Page 35 - Design meets Business:An Ethnographic Study of the Changing Work and Occupations of Creatives

1. Introduction 23
are consecutively ‘overcoming the agency and structure divide’, ‘attention for the material’ and a belief that ‘action is imbued with power’ (Nicolini 2012). To begin with, the practice lens moves beyond the divide between agency and structure. The practice lens has been partly developed as a response to earlier organizational studies that explained social life in terms of struc- tural features. Following the practice lens, social reality is not merely the result of structures but also of ‘what people do’. Hence, instead of percei- ving reality in terms of dualisms, such as agency and structure, mind and body or change and stability, following the practice lens, “phenomena always exist in relation to each other, produced through processes of mutual constitution” (Feldman & Orlikowski 2011: 1242). As a consequence, rather than studying agents or structures, practice scholars look at the activities performed in specific contexts. In the context of work and organizing, this means that research starts with “workplace interaction and explores how work processes both constitute and are situated in organizational dyna- mics and structures” (Maines 1982 in Nicolini 2012: 9). A famous example of practice research is the work of Strauss and colleagues (1963) who show how the norms and structures in a psychiatric hospital are shaped by the interactions between doctors, nurses, administrates and hospital staff. A more recent example is the work of Bechky (2006a), who demonstrates that despite the temporary character of jobs in the film industry, film crew members can establish a sense of ‘stability’ in the organizational struc- ture of the film industry through enacting similar roles across diverse film projects and work settings. These studies show that even though the atti- tude and cognition of people are important, the key focus is on the situated action and how this progressively develops over time (Nicolini 2012).
Further, practice scholars believe that social reality is inherently mate- rial. It is argued that people use their bodies, objects and technologies in their daily interactions (Nicolini 2012). Following the practice lens, then, ‘the material’ is not simply instrumental to performing or reinforcing our actions, but our actions are also inscribed in the material. Let me explain this with an example. In the office, we use our body in certain ways that show we are listening, learning and curious. Our body, in a sense, helps us to identify as ‘a good employee’. In other words, we were not only socialized that being a good student means to ‘listen’, but also through ‘listening’ and employing our body in certain ways we reinforce this social construct. In other words, the social and the material are mutually constitutive. Accor- dingly, materials can help us make our actions durable in ways that go beyond our individual actions. The ways in which the chairs and tables are organized in the office, all contribute to the social order, and reinforce the actions we are taking. Moreover, when studying practices, scholars must