“How matter matters”: “translations”, boundary objects and digital innovation in the public reform

This paper illustrates a research program on the processes of organizational change and institutional learning in the Italian administration of the justice and in the trajectories of courts technology development. It is argued that objects, artifact and materiality should be included in theoretical accounts of organizational phenomena connected with (digital) innovation and change (Carlile et al. 2013). Drawing on the “socio-technical-systems” (STS), we argue that it is possible to understand the process of reform in the Italian judiciary: (i) by combining two theoretical dimension, between “institutions & materiality” and “materiality & change”; (ii) conceptualizing the relation between technology, work and organizations as “enacted in practice”; (iii) and analyzing the introduction of accountability mechanisms, and digital technologies in terms of “sociomaterial practices”.