Boundary objects, power, and learning: The matter of developing sustainable practice in organizations

Abstract

This article develops an understanding of the agential role of boundary objects in generating and politicizing learning in organizations, as it emerges from the entangled actions of humans and non-humans. We offer two empirical vignettes in which middle managers seek to develop more sustainable ways of working. Informed by Foucault's writing on power, our work highlights how power relations enable and foreclose the affordances, or possibilities for action, associated with boundary objects. Our data demonstrate how this impacts the learning that emerges as boundary objects are configured and unraveled over time. In so doing, we illustrate how boundary objects are not fixed entities, but are mutable, relational, and politicized in nature. Connecting boundary objects to affordances within a Foucauldian perspective on power offers a more nuanced understanding of how 'the material' plays an agential role in consolidating and disrupting understandings in the accomplishment of learning.

Understanding Sustainability Through the Lens of Ecocentric Radical-Reflexivity: Implications for Management Education

“…This causes us to rethink ontology by questioning the objectivist position of the physical world as a given immutable reality, as well as the strong social constructionist position that only recognizes the social and cultural as meaningful (Dale and Burrell 2008). For example, Hawkins et al (2016) highlight how learning is situated in the entanglement of social interpretations and material objects through their study of how middle managers develop low-carbon practices in their organizations. They argue that existing understandings can be disrupted around our relationship with material boundary objects (e.g.…”

Tensions at the boundary: Rearticulating ‘organic’ plant breeding in the age of gene editing

“…One of the critiques of boundary work, boundary organizations and the theory that underpins these concepts (e.g., Callon, 1984;Latour, 1987), is its lack of attention to questions of power imbalances that may exist between actors (e.g., Hawkins et al, 2017). Ingram (2007) finds that while boundary organizations have the potential to create productive tensions, in the US organic sector, these tensions are often unproductive due to concentration of power in the hands of a few key players, which stymies new ideas and perspectives.…”

Politics and Power in Marine Spatial Planning

“…1 The resulting report acted as a boundary object utilising sense-making narratives similar to other reports to gain legitimacy, whilst reinforcing and legitimising structures of historic governance. Boundary objects must therefore be conceptualised as having the capacity to both enable and inhibit interactions (Hawkins et al 2017).…”