European Journal of Information Systems (2006) 15, 307–319 & 2006 Operational Research Society Ltd. All rights reserved 0960-085X/06 $30.00 www.palgrave-journals.com/ejis
The dynamics of control and mobile computing in distributed activities Gamel O. Wiredu1 and Carsten Sørensen2 1 Interaction Design Centre, Department of Computer Science and Information Systems, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland; 2 Department of Information Systems, The London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London, U.K.
Correspondence: Gamel O. Wiredu, Interaction Design Centre, Department of Computer Science and Information Systems, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland. E-mail:
[email protected]
Abstract Mobile technologies are increasingly finding a place in a multitude of organisational settings. As they are intimately associated with the individuals carrying them, they can potentially play a significant role in the remote control of activities. The aim of this paper is to analyse how the balance of control between local and remote authorities shapes the use of mobile technology in a distributed activity. Based on 1-year action research study of work-integrated learning within a British National Health Service (NHS) project, we discuss the use of mobile technology as a function of control and human mobility. The aim of the project was to pilot the establishment of a new NHS profession, the Perioperative Specialist Practitioner (PSP). The article explores how the contradicting goals of the London-based project management team and of the everyday activities of the surgical teams across Great Britain hosting the PSP trainees critically shaped the unsuccessful use of mobile technology in the project. Based on a theoretical analysis using Activity Theory we outline four analytical categories of local-remote control configurations; (1) territorial dispute; (2) strong local control; (3) strong remote control; and (4) shared harmonious control. We apply these in a discussion of how the use of mobile technology is shaped by contradicting or harmonious motives between object and advanced activities. European Journal of Information Systems (2006) 15, 307–319. doi:10.1057/palgrave.ejis.3000577 Keywords: mobile technology use; remote work-integrated learning; activity theory; control of remote activity
Introduction
Received: 21 August 2005 Revised: 22 September 2005 Accepted: 30 September 2005
One of the dominant characteristics of modern societies since the invention of the telegraph and the introduction of scientific management at the turn of the previous Century is the increase in mediated interaction and in remote control of activities through technological means (Yates, 1989; Standage, 1998; Kallinikos, 2004). The limits of mediated interaction in general and the extent to which actions can be stipulated in particular has been the subject of much research and debate (Suchman, 1987; Winograd, 1994; Schmidt, 1999; Olson & Olson, 2000). The substantial area of inquiry into remote collaboration has been the subject of a range of research strands over the years, and some of the main issues have elegantly been summarised by Olson & Olson (2000) in the paper ‘Distance Matters’. In their critique of Cairncross’s ‘The Death of Distance’ (1997), they rightly argue that indeed distance does matter, it ‘is not only alive and well, it is in several essential respects immortal’ (Olson & Olson, 2000, p. 141). Remote activities engender problems that directly confront individuals engaged in these activities, such as ensuring the appropriate means of negotiating mutual interdependencies; the articulation of tasks and necessary
308
The dynamics of control and mobile computing
information for the tasks; issues related to conflicting goals and motives; and the exercise of remote control over activities. The emergence of mobile technology intimately linking the individual with sources of information, interaction and control emphasises these issues further through the individualisation of the technology. We can assume that each of these issues will shape the process of implementing specific technologies supporting distributed activities, and that the particular technologies sought and implemented in turn will shape the specific manifestation of these aspects. In particular, the application of mobile technology such as Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), mobile phones and notebook computers can be assumed to affect and be affected by issues of conflicting goals and motives between remote and local authorities. Lyytinen & Yoo (2002) summarise the research challenges implied by the emerging socio-technical phenomenon of mobile technology use and argue that there is a need for research investigating the divide between the social and the technical. An emerging body of research explores the social and organisational aspects of mobile technology use (see e.g. Katz & Aakhus, 2002; Rheingold, 2002; Ling, 2004; Hamill & Lasen, 2005). However, the great majority of this research emphasises general social impact and in particular favour the study of everyday use of mobile technologies as opposed to these technologies in a work or learning setting. Sources such as Dix & Beale (1996), Brown et al. (2001 p. 525), and S rensen et al. (2005 p. 518) go some way as to alleviate this. Specific contributions have studied mobile technologies in relation to knowledge management (Fagrell, 2000; Wiberg, 2001), work patterns (Kakihara & S rensen, 2002; S rensen & Pica, 2005), and collaboration (Dix & Beale, 1996; Luff & Heath, 1998; Wiberg & Ljungberg, 2001). Wiberg & Ljungberg (2001), for example, critique Kleinrock’s (1996) ‘anytime anywhere’ hypothesis of mobile computing. Distinguishing between four configurations of the elements anytime, anywhere, sometime and somewhere they conclude that computing may indeed occur anytime, anywhere but not necessarily ‘everytime everywhere’. Although their conclusion related to computing, their arguments were founded on remote interactions with mobile technology. In other words, their arguments only provided superficial expositions of computing in ‘different places’, similar to many other publications on mobile technology. Pica & Kakihara (2003) argue further that the notion of fluid interaction (anytime anywhere) is a technologically informed perspective that neglects the social foundation of interaction in terms of not mobility but stability. In short, they argue that mobile technologies cannot be understood sufficiently through the mirage of technological promises but must be analysed in the social context of ontological security. So far little research has explored the dynamics between remote and local authorities attempting to exercise control through the use of mobile technologies
European Journal of Information Systems
Gamel O. Wiredu and Carsten S rensen
serving as instruments of monitoring and control. The aim of this paper is therefore to analyse how the influence and control engendered by conflicting local and remote motives establishes the formative context for the use of mobile technology. It is our basic assumption that a combination of remote and local supervision, control and management of activities potentially will be conducted in a context of role conflict between various local and remote authorities. We consider this issue in the context of a 1-year action research study of work-integrated learning, that is, training performed primarily in the context of the workplace, in a British National Health Service (NHS) project. Here a group of 12 nurses and operating room technicians spent 1 year combining training at their workplace around United Kingdom with eight formal 1week training sessions in London in order to emerge as Perioperative Specialist Practitioners (PSPs). The analysis of the empirical results is based on the theoretical principles of contradictory motives drawn from Activity ¨ m, 1987). We chose Activity Theory as Theory (Engestro the primary analytical framework as it is specifically emphasising learning as an integral aspect of work – our primary empirical domain of inquiry. Activity Theory also provides an explicit framework for conceptualising relationships between the individual engaging in learning activities in a collective setting. Lastly, Activity Theory provides essential explanations linking learning activities to the use of tools. It was the explicit aim of the PSP project to establish a new medical profession within the NHS, and thus contribute to address the issue of doctors’ working hours exceeding the regulated limits. The project management team in London made persistent attempts to integrate the use of PDAs in the localised work-integrated learning in order to ensure documentation of both the specific learning process and to facilitate the capture of student reflections. These efforts failed primarily as a result of conflicting goals between the remote and the local authorities. Here, the local team of medical professionals focused on the job at hand, that is, the primary object activity of attending to patients. The London-based project management team was in addition focused on establishing remote influence and accountability of the second-order activity, or culturally advanced in Activity Theory terms, of PSP trainees documenting and reflecting upon the learning process. This control was sought through PDA applications inscribing desired learner behaviour. As the primary theoretical result of this analysis we propose four possible dimensions of control expressed in terms of the degrees of conflict between object and advanced activities, combined with the extent to which either local or remote authorities represents the dominant force. We argue that the four types of: (1) territorial dispute; (2) strong local control; (3) strong remote control; and (4) shared harmonious control can form a conceptual foundation for understanding the formative
The dynamics of control and mobile computing
context for the use of mobile technologies as a means of a remote authority exercising control. In the following section, we present the theoretical foundation for our arguments in terms of Activity Theory and theories characterising control in organisational contexts. The section on The case of an emerging health profession presents the PSP project, briefly discusses our data collection approach, and outlines the PDA technology sought and implemented. Next section presents an analysis of the inherent contradictions of motives between immediate and distant authorities in the case. The subsequent section discusses the relationship between these contradictions and strength of technology inscriptions leading to the proposition of four analytical categories characterising motives and degree of control in the activities. We discuss the implications of these control configurations on the use of mobile technology in distributed activities. Finally we conclude by drawing out the implications of our analysis and results.
