Are Design Networks shaped by their own outcomes? Coordination processes between actors and artefacts

This paper sets the basis for a research project focused on collaborative social network’s genesis and
dynamics. It introduces a research framework for the empirical investigation of a network focused on
the design of a shared artefact, the so-called "Web services Architecture". Our hypothesis is that
network artefact’s characteristics, seen as the final outcome of a collaborative process, influence and
drive the genesis and the structure of the social network that is designing it. We embraced this view in
order to avoid a limitation of the traditional perspectives that consider the network structure as
exogenous and stable. We consider the reciprocal influence between the artefact and the social network
structure, with a phase in which the desired artefact may shape the network genesis and a phase in
which the emergent network’s structure may drive the artefact design.