Organizations have traditionally accomplished connectivity among their workers by co-locating them in shared organizational workplaces. However, information and communication technologies (ICTs) are offering alternative ways to accomplish this kind of connection. This change raises important questions about what it is possible to accomplish through such mediated communicative connections, and if there are work activities that are best accomplished face-to-face. Practitioners and researchers have historically identified informal communication as a process essential to organizational success that is difficult or impossible to accomplish outside of shared physical environments. This study documents the ways full-time teleworkers are accomplishing informal communication without being in shared work environments. In doing this, this work also identifies for what purposes these participants find shared organizational workplaces important and/or essential for successful informal communication. To complete this study required that two additional questions needed to be addressed: 1) defining full-time telework in the context of modern ICT-mediated corporate work environments, and 2) a re-examination of the parameters of telework to define them for modern workplace environments, so as be able to use effectively to examine past and present telework research efforts. In order to document the context of each of the participants as fully as possible, a narrative case study based research protocol was used. Participants were engaged through two active interviews and a journaling exercise so as to identify and document instances of informal communication and their purposes or roles in their workdays. This study’s key finding is that among this group of full-time teleworkers, all were engaging in informal communication to accomplish bonding and learning, both in ways that paralleled those communicative practices commonly accomplished in shared environments, but also in new ways that were made possible because of emergent sociomaterial practices supported by new information and communication technology affordances. While all the study’s participants indicated that their work processes, including informal communication, could be entirely accomplished virtually, nearly all noted the importance of face-to-face communication for key aspects of bonding and learning. Additionally, the successful work practices of these teleworkers were strongly dependent on the ubiquitous adoption of ICT tools and platforms throughout these participants’ organizations, and by the distribution and mobility of increasing numbers of workers, in these organizations and others, that are using these technologies as a routine part of their daily work practices.

This thesis offers a rethinking of the role for education as critical workplace pedagogy in complex problems of health care. Taking the case of paediatric diabetes, the study explored how health-care professionals learn the work of supporting children, and their parents, to self-manage the condition. By reconceptualising work problems as sociomaterial learning struggles, this research contributes new understandings of informal professional learning in everyday health-care provision. Data were generated through fieldwork in an outpatient clinic. Particular challenges of supporting self-management in this case were the difficulties of balancing policy aspirations for empowerment with biomedical knowledge about risks to immediate and long-term health. Tracing the materialisation of learning as it unfolded in moments of health-care practice showed professionals handling multiple and contradictory flows of information. Particular challenges were posed by insulin-pump technologies, which have specific implications for professional roles and responsibilities, and introduce new risks. A key insight is that professionals were concerned primarily with the highly complicated perpetual discernment of safe parameters within which children and their parents might reasonably be allowed to contribute to self-management. Such discernment does not readily correspond to the notion of empowerment circulating in the policies and guidelines intended to enable professionals to accomplish this work. As a result, this thesis argues that the work of discernment is obscured. Learning strategies evolve, but could be supported and extended by explicit recognition of the important work of learning as it unfolds in everyday practices of supporting self-management in paediatric diabetes. Most importantly, workplace pedagogies could be developed in ways that attune to the profound challenges and uncertainties that are at stake in these practices.

This study presents a new perspective on work practice in conceptual art. Using ethnographic evidence from five visual artists, the study used a combined visual arts and practice orientated perspective to explore the materiality of their everyday work and the sociomaterial practices shaping it. Close scrutiny is given to the forms of expertise embedded in this through concepts of knowing-in-practice and epistemic objects. Emerging from the findings is clearer understanding of how an arts-based methodology might enhance knowledge about artists’ knowing-in-practice. Popular representations of contemporary artists often ignore the realities of precarious work. This is reflected in the professional education of artists with its concentration on studio-based activities and emphasis on the production and products of artmaking. This study reconfigures and reconceptualises the work of artists as assemblages of sociomaterial practices that include, but are not limited to artmaking – so providing a different representation of the work of artists as a continuous collaboration of mundane materials. The study identified seven sociomaterial practices, defined as movement-driven; studio-making; looking; pedagogic; self-promotion; peer support; and pause. As these practices are subject to ever-changing materialities, they are constantly reassembled. Analysis revealed hidden interiors of underemployment and income generation to be significant factors embedded in the mundane materialities of everyday work, revealing resilience and adaptability as key forms of expertise necessary for the assembling of practices. Further, the arts-based methodology of ‘integrated imagework’ created ways of visually analysing the materially-mediated, socially situated nature of knowing in practice, and demonstrated how relational concepts relating to knowing-in-practice might be better analysed. Findings indicate how the professional education of artists – particularly the way the workplace of the studio is understood – could be re-envisioned to support the fluidity of contemporary artistic practices. The studio itself is a form of knowledge – ever changing – forming and being formed by the practices of artists. Adopting this view of studio-based education would be a radical departure from current studio-based pedagogies in contemporary art education. Further, resilience – the capacity to sustain practices that are emergent and constantly unfolding – becomes a form of expertise central to the professional education of artists.