Theory of activity and control The theory of activity (Vygotsky, 1962, 1978; Leont’ev, ¨ m, 1987) is a ‘philosophical and cross1978; Engestro disciplinary framework for studying different forms of human practices as development processes, with both individual and social levels interlinked at the same time’ (Kuutti, 1995). Waycott (2005) demonstrates the usefulness of this theory in her study of the use of PDAs in two organisations and focuses on the mutual shaping between tool and activity. It provides a comprehensive framework for a careful analysis of the use of a mobile technology in a rich organisational context. In this respect the theory of activity can support the proper acknowledgement of the context of mobile technology use beyond a simplistic ‘container’ view of the organisational context (Henfridsson, 1998). Activity Theory, furthermore specifically emphasises learning as an integral aspect of work – our primary empirical domain of inquiry. It also provides an explicit framework for conceptualising relationships between the individual engaging in learning activities in a collective setting. Lastly, Activity Theory provides essential explanations linking learning activities to the use of tools. Waycott’s study illustrates very well the strengths of Activity Theory as an explanatory framework for understanding the use of PDA technology in an organisational context. However, in her study, issues of control in remotely distributed activities are absent from the analysis as she neither considers contradictory motives between local and remote settings, nor contradictions between object and advanced activity systems (we will discuss this distinction below).
The activity system According to Activity Theory, any conscious human activity can be characterised in terms of a subject pursuing an object with some motive to transform the subject and object into an outcome, a product (see Figure 1). It is the
309
Gamel O. Wiredu and Carsten S rensen
Tools
Transformation Subject
Rules
Figure 1
Object
Community
Outcome
Division of Labour
The activity system (Source: Engestro¨m, 1987).
transformation of the object into an outcome that defines the motive behind an activity. An activity is deemed more complex if the individual subject engages in collaboration with others. An activity is constituted by goal-oriented actions. In a collective activity, different ¨ m’s subjects may perform individual activities. Engestro (1987) activity system incorporates the community-based elements of human activity (see Figure 1). He draws in his theory of Expansive Learning on Marx’s (1909, 1976) and Zinchenko’s (1983) knowledge of the economics of human labour to remodel the subject–tool–object structure to reflect the collective nature of an activity, and hence the social nature of human ontogenesis (development of the individual) and phylogenesis (development of the group). In this system, the relationship between the subject and the object are mediated by tools in addition to interactions with community members and the rules governing the division of labour among community members. This suggests that all the elements of the structure are interconnected and that they shape each other based on a transition from human adaptation to consumption. The inter-relations of elements of the activity system are useful for describing and analysing the inter-related parts of any human activity. Leont’ev (1978) addressed the issue of context within changing ¨ m’s triangles take care of conditions of an activity. Engestro the external context or environment of an activity and he, for example, focuses his argument more on contradictions within an activity and between an activity and ¨ m, 1987). it’s ‘neighbour activities’ (Engestro
Activities and contradictions An activity is inherently considered as dynamic since outcomes are characterised in terms of their dual individual and social existence in the consciousness of the performing subject. The dualistic property of an object pulls the subject from opposite sides and causes him or her to remain ever dynamic in terms of the sensemaking of his or her goal-oriented actions. Herein lays the contradictoriness in the activity of the subject. The dialectic in the consciousness of the subject is constituted by the independence of individualistic, personal production on the one hand, and the subordination to social, collective production on the other.
European Journal of Information Systems
310
The dynamics of control and mobile computing
This fundamental contradiction in activity is traceable to the analysis of the ‘division of labour in society’ by Marx in Capital (1909). Marx’s conceptualisations are richly expressed in the origins of division of labour in human activities, which were oriented towards production of products, and subsequently, the intrinsic transformation of products into commodities. Initially, there was a natural division of labour as a product of familial, tribal or communal bonds shaped by differences in physiological factors such as age and gender. This was the first stage of subjugation of the individual by social forces. Subsequently, division of labour emerged as a result of differences between communities, tribes or families in terms of environment, means of production, subsistence, modes of living, and products. At the interface of two communities, ‘it is the spontaneously developed differences whichycalls forth the mutual exchange of products, and the consequent gradual conversion of those products into commodities’ (Marx, 1909). Interdependencies between societies are thus created through commoditisation of products and their exchange; and thus products assume an objectified social character. The essence of this analysis of the division of labour is the exposition of the contradiction inherent in the nature of the product of activity – product as product vs product as commodity. As a product, it has a primary use value, that is, valuable in its utility to the producer. As a commodity, it acquires a social exchange value in addition to its primary use value. These values co-exist in the consciousness of the subject ¨m as personal sense and objective meaning. To Engestro (1987), ‘the essential contradiction is the mutual exclusion and simultaneous mutual dependency of use value and exchange value in each commodity’. This analogy of the contradictory nature of products of activity is a telling revelation of the sociality of ‘individual’ activities. There is always some form of contradiction within an activity system expressed as a reflection of an inner conflict between outcome-as-utility (use value, product) and outcome-as-value (exchange value, commodity) in the subject’s perception. Contradictions constitute one form of conditions that shape an activity; these contradictory motives, which are mental, translate into conflict between different roles during the performance of the actions constituting an activity, as well as into the attempts to exercise control over, for example division of labour, use of tools and adherence to rules.
Table 1
Gamel O. Wiredu and Carsten S rensen
In the following, we will in particular consider the issue of control in organisational contexts as the issue of remote and local control in the performance of collective activity is the core concern in this paper.
