Abstract
The concept of stakeholders in not much in use in the organisation and management literature, but we believe an advanced and critical conceptualization of it bears great promises for understanding relatively mundane but also high-stake processes of technology implementation. This developmental paper grapples with how stakeholder work, relations and interests influence the implementation of a robotics system for automated goods supply in a university hospital. Doing so, it uses a Bourdieusian theorization of stakeholders and stakeholder work, draw on concepts of field, capital, interests and position. We identify stakeholders empirically, and the emerging results of our longitudinal ethnographic fieldwork show that the relations between stakeholders are essentially relation of power that are important for how individual stakeholders can pursue their aims. We identify stakes of tempo and political and symbolic capital that are not only aimed at the local purpose of stablishing good logistics but also at pleasing public.The concept of stakeholders in not much in use in the organisation and management literature, but we believe an advanced and critical conceptualization of it bears great promises for understanding relatively mundane but also high-stake processes of technology implementation. This developmental paper grapples with how stakeholder work, relations and interests influence the implementation of a robotics system for automated goods supply in a university hospital. Doing so, it uses a Bourdieusian theorization of stakeholders and stakeholder work, draw on concepts of field, capital, interests and position. We identify stakeholders empirically, and the emerging results of our longitudinal ethnographic fieldwork show that the relations between stakeholders are essentially relation of power that are important for how individual stakeholders can pursue their aims. We identify stakes of tempo and political and symbolic capital that are not only aimed at the local purpose of stablishing good logistics but also at pleasing public.