Towards a sociomaterial approach to inter-organizational boundaries. How information systems elicit relevant knowledge in government outsourcing

This article proposes a sociomaterial framework to address inter-organizational boundaries in IT projects. It engages in a dialogue with practice theory of boundary spanning and utilizes analytical tools and epistemologies drawn from social studies of technology. We aim to contribute to a situated understanding of inter-organizational boundaries by investigating how they are de facto enacted through definitions of what counts as relevant knowledge. We argue that information systems (ISs) have a key role in eliciting situated definitions of relevant knowledge, and thus in establishing knowledge asymmetries and shifting the boundaries of who is included or excluded. The article expands existing research by considering cases in which practices are ‘made durable’ in artefacts. The article also shows that questioning inter-organizational boundaries at the macro scale requires understanding knowledge asymmetries triggered at the micro level of ISs. To illustrate the framework, two ethnographic case studies of large ISs development are presented. The first case concerns the design and implementation of an online business submission service in Italy. The second case concerns a 20-year long system integration carried on at the Dutch land register. In the first case, IS’s implementation made relevant a kind of knowledge developed by contractors; in the second case, system interoperability valued knowledge developed in-house. Three sets of implications are drawn for theory and the practice of inter-organizational IT projects. To conclude, the article focuses on inter-organizational boundaries involving governments and foresees a novel interdisciplinary research direction at the confluence of IS and political studies