Establishing a high tech company in a global competitive market: A sociomaterial process perspective

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Industrial Marketing Management journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/indmarman

Establishing a high tech company in a global competitive market: A sociomaterial process perspective Patrick Dawson Newcastle Business School, University of Northumbria, Newcastle upon Tyne NE2 1XE, United Kingdom

A B S T R A C T

In supporting a process ontology, qualitative longitudinal data are analysed in an examination of processes of becoming in the establishment of a new high tech company aiming to get a foothold in the highly competitive global healthcare market. Researching the process from idea generation, through funding, design, manufacture and marketing spotlights how the social and material exist in relation to each other and constitutively entangle. These sociomaterial relations shape and are shaped by narratives and temporal storying as actors seek to make and give sense, not only retrospectively, but in continually drawing upon an interplay of shifting interpretations of past, present and future. Although in the information systems literature sociomateriality is a central concept, there is little discussion in business. In addressing this gap, the paper adopts a sociomaterial process perspective in drawing out findings that both align with the extant literature and extend our current understanding. New insights critically assess the problem of dualism in the separation of the social and material, the need to broaden our conceptualization of temporality and make explicit our use of time, and the need to more fully accommodate processes of sensemaking and storying that shape and our shaped within broader processes of becoming.

1. Introduction The concept of sociomateriality has gained considerable traction over the last two decades (Cecez-Kecmanovic, Galliers, Henfridsson, Newwell, & Vidgen, 2014; Jones, 2013; Oberländer, Röglinger, Rosemann, & Kees, 2018), yet remains a slippery concept that continues to generate considerable debate and controversy (Kautz & Jensen, 2013; Mutch, 2013). This is especially noticeable between the broader theoretical discussions of writers, such as, Barad (2003) and the operational use of the concept in grounded empirical examples in information systems (see, for example, Orlikowski, 2010). Whilst discussions of sociomateriality remain largely within the field of information systems (Leonardi, 2013; Leonardi, Nardi, & Kallinikos, 2012; Wagner, Newell, Ramiller, & Enders, 2018), the utility of the concept is also illustrated in other empirical areas (see, McLoughlin & Dawson, 2017). This paper further develops this concept in drawing on new empirical data from an extended ethnographic case study that illustrates some of the practical challenges that face a company wishing to launch directly from start-up to global player in the provision of new innovative health care products. A central aim is to apply and evaluate how useful the concept of sociomateriality is in explaining the processes by which a new entrepreneurial company is able to innovate a new product and secure a competitive market position. Arising from this aim are two further concerns. First, is the importance of temporal storying and the processes by which people make and give sense to the social and material world they perceive and

experience. In building on the work of Weick (1995) - who outlines how sensemaking is always ongoing and never complete in drawing on cues from our perception of the world – the intention is to expand the original emphasis on retrospective sensemaking to include prospective sensemaking (Wiebe, 2000) and multi-temporal sensemaking. The latter refers to the sensemaking that arises from stories that draw on different interpretations of the past, present and future, as well as the re storying that occurs as new and revised interpretations of the past, present and future emerge (Dawson & McLean, 2013). From a process perspective, the past is not static but fluid and in drawing on the past to make sense of current experience the interpretations are never exactly the same but always different (Deleuze, 1994). In examining sociomateriality and the temporal interplay of sensemaking processes which includes sensegiving (Gioia & Chittipeddi, 1991) – our case example provides a good illustration of temporal storying that is purposedriven and future orientated (Rosness, Evjemo, Haavik, & Wærø, 2016). As the data shows, there is a continual temporal engagement as key actors seek to make and give sense through narratives of potential future pathways that they amend and rework in the light of contextual shifts, serendipity and new sociomaterial interpretations. Second, is the centrality of time and temporality, not in any simple linear progressive sense but in multiple and non-linear ways that aligns with a process perspective (Hernes, 2014). On this count, there is an increasing recognition of the importance of studying processes of becoming in and around networks (Bizzi & Langley, 2012), accommodating flux, non-linearity and temporal flows (Halinen, Medlin, &

E-mail address: [email protected]. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2019.12.002 Received 28 May 2019; Received in revised form 3 December 2019; Accepted 10 December 2019 0019-8501/ © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article as: Patrick Dawson, Industrial Marketing Management, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2019.12.002

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attends to the concerns raised about the work of early writers, such as, Woodward (1980) and Perrow (1970), who are criticized for their technologically determinist accounts on the impacts of material and technological developments on organizations. Following the social constructivist turn, there is a shift in explaining the material character of, for example, a technological change, which is understood by the meanings ascribed within the social context of implementation and use (McLoughlin, 1999). For example, Grint and Woolgar (1997) in their Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) perspective argue that ‘technology does not have any influence which can be gauged independently of human interpretation’ (1997: 10). This repositioning is also taken up in debates on Actor Network Theory (ANT) by Latour (2005), Callon (1999) and Law and Hassard (1999). The ANT approach adopts a relational perspective that rejects essentialist divisions (such as the human/non-human, social/technical separation) in focussing on the ways things perform into relations made durable (Latour, 1991). Latour (1991) provides a practical illustration in the way some hotels attach large metal weights to room keys. This practice encourages residents to leave their key at the desk. Latour argues that through a process of translation customers no longer need to respond to a request to leave their keys as they will willingly leave a large unwieldy object (Latour, 1991: 104–110). The approach draws attention to inseparability of assemblages of human and non-human networks (Law & Hassard, 1999). In building on these insights, the work of Barad (2007), Leonardi and Barley (2008) and Haraway (2015), reject any simple representation of boundaries between social/human and material/object. They forward notions of entanglement in a sociomaterial world that continually reconstitutes. As Pickering puts it: ‘a place of decentred human and non-human becoming’ (Pickering, 2008: 13). For Barad, the ‘entanglement’ of ideas and materials cannot be understood by conventional reflexive representational methodologies (that align with a separatist ontology) but rather, require a diffractive methodology (more in keeping with an ontology of constitutive becoming) that offers a more performative account. The performative approach emphasizes matter's dynamism, ‘staying open and mindful of generative patterns of difference and possibilities’ in moving away from descriptions that represent reality (Scott & Orlikowski, 2013: 77). Barad stresses the interconnectedness of being, emphasising how our intra-actions matter in reconfiguring the world in its becoming. As she states (2007: 133): ‘Unlike representationalism, which positions us above or outside the world we allegedly merely reflect on, a performative account insists on understanding thinking, observing, and theorizing as practices of engagement with, and as part of, the world in which we have our being’. In this, there is a focus on performativity and situated relational practices. Scholars engaged in fieldwork (Leonardi, 2011; Leonardi et al., 2012; Orlikowski, 2007, 2010; Scott & Orlikowski, 2012) focus strongly on practice (Feldman & Orlikowski, 2011), drawing attention to the ongoing reconfigurations in organizations and at the workplace where the social and material become constitutively entangled (Schultze & Orlikowski, 2010). However for Leonardi (2011) the focus is not just on constitutive becoming (Barad, 2003), or on the start or end of the process, but on explaining the occurrence of interweaving and the implications of change for future actions. There is a temporality to these processes that extends beyond the notion of ongoing ‘nows’ that aligns with a processual approach to change (Dawson, 2019). Leonardi claims that in practice there is an interweaving of human and material agencies (which he refers to as a process of imbrication) and that past changes and people's goals (future desires) influence their active construction of perceptual affordances and constraints in the present (Leonardi, 2011: 153–54). In his empirical work, he shows how people can variously interpret the things a technology can or cannot do, but as he states ‘material agency is limited by its feature set, a toaster simply cannot be used as a cell phone, no matter how much someone wishes it could be’ (Leonardi, 2011: 164).

