Paul R. Carlile, Davide Nicolini, Ann Langley, Hardimos Tsouka (2013): How Matter Matters. Objects, Artifacts, and Materiality in Organization Studies. Oxford. Oxford University Press, 294 pages. ISBN 978-0-19-870885-8 (pbk.)

Abstract

Paul R. Carlile, Davide Nicolini, Ann Langley, Hardimos Tsouka (2013): How Matter Matters. Objects, Artifacts, and Materiality in Organization Studies. Oxford. Oxford University Press, 294 pages. ISBN 978-0-19-870885-8 (pbk.)Bring materiality back in! This is the agenda of How Matter Matters. Objects, Artifacts, and Materiality in Organization Studies. This timely edited volume comes out from Oxford University Press of the series called 'Perspectives on Process Organization Studies' and is related to the yearly conference organized by the International Symposium by the same name. In this regard the book has the flair of a conference proceeding, offering state-of-the-art and new reflections on the topic of objects, artifacts, and materiality in organizations.Turning to materiality, the field of organizational and process studies is not an exception. The past years the material turn has been increasingly influential within the social sciences and humanities. Particularly theories developed within science and technology studies (STS) and feminist materialist theories are becoming influential within new and old disciplines. New conceptualizations enabling inquiries across the social, psychological, material, or technological are in demand, and the material turn might be able to deliver conceptual tools. Another reason might be a material neglect in the social sciences and humanities for years that in the end might have made researchers ask simultaneously if materiality never matters. At least that is the argument put forward by the editors citing Barad: Language matters. Discourse matters. Culture matters. There is an important sense in which the only thing that does not seem to matter anymore is matter (Barad 2003: 801). However, this volume is not only a call for bringing the materiality back in, the contributors of the book also engage in very interesting conversations about how materiality ought to be reconceptualized, reconfigured, and methodologically addressed.The edited volume is composed of an excellent introduction unfolding the theme of how matter matters. The editors are not only concerned with materiality, they are also inquiring into the implications that different conceptualizations of materiality may have. They argue that they are not only accounting for materiality but also accountability-an ethical sensibility is of importance.This introduction is followed up by selected contributions presented at the conference. The chapters are mainly either theoretical, discussing conceptualizations of materiality in organizations, or empirically founded contributions that enable us to see examples of how to understand materialities or materializations. The empirically informed chapters are all interesting informative cases of materializations and why paying attention to materiality is in high demand. As examples, the chapter by Enddrisat and Noppenys illustrates how the immaterial materialize as they follow the design process of perfume. Dourish and Mazmanian discuss how representational practices of digitalization of photography and atomic testing have material consequences. Finally, Orlikowsky and Scott explore and compare old and new online valuation schemes from the travel industry, and pay attention to material consequences and questions of accountability. These interesting empirical contributions underscore the need for new conceptualizations of grasping how matter matters. The ongoing exercise of mapping the conceptual options and testing them out empirically throughout the chapters is the strength of the book. In this regard particularly the empirical chapters make a strong and useful contribution not only for organization studies and work studies, but also as a social science reader in general.Although one of the arguments for publishing the edited volume is that materiality ought to get back in, materiality has not been completely absent from organizational studies. Materiality has been reflected in some scholars' work as they have been conducting work across disciplinary fields of organization studies, work studies, and STS. …