Organizing a precarious black box: An actor‐network account of the Atlantic Schools of Business, 1980–2006

• Author: Ryan T. MacNeil,Albert J. Mills
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/cjas.1317
• Published date: 01 September 2015
• Date: 01 September 2015

Organizing a precarious black box: An actor-

network account of the Atlantic Schools of

Business, 1980–2006

Ryan T. MacNeil*

Acadia University; Saint Mary’s University

Albert J. Mills

Saint Mary’s University

Abstract

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 develop-

ments 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.

Keywords: actor-network theory, social network analysis,

organizing, process studies, Atlantic Schools of Business

Résumé

Dans toutes les étudesen gestion et en organisation, on fait de

plus en plus appel à la théorie réseau-acteur (ANT). Si dans

les recherches antérieures on utilisait l’ethnographie pour «

suivre les acteurs » dans la production de l’organisation/du

savoir, les travaux récents par contre utilisent les sources

d’archives pour étudier le développement au f‌ildutemps.

Cet article se situe dans le prolongement de cette deuxième

approche en utilisant l’analyse qualitative du réseau social

(SNA) qu’il applique à une étude de cas de l’Atlantic Schools

of Business (ASB). Sa contribution est double : d’une part, à

travers l’examen des acteurs dans les processus de

réseautage de l’ASB pendant plus de 26 ans, l’article

démontre comment la surface apparemment stable d’une

organisation peut masquer la précarité du processus

d’organisation; d’autre part, il révèle la fusion potentielle

de l’ANT et du SNA comme méthode d’exploitation de

vastes ensembles de données étalées sur plusieurs longues

périodes de temps. Copyright © 2015 ASAC. Published by

John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Mots-clés : théorie acteur-réseau, analyse du réseau social, acte

d’organiser, études de processus, Atlantic Schools of Business

There is long-standing debate between those who view

organization as a more-or-less concrete, f‌ixed, and/or stable

entity (Donaldson, 1996) and those who view organization

as the (unstable) outcome of a series of organizing processes

(Weick, 1969). The former (structural or distal) approach

encourages us to focus on the maintenance, development,

and improvement of “the organization.”This is exemplif‌ied

in a typical organizational theory textbook: “Organizations

are (1) social entities that (2) are goal directed, (3) are

designed as deliberately structured and coordinated activity

systems, and (4) are linked to the external environment”

(Daft, 2001, p. 12). The latter (processual or proximal)

approach encourages ref‌lection on the processes that

shape a “sense of organiz ation”and the implications for

social action (Burrell & Morgan, 1979; Cooper, 1992).

This is summed up by Czarniawska (2004, p. 780), who

indicated that organizational scholars “mostly encounter

processes that have already come to a happy end […].

Nevertheless, to study ‘organizing’is to point out that

’organizations’are but temporary reif‌ications, because

organizing never ceases.”

Within the processual approach there has been a grow-

ing inf‌luence of actor-network theory (ANT). ANT scholars

have focused not only on the relational aspects of organizing

but also the relationalcharacter of the productionof (organiza-

tional) knowledge (Bloomf‌ield & Vurdubakis, 1999;

Czarniawska-Joerges & Hernes, 2005; Hernes, 2008; Lee &

Hassard, 1999). Insights generated by ANT studies of

*Please address correspondence to: Ryan Thomas MacNeil, F.C. Manning

School of Business, Acadia University, 21 University Avenue, Wolfville,

Nova Scotia, B4P 2R6, Canada. Email: rmacneil@acadiau.ca

Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences

Revue canadienne des sciences de l’administration

32: 203–213 (2015)

Published online 11 May 2015 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/CJAS.1317

Can J Adm Sci

32(3), 203–213 (2015)Copyright © 2015 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 203