Making work visible : ethnographically grounded case studies of work practice / edited by Margaret H. Szymanski, Jack Whalen.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Szymanski, Margaret H., editor.

Whalen, Jack, 1949- editor.

Series:

Learning in doing.

Learning in doing : social, cognitive and computational perspectives

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Xerox Corporation--Management.

Xerox Corporation.

Xerox Corporation--Employees.

Organizational learning--Case studies.

Organizational learning.

Knowledge management--Case studies.

Knowledge management.

Human engineering--Case studies.

Human engineering.

Work--Social aspects--Case studies.

Work.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxvii, 374 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In the 1970s, Xerox pioneered the involvement of social science researchers in technology design and in developing better ways of working. The Xerox legacy is a hybrid methodology that combines an ethnographic interest in direct observation in settings of interest with an ethnomethodological concern to make the study of interactional work an empirical, investigatory matter. This edited volume is an overview of Xerox's social science tradition. It uses detailed case studies showing how the client engagement was conducted over time and how the findings were consequential for business impact. Case studies in retail, production, office and home settings cover four topics: practices around documents, the customer front, learning and knowledge-sharing, and competency transfer. The impetus for this book was a 2003 Xerox initiative to transfer knowledge about conducting ethnographically grounded work practice studies to its consultants so that they may generate the kinds of knowledge generated by the researchers themselves.

Contents:

Work practice and technology: a retrospective / Lucy Suchman

Engineering investigations: what is made visible in making work visible? / Wes Sharrock and Graham Button

Uncovering the unremarkable / Peter Tolmie

Work practices to understand the implications of nascent technology / Francoise Brun-Cottan and Patricia Wall

Tokyo to go: using field studies to inform the design of a mobile leisure guide for Japanese youth / Diane J. Schiano and Victoria Bellotti

Exploring documents and the future of work / Jennifer Watts-Perotti, Mary Ann Sprague, Patricia Wall, Catherine McCorkindale, Lisa Purvis, and Gabriele McLaughlin

New ways of working: the implications of work practice transitions / Mary Ann Sprague, Nathaniel Martin, and Johannes A. Koomen

Behind the scenes: the business side of medical records / Nathaniel Martin and Patricia Wall

Seeing the right colour: technical and practical solutions to the problem of accurate colour reproduction in the digital print industry / Tommaso Colombino, David Martin, Jacki O'Neill, Mary Ann Sprague, Jennifer Watts-Perotti, Jutta Willamowski, Frederic Roulland, and Antonietta Grasso

Integrated customer service: re-inventing a workscape / Jack Whalen and Marilyn Whalen

Interactions at a reprographics store / Erik Vinkhuyzen

Ethnography-inspired technology for remote help-giving / Jacki O'Neill, Peter Tolmie, Stefania Castellani, Antonietta Grasso, and Frederic Roulland

Sign of the times at the department store: replacing paper with electronic signs / Johannes A. Koomen

Communal knowledge sharing: the EUREKA story / Jack Whalen and Daniel G. Bobrow

Designing document solutions for airline maintenance advisories / Patricia Wall and Johannes A. Koomen

Transforming information system design: enabling users to design / Yutaka Yamauchi

Rethinking how projects are managed: meeting communication across the organizational hierarchy / Erik Vinkhuyzen and Nozomi Ikeya

Fujitsu learned ethnography from PARC: establishing the social science center / Koji Kishimoto with a preface by Jack Whalen

The work practice center of excellence / Luke Plurkowski, Margaret H. Szymanski, Patricia Wall, and Johannes A. Koomen

Transferring ethnographic competence: personal reflections on the past and future of work practice analysis / Brigitte Jordan.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

ISBN:

1-139-06321-9

1-107-21376-2

1-283-11241-8

9786613112415

1-139-07548-9

0-511-92136-5

1-139-06972-1

1-139-07774-0

1-139-08003-2

1-139-08230-2

OCLC:

726734774