Control Control is one of the key aspects of work and its organisation. This pervasive phenomenon manifests itself within organisations overtly or covertly, concealed or revealed, strong or weak, and, in terms of distributed work, remote or local. Numerous researchers have defined and redefined control as an organising function into various forms. Ouchi & Maguire (1975), for example, adopt behaviour and output as the two broad independent strands of control. Ouchi (1979) views control in terms of transaction costs and as a contingency matrix of market, bureaucracy and clan mechanisms interacting with social and informational prerequisites. Foucault’s (1980) and Etzioni’s (1965) interpretations of control point to an inseparability of control and power. Nidumolu & Subramani (2003) provide a comprehensive conceptualisation of control drawing upon both Ouchi and Maguire’s behaviour and output control model, classifying it as a process approach, and combining it with their own structure approach – standardisation of methods and decentralisation of authority. This results in a matrix of control (see Table 1). The combination of behaviour or actions control and standardisation, for example, results in the standardisation of methods that workers must follow in the execution of their tasks. Alternatively, the combination of outcome control and standardisation leads to the standardisation of performance criteria. Technology signifies representations of standardisations as is luridly conceptualised by Latour (1991) in his dictum ‘technology is society made durable.’ The expositions of sociologists of technology (e.g., Wartofsky, 1979; Zuboff, 1988; Bijker & Law, 1992; Winner, 1993; Kallinikos, 2005) clearly confirm the crystallisation, reification and standardisation of organising functions (e.g. control) into technology artefacts. Thus, actions and outcome-controlling intentions of organisational authorities can be inscribed into technology (Hanseth & Monteiro, 1997; Kallinikos, 2004, 2005) and, hence, the perception of technological artefacts is not merely a function of their static or structural representations; on the contrary perception
Matrix of control depicting outcomes of the combination of process and structure approaches
Structure approach
Centrally devised standards (standardisation) Delegation of authority for decision-making (decentralisation) Adapted from (Nidumolu & Subramani, 2003).
European Journal of Information Systems
Process approach Methods (actions control)
Performance criteria (outcome control)
Standardisation of methods (construction of coordination mechanisms) Decentralisation of methods
Standardisation of performance criteria Decentralisation of performance criteria
The dynamics of control and mobile computing
includes their information services (Mathiassen & S rensen, 2002) or functional representations (Wartofsky, 1973). Actions control is typically achieved through the construction of coordination mechanisms (Carstensen & S rensen, 1996; Schmidt & Simone, 1996); and in this regard, the technology assigned for actions control essentially and effectively becomes a computational coordination mechanism that consists of the raw artefact and inscribed protocols. For example, workers’ actions can be controlled by coercing them to document, process and transmit certain volumes of information pertaining to their non-computational tasks with technology. It is then possible to witness a scenario in which computing actions, imbued with the teleology of action control, are themselves forms of action that are subject to action control. Alternatively, organisational authorities can achieve outcome control through these same processes by reorienting the computational coordination protocols: in this instance, the outcome of workers’ actions can be controlled by setting that volume of information documented, processed and transmitted with the technology as performance criteria. We therefore understand technology in general and mobile technology in particular as potential controlling devices or computational coordination mechanisms that can be applied by organisational authorities to control action. Where distributed and mobile work is mediated by mobile technologies, and where remote control and coordination by central authorities are inevitable, we can expect particular interesting inter-relations between control, mobile work, and the use of mobile technology.
The case of an emerging health profession The following section will present our 1-year study of a work-integrated learning project within the NHS aimed at establishing a new professional role. After a presentation of the context, we describe the data collection method applied in the research, and the technological support for remote control and management of local work-integrated learning through PDAs.
The emergence of a new NHS profession In January 2003, there were many categories of professionals in Great Britain who exceeded the shift in legislation from a maximum of 72 to the 58 working hours per week stipulated by the European Union Working Time Directive (EUWTD). Junior doctors in the NHS were one such group of professionals whose average of 72 h per week of work had to be reduced to conform to this directive. The directive stipulated, among others, that junior doctors should not work for more than an average of 58 h per week, and it has been in full force since August 2004. Since the production of junior doctors in U.K. was suffering at the time, and even training of many more of them would take more than a few years to complete, pressure was mounting on the NHS to fill the impending person–hour deficit. As a
Gamel O. Wiredu and Carsten S rensen
311
measure to tackle this looming crisis, the NHS Changing Workforce Programme at the Department of Health (DoH) established 19 pilot projects to address the mandatory reduction in the workload of junior doctors to 58 h a week by August 2004. One of these projects, the PSP pilot project, was aimed at introducing a new professional role to expand hospital surgical teams by providing patients with integrated care before and after an operation. PSPs would take over some of the functions previously performed by junior doctors. The goal of integrated care was to provide patients with a stable relationship by being affiliated with a single PSP throughout their stay in hospital, rather than a fragmented series of contacts with different healthcare workers. The role was also aimed specifically at perioperative management for elective and emergency surgical care including a range of diagnostic and procedural skills. PSPs would assume many of the diagnostic and procedural responsibilities carried out by junior doctors. The role encompassed many of the responsibilities traditionally carried out by Pre-registration House Officers (PRHOs) and Senior House Officers (SHOs) at the time. It was expected that the new role would introduce operational flexibility to provide a constructive response to the EUWTD coupled with significant improvements in the educational component of the SHO post. The pilot training project took an activity-oriented approach driven by clinical needs and underpinned by accountable assessment of competence. These included pre-operative clinical assessment, routine post-operative monitoring and care, identification and management of post-operative complications, and determining fitness for discharge from hospital. The first group of 12 PSP trainees were to be trained to acquire and provide pre- and post-surgical clinical care skills. The trainees were recruited from existing medical staff such as nurses and operating theatre technicians who would learn while based at their normal hospital. It was planned that the experiences from the pilot project would form the basis for subsequent mass-scale PSP training schemes. The project was a full-time 1-year learning activity from April 2003 to 2004. It consisted of intensive 1-week training modules at Imperial College London every 7 weeks alternating with 6 weeks of supervised clinical practice within the surgical team at each participant’s hospital. This arrangement allowed the classroombased skills learnt during training sessions in London to be consolidated and extended in the workplaces distributed across Great Britain. These skills included: Pre-operative assessment and investigation. Understanding of normal and abnormal states relating to surgical procedures. Identifying and treating common and important complications. Carrying out clinical procedures including taking patient histories, ordering tests, taking blood and putting up intravenous infusions. Role-playing with professional actors playing patients.
European Journal of Information Systems
312
The dynamics of control and mobile computing
Data collection methods We applied an action research strategy for collecting empirical data. The researchers actively collaborated with the PSPs and the project management team. The primary author was a direct observer in the London-based modules and led the training of the PSPs on how to use the PDAs. He also assumed the role of 24-h ‘helpdesk’ support. PSPs could call him on his mobile phone anytime for help if they encountered any problems with the use of the PDAs during their training. This role can be interpreted as a facilitator, an active participant, and a ‘clinician’ (Schein, 1987). The secondary author was instrumental in establishing the collaboration and played a leading role in the design of the technological architecture through several long design sessions. He also supported the management of the development of the PDA systems. The researchers gained no monetary rewards, but used the opportunity as a means to obtain in-depth qualitative data and experience. Applying Baskerville’s (1999) five key parameters for distinguishing between an action researcher and a consultant – motivation, commitment, approach, foundation for recommendations, and essence of organisational understanding – the primary author can be characterised as an action researcher. Offering himself as a facilitator for the adoption of technology and implementation of technology decisions in the project was a welcome gesture to the project management team, not only in terms of relieving the budget, but also on the grounds of resolution of most of the emerging problems with the PDA use. This role was significant because it eased access to information and facilitated the process of data collection at all levels of the project set-up from the outset to its conclusion. Open-ended interviews with the PSP trainees led to discussions of their experiences with their various hospital surgical teams. The objective was to induce and entice them to elaborate because when they did, their languages and social cues reveal attitudes, morals, beliefs, and opinions and feelings (Kendall & Kendall, 1993). Open-ended interviews were deemed most suitable for gathering information because they are explorative in nature and supported a deeper understanding of the context for the activities. This was complimented with formal interviews, both face-to-face and over the telephone. During visits to the hospitals where the trainees worked, the face-to-face formal interviews were largely interspersed with informal interviews or conversations as part of the problem-solving role in the project. The primary author also held several informal conversations with PSPs when they returned to London for their modules. There were conducted on an ad hoc basis beside the tea table, in the classroom before a session, in the canteen over lunch, and during each module’s official 3-h ‘PDA session’. During the project, a large amount of emails were exchanged between the primary author and all members of the project. Most of these e-mails consisted of exchanges with the PSP trainees on their experiences with technology use and a smaller proportion was interaction with other project members.
