and encourages new ways of seeing. Third, the paper introduces the sensitizing concepts of practical and theoretical significance, which afford a theoretical lens for studying the emergence and change of sociomaterial practices. Technological artefacts of different kinds interact with human agents in the context of sociomaterial practices. The concepts of practical and theoretical significance shed light on how artefacts and human agents relate within practices, how they co-habit spaces and how they learn to separate to enter new arrangements.
An Alternative Kind of Spatiality
In Being and Time Heidegger (1962) develops the idea of existential spatiality, an alternative conceptualization of space that resists physical extendedness as the condition for the development of everyday practice. Within existential spatiality the physical arrangement and measurable distance between human agents and technological artefacts is not suggestive of the manner in which they do or will relate in practice. Namely, co-presence of human agents and technological artefacts in physical space does not reveal the ‘place’ the latter have or may acquire. Similarly, the bare properties of technological artefacts do not foreshadow their place in everyday practice. For instance, a newly introduced information system installed in an organizational member’s workstation is in very close physical proximity to her. The Project Team assigned with the implementation of the information system could argue that she can access it with a click, hence it is readily available for use. Further, they could argue that the system has certain functionality that makes it appropriate and valuable for the practice in which the organizational member participates. Heidegger’s insights (1962) suggest that the close proximity between the organizational member and the information system, as well as the functionality of the system, cannot reveal the place that the information system will acquire in the member’s everyday practice. The system may find its place in the tasks that the member completes in the course of the day or the member may continue using other tools such as spreadsheets or even pen and paper as part of her practice. Let me explain why.
Spatiality as care: Immersed involvement and disclosive submission
For Heidegger (1962) existential spatiality develops as ‘care’; namely, the immersed involvement of human agents who dwell in everyday practice and encounter technological artefacts concernfully. Care is the primordial outlook of human agents who find themselves within practices – sensitive to, responsive to and reflective of emerging circumstances (Schatzki, 2010). A sign of caution: the expression ‘finding themselves within’ should not be interpreted in a traditional spatial perspective; ‘finding themselves somewhere’. Instead, Heidegger’s original term ‘Befindlichkeit’ points towards spatiality as care, which has both pragmatic and affective connotations, enmeshed rather than distinct. ‘Finding themselves within’ describes human agents who are profoundly enmeshed with their environment and immersed in the accommodation of practical concerns. In the state of immersion a human agent cannot consciously separate herself from the activity she is performing, nor is she consciously aware of using artefacts in specific manners; ‘there is awareness but no self-awareness’ (Dreyfus, 1991, p. 67). The human agent and the technological artefacts form an inextricable whole.
Such immersion is possible through human agents’ ‘disclosive submission’ to their environment, ‘out of which we can encounter something that matters to us’ (Heidegger, 1962, p. 177, italics in original). Human agents are observed to act in seemingly purposeful ways, but only once they have surrendered to their environments – and the technological artefacts therein. It is only through such surrender that human agents can see, explore their environments and identify resonant courses of action. It is only through submitting to their environments and the technological artefacts surrounding them that human agents can relate with such artefacts in ways that ‘matter’ to them.
At the same time, such submission occurs on the backdrop of moods; namely, fleeting, yet ever-present affective ‘states-of-mind’. Dreyfus (1991) notes that the expression ‘state-of-mind’ (translation of the original term ‘Befindlichkeit’ in Being and Time) may be misleading. Heidegger (1962) insists that this term expresses something that is primordial to ‘all cognition and volition’ (Heidegger, 1962, p. 175). The term ‘mood’ has gained acceptance in representing the meaning of Befindlichkeit in the literature (Ciborra, 2002, 2004, 2006a; Mingers, 2001). At this point I would like to caution the reader that it might be best not to approach the term ‘mood’ through connotations developed in everyday language (e.g., happy, melancholic e.t.c.), but as the qualitative differences between states of being sensitive to, responsive to and reflective of emerging circumstances.
