Network Outcome as Trigger for the Evolution of a Design Network: Coordination Processes Between Actors and Objects

Abstract

This paper sets the basis for a research project focused on collaborative social network’s genesis and dynamics. It introduces a research framework for the empirical investigation of a network focused on the design of a shared artifact, the so-called “Web services architecture.” Our hypothesis is that network artifact’s characteristics, seen as the final outcome of a collaborative process, influence and drive the genesis and the structure of the social network that is designing it. We embraced this view in order to avoid a limitation of the traditional perspectives that consider the network structure as exogenous and stable. Instead, in our perspective, we consider the reciprocal influence between the artifact and the social network structure, with a phase in which the desired artifact may shape the network genesis and a phase in which the emergent network’s structure may drive the artifact design.