(Trans)Formative Trajectories of Decisions: An Analysis from The Translation Perspective

Abstract

Motivated by an agenda for empirical research on decisions, we seek to understand how an issue or idea is labelled as a "decision". Based on the relational ontology, we used the Actor-Network Theory as a theoretical frame, and particularly the translation perspective. In order to understand the "process of formation and stabilization of decisions" focused on what makes actors act, we conducted an ethnographic study in a social enterprise for 30 months. Through narrative analysis, we propose the (trans)formative trajectories of decisions in which we describe the trajectory of these hybrid entities achieving the status of relative fixity labelled as "the decision". We understand the trajectory as an ongoing translation journey; thus, we tracked decisions in their trajectories of translation, packaging and legitimation. The elements of the organizational decision-making are re-signified as performative texts, which enter the network of relations. Therefore, decisions are (trans)formed on a journey of mediation among multiple actants. When objectified as crystallized texts, the decisions become performative, because they start to organize and participate in the constitution of the ongoing reality. This theoretical framework allowed us to extend the processual understanding of decision-making aligned with the relational ontology and the time-process perspective.