Establishing a high tech company in a global competitive market: A sociomaterial process perspective

In supporting a process ontology, qualitative longitudinal data are analysed in an examination of processes of becoming in the establishment of a new high tech company aiming to get a foothold in the highly competitive global healthcare market. Researching the process from idea generation, through funding, design, manufacture and marketing spotlights how the social and material exist in relation to each other and constitutively entangle. These sociomaterial relations shape and are shaped by narratives and temporal storying as actors seek to make and give sense, not only retrospectively, but in continually drawing upon an interplay of shifting interpretations of past, present and future. Although in the information systems literature sociomateriality is a central concept, there is little discussion in business. In addressing this gap, the paper adopts a sociomaterial process perspective in drawing out findings that both align with the extant literature and extend our current understanding. New insights critically assess the problem of dualism in the separation of the social and material, the need to broaden our conceptualization of temporality and make explicit our use of time, and the need to more fully accommodate processes of sensemaking and storying that shape and our shaped within broader processes of becoming.