Reconfiguring Boundary Relations: Robotic Innovations in Pharmacy Work

Authors:
Michael Barrett;Eivor Oborn;Wanda J. Orlikowski;JoAnne Yates
Affiliations:
Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 1AG, United Kingdom;School of Management, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey TW2 0EX, United Kingdom;MIT Sloan School of Management, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142;MIT Sloan School of Management, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142
Venue:
Organization Science
Year:
2012

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Abstract

Robotics is a rapidly expanding area of digital innovation with important implications for organizational practice in multioccupational settings. This paper explores the influence of robotic innovations on the boundary dynamics of three different occupational groups—pharmacists, technicians, and assistants—working in a hospital pharmacy. We extend Pickering's tuning approach [Pickering, A. 1995. The Mangle of Practice: Time, Agency, and Science. University of Chicago Press, Chicago] to examine the temporally emergent process that entangled the mechanical elements and digital inscriptions of a dispensing robot with the everyday practices of hospital pharmacy work. We found that engagement with the robot's hybrid and dynamic materiality over time reconfigured boundary relations among the three occupational groups, with important and contradictory consequences for the pharmacy workers' skills, jurisdictions, status, and visibility.