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This chapter examines the relationship of information systems innovation and organizational context, substantiating theoretically the position that technology innovation is inseparable from the social processes of organizational change. It traces relevant theoretical debates in the socio-technical stream of information systems research and the multidisciplinary study of technology and society, drawing mostly from the sociology of translation of the theory of actor-networks. Information systems innovation is seen as a process whereby particular actors in an organization succeed in translating their interests into the development and use of ICT applications. In this way, the outcomes of information system innovation are not determined by the properties of the technology, but result from contested interests in complex networks of actors and intermediaries.

In this chapter I present a comparison between Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and process thinking, with the aim of understanding the potential contribution of ANT to process-based process thinking. Such a comparison is important, given the increased focus on process thinking and the growing interest in ANT in process thinking. I suggest three topics of comparison between the two, all of which are central to process thinking. They are as follows: the becoming of things, heterogeneous relationality, and contingency and time. It seems clear from the comparison that ANT has much to offer process-based process thinking. Most importantly, ANT works from an ontology of becoming rather than assuming that entities can be defined in terms of pre-given competencies and capabilities. Where ANT has limitations for the study of organization is at the level of actor networks and their conceptualization of meaning making. I seek to address this by introducing the notion of meaning structures. ANT tends to take a flat view of actor networks, where cohesion depends on the strength of associations between actors and the meaning that actors make of their respective connections, rather than the wholeness of the network. I suggest that meaning structures, inherent to the process thinking represented in pragmatism and phenomenology, may be used to adapt ANT, making it more appropriate for process-based process thinking. Meaning structures imply that actors sense both wholeness and parts, enabling meaning making to transcend the level of local connections. Whereas this capacity is reserved to human actors, it does not necessarily violate the ANT principle of symmetry between human and material actors.

This chapter compares and analyses three theoretically driven approaches to the analysis of networks: social network analysis (SNA), transaction cost analysis (TCA), and actor-network theory (ANT). Each approach makes a claim to analysing hierarchies and markets as well. In the ANT approach, a network is not an intermediate form of organisation, but a set of relations between actors and techniques. Both ANT and SNA view network as an analytical tool that encompasses and explains both markets and hierarchies as variations of network structures. Only TCA offers an explicit defence of networks being intrinsically different from markets or hierarchies—in the way they coordinate and govern—but these differences can be conceptualised using a single analytical technique and transaction costs. This chapter examines the arguments against the ubiquity of TCA for the analysis of socio-economic coordination and governance, along with the ANT approach to market, organisation, and management, and interlocking directorates as an example of the SNA approach.

This chapter returns to the method and purpose of analytical jurisprudence. It discusses the way analytical legal theorists have attempted to identify what they claim are necessary features of an admittedly contingent concept of law. It argues that the problems associated with lack of specification of the connection to actual social situations demonstrate how narrowly bootstrapped analytical legal theories are, supposing as they have that adequate data and experience of life under law are in hand such that a general jurisprudence can be advanced. It is not that bootstrapping itself is at fault, but only the way it has been carried out. The chapter offers a renewed view of the perspective of analytical legal theory, which emphasizes the conditions under which bootstrapping must be carried out in order to achieve a general jurisprudence that is balanced in its conceptual elaboration and descriptive-explanatory responsiveness to situations of life under law.

This chapter sets out four key conceptual themes that provide the tools which help answer the question: how might we conceive of contemporary finance in such a way as to understand qualitative transformations in everyday saving and borrowing routines that forge close relationships between the society and the financial markets? These key conceptual themes are financial networks, financial power, financial identity, and financial dissent. The chapter draws primarily on actor-network theory (ANT) aspects of the scholarship of Michel Foucault, and insights from writers of everyday life.

This epilogue summarizes key themes and presents some final thoughts. This book examined one of the most intriguing and central components of biodiversity: ecological interactions. The analysis has revealed some patterns in the structure of mutualistic networks that pervade their organization despite the variable environmental settings where they occur. Network theory describes an intermediate scenario to the extremes of highly specific one-on-one coevolution and largely intractable diffuse coevolution. Network theory also provides useful tools aimed at the identification of the key elements supporting these complex networks. Understanding the modular structure of the interaction networks is central to identifying the basic coevolutionary units.

This book brings some clarity to the discussion of networks. It tests the case as to whether it is possible to construct a clearly demarcated idea of a ‘network’ as a separable form of socio-economic coordination and governance mechanism with its own distinctive logic. In doing this, the primary contrast is to markets and hierarchies as alternative and already well-understood forms of such socio-economic coordination each with its own particular logic. Thus, the focus is on the domain of the socio-economic (which includes political aspects of networks), and it is about the organisational domain of the socio-economic. A distinction is made between network as a conceptual category and network as a social organisation. Three approaches to networks are considered: social network analysis, transaction cost analysis, and actor-network theory. Finally, the book explores the whole area of information and communications technology and networks and how they are argued to be radically transforming the nature of international relations.

This book concludes by summing up the logic and limits of network forms of organisation. It has investigated the contemporary forms of network organisation as seen in the conceptual literature and in terms of their appearance in concrete empirical settings. The key features of the network model that describe how a certain range of social relations operate that specify a network model of socio-economic coordination and governance have been described. These practices do not operate in the same manner for either hierarchies or markets. The arguments against the actor-network theory of networks have been considered, along with social network analysis and its view of networks as relational organisations.