Imagine the organizational member of our example, as she attempts to use the newly introduced information system for the first time. Or let us even go to an earlier stage, when she attends the first training session. The mood with which she will encounter the information system will have been defined by previous circumstances and experiences within organizational practice or further practices in which she participates. So, let us assume that the member feels highly committed to the organization, is curious about IS developments that affect the workplace and performs work that is cyclical in nature, with peaks at certain times of the year. The training session takes place during the more relaxed time of the year, finding the member deeply sensitive to, responsive to and reflective of her encounter with the information system. Such mood will allow her to engage with the functionality of the information system, absorb the guidance of the instructor and identify questions about how to integrate the system in her future practice. Now, let us assume that for some reason the rolling-out of the system is delayed and happens during the peak season for the sales department. The circumstances of the organizational member have changed, she finds herself in a different situation that suggests a different mood. Her commitment to the organization may still be high despite the extensive hours and demands of the job. She is still curious about the introduction of the information system and how it can affect her practice, but is tired and at the same time disappointed in herself for lacking the energy to engage with something that could prove beneficial to her work. Note also that other tools, such as spreadsheets or even pen and paper, are already familiar to her – she can use them without difficulty as to prepare sales reports for her manager and colleagues. It is in this mood that she encounters the information system in practice. And it is in such a situation that we observe a technological artefact lacking significance within a practice.
Making room for the unfamiliar
Spatiality as care seeks to abolish the distance between human agents and technological artefacts, ‘making room’ for the latter (Heidegger, 1962, p. 146). As mentioned earlier, in Heideggerian terms (1962) ‘distance’ does not indicate how near or far a technological artefact is in Euclidean space. Instead, it indicates how near or far it is from acquiring significance. Immersion is possible when technological artefacts (or ‘equipment’ in Being and Time) are encountered as already belonging to certain activities in certain ways. Let us imagine that the organizational member mentioned in the earlier example is assigned with creating reports of sales activity for a particular department in her organization. The member need not deliberately orient herself towards the use of the spreadsheet application she is currently using or even towards her own skills in performing the related activity. She just prepares the report drawing data from further electronic or paper files. If, presumably, anyone asked her what she is doing, her response would not be ‘I am collating information from this and that source, striking the buttons of the keyboard, selecting through the mouse and proper clicks this and that functionality of the spreadsheet application.’ Instead, she would probably reply, ‘I am preparing the report.’
Technological artefacts already-belonging-to-certain-activities-in-certain-ways carry ‘significance’. The notion of significance denotes the nexus of all possible projects, ends and uses of technological artefacts within the practice as known and anticipated (Schatzki, 2007, 2010) and is beautifully presented through Heidegger’s (1962) unique language; ‘the “for-the-sake-of-which” signifies an “in-order-to”; this in turn, a “towards-this”; the latter, an “in-which” of letting something be involved; and that in turn, the “with-which” of an involvement … the relational totality of this signifying we call “significance”’ (Heidegger, 1962, p. 120). So, the organizational member preparing the report knows the requirements of her practice as an administrator in the particular sales department. Her experience also allows her to anticipate future requirements of her practice, e.g., heavy flow of reporting requests closer to the end of a month or urgent requests for new statistical information. Towards these ends she is in a position to make use of technological artefacts surrounding her that are familiar and have established connections with past performances of her practice. The spreadsheet application, along with further tools used in preparing sales reports, have assumed this familiar place in the practice of the organizational member in our example. A newly introduced system incorporating functionality on preparing sales reports, however, has not.
When human agents encounter technological artefacts that lack significance, spatiality as care develops through a shift in the mode of involvement. Namely, depending on the extent of the unfamiliarity, human agents may need to move from a practical to a theoretical outlook, from the outlook of deep, concernful immersion with no self-awareness to the outlook of observation and thematic contemplation, in order to repair the disturbance in practice (Dreyfus, 1991). An important note: Heidegger (1962) makes a distinction between practical and theoretical behaviour to denote the different modes of involvement, clarifying that ‘“practical” behaviour is not “atheoretical” in the sense of “sightlessness”’ (Heidegger, 1962, p. 99). When the organizational member in our example uses a spreadsheet application to prepare a sales report, she does not do so without any consideration of surrounding circumstances, as if she was preparing the report in a vacuum. As mentioned earlier, it is the fact that she has submitted to such circumstances that allows her to proceed with her practice and this is what Heidegger (1962) suggests when he notes that ‘action has its own kind of sight’ (Heidegger, 1962, p. 99, italics in original).
