MIS41180 Reconfiguring Organisations - Net-work(ing) and Identity

Academic Year 2018/2019

This is an advanced topics course which introduces students to a Practice Perspective on Networks, their configuration and the various actors/agencies that co-constitute them. The network we will conceptualise is both social and material (Sociomaterial) and not to be confused with narrow definitions of technical networks.



Our starting point will be Practice Theory which locates itself within the sociological literature and defines practices as routinized forms of behaviour where both people and things are implicated in specific forms of practices.



To understand the way in which people and things are implicated we will introduce Latourian Actor Network Theory which conceptualises the way non-human (material) actors are implicated in novel forms of work and organising. Finally we will introduce the role of identity and how identity is implicated in organisation change and reconfiguration and the challenges such reconfigurations bring.



Practice Theory, Actor Network Theory and Identity are synthesised and applied to address contemporary issues around the management of technology, innovation and change. Together these perspectives complement other elements of the Practice Perspective, for example, power, trust and knowledge.