Does STS mean Business?

A report on the international workshop, 30th June 2004, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford

Inspired by our own unusual location as researchers working under the ‘STS’ label in a business school, we organised this workshop to instigate discussion about the possible implications of the move of STS into ‘new domains’ such as business and management, law and medicine. In an attempt to set the tone for this discussion, we identified four areas for interrogation. These concerned questions about:
- New research subject matter. Are organisations to be approached in the same way as scientific laboratories? Can organisations or business activities be approached as forms of technology? - New research audiences. Do moves to new locations invoke transformations and appropriations of STS by new audiences or simply provide the ‘usual suspects’ with new offices and resources? - Shifts toward (practical) application/integration into new contexts. What issues are raised by the variety of attempts to integrate STS into forms of organisational activity? Under what conditions is STS translated into practical action? - The possibility of sustaining radicalism under new conditions that may demand utility in different ways. To what extent and in what ways is STS proving useful? Do new locations for STS prompt new questions about its utility and evaluation? Can the provocation (traditionally) associated with STS be sustained as it is adopted in new contexts and by new audiences?

The workshop

Far in excess of our original expectations, the workshop brought together some 60 participants, some travelling from as far afield as Tasmania, South Africa, California and Sweden. The day of the workshop was organised around brief presentations of seven precirculated papers, with solicited commentaries by a further eight authors, and a concluding wrap up session.

Unsurprisingly, given the diverse and dynamic group of speakers, the debates that ensued ranged wider than the questions set out above. Instead of going through the substantive contribution of each presenter in order - all papers and a number of commentaries can be accessed via the conference website: http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/html/facultyconferencessts_workshop.asp - we highlight the four main themes which recurred throughout: definitions of STS; the new domains with which STS is engaging; the nature of this engagement and its effects on STS; and future questions which need to be addressed.

A. Definitions of STS

Michael Guggenheim suggested that if STS were to give up its traditional focus on science (and technology), this would amount to suicide: by definition, according to Guggenheim, Science and Technology Studies needs to be about science and technology. Mike Lynch and Nigel Thrift, however, pointed to the difficulty of conceiving of science/technology and business/law as separate domains: Lynch argued that conceptions of science play an important part in contemporary legal and business practices, and Thrift reminded us that science these days is often ‘big business’. This applies not only to commercial aspects of laboratory science, such as patenting, intellectual property and science entrepreneurship, but also to the management and marketing of institutions (such as the University of Oxford…). Rob Evans suggested that it is not so much the substantive topics chosen by STS researchers which define the field, but the accumulated knowledge about expertise. Max Travers offered yet another characterisation. According to him, STS distinguishes itself by its ability to be offensive, awkward and difficult. John Law suggested thinking of STS as a ‘set of sensibilities’ – for example to materiality, to process and to specificity. Ros Gill provided an elegant (discourse) analysis of the varied meanings and uses of STS, reminding us that definitions of STS are themselves highly contingent. The general characterisation of STS as offering sensibilities for the treatment of a very wide range of phenomena, rather than for example comprising a specific set of methods and techniques, appeared to meet the approval of many workshop participants.

B. The new domains with which STS is engaging

Some participants questioned the extent to which the domains with which STS is now engaging are “new” to STS. There was the suggestion that some aspects of STS, not represented at the workshop, already had a well developed agenda for engagement with a wide variety of areas, for example science and technology policy (Andy Stirling). Certainly the point made by several presenters was that we need close attention to the possible effects of our preconceptions about these domains, business and management in particular. One of these preconceptions, mentioned by Noortje Marres, is the idea that business is somehow ‘confined’ to commercial companies and institutions like business schools (MBA programmes), as if it were possible to stand outside of business and study it as a bounded domain. Another is the preconception that studying business with an STS framework might be a dangerous thing to do, because there is a sense in which business is in itself ‘mean’ (Helgesson and Kjellberg) – and oppressors should not be offered new ways of making their ‘prisons’ even more effective. Janet Low suggested that even domains as apparently different as the law and medicine should be seen as sharing a common concern with processes of social ordering and with the transparency of these processes. STS sensibilities need to be brought to bear so as better to understand the nature of intervention and the role of the intervener. Paolo Quattrone also cautioned against thinking of our target domains as having grown by “appropriation” since this leads us to overlook the richness, chaotic and multifaceted processes of continuous translation involved in the emergence of “business” and “business studies”.

