This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Webster and Williams report on the difficulties and frequent failures encountered when computer-aided production management (CAPM) systems, designed for large hierarchical American manufacturers, were implemented within the more informal, ad hoc managerial culture and practices of smaller British manufacturers (Webster and Williams, 1993). Fincham et al. (1994) identify similar problems in the transfer of packaged finance service sector administration systems from the USA to the UK where a lower and less formal division of labour prevailed. McLaughlin et al. discuss the transfer of a hospital management system from one national context to another and suggest that because the system was particular to its geographical birthplace it did not easily translate to new contexts (McLaughlin et al., 1999).
- 2.
It has been argued that by the late 1990 s most large companies had adopted the same or a similar ERP system (Muscatello et al., 2003). Moreover, these systems are now jumping the boundary from the private to the public sector and are moving into local authorities, hospitals, and universities, a move portrayed by many as also highly unlikely.
- 3.
Science and technology studies (STS) is the subdiscipline which grew out of the sociology of science. It has arguably been one of the most productive bodies of work for the study of the development, uptake, and use of technology and it has been extensively deployed to study information systems and software (see Walsham, 2001).
- 4.
While we do not know of any studies of technology that use this terminology (generification work, the process and attendant strategies of generification), Errington and Gewertz (2001) provide an interesting discussion of generification in terms of the local culture of indigenous peoples and how it is affected by other, more dominant forms of knowledge. We work up the notion of generification because we think it indicates a way of making sense of how software packages are developed and recycled, and also provides a counter to biases towards localization arguments within current STS.
- 5.
See also Hales (1994) for this view.
- 6.
In their comparative study of IT systems, to give just one compelling example, McLaughlin et al. (1999) deploy a commonplace vocabulary to highlight how users actively ‘appropriate’ (MacKay and Gillespie, 1992), ‘domesticate’ (Sorensen, 1996), or ‘work-around’ (Gasser, 1986) the shortcomings of newly arrived technologies.
- 7.
An exemplary instance of this kind of writing is Avgerou’s (2002) recent book.
- 8.
The concept of narrative bias invites us to reflect upon the repertoires of classic stories that particular schools of analysis often develop with characteristic contexts, problem diagnosis, dangers, and solutions (Williams et al., 2005). See also Woolgar and Cooper (1999) for a similar discussion of ‘iconic exemplars’ in STS.
- 9.
Thanks to Michael Lynch for framing this point in this way.
- 10.
We are grateful here to Jamie Fleck for bringing this set of arguments to our attention.
- 11.
We should also mention Timmermans and Berg’s (1997) work as they have suggested that artefacts can be both universal and local at the same time. Putting forward the notion of the ‘local universal’, they argue that universals do exist but they emerge together with the local. This is an important contribution. However, our interests are different in some respects. Their account is firmly on the side of work practice and the appropriation of a medical standard and how despite various ‘local circumventions’ and ‘repairs’ carried out by users of a particular protocol, the notion of ‘one’ standard still persists. Also, local universal is an analytical notion they invent to separate out the world of practice from the world of standards, and, then, to show how these worlds are reconciled with one another. Our concerns, in contrast, are with design practices and how actors themselves negotiate and establish the boundaries between what is particular and generic. And in this respect we view as sociologically interesting the way suppliers attempt to bring together and manage both of these aspects while building of a generic software package. Gieryn (1999) discusses a similar point in relation to the authority of science and how lay people understand what counts as good and bad science. It is important, he says, to focus on how actors perform this boundary work rather than privileging the analysts’ view.
- 12.
For a more detailed discussion of the ‘biography’ of a software package see Pollock et al. (2003).
- 13.
The material presented here stems from observations (by NP) of what are sometimes called ‘requirements prototyping’ sessions (meetings in which suppliers demonstrate early versions of systems and elicit feedback), and user group meetings at the suppliers’ premises. A number of semi-structured interviews and informal discussions were also conducted with supplier consultants, programmers, and users. Finally, one of the authors (NP) was commissioned to conduct a study on the suitability of launching PAMS abroad. Along with a co-researcher, Tasos Karadedos, NP met regularly with the management team to discuss strategies and potential markets. Material from this study is also presented here.