Theoretical behaviour, however, has another kind of sight. The purpose of thematic contemplation is to decontextualize the technological artefact and understand its potential usefulness. Notably, such contemplation occurs on the backdrop of the practice at hand – it is still impossible to separate the artefact from the practice. The organizational member of our example will not approach the functionality of the newly introduced information system from a totally detached point of view. When listening to an instructor introducing the ontology and functionality of the system or when working with the system for the first time in practice, she will not encounter it as merely a piece of technology that incorporates certain properties. Instead she will approach the information system as a potential tool in performing her practice. She will make sense of the ontology and functionality of the information system through relevant concepts and activities in her everyday practice – that is, as she currently knows and anticipates it. Thus, an organizational member in the state of thematic contemplation emerges as ‘still an involved skilful subject, not an autonomous, detached subject’ (Dreyfus, 1991, p. 84). The product of such reflection is invaluable, as it allows human agents to approach the technological artefact as potentially significant.
Introducing Practical Significance
In this section, I draw from the previous discussion of Heidegger’s existential spatiality (1962) to propose alternative conceptual tools for approaching the development of sociomaterial practices. More specifically, I develop the concepts of practical significance and theoretical significance and discuss the relation between the two. I draw on Heidegger’s terminology (1962) in the following ways. First, as discussed in the previous section, technological artefacts already-belonging-to-certain-activities-in-certain-ways carry significance; namely, they are placed within the nexus of all possible projects and ends within the practice as known and anticipated. Newly introduced information systems need to acquire significance as to form part of the practice. Second, Heidegger (1962) discusses different human agents’ behaviours depending on the mode in which artefacts are encountered; namely, practical and theoretical behaviour. Practical behaviour is primarily oriented towards action, while theoretical behaviour is oriented towards observation and reflection.
In this light, practical significance refers to how an information system comes to matter through concrete instances of use that render the system relevant and useful. On the other hand, theoretical significance refers to projected meaning with which the information system has been infused in the stages of development and early implementation, prior to its actual use by organizational members. While practical significance is accessed through immersion in practice, theoretical significance is accessed through reflection. In Table 1, the reader can find a summary of the distinction between practical and theoretical significance along the dimensions of temporal orientation, mode of involvement and the character of the artefacts. I elaborate further on the relation between theoretical and practical significance next.
The concepts of theoretical and practical significance.
The introduction of an information system is usually accompanied by Management and Project Team claims regarding its usefulness to organizational practice. The proposed value, relevance and user-friendliness of the system enter the site of the organization, materialize in code and manuals, preparing the way for the actual encounter of organizational members with the information system. Prior to implementation, organizational members form understandings of the relevance and usefulness of the newly introduced information system through any participation in the design of the system or training sessions. ‘Theoretical’ does not mean abstract or not related to practice in some way. When engaging with the theoretical significance of an information system, Management, Project Teams and organizational members engage with practice. Further, they seek to access such significance from within organizational practice, as known and anticipated. However, the significance they claim of the information system is theoretical, since it is not (yet) anchored on action within organizational practice. Theoretical significance allows human agents to project possible uses of the system and anticipate consequences for their ends and projects. Human agents explore the information system as an object of reflection, striving to develop its place and render it a tool in everyday practice.
In order for the system to become a tool, it needs to acquire practical significance. The move from theoretical to practical significance will be conditioned upon care, the affective outlook of human agents within practices. Care allows human agents to (a) pick up what aspects of the situation are relevant for the purpose at hand, (b) identify how it makes sense to address emerging circumstances and (c) condition responses that bypass reflective activities (Schatzki, 2010). Interestingly, when contemplating theoretical significance the primary temporal orientation of human agents is the past (as to establish connections with practice as they know it) and the future (as to establish connections with practice as they anticipate it). However, when enacting practical significance all temporal orientations collapse (Schatzki, 2010). Human agents experience the bringing-forward of the past into the present through particular instances of enacting practical significance.
On the Relevance of Spatiality as Care to the Study of Sociomaterial Practices
How could spatiality as care change our view of empirical situations? What does it enable us to see that we could not see before? In this section, I re-frame three extant studies, fully acknowledging that the design, data collection, analysis and interpretation in these studies mirrors their specific objectives and scope, thus, limiting their re-framing. Hence, the following discussion serves as an illustration of the empirical relevance of the approach advanced in this paper, rather than an analysis of data in these studies.
