The Structuration of a Social System

Until now, the term “system” has been used as it is used in everyday speech. As a common language habit, there is nothing particularly problematic with this; we often talk about living “in” social systems, as if the system itself is some sort of structure or thing that exists independently of our membership in it. However, this approach to defining systems creates conceptual problems when used theoretically. By treating a social system as if it has some sort of independent existence apart from the people within it, one reifies9 the concept in a manner which makes it seem as if social reality and physical reality are two entirely

separate, concrete entities. Such treatment has caused numerous arguments over whether social reality is really “real,” whether it is “socially constructed,” or whether there is such a thing as a so-called “objective” reality, and has led to a theoretical inability to explain how the two different aspects of our existence (i.e., subjective and objective, or ideal and material) can act upon each other at all.

In order to reconcile this dualism, sociologist Anthony Giddens treats systems as “reproduced relations between actors or collectives, organized as regular social practices” (25). Structures are “rules and resources, or sets of transformation relations, organized as properties of social systems” (25). Giddens examines the ways by which social systems are reproduced via a recursive process in which the structures that mediate human action are simultaneously reproduced by that action. Thus human action and structures are not separate phenomena but rather, are co-constituted when agents engage in interaction via structures of 9 _{I use the term “reify” in this paper in its philosophical sense of treating an abstract concept as if it has concrete} existence. This is in contrast to other senses that have been adopted, for example, in computer science or natural language theory.

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signification (i.e., interpretive schemes), structures of legitimation (i.e., norms), and structures of domination (i.e., facilities). In other words, when humans interact with each other and the world, the interaction “implies the interlacing of meaning, normative elements and power” (28-29) and it is within these routine10 interactions that structure comes into being. Structure is thus in a constant state of becoming. Social systems, of which structures are properties, are reproduced as a result of human action yet the acting individuals view the systems as constraining that action. Since human agency allows choice with respect to taking particular actions at any point in time, and since humans may engage in actions that have unintended impacts on the world, the social system not only reproduces but also evolves with changing purposes and as a result of unintended interaction effects. This leads to

modifications in the structure of society over time.

Giddens’ original Theory of Structuration is generally considered a “meta-theory” in that Giddens does not attempt to explain in detail all the micro-relations in the behavior of individual people or in organizational behavior. Rather, he elaborates how society and its members co-evolve through human agency. In addition, he does not discuss technology per se, but several organizational theorists use his theory to discuss the micro impacts of

technology on organizational structure (Barley 1986; DeSanctis and Poole 1994; Orlikowski 1992, 1996, 2000; Orlikowski and Barley 2001; Orlikowski and Robey 1991; Orlikowski and Yates 1994). For example, Barley examines the ways in which CT scanners affect the

organizational and occupational structures of radiological work, treating technology as a social object. Orlikowski criticizes this conception, noting that while it may be appropriate

10 _{Giddens used the notion of “routine” to indicate that when people act and interact they rely upon both tacit} and discursive knowledge. He made a point of noting that the tacit element of our knowledge, that which he called “practical knowledge,” provides a frequently underestimated impact on our day-to-day existence.

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for CT scanner technology, which exhibits “relatively fixed and standardized functions and features” (1992, 402), it is generally not appropriate to assume technology is a fixed entity, especially for information technologies, which vary frequently as a result of updates, reconfiguration, learning, and innovative usage. In addition, by treating technology as an object, a duality of agency and structure is reintroduced into the theory, a situation inconsistent with Giddens’ theory. DeSanctis and Poole develop a modified form of

structuration theory called Adaptive Structuration Theory (AST). Using this approach, they describe structures as “templates for planning and accomplishing tasks,” where structures are “found in institutions such as reporting hierarchies, organizational knowledge, and standard operating procedures;” they elaborate, “Designers incorporate some of these structures into the technology” (125). However, by treating structure as embodied within technology, they also depart from structuration theory, which argues that structure has “no existence

independent of the knowledge that agents have about what they do in their day-to-day activity” (Giddens 1984, 26). Giddens explains:

To say that structure is a ‘virtual order’ of transformative relations means that social systems, as reproduced social practices, do not have ‘structures’ but rather exhibit ‘structural properties’ and that structure exists, as time-space presence, only in its instantiations in such practices and as memory traces orienting the conduct of knowledgeable human agents (Giddens 1984, 17).

By treating structure as embodied within technology, DeSanctis and Poole also re-introduce the dualism between subject and object that Giddens explicitly tries to avoid (Orlikowski 2000). Even Orlikowski originally treated structures as if they were embedded within technology, thereby assuming technology was a material artifact and that structure could have an existence within it (Orlikowski 1992, 2000). However, after some modifications of her theory (2000), she begins to treat technology as a facility (in Giddens’ sense of the term, which means that it is a mode of typification incorporated within actors’ power to employ

resources to engage in action). She explains that when agents use technology regularly, engaging with “some or all of its prescribed properties,” (407) they enact emergent structures. She refers to these enacted structures as “technologies-in-practice.”

The Theory of Structuration is particularly useful for understanding how history, employee knowledge, norms, and power relations influence the use of technology within organizations. It will be helpful in explaining not only the perception of cloud computing by state government recordkeepers, but also in explaining the nature of the record within ARM theory and practice and the reasons why ARM researchers in North America have had

difficulties in the past century elucidating professional identity and explaining the boundaries between archival practice and records management practice.