Digital assemblages: evidence and theorising from the computerisation of the US residential real estate industry

• Author: Steve Sawyer,Kevin Crowston,Rolf T. Wigand
• Date: 01 March 2014
• Published date: 01 March 2014
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ntwe.12020

Digital assemblages: evidence and theorising

from the computerisation of the US

residential real estate industry

Steve Sawyer, Kevin Crowston and Rolf T. Wigand

We develop the concept of digital assemblages in order to

advance current theorising on the ways in which information

and communication technologies (ICTs) are helping to reshape

work. The empirical setting is the US residential real estate

industry—a ‘living laboratory’ for studying information-

intensive work and the adoption and uses of ICT. We find that

real estate agents’ uses of ICT are pervasive and suggest that

agents now embed themselves more deeply into the transacting

of real estate by actively supporting buyers and sellers, rather

than acting primarily as information intermediaries. Building

from this, we theorise that this ICT use can more coherently

be understood as a ‘digital assemblage’ rather than a formal

information system. Digital assemblages are characterised as

distinct patterns of ICT collections that, in use, are function-

ally equivalent and structurally similar, relying on standard-

ised and commodified ICT and are neither formally designed

nor collectively governed.

Keywords: work, computerisation, ICT, field study, digital

assemblages, real estate.

Introduction

The contribution of this paper is to theorise on the roles information and communica-

tion technologies (ICT) play in reshaping work arrangements and, specifically, to

advance the concept of a digital assemblage as a lens for this analysis. Most punditry and

much scholarship characterise the use of ICT for work as a function of economic

Steve Sawyer (ssawyer@syr.edu) is a professor in the School of Information Studies at Syracuse

University.His research focuses on uses of information and communication technologies and changing

forms of work and organizing. Kevin Crowston (crowston@syr.edu) is a program director in the

Division of Information and Intelligent Systems of the Computer and Information Science and Engi-

neering Directorate, United States National Science Foundation and Distinguished Professor in the

School of Information Studies at Syracuse University. His research interests are directed at how new

information and communicationtechnologies enable new ways of working. Rolf T.Wigand (rtwigand@

ualr.edu) is the Maulden-Entergy chair and distinguished professor of Information Science and Man-

agement in the Departments of Information Science and Management of the Donaghey College of

Engineering and Information Technology at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. His research

interests are information management,electronic commerce, the development of IT standards, and the

strategic deployment of information and communication technology.

New Technology, Work and Employment 29:1

ISSN 0268-1072

© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd40 New Technology, Work and Employment

rationality. For example, digital infrastructures are often portrayed as supporting

rationalised and ‘frictionless’ markets in which ICT reduce the costs of transactions

(e.g. Bakos et al., 2005; Hahn et al., 2005). In contrast, like many other scholars of work,

we see digital infrastructures as neither frictionless nor entirely rational (e.g.

MacKenzie, 1992; Hanseth et al., 1996; Lie, 1997; Swedberg and Granovetter, 2001;

Dawson and Gunson, 2002; Miozzo and Ramirez, 2003; Kane and Alavi, 2008; Pinch

and Swedberg, 2008; Baksky et al., 2010; Hanseth, 2010; Baldry, 2011). Rather, digital

infrastructures rely on and must provide for the social activity through which eco-

nomic activity arises (e.g. Bar, 2001; Dutton, 2005; Pinch and Swedberg, 2008). Social

activities are needed to overcome the friction of incompatible systems, computing

breakdowns and contrasts between action and understanding that define human and

machine interaction (e.g. Wigand et al., 2005; Suchman, 2007).

To advance current theorising about ICT’s roles in reshaping work arrangements,

this work draws on data from a study of the US residential real estateindustry—which

serves here as a ‘living laboratory’ for studying information-intensive industries. Real

estate has always relied on information about properties and potential clients to create

sales. Real estate agents’ work is based almost exclusively on competition for, and

value-adding uses of data and information, much of which is now digital (National

Association of Realtors, 2009). And ICT’s roles and uses have expanded over time. For

example, in 1995, when the study began, less than 2 per cent of agents, home sellers,

and buyers accessed the Internet for information about real estateand agents were just

beginning to use mobile phones. By 2009, agents’ smart phone use was essentially

ubiquitous; nearly 98 per cent of agents were using additional forms of ICT; and more

than 90 per cent of all purchases began with prospective buyers looking for available

houses by using one of the many house-listing sites available via the Internet (National

Association of Realtors, 2009).

Given the centrality of information to the industry and work of agents, a common

assumption is that agents serve primarilyas information intermediaries (Benjamin and

Wigand, 1995; U.S. Department of Justice, 2009). Based on this assumption, an eco-

nomic analysis of the role of ICT in reshaping work arrangements concludes that ICT

will enable a shift from human intermediaries to ICT-based intermediaries, reducing

the cost of a transaction by lowering costs of information search for buyers and sellers

(e.g. Nadel, 2006). As an aside, such a thin understanding of agents’ work has lead

many pundits and some scholars to see the sharing of information about houses for

sale as a possibly monopolistic activity (e.g. Baen and Guttery, 1997; Muhanna and

Wolf, 2002; Hahn et al., 2005; Kummerow and Lun, 2005).

Evidence of the hypothesised monopoly is hard to find, but evidence about the

hypothesised shift in sources of information abounds. Homes-for-sale listings are now

accessible online via the Internet from a number of sites, and buyers and sellers havefar

greater access to the listing data. As noted, more than 90 per cent of all purchasesbegin

with online searches.

Moreover, the predicted changes to the work arrangements have not been

observed empirically. Instead of disappearing, the number of US real estate agents is

greater today than in 1995, even following several years of substantial sales declines

since the 2006 economic downturn (National Association of Realtors, 2009). The per-

centage of sales made directly by owners without the use of agents (known as ‘for

sale by owner’ or ‘FSBO’) has not changed appreciably in this time period (ranging

from 11 to 14 per cent of all transactions, Hawker, 2006). Despite concerns about the

‘market friction’ of agents, residential real estate has appreciated overall since the

mid-1990s: In 2013, 4.90 million existing homes were sold, up from 1.8 million in

1996. Over this same time, the average house price is up 23 per cent, from $160,000

to $196,000 [but down from the 2005 average of $222,500 (National Association

of Realtors, 2013a)]. The downturn in US home prices from 2006 through 2013 is

being attributed to speculative mortgage brokering, not the costs of real estate agents

(Rugh and Massey, 2010). This evidence suggests the reshaping of work arrange-

ments due to the presence and uses of ICT cannot be analysed simply as economic

disintermediation.

© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Digital assemblages 41