Clarke / Hardstone / Rouncefield Trust in Technology: A Socio-Technical Perspective

1. Auflage 2006
ISBN: 978-1-4020-4258-4
Verlag: Springer Netherlands
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: 1 - PDF Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, Band 36, 221 Seiten

Reihe: Computer Supported Cooperative Work

Computer systems can only deliver benefits if functionality, users and usability are central to their design and deployment. This book encapsulates work done in the DIRC project (Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration in Dependability), bringing together a range of disciplinary approaches - computer science, sociology and software engineering - to produce a socio-technical systems perspective on the issues surrounding trust in technology in complex settings.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Clarke, Karen

Hardstone, Gillian

Rouncefield, Mark

Sommerville, Ian

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1;Contents;6
2;List of Contributors;7
3;Introduction: A new Perspective on the Dependability of Software;9
4;Chapter 1 Trust and Organisational Work - Karen Clarke, Gillian;26
4.1;1. INTRODUCTION: NOTIONS OF TRUST;26
4.2;2. TRUST AND PAPER RECORDS;31
4.3;3. TRUST & COMPUTER SYSTEMS;34
4.4;4. CONCLUSION: OCCASIONING TRUST;42
4.5;REFERENCES;43
4.6;INTRODUCTION;46
5;Chapter 2 When a Bed is not a Bed: Calculation and Calculability in Complex Organisational Settings;46
5.1;1. INTRODUCTION;46
5.2;2. GOOD REASONS FOR BAD RECORDS:REPRESENTING THE WORK;48
5.3;3. THE ABIDING CONCERNS OF THE ORGANISATION: BED MANAGEMENT.;51
5.4;4. ‘MINUS NINE BEDS’;53
5.5;5. CALCULATION AND CALCULABILITY;55
5.6;6. CAUTIONARY TALES FOR THE DESIGN OF SITUATED AND PUBLIC DISPLAYS;61
5.7;REFERENCES;62
6;Chapter 3 Enterprise Modeling based on Responsibility;64
6.1;1. INTRODUCTION;64
6.1.1;Modeling a Socio Technical System;65
6.1.2;The Core Concepts: Role and Responsibility;67
6.2;2.RESPONSIBILITY AND THE RESPONSIBILITY RELATIONSHIP;68
6.2.1;The Nature f he Responsibility Relationship;68
6.2.2;The Responsibility - Obligation - Activity Relationship;70
6.2.3;Delegation of Responsibility;71
6.2.4;Functional and Structural Obligation;73
6.2.5;Types of Structural Relationship;75
6.3;3. CONVERSATIONS;77
6.3.1;Attributes of Conversations;78
6.3.2;The Composition of Roles;80
6.3.3;Combining Theoretical Roles;81
6.3.4;Applying the Normative Framework to Market Conversations;82
6.4;4.HEALTH ENTERPRISE: AN EXAMPLE OF RESPONSIBILITY MODELLING;84
6.4.1;Introduction;84
6.4.2;The Basic Model;84
6.4.3;Health Care Delivery;85
6.4.4;Constructing a Health Sector;88
6.4.5;Instruments, conversations and activities;90
6.5;5. RESPONSIBILITY MODELLING IN THE DESIGN PROCESS;91
6.6;ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS;92
6.7;REFERENCES;92
7;Chapter 4 Standardization, Trust and Dependability;94
7.1;1. INTRODUCTION;94
7.1.1;Standards, trust and the dependability of socio- technical systems;95
7.1.2;Socio-technical approaches to standardization;97
7.1.3;Levels of standardization;99
7.2;2. THE TRANSFER OF DEPENDABLE PRODUCTION PROCESSES: THE CASE OF COMPUTERCO;101
7.2.1;Sources of inter-site heterogeneity;101
7.2.2;The ‘Exception Process’ and the reduction of diversity;103
7.2.3;Standardization and the persistence of diversity;104
7.2.4;Standardization and Trust as two different modes of coordination across heterogeneous cultures and organizations;106
7.3;3. STANDARDISING ACROSS HETEROGENEOUS ORGANISATIONAL DOMAINS AND COGNITIVE STRUCTURES: THE CASE OF MOTORCO8;107
7.4;4. NHS URBAN;113
7.4.1;Organizational and professional complexity and variety;114
7.4.2;Old and new systems;115
7.4.3;The Contact Purpose menu;116
7.4.4;The clinical view;117
7.4.5;The administrative view;118
7.4.6;Accommodating diversity: managing standardization?;119
7.5;5. DISCUSSION;121
7.6;6. CONCLUSIONS;126
7.7;ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS;127
7.8;REFERENCES;127
8;Chapter 5 ‘Its About Time’: Temporal Features of Dependability;130
8.1;1. INTRODUCTION: TIME;130
8.2;2. TIME AND TECHNOLOGY;131
8.3;3. TIME IN MEDICAL SETTINGS - ILLNESS TRAJECTORY AND RHYTHM;134
8.4;4. “IMPROVING KNIFE TO SKIN TIME": TIME, NEW PROCESS MODELLING AND TECHNOLOGY;138
8.5;5. TIME AND PROJECT WORK: TEMPORAL ASPECTS IN DEVELOPING A DEPENDABLE EPR;139
8.6;6. CONCLUSION: DESIGNING SYSTEMS IN TIME;142
8.7;REFERENCES;144
9;Chapter 6 Explicating Failure;148
9.1;1. INTRODUCTION: EXPLICATING FAILURE;148
9.2;2. 'RED HOT' FAILURE;150
9.2.1;The roughing process;151
9.3;3. ENSURING DEPENDABLE PRODUCTION: COORDINATION, PLANNING AND AWARENESS;153
9.3.1;Coordination:;153
9.3.2;Dependability, plans and procedures;155
9.3.3;Dependability and Awareness:;156
9.4;4. BLINDED BY THE LIGHT: ORGANISATIONAL RESPONSES TO FAILURE;158
9.4.1;Workaday and catastrophic failures;160
9.4.2;Safety Strategies;160
9.4.3;SPADs: Different Perspectives;161
9.5;5. DISCUSSION: EXPLICATING FAILURE AND DEPENDABILITY;163
9.6;REFERENCES;168
10;Chapter 7 Patterns for Dependable Design;172
10.1;1. INTRODUCTION: DESIGN AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCES;172
10.2;2. DESIGN AND THE PROBLEM OF GENERALISATION;174
10.3;3. PATTERNS AND PATTERN LANGUAGES;174
10.3.1;Principles of Pattern Generation;176
10.3.2;Developing a Descriptive Pattern Language;177
10.4;4. PATTERNS OF COOPERATIVE INTERACTION;178
10.4.1;The Patterns Collection;179
10.5;5. THE PATTERNS COLLECTION: SCENARIOS OF USE;185
10.5.1;Specific Use: scenarios and reflections;185
10.6;6. PATTERNS FOR DEPENDABILITY;187
10.7;7. CONCLUSION;190
10.8;ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS;191
10.9;REFERENCES;191
11;Chapter 8 Dependability and Trust in Organisational and Domestic Computer Systems;194
11.1;1. INTRODUCTION: DEPENDABILITY AND DOMESTIC SYSTEMS DOMESTIC SYSTEMS;194
11.2;2. DEPENDABILITY - A TECHNICAL PERSPECTIVE;196
11.2.1;A dependability model for domestic systems;205
11.3;3. DEPENDABILITY - A HUMAN PERSPECTIVE;202
11.4;4. DOMESTIC SYSTEMS DEPENDABILITY;204
11.5;5. DEPENDABILITY, TRUST AND DISCRETIONARY SYSTEMS DESIGN;213
11.6;6. CONCLUSIONS;216
11.7;ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS;217
11.8;REFERENCES;217
12;Chapter 9 Understanding and Supporting Dependability as Ordinary Action;220
12.1;1. INTRODUCTION;220
12.2;2. METHODOLOGY;222
12.3;3. THE CASE STUDY;223
12.4;4. DOING DEPENDABILITY: NORMAL NATURAL TROUBLES;224
12.5;5. DEPENDABILITY AND I T SYSTEMS IMPLEMENTATION;230
12.6;6. DEPENDABILITY AS A MEMBERS' PHENOMENON;233
12.7;7. DEPENDABILITY AS ORDINARY ACTION;235
12.8;8. CO- REALISING DEPENDABILITY IN IT SYSTEMS;237
12.9;9. CONCLUSIONS;238
12.10;ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS;240
12.11;REFERENCES;240
13;Chapter 10 The DIRC Project as the Context of this Book;242
13.1;1. THE DIRC PROJECT AS THE CONTEXT OF THIS BOOK;242
13.2;REFERENCES;246