Törnroos, 2012; Lowe & Rod, 2018). The temporal aspects of strategic decision-making (Andersson & Mattsson, 2010), the processual nature of business interactions (Medlin, 2004), as well as the process-contextual issues for those wishing to develop a new start-up business in well-established industries – particularly where existing firms dominate the market with large resource investments and existing business relationships (see, Medlin & Törnroos, 2014) - all highlight the growing centrality of temporal flows to industrial marketing management research (van Fenema & Keers, 2019). Notwithstanding the importance of time and temporality (Callender, 2011; Carroll, 2010), concerns continue to be raised about the lack of conceptual development in this area (Butler, 1995; Dawson & Sykes, 2019; Roe, Waller, & Clegg, 2009), especially given the centrality of temporality to understanding organizations and markets (Kunisch, Bartunek, Mueller, & Huy, 2017; Reinecke & Ansari, 2015, 2017; Whipp, Adam, & Sabelis, 2002). Research attention remains largely bounded by an institutionalized concept of clock time, that takes objective time for granted and fails to account for subjective and intersubjective experiences and how projections into the future and reinterpretations of the past can influence our understanding and decision-making in the present (Dawson & Sykes, 2018). This surprising absence of discussion around broader concepts of time and temporality has not gone unnoticed (see, Ancona, Goodman, Lawrence, & Tushman, 2001; Goodman, Lawrence, Ancona, & Tushman, 2001; Huy, 2001; Thrift, 2004). Nevertheless, the main body of research continues to take time for granted, bounded within a linear-quantitative modernist tradition, only occasionally being made explicit and contrasted and/or compared with a more social constructionist qualitative postmodernist or symbolic perspectives (Adam, 2004; Hassard, 2002; Wajcman, 2015). In seeking to contribute to these temporal concerns, the study adopts a sociomaterial process perspective that attends to the processual and relational aspects of time and in which temporality includes but moves beyond calendrical time to the fluidity of social temporalities as lived experience (Dawson, 2019: 43–44). In addressing these issues, the concept of sociomateriality and the connecting concepts of sensemaking and temporal storying in the interweaving of the social and material are critically discussed. Following an overview of research strategy and methods, there is a narrative presentation of the emergence and development of a new high tech company. The importance of context, agency, chance happenings, networks, technical innovations and strategic collaborations all arise from the processual analysis of our case study data. In drawing on these findings, the paper examines the applicability and use of this concept of sociomateriality to processes of innovation and change in a high tech company outside of the information systems discipline. In so doing, the study highlights the importance of process and the need to include an understanding of temporality that is multiple, non-linear and dynamic. It also seeks to demonstrate how processes of sensemaking and temporal storying link to an analysis of sociomateriality in the processual unfolding of a start-up company. The way the material and social is viewed continuously changes and this is particularly noticeable in attempts to separate what is inseparable, making the world as viewed as important as the world as is. Taken as a whole, the research aims to examine processes of innovation through a sociomaterial lens located within a broader process perspective in order to critically evaluate and distil out a number of theoretical and practical insights that both affirm existing understanding and offer new contributions to knowledge. 2. The sociomaterial lens and the importance of sensemaking, stories and temporality The concept of sociomateriality usefully spotlights the problem of regarding, explicitly or implicitly, the material world as being distinct and separate from social phenomenon (Mol & Law, 2002; Suchman, 2007). It rejects the notion that there are social and material entities with inherent properties that exist independently of each other. This 2

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attend informal meetings and formal events. Engagement in local conversations and forum discussion often required notes (and critical reflections on what was occurring) to be written up at the end of the day, providing valuable data on the opportunities and challenges facing the company and how these were evaluated, resolved, discarded, worked around or reconfigured. The Managing Director, who made himself available throughout the study, provided access to the company. Data collected was in the form of observational field notes, documents, a series of interviews (recorded and transcribed) and informal discussions (both face-to-face and over the telephone). Interviews normally lasted between 30 min and 2 h and generally took place at the Micro-X site or within the Marketing and Management Department at the University of Adelaide. An initial series of interviews provides data for a retrospective study on the origination and setup of Micro-X. There were further recorded face-to-face interviews, group discussion and telephone conversations on ongoing change. Interviews were held with the Managing Director (8), Executive Assistant, Production Manager, Programs Manager, Engineering Manager, Electronics Engineering Lead and Systems Engineering Lead, as well as a General Manager from Carestream Health (their partner for marketing and global distribution of the innovative DRX Revolution Nano mobile medical X-ray unit). Documentary and media material were a supplement to fieldwork notes and interview transcripts. In monitoring these data, new documents that arose throughout the two-year research program were collected and analysed (21 documents in total). This ethnographic fieldwork enabled the collection of a wide range of empirical data that included confidential material on sensitive negotiations with other companies and global players in the marketplace. Any inclusion in the case study write-up was made available to the MD in draft format prior to publication to ensure that the data was acceptable and not detrimental to Micro-X. Data on negotiations and potential pathways before their resolution were part of an ongoing dialogue, which included reflections on strategies, chance happenings and their eventual outcomes. These provided valuable insights into the dynamics of innovation and change, or to what Pettigrew referred to as ‘catching reality in flight’ (Pettigrew, 1985: 37). This detailed extended case study has supported the collection of data in analysing the interplay between internal contextual processes associated with starting up a new company and establishing an open and supportive ‘can-do’ culture, with the need to tackle external business markets issues in developing networks, finding strategic partners and securing funding. The processual-contextual analysis is an iterative, reflexive process that commences with fieldwork research that is longitudinal (Hinnings, 1997). Field notes provide the contextual terrain and early insights that sit alongside interview transcripts (Stake, 1995). Together they enable the illustrative quotations from the transcripts to be set in a rich contextual understanding of what is happening and going on at the site of study. A digital device for data collection of formal interviews allowed transcription of the material for data analysis. Each transcription was broken up from a single text to multiple fragments (many with annotated commentaries) that combine and link with fieldwork data taken from observational notes and critical reflections written up by the researcher at the end of the day (Silverman, 2017). When the material is broken open, analysed and repositioned, often locating data under one or a number of different categories and sub-categories, it is important to ensure that the data is not decontextualized – although some suggest recontextualization is possible if this does occur (see, for example, Tesch, 1990: 115). However, it is generally prudent to maintain contextual awareness throughout the analysis. Following this initial analyses, the next level of analysis requires building connections across the research material as a whole (Miles & Huberman, 1991). These data are central in developing pre-assigned categories and in creating and redefining others. In a way, the researcher sifts, disassembles, reconfigures, labels and then reconstructs data into something quite

