Investigating the emergence of electronically enabled environmental collaboration: an ANT study in multiple contexts

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Copyright: Aoun, Chadi Fares
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Abstract
This research explores how diverse and distributed organisations and individuals establish electronic collaboration and how such collaboration affects the creation and achievement of shared goals. This phenomenon is particularly striking in the context of environmental collaboration where Environmental Non-Governmental Organisations (ENGOs), governments, private organisations and community groups and individuals need to act together in order to deal with critical climate change issues. While research on collaborative technologies has been predominantly limited to laboratory settings and intra-organisational situations, this research context allows investigation of the roles and usage of collaborative technologies in complex situations in which numerous stakeholders with diverse interests cooperate to address pressing environmental problems. Furthermore, this research investigates the ways collaborative technologies are adopted by ENGOs and other stakeholders in different settings, thus, enabling better understanding of electronic collaboration and mechanisms of convergence towards joint actions. This thesis adopts a transdisciplinary perspective to study an Information Systems (IS) phenomenon: the adoption and utilisation of collaborative technologies by diverse stakeholders mobilised towards creating and achieving shared goals. This phenomenon is explored through the study of ENGOs – key players in enacting electronic collaboration that involves diverse stakeholders in an environmental problem and bridge the gap between governmental initiatives and local communities. The thesis contextualises the environmental problem situation in three countries, and considers the multifaceted emergences of environmental collaboration from various local ENGO vantage points, through empirically exploring electronic collaborations and their outcomes. A research approach, based on the Actor-Network Theory (ANT) was adopted in the study of the emergence of environmental electronic collaborations enacted by ENGOs in Australia, Lebanon, and Thailand. Qualitative data were collected, primarily through interviewees with ENGO personnel over the course of one year. By retracing the associations and the complex webs of translations taking place in the emerging actor-networks of diverse stakeholders and collaborative technologies, the thesis reveals how sociomaterial politics shapes (or obstructs) convergence towards shared goals and joint actions. The thesis thereby contributes to knowledge about the power dynamics and sociomaterial tensions inherent in multi-stakeholder adoption and utilisation of collaborative technologies in different contexts, with significant theoretical and practical implications.
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Author(s)
Aoun, Chadi Fares
Supervisor(s)
Cecez-Kecmanovic, Dubravka
Bunker, Deborah
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Publication Year
2010
Resource Type
Thesis
Degree Type
PhD Doctorate
UNSW Faculty
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