- 14.
This discussion of Accumulative Functionality is partially drawn from Karadedos (2003).
- 15.
Here we loosely draw on Woolgar’s (1996) notion that a technology ‘performs’ a community. He uses the term in conjunction with the ‘technology as text’ metaphor to show how readers arrive at a preferred form of use. He suggests that within the technology/text certain identities and positions are offered with which the user can choose to align.
- 16.
This was taken from an email exchange between one of the pilot sites and the supplier. The author was discussing the danger of design that was focused on individual sites and not the community.
- 17.
Indeed, the participants were becoming increasingly frustrated by the supplier’s attempts to understand each and every difference among all the universities present and to reconcile these with the needs of the others present. For the suppliers, such a process appeared to be useful, as they saw it as a means by which the module might become more generic and thus potentially applicable to the widest variety of higher education institutions.
- 18.
Knorr Cetina develops the notion of ‘management by content’ to describe how people are managed especially through the content of their work as opposed to management through organisational structure or hierarchy (Knorr Cetina, 1999, p. 172).
- 19.
We later found out during the final stages of drafting this paper that the South African University eventually decided not to implement Campus Management. Their reasons, and the continuing evolution of CM, are the subject of continuing research.
- 20.
There is an interesting issue here of how the universities were squeezed into existing software models that had nothing to do with higher education. We have explored this issue in Pollock and Cornford (2004).
- 21.
Usually changes to the source code provide suppliers with something of a dilemma. On the one hand, modifications developed by users are an important source of innovation and are often fed back into the generic package for use at other sites. On the other hand, such evolution can be disruptive and if things go wrong during such modifications, this often leads to disputes about where responsibility rests for sorting things out. See Pollock (2005) for a lengthy discussion of this issue in relation to the authorised and unauthorised customisations and ‘workarounds’ conducted on standardised computer systems.
- 22.
Interestingly, we also routinely witnessed how a user might shift from one classification to another. The very first adopter of PAMS, for instance, was in the process of moving from the centre to the periphery (and there was even talk that it was now becoming ‘transactional’).
- 23.
This diagram is a development of one found in Karadedos (2003). Permission to reproduce it has been granted.
- 24.
These are, of course, equivalences only in the realm of design and whether they emerge in the realm of practice will depend on other generification strategies.
- 25.
Indeed, the globalisation theorist Roland Robertson (1992, p. 102) has gone as far as to describe ‘contemporary globalisation’ as marked by a similar process or what he describes as the ‘…institutionalisation of the two-fold process involving the universalisation of particularism and the particularisation of universalisation’.
References
Avgerou, C. (2002).Information Systems and Diversity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bansler, J. and Havn, E. (1996). Industrialised Information Systems Development,CTI Working Paper No 22. Technical University of Denmark.
Berg, M. (1997).Rationalizing Medical Work: Decision-Support Techniques and Medical Practices. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Brady, T., Tierney, M. and Williams, R. (1992). The Commodification of Industry Applications Software,Industrial and Corporate Change, v. 3, n. 1, pp. 489–514.
Callon, M. (1986). The Sociology of an Actor-Network: The Case of the Electric Vehicle. In Michel Callon, John Law and Arie Rip (eds.),Mapping the Dynamics of Science and Technology. London: MacMillan, pp. 19–34.
Cambrosio, A. and Keating, P. (1995).Exquisite Specificity: The Monoclonal Antibody Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press.
Cooper, R. (1998). Assemblage Notes, in Robert Chia, (ed.),Organized Worlds: Explorations in Technology and Organization with Robert Cooper. London: Routledge, pp. 108–129.
Davenport, T. (2000).Mission Critical: Realising the Promise of Enterprise Systems. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
de Laet, M. and Mol, A. (2000). The Zimbabwe Bush Pump: Mechanics of a Fluid Technology,Social Studies of Science, v. 30, n. 2, pp. 225–263.
