Conclusion: From the How to the Why of Sociomaterial Regulation: The Question of Ethics in Material Analysis

Abstract

The contributions to this book have explored, each in its own way and in different contexts, the material bases of regulation. They have focused on how organizational and societal practices are regulated through material artefacts that inscribe procedures and rules of conduct, thus vicariously replacing textual norms, linguistic instructions or direct supervision. The book outlines an emerging organizational landscape where an increasingly large share of regulative power is conveyed through the functional operation of standards, material artefacts and technical devices rather than through the establishment and the enforcement of formal rules. What seems to emerge is a new ecology of regulation whose distinctive feature is that regulative outcomes partly are achieved through social values and customs, partly are enforced by legal norms and formal authority, and partly are carried out by the material and functional artefacts brought about by technology (in particular digital technology, see Aroles and McLean, Chapter 9).