Artifacts And Organizations

Artifacts in organizations are ubiquitous but often overlooked. The chapters in this book illustrate that artifacts are everywhere in organizational life. They prevail in how offices are decorated, language is used, business cards are designed, and office cartoons are displayed. In addition, artifacts can be seen in the name of an organization and its employees, products, buildings, processes, and contracts, and they represent people, organizations, and professions. Artifacts and Organizations suggests that artifacts are neither superficial nor pertinent only to organizational culture. They are relevant to a rich and diverse set of organizational processes within and across multiple levels of analysis. Artifacts are shown to be integral to identity, sense-giving and sense-making processes, interpretation and negotiation, legitimacy, and branding. The book seeks to communicate that artifacts are often much more than what is currently recognized in organizational research. The four sections of this edited volume address various aspects of what is known about and known through artifacts. Together, the full set of chapters challenge the field to move beyond a narrow conceptualization and understanding of artifacts in organizations. This book leads students to embrace the full complexity and richness of artifacts. In addition, the text seeks to inspire those who focus on artifacts as symbols to delve deeper into the complexities of artifacts-in-use, for individuals, organizations, and institutions.

A selection of 18 papers from an international conference in Milan, June 1987, organized by the Standing Conference on Organizational Symbolism. Details how corporate artifacts are invested with meaning, are related to control, and can be used as cultural indicators in research. Among the topics are office design, housing modifications, computer systems, and the space shuttle. Fairly devoid of specialist jargon.

This book offers a multidisciplinary strategy for finding new and more effective human-computer interaction approaches, in particular from a socio-technical perspective, that facilitate the exploration and exploitation of benefits that information technologies (IT) offer organizations. Though the relationship between IT and organizations is certainly very strong, it is also one of the greatest obstacles to securing benefits from their interaction. The participation of organizational users in the planning and design stages of IT interfaces is the main area of human-computer interaction, where a wealth of contributions are positively enriching both the academic and management discussions. Thus, a new approach for managing this relationship is needed, one in which the different stakeholders are suitably taken into account. Moreover, the outstanding success of the 2.0 phenomenon offers an example of a relevant platform where human-computer interaction has been widely developed and exploited. Consequently, this will influence and already is influencing – the way IT and users interact with each other. The book is based on a selection of the best papers – original, double blind peer-reviewed contributions – from the annual conference of the Italian chapter of the AIS, held in Milan, Italy in December 2013.

Although human lives towards the second half of the twentieth century became increasingly mediated by objects and artifacts and have depended heavily on the functioning of technical systems, materiality in a broad sense became relatively marginalized as a topic of research interest. This volume contributes to redressing the balance by drawing together the work of scholars involved in exploring the sociomaterial dimensions of organizational life. It will look at the way material objects and artifacts are conceived in organizations, and how they function in interaction with human agents. The book offers a new conceptual repertoire and vocabulary that allows deeper thought and discussion about the inherent entanglement of the social and material. Like the preceding volumes in the Perspectives on Process Organization Studies series, the book displays the richness that characterizes process thinking, and combines philosophical reflections with novel conceptual perspectives and insightful empirical analyses.

This book offers a multidisciplinary strategy for finding new and more effective human-computer interaction approaches, in particular from a socio-technical perspective, that facilitate the exploration and exploitation of benefits that information technologies (IT) offer organizations. Though the relationship between IT and organizations is certainly very strong, it is also one of the greatest obstacles to securing benefits from their interaction. The participation of organizational users in the planning and design stages of IT interfaces is the main area of human-computer interaction, where a wealth of contributions are positively enriching both the academic and management discussions. Thus, a new approach for managing this relationship is needed, one in which the different stakeholders are suitably taken into account. Moreover, the outstanding success of the 2.0 phenomenon offers an example of a relevant platform where human-computer interaction has been widely developed and exploited. Consequently, this will influence and already is influencing – the way IT and users interact with each other. The book is based on a selection of the best papers – original, double blind peer-reviewed contributions – from the annual conference of the Italian chapter of the AIS, held in Milan, Italy in December 2013.

Materiality and Space focuses on how organizations and managing are bound with the material forms and spaces through which humans act and interact at work. It concentrates on organizational practices and pulls together three separate domains that are rarely looked at together: sociomateriality, sociology of space, and social studies of technology. The contributions draw on and combine several of these domains, and propose analyses of spaces and materiality in a range of organizational practices such as collaborative workspaces, media work, urban management, e-learning environments, managerial control, mobile lives, institutional routines and professional identity. Theoretical insights are also developed by Pickering on the material world, Lyytinen on affordance, Lorino on architexture and Introna on sociomaterial assemblages in order to delve further into conceptualizing materiality in organizations.

What can we learn about nationalism by looking at a countryÕs cultural institutions? How do the history and culture of particular cities help explain how museums represent diversity? Artifacts and Allegiances takes us around the world to tell the compelling story of how museums today are making sense of immigration and globalization. Based on firsthand conversations with museum directors, curators, and policymakers; descriptions of current and future exhibitions; and inside stories about the famous paintings and iconic objects that define collections across the globe, this work provides a close-up view of how different kinds of institutions balance nationalism and cosmopolitanism. By comparing museums in Europe, the United States, Asia, and the Middle East, Peggy Levitt offers a fresh perspective on the role of the museum in shaping citizens. Taken together, these accounts tell the fascinating story of a sea change underway in the museum world at large.

Rev. ed. of: Communication & organizational culture. c2005.