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Organizing a precarious black box: An actor‐network account of the Atlantic Schools of Business, 1980–2006
Author(s) -
MacNeil Ryan T.,
Mills Albert J.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
canadian journal of administrative sciences / revue canadienne des sciences de l'administration
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.347
H-Index - 48
eISSN - 1936-4490
pISSN - 0825-0383
DOI - 10.1002/cjas.1317
Subject(s) - ethnography , sociology , social network analysis , black box , actor–network theory , qualitative property , qualitative analysis , qualitative research , knowledge management , criminology , public relations , social science , computer science , political science , artificial intelligence , anthropology , social capital , machine learning
There is a growing use of actor‐network theory (ANT) throughout management and organization studies. While earlier ANT research used ethnography to “follow the actors” in the production of organization/knowledge, more recent studies use archival sources to examine developments over time. We extend the latter approach using qualitative social network analysis (SNA) and apply this to a case study of the Atlantic Schools of Business (ASB). Our contribution is two‐fold: first, through an examination of actors in the ASB networking processes over 26 years, we demonstrate how the seemingly stable surface of an organization can hide the precariousness of organizing; second, we reveal the potential fusion of ANT with SNA as a method for dealing with large qualitative datasets over long periods of time. Copyright © 2015 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.