Mohammad Hossein Jarrahi

Sociotechnical Approaches to the Study of Information Systems.

Through this chapter we provide an overview of the sociotechnical premise: the mutual constitution of people and technologies. The sociotechnical premise and its various approaches, including the seminal work of the Tavistock scholars, the Nordic and Scandic approaches, and their evolution, are developed as the historical basis of this work. In the chapter we also cover the role of sociological thinking, the contributions of science and technology studies and social construction/social shaping of technology, actor network theories, and contemporary approaches. The chapter concludes with a cursory review of current debates around economic sociology, multidimensional networks and advancing our current conceptualization of the digital artifact.

Mobility of knowledge work and affordances of digital technologies

Information communication technologies (ICTs) enable mobile knowledge workers to conduct information practices.These practices ensure access, keep social cohesion, maintain acuity, uphold work rhythm, and enact work-life balance.Mobile knowledge workers mobilize their work practices across space, time, social situations, and contexts.Mobile knowledge workers employ personalized assemblages of ICTs to best achieve mobilization across different boundaries. The focus of this work arises from two needs within information science literature: (1) to understand more, from an empirically driven perspective, about the increasingly visible yet understudied mobile work population, and (2) to address more clearly, from a theoretical standpoint, the ways in which information and communication technologies (ICTs) mediate the work practices of these mobile workers. Drawing on the affordance perspective, this research goes beyond simplistic conceptualizations of technological effects to explore the roles of multiple ICTs in enabling mobile knowledge work. In this paper, the use of ICTs in mobilizing information practices and the ways in which ICTs generate affordances along different mobility dimensions (spatial, temporal, contextual, and social) are examined. The empirical base of this research is a field of study of 33 mobile knowledge workers (MKWs); broadly, it focuses on the ways they employ ICTs to accomplish work in dynamic and unpredictable work conditions.

Infrastructuring and the Challenge of Dynamic Seams in Mobile Knowledge Work

Highly mobile knowledge workers spend a large portion of their time traversing within and among different infrastructural configurations as they move through space. These dynamic configurations are experienced as either technological or contextual constraints, which range from forms of technological exclusion and infrastructural disconnection to divides caused by both spatial and organizational boundaries. The workaday nature of these constrained environments force mobile workers to engage in a type of articulation work that involves the construction of bridging, assembling, or circumventing solutions to repeatedly negotiate these impediments. Engaging in these infrastructuring practices requires that workers develop infrastructural competence-knowledge of the generative possibilities of infrastructural seams. In effect, this renders mobile workers as infrastructural bricoleurs. We discuss the implications of this required competence and speculate regarding its origin, maintenance, and differentiation among professions.

Theorizing on the take-up of social technologies, organizational policies and norms, and consultants' knowledge-sharing practices

We identify the effects of specific organizational norms, arrangements, and policies regarding uses of social technologies for informal knowledge sharing by consultants. For this study, the term social technologies refers to the fast‐evolving suite of tools such as traditional applications like e‐mail, phone, and instant messenger; emerging social networking platforms (often known as social media) such as blogs and wikis; public social networking sites (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn); and enterprise social networking technologies that are specifically hosted within one organizations computing environment (i.e., Socialtext). Building from structuration theory, the analysis presented focuses on the knowledge practices of consultants related to their uses of social technologies and the ways in which organizational norms and policies influence these practices. A primary contribution of this research is a detailed contextualization of social technology uses by knowledge workers. As many organizations are allowing social media‐enabled knowledge sharing to develop organically, most corporate policy toward these platforms remains defensive, not strategic, limiting opportunities. Implications for uses and expectations of social technologies arising from this research will help organizations craft relevant policies and rules to best support technology‐enabled informal knowledge practices.

The interplay between information practices and information context: The case of mobile knowledge workers

The knowledge workforce is changing: global economic factors, increasing professional specialization, and rapid technological advancements mean that more individuals than ever can be found working in independent, modular, and mobile arrangements. Little is known about professional information practices or actions outside of traditional, centralized offices; however, the dynamic, unconventional, and less stable mobile work context diverges substantially from this model, and presents significant challenges and opportunities for the accomplishing of work tasks. This article identifies 5 main information practices geared toward mobilizing work, based on in‐depth interviews with 31 mobile knowledge workers (MKWs). It then uses these 5 practices as starting points for beginning to delineate the context of mobile knowledge work. We find that the information practices and information contexts of MKWs are mutually constitutive: challenges and opportunities of their work arrangements are what enable the development of practices that continually (re)construct productive spatial, temporal, social, and material contexts for work. This article contributes to an empirical understanding of the information practices of an increasingly visible yet understudied population, and to a theoretical understanding of the contemporary mobile knowledge work information context.