European Journal of Information Systems
Gamel O. Wiredu and Carsten S rensen
Mobile computing support of work-integrated learning The project entailed both local mobility within the hospital and remote mobility to and from the training centre in London (Luff & Heath, 1998). For example, a PSP’s typical schedule of a day at work involved physically joining the surgical team as they made their visits to the surgical wards to examine patients. Sometimes, these visits could take up more than half of the total shift period of the learner. As one of them reported, her ‘work is so MOBILE y.’ There was also a strong desire on the part of the management team in London for not only the PSP’s to be mobile, but also the descriptions and reflections they recorded. The highly critical issues of monitoring and remotely controlling the learners’ actions when based at their hospitals and the development of learning portfolios were the primary targets of the computing support. Each PSP was provided with a Compaq iPAQ H3970 PDA running the Pocket PC 2002 operating system. Each PDA was equipped with an external foldable keyboard to facilitate reflections written directly into the PDA. The PDA had an inbuilt appointment calendar, address book and limited or ‘pocket’ versions of Microsofts Words and Excels and Outlooks. These were deployed to be used by the trainees as tools for capturing information on the spot, for reading information, for recording clinical and learning activities, for writing reflections right after every learning activity, for sharing information, and for transfer of relevant data to the monitoring centre in London. They were supposed to be used to process notes and other information while roaming from one ward to another and in other locations of their hospitals as their training demanded. The planned learning processes demanded the immediate recording of what was done, when it was done, and the PDAs were deployed to fulfil immediate easy capture and processing of information (see example of screenshots in Figure 2). An Actions Log database that held recorded details of each patient encounter on the wards was to be populated by each trainee. Clinical actions were to be selected from a predefined ‘pick list’ through tapping a stylus directly on the PDA screen. There was also a Reflective Journal consisting of a set of templates with headings such as ‘thoughts and feelings?’ and ‘what worked and what didn’t?’ These were intentionally open-ended questions allowing the PSPs to frame the answers as they wished. Answers to these questions were to be typed at the end of each learning day using the foldable keyboard. Remote monitoring and control of clinical actions as well as the development of evidence portfolios of actions undertaken were requirements aimed at satisfying two parties. First, the European Union sponsoring the project required reports and statistics of proceedings of the training project. These reports would convey the details of the activities that were actually undertaken by the PSPs in their hospitals with the aim of underlining the credibility of the whole training exercise and hence of the new professional role. Second, in order to satisfy the
The dynamics of control and mobile computing
Figure 2
Gamel O. Wiredu and Carsten S rensen
313
Selected screen-shots of Activity Logs and Reflections Journal.
wider community of existing medical professionals by proving that this new professional role was a credible one. Since professions in the medical field have existed for centuries, the success of this new profession depended on this satisfaction. Thus, the portfolios were meant to provide evidence of the depth and breadth of learning activities undertaken by the PSPs in the instance of anyone doubting their relevance.
Activity-based understanding of mobile work-integrated learning This section initially outlines the primary concrete aspects of the failure to use mobile technology as a means of supporting the learning activities. Then follows an activity-based analysis of the contradictory motives between the project and surgical teams in the mobile work-integrated learning arrangements; an elaboration of how these contradictory motives shaped the dynamics of control; and a discussion of how the balance of control shapes mobile computing actions.
Problematic learning conditions and technology failure The trial of three different information management applications designed specifically for the project PDAs all failed. The PDAs turned out to be unusable in the clinical setting when the PSPs would be busy with their clinical actions. On the surface, it appears the technology failure was caused by human–computer interaction factors such as design flaws in the system, slow running applications, and the systemic deficiencies of the PDAs that reflect in their low processing power, low storage capacity and low memory. However, the accounts of the PSPs also pointed to considerable interpersonal problems in their hospitals that were directly confrontational as far as their interaction with the PDAs were concerned. Each PSP worked and learned in their local surgical team. These surgical teams comprised of a medical consultant head, junior doctors and nurses of various levels in the professional hierarchy. In their learning, each PSP was supposed to integrate into their surgical team and develop their pre- and postoperative care skills. According to prior agreements with the project team, the consultants as leaders of the surgical
teams, were supposed to facilitate the integration of the PSPs into their teams and ensure that they achieved optimum learning experiences. However, the PSPs reported serious encounters of resistance and non-acceptance by their surgical team members. There were also reports of perceived lack of cooperative willingness by other surgical team members. There were indications of surgical staff perceiving the PSPs as a threat to their roles. The highly mobile nature of the learning process also hindered PDA use. This is particularly pertinent when considering the criticality of dealing with surgical patients as part of the learning process. These all constituted daily challenges that conditioned and stimulated their personal evaluations of the learning actions. The perceived responses of the established professions were not a surprise to the project management team given the volatility and novelty of the new role, and given the natural uneasiness on the part of the surgical team members, as they comprehended PSPs who would end up higher in the ranks above some of them. Indeed, in the initial stages of the project, the project leader specifically pushed for an entire mobile architecture as opposed to a hybrid architecture combining mobile clients and stationary workstations in order to render the PSPs independent from the normal hospital information technology (IT) infrastructure and in order for access to this infrastructure not becoming a point of contention. He wanted the PSPs to be IT self-sufficient. The perceived resistance from the environment manifested itself in the PSPs over-acting or under-acting in the performance of their clinical routines in their hospitals. Some of the PSPs reported that perceived overt and covert tactics of rejection and resistance on the part of surgical team members. This stifled their participation in patients care. However, in instances where participation was not stifled, learners were overloaded with tasks by their team members. For example, three PSPs complained bitterly that in much of the time spent with their teams their roles were reduced to running errands that constituted total aberrations as far as their learning objectives and actions were concerned. More implicitly, this specific nature of work-integrated learning entails elements of
European Journal of Information Systems
314
The dynamics of control and mobile computing
pragmatism that coerce participants to concentrate more on the work. In healthcare, the pragmatic demands of patient care over-rides and overwhelms any other concerns, and therefore it was not surprising to hear PSPs reporting that the clinical demands of patient care did not make possible the manipulation of mobile computers. These forms of conditional problems were attributable to the immediate control exerted on the actions of the PSPs by their team members. While the project leader, based in London, instituted some measures to exercise remote control over their actions, this was significantly supplanted by the immediate control of the surgical team. The distant project leader’s motive was the skill development (transformation) of the PSPs contrasting the surgical teams’ leaders’ motive of efficient and effective healthcare delivery for their patients. Since mobile computing was instituted as part of the project leader’s controlling measures, and since the surgical teams were less concerned with mobile computing and even largely opposed to it, it was always going to be difficult for the PSPs to compute on-the-move during their clinical actions. This in many ways mirror the continuously changing role of mobile technologies when used by operational police officers (S rensen, 2002), and one interpretation of the PSPs being dissuaded by surgical team members to use PDAs while interacting with patients is that the patient must be in focus, not the PDA. The balance of control between the surgical and project teams, therefore, played a dominant role in the inability of the PSPs to use their PDAs as desired by the project team. Against this background, it is important to analyse these findings further to tease out the antecedents and consequences of control that conditioned and shaped the use (and indeed lack of use) of the mobile technology.
