Change and Actor-Network Theory: Humans and Non-Humans in Controversies for Implementing a Shared Services Center

Abstract

In flow ontology, reality is change, while formal organizations are attempts to organize this flow, by working to stabilize controversies from the viewpoint of the Actor-Network Theory (ANT). Considering this approach, where social is a collectivity of humans and non-humans into networks, this study aims to grasp how agency by non-humans and humans takes place, as well as agency through their association, in change procedures having a non-technological focus. To do this, a longitudinal qualitative case study design was adopted, conducted from April 2011 to July 2012, at Company X, a provider of public services in the State of São Paulo, Brazil, where the implementation of a Shared Services Center (SSC) was in progress. For data construction, participatory observation, focus group, interviews, documents, and audiovisual materials were used, aiming at multivocality. Given the controversies' cartography, supported by dynamic network softwares, charts, and mental maps, the SSC implementation is described, on three scales, with various ranges, covering seventeen years of Company X. Controversies were mapped by themes, arguments, actants, and the positions they have taken, highlighting the agency of non-humans serving as mediators. Out of the forty most significant controversies, only 13 turned into black boxes, leading the SSC to be non-punctualized in the end of the research. The main contributions of the study are related to discussing control in change procedures, usually regarded by companies as planned episodic changes, as well as to the methodology for approaching the attempt to organize the ongoing change process that constitutes organizations.

Keywords:
Ongoing change; Process-oriented approach; Flow; Actor-Network Theory; Shared services center.