Orlikowski (1996) engages with the unintended consequences of information systems’ implementation and use and discusses the manner in which such consequences drive organizational change through an empirical study of a software company implementing the Notes technology to facilitate customer support. In this study it was made evident that the implementation of information systems, as well-planned as it may be, produces in practice unintended outcomes. Such outcomes emerge as organizational members accommodate unanticipated encounters with the information system. These accommodations comprise of improvisations, the outcome of which are minor modifications, alterations or bypasses in the intended use of the information system. The outcome of such improvisations might, over time and due to repetition, be amplified as to lead to significant organizational transformation. In the study evidence of the above is presented and discussion unfolds along the kinds of improvisations performed and their ramifications at an organizational level. Nonetheless, there is scope for elaborating why Orlikowski’s specialists (1996) performed these particular kinds of improvisations over others, as well as the extent to which their actions were in any ‘conversation’ with actions of other organizational members, such as the Management or the Project Team. Approaching this empirical context through the lens of spatiality as care would allow these questions to emerge and provide the conceptual and analytical tools to address them.
For instance, there would have been further exploration of how the Incident Tracking Support System’s (ITSS’s) theoretical significance was built and whether the idea of customer service – a clear concern of the specialists in their practice as they knew and anticipated it – was an integral part of it. As suggested earlier, the theoretical significance of an information system captures projected meanings. To the extent that such meanings relate to the users’ practice, as they know and anticipate it, the enactment of the practical significance of the system may be more straightforward. The information provided in Orlikowski’s account (1996) is that the system was built around imperatives of managerial control. An account grounded in spatiality as care would have further scrutinized the development of the system’s theoretical significance and dissected any competing meanings, with an emphasis on the practical significance of current tools used by organizational members to perform their practice.
Identifying tensions between the theoretical significance of the newly introduced information system and the practical significance of current tools would have allowed insight into why specialists enacted a different technological structure than anticipated. We could have conceptualized the perceived incompatibility between the data entry screen and the information provided by customers as an occasion that required revisiting the theoretical significance of ITSS as to give way to its practical significance. A perspective grounded in spatiality of care would have sensitized us in at least two ways missing from Orlikowski’s account (1996). First, to what extent did providing support to their customers matter to specialists; we might have found that specialists cared for providing support to their customers above other imperatives and that care drove their actions in certain ways than others. Second, in what mood did specialists find themselves when encountering requests from customers; imagine the case of an overloaded specialist, whose commitment to organizational practice is challenged due to the perceived lack of compatibility between the data entry screen and the information provided by customers. She may resort to accommodating requests by entering minimum or no data in the system. On the other hand, a similarly overloaded specialist, whose commitment to organizational practice is not challenged by this perceived lack of compatibility, may resort to a form of double entry – note taking and system entry, like the specialist described in Orlikowski’s account (1996). In Orlikowski’s account there is no evidence or discussion of the moods of the specialists, how they found themselves during their encounters with ITSS. We are informed that the use of ITSS developed complementarily to that of pen and paper, along a trajectory that diverged from the system’s expected use, a trajectory that ultimately led to organizational metamorphosis of an unexpected kind. Having applied the lens of spatiality as care we would have gained insights into the conditions that grounded this outcome; the moods of specialists and how they affected their engagement with ITSS’s theoretical significance, as well as any idiosyncrasies or commonalities in the accommodation of different encounters.
Lanzara’s study (2009) is an insightful empirical investigation of material mediation in the context of judicial work. He discusses at length how presiding judges encountered video-recording technology introduced in their courtrooms and the kind of accommodations they enacted in order to address the novelty of the new technology and reconnect with their established repertoire of responses. During this process, participants received access to and problematized their expertise, as the introduction of the new technology revealed to them that facts are ‘made’. In this study the focus is on the perceptual and cognitive displacement of judges as they encounter the newly introduced technology. For instance, Lanzara (2009) describes episodes where the judges need to provide guidance and orient participants in the space of the courtroom, as to ensure a recording of acceptable quality.
A perspective grounded in spatiality as care would allow deeper exploration of the affective conditions of developments in the judges’ courtrooms. In Lanzara’s account (2009) these are alluded to in a paragraph that describes the process as an ‘unsettling experience’, since ‘the material basis of the judges’ security was shaken … this is why expressions like “being safe”, “feeling unsafe”, or “being on safe grounds” were recurrent in their discourses’ (Lanzara, 2009, p. 1385). Interestingly these affective states are responses to the introduction of the newly introduced technology. Another account remains unexplored, one where affective states are actually conditioning the engagement of the judges with the technology. Such states are important as they give way to certain modes of engagement over others; for instance, in Lanzara’s account (2009) they gave rise to unsettling reflections. Spatiality of care reveals why certain accommodations matter more than others, why using artefacts in certain ways over others makes a difference. This allows a multiplicity of accounts to emerge. For instance, an account grounded in spatiality as care would have posed and addressed the following questions: did all judges engage with the technology with the same zest and dedication? If not, what were the underlying moods that conditioned their responses? How did such moods condition the emergence of ‘unsettling’ encounters with the technology and the judges’ engagement with the theoretical significance of the video-recording technology? Ultimately, how was the practical significance of the technology enacted?
