We address 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 analysis, and the influential work of Julian Orr, there appears a consensus that the diagnosis and...

The thesis that rankings do more than just make visible an organization’s position viz-á-viz a competitor, but stimulate new competitive rivalries, has provoked much interest. Yet, to date, scholars lack an understanding of how such competitive rivalries unfold at the level of organizational...

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...

This paper considers the constant propagation of new terminologies within the information technology domain. Whilst scholars have noted and developed concepts to explain this proliferation, we look in the opposite direction to consider their corollary, noting how very few designations actually...

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 often find the same standardized...