Sociomateriality of Corruption: Technology as a Lens onto Materialization of Power/Knowledge

Abstract

Recent scholarship has inaugurated the social practices perspective on corruption. In particular, via power/knowledge dynamics the organizational embeddedness of situated work practices and the commensurate craft-knowledge can endow focal actors with power to engage in corruption. However, in the latter context, how the “material arrangements” of work undergird this power/knowledge to enable corruption has been under-theorized and under-explored. How these material arrangements “matter” to corruption are the focus of this paper. Using a case of technology change, transitioning from paper maps to digital maps, we study how corruption (re-) materializes via artifactual and physical means. We focus on an almost invisible organizational practice, called “compensation” which was synonymous with corruption, and its intended elimination by way of the introduction of digital maps. Our analysis shows that the latter practice was highly intertwined with the material arrangements of work —i.e., poor physical map conditions and highly improvisational calculation methods. The findings also show that manual compensation and its material means were largely eliminated due to digital maps. However, subsequently corruption re-materialized albeit in a new form. The paper contributes to the literature by showing that: there is a significant “material” component to corruption; that the latter materiality is “consequential”; that “corruption as a sociomaterial accomplishment” is a credible theoretical perspective; and that corruption can “metastasize” and evolve though in an emergent and unpredictable manner.