As a final illustration, I turn to Leonardi’s sociomaterial study (2011) of imbrication. This study is primarily conceptual, discussing the imbrication of human and material agency in organizational routines. Imbrication results from the arrangement of ‘distinct elements in overlapping patterns so that they function interdependently’ (Leonardi, 2011, p. 150). The author engages with flexible routines, following developments in routine theory that posit organizational routines carry the inherent potential for change through the interaction of ostensive and performative elements. Leonardi (2011) asks what happens when flexible routines meet flexible technologies and organizational members wish to change their work practice. In order to advance a theoretical argument on how human and material elements become arranged to form and change organizational routines, Leonardi (2011) uses illustrations from a research project in an automaker organization.
In one of his illustrations Leonardi (2011) discusses how managers assigned with crashworthiness activities were concerned about the potential of CrashLab, a software tool, to increase the speed of engineers setting up simulation models. Although the software automated the process of producing the output of simulation results, it did not automate the routines that engineers used to develop the simulation models. Ultimately, extra features were built in the software tool to alleviate the concerns of managers and facilitate the routine of setting up simulation models. Leonardi (2011) comes to the conclusion that when an existing human agency is imbricated with a new material agency, as in the above illustration, the technology changes. Approaching this empirical situation through the perspective of spatiality as care would allow us to explore the initial question in a different manner. The outcome of the situation would have been less reliant on the manner in which human and material agency is patterned (i.e., existing human agency with new material agency or vice versa) and more on the efforts of the crashworthiness managers to appreciate the theoretical significance of the system and their underlying moods when doing so. Enacting the practical significance of the system might have resulted in a change to the technology rather than the routine, but this would have been the outcome of managers’ reflection on the theoretical significance of the information system, as conditioned by their moods. Hence, an account grounded in spatiality as care would be oriented towards affective conditions of the interactions rather than the pattern of interaction between material and human agency.
Discussion
In this paper I drew on insights from Heidegger’s existential spatiality (1962) to develop an alternative approach to the emergence and change of sociomaterial practices. I argued that a Heideggerian perspective allows unique access to how the material and the social are enmeshed in practice and suggested that this is made possible through human agents’ disclosive submission to their environments (including the technological artefacts therein). Overall, the Heideggerian perspective advanced in this paper shifts attention to the affective elements of sociomaterial practices by providing relevant theoretical backdrop. Further, it extends current discussions on the relationship between the technological/material and the human/social by offering insights into materiality and the outlook of human agents within sociomaterial practices. Finally, the paper introduces the sensitizing concepts of practical significance and theoretical significance, which afford a theoretical lens for studying the emergence and change of sociomaterial practices.
In this last section I elaborate on these proposed contributions and juxtapose spatiality as care and three extant sociomaterial approaches (Table 2). The first is the ‘weak’ sociomateriality perspective, advanced by Leonardi (2011, 2012); the second is the ‘strong’ sociomateriality perspective, advanced by Orlikowski and in her common work with Scott (Orlikowski, 2010; Orlikowski & Scott, 2008; Scott & Orlikowski, 2012, 2013, 2014), while the third is Latour’s discussion of ANT (Latour, 1987, 2005), an approach that is assigned the sociomaterial label in extant discussions.
Spatiality as care in relation to three extant perspectives.
To begin with, this paper contributes to the extant literature on sociomateriality by elaborating the affective elements of sociomaterial practices. Spatiality as care is grounded in an understanding of affectivity as ever-present, yet fleeting states of mind; moods that condition encounters with practice. Affectivity is a notion that has not been problematized adequately in previous studies of sociomateriality. In fact, concepts relating to the affective domain are largely missing from discussions of weak or strong sociomateriality, as well as ANT. It is only recently that studies of sociomaterial practices have started problematizing the issue; insights are still scarce. Jones’ (2014) empirical study of a critical care setting indicates how sociomaterial practices evoke diverse emotions, while Stein et al. (2014) discuss how the ‘felt quality’ of sociomaterial relations emerges through individual emotions, material affect and social emotionalities. What is interesting in both accounts is that they approach affective states as emergent; emotions are a quality of sociomaterial relations formed at any given circumstance. In the perspective advanced in this paper, the affective ground of sociomaterial practices, manifested in the moods of human agents, does not have an emergent quality, although it does change over time; ‘moods can change, but we are never without one’ (Ciborra, 2002, p. 161). Moods actually precede the situation and have consequences for what can be seen in the situation.
