On Wednesday 22 April 2009, I will be speaking at the 5th Social Study of ICT Open Research Forum (SSIT-ORF), in Panel 2: “ICT Innovations and Organisations.” In my talk I will be reflecting on the relationship between ICT innovation and organising, by drawing on the case study of my doctoral research on the organising practices of small online retailers in the South of England. Using an actor-network theory approach, I will focus on describing how e-commerce enterprises are assembled out of e-commerce services, and how this process of assembly (and innovation) is inseparable from the market process of qualifying (Callon et al. 2002) these services. I will reflect on the role of ICT artefacts in these organising and qualifying processes, and on the basis of my preliminary findings (somewhat provocatively) I will argue against making a conceptual distinction between ICT innovation, organising practices, and market practices.
Reference:
Callon, M., C. Méadel, et al. (2002). “The Economy of Qualities.” Economy & Society 31(2): 194.
Tags: ICTs, LSE, qualification, SSIT-ORF