Temporality is central to our process orientation and in particular, to the way in which people story their experiences in drawing on the past, present and the future in seeking to identify plausible pathways to the future. In these processes of sensemaking people construct and reconstruct meanings in attempting to understand and make sense of what is occurring (Rouleau & Balogun, 2011). Weick (1995) attends to the importance of sensemaking in ambiguous, uncertain and changing situations. He outlines seven components that consist of: identity construction as people make sense of events, retrospection, to reflect back on the past, enactment in producing part of the environment they face, a social and ongoing process, influenced by extracted cues and driven by plausibility rather than accuracy (1995: 61–62). He engages with a process view (Weick, Sutcliffe, & Obstfeld, 2005), in which sensemaking is an ongoing social process in which plausible stories (the concern is not with accuracy) help people make sense of experiences and enact the environment they face. As they state ‘sensemaking involves turning circumstances into a situation that is comprehended explicitly in words and that serves as a springboard into action’ (Weick et al., 2005: 409). Gioia and Chittipeddi (1991) in a study of strategic change use the term sensegiving to refer to attempts to shift the meaning making of others in certain preferred directions. ‘Sensegiving is concerned with the process of attempting to influence the sensemaking and meaning construction of others toward a preferred redefinition of organizational reality’ (Gioia & Chittipeddi, 1991: 442). These processes are not simply retrospective but arise in dynamic temporal contexts that are also future-oriented (prospective sensemaking and sensegiving). The position taken here is that these processes of making and giving sense are ongoing and form part of temporal storying that service ways of interpreting and making sense of their own and others' actions and behaviours. They seek to make sense of social and technical challenges but in so doing, they also shape the very processes they seek to understand. In short, the social and material interweave (exist in relation to each other) and in making sense of these complex processes actors continually draw on an ongoing interplay between past, present and future and in generating temporal understanding shape the very processes they seek to explain by influencing the interpretation of others in the co-creation of potential pathways. To put it another way, whilst the focus in organization studies is on retrospective sensemaking (Weick, 1995) through an Aristotelian conception of a narrative that has a beginning, middle and end (Gabriel, 2000); our attention is with multi-temporal storying. This multi-temporal storying does not reject retrospection but rather accommodates retrospection as something not static but dynamic continuously changing in ongoing reinterpretations of the past. It also attends to narrative fragments that arise in the here-and-now storying (Boje, Haley, & Saylors, 2016), as well as prospective ways of sensemaking (Konlechner, Latzke, Güttel, & Höfferer, 2019). In these storying processes, we engage in temporal sensemaking in the multiple and ongoing interpretations of the past, present and future that continuously combine in different ways to construct new stories that give sense to others (Dawson & McLean, 2013). 3. Research strategy and methods A two-year extended ethnographic case study was deemed most appropriate for examining the complex contextual dynamics associated with social processes, technical innovations and strategic collaborations in establishing and sustaining a new high technology company in a globally competitive market. This longitudinal qualitative research took place inside an Australian company, Micro-X, in the period from March 2017 to April 2019. The study involved regular visits to the company conducting fieldwork observations that includes tours of the facilities (these have changed over time with the growth in the company), general discussions around debates on pertinent issues, such as, technical, funding and trajectory concerns, as well as allowing the researcher to 3

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closure of Holden Automotive, there is an abundant pool of high skilled labour to recruit. Since listing on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) and issuing 40 million shares at the end of 2015, the company was able to raise $20 million. This enabled them to pursue a process of innovation and change in the development of ultra-lightweight X-ray machines for the national and international health care sector. Establishing a partnership with Carestream Health, who are a worldwide provider of medical and dental imaging systems located in New York, Micro-X are able to draw on their market network for future sales as well as their IT and X-ray imaging systems knowledge. They have considerable experience in the healthcare IT and radiology areas and act as the global distributor for the innovative DRX Revolution Nano mobile medical X-ray unit. This unit is half the cost of existing devices, far lighter weighing around 80 as opposed to 500 to 600 kg, and in eliminating the need for a tube filament heater greatly reduces power consumption. The company is also developing mobile X-ray products for the defence industry and a robotically controlled X-ray unit for imaging unclaimed and suspicious baggage for the airline industry. Once they have an established product in the health market they will further explore other avenues for product development using nanotube emitter technology. The sections that follow tells the story of Micro-X. It commences with the initial key actor and founder, progressing through to the establishment of the company, gaining consultant support, dealing with funding issues, and tackling technology development issues in the manufacture, marketing and distribution of their new innovative health care product.