Epstein, S. (forthcoming) Institutionalizing the New Politics of Difference in U.S. Biomedical Research: Thinking across the Science/State/Society Divides. In Scott Frickel and Kelly Moore (eds.),The New Political Sociology of Science: Institutions, Networks and Power. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Errington, F. and Gewertz, D. (2001). On the Generification of Culture: From Blow Fish to Melanesian,The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, v. 7, n. 3, pp. 509–525.
Fincham, R., Fleck, J., Procter, R., Scarbrough, H., Tierney and Williams, R. (1994).Expertise and Innovation. Oxford: Claredon Press.
Friedman, A. and Cornford, D. (1989).Computer Systems Development: History, Organization and Implementation. Chichester: John Wiley.
Gasser, L. (1986). The Integration of Computing and Routine Work,ACM Transactions on Office Information Systems.v. 4, n. 3, pp. 205–225.
Gieryn, T. (1999).Cultural Boundaries of Science: Credibility on the Line. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Hales, M. (1994). Where Are Designers? Styles of Design Practice, Objects of Design and Views of Users in CSCW. In Duska Rosenberg & Chris Hutchinson (eds.),Design Issues in CSCW. London: Springer-Verlag, pp. 151–178.
Hanseth, O. and Braa, K. (2001). Hunting for the Treasure at the End of the Rainbow: Standardising Corporate IT Infrastructure,Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), v. 10, pp. 261–292.
Hartswood, M., Procter, R., Slack, R., Voss, A., Buscher, M., Rouncefield, M. and Rouchy, P. (2002). Towards a Principled Synthesis of Ethnomethodology and Participatory Design,Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems, v. 14, n. 2, pp. 9–30.
Karadedos, T. (2003) The Biography of a Software Package, Unpublished MSc Dissertation, University of Edinburgh.
Knorr Cetina, K. (1981). The Manufacture of Knowledge: An Essay on the Constructivist and Contextual Nature of Science, Oxford: Pergamon Press.
Knorr Cetina, K. (1999).Epistemic Cultures: How the Sciences Make Knowledge. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Knorr Cetina, K. and Amann, K. (1990). Image Dissection in Natural Scientific Enquiry,Science, Technology & Human Values. v. 15, n. 3, pp. 259–283.
Latour, B. (1987).Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Latour, B. (1999).Pandora’s Hope: Essays on the Reality of Science Studies. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
MacKay, H. and Gillespie, G. (1992). Extending the Social Shaping of Technology Approach: Ideology and Appropriation.Social Studies of Science, v. 22, pp. 685–716.
McLaughlin, J., Rosen, P., Skinner, D. and Webster, A. (1999).Valuing Technology: Organizations, Culture and Change. London: Routledge.
Michael, M. (2000).Reconnecting Culture, Technology and Nature. London: Routledge.
Muscatello, J., Small, M. and Chen, I. (2003). Implementing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Systems in Small and Midsize Manufacturing Firms,International Journal of Operations & Production Management, v. 23 n.7–8, pp. 850–866.
North Whitehead, A. (1967).Science and the Modern World New York: The Free Press.
O’Connell, Joseph (1993) Metrology: The Creation of Universality by the Circulation of Particulars,Social Studies of Science, v. 23, pp. 129–173.
Ophir, A. and Steven, S. (1991). The Place of Knowledge: A Methodological Survey,Science in Context, n. 4, pp 3–21.
Pollock, N. (2005). When is a Work-around? Conflict and Stuggle in Computer Systems Development,Science, Technology & Human Values, v. 30, n. 4, pp. 496–514.
Pollock, N. and Cornford, J. (2004). ERP Systems and the University as a “Unique Organization”,Information Technology & People, v. 17, n. 1, pp. 31–52.
Pollock, N., Williams, R. and Procter, R. (2003). Fitting Standard Software Packages to Non-Standard Organizations: The Biography of an Enterprise-wide System,Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, v. 15, n. 3, pp. 317–332.
