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Introduction: How Can Materiality Inform Institutional Analysis? Read chapter Read first chapter

2019 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

6. “Lost in Digitization”: A Spatial Journey in Emergency Response and Pragmatic Legitimacy

Authors : Anouck Adrot, Marie Bia Figueiredo

Published in: Materiality in Institutions

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

Institutional and technological changes represent major opportunities for organizations to defend and strengthen their pragmatic legitimacy, in particular, through digitization. In this vein, some organizations in the emergency sector have triggered massive investments to address their stakeholders’ informational needs, thereby defending their pragmatic legitimacy. However, knowledge remains scarce about the practical influence of organizational search for pragmatic legitimacy on operations, especially in emergency settings. Inspired by pragmatist thinking and grounded theory principles, Anouck Adrot and Marie Bia Figueiredo propose space as an intermediary concept to better understand the materiality of emergency organizations’ pursuit of pragmatic legitimacy. They propose a relational framework that depicts emergency response as a spatial journey. Composed of six mutually imbricated occupational areas, the proposed framework highlights how Sigma, a firefighting organization, attempted to defend occupational balance in operations. Adrot and Bia Figueiredo highlight how materiality can be reused by practitioners to develop reflexivity about practice and institutions. They also outline that a spatial approach to operations can help anticipate the potential side effects of transformation, which can endanger pragmatic legitimacy.

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Footnotes
1
While this chapter focuses on the material impact of an organization’s pursuit for legitimacy, other chapters highlight how organizations rely on material properties to claim and support legitimacy. In Chap. 7, De Vaujany, Winterstorm and Vaast offer a complementarity view to this chapter by exploring the material properties of symbolic management. In Chap. 8, Santos explores the role of material properties of digital artifacts in discursive strategies related to legitimacy claim. The performativity of pursuit for legitimacy and its reliance on materiality are not exclusive but rather the two sides of the same coin.
 
2
In Chap. 7, De Vaujany Winterstorm and Vaast also propose to approach space as a phenomenological experience but from a distinct perspective, based on the respective works of Augoyard (1979) and De Certeau (1980) on walking practices.
 
3
The standard features of the technology implemented—not to be developed in this chapter—account for its transferability and quick spreading. The transferability of technology goes beyond the scope of this chapter but is examined in other chapters in this book, such as Chaps. 8 and 9 and the postface.
 
4
In Chap. 9, Thomas, Abrunhosa and Canales, through their investigation of the role of digital objects, discuss the need to reconceptualize materiality to relate its features to institutional matters. Going further in the postface, Candace Jones offers promising avenues for institutional research, including the durability, transferability, relationality as essential features of materiality.
 
5
Several chapters in the book rely on some area of materiality as a springboard to better understand other approach other aspects of materiality. In Chap. 5, Arena and Douai explore the physical and spatial emergence of Saïd Business through their archives, another kind of materiality. In Chap. 10, Felix, Arena and Douai produced their own digital artifacts to approach spatial occupation, body expression and emotion. Likewise, in Chap. 11, Norhorm and Kirkegaard investigate body plasticity and institutional ideation through a documentary.
 
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Metadata
Title
“Lost in Digitization”: A Spatial Journey in Emergency Response and Pragmatic Legitimacy
Authors
Anouck Adrot
Marie Bia Figueiredo
Copyright Year
2019
Publisher
Springer International Publishing
Book
Materiality in Institutions

Print ISBN: 978-3-319-97471-2

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-97472-9

Copyright Year: 2019

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97472-9_6

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