different from the original, in an attempt to explain and understand the object of study (Dawson, 2019: 159–160). In the case of Micro-X, the aim is to uncover processes of innovation and change in the setting up and development of a new start-up high technology company. Attention is given to temporal flows and sociomateriality and as such, analyses centres on decoupling, classifying and recombining data to develop and evaluate these concepts. A key question is whether analysing these data through a process perspective that employs the concept of sociomateriality enables the presentation of new accounts that provide conceptual insight and practical understanding. Media and documentary material is also part of the analysis and was particularly helpful in establishing key dates, events and turning points. For example, the announcement on March 31st 2019 that the French giant Thales is investing $10 million in the company through a six-year convertible bond (Thompson & MacDonald, 2019), provided useful material for discussion in a follow-up interview in April 2019. Although there are limitations to a longitudinal ethnography within a single company where no statistical generalization are possible, in for example, extrapolation from sample to population, there is the possibility for analytical generalizations (Firestone, 1993; Yin, 2018). As Firestone explains, it is possible for the qualitative researcher to generalise single case findings to a broader theory (analytical generalizations), especially within the context of rich ethnographic research (1993: 19). In engaging in this form of holistic, process-contextual analysis, the approach - advocated by Pettigrew (1990, 1997) - provides both multilevel (or vertical) analysis, such as, external socio-economic influences on decision-making; and processual (or horizontal) analysis, for example, in studying the temporal context (past, present and future) of Micro-X. In multilevel theory construction (Langley, 1999), one focus of analysis is on the way contextual variables in the vertical analysis link to those examined in horizontal analysis (Pettigrew, 1997). Although Pettigrew puts an emphasis on temporal interconnectedness (1997: 341), the approach adopted here advocates a more fluid and multiple conception of temporality (Mari & Meglio, 2015) that accommodates continual reconfigurations in processes of becoming in opening up pathways for innovation (see, Hassett & Paavilainen-Mäntymäki, 2015; Langley & Tsoukas, 2017b). Throughout the study, emergence and non-linearity come to the fore as the fluidity of markets, contextual dimensions and the unforeseen shape ongoing change. There is an entrepreneurial focus on solving present problems as and when they arise, being open to innovation and new ways of doing things, as well as reflecting on the past and projecting forward in continual assessments on the speed, content and direction of change. As the data will show, the future is central to the sensemaking of entrepreneurs who form new companies and set off on novel business innovations, especially in navigating barriers and resolving constraints in the pursuit of strategic opportunities (Medlin & Törnroos, 2014). Temporality and the complexity of managing fluid contextual shifts, technical innovations and strategic collaborations all emerge as central in data analyses. The findings enable us to draw out new practical insights on becoming a new high tech company within an existing well-established global competitive market through adopting a process perspective that also sheds light on the applicability and use of the concept of sociomateriality.

4.1. From new ideas new companies emerge A central figure in the establishment of Micro-X is Peter Rowland, their founder and Managing Director (MD). After experiencing a degree of despondency with work in the medical device industry, he resigned to do some freelance consulting. It was during this period in 2011, that the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) research institute in Japan employed MD to write them a business plan. AIST had gained the financial support of a Venture Capitalist (VC) to develop Carbon Nanotube (CNT) X-ray technology and they were looking to convert this technology into a marketable product. However, they were uncertain what to do, which market to target, how to commercialize and so forth. As a consultant (Neumann, 2016; Randall & Burnes, 2016), one of the key tasks was to examine options for the commercialization of the technologies they were developing. With previous experience in the medical industry and through a number of networks and established links, MD was aware of the large and bulky X-ray machines used by radiologists in hospitals. From observations of their work he soon became aware of how getting these big machines into the rooms of patients was a difficult exercise that would often take longer – in re-arranging furniture in the room to enable the safe manoeuvre of the machine - than doing the X-ray. In working with AIST and discussing these issues with key hospital personnel, the germ of an idea took root. As he recalls ‘it became obvious that if you can hit this sweet spot in the market on performance then there was going to be a lot of interest’. Some of the ideas behind the commercial viability of lightweight mobile X-ray technology devices arise through serendipity in temporal context (Flynn, Dooley, O'Sullivan, & Cormican, 2003). As MD recalls:

4. The unfolding case story of micro-x: from start-up to global player

The whole thing happened by accident. I was doing some consulting work for basically the Japanese version of the CSIRO, called AIST, it's in Tsukuba just outside Tokyo. Some guys there had this Carbon Nanotube X-ray. They were very technically based and they were interested in how they could get it to market. I happened to be there in Japan and I got an introduction. And I said, alright, I'll come and have a look at the technology. Well I came and looked at the technology but I knew absolutely bugger all about X-rays. They showed

Micro-X is a new and developing high tech innovative manufacturing company located in Australia. In October 2015, Micro-X moved from Melbourne on the east coast to Adelaide, South Australia. In securing a financial loan of $3 million from the State Government of South Australia, it established a facility in a new government sponsored Innovation District on the site of an old Mitsubishi car plant 10 km south of the city of Adelaide. With the decline in manufacturing and the 4

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me a little box that was the size of a shoebox. It was blue, it weighed 3 kg and it ran off six AA batteries. It took X-rays and I took a picture of my hand and I thought that's pretty cool.

Technology design, build, performance and replication were issues that provided technical challenges interpreted and given sense to in social context (Grint & Woolgar, 1997; McKenzie & Wajcman, 1999). As Pinch and Bijker (1984) demonstrate, what technologies can and cannot do is open to a wide range of possibilities. Technology development is a multidirectional process from which a range of alternative design options exist and are selectively reduced during the innovation process (Pinch & Bijker, 1987: 28). During these early developments, there was some recalcitrance among individuals and groups to acknowledge ‘technical’ problems. A well-designed process produced a technology that worked but the question of why it was not replicable was unanswerable. An interweaving of the social and material is evident in the contextual shaping of the technology and in the ‘technical’ understanding of the causes of these difficulties (Badham, 2006; Wajcman, 2015). The process of technology development was new and unknown, open to shifts from small contextual changes and marked by ambiguity and uncertainty in the parameters and setup required.

Taken up by the technology and the interesting setup at AIST, MD continued to ponder areas open for further development in the commercialization of CNT. It was not a viable option in existing fields where long static X-ray exposures fulfilled market needs and form part of common standard operating procedures. However, a potential market opportunity for the development of smaller, lighter and more mobile X-ray products for the health industry would be a possibility. As the research by Petruzzelli and Savino (2014: 235) on haute cuisine demonstrates, old knowledge and understanding provide useful support to innovation especially when they are close to the inventor or entrepreneur. They highlight the importance of context and of past knowledge and understanding and how if reconfigured in the present can create alternative innovations for the future (Petruzzelli & Savino, 2014). In building on his past knowledge and understanding, the MD approached a manufacturing company in Melbourne who could do some of the engineering work for a new mobile X-ray product. He also applied for a Small Technologies Industry Uptake Program. The program aimed to support new ideas in the use of technology and their development. In securing the grant, the idea of forming a new company with the name of Micro-X took shape. The AIST investor was funding the development of the carbon Nano X-ray tube, MD, in his association with the hospitals in Australia, was receiving very positive responses to his ideas of developing a more lightweight mobile X-ray machine. In then setting up a company and gaining local funding the context for collaborative development was set. There was also some supporting Japanese funding on a dollar for dollar basis to match local government funding. The importance of capital funding and the development of social networks is central to entrepreneurial innovation (Lamine, Jack, Fayolle, & Chabaud, 2015; Leadbeater, 2007; Mascia, Magnusson, & Björk, 2015) and the successful engagement with these processes require a high level of competence in forming and sustaining relationships (Kadushin, 2012). From this, they created the outline of what would be a lightweight mobile X-ray machine. As it turned out, when they tried to use the new technology, they found that the new emitter did not work. MD approached an expert who argued that this was never going to be a technology for commercial manufacture. He then took this finding back to the Japanese and indicated to them that there was a problem with the technology. It was at this stage that ‘it looked like the whole thing was stone cold dead. It was a cute little idea but it was never going to happen’.

