Rigid Politics and Technological Flexibility: The Anatomy of a Failed Hospital Innovation

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Abstract
Conventionally, technologies are seen as rigid, immutable; social systems as malleable. Constructivist theories of technology, such as actor network theory, have corrected that view. Technologies are flexible, reinterpretable. Often that flexibility is alleged to explain their success in transforming social systems. This article presents the story of PREOP—a flexible technology that met with an immutable social system and failed to become what was expected of it. The article contrasts two interpretations of the story, an actor network version and a labor process version. Drawing on elements of the labor process version, the author suggests that preexisting networks be brought more into focus in actor network analyses, that the role of conflict in networks be acknowledged, and that flexibility be examined in more detail.