Text Messaging as a Social Practice

There is a growing emphasis, in management research, on the understanding of practice in organisations. In particular, there is a recognition of the need for new insights into the social issues that are embedded in the way individual actors go about performing their roles. In response to these calls this paper presents empirical findings from a study which deliberately chose to focus beyond business organisations in order to provide a new lens for revealing the dynamics of social practices. A relatively new social practice, text messaging, has been chosen for this purpose. It is examined, through autobiographical reflections of participants, as an illustration of the living and continually adapted nature of practice in the context of the social relations that define its meaning and purpose. The paper contributes to our understanding of the internal goods of practice in relation to the external forces that shape the way it unfolds and is performed by practitioners