C. The nature of engagement and its effects on STS

Our ideas about what STS is and about the new domains with which we are engaging, have implications for the nature of that engagement. For “effective” engagement, does STS now have to get (more) serious (“mean business”), should it determinedly attempt to configure its new users, or should we accept that STS may become transformed (even beyond recognition?) in the process? Has something “gotta give”?

One axis of difference that emerged in the course of discussion was the question of whether STS should mean business by becoming more like ‘business’ (broadly conceived) or by offering an explicitly distinctive approach to that of business. Mike Power raised the question of whether STS might itself get re-formulated as part of these processes. The untested assumption has been that STS might change business, rather than the other way around.

Marc Berg asserted that he had no problem ‘betraying’ STS – in particular its deconstructive habits – in order to learn something really new. In the work of Helgesson and Kjellberg it seemed that long-held business assumptions could be questioned, re-directed or troubled by a thorough application of STS sensibilities. Paolo Quattrone drew on his experience of teaching MBA students in suggesting that for STS to mean business for business students, it needs to be able to instil some kind of hope (the hope of solving a problem, of seeing things differently, of ‘getting things done’).

On several occasions, participants referred to Simon Cole’s experience as an expert witness, a case during which sometimes STS as an academic field was put on trial. Richard Ericsson suggested that Cole is an expert on the grounds of having proceeded through various legal mechanisms. However, Ericsson also highlighted the dangers of expectation and the problems associated with assuming that, for example, legal rulings have single, definitive effects. Even STS experts in name and qualification might not then expect to have that expertise read and understood in the same way in each area in which they work. Mike Lynch wondered if it is a sign of success when STS gets appropriated, but yet redefined beyond recognition to its practitioners, in new domains such as the courtroom. He cited the example of “the findings” of Laboratory Life being used by a judge to support the argument that “scientists do a lot of photocopying”! He argued that the success and credibility of STS will most likely remain contingent and cannot be predicated on the discipline or knowledge within the discipline. In this sense, STS researchers as well as STS expertise have a radical mutability. What counts as qualified expertise, to whom and when, is likely to be the subject of frequent re-negotiation. Simon Cole added that the trajectory of STS intervention as a whole is important: that it is worthwhile trying to understand the process whereby an expert (STS) witness obtains official recognition in the courtroom.

Integration into new domains was not in all respects considered desirable. Contrary to popular notions of ‘business’ associated with speed and engagement, Mike Lynch argued in favour of slowness as a virtue and disengagement as a necessity. He particularly stressed the idea of, and need for, time-out from full engagement in order to foster reflection and notions of strange-ness. These ideas were also taken up by Thrift who argued in favour of the need to escape audit and the erosion of time introduced by constant pressures to perform and measure performance.

D. New questions?

Steve Woolgar and Paul Wouters suggested that we view the shift to new domains as the source of new research questions for STS. Are we witnessing a shift away from considering (science as an) epistemic practice, such that the focus is now more on social than on epistemological accountability? (Steve Woolgar). When engaging with business(es), is it now more appropriate to ask ‘what counts as value?’ rather than ‘what counts as knowledge?’ (Paul Wouters). In any event, it is clearly important to document and analyse our varied specific experiences as we become involved in new (business) settings and contexts.

Steve Brown quoted Bergson to make the point that it is more difficult to articulate a good problem than to present a solution. In this light, it is encouraging that the workshop yielded more questions than it answered! Perhaps the questions raised by Mike Lynch offer an apt summary of the main thrust of the discussion: is it helpful to think about the move to business, law and so on, as a new ‘diffusion’ phase of STS? Are we happy to construct STS as something that is intact and can be moved? And if so, what moves, how does it move, and under what circumstances might such movement prove “useful”?

Encouraged by the support and interest from many in the STS community and beyond we have decided to organise a follow-up meeting - Does STS Mean Business? part 2, which is planned for June 2005. For more information, see our website http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/html/facultyconferencessts_workshop.asp.

or contact the organisers: steve.woolgar@sbs.ox.ac.uk, daniel.neyland@sbs.ox.ac.uk, elena.simakova@sbs.ox.ac.uk, c.coopmans@imperial.ac.uk.