Further, spatiality as care has theoretical implications for understanding the materiality of technological artefacts and their relation to human agents. In Heideggerian thought, artefacts as πράγματα are presented not as mere things, but as concernful involvement in everyday practice. Materiality emerges as a pragmatic phenomenon that reveals itself in different modes and degrees of enmeshing with the social depending on circumstances. Within spatiality as care the material and the social are fundamentally inseparable, although practice provides access to different modes and degrees of their enmeshing, e.g., on occasions of breakdown (Winograd & Flores, 1986) or, alternatively, disturbance (Dreyfus, 1991). The inseparability of the material and the social is made possible through the disclosive submission of human agents to their environment (and the technological artefacts therein). Occasions of breakdown provide access to the generative forces behind the emergence and change of sociomaterial practices. On such occasions human agents find themselves needing to orient towards the ‘broken’ technological artefact and reflect on the manner in which it can be ‘repaired’. It is organizational practice that effectively requires ‘repair’, since people, artefacts and practices are tightly interwoven in Heideggerian thought. Such reflection occurs from within practice, hence, it is not a detached contemplation of artefacts’ properties – technological artefacts are seen through practice.
It is through materiality’s conceptualization as a pragmatic phenomenon and its multiple enmeshing with the social that important distinctions emerge between spatiality as care and previous studies on sociomateriality. On the one hand, materiality is presented as a distinct concept in the weak sociomateriality perspective advanced by Leonardi (2011, 2012), juxtaposed to the social yet mutually constituted. There is no enmeshing of the material and the social in this perspective – both the material and the social retain their properties within processes of imbrication. On the other hand, materiality is not a distinct concept in ANT or strong sociomateriality, albeit for different reasons. In ANT materiality is not of issue given the purported symmetry between human and non-human agency (Latour, 1987, 2005); such symmetry is not assumed in a Heideggerian perspective. In the strong sociomateriality perspective (Orlikowski, 2010; Orlikowski & Scott, 2008; Scott & Orlikowski, 2012, 2013, 2014) the social and the material are conceptually inseparable and can only be separated for analytical reasons. This again in not the case in spatiality as care, where the material may reveal itself in different modes and degrees of enmeshing through occasions of breakdown.
Before proceeding with the third dimension of comparison in Table 2 – namely, spatiality – it is useful to discuss a similarity between recent studies on sociomateriality and a Heideggerian perspective. The mere notion of the ‘material’ has been problematized recently, particularly with regards to the digital era (Kallinikos, 2006, 2012; Yoo, 2012). While in some early work on sociomateriality, the material is equated with the tangible (Leonardi & Barley, 2008), Orlikowski and in her common work with Scott (e.g., Scott & Orlikowski, 2014) insist that the material is not the same as the tangible; instead the material refers to the materialization of phenomena. In this light, Cecez-Kecmanovic et al. (2014) clarify that the object of interest in sociomateriality is not the materiality of technology but the materiality of ‘composite assemblages of technology, people, work and organizing’ (Cecez-Kecmanovic et al., 2014, p. 812). Further, Leonardi (2010) understands practical instantiation and significance as two alternative definitions to the physicality of an artefact – how do these relate to practical significance and materiality in spatiality as care? Through the concept of practical instantiation Leonardi (2010) captures the materialization of a theoretical idea into an artefact, be it digital or physical. In engaging with the concept of significance, he suggests that an artefact with traditionally conceived substance, form and function – or not – can be material. The defining element is that the material is relevant, important or of consequence, a quality that makes it pertinent to the task at hand. A similar conceptualization emerges in the work of Suchman (2005) and Pentland and Singh (2012). I join these authors in suggesting that conceptualizations of materiality need to move beyond the physicality of artefacts to the materiality of care, a pragmatic phenomenon.
