Structure and agency? Actor-network theory and strategic organization

use of collective categories, while avoiding a move to the opposite extreme of methodological individualism. If we follow the making of such connections (not forgetting to include those with non-humans), the organizational stories we tell – and the way in which resources, routines and capabilities feature in these stories – are likely to be different. As a way of indicating how, we identify two areas of research to which this approach can usefully contribute. In both cases, it should be emphasized that actor-network theory is most suited to the analysis of situations characterized by uncertainty, change and innovation; because it is here that new associations are being formed (and old ones abandoned) most visibly and actively. The first area of research is the strategic use of alliances and networks. This resonates with recent thinking about strategy ecology and business ecosystems (Iansiti and Levien, 2004) in its central emphasis on interdependencies between organizations. Drawing on actor-network theory, strategy researchers may find new ways of articulating success and failure in the strategic use of alliances and networks, precisely by charting how links are being forged and what sorts of actors emerge from the process (Steen and Liesch, 2006). Questions include: how do organizations approach the challenge of benefiting from alliances and networks, and why do or don’t they succeed? How does value emerge from new and diverse types of alliances and networks? What are the implications of increased participation in networks and alliances for firms as strategic actors? The formation, stabilization and harnessing of resources, routines and capabilities can be studied as a feature of specific processes of network building (e.g. how and when do these become an integral part of what makes a firm an attractive partner in an alliance? ). The extent to which, through strategic management, a few actors are able to hold a heterogeneous assemblage in place, inhabit their preferred role in the network and control the way it changes over time is a question that may also be investigated empirically with this approach. The second area of research we wish to flag relates to continuous effort of (re)discovering what strategy is and what it could be. Actor-network theory suggests finding the answer to the first question by studying how strategy manifests itself in practice, how it becomes mobilized and stabilized through processes of heterogeneous association. Here we find clear resonances with the strategy-as-practice literature (Whittington, 2003), especially in so far as both approaches advocate research methods that follow practitioners in their enactment of strategy rather than sticking too rigidly to pre-established categories and definitions. However, whereas strategy-as-action puts the human strategic actor centre stage, actor-network theory propagates a further flexibility in the nature and characteristics of the actors involved. This generates the potential, both for practitioners and researchers, to define strategy in new ways by making or finding unexpected couplings and boundaries. It also provides an opportunity for reflections of a more critical nature, for example on the question of how power, influence and gain are distributed in particular types of networks and how this could be different. 308 STRATEG IC ORGANIZAT ION 4(3 )