If a gnat farts in the room next-door it changes the conditions…and you get a completely different structure…You do it again tomorrow and it will be different. He said (an expert), you do it again tomorrow and it will be different. He said that we had two identical machines one in Liverpool and one in Manchester…one would never work, even when we put it in a pneumatically sealed room…The technology is so finicky. This major roadblock could have derailed the entire project but a search on the internet revealed that nanotube technology development was part of a research program at the University of North Carolina. This technology was being commercialised by company called XinTay that formed a joint venture company called XinRay with Siemens to do Xrays. In identifying this company MD cold called them one night, introduced himself, and explained what he wanted to do. Following this conversation in 2012, they suggested that he came over to discuss his ideas further. I took some of my frequent flyer points and I jumped on a plane to see what they were up to…So I flew over to North Carolina, to talk to some guys there. They took me through and I explained what I had learned…They said that they solved the problem with a twostage process which they have patented. Their joint venture with Siemens collapsed for internal reasons with the decision by Siemens to move out of this particular section of the market. XinRay Systems is based in Raleigh, North Carolina and develop Carbon Nanotube (CNT) multi-beam X-ray tubes for imaging systems that can be used in security applications. With funding to develop X-ray machinery for carryon baggage on airplane flights, XinRay was happy to take on an exclusive arrangement with Micro-X to develop and design a tube for their requirements (CNT based X-ray emitters and tubes) and to supply it to them on an exclusive basis. In financing these developments, Micro-X was able to get further funding from the government in Victoria, Australia. This funding enabled tube development to move to a working prototype stage to demonstrate feasibility (Davila, Foster, & Gupta, 2003). In operating as a virtual company in Melbourne, the initial design of the medical device was facilitated through the expertise of the Hidrex consultancy group:

4.2. Technology development and the building of social networks These early experiences illustrate the interweaving of the social and the technical in the fluid and unforeseen journey of change. The technology is identifiable – carbon nanotube technology - but the development of this technology is not separable from the social and temporal context that surrounds these developments (Pattinson, Preece, & Dawson, 2016). This is especially evident in nanotube technology where small changes that permeate scientific parameters shape the results and outcomes which can often be difficult, if not impossible, to replicate. As MD recounts:

We contracted Hidrex Consulting Engineers to do the design. It's not the cheapest way to get your design done because you're paying consulting rates. But on the other hand you access a pool of talent that as a start-up company you couldn't get access to.

The one that worked…it was working beautifully and then the chamber developed a leak and the process stopped working. They found the leak, fixed the leak and it never worked…They discovered that it only worked because there was a minute leak that was letting some atmospheric nitrogen in and that atmospheric nitrogen was just what the recipe needed for it to work. But when the leak became too much it didn't work and when they fixed the leak it didn't work at all either.

With the technology concept in hand and some initial design ideas, more finance was required from venture capitalists (Allan, Orser, Spence, & Belanger, 2010) and Micro-X (at this time, MD) needed a partner to take the project further (Parise & Casher, 2003). However, as he laughingly recalled ‘this is when things really slowed down’. 5

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if you develop that and it works like that, we'll sell it all over the world for you.

4.3. Finding a partner organization for distribution and sales In doing a classic business school strategic matrix addressing the questions of who do I want and whom can I realistically get as a partner, MD contrasted two companies. First, Carestream Health as a new, leading and innovative player in Health Care. Second, General Electric (GE) Healthcare as a longstanding and established company that is rather conservative, losing market share and from MD's perspective looked rather jaded. As he assessed:

By January 2013, a contract with Carestream is signed that offers exclusive distribution rights on Micro-X's portable lightweight X-ray device. The concept is complete and proven but the financial resources to build and test a working model remains a difficult barrier to overcome. 4.4. The importance of the social in material design

At the end of the day, would you go with GE if they were to give me a hearing? Probably, but there is a reason why they are last in market share. Would Carestream give me a hearing? Possibly, but for them nothing is broken. But on the other hand they are market leaders for a reason, so I thought well, you gotta give it a shot. So I brought myself a ticket to the big global radiology show held in November each year in Chicago. A giant, giant show, 50 to 60,000 attendees from all over the world…Everybody's there. The good news is that I can try one company and if I get a response, good. If not, I've only got a 150 m to walk to get to the next company, and the next company after that. I've got four days. So that was my strategy.

Micro-X needed to secure funding to build and test prototypes of the cart, but Venture Capitalists (VCs) wanted to see a working prototype and were not forthcoming in offering financial support (Davila et al., 2003). At this difficult phase, MD met a financier who saw the commercial potential of Micro-X. He orchestrated interest among a group of private investors enabling funding for further developments. Micro-X also secured a $3 million loan from the State Government in 2015 and after listing on the ASX, raised a further $20 Million from selling 40 million shares. With funding in place, an initial prototype was built and tested in hospitals that provided useful feedback from staff. Users were questioned about the things that worked well, areas that could be improved and should be changed, those that did not work at all and aspects of the design that were not required. They were also asked a further series of questions arising from initial feedback, for example, what they would want to carry in the storage bins, the use of detectors, gloves, sanitary wipes and so forth. Based on extensive and ongoing feedback they refined and tweaked the design (Cui & Wu, 2017; Redström, 2006). On completing user testing, they turned their attention to reliability testing, to ensure that the device is reliable in a workplace setting. Testing involved people at the site working three carts 24/7 to identify issues: ‘You've seen the guys out there hammering these things to death.’ Some of the unanticipated problems they identified during the testing was that the bearings wore out far faster than imagined. There were also brushes that were inappropriate and there were mistakes in design where inserts were pulling out because the fit was not right. They also discovered that whilst they used a lot of aluminium in the prototype to try to keep the weight down, this proved problematic and something that they later needed to replace with steel for improved wearability and robustness. This onsite and human testing proved to be critical to the refinement and development of the cart as many issues previously hidden come to the fore during the non-human mechanical testing of the device. It also spotlights how ‘work practices are constitutively entangled through their everyday engagement’ with new technologies (Orlikowski, 2007: 1438). The attraction of the sociomaterial lens is that it addresses the tendency towards dualism (Reed, 1997) and underlines the importance of not treating the ‘technical’ and ‘social’ as separate but as constitutive elements of the same relational phenomenon (McLoughlin & Dawson, 2017: 132). As MD states:

