Introducing ANT

At its beginning, the main focus of Actor-Network Theory was in the laboratory setting, but more recent ANT analyses include investigations of science and technology development outside the laboratory, and in the public and private sectors (Williams-Jones & Graham, 2003). ANT has proved its flexibility to move from its origins in science and technology studies into social science fields as diverse as sociology (Law, 1991; Law, 1994), psychology (Michael, 1996), anthropology

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(Strathern, 1996), politics (Mol, 1999), geography (Comber et al., 2003; Murdoch, 1998), and economics (Callon, 1998), and accounting (e.g., Alcouffee et al., 2008;

Briers & Chua, 2001; Chua, 1995; El-Sayed, 2004; Ezzamel, 1994; Gendron &

Barrett, 2004; Lowe, 2001b; Miller, 1991; Preston et al., 1992; Robson, 1991;

Robson, 1992; Robson, 1994). Latour (1999b) indicated that ANT may also bring something to theology.

ANT can be seen placed between the social and the technical perspectives. It is neither purely social nor purely technical; it denies that purely social or purely technical relations are possible (Law, 1991). What seems, on the surface, to be social is partly technical, and what may appear to be only technical is partly social.

ANT argues that the world is full of hybrid entities, these entities can be humans or non-humans (e.g., technologies, institutions, standards) and any entity with the ability to act and to be acted upon is known as an actor. The ability to act is not a function for humans only, according to ANT non-humans can act and be acted upon also. For example, a telephone may appear to be an ordinary, passive technology, but this impression changes when the telephone rings. Even if one decides to ignore the call, the telephone has still provoked a decision making process and elicited a response (Callon & Law, 1995). In other words, an actor is accepted to be the source of action regardless of its status as a human or non-human.

Some actors interact together to constitute a network which aims at achieving a goal or some common goals. Latour (1987) observed that scientists and engineers are constructing networks by enrolling hybrid entities of the material world, money, established knowledge, people, laboratory equipment, inscriptions, and all other actors that can support the network. Law (1986) also emphasised that technologists build successful artefacts through their effort in enrolling heterogeneous entities like

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raw materials, skills, scientific and social knowledge, and capital in a stable network that will hold these diverse elements together to perform as one. This indicates that the success of any network depends on linking as many heterogeneous entities as possible that can perform in harmony.

To perform in harmony, the enrolled actors have to “translate” their interests to be in accordance with the requirements of the network (Callon, 1986a; Latour, 1987;

Latour 1999a). Each actor enrolled in a network has its own diverse set of interests that encourages it to join; however, actors have to negotiate in order to redefine their roles and interests to be aligned with the main goal of the network. The stability of a network will result from the continual translation of the interests of the actors (Williams-Jones & Graham, 2003). However, some actors may resist redefining their roles, such actors will become a weak node in the network and this may lead to the modification or even the disintegration of the network (Callon, 1986a; Callon 1986b).

The main focus of the ANT is the process of constructing and maintaining the networks as it asks how and for what purposes heterogeneous entities are brought together (Lee & Hassard, 1999). Similarly, the main focus of this research is to understand the process of building the network of auditing in electronic environments. It aims to identify who are the actors, whether human or non-human, that can have an effect on the audit of electronic systems, why these actors are enrolled in the network, and how they interact with each other to form the final shape of the network.

Actor-network theory claims that every actor in the network, whether a social or technical actor, has an important role to play. This means that all the actors, humans or non-humans are important, without differentiating or giving priority to the social

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or the technical aspects. Callon (1999: 183) stated that ANT was mainly developed to analyse situations in which it is difficult to separate humans and non-humans, and in which the actors have variable forms and competencies. In other words, ANT calls to adopt a symmetrical approach to humans and non-humans and the analytic divisions between the social and the technical are explicitly prohibited. Law (1994: 9) emphasised the importance of this symmetrical approach by stating that:

„To insist on symmetry is to assert that everything deserves explanation and, more particularly, that everything that you seek to explain or describe should be approached in the same way‟.

For example, ANT does not refer to a computer network and software system as a technical system, a collection of hardware and software, data-flows and business processes. Rather, it refers to it as a socio-technical network that places machines, people, software, institutions, protocols, bureaucracies and all manner of other things in relation to each other, without differentiating analytically between people and machines, or between social and technical, in terms of superiority. All of these elements are actors that interact together to perform the network and work cooperatively with it (Arnold, 2003).

Arnold (2003) gives another example to understand the equivalence of the social and the technical aspects. He explains, from the ANT perspective, that Thomas Edison was not someone who dealt with purely technical problems to invent a light bulb:

„He was a heterogeneous engineer who worked to assemble copper, glass, wire-filaments, generators, meters, transformers, electricians, laws of nature, mathematical formula, engineers, politicians, investors, bankers, labourers, local councils, regulatory authorities, and others into a network (or assemblage) that produce light for house-holders, profits for investors, work for coal mines, pollution for the air, unemployment for gas light-filters and so forth. Edison recruited these actors to his network‟ (Arnold, 2003:243).

From the ANT perspective, all the actors Edison used to invent the bulb are important, without differentiating between humans and non-humans. The absence of

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any of the actors may cause the whole network to break down (Callon, 1986a), all of them are actors that interact together in a network to achieve Edison‘s goal; inventing the bulb (Law 1994).

The difficulty of separating between humans and non-humans, or giving priority to any of them was explained by Latour (1999a) when he presented the mutual constitution notion.