The data collection and the analysis in relation to convincingness

5.4.1. Authenticity

This concerns the written assurance as to both the field researcher’s presence in and understanding of the field. Firstly, the field study was conducted throughout a full construction project over a period of 10 months. In that relation, it was possible to follow the trajectory of the LPS from start to finish in a particular context. Secondly, the mix of data (participant observation, interviews and documents) was collected in order gain a comprehensive insight to the performance of the LPS.

Especially, a triangulation between observations and interviews was done in order to understand the LPS’s ability to align itself to differing practice circumstances, and to check whether perceived observations where in accordance with the participants’ accounts of what took place.

Concerning the interviews the strategy was to remain technical in order to avoid any moral issues that could impede the researcher/practitioner relationship, and to avoid bias: Alvesson (2003) warns against a romantic view of the interview in which the interviewer assumes that the interviewee is mostly a competent and moral truth teller, acting in the service of science and producing the data needed to reveal his or her "interior" (i.e., experiences, feelings, values) or the "facts" of the organisation (p. 14). Alvesson proposes issues such as promotional activities, identity work, cultural scripts and political actions as obstacles to the validity of the romantic view. Kreiner & Mouritsen (2005) mention five reasons for not treating the interviewee’s answers as final and privileged knowledge about the world: ignorance, tacitness, boundedness, institutionalisation and

opportunism. Thus, interviews did definitely not, and should definitely not, get written off as valid information. On the contrary, the above insights on interviews were considered informative to the construction of the ANT account in this thesis. For example, issues of institutionalisation were used proactively to inquire into network actors that might have stayed hidden in an interview that was not reflective of institutional influence. Since the phenomenon under study here was an MCS – a non-human – it did not have a voice in itself, and obviously one could not interview the MCS. Instead it was chosen to go where the technology was expected to perform or to be performed. It was chosen primarily to observe these spaces (in meetings) in order to see its performance in situ, and much less

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in ex-post accounts of performance (interviews). Interviews were therefore primarily used to triangulate observations.

This choice of method is in line with Latour in his proposition that one should follow actors in the making. Granting primacy to observations of the technology in situ avoided situations of having to

‘believe’ interviewee accounts of what did and did not happen. This, however, also carried a risk.

The heavy reliance on observations, might have restricted the inflow of information from humans about spaces where the MCS also performed. This potential risk in the chosen data collection method might in this thesis have lead to an incomplete analysis of relations and connections concerning the identity of the LPS. In particular, three areas could have been of interest were left out of the investigation process:

1) Day-to-day communication between subcontractors concerning commitments made during the weekly meetings. Observing the physical execution of activities in order to compare plans directly with their execution instead of observing accounts of execution in the weekly meetings. Interesting management issues concerning the disciplining effect of the LPS were therefore potentially lost on the way from execution to accounts of execution done in the meetings.

2) Encounters between end-users and trades in terms of work procedures.

3) Contract re-negotiations and compensation negotiations for extra work.

Observing these spaces could have added to the account of the identity of the LPS offered in this thesis. Concerning this incompleteness in the data collection method it is relevant recall Latour’s fifth principle: We have to be as undecided as the various actors we follow as to what techno science is made of; every time an inside/outside divide is built, we should study the two sides simultaneously and make the list, no matter how long and heterogeneous, of those who do the work.

This states a question of the endlessness of this list. Miller (1997) suggests that it is unrealistic to make this list – that the researcher would have no idea where to stop. This is a powerful argument

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but one that Latour (1996) appears not to be concerned over: In any qualitative study it is possible to miss the point. The researcher may fail to complete the hermeneutic circle and never arrive at an empathetic understanding of the “native’s” point of view (Alvesson and Deetz, 2000). Similarly with ANT it is possible that the researcher fails to fathom the network and may then provide an incomplete or misleading research story. However, according to Lee and Hassard (1999) this is not a problem of ANT alone but of all research. One could argue that ANT’s emphasis on “empirical”

understanding, its regard for variety of evidence and its networky character might minimise such partial story telling. ANT has attractions as a research strategy such as those which Lee and Hassard note but like other qualitative research approaches its deployment requires the use of judgment and human skill. The combination of limited human capacities and the complexity of any real world situation ensure that any research activity is necessarily frail and always subject to possible errors of interpretation and comprehension.

Summing up, it is acknowledged that the field study could have been even more investigative in terms of looking for spaces of LPS performance. This is certainly viewed as a substantive learning point concerning future research.

5.4.2. Plausibility

Plausibility is concerned with whether the renditions of the field make sense. The accounts of reconfigurations in the LPS as it gets enmeshed with construction practice have been evaluated by internally for their sensibility. Are the accounts ‘overdone’ in order to fit theory, for example?

Arguing that this is not the case, the ANT approach exactly proposes the researcher to embrace the seemingly mundane. The mundane does, however, tend to be read as highly theoretical in ANT accounts, which might be problematic, when it comes to convincing the reader of its plausibility.

This is more a question of writing skills than plausibility.

The thesis is concerned MCS durability, and a number of episodes of separation and addition in the MCS are argued to constitute its durability. The critical reader could argue that some of the episodes that are accounted for in the analysis do not have a relation to durability. This doubt is

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acknowledged. The contribution of the thesis, however, resides in the proposition that there is no single, particular reason for its durability. Durability is an effect of multiple instances in different spaces and times. It is therefore the sum of the findings concerning durability that constitutes the final argument. The multiplicity naturally obscures the proof of what led to what. The third criteria, criticality, elaborates on the proof issue.

5.4.3. Criticality

Criticality concerns the questions: Can readers configure a larger and more enduring theoretical referent in the field (White, 1987)? Is the general well embedded and articulated in our accounts of the local (Ahrens and Chapman, 2006)? Do our accounts of the field “speak to our human and organizational conditions of existence in ways that we find useful and desirable” (Clegg, 2006, p.

861)?

Referring to the discussion above, the message to ANT researchers from Latour is that a ‘complete’

data collection process should be evaluated upon the criteria of whether there is enough data to account for interesting processes of translation. This is supported by Czarniawska (1999) who argues for a performative criteria, evaluating not the text per se, but describing what the text does to the reader. It is, however, important for the researcher to be aware that it takes time and resources to gain fruitful insight into translation processes. It takes effort to build up an understanding of details and dynamism in translation processes.

This thesis offers a very detailed and hopefully informative analysis of how two types of

reconfigurations in an MCS are related to durability. The novelty and the contribution of the thesis does not consist in the particular separations and additions that are accounted for individually in the analysis. The contribution consists in the totality of the separations and additions, and the

consequences for durability, and diffusion qualities of MCSs in general. There is therefore hopefully a clear general theoretical referent embedded in the analysis and conclusions. These

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comments on criticality conclude the chapter on method. In the following two chapters the analysis is carried through.

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