Identifying and securing a strategic partner was central to the future of Micro-X (Fayolle, Jack, Lamine, & Chabaud, 2016). The importance of strategic alliances in living forward echoes some of the ideas behind effectuation theory (Sarasvathy, 2001). However, the MD seeks to exploit pre-existing knowledge in assessing the competitive position of Carestream and GE in prioritizing preferences. In our case, there is a well-established and highly competitive health market that the new innovatory product – in using new nanotube technology – aims to gain a foothold. The Micro-X innovations offers a product that is smaller, lighter and more manoeuvrable, but it is still fulfilling existing functions required by radiographers. A good strategic alliance is also critical in the development of business-to-business collaborations (Nevin, 2014) and in understanding this, the MD ensures that he has done his homework (background research) on Carestream, before arriving at the show. Furthermore, as the MD did know someone at the company, he was able to ask them for the name of the person who was head of the Xray business. Equipped with a name and some knowledge of the company, MD went up to their stand and asked if he could have a word. Oh yes they said, he is here somewhere, just finished a meeting. There he is. Andrew come over here this guy wants to see you. And then blow me down, this is what happens when you do insufficient research, he walks over and says ‘G'Day’. He turns out to be an Australian. So I said, ok here's my company and this is what we're doing and this is our vision. He said, what is the technology and I said, carbon nanotubes, and he said ah, North Carolina we know them. Well this is the product concept and he said, all right, we've got that product in our roadmap. We know there is a gap in the market, we didn't think that the product would look like that, we didn't quite know what it would look like, but we had identified a gap in the market that we needed to think about filling. It looks like you've got a concept and we know your core technology.

You calculate how many times the arm has to flex in 10 years and you come up with a number, it's like 5 million times. You actually build a rig with electric motor and you flex the arm and the cable 5 million times to show that the cable is not going to break and the arm is not going to wear out. Now the interesting thing is that we tested those buttons 5 million times and they were fine, signed it off. First exhibition we took it to the buttons didn't last to the end of the first day. Because it turned out that people were leaning on it, and pushing on it in ways that we hadn't anticipated. We hadn't provided adequate design relief for those abnormal strains. So the buttons broke. So the big lesson we got is the next time we're not going to bother with rigs but just use humans because this business of anticipated misuse actually has to be part of your testing.

Three weeks before Christmas Carestream made a trip to Australia for a one-hour meeting. They arrive with a technical expert and following some questions and technical quizzing, they leave indicating that they will do a conference call shortly after their return to America. A week before Christmas, MD and members of Carestream discuss options in a conference call. At conclusion of the call they indicate their interest and agree for MD to fly to Rochester, New York, the day after Hogmanay (New Year's Eve) to finalise arrangements. As MD recalls: During the course of that meeting, which was four weeks after we met – even allowing for Christmas and the New Year – he said don't talk to anyone else we want an exclusive distribution deal. Basically,

This quotation highlights the importance of the social in the material design of the product. People simply did not use the machine in 6

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company to the next level. In echoing the words of Håkansson and Snehota (1989, 2006), MD notes that:

practice the way the engineers anticipated. There is an interweaving of the social in design arising from the assumptions and expectations of the designers that continues through processes of testing, application and use (Leonardi et al., 2012). Human testing was a key learning point in, for example, the need to ensure (rather than assume) that identified solutions to testing issues work in practice (Redström, 2006). Equally, there is a need to check that implemented solutions not only fix problems but do not blow out the costs of the unit. Considerable effort went into verifying that the resolutions proposed were cost effective and robust.

At the end of the day, it all comes down to partnerships. There is no start-up company that is entirely self-sufficient. You know, there is no company that's an island. You are always going to have big customers and some big suppliers and some small suppliers and your ability to navigate those relationships is a big determinant of your success. There is a growing interest in the company by corporations with the capacity to invest significant funding for further growth and development. This raises strategic issues and challenges as well as the need to make key decisions about the future of the company. One of the key challenges that Micro-X face if their success continues is how to expand and maintain staff enthusiasm, passion and commitment.

4.5. In moving from design to manufacture In moving from design to manufacture Micro-X set out to ensure that all supplier components and parts were reliable and of high quality. During this period (2018) the company operated with 65 suppliers, many of which are small suppliers that are easily substitutable. With the off the shelf components like switches and fasteners the main need is to build good customer-supplier relations. However, with the eight big suppliers who build the custom components, such as, carbon fibre, machining, injection moulding and sheet metal, far greater attention is given to the operating procedures of these companies. About Eighty per cent of supplies are made in Australia with three main suppliers in Adelaide, one in the US (XinRay), one in Canada (generator supplier) and the rest in other parts of Australia. Onsite storage space enables the company to store everything that they need for four days, but they need to keep materials flowing. There is no stockpile of chassis as these are bulky units but with springs, small machine parts and fasteners there is not so much of a problem. The production schedule runs on a portable touchscreen computer tablet and provides a system for tracking and tracing every step in the manufacturing process. This artefact (as both a physical object and as digital information) changes the agency and developmental capacity of the human user. As Leonardi suggests whether in ‘physical or digital form, an artefact that translates ideas into action is material’ (2010: 8). The system provides information on all the requirements needed to do a particular job, including what tools to use, what paths to pick, how to feed them and so forth. The system records everything and hence, when new operating staff are in training, the system is able to validate their operations prior to certification and release into production proper.

It's all about passion! It's all about a bunch of people that are highly passionate about what we are trying to do here. I have to say because it's hard [laughter] and because it's exciting, and because it's not often that a little company of 25 people in Adelaide gets to take an exciting new breakthrough technology to world markets…People are everything, people are absolutely everything, probably the biggest unwritten story of innovation is the people. 5. Discussion: sociomaterial relations and the micro-X story The discussion commences by outlining limitations of the case study approach. It then examines practical implications that emerge from the fieldwork findings and how these compare with existing research. Attention then turns to three insights that arise from using a sociomaterial lens in a process framework to examine processes of innovation and change in a new start-up high tech company. 5.1. Limitations of the research A key limitation of the case study approach is the generalizability of the findings. An ethnography that examines the dynamics of change and innovation within a single company is necessarily limited. The data cannot serve to generate broader generalizations across one or a range of populations. However, although statistical generalizations are not possible, the qualitative data does allow for analytical generalizations, especially in concept evaluation and theory development (Firestone, 1993). In the case of Micro-X, this enables an assessment of the concept of sociomateriality (Kautz & Jensen, 2013) and process theory (Langley & Tsoukas, 2017b). Another limitation stems from the study design that did not set out to examine the concept of sociomateriality. The focus of the research was to ‘catch reality in flight’ in an extended ethnographic study (longitudinal) of a new start-up company. It was only through reflective observations and data analyses that the inseparability of the social and technical came to the fore and the opportunity to explore the use of sociomateriality to explain these processes arose. A future challenge that this limitation presents is to engage in extended fieldwork research specifically designed to investigate the contribution of the sociomaterial lens to examining processual dynamics of innovation and change.

