Exploring the rhythms of Information Infrastructure Coordination for Smart Cities: the Case of Building a Mobility Infrastructure in Berlin

This paper investigates how the coordination of information infrastructures (II) emerges as a result of the dialectic between social and material agencies, whose interactions are tempered by both the objective and subjective flows of time. Drawing upon the theory of the Trichordal Theory of Coordination (Venters et al. 2014), the study explores the process of coordinating the development of particular forms of II associated with Smart Cities. It redirects this theory to the study of strategic niches by including socially constructed temporal rhythms that frame organizational practice (Jackson et al. 2011; Orlikowski & Yates 2002). We show that the development of II projects, such as those undertaken in the creation of smart cities, can be understood through interacting social and material agencies that are embedded in multidimensional temporality. The paper draws upon an in-depth study of the BeMobility project, in which a strategic niche had been created to prototype a sustainable mobility infrastructure in Berlin. The goal of the project was to demonstrate a future in which Berlin will have a multi-modal transport system dominated by electric car-sharing, which is fully integrated into the public transport system. The paper contributes to research on cooperative work in multi-stakeholder II projects for smart cities.