It seems that for many people, spaces on the web are an integral part of their lives. This may include seeking out learning opportunities in online communities. There is plenty of buzz about these cyberspaces whether they are part of new social media configurations or commercialized product-related spaces cultivated by enterprises. It is important to explore how online spaces mayor may notcreate new locations of educational possibilities for workers. The subtle, and sometimes not so subtle, fusion of these technologies into work-learning practices warrants attention. This research project focuses on online communities as sites of learning, with an over-arching question of: How do self-employed workers experience informal work-related learning in an online community? Community can describe a gathering of people online that is organic and driven by a shared interest. These online spaces may also be purposefully nurtured by professional associations, workplaces, or businesses. This research project focuses on these spacesoutside the auspices of formal online courses. I draw on Actor Network Theory (ANT) to explore how work-learning is enacted in online communities and the implications of the intertwining of people and objects in multiple, fluid and distributed actor-networks. I also use the notion of legitimate peripheral participation from Situated Learning theory to explore how different possibilities for learning are shaped by locations and trajectories within a work practice and larger community of practitioners. Data was collected by interviewing 11 self-employed workers and then following the actors as objects of interest surfaced. This dissertation is a collection of five papers as well as introduction and conclusion chapters and a background chapter on ANT. Findings explore notions of online collectives shifting to more networked configurations, the complexity of work-learning practices unfolding in multiple spaces, contradictions between Web2.0 rhetoric and practices as different associations with knowledge and novel ways of knowing are enacted, and questions about the politics of technology that emerge from uncertainties around delegation, invisible practices, and necessary literacies. Given the need to pull objects out of the background and into critical inquiry, I also explored how a researcher interviews technology objects as participants in a study. / Adult Education

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Uppsatsens syfte är att genomföra och följa ett aktionsforskningsprojekt på en förskola. Projektet har som ansats att förändra och utveckla arbetet med digitala verktyg på förskolans yngrebarnsavdelning med barn 1–3 år. Med hjälp av ett sociomateriellt perspektiv undersöks hur digitala verktyg och andra materialiteter påverkar barnens handlingar. Uppsatsen utgår från att barnens undersökande och lärande uppstår i samhandlingar med de digitala verktygen. De digitala verktyg som använts under projektet har varit lärplatta med främst appar för att göra filmer och projektor tillsammans med Kuben.Resultatet visar att ett aktionsforskningsprojekt kan bidra till ökade kunskaper för deltagarna om vad ett arbete med digitala verktyg i förskolan kan vara. Genom att använda ett sociomateriellt perspektiv i aktionsforskningsprojektet synliggörs mångfalden av samhandlingar och lärandeprocesser som pågår. Barnen och de digitala verktygens samhandlingar skapar andra och fler lärprocesser än de som pedagogerna planerar för. Genom att få syn på dem kan vi skapa nya möjligheter till samhandlingar som utvecklar dem och stärker lärprocesserna. Då samhandlingarna mellan barn och digitala verktyg följs och stöttas kan de mål som har satts upp nås i högre grad. Om samhandlingarna inte uppmärksammas kan det bidra till oförståelse av barnens göranden och misslyckanden gällande måluppfyllelse. Aktionsforskning och ett sociomateriellt perspektiv stöttar varandra och kan med fördel användas tillsammans. / The aim of the essay is to carry through an action research project at a preschool. The project is set to change and develop the use of digital tools with children of the age 1- 3 years old. With help from a sociomaterial perspective I have examined how digital tools and other materiality can influence the children’s actions. The premiss of the essay is that children’s learning appears in intra-actions with the digital tools. During the project learning tablets, apps for filmmaking and projector together with a Cube was mainly used as digital tools.The results show that an action research project can contribute with new knowledge about working with digital tools for the participants. By using a sociomaterial perspective a diversity of intra-actions and learnings processes are made visible. The intra-actions between the children and digital tools create more and other learning processes than the teachers have planned for. The learning processes can be strengthened by making them visible. This also makes it easier to achieve the didactic goals. Without the knowledge about intra-actions that appear between child and digital tools there might be a gap concerning learning expectations. The project has shown that an action research project and a sociomaterial perspective support each other in a productive way.

