On Shadowing the Hybrid Character of Actions: A Communicational Approach

This article extends the discussion of McDonald (2005) concerning the use of shadowing as a research technique for studying actions in organizational contexts. It addresses McDonald's observation that the few studies that refer to this technique do not make any attempt to discuss their methodological choices or their epistemological standpoints. In this paper, we intend to contribute to this emerging debate in two ways. First, we explore and discuss some contrasting applications of shadowing in the organizational literature in order to render explicit the researcher's ontological and epistemological standpoints. Second, we present our own application of shadowing starting with the redefinition of organization as a plenum of agencies (Cooren, 2006) that emerges from communication (Taylor & Van Every, 2000). Considering these theoretical grounds we propose, inspired by Latour's (2005) motto "follow the actors," to shadow the hybrid character actions. This implies, from a methodological point of view: 1) documenting the flows that compose these actions, over the course of which a set of objects are mobilized in series of interactions, (2) applying an equivalent analytical strategy to whatever actor we are studying, and (3) grasping both the material and discursive dimension of communication as action.