Interacting activities in the distribution The work-integrated learning project constituted a collective human activity system (see Figure 3). The PSP was the learning subject who was motivated primarily by the transformation of external and intangible pre- and postsurgical care skills – the object – into internalised knowledge and skills. This transformation was mediated, on the
Mobile computers & applications, simulation technologies, surgical teams, etc.
PSP
Instructive, constructive & experiential learning.
Pre- and postsurgical care skills
Skilled PSPs; accredited and acceptable new professionals; Jr. Drs' vacated roles filled.
Project team, Distribution of learning network of learners, tasks in the project's institutions & hospitals. implementation.
Figure 3 The central/work-integrated learning activity system of a PSP.
European Journal of Information Systems
Gamel O. Wiredu and Carsten S rensen
one hand, by physical tools such as mobile computers, paper-based learning portfolios, surgical instruments and simulation technologies; and, on the other hand, by psychological tools in the form of the surgical cultural– historical ideals – the jargons, concepts, mannerisms, etiquette and procedures which identify the surgical role. Consistent with every collective human activity, this transformation was undertaken within a community, here consisting of other PSPs, medical professionals and the entire network of hospitals and institutions that had a stake in the project. The relationship between the PSP and this community was mediated by the learning rules – instructive, constructive and experiential learning. These rules produced the remote, mobile and distributed conditions within which the actions of the activity were performed. Furthermore, the relationship between the community and the object was mediated by the distribution of the activity’s tasks – division of labour – among the community members. These relationships defined the work-integrated learning activity system. ¨ m’s (1987) terminolThe system represents, in Engestro ogy, the central activity of the PSPs which is the unit of analysis for assessing technology use. This activity is central because it constituted the system in which the PSP was the subject using mobile technology to support the transformation of the object. The outcome of the central activity was their transformation into accredited and acceptable new medical professionals equipped with pre- and post-surgical care skills to assume junior doctors’ vacated roles. It is worth noting, however, that the motive behind this transformation was not necessarily generated by the PSPs. Rather, it was introduced by representatives of the cultural underpinning – the project team. This motive was ‘only understandable’ (Leont’ev, 1982) from the point of view of the PSPs. The project team in London, as subjects of a ‘culturally more ¨ m, 1987) (advanced advanced central activity’ (Engestro activity hereafter), were motivated by the cognitive transformation of the PSPs. The PSPs, in responding to their personal and professional needs, adopted this ‘understandable’ motive of the project team to share the same outcome. This adoption illustrates the harmony that characterised the formative stages of the project. It, furthermore, ensured that the central activity was entwined with the advanced activity of the project team. In these formative stages, the outcome appeared to satisfy both the motives that drove the two activities. The PSPs’ mobile technology actions were functions of the direct relationship between their learning actions and the conditions or environment within which their actions were performed. In the work-integrated learning project, the conditions within which the PSPs conducted their actions were consequences of other inter-related ¨m activities impacting on the central activity. Engestro (1987) calls them ‘neighbour activities’ – object activities, instrument-producing activities, subject-producing activities and rule-producing activities. Naturally and inevitably, every human activity, which assumes a central or
The dynamics of control and mobile computing
leading position at any point in time, inter-relates with these neighbour activities in varying degrees of relational emphases. The actual and routine surgical practice in the PSPs’ hospitals represented the object activity within which the peri-surgical skills – the object of the central activity – were embedded. Disciplines such as information technology, software engineering and computer science, which gave birth to the PDA and its applications, constitute the instrument-producing activities. The subject-producing activities comprise the previous medical training, which had shaped the PSPs into nurses and operating department practitioners, and therefore ensured their eligibility to enrol in the project. The EU Working Time Directive, the administrative arrangements of the project, hospital formal and informal regulations, and accreditation requirements are some of the key rule-producing activities that influenced the training of the PSPs. Indeed, it is the contradictory motives between the advanced activity of the project team and the object activity of the surgical teams that spawned the PSP’s role conflict in their hospitals.
Contradictory motives and the sense of actions The culturally more advanced activity was influenced by conditions and needs that represented an extension of those of the central activity, such as the remoteness and distribution of the PSPs around the country; the establishment of collaboration through remote mobility (Luff & Heath, 1998) between London and the PSP hospitals; and the need to continuously monitor and scaffold the PSPs learning from London. The distance between instructors and learners introduces problems of monitoring and coordination of learners’ activities. Instructors needed to ensure that learners followed instructions in order to achieve desired learning outcomes, while learners needed to reciprocate by availing their learning activities and outcomes to instructors for assessment. During the project, the issuance of instructions occurred in one location under one instructor – the project manager – while the process of assimilation occurred under another instructor – the surgical consultant. These instructors had contradictory objects and motives. The PSPs represented tools of the surgical consultant’s object activity which motive was a transformation of patients through surgery. As such the PSPs were useful in the performance of the actions of the object activity. On the other hand, the project manager was more concerned about the cognitive aspect of the PSPs skills development (see Figure 4). Indeed, the motive of the advanced activity was a mere goal of the central activity. To the project team, although the practical or contextual aspect of the learning was important, the extreme local mobility the learning entailed, as well as the distance and distribution of the PSPs, both represented an unstable facet of the project. Each PSP’s attachment to a surgical team headed by a consultant implied that the PSPs continously were directly confronted with immediate instructions other than those of the project manager.
315
Gamel O. Wiredu and Carsten S rensen
Project team
Distance PSP
ADVANCED ACTIVITY
PSP
(travelling) Surgical team
Surgical Patients
OBJECT ACTIVITY
Figure 4
The changing role of the PSP as a factor of distance.
In other words, their actions were subject to the control of both the project manager in London as well as the resident consultant of their training hospitals. Instability, in this sense, was implicitly bearing on the outcome of the advanced activity. The outcome was as important as the process but due to distance and distribution the project team had very little direct control over the process from which the outcome would manifest. The object activity is important in this relationship because in a distributed activity, the essence of the distribution is to immediately avail the object of the activity to the subject. In our case, the distribution of the learners was to immediately avail the surgical skills to them to enhance their skills acquisition. It follows from this that distributed actors mostly perform object activities in which the transformation of the work or learning objects is the motive. In the project, the motive behind the object activity was the successful treatment of surgical patients, and the surgical team controlled this activity. Thus, while the project team was interested in the PSPs’ skills acquisition, the surgical team was interested in the PSPs’ usefulness in their successful treatment of surgical patients. While the authorities of both the advanced and object activities wielded various forms of control over the actions of the PSPs, the distributed nature of the project generated significant dynamics concerning whose control over PSPs’ actions was the dominant one. The dynamics of control is directly related to the degree of contradictions of the motives between the two authorities and this determined mobile technology actions in the activity. Attempts by the project manager to use the PDA as an object of control failed. We now draw upon the preceding analysis to theorise the relationship between contradictory motives and control, and the implications for mobile computing actions in a remotely distributed activity.
