Using the relational ontologies and methods found in Latour’s sociology of translations (1992, 1993, 2007) and Leonardi’s approach to socio-material analysis (2017), we explore in this paper how, in practical terms, we can ‘follow’ digital technology actors and explore their effective entangling in the social. Using management visualization boards in a manufacturing setting as an example, we attempt to follow these technology actors as they enter into, and become part of, the relations and regulation of organizing. We build on the argument that the material visualization boards – whether digital or analogue - need to be understood and researched as actors and influencers within emergent socio-material relations. Our focus is upon the methodologies for such research.Our paper is not concerned with whether or not material objects play a critical role in relations between human actors, this is well established in numerous fields of research (see for instance Hugosson, Stevik, Söberg, & Tryggestad, 2019; Lindblad, 2019; Mol, 2002; Sergi, 2016). Our intention here is, rather, to provide a worked example of how detailed ethnographic work can approach researching the transformational role of digital information technologies, such as visualization boards, in organizing, and how to properly account in research for their effects on work and organizing. We propose that detailed longitudinal ethnography, detective work and even a little imagination, are key to this.In the paper, we do a selective review of Bruno Latour’s thinking around a ‘sociology of translation’ (1992, 1993, 2007)and an analysis of how this might be used to frame and conceptualize visualization boards as quasi-material objects in socio-material relations. We then draw on the socio-material work of Leonardi (2017), who proposes a three-step model forhow we as researchers iteratively can shift attention between the (real) material, the materiality, and affordances of the technologies, tools, and artefacts encountered.In order to provide robust suggestions for how we might approach researching management visualization boards in organizations in a structured and methodical way, we provide an illustrative example from our ethnographic study at an industrial manufacturing site, at which a global industrial company produces advanced, high-quality products. At the local site, which has been in the same location for over 100 years, some 200 blue collar and 50 white collar workers are employed. The manufacturing part of the plant is divided into seven separate manufacturing cells, each with its own team of shift workers and team managers. We have mainly observed the daily work in the manufacturing cells by shadowing operators and managers, taking detailed notes and collecting documents and photos. In addition, we have conducted around 20 interviews with managers, employees, and process development consultants. The study is still ongoing, and we have to date over a one-year period spent 150 hours at the site.
2024.