Becoming (a) Practice

Abstract

This article presents findings from longitudinal ethnographic research of a mega-project alliance. For five years we followed the leadership team of a large Australian Alliance Program made up of a large public and several private organizations, analyzing `practice' as novel patterns of interaction developed into predictable arrays of activities, changing and transforming while at the same time continuing to be referred to as `the same'. In this article we focus on three such arrays of activities: authoring boundaries, negotiating competencies and adapting materiality. We suggest that these are essential mechanisms in becoming a practice. While most studies of practice deal with already established practices, the significance of our research is that we develop a notion of practice as it unfolds. In this way we can provide a better account of the constant change inherent in practices.

From practice to collaborative community in interdisciplinary research contexts

“…This is different from what we might expect from the literature, where the existence of a community is generally presumed (Haythornthwaite, 2006;Lyall and Meagher, 2012). This presumption holds even when authors are clear that this community is nevertheless realized through practice; they still assume that some stable social structure is necessary for the maintenance and development of practices (see Bjørkeng et al, 2009;Gherardi, 2009b).…”

“…It has also been suggested that transformations associated with new, distinct collaborative norms could be transmitted through the socialization systems of collaborative communities (Adler et al, 2008;Olsen, 2009) and that practices are involved in the generation of community (Bjørkeng et al, 2009;Gherardi, 2009aGherardi, , 2009bNicolini, 2011). But this brings us to the chicken-and-egg relationship of practice and community, since emergent collaborative practices do not 'belong' to any pre-existing stable community.…”

“…The majority of the extant literature is based on research situated either within pre-existing communities of practice or within pre-arranged forms of inter-community collaboration (Bjørkeng et al, 2009;Gherardi, 2009a;Lave and Wenger, 1991;Olsen, 2009), suggesting that the existence of some stable social structure has been assumed to be necessary for the maintenance or development of practices (Bjørkeng et al, 2009;Gherardi, 2009b). Consequently, there is little insight into the dynamics of the emergence of practices and communities when there is no pre-established community or project group.…”

“…Brown and Duguid, 1991;Lave and Wenger, 1991;Wenger, 1998). In particular: communities are understood to provide the resources for organizing that support the 'foundings and failures of organizational forms' (Freeman and Audia, 2006, p. 145); and practices have been associated with the reproduction of organizational forms and sense-making within them (Bjørkeng et al, 2009;Gherardi, 2009b). But what supports sense-making in one community context produces confusion in another.…”

Sustainability as Practice: Reflections on the Creation of an Institutional Logic

“…Other studies analyse the process of the constitution and the continuous reconstitution of practices [47][48][49]. These studies are particularly interested in the formation of practices [50]. Related to sustainability some studies seek to reduce the sustainability gap by analysing sustainable strategy formation [38], yet other study citizen-consumers as agents of changes [51].…”