Local, community-based action on the determinants of health that aims to reduce social health inequalities requires coordinated actions, mainly in the form of programmes that bring together actors from diverse spheres and with diverse interests. This chapter discusses the contribution and limits of the Actor-Network Theory to understand such issues of participation, partnership and intersectoral cooperation in health promotion research and practice. It draws on a broad range of collaborative research projects that have applied the Actor-Network Theory. Overall, this chapter develops four principles to conceptualize how intersectoral programmes work, and to conceptualize their governance. It shows how we translated this conceptualization into research practices, giving examples of the research methods and tools that we designed, based on the Actor-Network Theory, for actors involved in partnership situations. We then consider the utility and limitations of the theory for promoting reflection on such interventions.

This chapter considers other strategies for the legitimation of methods and beliefs whose prevalence and effectiveness cast doubt on the primacy of calibration against precedents and standards as arbitrator of methods and practices in the sciences. It looks at recent findings in the sociology and social history of the sciences that suggest that effective methods in securing consensuses in the sciences are generally neither calibrated nor such that they would survive genuine attempts at calibration. The chapter first considers a direct attack on the prevalence of genuine calibration. Then it looks into two sociological approaches to the study of closure of debate in the sciences: interest theory and network theory. Both theories entail major roles in the formation of consensus in the sciences for strategies of appeal to literary and aesthetic sensibilities.

The chapter provides the last necessary ingredient, in terms of a theory of account, in order to upgrade semantic information to knowledge. After an introductory section, Section 12.2 argues that, for relevant semantic information to be upgraded to knowledge, it is necessary and sufficient to be embedded in a network of questions and answers that correctly accounts for it. Section 12.3 shows that an information flow network of type A fulfils such a requirement. Section 12.4 illustrates some of the major advantages of such a Network Theory of Account (NTA) and clears the ground of a few potential difficulties. Section 12.5 clarifies why NTA, and an informational analysis of knowledge, according to which knowledge is semantic information for which we can provide an account, is not subject to Gettier-type counterexamples. A concluding section briefly summarizes the results obtained.

The most often noticed feature of social networks in U.S. society is their high degree of racial homogeneity, which has been attributed to the preference for individuals of the same racial background (i.e., racial boundary making or “racial homophily”). This chapter unpacks racial homogeneity using a theoretical framework that distinguishes between various tie formation mechanisms and their effects on the racial composition of networks, exponential random graph modelling that can disentangle them empirically, and a rich new dataset based on the Facebook pages of a cohort of college students. It first shows that racial homogeneity results not only from racial homophily proper, but also from homophily among co-ethnics of the same racial background (an aggregation effect) and from balancing mechanisms such as the tendency to reciprocate friendship or to befriend the friends of one’s friend that generate homogeneity without homophily (and amplification effect). In a second step, the importance of racial homophily is put further into perspective. Modelling the overall network structure, we demonstrate that balancing mechanisms, propinquity mechanisms based on co-residence, and homophily among elite students or those hailing from particular states are more important in the tie formation process than is racial homophily.

While one of the most striking features of our planet is its great variety of life, studies show that ongoing biodiversity loss could reduce the productivity of ecosystems by as much as 50%. However, evidence comes largely from experiments that have used highly simplified communities with on average seven species, all from a single trophic group. In contrast, natural communities have dozens, if not hundreds, of species spanning a variety of trophic levels. Would this additional complexity alter our conclusions about the functional consequences of diversity loss? This chapter reviews five hypotheses about how the fluxes of energy and matter through food-webs might depend on the diversity of species interacting within, as well as across trophic levels. After outlining the empirical support for or against each hypothesis, this chapter discusses several avenues of research that may prove useful as ecologists move towards a food web perspective on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning

This chapter presents similarities between ecological and social networks and outlines how our knowledge in one field may help in better understanding the other. It focuses on how ecological network theory might help us in thinking about homeland security and understanding modern terrorism in a globalized and interconnected world. It describes network analysis, a tool for studying many types of networks that play a key role in security analysis. It calculates to what extent elements are connected to other elements within a network and measures the complexity and the quantitative relationship between the parts and the whole.

This chapter explores actor-network theory — also called material semiotics — in the context of ‘corporate human-rights responsibility.’ It studies the symbolic representation of indicators within diagrams, maps, and even social-branding labels, and argues that indicators have a tendency to create secondary and even third-tiered indicators. It then analyses the ‘corporate human-rights responsibility’ as a social performance that is performed through regions and networks, which are two interacting social modalities.

This chapter focuses on jurisdictional reasonableness. It argues that reasonable jurisdiction could emerge through transnational communicative networks wiring State, international, and private actors. It proposes that States apply their own laws only on a subsidiary basis. Subsidiarity serves to restrain the exercise of jurisdiction by giving the State with the strongest nexus the primary right to exercise jurisdiction. If the ‘primary’ State fails to exercise jurisdiction, even if, from a global perspective, such were desirable, the ‘subsidiary’ State has the right — and, it may be argued, sometimes the duty — to step in, in the interest of the global community. Such a jurisdictional system connects sovereign interests with global interests, and ensures that impunity and globally harmful underregulation do not arise.