Mechanisms, Interactional Fields and Functional Kinds of Explaining Organizational Change

An interest in interaction stems form an underlying interest in how things happen. This represents a move from a classical perspective focusing on discrete exchange to the links, actions, and bonds – that acts, processes and location of change and development in interconnected relationships and business networks or markets. This requires a processual or relational approach to understanding in contrast to a substantialist or variables-based approach. The paper suggests that one way of advancing our understanding of interaction is to consider the sites of interaction. That is the interactional field where actors act and interact with other actors and entities as well as the broader environment; where resources are exchanged, imported or exported; where change is instigated and transferred across time and space. We suggest interactional fields are the sites of plasticity where change actually takes place. To understand the causal structure and processes taking place interactional field we draw on the concept of natural and social kinds. We discuss how interactional fields are located in time and space, which influence and are influenced by the trajectories of change and development.