4.6. No company is an island: partnerships, people and passion After a promotional visit by the Premier in October 2017, The Advertiser reported that the Micro-X facility will produce four portable machines a day in 2019, selling at around $US150,000 ($200,000) (Changarathil, 2017: 31). As early as April 2017, Micro-X were getting revenue from a small number of products requested for trade exhibitions. The DRX machine is currently distributed by Carestream worldwide (Carestream is a 7.9% shareholder) and compared to the existing hospital X-ray equipment that often weigh over 500 kg the new mobile carts weigh 95 kg – this is a slight increase from the initial proposed design following adjustments in response to reliability testing. In 2019, Micro-X expanded their engineering team in ramping up product development and design in other areas that could usefully utilize the imaging technology, such as, in security, bomb disposal and breast cancer detection. In all these areas, they are building on their knowledge and experience acquired in the development of CNT in customer lead development and innovation. As the MD commented: ‘Never mind what we want to develop, what do the customers want?’ He noted that in developing new innovative products where none currently exist these conversations are not always easy as the customer may find it difficult to articulate what they would like. There is a need for an ongoing dialogue and an openness to design and development in the interweaving of the social and material. Also in the building of collaborations and new strategic alliances that can catapult the

5.2. Practical implications It is perhaps not surprising that some of the main findings that arise from this study on innovation and change support those found in the mainstream literature. In fact, it would be rather odd if the conclusions emanating from this study were completely counter to the body of research in this area. However, some important nuances and differences emerge that highlight how leadership and historical context renders each company experience as ultimately unique. For example, there was support and agreement that engaging employees in creating an 7

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centrality of multiple times and temporalities rebalancing the conventional use of sociomateriality (in which time is implicit). Third, taken together they bring out the importance of temporal storying and sensemaking in reconstituting sociomaterial processes of innovation and change.

innovation-oriented company culture is central (Kanter, 2012; Martins & Terblanche, 2003). What is interesting is how Micro-X consistently place cultural fit above competency, technical knowledge, experience and educational level in recruiting new employees. The dominant narrative is that you can always train people in new skills and competencies but changing behaviour is far harder. The research affirms the importance of building networks and establishing strategic partnerships (Fayolle et al., 2016; Lamine et al., 2015; Mascia et al., 2015; Parise & Casher, 2003). These processes take time and require care and attention. A practical lesson emerging from this study is that in developing a network of suppliers it is important to evaluate and develop your own supplier network rather than to rely on the recommendations of others. There is, for example, a need to assess and check the readiness and capabilities of suppliers to ensure reliability of supplier component delivery. The research also spotlights how business networks are always in processes of becoming and open to continuous change. As such, the need to adapt, adjust, monitor, review and reaffirm networks is ongoing (Andersen & Medlin, 2016). Other practical implications that arise from this study that align with existing knowledge and understanding include, first, the criticality of fund raising and gaining financial support (Allan et al., 2010; Davila et al., 2003). Second, the importance of not relying too heavily on technical research but also being aware of competitor insights and customer knowledge in supporting new product development (Chuang, Morgan, & Robson, 2015; Cui & Wu, 2017). Third, how sequences in new product development processes from idea generation through testing and development to commercialization are non-linear and dynamic (Armstrong, Kotler, & Opresnik, 2017; Tidd & Bessant, 2018). There are also practical lessons that arise from a sociomaterial perspective. Using this lens within a process perspective spotlights the practical importance of temporal storying and sensemaking. Whilst time and temporality are largely ignored within the sociomaterial debate (Mutch, 2013) it is pivotal to process theory (Hernes, 2014). The processual approach draws attention to temporal interplay and how sociomateriality continually reconstitutes in the sensemaking and sensegiving that occurs through storying (Dawson, 2019: 36–62). In the case of Micro-X, there was an abundance of temporal storying – with reassessments of the past, present and future in shaping future oriented trajectories. This orientation to prospective sensemaking was open to new stories, to building on reinterpretations of the past in considering new pathways, and in re-charting in the face of the unexpected and serendipity. In each new telling there was difference that shifted meaning making and enabled the opening for new ideas and innovations. There were also sociomaterial configurations that presented temporary closures to planned pathways, as for example illustrated in the uncertainty of early CNT developments. However, there is no fixity to this closure as new narratives reshape the space for change. To use Deleuze (1994), with each passing moment there is never a return of the same (a stasis), but always the return of difference. Another practical implication of these findings is the importance of remaining open to new interpretations of the past (the past is not fixed but ever changing), to be able to accommodate the fluidity of future expectations and to be aware of how changing pasts and futures continually influence and shape processes of strategy making in the ongoing present. In short, changing sociomaterial relations provides an important source for temporal storying and sensemaking that serves as a resource in identifying, assessing and refining future potential strategic pathways.

