Neil Pollock

ABSTRACT A This paper investigates the development and implementation of a generic off-the-shelf computer package and the competing pressures for standardization and differentiation as this package is made to fit new organizational settings. The particular focus is on an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system and its application within universities. In order for the ERP system to fit this setting a new module called 'Campus' is being developed. We followed the module as the current 'generic user' embodied in the software was translated to a more 'specific user' (a number of universities piloting the module) and back once again to a generic form of university user (the potential 'global university marketplace'). We develop the notion that these systems have a 'biography', which helps us to analyse the evolution of software along its life cycle and provides insights into the different dynamics at play as Campus is translated for use in a number of institutions and countries. The study draws on over three years of ethnographic research conducted in a British University and a major ERP Supplier.

ABSTRACT We consider naming and categorization practices within the information technology (IT) arena. In particular, with how certain terminologies are able to colonise wide areas of activity and endure for relatively long periods of time, despite the diversity and incremental evolution of individual technical instances. This raises the question as to who decides whether or not a particular vendor technology is part of a product category. Who decides the boundaries around a technology nomenclature? Existing Information Systems scholarship has tended to present terminologies as shaped by wide communities of players but this does not capture how particular kinds of knowledge institutions have emerged in recent year to police the confines of technological fields. The paper follows the work of one such group of experts – the industry analyst firm Gartner Inc. – and discusses their current and past role in the evolution of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software. We show how they make regular (but not always successful) ‘naming interventions’ within the IT domain and how they attempt to regulate the boundaries that they and others have created through episodes of ‘categorisation work.’ These experts not only attempt to exercise control over a terminology but also the interpretation of that name. Our arguments are informed by ethnographic observations carried out on the eve of the contemporary CRM boom and interviews conducted more recently as part of an ongoing investigation into industry analysts. The paper bridges a number of disparate bodies of literature from Information Systems, Economic Sociology, the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge, and Science and Technology Studies.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are widely used by large corporations around the world. Recently universities have turned to ERP as a means of replacing existing management and administration computer systems. In this article we provide analysis of the rollout of an ERP system, the particular focus being on how the implementation, use, and development of both generic and university specific functionality is mediated and shaped by a fundamental and long standing tension within universities: this is the extent to which higher education institutions are organisations much like any other and the extent to which they are `unique'. Our aim is not to resolve the tension in one way or another, but rather to show how similarities and differences are actively constructed and literally brought into being' during the various phases of the roll-out of the system. The research presented here is primarily based on a participant observation study carried out in one institution ...

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are widely used by large corporations around the world. Recently universities have turned to ERP as a means of replacing existing management and administration computer systems. In this article we provide analysis of the rollout of an ERP system in one particular institution in the UK, the particular focus being on how the development, implementation and use of both generic and university specific functionality is mediated and shaped by a fundamental and long standing tension within universities: this is the extent to which higher education institutions are organisations much like any other and the extent to which they are `unique'. The aim of this article is not to attempt to settle this issue of similarity/difference in one way or another. Rather, it seeks to illustrate the value of taking discussions of similarity relationships surrounding the university and other organisations as the topic of analysis. One way of working with these...

ABSTRACT We address the effect of organizational theories on the organization by focusing on how modularity, a widespread and influential organizational theory, performs a modular organization. While scholars have offered opposing arguments for the influence of this theory – i.e. that it either succeeds or fails to 'produce' modular organizations – we show just how and how far modularity is enacted and shapes the organization, and how it may be shaped in turn. Drawing on recent advances in performativity theory we thus contribute to modularity by showing how the modular organization emerges over time as the outcome of performative struggles among competing and complementary theories and how these struggles contribute to modifying the theory and 'designing' organizations. We also add to performativity by theorizing the competition between multiple theories, the emergence of unexpected consequences or 'errors', and their implications for organizational practices and boundaries.

Scholarship addressing the social study of enterprise solutions appears to be blossoming. There are now entire conference sessions and journal issues devoted to understanding not just the 'impact'of large-scale packaged software on organizations but also the more fine grained influences surrounding their implementation and use. A recent double special issue of the Journal of Strategic Information Systems (JSIS 2004, 2005), for instance, calls for further studies on enterprise-wide technology “… within and across contexts so that we ...

Abstract This paper addresses the seemingly implausible project of moving the technical support of complex organisational technologies online. We say 'implausible'because from the point of view of micro-sociological approaches the diagnosis and resolution of technical failures are an intrinsically local affair: problems are seen to be 'context specific'; and their resolution requires support staff to have knowledge of, and close interactions with, the setting where the failure has occurred. However, at the same time, we find IT vendors ...

Abstract In health research and services, and in many other domains, the authors note the emergence of large-scale information systems intended for long-term use with multiple users and uses. These e-infrastructures are becoming more widespread and pervasive and, by enabling effective sharing of information and coordination of activities between diverse, dispersed groups, are expected to transform knowledge-based work. Social scientists have sought to analyse the significance of these systems and the processes by which they are ...

ABSTRACT This paper addresses the seemingly implausible project of establishing a 'generic' organizational information system. This is an apparent contradiction: on the one hand, we are told of the diversity of specific organizational contexts and on the other, we ...

The strength of this collection is that it goes some way towards exemplifying the wide-ranging ways in which the new information and communication technologies are being studied and conceptualized. It comprises a good, wide-ranging Introduction followed by 14 chapters ...

We consider naming and categorization practises within the information technology (IT) arena. In particular, with how certain terminologies are able to colonise wide areas of activity and endure for relatively long periods of time, despite the diversity and incremental evolution of individual technical instances. This raises the question as to who decides whether or not a particular vendor technology is part of a product category. Who decides the boundaries around a technology nomenclature? Existing Information Systems scholarship has tended ...

Page 1. Work in Progress 1 Industry Analysts and the Labour of Comparison Neil Pollock Abstract In this paper we investigate the shaping and effects of a simple industry analysis tool – the Magic Quadrant – so as to demonstrate it has virtues not readily appreciated by social ...

... The university campus as a `resourceful constraint': process and practice in the construction of the virtual university. Download: http://homepages.ed.ac.uk/npollock/Campus.pdf CACHED: Download as a PDF. by James Cornford , Neil Pollock , Forthcoming Mary , R Lea. ...

Title: Putting the University Online: Information, Technology and Organizational Change. ... Putting the University Online: Information, Technology and Organizational Change. ... Routledge Customer Service, 10650 Toebben Drive, Independence, KY 41051 (hardback: ISBN-0-3352-1006-...