Finally, the third contribution of this paper lies in introducing the sensitizing concepts of practical and theoretical significance, thereby, affording a theoretical lens for studying an alternative kind of spatiality, spatiality as care. Herein lies the main difference of the perspective advanced in this paper to alternative perspectives, such as ANT and sociomateriality. While space is conceptualized as physical extendedness in extant perspectives, here space is conceptualized as intensity, as affectivity that permeates local encounters with technological artefacts and practice. Intensive space does not develop or grow through the imbrication, rearrangement or movement of agency, as in previous perspectives. It cannot be represented through trajectories or even flows (Law & Singleton, 2003, 2005). It can only be understood as the expression and development of care. Care motivates the engagement with a technological artefact’s theoretical significance on occasions of breakdown and allows the enactment of its practical significance.
Before concluding this discussion, it would be useful to briefly relate the concepts of theoretical and practical significance to two concepts in the organizational routines literature which may be considered relevant. The terms ‘practices’ and ‘routines’ have often been used to describe similar phenomena (Cohen, 2007). Organizational routines have attracted significant attention in recent years. Feldman, and in her common work with Pentland (Feldman, 2000; Feldman & Pentland, 2003; Pentland & Feldman, 2005), has advanced the idea that routines carry the potential for change through the interaction between ostensive and performative aspects, which are mutually constituted. The terms ‘ostensive’ and ‘performative’ are derived from Latour’s work (Feldman, 2000); the ostensive aspect is understood as the ‘routine in principle’, while the performative aspect is the ‘routine in practice’ (Feldman & Orlikowski, 2011). A body of studies has developed discussing the role of artefacts in organizational routines (e.g., D’Adderio, 2008, 2011; Iannacci & Hatzaras, 2012; Leonardi, 2011). In such studies, artefacts are conceptualized as reinforcing the ostensive aspects of routines (Desai, 2010), constraining performative aspects (Howard-Grenville, 2005), acting as intermediaries between the ostensive and performative aspects (D’Adderio, 2008) or instantiating the ostensive elements of routines, assuming a performative role (Iannacci & Hatzaras, 2012). One could argue that there is relevance between the ostensive aspect of routines and the theoretical significance of technological artefacts, on the one hand, and the performative aspect of routines and the practical significance of technological artefacts, on the other. Such a comparison does not have strong merits for two reasons. First, the ostensive and performative aspects of routines refer generally to the collective (Dionysiou & Tsoukas, 2013). The perspective advanced in the paper has limitations in this respect. To some extent, this account does not engage with collective aspects of enacting an artefact’s practical significance. This is a tension inherent in Heidegger’s text (Dreyfus, 1991). While spatiality is perceived as public and there is significant engagement with the extent to which experience of places is (or not) subjective, Heidegger (1962) does not avoid reference to place in relation to individual human agents alone. Further elaboration of how collectivities imprint the enactment of significance, or how significance becomes collective, is required. Second, the ostensive and performative aspects of organizational routines have not been previously related to affective elements of practices, as theoretical and practical significance have in this account. This has implications for what the concepts stand for. So, although the two sets of concepts may appear related, as they both represent abstract representations versus practical instantiations to some extent, there are subtle differences in them that matter.
Methodological implications
A perspective grounded in spatiality as care advances research that approaches the affective elements of sociomaterial practices as central and persistent rather than peripheral and ephemeral. It places affectivity at the centre of theorizing, considering the ‘inner situation’ of human agents (Ciborra, 2006a) as primordial to the encounter and accommodation of emerging circumstances. In this way, it enables researchers to explore the emergence and change of sociomaterial practices from a novel point of view; namely, through human agents’ moods and what these moods reveal about what human agents can see and recognize as potential accommodations of emerging circumstances. It also challenges researchers to identify appropriate methodological strategies and tools as to capture moods and their implications.
As mentioned before, in a Heideggerian perspective human agents find themselves within practices – sensitive to, responsive to and reflective of emerging circumstances. It is within practices that moods manifest and change as human agents encounter their environments and the technological artefacts therein. Gaining access to the within-ness of practices emerges as the methodological imperative for researchers that wish to explore spatiality as care. Shotter (2006) notes that the prevailing mode of thinking in research is often the ‘aboutness-thinking’; that is, engaging with a representational form of approaching and understanding the phenomenon under study. He suggests researchers adopted ‘withness-thinking’ in order to capture a practice. ‘Thinking-from-within’ invites researchers to explore how emerging circumstances make sense to the human agents experiencing them, rather than seeking to impose a theoretical understanding.