This dissertation explores how people address problems of real human concern in situations of complexity, ambiguity, uniqueness, conflicting values and rapid change. Such circumstances stretch formal and idealistic rules and procedures to the breaking point. And yet, people in a variety of fields work through such difficulties in a pragmatic manner, at times finding ways to assert their humanity. Sensemaking and human- centred design are related activities through which many people approach such work. Through cases in digital innovation, global health care delivery and an unlikely voyage of the Amazon River, this portfolio shows that they are relevant to a wide range of settings. Rather than isolating the components or key variables of such work and taking their measure, this research advances a more holistic view of sensemaking and designing as sociomaterial practices. My research is grounded in performing the phenomenon of study, offering insights from complex practice rather than a spectator’s study of it. This ethnographic approach has yielded theoretical contributions related to designing for the emergence of practices, embodied sensemaking, a more substantive notion of what it means to be ‘human’ centred and more pragmatic ways of investigating sociomaterial practices. By discussing sensemaking and human-centred design as antidotes to failures of imagination in global health and development, this dissertation suggests a distinctive perspective on why these topics matter for the health of poor and marginalized people around the world.

Cette thèse examine l’imbrication du social et du matériel dans les entreprises multinationales, lors du transfert transnational des pratiques de gestion des ressources humaines, et plus particulièrement le transfert des pratiques de gestion de la performance. En me basant sur l’étude de quatre entités chinoises locales d’une entreprise transnationale comme cadre de mon étude de cas, j’explore comment les salariés locaux s’approprient les pratiques de gestion de la performance en internalisation les pratiques globales et en innovant pour les adapter à leur environnement local. Cette étude se fonde sur 60 entretiens, des données secondaires et des observations collectées sur plus de dix ans. Dans la première partie de cette thèse j’explore plus particulièrement l’appropriation des pratiques de gestion des ressources humaines au niveau micro et j’identifie quatre archétypes de l’appropriation des pratiques de gestion des ressources humaines : formelle, cérémoniale, déviante et innovante. Dans la deuxième partie de cette thèse, je me concentre sur l’appropriation des pratiques de gestion des ressources humaines au niveau meso. En me fondant sur la théorie de la Sociomatérialité, je propose une nouvelle définition de l’hybridation comme le processus par lequel des pratiques uniques émergent dans des filiales locales à partir de l’imbrication du social et du matériel entre le siège et les filiales locales des entreprises multinationales. Cette définition me permet d’identifier deux nouvelles formes de gestion de la performance dans les quatre entités de l’entreprise multinationale étudiée que j’ai appelées la pratique harmonieuse confucéenne de gestion de la performance et la pratique harmonieuse instrumentale de gestion de la performance. Dans le troisième chapitre, je me base sur les résultats empiriques des deux chapitres précédents pour conceptualiser un modèle multiniveau intégré du transfert transnational des pratiques de gestion des ressources humaines, en développant un autre concept central de la théorie de la Sociomatérialité: la notion de « dispositif ». Cette thèse a ainsi pour objectif de contribuer à la fois à la littérature en gestion internationale des ressources humaines et à la littérature sur la sociologie des outils de gestion. / The present dissertation examines the entanglement of the social and material in Multinational Enterprises during the transnational transfer of Human Resource Management Practices, especially Performance Management Practices. Using 4 local Chinese entities of a transnational firm as my case study, I explore how local employees make Performance Management practices their own, both internalizing global practices and innovating to adapt to local environments. This research is based on 60 interviews, secondary materials and direct observations over more than 10 years. In the first chapter of this dissertation, I explore more specifically the adoption of Human Resource Management practices at the micro level, and I identify four archetypes of the adoption of Human Resource Management practices: formal, ceremonial, deviant and innovative. In the second chapter, I focus on the adoption of Performance Management practices in Multinational Enterprises at a meso level. Drawing on sociomaterial theory, I propose a new definition of hybridization as being a process by which unique practices emerge in local subsidiaries from the entanglement of the social and the material at Headquarters and in local subsidiaries. This definition allowed me to identify two new hybrid performance management practices in the four Chinese entities of the Multinational Enterprises under investigation, which I have called the “harmonious Confucian” Performance Management practice and the “harmonious instrumental” Performance Management practice. In the third chapter, I build on the results of the two previous empirical chapters to conceptualize an integrated multilevel model for the transnational transfer of Human Resource Management practices in Multinational Enterprises by expanding another central concept to sociomaterial theory: the notion of “apparatus”. This dissertation aims therefore at contributing both to International Human Resources Management literature and to the literature of the sociology of management tools.

