14704: Professionals Engaging in Toolmaking for Social Change (session 26422)

We explore how professionals pursue social change in their field of work by following a group of healthcare professionals advocating for ‘green operating rooms’ over the course of six years. A key element of the change effort of these ‘internal social change agents' has been the development of a tool for promoting and legitimizing change through measuring sustainability performance: a so-called ‘barometer’. Based on observations of meetings and events and interviews, we analyze the processes through which the actors developing this tool framed its function and explain how these may relate to their pursuit of social change. Our findings bear implications for understanding how change driven by internal change agents may emerge and demonstrate the revelatory potential of studying toolmaking as a generative and strategic socio-material practice in which change agents within and across organizations may engage.

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