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This paper aims to investigate the difficulties encountered when integrating e‐Government systems across jurisdictions. The study focusses on the entanglement of social and technical interests involved in e‐Government integration projects and in particular on managing the tensions which arise between global and local network actors.

A case study of Australia's first attempt to make the nation's cultural collections accessible from a single online resource is conducted based on extensive archival data. This historical analysis applies concepts associated with Actor‐Network Theory as a theoretical lens to investigate relationships between various actors and to trace the trajectory of the project.

The analysis reveals that although the project originated from large institutions, buy‐in was restricted to individuals and the most significant value was for smaller organisations. Furthermore, although the global networks that governed the project could translate their visions through the local production networks, because the network's underlying weaknesses were never addressed, over time this destabilised the global vision. Finally, this case study demonstrates the true value in data consolidation projects can often be in delivering functions that were not originally imagined by the system designers.

Given the case study method, the findings of this study are likely to be idiosyncratic and not all integration projects will follow a similar trajectory. However, it is also unlikely that any national data integration initiative will follow a truly linear trajectory. Future research should focus on approaches to managing the negotiations between global and local actors.

This case study offers advice for projects attempting to consolidate data sources from disparate sources, highlighting the importance of key individual actors; identifying suitable technology artefacts; and aligning the needs of the local networks with the global vision.

The study highlights the need to align local and global interests in e‐Government integration projects and provides advice for projects attempting to consolidate data sources from disparate sources.

This study investigates the potential of actor‐network theory (ANT) for theory development on information technology project escalation, a pervasive problem in contemporary organizations. In so doing, the study aims to contribute to the current dialogue on the potential of ANT in the information systems field. While escalation theory has been used to study “runaway” IT projects, two distinct limitations suggest a potential of using ANT: First, there is a need for research that builds process theory on escalation of IT projects. Second, the role of technology as an important factor (or actor) in the shaping of escalation has not been examined. This paper examines a well‐known case study of an IT project disaster, the computerized baggage handling system at Denver International Airport, using both escalation theory and ANT. A theory‐comparative analysis then shows how each analysis contributes differently to our knowledge about dysfunctional IT projects and how the differences between the analyses mirror characteristics of the two theories. ANT is found to offer a fruitful theoretical addition to escalation research and several conceptual extensions of ANT in the context of IT project escalation are proposed: embedded actor‐networks, host actor‐networks, swift translation and Trojan actor‐networks.

This article explores the ways in which actor‐network theory (ANT) invites an alternative account of democratic process, namely in terms of issue‐formation, which is particularly well suited to the study of democratic practices facilitated by information and communication technologies (ICT). Engaging with arguments that have been made in political theory in favor of the re‐invigoration of institutional and extra‐institutional forms of democratic debate, this article argues that a re‐valuation of issue‐politics is more than timely. In this respect, actor‐network theory is a particularly fruitful approach, since it provides the conceptual and methodological equipment to account for democracy in terms of processes of issue formation. Such an account of democracy, it is argued, is particularly appropriate to the study of ICT‐based democratic processes, since in the context of ICT distributed networks that configure around particular issues can be seen to emerge as the carriers of democratic process. Moreover, ANT provides the conceptual and methodological tools for the development of a research practice of tracing public controversies as they are enacted in such networks on the Web. In tracing a particular controversy on the Web, around the Development Gateway, a portal for development information set up by the World Bank, one begins to articulate an alternative understanding of the significance of ICT for institutional as well as extra‐institutional forms of democracy. A number of requirements on effective democratic action, as facilitated by ICT, are derived from the case study, which move beyond the requirement of social networking, i.e. the building of partnerships, and informational networking, i.e. the exchange of knowledge and opinion. Issue‐networking here comes to the fore as indispensable to democratic politics.

Recent global security surveys indicate that security training and awareness programs are not working as well as they could be and that investments made by organizations are inadequate. The purpose of the paper is to increase understanding of this phenomenon and illuminate the problems that organizations face when trying to establish an information security awareness program.

Following an interpretive approach the authors apply a case study method and employ actor network theory (ANT) and the due process for analyzing findings.

The paper contributes to both understanding and managing security awareness programs in organizations, by providing a framework that enables the analysis of awareness activities and interactions with the various organizational processes and events.

The application of ANT still remains a challenge for researchers since no practical method or guide exists. In this paper the application of ANT through the due process model extension is enhanced and practically presented. This exploration highlights the fact that information security awareness initiatives involve different stakeholders, with often conflicting interests. Practitioners must acquire, additionally to technical skills, communication, negotiation and management skills in order to address the related organizational and managerial issues. Moreover, the results of this inquiry reveal that the role of artifacts used within the awareness process is not neutral but can actively affect it.

This study is one of the first to examine information security awareness as a managerial and socio‐technical process within an organizational context.

The purpose of this paper is to respond to Modell’s arguments regarding the relative usefulness of critical realist philosophy in relation to actor-network theory.

The authors outline the challenges in applying critical realism to critical accounting. The authors then consider Modell’s criticisms of actor-network theory, providing a counterargument highlighting the methodological choices distinguishing actor-network theory from critical realism.

