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

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 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.

A Holistic Decision-Making Process to Improve the Productivity of Public Transportation in Cuenca-Ecuador

“…Like those authors, Elbanna (2013);MacNeil & Mills (2015); De Albuquerque (2015) used a case study to show the benefits of the actor-network theory. Burga & Rezania (2017) applied the actor-network theory to collect data and analyze it for the enactment of accountability in the renovation project of a historical building at a public university.…”