Detta arbete syftar till att undersöka de relationer som uppstår mellan teaterrekvisita, skådespelare och ljudtekniker genom det posthumanistiska perspektivet agentiell realism. Jag utforskar även vilka fenomen som uppstår ur dessa relationer. Vad händer när sensorer implementeras i rekvisitan så att skådespelarna själva kan trigga vissa ljudeffekter från scenen?  För att undersöka detta har jag tagit fram prototyper av teaterrekvisita med sensorer och på så sätt i viss mening gett föremålen en egen röst. Detta bidrar till att de kan delta i dialogen med människorna i en föreställning, samtidigt som samspelet mellan skådespelare och ljudtekniker förändras.  Genom processens olika iterationer har gränsen mellan subjekt och objekt blivit allt mer otydlig, liksom den mellan de olika rollerna. Skådespelaren blir i viss mening ljudtekniker, liksom både rekvisitan och ljudteknikern i sin tur blir skådespelare. / This thesis aims to investigate the relationships between theatrical props, actors and sound engineers through the posthumanistic perspective of agential realism. I also explore the phenomena that emerge from these relationships. What happens when sensors are implemented in the prop in order for the actors themselves to trigger certain sound effects from the stage? To investigate this, I have developed prototypes of theater props with sensors and thus in some sense given the objects a voice of their own. This contributes to them participating in the dialogue with the people in a performance, while at the same time changing the interplay between actors and the sound engineer. Through the different iterations of the process, the division between subject and object has become increasingly unclear, just like the one between the different roles. In some sense, the actor becomes an audio engineer, as both the prop and the audio engineer in turn become actors.

The aim of this study was to describe and analyse online teaching practices in the Swedish higher education context. The study had an online ethnographic approach and was based on empirical data on the teaching in two university courses. The study rested primarily on observational data but interviews and available documents also formed the basis for analysis. Empirical data were analysed with a perspective of practice theory – a perspective within a sociomaterial account. The results showed that online teaching was characterised by an embodied sociomaterial practice. The teacher’s body could be understood as both multiple and closely interwoven with technology. Furthermore, the teacher’s body was used in the teaching situation to reduce technological complexity but also, along with other forms of materiality, to prefigure what kind of teaching would take place. Teacher interventions in online environments could furthermore be understood as relational to both technology (that is the virtual material arrangement) and teachers’ doings and sayings (that is the teaching practice). Teacher interventions were aimed at making the arrangement intelligible for the students. The study showed that teacher interventions arranged both students and information and communication technology (ICT) in order to make them work as a teaching practice. The teaching practice that emerged was characterised as an interplay between virtual materiality and social practice, where asymmetricrelations between teachers and the ICT prevailed. / Syftet med föreliggande studie var att beskriva och analysera undervisningspraktiker online i svensk högre utbildningskontext. Studien har en onlineetnografisk ansats och baseras på empiriska data av undervisningen i två kurser på universitetsnivå. Studien stödjer sig främst på observationsdata men även intervjuer och dokumentstudier ligger som grund för analysen. Empiriska data har analyserats med ett praktikteoretiskt perspektiv – ett perspektiv inom sociomateriell teoribildning. Resultatet visar att undervisning online kännetecknas av en förkroppsligad sociomateriell praktik. Lärarkroppen kan förstås som både multipel och tätt sammanvävd med teknologi. Vidare används lärarkroppen i undervisningssituationen för att reducera komplexitet men även för att, tillsammans med annan materialitet, prefigurera vad det är för typ av undervisning som kommer att utspela sig. Vidare kan lärarinterventioner i onlinemiljöer förstås som relationella till både tekniken (det vill säga det virtuellt materiella arrangemanget) och lärares göranden och säganden (det vill säga undervisningspraktiken). Lärarinterventioner syftar till att göra arrangemanget begripligt för studenterna. Studien visar att lärarinterventionerna arrangerar både studenter och informations- och kommunikationsteknologi (IKT) i syfte att få dem att fungera som en undervisningspraktik. Den undervisningspraktik som uppstår är inte given på förhand utan emergent. Den karaktäriseras av ett samspel mellan virtuell materialitet och social praktik där asymmetriska relationer mellan lärare och IKT råder.