Digital and Physical Materiality of Information Technologies: The Case of Fitbit Activity Tracking Devices

This paper explores the role of digital and physical materiality in relation to the use of Fit bit activity tracking devices. Materiality concerns properties of a technology that transcend space, time, and particularities of the contexts. Our objective, in particular, is to examine how digital and physical properties may play a role in shaping users perception and actions around the use of Fit bit devices. The primary findings are (1) both digital and physical material properties of the device together provide a material framework, which constrains and enables users activities, and (2) both forms of materiality are contingent upon the design/form of the device. As a result the materiality of digital information cannot be studied without examining its entwining with the information technology that records, processes, shares, and represents it.

Information practices in the broader 'deportment' of mobile knowledge work

This paper presents preliminary findings from an in‐depth, exploratory study aimed at gathering an understanding of mobile knowledge workers’ information practices, which are presumed distinct from those of non‐mobile, stationary, centrally located workers. Its focus arises from a need to understand more, from an empirical standpoint, about the information practices of this increasingly visible yet understudied population. Semi‐structured interviews with sixteen mobile knowledge workers suggest that this demographic hones distinct but intertwined practices around dealing with information. Five of these are discussed here; together, they compose a broader mobile knowledge work ‘deportment’ of sorts. Mobile knowledge workers also appear to use bottom‐up technological infrastructures to mediate their information practices, ones that are enacted independently of any organization for which they may work. This is discussed as a ripe area for further research. This papers findings are relevant for advancing research around mobile knowledge work and information practices generally, and for organizations seeking to better support the work of their own mobile employees specifically.

Personal artifact ecologies in the context of mobile knowledge workers

Abstract Recent work suggests that technological devices and their use cannot be understood in isolation, and must be viewed as part of an artifact ecology. With the proliferation of information and communication technologies (ICTs), studying artifact ecologies is essential in order to design new technologies with effective affordances. This paper extends the discourse on artifact ecologies by examining how such ecologies are constructed in the context of mobile knowledge work, as sociotechnical arrangements that consist of technological, contextual, and interpretive layers. Findings highlight the diversity of ICTs that are adopted to support mobile work practices, and effects of individual preferences and contextual factors (norms of collaboration, spatial mobility, and organizational constraints).

The Gig Economy and Information Infrastructure: The Case of the Digital Nomad Community

Ongoing discussions of the gig economy have focused on the critical aspect of digital mediation, and in particular the role of applications and platforms such as Uber or TaskRabbit. We extend this discussion by considering more decentralized contexts of gig economy, in which individuals do not rely on a single dominant, central intermediary, but rather exercise a higher degree of agency in arranging and aligning multiple digital platforms to support relevant work practices.We employ the concept of information infrastructure to describe the emergent configuration of heterogeneous digital platforms leveraged by digital nomads as a community of location-independent, remote workers. Using both forum analysis and in-depth interviews, we examine how the digital nomad community dynamically brings together and negotiates digital mediation in the form of an information infrastructure.

A pragmatic approach to managing enterprise IT infrastructures in the era of consumerization and individualization of IT

IT managers take one of the passive, reactive, and pragmatic approaches in the face of important sociotechnical changes.With the rise of IT consumerization, the management of IT infrastructure requires a more pragmatic and holistic approach.A pragmatic approach directs our attention to interdependencies among technologies, people, and their work practices.This article presents seven principles that can serve as general guidelines for a pragmatic approach. Historically, organizations owned and controlled the information technologies (IT) their employees used: telephone, inter-office memos, mainframes and timesharing systems. Today, employees often want to use their own IT: not only personal smart phones and tablets, but also Twitter and Google Docs. This new trend can diversify and extend enterprise IT infrastructure, but leaves organizations struggling with technology uses that they cannot control. With the emergence of new technological paradigms in consumer markets and organizations, the management of IT infrastructure requires a more pragmatic and holistic approach that goes beyond simple technological considerations. In this paper, we present a three-part frameworktechnology, people and practicethat helps managers understand and mitigate these tensions. Drawing on two empirical studies of European executives and consultants form multiple management consulting firms, the paper further outlines changes taking place along the three aspects of the framework. It concludes by discussing three distinct approaches to the management of organizational IT infrastructure (passive, reactive, and pragmatic), and by offering greater insight regarding a pragmatic approach.