Cristina Chisalita

Cognition, technology, and work: special issue on collaboration in context: cognitive and organizational artefacts

This special issue presents current research organized by the theme of ‘collaboration in context’. Most of the six papers explore cognitive and organizational/cultural artefacts as objects expressing the details of collaborative work practice, and as research tools for understanding the contextual structures of collaborative work. The overall theme is not novel, but our approach to the topic was developed from a series of workshops originally focused on methods and analyses of collaborative activity. These workshops shared lessons learned and practical methods for collaborative analysis and system design problems from ethnographers, organizational scientists, system designers, and design researchers. With some surprise we find the papers converged independently on compatible orientations to analysis and design from a distributed cognitive perspective, constructing models of understanding from cognitive and organizational artefacts. Cognition, Technology and Work identifies its research interest at the convergence of people, technology and organizations, emphasizing a co-constructive relationship between human cognition and work. These six papers fit the journal’s mission by developing theory and empirical observation toward understanding the special involvement of collaborative groups in developing cognitive artefacts and using them as instruments of social information exchange. The bi-directional relationship of people to their work shows a physical embodiment and cognitive expression in the artefacts they use and make. We follow the making, use, and development of several different forms of cognitive artefacts in these contributions. As a choice of methodology, most of these studies explain cognitive work processes through artefacts, analyzing traces and trails left behind after the action of interest moves on. But such cognitive analyses of field data demand a detailed activity analysis to complement ethnographic observation and documentation. Representations of work produced by participants are found in four papers, affording analysis of shared objects such as meeting minutes or the information-use recorded in work diaries. These extend or fuse together theoretical frameworks, in pursuit of explanatory power and to extend prior theoretical notions into new research. The case is made for expanding upon foundation theories, with all six contributions adapting activity theory, distributed cognition, or both. Two (Chisalita and van Fenema) integrate organizational theory to explain collaboration effectiveness or the breakdowns in critical team operations.

Organizational Affordances: A Structuration Theory Approach to Affordances

Affordance is an important concept in the field of human–computer interaction. There are various interpretations of affordances, often extending the original notion of James J. Gibson. Often the treatment of affordances in the current human–computer interaction literature has been a one-to-one relationship between a user and an artefact. We believe that the social and cultural contexts within which an artefact is situated affect the way in which the artefact is used and the notion of affordance needs to be seen as a dynamic, always emerging relationship between people and their environment. Using a Structuration Theory approach, we conceptualize the notion of affordance at a much broader level, encompassing social and cultural aspects. We suggest that affordances should be seen at three levels: single user, organizational (or work group) and societal. Focusing on the organizational level affordances, we provide details of several important factors that affect the emergence of affordances. - This article provides a new perspective on the discourse of affordance with the use of Structuration Theory. - It shows how affordance can be understood as ‘use’ in situated practices (i.e. ‘technology-in-practice’) - The Structuration Theory approach to affordances is showcased using two case studies.

Cultural differences in user groups: a multi-angle understanding of IT use in large organizations

In this paper, we analyze how differences between groups of end-users of the same technology (distributed within and across organizations) are reflected in specific breakdowns in the use of technology as well as in the interaction between these groups. In order to reach this goal, we consider as unit of analysis the occupational groups that are approached as reflecting a particular occupational culture. In addition, we analyze the effect of local subcultures on occupational groups. The two main aspects of culture on which we focused the study are language and values. Using this perspective, we carried out two case studies in two large organizations. The conclusions of this research show that the concept of occupational groups (with related occupational subcultures) is indeed a useful approach to explain differences in groups of end-users and the related breakdowns in use of technology and interaction among groups. The results of the study can inform design decisions and support action for improvements of interaction processes among groups of end-users of the same technology.