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Scale matters: doing practice-based studies of contemporary digital phenomena

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

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Type

Article

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Authors

Barrett, M 
Orlikowski, W 

Abstract

“As a practice scholar of contemporary digital phenomena, I feel increasingly challenged to better account for scale. My conceptual toolbox, which has served me well in conducting ‘classic’ workplace studies of technology, has not helped me attend to scale in my practice-based studies of digital phenomena. Should I relinquish this responsibility to those researchers whose tools and methods seem to address scale more naturally or obviously? Or are there ways to develop practice approaches to scale in studies of contemporary digital phenomena?” In recent years, we have heard these questions raised by experienced practice researchers and pondered them ourselves. Why and how does scale matter in practice? And relatedly, how should we as practice scholars conceptualize and examine scale in our research?

Description

Keywords

46 Information and Computing Sciences, 3503 Business Systems In Context, 4609 Information Systems, 35 Commerce, Management, Tourism and Services

Journal Title

MIS Quarterly

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0276-7783
2162-9730

Volume Title

45

Publisher

Management Information Systems Research Center

Rights

All rights reserved