The role of objects for institutional work in energy efficient renovation

Paper in proceeding, 2017

Energy efficient renovation measures for public buildings implicates organizational change. Involved in the processes of change are both humans and objects. Studies on institutional work has hitherto mainly focused on human actors as agents for change, thus taken less consideration in objects’ role. In this paper, a sociomateriality lens is applied with the aim to increase the understandings of objects’ role for institutional work in energy efficient renovation. The paper is conceptual and data is derived from three empirical case studies encompassing research on organizational change and energy efficient renovation. The cases are used as illustrations on how different types of objects relate to different forms of institutional work. It is concluded that objects, together with the roles and attributes they are given, have effect on the changing organizational practices related to energy efficient renovation and that objects are part of institutional work.