Dynamics of control and mobile computing actions The actions of a distributed activity are likely to be conducted under multiple sources of control and the degrees of control attributable to the object and/or advanced requirements are variable. Note that although sources of control may be multiple, they can be divided into immediate and remote from the point of view of the location of the individual worker or learner. The actions of a distributed activity may differ from one location to another due to the different contexts associated with
European Journal of Information Systems
The dynamics of control and mobile computing
each location. At any one location at any time both immediate and distant authorities may control individuals’ actions. These forms of control – remote and immediate – may or may not be backed by contradictory motives. If there are contradictory motives, the nature of control will depend on the degree of contradictions between the motives of the advanced and object activities. Therefore, control of actions by authorities is a variant residing within a continuum from weak to strong. At any one location, the individual’s actions will be subjected to two sources of control – the instructions and alignment demands of the immediate local motives on the one hand, and to the motives of the distant authority on the other. However, the most critical facet of this alignment dilemma is the degrees of co-presence of both authorities in relation to the location of the individual subject. The strength of control over individuals’ immediate actions is directly related to the relative co-presence of the distant authority. The distant authority’s co-presence can, just as the contradictions, be characterised as continuum from weak to strong. His or her strongest co-presence is demonstrated by their personal proximity to the actions of individuals. However, this form of copresenting, is almost an impossible or inefficient task for distant authorities. Realistically, co-presenting can be achieved by frequent visits to monitor individuals’ actions; however, this will in most cases demand more resources than are available. With modern information and communication technologies (ICTs), co-presenting can be achieved through ‘inscription’ of authorities’ instructions and control measures into computer applications. ‘The scenario is inscribed into the system. The inscription includes programmes of action for users, and it defines roles to be played by users and the system. (y) When a programme of action is inscribed into a piece of technology, the technology becomes an actor imposing it’s inscribed programme of action on its users’ (Monteiro, 2000, p. 77).
Furthermore, modern technology advancements have introduced miniature versions of desktop computers which portability ensures that controlling inscriptions can be carried from one location to another. We clearly witnessed the inscription of control measures of the project leader into PDAs with the aim of establishing a mediated form of co-presence from a distance. However, according to Daft & Lengel’s (1984, 1986) media-richness argument, Short et al.’s (1976) notion of social presence, and N rretranders’ (1998) physiological argument of the role of unconsciousness, the strongest inscriptions of an authority’s instructions can never be equated to his or her physical co-presence. Furthermore, as argued by Ngwenyama & Lee (1997), the richness of the communication is significantly dependent upon the context of interaction and of the actors evoking the shared understanding of their relevance.
European Journal of Information Systems
Gamel O. Wiredu and Carsten S rensen
Strong CONTRADICTIONS BETWEEN ADVANCED & OBJECTIVE MOTIVES
316
Strong Local Control
Shared harmonious control
Territorial Dispute
Strong Remote Control
Weak Weak (eg. Weak inscriptions)
Strong (eg. Personal presence or strong inscriptions)
CO-PRESENCE/CONTROL OF DISTANT AUTHORITY
Figure 5 Control categories as factors of the strength of contradictions and co-presence of distant authority.
Inscriptions can also be weak, and this has significant implications for the control of actions. Altogether, the balance of actions control is a function of the strengths of co-presence and contradictory motives between the local and distant activities (see Figure 5). These four categories of control characterise the possible analytical configurations of remote and local authorities in relation to their object and advanced motives. However, we still need to address how the balance of control shapes the use of mobile technology in a distributed activity. In the domain of a computer-supported distributed activity, computing actions are conducted alongside two fundamental sets of actions: First, the actions of the activity aimed at the transformation of the object of activity; and second, purposeful human mobility as significant actions of a distributed activity. We must be mindful of the fact that these sets of actions represent a mere analytical categorisation; in reality they are intrinsically intertwined and interdependent.
Mobile computing in disputed territories A strong co-presence of a distant authority is achieved through the inscription of strong control measures into the technology. An even stronger co-presence is accomplished when such inscriptions are designed into mobile technology such as PDAs and laptop computers. The portability of these computers ensures their mobility, but this does not necessarily ensure their manipulation on the move. When such strong inscriptions are brought into a strong contradictory context, the ensuing territorial dispute between local and distant instructions directly shapes the individual’s ability to use the technology flexibly. In a disputed control territory, the use of mobile technology sanctioned by a distant authority, stands to be stifled by the immediate authority. Here, even if the rules of the activity bind the immediate authority to conform, the authority, being in strong opposition to the motive of the advanced activity, may stifle the use of the
The dynamics of control and mobile computing
technology by increasing the load of object actions or by increasing the level of local mobility of individuals or both. This scenario appears to be possible only in activities which actions do not necessarily require specific technological support for goals to be achieved. In this sense, mobile computing actions may be deemed as irrelevant or unwanted by the immediate authority. This authority’s sense of aversion to the use of mobile technology actions may even be compounded when he or she perceives mobile technology actions as a means by which distant authorities want to wield control over individual’s immediate actions. Therefore, by increasing the load of these central actions, the consciousness demanded by such actions consumes the conscious resources of the individual that would be used in the use of the technology. Here, the strong contradictions guarantee that the use of mobile technology does not contribute directly to the achievement of the motives of the immediate authority. Therefore, from his or her perspective, object actions can proceed towards the achievement of the objective motive at the neglect of the use of the mobile technology. In effect, the adoption of such politics of technology use can be as effective as the poor application or software design in stifling computing in a distributed activity.
Mobile computing in locally controlled environments Within the context of strong contradictions, the use of mobile technology in a locally controlled environment may be even more inflexible compared with technology use under territorial dispute. In the latter environment, the co-presence or inscribed instructions of distant authorities are not as strong as they are in the former. Weak inscriptions ensure relatively less ‘structure overload’ (S rensen et al., 2002) in the sense that the users are less likely to experience that the technology unnecessarily constrains their actions. In a locally controlled environment, immediate authorities can usurp the advantage of the weak co-presence of the distant authority to assume control of individuals’ actions, including those related to the use of mobile technology. Strong contradictions will guarantee the manifestation of this scenario. Furthermore, it is easier for the immediate authority to pronounce his or her opposition to the motive of the advanced activity by pushing mobile technology actions to the periphery of the actions of the object activity. Therefore, in this environment, unless external influences such as a strong rule or a shift in the motive of the object activity occurs to moderate the strong contradiction, mobile technology actions will remain subject to the total or near-total control of immediate authorities. Hence, computing will remain inflexible and peripheral. Therefore, for computing to be flexible in this environment, mobile computing actions have to be central to the achievement of the motives of the object activity. Alternatively, measures such as consultation of the immediate authority in the process of application and software development have to be
Gamel O. Wiredu and Carsten S rensen
317
implemented to reduce the strength of contradictions between the motives of the object and advanced activities.
