Tensions in transfer, translation, and transformation of information: A sociomaterial perspective on heterogeneous work arrangements

Abstract

Although sociomaterial theorizing has provided important insights into how digital technologies enable or constrain behavior in organizational contexts, there is a need to advance theory to better account for how digital technologies shape heterogeneous work practices in which distributed organizational actors use diverse technology portfolios to collaboratively produce and consume information. Against that backdrop, we draw on the distinction between digital mediation and digital representation to investigate tensions in how actors transfer information across organizational and technological boundaries, how they translate information into meaning, and how they eventually transform information into action in digitalized work. We illustrate and develop this framing through detailed analyses of digitally enabled, condition-based maintenance of equipment in a mining context. Drawing on these analyses and extant literature, we advance theory on tensions in how digital technologies are implicated in producing and consuming information in today’s increasingly heterogeneous work practices.