Analyzing due process in the workplace

ABSTRACT

Every office is an open system, and the products of office work are the result of decentralized negotiations. Changing patterns of task organization and alliance inevitably give rise to inconsistent knowledge bases and procedures. This implies that there are no globally correct answers to problems addressed by OISs. Rather, systems must deal with multiple competing, possibly irreconcilable, solutions. Articulating alternative solutions is the problem of due process. This problem and its consequences are illustrated by a case study of a rate-setting group in a large health insurance firm. There is no formal solution to the problem of due process. But it must be solved in practice if distributed intelligent OISs are to be developed. We propose an alternative approach based on the work of social scientists concerned with analyzing analogous problems in human organization. Solution of the due process problem hinges on developing local closures to the problem faced by an organization. This means analyzing (a) local, tacit knowledge and its transfer ability; (b) articulation work, that is, reconciling incommensurate assumptions and procedures.

REFERENCES

• 1: Gul Agha, Actors: a model of concurrent computation in distributed systems, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1986
• 2: BECKER, H.S. Sociological Work. Aldine, Chicago, Ill., 1970.
• 3: BECKER, H.S. Art Worlds. University of California Press, Berkeley, 1982.
• 4: S. Bendifallah , W. Scacchi, Understanding software maintenance work, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, v.13 n.3, p.311-323, March 1987 [doi>10.1109/TSE.1987.233162]
• 5: BUCHER, R., AND STELLING, J. Becoming Professional. Sage, Beverly Hills, Calif., 1977.
• 6: COLLINS, H. Changing Order: Replication and Induction in Scientific Practice. Sage, London, 1985.
• 7: FUJIMURA, J. The construction of doable problems in cancer research. In Social Studies of Science, forthcoming.
• 8: Leslie George Gasser, The social dynamics of routine computer use in complex organizations (work, management, sociology), 1984
• 9: GERSON, E.M. Scientific work and social worlds. Knowledge, 4 (1983), 357-377.
• 10: GERSON, E.M. Information systems in complex organizations: Challenges for research. Paper presented to the ACM, San Francisco, 1984.
• 11: GERSON, E.M. Data structures for sociological research. Tremont Tech. Rep., Tremont Research Institute, San Francisco, 1985.
• 12: GERSON, E. M., AND STAR, S.L. Practical reasoning: The plausibility of arguments. Report submitted to the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab, 1984.
• 13: GERSON, E. M., AND STAR, S. L. Representation and re-representation in scientific work. Tremont Tech. Rep., Tremont Research Institute, San Francisco, 1985.
• 14: Frederick Hayes-Roth , Donald A. Waterman , Douglas B. Lenat, Building expert systems, Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc., Boston, MA, 1983
• 15: HEWITT, C. Viewing control structures as patterns of passing messages. Artif. InteU., 8, 3 (1977), 323-364.
• 16: HEWITT, C. Towards new foundations for intelligent systems. Submitted for publication.
• 17: Carl Hewitt, The challenge of open systems: current logic programming methods may be insufficient for developing the intelligent systems of the future, BYTE, v.10 n.4, p.223-242, April 1985
• 18: HEWITT, C., AND DEJONG, P. Analyzing the roles of descriptions and actions in open systems. In Proceedings of the National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (Washington, D.C., Aug.). AAAI, 1983, pp. 162-167.
• 19: HEWITT, C., AND DEJONG, P. Open systems. In Conceptual Modelling, M. Brodie et al., Eds. Springer Verlag, New York, 1984, pp. 147-164.
• 20: HEWlTT, C., REINHARDT, T., AGHA, G., AND ATTARDI, G. Linguistic support of receptionists for shared resources. MIT Artificial Intelligence Memo 781, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1984.
• 21: HUGHES, E.C. The Sociological Eye. Aldine, Chicago, 1970.
• 22: JAZZAR, A., AND SCACCHI, W. Computer systems documentation: An unknown quantity. Submitted for publication.
• 23: KENT, W. Data and Reality. North Holland, Amsterdam, 1978.