5.3.1. The tendency towards dualism and the separation of entities In is not uncommon nor unreasonable to separate entities in seeking to explain complex processes. Representationalism is a powerful analytical technique under which, for example, entities such as the technical and social can be identified and separated. McLoughlin (1999) argues that this form of separation has resulted in a movement from the earlier impact of technology studies (technological determinist accounts) to more constructivist and postmodern approaches (social determinist accounts). The concept of sociomateriality attempts to tackle this binary divide in seeking to accommodate the complex interweaving of the social and material (Orlikowski, 2010). There is a movement beyond divisional separatist approaches (dualisms) to a focus on the relational and constitutive character of their entanglement. In this, the material and social exist only when they are in relationship with each other, there are no independent capabilities and characteristics outside of these relationships. The emphasis turns from impacts and effects, to the processes through which innovations occur (Orilkowski & Scott, 2008). In viewing innovation through this lens, the tendency to fix the impact of technology is displaced as the meaning-making associated with innovations or new product developments remain open to continual interpretation and reinterpretation by stakeholders and users. Under this approach, new insights arise from turning our attention away from conventional concerns with how new product innovations as discrete artefacts influence or regulate human action to a concern with how actions and relations are constituted in practices of sociomaterial entanglement. 5.3.2. Making time explicit and temporality multiple The entanglement of the social and material captures the notion of movement in the interweaving of assemblages over time. However, time remains taken-for-granted in the concept of sociomateriality. Mutch (2013) is critical of this position arguing that time, whilst shifting implicitly from a simple binary division to a more relational perspective, remains hidden and unexplored. On this count, process theory helps to uncover time and temporality and is useful in drawing us beyond the confines of institutionalized clock time to the subjective and intersubjective experiences of time that displaces any notion of time as a singular concept (Reinecke & Ansari, 2017). Our attention turns to multiple temporalities interconnecting as part of competing pasts and changing futures that flow within a continuing shifting network of relations in which the interlacing of the social and material occur (Dawson & Sykes, 2018). In studying our innovative start-up company, we identify such multiple temporalities in the complex relations that continually reconstitute. These relations are never static but dynamic, continuous, ever changeable, non-linear and multiple, supporting the need to adopt a processual perspective rather than linear sequence or n-step models of innovation and change. The focus is not with organizations as stable entities that require action for innovative change but with fluid organizations in which change is continuously occurring, and in which decisions shape and are shaped by temporal context and flow (Langley & Tsoukas, 2017a; Tsoukas & Chia, 2002). The processual approach broadens our awareness of the need to gain a deeper understanding of changing, to view temporality not as single and progressive but as multiple and multi-directional, and to longitudinal qualitative studies that can empirically examine how these processes emerge and interweave over time. The position taken here is that such knowledge is invaluable for theoretical and practical insights in helping us understand dynamic reconfigurations in temporal context.

5.3. New insights from a sociomaterial lens There are three major insights that arise from using a sociomaterial lens in a broader process frame. First, it addresses the problem of dualism and the tendency to simplify complex processes by separating entities in building explanatory models around the way these various entities interact. Second, the process perspective emphasizes the 8

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expectations of the future in shaping their activities and understanding of affordances within an ongoing present. In this way, the case usefully illustrates shifting pathways and the unfolding complex dynamics that shape and reshape these processes. Making active choices, developing contacts and networks, securing funding, serendipity, design decisions, creating and taking opportunities and perseverance in the face of perceived obstacles and threats, are all part of the entrepreneurial activities around new start-up companies. In short, this temporal storying shapes entrepreneurial decision-making within a broader contextual becoming that is not simply a ‘now’, but a multi-temporal context exhibiting changing sociomaterial relations with a past, present and future that is continually open to reinterpretation. The research findings usefully illustrate the blurring of the social and material as attempts to establish robust systems for testing the new equipment that set aside the context of use in seeking to isolate purely technical parameters set a false pathway eventually spotlighting the inseparability of the material from the social. The initial technology arose from unique sociomaterial configurations that they were unable to replicate and the dynamics of these sociomaterial relations underpin developments and future challenges. The concept of sociomateriality whilst useful in bringing attention to the ways in which the social and material constitutively entangle, understates the importance of time and temporality. Examining the processes through a sociomaterial lens located within a broader processual framework reasserts the importance of fluidity and organizational becoming. It is therefore important to extend the concept of sociomateriality by making time explicit and moving towards a temporal frame that is multiple, non-linear and dynamic, as well as accommodating processes of sensemaking and storying that shape and our shaped within a broader processual understanding. A sociomaterial process perspective allows these possibilities in opening up avenues for future research in industrial marketing management.

5.3.3. Temporal storying and sensemaking in reconstituting sociomaterial processes of innovation For Leonardi (2013), the concept of sociomateriality helps remind us of the place of materiality in the social world, as well as the place of the social in the material (see also, Latour, 2005). As we demonstrate in the setting up and development of Micro-X, matter matters in the material affordances of the nanotube technology, but the social also matters in the stories and sensemaking that shapes choices made during design, reliability testing, marketing and manufacture. There is what Leonardi (2010: 5) refers to as affordances for action in the practical instantiation of the material, stating that: “What may matter most about ‘materiality’ is that artefacts and their consequences are created and shaped through interaction” (2010: 11). Sensemaking is central to this and especially the stories that influence and shape collective understanding. On this count, stories and the re-storying of the past and projected futures not only make sense of the present but also give sense to others of the context in which decisions are made. Interpretations of the materiality of developments tangle with the social context and the stories of others as people construct and reconstruct meanings in attempting to understand and make sense of what is occurring. From these collective processes of sensemaking comprehension is achieved and reinforced through stories that enable people to enact their environment, serving ‘as a springboard for action’ (Weick et al., 2005: 409). 6. Conclusion Our company case study, Micro-X, provides a good illustration of how the social (human interactions) and the material (technological developments) all interweave within a dynamic context that is ever changing. These occur from idea generation, to the setting up of a small start-up company, the design and manufacture of new innovative products, the engagement of a global marketing partner, overcoming funding barriers and in identifying and forging realisable pathways. Although there are clear events and turning points that align with the calendar there is no linear n-step progression to change, rather, there is a continual reconfiguration, particularly evident in the ways in which the past is re-evaluated in the light of a changing present and shifting expectations of the future. As such, although there is an overt sense of progression in linear clock time, the data also uncovers a deeper understanding of how the non-linear temporal flows and contextual flux shapes and reshapes organizational becoming (Lowe & Rod, 2018). From the outset, the founder and Managing Director (MD), maintains active involvement with others in assessing technology options and strategic opportunities, particularly around the development and application of nanotube technology. There is a continual movement and adaptation in the uptake and development of new innovative technology led products and in the establishment of social relations in the building of social capital through the establishment of interpersonal networks. In recounting this story and grounding the use of the sociomaterial concept in the collection and analysis of empirical data, we move away from the broader philosophical discussions and the position of Barad (2007) towards the more empirical practice-based studies of Leonardi (2011) and Orlikowski (2007), (see also, Cecez-Kecmanovic et al., 2014). This position is more in keeping with Schatzki's (2001) theorizing on social practice where ‘the social is a field of embodied, materially interwoven practices centrally organized around shared practical understandings’ (Schatzki, Cetina, & von Savigny, 2001: 3). These ongoing configurations of sociomaterial relations spotlight the relationality and inseparability of their interweaving. The Micro-X case also illustrates the centrality of sensemaking especially in the way that stories arise that project pathways to the future (temporal storying), that are open to continual revision and restorying in response to serendipity and the unexpected. People continually re-story in changing their interpretations of the past and

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