Kjellberg, H (2010) Struggling to perform a warehouse: Buildings as symbols and tools. Construction Management and Economics, 28(6), pp. 675-694. ISSN 1466433X
Abstract
The built environment and the way in which it is understood critically affect many business enterprises. Despite its importance, few studies have explicitly investigated the process through which changes to the built environment are introduced into ongoing businesses. To this end the methodological principles of the sociology of translation (ANT) were employed to generate a historical account of one such change process. Specifically, the account describes how a major Swedish food wholesaler introduced one-storey warehouses into their operations. This introduction was linked to a transformation of the warehouse as such: in the 1940s the wholesaler viewed its warehouses as symbols ('outward signs of inner strength') while ideas from the US suggested another identity-that of a tool for wholesale operations. The efforts of the wholesaler to realize this new identity included investments in metrologies, organization schemes, and concrete, suggesting that theoretical perspectives on objects are not generally applicable but require perspective-specific investments in 'words and their worlds'. Viewing the realization of an object-perspective as a performation struggle (Callon, 2007) it is suggested that this process of adjustment unfolds through interplay between presenting and representing the world.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | measurement; organizational learning; performation; socio-technical systems; strategic planning; technological change; wholesaling |
| Index terms: | technological change, identity, sociology, strategic planning, socio-technical system, organizational learning, built environment, transformation |
| Subjects: | management, innovation studies, professional development, infrastructure and transport systems, sociology, social theory, theoretical framing, business |
| Topics: | Information Management, Research Practice, Business Strategy, Urban Studies |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCT |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here