Mobile computing in remote-controlled environments From the point of view of the distant authority, this category appears to be the most ideal as far as the achievement of the motives of the distributed activity is concerned. Remote control via strong inscriptions of control mechanisms are most likely to manifest itself in an environment acknowledging the need for proper engagement with these inscriptions. In this respect, it is likely that the weak contradictions underlying this category will ensure corroboration by the immediate authority of the distant authority’s control. Thereby, allowing individuals relatively ample time to flexibly engage with the mobile technology. Besides, local authorities will most likely regulate the purposeful mobility of individuals and their actions to accommodate mobile technology actions. The use of mobile technology in this environment remains susceptible to external forces of influences that may render technology actions less flexible in the activity. The most likely force is the strengthening of contradictions between the central and advanced motives. Against the background that stability of motives or contradictions is not a guarantee, attitudes of immediate authorities must be placed under close scrutiny to ensure that they are always aligned with the advanced activity. Mobile computing in an environment of shared control Computer application users may welcome weak inscriptions, but most importantly, their utilisation of these applications necessarily have to occur in environments of shared control between object and advanced motives to ensure flexible computing. This necessity provides the assurance that immediate authorities will not undermine the efforts of distant authorities to control local actions of individuals. Compared with computing under territorial dispute, there is a greater likelihood that individuals will experience more flexible mobile computing in this environment because of the underlying weaknesses in contradictions and inscriptions.
Concluding remarks This paper suggests that in the organisation of distributed activities, we must look beyond the physical and systemic designs of technology for problems of effective use of mobile technology. The contradictory motives between those who wield authority in such activities suggest that an examination of the dynamics and balance of control as well as the politics of technology use is a matter of critical necessity for the successful implementation of technology in such domains. To conclude, the problem of computing in a distributed activity is complex and highly susceptible to immediate control. Note the impact of interlocational contradictions between the objective and advanced motives as a crucial determinant of local control and hence of flexible computing. Thus, in the contemporary distribution of
European Journal of Information Systems
318
The dynamics of control and mobile computing
activities and the concomitant remote actions performed by individuals, analysis must first identify the particular motives behind the central, advanced and object activities in order to establish the degrees of contradictions existing or likely to exist within these motives. More importantly, how the contradictions between the motives of the authorities in charge of the object and advanced activities translate into the balance of control between them has to be examined. Furthermore, this examination has to be integrated with the strength of inscriptions in designed computer applications or representations of the control measures of the distant authority. This integration will provide an insight into which kind of environment the individual user is operating; and how the particular form of local control associated with that environment is being wielded to enhance or debilitate mobile computing actions. Further research into these issues could relate the findings to the work by Kumar et al. (1998) where they suggest a third rationality in the understanding of information systems. They suggest a middle ground between the perspectives of rationality and that of power and politics, one that is based on trust in collaboration. We assume that the cultivation of trust between local and remote parti-
Gamel O. Wiredu and Carsten S rensen
cipants can facilitate addressing conflicting goals leading to more harmonious learning and greater potential for utilising mobile technologies as means of control. It is reasonable to conjecture that however sophisticated the physical and systemic design of technologies we deploy to mediate distributed activities, they cannot be successfully implemented unless the proper measures are instituted to moderate adverse control effects that result from motivational contradictions and technology inscriptions. As far as technology use remains a dominant theme in Information Systems research, control dynamics and how they determine mobile computing actions in contemporary distributed activities must be taken more seriously. Indeed, who’s in charge where does matter for mobile computing in distributed activities.
Acknowledgements We thank the 12 PSP trainees, Roger Kneebone and his team for all their inspiration during this project. We also thank the ADMIS students Jennifer Blechar and Csaba Hovarth who helped build the systems. Thanks are also due to the two anonymous reviewers who provided highly valuable comments and critiques. The responsibility for the finished article is of course entirely our own.
About the authors Dr. Gamel O. Wiredu is a research fellow at the Interaction Design Centre of the Department of Computer Science and Information Systems at the University of Limerick, Ireland. He holds an M.Sc. and a Ph.D. both in Information Systems from the London School of Economics. His doctoral research centred on mobile computing in remotely distributed activities in which he investigated the motivational, control, and political dimensions of remote distribution, and their impact on the mobile computing actions. His current research concerns are the social and cultural aspects of globally distributed software engineering in which he is investigating the coordination and control challenges that are presented by the socio-cultural accidents associated with particular software engineering locations in the distribution. Gamel can be reached at
[email protected]. Dr. Carsten Sørensen is a Senior Lecturer in Information Systems at The London School of Economics and Political Science, United Kingdom. He holds a B.Sc. in mathematics, an M.Sc. in computer science and a Ph.D. in information systems from Aalborg University, Denmark. Carsten has
through the past 16 years been affiliated with a number of Danish, Swedish and British institutions. Carsten has also been actively engaged with executive education and has consulted for a range of organisations. Carsten is studying how ICT shapes and is shaped by emerging working practices and organisational forms and have most recently studies mobile technologies for organisational efficiency. He has been involved in research on mobile computing since the Mid-1990s where he was one of the founding members of the Internet Project. In 2001 he initiated the mobility@lse research network in mobile interaction (http://mobility.lse.ac.uk/), which aims at drawing together academics and practitioners. Carsten has extensive EU research project experience from 1992 and international project experience from 1990. He is on the editorial board for Information and Organization, and The e-Service Journal, and is a member of the Advisory Board for Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems. Carsten has over the years been actively involved in a number of international conferences as an organiser and programme committee member, most recently IFIP 8.2 2005.
References BASKERVILLE R (1999) Investigating information systems with action research. Communications of The Association for Information Systems, (19) Article 2. BIJKER W and LAW J (Eds) (1992) Shaping Technology/Building Society: Studies in Socio-Technical Change. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. BROWN B, GREEN N and HARPER R (Eds) (2001) Wireless World. SpringerVerlag, London. CAIRNCROSS F (1997) The Death of Distance: How the Communications Revolution will Change Our Lives. Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA.
European Journal of Information Systems
CARSTENSEN P and S RENSEN C (1996) From the social to the systematic: mechanisms supporting coordination in design. Journal of Computer Supported Cooperative Work 5(4), 387–413. DAFT RL and LENGEL RH (1984) Information richness: a new approach to manager information processing and organisational design. In Research in Orgnisational Behaviour (STRAW B and CUMMINGS LL, Eds), JAI Press, Greenwich, CT. DAFT RL and LENGEL RH (1986) Organizational information requirements, media richness and structural design. Management Science 32(5), 554–571.