Quintas, P. (1994). Programmed Innovation? Trajectories of Change in Software Development,Information Technology & People,v. 7, n. 1, pp. 25–47.
Ravetz, J. (1972).Scientific Knowledge and its Social Problems. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Robertson, R. (1992).Globalisation; Social Theory and Global Culture. London: Sage.
Rolland, K. and Monteiro, E. (2002). Balancing the Local and the Global in Infrastructural Information Systems,The Information Society, v. 18, n. 2, pp. 87–100.
Salzman, H. and Rosenthal, S. (1994).Software by Design: Shaping Technology and the Workplace. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sawyer, S. (2000). Packaged Software: Implications of the Differences from Custom Approaches to Software Development,European Journal of Information Systems, v. 9, pp. 47–58.
Sawyer, S. (2001). A Market-Based Perspective on Information Systems Development,Communications of the ACM, November, v. 44, n. 11, pp. 97–101.
Shapin, S. (1998) Placing the View From Nowhere: Historical and Sociological Problems in the Location of Science,Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, v. 23, n. 1, pp. 5–12.
Sorensen, K. (1996). Learning Technology, Constructing Culture: Socio-technical Change as Social Learning,STS Working Paper No18/96, Centre for Technology & Society, Trondheim, Norway.
Star, S.L. and Ruhleder, K. (1996). Steps Toward an Ecology of Infrastructure: Design and Access for Large Information Spaces,Information Systems Research, v. 7, n. 1, pp. 111–134.
Suchman, L. (1994). Working Relations of Technology Production and UseComputer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), v. 2, n. 30, pp. 21–39.
Timmermans, S. and Berg, M. (1997). Standardization in Action: Achieving Local Universality Through Medical Protocols,Social Studies of Science, v. 27, pp. 273–305.
Turnbull, D. (2000).Masons, Tricksters and Cartographers. London: Routledge.
Walsham, G. (2001).Making a World of Difference: IT in a Global Context Chicester. New York: Wiley.
Webster, J. and Williams, R. (1993). Mismatch and Tension: Standard Packages and Non-standard Users in Paul Quintas (ed.)Social Dimensions of Systems Engineering. Hemel Hempstead: Ellis Horwood, pp. 179–196.
Williams, R., Stewart, J. and Slack, R. (2005).Experimenting with Information and Communication Technologies: Social Learning in Technological Innovation. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Woolgar, S. (1996). Technologies as Cultural Artefacts, in William Dutton (ed.),Information & Communication Technologies: Visions & Realities. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 87–102.
Woolgar, S. and Cooper, G. (1999). Do Artefacts Have Ambivalence: Moses’ Bridges, Winner’s Bridges and Other Urban Legends in STS,Social Studies of Science.v. 29, n. 3, pp. 433–449.
Acknowledgements
We acknowledge the support of the UK Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC) who funded the research project (‘The Biography and Evolution of Standardised Software’) on which this paper was based. We warmly thank all those people at the software supplier organisations and the user communities who contributed to the paper in various ways. We acknowledge the contribution of Tasos Karadedos who accompanied us during interviews at Educational Systems. His assistance and final dissertation were very helpful in preparing this chapter. Also thanks to Jamie Fleck, Alex Voss, Christian Koch, Geoffrey Bowker, Barbera Czarniawska, Dave Stearns, Sampsa Hyysalo, Mei Wang, Christine Grimm, Wendy Faulkner, Michael Lynch, and the ‘Writing Circle’ at Edinburgh University, who all provided useful comments and suggestions on early drafts.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2009 Springer-Verlag London Limited
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Pollock, N., Williams, R. (2009). Global Software and its Provenance: Generification Work in the Production of Organisational Software Packages. In: Büscher, M., Slack, R., Rouncefield, M., Procter, R., Hartswood, M., Voss, A. (eds) Configuring User-Designer Relations. Computer Supported Cooperative Work. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84628-925-5_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84628-925-5_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-84628-924-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-84628-925-5
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)