Ciborra (2006a) similarly engages in a critique of representational forms of research and discusses Heidegger’s phenomenological method, which encapsulates an approach grounded in ‘thinking-from-within’. Gaining access to the within-ness of organizational practice through such an approach entails allowing oneself to be apprehensive and responsive to developments in the field, as well as to the underlying moods of human agents. The moods of human agents, how they find themselves within organizational practice, will not disclose themselves to researchers immediately or by mistake. Researchers need to become immersed in organizational practices and work towards experiencing attunement (Ciborra, 2006a). Drawing on the example of Suchman’s work (1987), Ciborra (2006a) suggests that research approaches consistent with aboutness-thinking cannot capture the richness, fluidity and multiplicity of organizational practice or its inner, pre-theoretical dimension (Ciborra, 2006a, p. 138). Suchman (1987) videotaped research participants as they executed predetermined scenarios of interaction with a photocopier and its embedded expert system. She delivered a pioneering account on how actors engage with emerging circumstances and their surrounding environment – including the sequence of instructions produced by the expert system in response to their actions – as to produce intelligible accommodations. A research approach that embraces withness-thinking, however, would avoid engaging with an artificial research environment and/or an environment where the researcher assumes the role of the observer of unfolding interactions. Similar to how human agents surrender to their environments and the technological artefacts therein, a degree of disclosive submission to the research site would allow researchers access to the inner dimension of organizational practice. As Ciborra (2006a) indicates, the objective of the researcher would be to enact, re-enact or at least evoke situations through active, immersed participation in the here and now of the research site. It is through such participation that the researcher would be able to experience attunement; through engaging with actual photocopying tasks, embedded in the stream of organizational practice, while being surrounded by actors similarly oriented to contemporaneous situations.
‘Situations are points of access to life’ Ciborra (2006a, p. 136) writes, and proceeds to discuss which situations may be most helpful in receiving access to practice. Occasions of breakdown emerge as particularly useful in explicating the enactment of practical significance of technological artefacts. Breakdowns have long been identified as relevant to the study of technology from a Heideggerian perspective, mostly due to the seminal work of Winograd and Flores (1986). These authors approached breakdowns as significant opportunities for understanding the nature of the artefacts around us and the structure of our relations to them.
Conclusions
In this paper, I developed an alternative perspective to sociomaterial practices drawing on Heideggerian insights (1962) regarding spatiality as care. Such a perspective reveals an alternative kind of spatiality, one that is grounded in practical significance rather than physical extendedness (Sahay, 1997). Practical significance develops through ‘conversations’ with an artefact’s theoretical significance and is grounded in affective encounters of human agents with their environment (and the technological artefacts therein). Approaching sociomaterial practices through the perspective of spatiality as care also carries practical implications, with which I would like to conclude.
To begin with, this perspective raises awareness of the affective grounds of practice and how the significance of technological artefacts develops in practice. Technological change, in general, and information technology change, in particular, often takes an orientation towards the future, ‘what we will be able to achieve through this technology’. Issues of compatibility with previous technologies are often resolved in advance or are at least well within the radar of information technology practitioners. Lock-ins to previous infrastructures are similarly considered (Leonardi, 2011). What may escape the attention of Project Teams, however, are the ‘lock-ins’ that familiarity with other technologies and the intensity of relevant affective states bring. Understanding how organizational members encounter newly introduced information systems allows Project and Management Teams to create occasions when this affective backdrop is articulated, informing future, collective action (Weick & Quinn, 1999). At the same time, a perspective grounded in spatiality as care also has value for organizational members interacting with newly introduced information systems. The insights developed in this paper provide a platform for reflecting on emerging accommodations and facilitate the process of establishing or negotiating collective courses of action. Through introducing practical significance as a sensitizing concept, I propose a dynamic lens for studying sociomaterial practices that prompts practitioners to reflect on their practice, keep the idiosyncrasies of their local contexts in sight and translate them into action through their own experience (Antonacopoulou & Tsoukas, 2002, commenting on Hatch, 2002).
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The paper benefited greatly from the feedback and guidance of Senior Editor Ryad Titah and the anonymous reviewers. I am grateful to Nikos Mylonopoulos for his comments at a crucial stage in the development of this paper. An earlier version of the paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management in Boston, 2012.
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.