The dynamics of control and mobile computing
DIX A and BEALE R (Eds) (1996) Remote Cooperation: CSCW Issues for Mobile and Teleworkers. Springer-Verlag, London. ENGESTRo¨M Y (1987) Learning by Expanding: An Activity-Theoretical Approach to Developmental Research. Orienta-Konsultit, Helsinki. ETZIONI E (1965) Organizational control structure. In Handbook of Organizations (MARCH JG, Ed), pp 650–677, Rand McNally, Chicago. FOUCAULT M (1980) Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972–77. Brighton, Harvester. FAGRELL H (2000) Mobile Knowledge. Gothenburg studies in Informatics. PhD Dissertation. Department for Informatics, Gothenburg University. October. 18. HAMILL L and LASEN A (Eds) (2005) Mobile World: Past, Present and Future. Springer-Verlag UK, London. HANSETH O and MONTEIRO E (1997) Inscribing behaviour in information infrastructure standards. Accounting, Management and Information Technologies 7(4), 183–211. HENFRIDSSON O (1998) Beyond the container-view of context. In Sixth European Conference on Information Systems, Aix-en-Provence, France (BAETS W, Ed), Euro-Arab Management School, vol. II, pp 673–683. KAKIHARA M and S RENSEN C (2002) Post-modern professionals’ work and mobile technology. In Paper presented at the New Ways of Working in IS: 25th Information Systems Research Seminar in Scandinavia B(IRIS25), Copenhagen Business School, Denmark. KALLINIKOS J (2004) Farewell to constructivism: technology and contextembedded action. In The Social Study of Information and Communication Technology (AVGEROU C, CIBORRA C and LAND F, Eds), pp 140–161, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. KALLINIKOS J (2005) The order of technology: complexity and control in a connected world. Information and Organization 15, 185–202. KATZ JE and AAKHUS M (Eds) (2002) Perpetual Contact. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. KENDALL JE and KENDALL KE (1993) Metaphors and methodologies: living beyond the systems machine. MIS Quarterly 17(2), 149–171. KLEINROCK L (1996) Nomadicity: anytime, anywhere in a disconnected world. Mobile Networks and Applications 1, 351–357. KUMAR K, DISSEL HGv and BIELLI P (1998) The merchant of prato-revisited: toward a third rationality of information systems. MIS Quarterly 22(2), 199–226. KUUTTI K (1995) Activity theory as a potential framework for humancomputer interaction research. In Context and Consciousness: Activity Theory and Human-Computer Interaction (NARDI BA, Ed), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. LATOUR B (1991) Technology is society made durable. In A Sociology of Monsters: Essays on Power, Technology and Domination (LAW J, Ed), Routledge, London. LEONT’EV AN (1978) Activity, Consciousness and Personality. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs. LEONT’EV AN (1982) Problems of the Development of the Mind. Progress Publishers, Moscow. LING R (2004) The Mobile Connection: the Cell Phone’s Impact on Society. The Morgan Kaufmann series in interactive technologies. Elsevier, Amsterdam. LUFF P and HEATH C (1998) Mobility in collaboration. In The ACM 1998 Conference of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW ‘98), Seattle, WA, USA. LYYTINEN K and YOO Y (2002) The next wave of nomadic computing: a research agenda for information systems research. Information Systems Research 13(4), 377–388. MARX K (1909) Capital vol. 1. Progress, Moscow http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/index.htm. MARX K (1976) Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy. Translated by M. Liclaus. Harmondsworth: Penguin. http://www. marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/index.htm. MATHIASSEN L and S RENSEN C (2002) A task-based theory of information services. In Information Systems Research Seminar in Scandinavia (IRIS’25), Copenhagen Business School, Denmark. MONTEIRO E (2000) Actor-network theory and information infrastructure. In From Control to Drift: The Dynamics of Corporate Information Infrastructures (CIBORRA CU, Ed), pp 71–83, Oxford University Pressl, Oxford. NGWENYAMA OK and LEE AS (1997) Communication richness in electronic mail: critical theory and the contextuality of meaning. MIS Quarterly 21(2), 147–167.
Gamel O. Wiredu and Carsten S rensen
319
NIDUMOLU SR and SUBRAMANI MR (2003) The matrix of control: combining process and structure approaches to managing software development. Journal of Management Information Systems 20(3), 159–196. N RRETRANDERS T (1998) The User Illusion: Cutting Consciousness Down to Size. Penguin Press, London. OLSON GM and OLSON JS (2000) Distance matters. Human–Computer Interaction 15(2/3), 139–178. OUCHI WG (1979) A conceptual framework for the design of organizational control mechanisms. Management Science 25(9), 833–848. OUCHI WG and MAGUIRE MA (1975) Organizational control: two functions. Administrative Science Quarterly 20(4), 559–569. PICA D and KAKIHARA M (2003) The duality of mobility: understanding fluid organizations and stable interaction. In ECIS 2003, Naples, Italy. RHEINGOLD H (2002) Smart Mobs. Perseus Books, Cambridge, MA, USA. SCHEIN EH (1987) The Clinical Perspective in Fieldwork, vol. 5. Qualitative Research Methods Series, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA. SCHMIDT K (1999) Of maps and scripts: the status of formal constructs in cooperative work. Journal of Information and Software Technology 41, 319–329. SCHMIDT K and SIMONE C (1996) Coordination mechanisms: towards a conceptual foundation of computer supported cooperative work systems design. Computer Supported Cooperative Work: The Journal of Collaborative Computing 5, 155–200. SHORT J, WILLIAMS E and CHRISTIE B (1976) The Social Psychology of Telecommunications. John Wiley, New York. S RENSEN C (2002) Interaction Lecture Handout. London School of Economics and Political Science, UK. S RENSEN C, MATHIASSEN L and KAKIHARA M (2002) Mobile Services: Functional Diversity and Overload. Department of Information Systems, London School of Economics and Political Science, U.K. Working Paper #118. S RENSEN C and PICA D (2005) Tales from the police: mobile technologies and contexts of work. Information and Organization 15(3), 125–149. S RENSEN C, YOO Y, LYYTINEN K and DEGROSS JI (Eds) (2005) Designing Ubiquitous Information Environments: Socio-technical Issues and Challenges, Proceedings of IFIP 8.2, Springer, New York. STANDAGE T (1998) The Victorian Internet. Weidenfeld & Nicolson General, London. SUCHMAN LA (1987) Plans and Situated Actions: The Problem of Human Machine Communication. University of Cambridge Press, Cambridge, UK. VYGOTSKY LS (1962) Thought and Language. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. VYGOTSKY LS (1978) Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Proceses. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. WARTOFSKY M (1973) Perception, representation, and the forms of action: towards an historical epistemology. In Models: Representation and the Scientific Understanding (WARTOFSKY M, Ed), Reidel, Dordrecht. WARTOFSKY M (1979) Models: Representation and Scientific Understanding. Reidel, Dordrecht. WAYCOTT J (2005) Appropriating tools and shaping activities: the use of PDAs in the workplace. In Mobile World: Past, Present and Future (HAMILL L and LASEN A, Eds), pp 119–139, Springer-Verlag, London, UK. WIBERG M (2001) Knowledge management in mobile CSCW: evaluation results of a mobile physical/virtual meeting support system. In Proceedings of HICSS-34, Maui, Hawaii. WIBERG M and LJUNGBERG F (2001) Exploring the vision of ‘anytime, anywhere’ in the context of mobile work. In Knowledge Management and Virtual Organizations (MALHOTRA Y, Ed), pp 157–169, Idea Group Publishing, Hershey, PA, USA. WINNER L (1993) Upon opening the black box and finding it empty: social constructivism and the philosophy of technology. Science, Technology and Social Values 18, 362–378. WINOGRAD T (1994) Categories, disciplines, and social coordination. Journal of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work 2(4), 191–197. YATES J (1989) Control Through Communication: The Rise of System in American Management. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore. ZINCHENKO PI (1983) The problem of involuntary memory. Soviet Psychology 12(2), 55–111. ZUBOFF S (1988) In the Age of the Smart Machine: The Future of Work and Power. Basic Books, New York.
European Journal of Information Systems
