Cooperative Work and Coordinative Practices (eBook)

Preface 6
Acknowledgments 9
Contents 11
Part I Progress Report 12
1 Cooperative Work and Coordinative Practices 13
1 The Road to CSCW 14
2 The Concept of Cooperative Work: The Mundane Case of Moving 17
3 Strategic Distinctions 20
4 Coordinative Practices: From 'Coordination Mechanisms' to 'Ordering Systems' 24
4.1 Coordination Mechanisms in Practice 25
4.2 Understanding Computational Coordination Mechanisms 26
4.3 Coordination Mechanisms Reconsidered 27
4.4 Ordering Systems 31
5 CSCW's Radical Program 33
6 For Lack of a Conclusion 36
Part II Surveying the Connections 38
2 Riding a Tiger, or Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (1991) 39
1 The Emergent Nature of Cooperative Work 39
2 The Dialectics of Cooperative Work 42
3 The Precarious Use of Models in CSCW 46
3 Taking CSCW Seriously: Supporting Articulation Work (1992) 53
1 Some Background 54
2 A Conceptualization of CSCW 55
2.1 The Approach of CSCW: Computer Support 56
2.2 The Scope of CSCW: Cooperative Work 58
2.2.1 The Nature of Cooperative Work 58
2.2.2 The Rich Diversity of Cooperative Work 60
2.2.3 Articulation Work 63
2.3 Why CSCW Now? 65
3 Supporting Articulation Work 67
3.1 Supporting the Management of Workflows 67
3.2 Supporting the Management of a Common Information Space 71
3.2.1 The Role of Interpretation Work 71
3.2.2 The Distributed Nature of Cooperative Work 75
4 Conclusion 79
4 The Organization of Cooperative Work (1994) 80
Beyond the ‘Leviathan’ Conception of the Organizationof CooperativeWork 80
1 The Problem 80
2 The 'Leviathan' Approach to Organizational Theory 83
2.1 Commons 83
2.2 Coase 84
2.3 Williamson 86
3 Critique of the 'Leviathan' Approach 87
4 Beyond the 'Leviathan' Approach 90
4.1 Perspectives of a 'Cooperative Work' Approach to Organizational Theory 90
4.1.1 Cooperative Work Arrangement 91
4.1.2 Work Organization 94
4.1.3 Formal Organization 95
4.1.4 Firm, Network… 96
5 Conclusions 97
5 Coordination Mechanisms (1996) 99
Towards a Conceptual Foundation of CSCW SystemsDesign 99
1 The Issue of Articulation Work 100
2 The Complexity of Articulation Work 102
3 Coordination Mechanisms: Evidence and Concept 106
3.1 Coordination Mechanisms: The Protocol 109
3.2 Coordination Mechanisms: The Artifact 119
3.3 Coordination Mechanisms: Alignment 123
4 Computational Coordination Mechanisms 125
4.1 Malleability 127
4.2 Linkability 129
5 In lieu of a Conclusion: The Ariadne Notation 131
6 Of Maps and Scripts (1997) 138
The Status of Formal Constructs in Cooperative Work 138
1 Determining the Meaning of Formal Constructs 140
2 The Problem of Generalization 142
3 Maps and Scripts 146
4 The Crucial Role of Artifacts 151
5 Conclusions 153
7 The Critical Role of Workplace Studies in CSCW (2000) 154
8 The Problem with 'Awareness' (2002) 162
9 Remarks on the Complexity of Cooperative Work (2002) 172
1 The Puzzle of 'Cooperative Work' 172
2 Taking Serious Work Seriously 174
3 The Problematic Concept of Complexity 178
4 A Systemic Conception of Cooperative Work 186
5 The Complexities of the Common Field of Work 190
6 The Complexities of the Cooperative Work Arrangement 192
7 The Complexities of Articulation Work 197
10 Ordering Systems (2004) 205
Coordinative Practices and Artifacts in ArchitecturalDesign and Planning 205
1 Introduction 205
2 The Complexity of Architectural Work 209
3 A Plethora of Representational Artifacts 211
3.1 Conceptual Visualizations 213
3.2 The System of CAD Plans and Drawings 216
3.3 And so on… 218
3.4 Representational Artifacts as Objectifications 218
3.5 Notations: Standard and ad hoc 220
4 Coordinative Practices and Artifacts 222
4.1 Plan Identification 223
4.2 The Plan Identification Code and Circulation List 225
4.3 The CAD Layer Organization 228
4.4 The Component Catalogue 231
4.5 The Detail Drawings: The Identification Code and List 232
4.6 The Binder System 235
5 The Clustering of Coordinative Practices 236
6 Interlude: The Specificity of Coordinative Practices 240
6.1 The Intellectualist Legend 240
6.2 Practices of Categorization and Classification 244
6.3 Technologies of The Intellect 247
6.4 'Crude Written Techniques' As Members' Practices 249
7 The Economy of Ordering Systems 251
8 The Challenge of Ordering Systems For CSCW 254
Part III CSCW Reconsidered 256
11 Formation and Fragmentation 257
1 Cornerstones: The Concepts of 'Practice' and 'Technology' 260
2 Computing Technologies and Cooperative Work 276
2.1 Division of Labor: Progressive Forms of Work Organization 277
2.2 Machinery: The Issue of the Control Function 288
2.3 The Universal Control System: The Stored-Program Computer 298
2.4 Origins of Computing Technologies in Cooperative Work 302
2.4.1 Division of 'Mental Labor' 302
2.4.2 Mechanization of 'Mental Labor' 309
2.5 Facilitation of Cooperative Work: Real-Time Computing 314
2.5.1 Project Whirlwind 314
2.5.2 The Whirlwind Legacy 320
2.5.3 Interactive Computing 323
2.5.4 The Arrested Growth of Interactive Computing 325
2.5.5 Interactive Computing and the Cybernetic Notion of 'Human-Computer System' 331
2.6 Facilitation of Articulation Work: Computer-Mediated Communications 332
3 The Formation of CSCW 336
3.1 Proto-CSCW: 'Computer-Mediated Communications' 337
3.2 The Crisis of the Message-Handling Paradigm 341
3.3 Automation of Articulation Work: 'Office Automation' 343
3.4 The CSCW Research Program 345
3.5 Technology and Ethnography: An 'Odd Mix'? 348
4 Accomplishments and Shortcomings 350
4.1 Ethnography and Technology: A 'Big Discrepancy'? 351
4.2 The Case of 'Awareness Engines' 353
4.3 Logics of Fragmentation 358
12 Frail Foundations 360
1 Suchman vs. Cognitivism 361
1.1 Suchman's Strategy 364
1.2 Counter-Cognitivism 367
1.3 Transcendental Judgments 369
1.4 Regularity and Normativity 372
2 Work and Interpretation Work 377
2.1 Garfinkel (Mis)interpreted 378
2.2 Sources of the Interpretation Myth in Sociology 382
3 The Consequences of Counter-Cognitivism 384
4 The Problem of Computational Artifacts 388
13 Dispelling the Mythology of Computational Artifacts 391
1 Computational Artifacts, or Wittgenstein vs. Turing 393
1.1 Foundations Lost 393
1.2 Turing's Ambiguous Machine 400
1.3 Conceptions of the 'Mechanical' 402
2 Room for CSCW 409
3 The Practical Inexorability of CSCW 411
References 414
Index 457