How Matter Matters ─ Objects, Artifacts, and Materiality in Organization Studies

Although human lives towards the second half of the twentieth century became increasingly mediated by objects and artifacts and have depended heavily on the functioning of technical systems, materiality in a broad sense became relatively marginalized as a topic of research interest. This volume contributes to redressing the balance by drawing together the work of scholars involved in exploring the sociomaterial dimensions of organizational life. It will look at the way material objects and artifacts are conceived in organizations, and how they function in interaction with human agents.

The book offers a new conceptual repertoire and vocabulary that allows deeper thought and discussion about the inherent entanglement of the social and material. Like the preceding volumes in the Perspectives on Process Organization Studies series, the book displays the richness that characterizes process thinking, and combines philosophical reflections with novel conceptual perspectives and insightful empirical analyses.

Paul R. Carlile, Professor of Management and Information Systems, Boston University School of Management,Davide Nicolini,Professor of Organization Studies, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick,Ann Langley,Professor,, HEC Montreal,Haridimos Tsoukas, Columbia Ship Management Chair inStrategic Management; Professor of Organization Studies, The University of Cyprus; Warwick Business School, University of Warwick

Paul R. Carlile is Professor at Boston University School of Management. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Michigan and was an Assistant Professor of Organization Studies at MIT's Sloan School of Management. Paul studied Philosophy and Anthropology at Brigham Young University and also earned a Masters in Organizational Behavior there. Paul has also founded two information technology companies developing tools for creating and sharing knowledge.


Davide Nicolini is Professor of Organization Studies at Warwick Business School where he co-directs the IKON Research Centre and the Warwick Institute of Health. Prior to joining the University of Warwick he held positions at The Tavistock Institute in London and the University of Trento and Bergamo in Italy. His work has appeared in journals such as Organization Science, Organization Studies, Journal of Management Studies, Human Relations, Management Learning, and Social Science and Medicine. From 2009 he is associate editor of journal Management Learning. His new book Practice Theory, Work, and Organization will be published in 2012 by OUP.


Ann Langley is Professor of Management at HEC Montreal and Canada Research Chair in Strategic Management in pluralistic settings. Her research focuses on strategic change, leadership, innovation, and the use of management tools in complex organizations with an emphasis on processual research approaches. She has published over 50 articles and two books.



Haridimos Tsoukas holds the Columbia Ship Management Chair in Strategic Management at the University of Cyprus, Cyprus and is a Professor of Organization Studies at Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, UK. He has published widely in several leading academic journals, including the Academy of Management Review, Strategic Management Journal, Organization Studies, Organization Science, Journal of Management Studies, and Human Relations. He was the Editor-in-Chief of Organization Studies (2003-2008), and the editor (with Christian Knudsen) of The Oxford Handbook of Organization Theory: Meta-theoretical Perspectives (2003) and author of Complex Knowledge: Studies in Organizational Epistemology (2005), both published by Oxford University Press. He has also edited Organizations as Knowledge Systems (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, with N. Mylonopoulos) and Managing the Future: Foresight in the Knowledge Economy (Blackwell, 2004, with J. Shepherd).