Abstract
What has the concept of materiality, the latest meta theories in the humanities and social sciences, brought to management studies? Recent management studies, which focus on materiality, try to overcome the dogma that postmodern management studies have fallen into, which looks for the beginning of the organizing process into subjective interpretation. Institutional organization theory focuses on the materiality on which the symbolism of institutions is inscribed. Organizational routine research seeks to unravel the material dimension of organizational performative practices. Organizational wrongdoing research critiques material measurement practice based on social constructionism. Critical management studies focus the material space as a way to counter the humanistic concept of time. Science based innovation challenges sociomaterialistic practices that originate from devices for MOTs that have not been able to penetrate into the workings of science and technology actually. In order to understand this issue systematically, it is necessary to understand how the studies referring to structuration theory, which had much significant impact on management studies as a whole around the 1980s–1990s, have each solved endogenously generated issues. Up-and-coming researchers in Japanese management studies conduct empirical researches that draw out the implications of the concept of materiality.
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Notes
- 1.
Orlikowski advocated the concept of sociomateriality in order to unravel the “recursive interplay between people and technology in practice” [18]. To clarify this problem, she provided the concepts of “constructive engagement,” “relationality,” “performance,” and “sociomaterial assemblages.”.
- 2.
Orlikowski analyzed the IT industry and found materiality in the algorithms built into the program.
- 3.
For example, Introna and Hayes [7] introduce Orlikowki’s argument on the assumption that technology and organization are presented as inseparable. Thus, if Leonardi's argument means they are divisible, what is the implication of sociomateriality?
- 4.
Leonardi [9] focuses on changes in the development process owing to simulation technology, which has been introduced into the crash test section of automobile development, and discusses the materiality of simulation technology, which lacks physical characteristics and consists rather of the symbol of a program. Ultimately, he regards simulation technology as an organizational representation.
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Matsushima, N. (2022). Prelude: The Sociomateriality and the Legacy of Structuration Theory. In: Materiality in Management Studies. SpringerBriefs in Economics(). Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-8642-9_1
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