Hello Elizabeth, Not directly relevant as it's more to do with open source, but I found an article by Christopher Kelty very thought-provoking - particularly the concept of the 'recursive public': a concept which he derives from Charles Taylor and Michael Warner. He defines it as: "a particular form of social imaginary through which this group [i.e. 'geeks': "hackers, lawyers, activists, and IT entrepreneurs"] imagines in common the means of their own association, the material forms this imagination takes, and what place it has in the contemporary development of the Internet." Kelty, Christopher. "Geeks, Social Imaginaries, and Recursive Publics." Cultural Anthropology May 2005. 20.2:185-215. 29 Jun. 2005 <http://www.proquest.com> What it says to me is that IT people are aware of the constitutive (limited in various ways though) effect of software/hardware on how organisations are develop and change; and they are also aware that they have more control, in a practical/prosaic sense, over this process than others. On a different level though, I have yet to meet many people who don't think that their own job is more difficult and important than other's jobs... Also, I've often thought of IT personnel as acting like some doctors - believing that the 'patient' cannot understand the details and just telling them what to do without explaining and considering that they may have some useful input too. Regards, Julian ++++++++++ Julian Hopkins Senior Lecturer HELP University College - ADP Kuala Lumpur tel: +60 3 2095 8791 x2913 email: julianh@help.edu.my web: http://www.help.edu.my ******************************************* Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2006 09:34:14 +0100 From: Elizabeth Van Couvering <e.j.van-couvering@lse.ac.uk> Subject: [Air-l] Organisational differences? To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Message-ID: <2E83E986-AAD1-4915-93EB-8B43CC57ADD0@lse.ac.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed Hi everyone, I wonder if anyone can lend some literature to the impression I have from interviewing a series of software engineers that their work in technology organisations is more valuable that the work of other parts of the organisation - e.g., "management", marketing, facilities, etc. Thanks a bunch, Elizabeth Elizabeth Van Couvering PhD Student Department of Media & Communications London School of Economics and Political Science http://personal.lse.ac.uk/vancouve/ e.j.van-couvering@lse.ac.uk