The configuration of actors in market practice

Abstract

This paper addresses three conceptual challenges concerning actors and agency that arise when taking interest in market practice: i) how agency is awarded in practical situations, ii) how actors are preconfigured, and iii) how actors are represented. These issues are explored in three empirical scenes taken from a case study of the introduction of an e-procurement system at an international transport and logistics company. First, we suggest that practical interaction can be fruitfully regarded as a process of interdefinition involving prescriptions and subscriptions between acting entities, or actants . Second, we employ the term inscription to address efforts to affect in advance the configuration of such actants. Third, we suggest that actors are entities to which actions are ascribed, ex post . Through this secondary process a number of actants may be subsumed under a common actor label, thus offering a way of accounting for agency as part of a practice perspective. We conclude by discussing implications of the proposed vocabulary for multiplicity, reflexivity and market agency.