Date / Heure
Date(s) - 14 janvier 2016
12 h 15 min - 14 h 00 min
Bernard Forgues
Professeur de théorie des organisations
EMLYON Business School
Salle/room: Cogeco
Conférence en anglais/Présentation in English
Résumé/Abstract
Although structures have been defined as composed of both schemas and resources, institutional scholars have put emphasis almost entirely on the cognitive side, seriously neglecting the material side. Heeding numerous calls to bring materiality back in, we aim to offer conceptual lenses through which to analyze how materiality impacts organizations and institutions. The conceptual lenses we develop in this paper build from Gibson’s theory of affordances and enrich it with recent advances in anthropology and STS (science and technology studies). We illustrate how our conceptual lenses allow deeper understanding of the evolution of social arrangements with the case of the flying-boat. Flying-boats are those planes alighting on water which dominated intercontinental aviation in the 1930s before being wiped out after World War II. We conclude by discussing how using materiality conceptual lenses can contribute to organization theory.
Co-author: Isabelle Royer