Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore conceptual issues arising in an empirical study of the emergence of a distinctive new form of expertise – of industry analysts and in particular the leading firm Gartner Group that exercises enormous influence over the Information Technology...

chapter Introduction: The reshaping of the modern enterprise solution -- chapter 1 The dynamics of software packages -- chapter 2 Critique of existing knowledge -- chapter 3 The Biography of Artefacts Framework -- chapter 4 Fitting standard software to non-standard organisations -- chapter 5...

How does one of the world’s biggest Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) suppliers develop software? How do Oracle, SAP, Microsoft and Co really work? Christine Grimm presents a first-hand account of a social researcher who entered the software laboratory of one of the biggest ERP providers....

Drawing from advances in Organisational Studies and recent debates within Economic Sociology and the Sociology of Financial Markets, this paper proposes a theoretical framework that characterises the mutual adaptation between formal routines and rules, on one hand, and actual performances, on...