The authors argue that critical realism, whilst providing an interesting addition to the critical accounting research project, confronts challenges disentangling intransitive and transitive forms of knowledge. Actor-network theory is presented as a way of examining accounting practices as local associations, providing practical opportunities to study (the assembly of) “the social”.

Methodological diversity is to be explored, acknowledging the ontological politics of our choices.

This paper is an original commentary contributing to critical accounting research.

This paper aims to introduce a new approach to the framing of e-government projects. It discusses e-government as a continuing process of interaction and change. The paper uses general concepts borrowed from actor–network theory (ANT) to highlight the on-going negotiation that is an endogenous characteristic of every e-government projects.

The research builds on the findings of a case study. The case of the Akshaya e-government project in Kerala, India, is presented to offer an instance of the negotiation that occurs among the different actors involved and the consequent changes the project itself experiences.

The paper shows that e-government initiatives are unstable and change over time, as they are cast in the dynamic interaction that occurs between the actors involved in the e-government project. It also suggests that the ANT is a valuable framework to study these dynamics.

Main contribution of the paper is the evidence that e-government projects should be studied in their making and not as a result of planned action and sequential evolutionary phases.

The paper offers new insights for the planning, design and most importantly management of e-government projects.

The paper contributes to the literature by shedding light on the importance of the dynamic interactions that shape the impact of information and communication technologies (ICTs) on government policies. The proposed framework is a basis for further theorisation with regards to the complexity underpinning the deployment of ICTs in the public sector.

Bruno Latour, one of the architects of actor-network theory, has now enfolded this approach within a larger project, An Inquiry into Modes of Existence – AIME. Framed as an empirical inquiry into the ontological and epistemological conditions of modernity, Latour argues for a radical shift in how “objective truth,” “scientific fact,” and “meaning” are established within the world. In this chapter, I draw on several elements of AIME to illustrate how Latour’s ontology, building on, augmenting and responding to criticisms of actor-network theory, can be used to explore higher education, focussing on one episode derived from a larger ethnography of medical education.

This paper aims to study the role of non-corporeal Actant theory in historical research through a case study of the trajectory of the New Deal as one of the foremost institutions in the USA since its inception in the early 1930s.

The authors follow the trajectory of the New Deal through a focus on Vice President Henry A. Wallace. Drawing on ANTi-History, the authors view history as a powerful discourse for organizing understandings of the past and non-corporeal Actants as a key influence on making sense of (past) events.

The authors conclude that non-corporeal Actants influence the shaping of management and organization studies that serve paradoxically to obfuscate history and its relationship to the past.

The authors drew on a series of published studies of Henry Wallace and archival material in the Roosevelt Library, but the study would benefit from an in-depth analysis of the Wallace archives.

The authors reveal the influences of non-corporeal Actants as a method for dealing with the past. The authors do this through the use of ANTi-History as a method of historical analysis.

The past is an important source of understanding of the present and future; this innovative approach increases the potential to understand.

Decisions are often black boxes. Non-Corporeal Actants are a new tool with which to see the underlying inputs of choice.

The purpose of this paper is to trace the trajectory of the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project, an electronic tolling (e-tolling) programme based in South Africa, to argue for the importance of taking advantage of similar public project opportunities to introduce the concept of Transformational Government (t-government).

The research uses an interpretive perspective and utilizes actor–network theory (ANT) to identify the roles and interests of the various stakeholders within the project and assess how each stakeholder could have better influenced the project’s sustainability using a t-government approach.

The findings suggest that in the midst of waning global actor interest, and strong local displeasure about specific public projects, public participation offers an ideal opportunity to introduce the notion of t-government, the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) to transform government for citizen benefits. The research allowed the authors to posit that public participation projects are solid and indispensable avenues for introducing t-government. Part of this claim is hinged on the view that the specific e-toll project carries a visible ICT artefact, which has embodied its own patterns of use characterized by various viewpoints, values, opinions and rhetoric.

The paper elevates the importance of t-government as a means to bring about practical transformation in government using public projects. The paper suggests how governments can use public participatory approaches to assimilate a new way of working in government.

This paper contributes to research on the emerging discourse on t-government. The paper also highlights the utility of ANT as a tool for understanding the dynamic public sector ICT programmes, their associated complexities and unintended consequences.

The purpose of this paper is to question why current thinking towards project complexity ignores the role of objects in achieving social order and transformation. An alternative, but complementary, approach to address project complexities, drawing upon actor‐network theory (ANT), is offered to redress this concern.

Current thinking towards project complexity is briefly reviewed in the first section to illustrate the reasons why nonhumans are downplayed. An historical case study, the Skye road bridge project, is mobilized to explain, and develop, an ANT perspective on project complexities, and responses to such complexities.

ANT develops accounts of project complexity by highlighting the role of nonhumans in influencing how practitioners register, respond and stabilize project complexities. Front‐end planning and stakeholder analysis is shown to be only one narrow element of four moments through which actors apprehend and stabilize project complexities.

The empirical case study is developed to suggest some significant ways in which ANT could contribute, and complement, extant theories of project complexity. Alternative approaches to socio‐materiality are noted and may yield other important insights.

The paper positions ANT to offer a novel theory of project complexity. It is intended to be primarily of use to project management researchers, and theoretically informed practitioners, who are interested in developing fresh insights into notions of project complexities (unintended consequences, emergence and unpredictability).