Distribution of responsibility in socio-technical networks: the Promest case

Abstract

The aim of the present paper is to show how (informal) responsibility issues within the context of a network are essentially related with the way networks are organised in order to pursue their objectives. We conceive of organisations as having at least three relevant dimensions: power, coordination and control. The case of the Dutch manure processing factory Promest is analysed in terms of these three dimensions. The analysis provides an illustration of how the dimensions enable actors to discharge their responsibilities, thereby offering insight in responsibility issues within a group of actors and contributing to the prevention of the problem of many hands.

Keywords:

• responsibility
• organisational structure
• networks
• problem of many hands
• technology and innovation studies
• socio-technical
• agriculture

Acknowledgements

This research is part of the research programme ‘Moral Responsibility in R&D Networks’, which is supported by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) under grant number 360-20-160. We would like to thank the three anonymous referees and Ibo Van de Poel for reading an earlier draft of the present paper. The article has profited a lot from their comments and the helpful suggestions they provided.

Notes

Although the present approach might suggest that the three dimensions are independent, it is realised that they are not: for example, the way the control relations are structured can be the result of an actor's act of power. However, as an analytical concept it seems useful to separate the three types of activities since they each serve a different purpose and as such they are distinct activities.

Besides federations, congregations and coalitions, Horling and Lesser distinguish between hierarchies, holarchies, teams, societies, markets, matrix organisations and compound organisations. In federations a group of agents cedes some of their autonomy to a single delegate who represents the group. Congregations can be characterised as groups of individual agents who have united in order to derive additional benefits. Coalitions are goal-directed and short-lived organisations, which are formed with a specific purpose in mind. These three organisation paradigms are especially interesting since they cover the change in the Dutch agricultural policy community from a neo-corporatist model to a more politicised policy community.

Although it is realised that other relations could be drawn as well, we choose here to focus on the relations that are minimally required to answer the guiding question and to explain how responsibilities are distributed.

One of the reviewers correctly pointed out that this could also be considered a successful power relation if considered from the perspective of the EC. However, since the Ministry of Agriculture explicitly put (lobbying) effort in being dispensed from the EC regulations we prefer to view this relation from the perspective of the Ministry of Agriculture and hence, to interpret it as an ‘unsuccessful’ power relation.