• 24: KLXNG, R., AND GERSON, E.M. The social dynamics of technical innovation in the computing world. Symbolic Interaction, 1 (1978a), 132-146.
• 25: KLING, R., AND GERSON, E. M. Patterns of segmentation and intersection in the computing world. Symbolic Interaction, 1 (1978b), 24-43.
• 26: KLING, R., AND SCACCHI, W. The web of computing: Computing technology as social organization. Advances in Computers, 21 (1982), 3-85.
• 27: KORNFELD, W., AND HEWlTT, C. The scientific community metaphor. IEEE Trans. Syst., Man Cybern., SMC-I I (1981), 24-33.
• 28: LATOUR, B. Visualization and cognition: Thinking with eyes and hands. In Knowledge and Society: Studies in the Sociology of Culture, Past and Present, H. Kucklick, Ed. Greenwich, Conn., JAI Press, forthcoming.
• 29: LATOUR, B., AND WOOLGAR, S. Laboratory Life. Sage, Beverly Hills, Calif., 1979.
• 30: LAW, J. Les textes and leur alliGs. Culture Technique, 14 (1985), 59-69.
• 31: LAW, J. Technology, closure and heterogeneous engineering: The case of the portuguese expansion. In Proceedings of the Workshop on New Developments in the Social Study of Technology, T. Pinch and W. Bijker, Eds. Enschede, Holland, forthcoming.
• 32: LYNCH, M. Art and Artefact in Laboratory Science. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1985.
• 33: POLANVl, M. Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy. Harper & Row, New York, 1958.
• 34: SCACCHI, W. Managing software engineering projects: A social analysis. IEEE Trans. Softw. Eng. SE-IO (1984), 49-59.
• 35: SCACCHI, W. The system factory approach to VLS! and software engineering. In Proceedings AFCET Second Software Engineering Conference (Nice, France). AFCET, 1984, pp. 349-359.
• 36: SCACCHI, W., GASSER, L., AND GERSON, E.M. Problems and strategies in organizing computeraided design work. In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (San Jose, Calif., Sept.). IEEE, New York, 1983, pp. 166-167.
• 37: SCHON, D. The Reflective Practitioner. Basic Books, New York, 1983.
• 38: SIMON, H. The structure of ill-structured problems. Artif. Intell., 4 (1973), 181-201.
• 39: STAR, S. L. Scientific theories as going concerns: The development of the localizationist perspective in neurophysiology, 1870-1906. Ph.D. dissertation, Dept. of Social and Behavioral Science, Univ. of Caliibrnia, San Francisco, 1983.
• 40: STAR, S. L. Simplification in scientific work: An example from neuroscience research. Social Studies of Science, 13 (1983), 205-228.
• 41: STAR, S.L. Tradeoffs in scientific work: Report on a robotics design project. Presented to the ACM, San Francisco, October, 1984.
• 42: STAR, S.L. Scientific work and uncertainty. Social Studies of Science, I5 (1985), 391-427.
• 43: STAR, S.L. Articulation work and discretion. Report submitted to the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab, 1985.
• 44: STAR, S.L. Triangulating clinical and basic research: British localizationists, 1870-1906. History of Science, 24 (1986), 29-48.
• 45: STAR, S. L., AND GERSON, E.M. The management and dynamics of anomalies in scientific research, The Sociological Quarterly, forthcoming.
• 46: STRAUSS, A.L. Professions, Work and Careers. Transaction Books, New Brunswick, N.J., 1975.
• 47: STRAUSS, A.L. Negotiations. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 1978.
• 48: STRAUSS, A.L. Work and the division of labor. The Sociol. Quart., 26 (1985), 1-19.
• 49: STRAUSS, A.L. Articulation work, The Sociological Quarterly, forthcominig.
• 50: STRAUSS, A. L., FAGERHAUGH, S., WIENER, C., AND SUZCEK, B. The Social Organization o{ Medical Work. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1984.

INDEX TERMS

Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.1 MODELS AND PRINCIPLES

  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.2 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

  K. Computing Milieux
  K.6 MANAGEMENT OF COMPUTING AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS
      K.6.1 Project and People Management
          Subjects: Systems development; Systems analysis and design
      K.6.4 System Management
          Subjects: Centralization/decentralization

General Terms:
Design, Human Factors