Leseproben

Socio-technical approaches to standardization (p.72-73)

Standardization can be defined as the activity of establishing provisions for ‘common and repeated use, rules, guidelines or characteristics for activities or their results, aimed at the achievement of the optimum degree of order in a given context’ (11), or as conformity with ‘any set of agreed-upon rules for the production of (textual or material) objects’, spanning more than one community of practice and persisting over time (12:13). The concept needs to be considered in context, since there are different levels and types of standardization, including those of product and service, the processes and technologies for their delivery (operational), and administrative or financial procedures (informational), and organizations may practice all or only some of these. Some standards are generated externally to organizations. Some may be in widespread use; some are adhered to (or not) by practitioners operating within particular domains of knowledge and practice. Other standards may be internal to a specific organization. Indeed, it could be suggested that standardization is one of the distinguishing features of current organizational life.

Standardization tends to be premised at least partly on the prior existence or creation of classification systems: apparently simple but significant technologies for ordering the world. Classification appears to be a fundamental human activity enabling us to tame ‘the wild profusion of existing things’ (1:xv) and make sense of the world’s complexity. It is an intensely social undertaking, rooted in communities of practice and contexts (13), and is often domain-specific. It involves ordering entities into groups on the basis of their relationships to establish a classificatory system, the assignation of subsequent instances of such entities to groups in an established classificatory system (14), and using the results of that classification as a basis for future action. Again, classifications can be generated externally to a particular organization, as in the case of the International Classification of Diseases (12), or they may be organizationspecific (15).

The design of computer-based systems tends to assume that certain aspects of a user organization’s practice and knowledge have been (or will be) standardized, in order for the system to operate effectively. At the very least, there needs to be a decision within the organization about what data should be recorded, and how data should be structured within the system to allow for subsequent retrieval and analysis. There may also be decisions about who may enter or extract data, and how and when this may be done. For example, the classification systems inherent in database fields imply that a shared, standardized way of thinking about and recording (and sometimes doing) activity and information has already been developed, even where this has not actually occurred or been fully adopted. This becomes a particular issue in organizations where several communities of practice interact, each with their own bodies of knowledge and ways of ordering that knowledge.

The Motorco case study highlights the translation effort required between different professional domains when an organization attempts to integrate previously separate information systems, and the consequent potential for undependability. Can standardization be seen as both a prerequisite for and a result of the implementation of computer-based systems; a means of enhancing and enforcing dependability?