Emerging Standardization

This paper discusses the dynamics associated with the implementation and deployment of an information infrastructure designed to standardize work practices. The analysis is based on a case study conducted in a pharmaceutical R&D organization. The infrastructure in use, comprising a computerized system and surrounding organizational procedures, seems to support work practices not always as originally planned. The paper discusses the role played by local characteristics, contingencies, and practices in shaping a standardization protocol implemented to standardize work practices. Building on actor-network theory, the paper concludes that the standardization of work practices is the result of the dynamic interplay between technology and its users, rather than the consequence of a planned and well-defined design project.

Knowledge Conversion Processes in Thai Public Organisations Seen as an Innovation

This article uses data collected for a study undertaken in the mid-2000s using the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to investigate knowledge conversion processes in a Thai Government Ministry. The authors re-analyse this study making use of the power of actor-network theory. The original TAM study, based on technological innovation, investigated the relationship between technology support and management of the knowledge conversion process in a government ministry in Thailand to increase knowledge sharing. The original study found that a number of external variables impacted on the knowledge conversion process, including personal details, training, tools of persuasion, national background and culture, management and policies, employee behaviour, management, and policies and computing support. This paper briefly outlines the findings of the original study and discusses how an ANT study would have approached this material. An analysis is then made of how an Innovation Translation approach differs fundamentally from one using the Technology Acceptance Model.

Institutionalisation of the Enterprise Architecture

Despite impressive technical advances in tools and methodologies and the organizational insights provided by many years of academic and business research, the underperformance of Information Technology (IT) remains. In the past and even today, organizations experience difficulty in managing technology, changing from system to system, implementing new technology, maintaining compatibility with existing technologies, and changing from one business process to another. These challenges impact significantly on business performance and will continue to do so if not addressed. As a result, many organizations have deployed Enterprise Architecture (EA) in an attempt to address these challenges. However, the design and development of EA has proven to be easier than its institutionalization. The study explored the development and implementation of EA to determine the factors, which influences the institutionalization. Two case studies were conducted and Actor-Network Theory (ANT) was employed in the analysis of the data.

Making Information Systems Material through Blackboxing

In this paper, a case study of the evolution of an organisational intranet is used to compare the concepts of “materiality” with actor-network theory’s black-boxing. The authors argue that information systems need to become material through “due process”. Through this paper, questions arise as to what types of material allies are useful in this process, and whether these allies can co-evolve (or “co-materialise”) with the system. In this case there seemed to be existing technical actors, but the authors question whether this is always the case.

(Un)Locating Learning

This paper presents an account of field research into case-based learning in a management course, guided by the questions: ‘what is making change in this setting’, and ‘where is learning located’. Multiple forms of relations between human and nonhuman entities were identified through extensive research, which, analytically does not sit well with more traditional understandings of learning or case-based learning. A critique of those understandings is offered, drawing on concepts from post-modernism and adopting sensibilities from actor-network theory, follow the action in the setting. The authors demonstrate that the case is an assemblage of heterogeneous connections that are made by the teacher and then by the students in the classroom. In working with ANT sensibilities, examination found that tracing the action offers radically different accounts and possibilities for education research and practice. The pragmatic issues in following the action and the challenge of staying coherent and ambivalent are acknowledged.

Mediated Action and Network of Actors

Both actor-network theory and activity theory call attention to the coexistence of people and technology. Although both theories provide analytical tools to understand the nature of the reciprocal action-shaping of humans and nonhumans, each puts emphasis on different conceptual elements of human activity. In this paper, the authors examine both activity theory and actor-network theory and present their similarities and differences, limitations, and complementarities. Using the theoretical lenses of both theories, the authors trace the evolution of an ordinary artifact to illustrate how researchers on the sociology of technology and innovations can benefit from these parallel theoretical approaches.

A Petri Net Model for Analysing E-Learning and Learning Difficulties

Petri Nets are tools for the modelling and analysis of the behaviour of systems and analysis of the Petri Net can then reveal important information about the structure and dynamic behaviour of the modelled system. In this article, the author argues that Petri Net concepts (when used qualitatively) are not fundamentally different from those of ANT. For example, the ‘places’ from Petri Nets bear a strong resemblance to the actors in ANT, and the ‘triggers’ or ‘transitions’, are somewhat analogous to ANT’s translations. In modelling, places represent conditions and transitions represent events. Tokens may model the resources or data items that are associated with a place or places. The original research that this article is based on was undertaken using an actor-network framework to develop a model for e-Learning for students with Learning Difficulties. This article explores the qualitative use of Petri Nets to supplement this ANT treatment.

Performing Actor-Network Theory in the Post-Secondary Classroom

Teaching innovative schools of thought call for innovative methods of instruction. This article investigates the challenges associated with teaching Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and proposes a creative pedagogical approach of ‘performing’ ANT in the classroom. This article presents a small case study of an instance where this theatrical method was employed in an undergraduate classroom to teach Annemarie Mol’s The Body Multiple. Based on the qualitative data collected from reflections of students and the professor, it investigates the successes of this creative pedagogical approach to teach ANT. This article argues that it is only through innovative teaching methods that ANT can be effectively explored in the classroom.

Knowledge in Networks

This paper discusses a methodological dilemma proposed by engaging actor-network theory (ANT) in studying collaborative research practices of researchers in a large interdisciplinary project. The paper sets the context of this large publically funded project (‘Ensemble: Semantic Technologies for the Enhancement of Case Based learning’) between Education and Computer Sciences, currently being undertaken by a consortium of six UK universities and three international partners. While a strand of ANT states that knowledge ‘emerges as continuously generated effects of webs of relations within which they are located’ (Law 2007), it is very vague in terms of how precisely does that knowledge emerge and how to study that. The methods -question was further complicated by the existence of multiple, potentially conflicting epistemological positions present at the project – how to study these without having to pass a value judgement in terms of their validity and reliability? The specific focus of the discussion is what might be termed the epistemology of actor-network theory, with particular consideration of the Principle of Symmetry. The paper suggests reading ANT through John Dewey’s Pragmatism and assesses ideas to take forward from this discussion in order to study interdisciplinary research work.

A Socio-Technical Study of the Adoption of Internet Technology in Banking, Re-Interpreted as an Innovation Using Innovation Translation

This article presents a re-interpretation of research done in the mid-2000s on uptake of Internet technologies in the banking industry in Oman, compared with that in Australia. It addresses the question: What are the enablers and the inhibitors of Internet technology adoption in the Omani banking industry compared with those in the Australian banking industry? The research did not attempt a direct comparison of the banking industries in these two very different countries, but rather considered Internet technology adoption in Oman, informed by the more mature Australian experience. The original study considered Internet banking as an innovation and used an approach to theorising this innovation that was based on Diffusion of Innovations and the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). Given the socio-technical nature of this investigation, however, another approach to adoption of innovations was worth investigating, and this article reports a re-interpretation of the original study using innovation translation from actor-network theory (ANT).