Abstract
Motivated by an agenda for empirical research on decisions, we seek to understand how an issue or idea is labelled as a "decision". Based on the relational ontology, we used the Actor-Network Theory as a theoretical frame, and particularly the translation perspective. In order to understand the "process of formation and stabilization of decisions" focused on what makes actors act, we conducted an ethnographic study in a social enterprise for 30 months. Through narrative analysis, we propose the (trans)formative trajectories of decisions in which we describe the trajectory of these hybrid entities achieving the status of relative fixity labelled as "the decision". We understand the trajectory as an ongoing translation journey; thus, we tracked decisions in their trajectories of translation, packaging and legitimation. The elements of the organizational decision-making are re-signified as performative texts, which enter the network of relations. Therefore, decisions are (trans)formed on a journey of mediation among multiple actants. When objectified as crystallized texts, the decisions become performative, because they start to organize and participate in the constitution of the ongoing reality. This theoretical framework allowed us to extend the processual understanding of decision-making aligned with the relational ontology and the time-process perspective.
Highlights
The research on organizational decision-making comprises a set of empirical and theoretical studies that understand the decision as a fundamental element of the organizational process (Laroche, 1995, Tsoukas, 2010)
We describe the case, present the narrative of the decisions under study and expose a theorization based on these results
The work promoted by ASID is offered free of charge to the schools and people with disabilities (PwDs) and, the organization relies on private social capital support
Summary
The research on organizational decision-making comprises a set of empirical and theoretical studies that understand the decision as a fundamental element of the organizational process (Laroche, 1995, Tsoukas, 2010) In these studies, the decision is a product of a cognitive work (Cyert & March, 1963), in which an individual (actor, group of actors or an organization) chooses, consciously and intentionally, among numerous alternatives, a course of action towards one objective (Bond et al, 2008). Instrumental rationality permeates the models and theories of decisions and decision-making, even in approaches that intended to challenge these well-stablished theories (Cabantous et al, 2010) These approaches, based on diverse theoretical traditions, adopt a substantialist ontology (for an exceptional criticism see Nayak & Chia, 2011). In this ontology of substance, the decision is considered ontologically simple and non-problematic 362
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