Brian P. Bloomfield

Management consultants: systems development, power and the translation of problems

This paper aims to shed light on the exercise of power during the development and implementation of organisational information systems. Considering the use of Information Technology (IT) to help solve organisational problems, we employ the concept of the ‘sociology of translation’ to theorise the process by which the organisational problem is constituted and for which the appropriate IT solution is proposed. Discussing the nature of the power relationship between external management consultants in IT and client or user organisations, the paper considers the role of symbolic resources such as managerial discourse, and the differential access to IT knowledge and skills, as important aspects of power in that relationship.

Machines and Manoeuvres: Responsibility Accounting and the Construction of Hospital Information Systems

This paper analyses an episode in the development of management information systems in NHS hospitals in the UK. These systems (called Resource Management Systems) are designed to reveal the costs of medical activity, and thus open up new scope for management of that activity. The paper accepts that notions such as “responsibility accounting” and the “constitutive role of accounting systems” can substantially help in the analysis of how such systems are used. However, it argues that such approaches are less successful in revealing how such systems come to be created. To address this problem, the “actor-network” approach of Callon and Latour is employed in the analysis of fieldwork data collected by the authors in three health authorities over a three-year period. The analysis reveals considerable interpretative flexibility surrounding the understandings of the nature and purpose of resource management, and of the technologies that might be used to implement it. This diversity, the paper argues, cannot be adequately explained without recourse to a framework such as that contained in the actor-network approach.

The Role of Information Systems in the UK National Health Service: Action at a Distance and the Fetish of Calculation:

This paper examines some fundamental issues pertaining to the use of, as well as to the distinctive characteristics of, information technology in relation to the development of information systems within the UK National Health Service (NHS). The paper refers to the current Resource Management Initiative in the NHS, which involves the fabrication of information systems to connect medical activity to resource usage, and thus to costs. Examining the features of some of the rival inscriptions undergoing development to make this connection visible, the paper highlights the properties of information technology in enhancing their mobilization. It also addresses the immutability and combinability of these inscriptions, and discusses some of the implications, in terms of medical practice and knowledge, which may follow from their use.

Boundary Disputes: Negotiating the Boundary Between the Technical and the Social in the Development of IT Systems

Discusses the problematic nature of the boundary between the “technical” and the “social” and its consequences in respect of understanding the relationship between technological and organizational change. Illustrates the argument using material drawn from research on the implementation of a hospital information system and an R&D project to develop a knowledge‐based system to assist the implementation of strategic change.

VISIONS OF ORGANIZATION AND ORGANIZATIONS OF VISION: THE REPRESENTATIONAL PRACTICES OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT

Abstract This paper examines how particular “inscription devices” institute versions of the objects that they purport to render visible. It refers to a group of representational practices centred on data modelling and information requirements analysis to illustrate the argument, and sets the issue in the context of the practice of representation constitutive of the grammatocentric organization—in this case the UK National Health Service. A central theme of the paper concerns the way visions of organization (articulated through vocabularies of efficiency, effectiveness, the centrality of information in management, management by objectives, etc.) are translated into specific alignments of the gaze, specific organizations of vision (such as data modelling, etc.).

Bodies, technologies and action possibilities: when is an affordance?

Borrowed from ecological psychology, the concept of affordances is often said to offer the social study of technology a means of re-framing the question of what is, and what is not, ‘social’ about technological artefacts. The concept, many argue, enables us to chart a safe course between the perils of technological determinism and social constructivism. This article questions the sociological adequacy of the concept as conventionally deployed. Drawing on ethnographic work on the ways technological artefacts engage, and are engaged by, disabled bodies, we propose that the ‘affordances’ of technological objects are not reducible to their material constitution but are inextricably bound up with specific, historically situated modes of engagement and ways of life.

Power, Machines and Social Relations: Delegating to Information Technology in the National Health Service

This article considers the implications of Latours notions of durability and delegation for theorizing the relationship between technology and organization. Two central themes are the heterogeneous character of the fabric of organizational life which interweaves both humans and non-humans (including machines and inscriptions); and the question of power/domination in matters technological. To contextualize the discussion, the paper reflects on some of the recent developments in the UK National Health Service (the NHS) which centre on the development and use of information systems for purposes of management control, decision-making, contracting and the search for greater efficiency and organizational rationality through the operation of an internal market.

Madness and Organization: Informed Management and Empowerment

Empowerment has become a popular and alluring concept associated with ideas of emancipation, participation, and the delegation of decision making. It is seen as a way of enabling individuals, organizations, or even nations to exert a greater degree of control over their destinies. In addition, information technology (IT) is seen as an enabling medium through which empowerment can be realized. Yet, in some cases technology is also viewed as the source of oppression and control, while empowerment is regarded as a myth. This paper addresses the relationship between IT and empowerment in the context of recent developments within the management and delivery of care in mental health services. Drawing upon research in an NHS psychiatry department, it examines the process by which individuals (both mental health service professionals and patients) are constituted as empowered through specific discursive practices centered on information and information management.

Understanding the social practices of systems developers

Abstract. The aim of this paper is to explore some of the ways in which we think about the development of information systems by drawing upon arguments articulated within the philosophy of science and the sociology of technology. It argues that many of these approaches operate on the basis of a reified and sociologically restricted view of technology. Drawing upon recent work in the sociology of technology the paper proposes a more thorough‐going analysis of the social practice of information systems development and discusses examples from knowledge engineering and requirements analysis to illustrate its argument.

Expert systems and human knowledge: A view from the sociology of science

After the setbacks suffered in the 1970s as a result of the ‘Lighthill Report’ (Lighthill, 1973), the science of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has undergone a dramatic revival of fortunes in the 1980s. But despite the obvious enormity and complexity of the problems tackled by AI, it still remains rather parochial in relation to the import of alternative though potentially fruitful ideas from other disciplines. With this in mind, the aim of the present paper is to utilise ideas from the sociology of science in order to explore some current issues in AI and, in particular, the branch of expert systems.It is argued that the sociology of sciences shares a common focus of enquiry along with AI — namely, the nature of knowledge — and has a role to play in the understanding, design and future development of expert systems.